Public Talk 3, Benares, 25 December 1955

25th December, ’55

I think it would be interesting and worthwhile if we could this evening go into the question of what makes the mind deteriorate, because we see when we are young, there are so many enthusiastic ideas and we are full of zeal, revolutionary and get caught in some kind of activity and eventually and slowly peter out. We see this is happening all round and is it possible to stop this deterioration? And is it not one of our major problems, not whether Socialism or Capitalism or left versus the right, which I think the organisation of world’s welfare will be dealt with, because there is so much immense production. I don’t think that is the problem. I think the problem is much deeper — how to free the mind so that it remains free all the time so that no deterioration can take place. I don’t know if you have thought about this problem, if you have observed at all, how our own minds slowly ebb away, the vitality, the vigour, the zest; it seems to fade away and we become merely a rotten instrument, a mechanical habits and beliefs, a whole complex of routine and repetition. I think if we have thought about it at all, this must be a problem to most of us. As one grows older, the weight of the past, the weight of the things remembered, the hopes, the frustrations, the fears seems to enclose the mind and there is never anything new out of it but a repetition, anxiety, a pursuit to escape from itself and ultimately the desire to find some kind of release, some kind of peace, a God that will be completely satisfactory.

I think if we could go into this, it might be worth while, not in some future date or tomorrow but to see if the mind immediately, instantly can be freed from all this, not mysteriously, not by some miracle, by very careful reasoning and going beyond. That may be the way of meditation. If we can enquire why it is that our minds deteriorate, that there is nothing original, that what we know is mere repetition, that there is never a constancy of creativity. These are facts, are they not? and how can the mind stop this deterioration and what causes this deterioration? We will discuss this presently. I hope that you will take part in the discussion. To me it appears there must be deterioration when there is effort and one observes all our life is based on effort — to learn to acquire and that which we have acquired to hold, to be something or if we are something to push that aside and be something else. There is always this struggle, conscious or unconscious, whether voluntarily made or compelled by unknown influences and desires to be something and is not that the major reason of deterioration of the mind? Please we are going to discuss this after I have talked a little So, please don’t be just listening, hearing rather. We are trying to find out together why the wave of deterioration is always following us, because it seems to me the problem is not food, clothes and shelter. I know it is the immediate problem but I think one must look at this problem from a different angle to resolve it and also those of us who have food, clothing shelter, have another problem, deeper.

It is, one sees, there is tyranny, complete tyranny, and partial freedom, relative freedom and if we who are concerned with the distribution of goods, products, then perhaps absolute tyranny may help. But in the process of that, the whole development of man is destroyed and if we are concerned with the whole problem, not merely the social, economic problem, if we are concerned with the whole of man, then I think this inevitable question must arise — why is there this sense of — perhaps there may be a better word than deterioration this sense, the lack of, the incapacity to discover the new, not in the scientific realm but within ourselves. Why is it that we are not creative. If you watch, what is happening is we are imitating, either Europe or America in education, in philosophy or we are trying to comply to the past, the tradition, conformity and we are, we as individuals have never discovered anything for ourselves deeply, fundamentally, which indicates, does it not, a sense of unhappiness, a sense of being machines and thinking about it, looking into it, I don’t know if you solved it, is one, one of the major causes, this desire to be inwardly secure, and to be secure, there must be exclusiveness and to be exclusive, there must be effort, the effort to be something and that may be one of the factors which prevents the discovery of anything new on the part of each one of us. Can we discuss this?

Alright Sir, let us put it round, the problem, the other way. Meditation is necessary because one can see, through meditation one discovers great many things and through meditation one opens the doors to extraordinary experience both fanciful and real and we are always enquiring, are we not, how to meditate; we are always finding out or reading books which tell us the process of mediation. I am trying to find out not who to mediate but what is meditation and so the very process of meditation, the very enquiry into what is meditation is meditation. But our mind desires to know how to meditate and therefore we invite deterioration.

I see the importance of meditation but I don t know what it means but I see that if thought can go very, very deeply, enquire, probe, expose itself to itself, watching, never correcting but always watching to find out, never condemning but always probing, such a state of mind is essential which may be called meditation and such a mind then, because it is free, could discover. To such a mind there is no deterioration because there is no accumulation but a mind that says, tell me how to do it, tell me what is a peaceful mind and I will try to follow it, tell me how to get there, such a mind, obviously is an imitative mind, not daring mind and therefore, it is inviting its own deterioration. Most of us are concerned with the how; the how is the means to security, to safety, and the how, however noble, however exacting, however disciplinary must be a conforming mind; through its own efforts it is enslaving itself to a method, whatever that method may promise and so we are losing this extraordinary capacity of discovery and without that discovery in the sense of something original, new, uncontaminated, without that, you may have all the goods, the products, the cars, the foods, the organisation, perfect, but you will still be the machines and this problem must be your concern, is it not? Can the mind which is so mechanical, habit ridden, full of the past, can the mind free itself from the past and discover the new? Call it God, does not matter, what you call it, can we discuss that?

Sir, is this problem something new to you or is it that we have not thought about these things in that way? Sir, let me put the problem again differently. You are all well versed in the Upanishads, Gita, Bible, the latest philosophies and so on, Marx, Christian or Hindu, and apparently these philosophies, these religions have not solved man’s problem; if you say, I have not strictly followed the injunctions of the Gita and therefore they have not been solved, the problem is not solved, the obvious answer is, any following an authority, however noble or tyrannical, the mind is mechanical there is nothing original, you cannot be happy in that state. It is like a gramophone record that repeats over and over again. Seeing that, being aware of that, how would you find out, would you discover anything for yourself? You understand Sir? That is, God, truth or whatever that is, must be something totally new, must it not? Not something remembered from the past, not something of which you have been told or which the mind has conjectured, created, it must be something out of time, out of memory. Now, how will you find out? It can only be found when the mind as free from the past, surely, when the mind ceases to formulate any image, any symbol and can the mind do it and when the mind does formulate, is that not a factor of real deterioration which may be, what is happening in India and perhaps also in the rest of the world. Am I explaining myself, the problem or is it not a problem to you?

Q:- We cannot go beyond past experiences?

K:- A gentleman says to him it seems that the mind can’t go beyond its own past experiences.

Q: When the mind is conditioned.

K:- Sir, this gentleman has asked a question.

Q: Alright Sir.

K:- Unfortunately we never listen to each other because we are so occupied with our own formulations of a question or with our own way of looking at things that we never really listen. This gentleman says it is not possible to go beyond the past, mind can’t be free of the past.

Q: Is it a question or a statement?

K: It is a statement by that gentleman. He meant it as a question probably.

Q:- If he wants to know how to detach from the past, that is a question.

K:- Is it not your problem as well as mine.

Q:- Then he should ask it

K:- Sir, please, you see we are trying to find out, not merely verbally, show off who is right and who is wrong but we are really trying to find out why the mind-except perhaps the specialists along certain lines, like scientists, physics and so on, but we common human beings,-why is it that we never in ourselves are anything new.

Q:- Is this question raised by the gentleman that the mind can’t do away with the past? I would like to ask what is past after all.

K:- The past is the experience, the memory, the remembrance, the knowledge, the influences, the traditions, the insults and the praises, the books that you have read which have left an impression, the sight of death and the laughter — all that is the past which is time.

Q:- But suppose up to this day I have read a number of books; after the year the year is past for me; so in this way when men create, man forgets his past and creates things new also. I am giving an example — whatever I have read, ideas have been collected they all have been the collection of the past then suppose because life is going forward, after a year or two, I can’t be inactive and reading books ; I will be listening to lectures and collecting ideas; so, for me today this ideas I am collecting within that period, is past. The point is you said that this mind is conditioned to past. Then it can’t make further enquiry. I am saying that the mind can’t be conditioned so rigidly towards the past.

K:- Sir, what is the mind? Not theoretically answer this question or what you have read in the books. Can you and I here this evening find out what the mind is?

Q:- Mind is the result of past.

K:- Is your mind the result of past? What do you mean by the past?

Q:- What is in my mind at present is all from the past.

K:- Can you separate the past from the mind? The mind is the result of the past, is it not? Whether I read two years hence or now, it is the result of time, is it not? Look, please, let us examine the mind, each one of us, not a theoretically mind, your mind and my mind. It is the result of many influences of education, of food, of climate, of tradition of many, many centuries and the mind is what it is now, both collective and the individual, is it not?

Your mind is made up of your beliefs, desires, wishes, memories, remembrances, the things that you have read and so on. That is the mind, No Sir? is it not both the conscious mind which operates everyday, daily and the mind which is hidden deeper which is also the result of the past? As far as one can see the mind, the area of the mind is the result of the past. Whether you think there is God or there is no God, and so on, higher self and lower self, all that is, the mind is the result of education? is it not and that same mind is trying to find something new, that same mind says, I must know what is God, truth, all the rest of it. Is not that what you are doing, Sirs and Ladies? So, I say it is impossible. It is a contradiction.

Q:- Sir, I think most people don’t bother about God. We are concerned with life’s problems.

K:- Lady says people are bothered about life s problems

Q: — everyday life.

K: What is that — antagonist, bitterness, frustration, wanting this or that, power, position, prestige, and somebody else has and you feel jealous and so on. That is life’s problem — I am loved and I can’t love, I want to be loved and I should be loved, I have no money, I want more money, I want to improve, improve the village through this system or that system. I am a number of beliefs which are in contradiction with everyday existence and I am trying to bridge that contradiction by following one set of ideas. This is life.

Q:- Life is something also. If I am a teacher, I want to teach better.

K:- The same thing. These are all life’s problems. You come to the main issue to think better, to live a more integrated life, how can I think better, What do we mean by thinking better, acquiring more, more information? How do you find out what is better, how do you solve the problem?

Q: By thinking deeply.

K: What do you mean by thinking deeply, pursue one logically to the end? I want to think deeply, what does that mean? Let us go to the end of one thought. Now how do I think deeply? Will thinking lead me to depth? Please pursue this. I want to think deeply, now what do I mean, deeply, and what do I mean thinking? If I don’t know what thinking is I can’t think deeply. What is thinking? You please tell me what is thinking.

Q: Bringing more and more associations.

K: Yes, associations helps to think. That is so. Look, I am asking you what is thinking; now, if you observe your own minds, you will find out how you are reacting to that question which is thinking, is it not? You are following what I am saying?

Q:- This is too technical.

K:- This is not technical. Just watch yourself and you will see. I ask you a question what is thinking.

Q: Comes to the same — what is mind, what is thinking.

K:- Now, I want to find out what is thinking, how do you answer it? What is the process that is set going by this question within you?

Q: When we begin to think, the mind stops, there is no answer.

K:- Surely, sir, what is thinking, what is thinking?

Q: Thinking is so spontaneous, that we don’t know what is thinking.

K:- I am asking you now; you have not a problem; leave the problems alone, I am asking you a question — what is thinking? Now what does your mind do when a question is put of this kind? Don’t you want to know how your mind operates? Now, what happens? You put a question of that kind; the mind for the moment hesitates, probably it has never thought about it; then goes into the chamber of memory and says let me look, Upanishads, says this, Bible says this, Bertrand Russell says this. What do I think? So you are looking for an answer, are you not, from the past?

Q:- We don’t think of Bertrand Russell.

K:- You may not; this is the actual operation when a question is put to you.

That is the operation that goes on. If a question is put to you which you know there is an immediate answer, is not there, which is, your mind being familiar with the question replies instantly, where do you live — immediately the immediate response because you are familiar. Your association with that is constant, whereas if a question of this kind is put, your mind hesitates; that hesitation indicates, does it not, that you are waiting, looking for an answer? Are you not? Where do you look for an answer — in your memory, obviously. So thinking is the response of memory, No?

Q:- Does it mean that a person who has lost memory, who is weak, can’t think?

K:- That state is called amnesia, which is complete forgetfulness, he has to learn the whole business again.

You are asking: ..

Q:- But is it bad ..

K:- You are asking having memory is good or bad. If you did not know where you lived now, what would you do, if you do not know the name of the house, road where you live, is that good or bad? We are trying to find out, Sir, what is thinking. For most of us thinking is the response of memory, is it not? For all of us which seems so obvious, is it not ? And the memory, the past is conditioned because I know where I live, I respond quickly and when a question of a more subtle, deeper nature is put, I look in my memory to find an answer but the memory is the experience of centuries which must inevitably conditioned, which is again, fairly obvious. Surely.

Sir, if I ask you as a Hindu, Christian, if there is reincarnation or not, your response is there is; your parents, books, the general influence around you and your instinctive response is that.

Q:- But when I say that, I don’t think about it.

K:- Therefore you don’t think. But if you wish to find out the process of thinking, you see, you respond to what you have been told, which is conditioned, obviously, which is the result of influence. Now, we are asking can the mind disassociate itself from the past and find out,

Q: You seem to describe mind as a collection of past experience. That is, we all agree but now, you say, is it possible for the mind to disassociate from all that; then what does it mean?

K:- Are you asking me or are you asking yourself?

Q:- I am asking you and I am asking, myself.

K:~ That is better. You are asking yourself, not me, the mind which is the result of time, can such a mind ever discover anything new, which must be timeless. Yes, sir? Then if it is to discover something new, being the only instrument to discover, then what is it to do, you understand sir, my question? I see, my mind is made up of the past and which is the only instrument that can observe and discover. There is no other instrument but yet that instrument is the result of the past, which is a fact. Any amount of discussion and saying it is not, will have no bearing on the fact but will that fact, will that mind, can that mind, ever discover anything new ? Or the known which is past, though I may be unconscious of it, the known will always continue and so there will be only a continuity of the known under different forms? So the mind can never, experience the unknown, whatever the unknown is. Therefore let us modify the known, you follow, Sir? Let us embellish it, let us polish it up, give it more information but keep in the area of the mind, of the known all the time and that may be the deteriorating factor of the mind. This assumption, this helpless position of the mind which says, I can never be out of the area, of my own area because I am the result of the known. You follow what I mean? So, if you accept that, then obviously, you must constantly polish it, put it in order, acquire more information, discipline more and so on. Then you have no problem. You have no problem because then you are living within the area of the known but you will have a problem if you begin to enquire into the unknown, won’t you? Don’t you Sir?

Q: Sir, you started by asking what is thinking, then you went on to ask take reincarnation and all that; and there is no thinking which is not a response of memory. This was again to help how one thinks and what you call response to memory may be put as — to put a penny in a slot machine. It is to meet a challenge and the mind has become a kind of instrument which gives instantaneous answers which may be adequate or inadequate ; this is how the machine works. But when you say what is thinking, don t we first come to this — that thinking is always in relationship to something, in relation to something; there is no mere thinking. Even if you say that it is mere response to memory, there is no such thing as pure thinking. All of us in thinking, thinking is in relationship to something.

K:- I asked you what is thinking. I have asked. There is a challenge and the response. There is no thinking, isolated. It is only into a challenge you respond. Where I think in my bedroom, where there is no challenge, thinking is still a challenge to myself: I am asking then, I am finding an answer. This is constant relationship- challenge and response. My response may be according to the belief, to my belief, upbringing and all the rest of it and so always restricted, always narrow, petty, and I am trying to find out where thinking ceases and something new which is not thinking, takes place.

Q:- You are saying that something new takes place., where thinking ends and meditation begins.

K:- All right Sir. Where does thinking end? Wait a minute. I am enquiring and I say that enquiry itself is meditation, and not the ending of thinking and meditation begins and then meditation begins. I say, if I can find out what is thinking, go with me, Sirs, and Ladies, step by step. If I can find out what is thinking, then I will never ask how to meditate because in the very process of finding out what is thinking, is there not meditation? Which means, maybe, I must give to that question complete attention and not a distracted concentration. I don’ t know if I am explaining myself.

When I have put the question what is thinking and in trying to find what it is, I must give complete attention in which there can be no friction, no effort because in effort, and friction is merely distraction and therefore that very question what is thinking, if I am at all intent on finding out the answer, that question brings attention in which there is no deviation, no conflict that I must attend.

So I begin. What is thinking. I see thinking is the response of memory, at any level, conscious or unconscious. It is always within the area of the known or the reaction of that area which is the known, the past. That, the mind sees as a fact. Then, mind asks itself, is all thinking merely verbal, symbolic, the projection of the past or the reaction of the past or is there thinking without words, without the past.

Now, to find out if there is any activity of the mind which is not contaminated by the past, mind which is not contaminated by the past, is it possible? You follow sirs? I am enquiring. I don t assume that it is or it is not. I am enquiring, the mind is looking. The mind sees that it is the result of the past and it is asking itself whether it is possible to be free of the past. If it says it is not possible or it is possible, then that assumption is the result of the past, is it not? Please go step by step with me and you will see. The mind is aware that it is the result of the past; the mind says, can it free itself from the past. Any assumption that it can or it can’t, is the outcome of the past. So what is the state of the mind which has no association, which does not assume anything?

Q:- It is not mind.

K:- Then it is not the mind you say. We have not come to that yet. I want to go slowly.

Q:- The question is this — who thinks.

K:- I can discuss that Sir. We know who thinks. The mind is divided, has divided itself as thinker and the thought, but it is still the mind.

Q:- When mind is the collection of the past and thinker and the mind itself can be?..

K:- I don’t understand. The mind is made up of the past but mind is divided into the thinker and the thought. Obviously this is simple too, clear. Now the mind says, asks itself, as the separate entity disassociates itself for the moment as the thinker and looks at itself but the fact is the whole process of the separation as the thinker and thought are still within the area of the mind and we have gone beyond all that and we are trying to find out that area which is the result of time, of past — it is asking itself whether it can be free of the past.

Q: Sir, positively we come to the question- Suppose all the gentlemen here are listening to you and if they have absolute faith in what you say, then of course their minds will be conditioned to what you are saying. Whatever you say, that may be right, but if the audience doubts what you are saying, then it will be disassociated. The same condition goes on. If the absolute faith completely is disassociated, then it is conditioned.

K:- Sir, I don’t know. The mind does not know if there is anything new to associate or disassociate. You would have seen I am not asking to have faith. I am just watching the operation of my own mind and I hope you are doing the same thing, watching the operation of your own mind and discovering its processes. That is all what we are doing, not that we should have faith or not have, but we are trying to find out, watching, observe how your mind operates which is meditation. I am afraid we will have to stop.

Q:- How does a scientist discover a new thing.

K:- If I was a scientist, then he and I could talk; if he was a scientist, he and I could talk but we are ordinary people, we are not scientists and I am trying to find out how the mind is ever to discover something new. What is the process of it, Sir I will have to stop. May I just go into it a little bit? You can reject or accept. It is irrelevant to me.

I am watching the operation of my mind. That is all. There is challenge and response. The response is invariably according to the culture, to the tradition, to the values that the mind has been brought up which we will call for the moment conditioned mind and mind realises that and is asking itself, is a response the outcome of this conditioning or is there any response beyond? I don t say there is or there is not. It is just asking itself; if the mind says that there is no enquiry possible or it assumes, any assumption that it is possible or not possible, that response is still out of the background, which is clear. So, the mind can only say, I don’t know. Is it not? That is the only right answer. Whether the mind can free itself from the past, the right answer is the mind does not know. Now when one says I don’t know, at what level, at what depth do you say that? Is it merely a verbal statement -I don’t know or the totality of your being says I don’t know? If your whole being genuinely says I don’t know, which means you are no longer referring to memory to find an answer, then is not the mind free from the past and is not this whole process of enquiry, meditation? Meditation is not how to meditate but the enquiry into what is meditation and to enquire what is meditation, the mind must free itself from what it has learnt about meditation and the freeing of the mind from what you have learnt is the beginning of meditation.