Scientists Discussion, Bangalore, 9 January 1974
E.C. George Sudarshan (GS): Most of these people are my friends—one is Ramamurti, that is Seshachar, Mr Sinha, Prof. Gadgil, Mukunda. Would you like us to ask questions to you? Dr Sinha has a question.
Questioner 1 (Q1): Maybe I ask you a very obvious question which must have been asked to you earlier: Can the spiritual world assist the socio-economic problem of a country?
Krishnamurti (K): I couldn’t… What did you say, sir?
Q1: Can it, the spiritual practice, assist the people of a country in solving their socio-economic problems?
GS: The socio-economic problems—are they helped by spiritual practices of people?
K: I don’t know quite what you mean by spiritual practices—by repeating mantras, by going to temples?
GS: No, I don’t think…
K: …and leading a religious life?
Q1: No.
K: Then what kind of life, sir?
Q1: Even though the last question of mine were, it is not involved with the material world in the sense that he is not very much concerned with society or the economic problems of the country, but still he can oversee it.
GS: No, I think what Krishnaji wanted was to discuss, for you to specify what you mean by *spiritual*. You agreed that it is not chanting mantras and not going to temples or not reading…
K: Not puja.
GS: …not puja or not traditional practice.
Q1: Then it will become subjective to my definition of what is spiritual.
GS: Right. Exactly. I think you could ask more openly what you really mean.
Q1: Have you got any views on spiritual in your…
K: Sir, are you saying, has a religious man—we will define religion presently—any place in the socio-economic society? That’s the question. Or is he helping the society at all?
Q1: No. What I meant by spiritual way was partly to say that he improves certain qualities of the mind, whatever the weaknesses or propensities may be. So will that in a way help us solve the problem?
K: Has a mental regeneration of a group of people, will that have any value in a society? Is that the question, put it in a different way? Q1: Yes.
K: Wouldn’t it, sir? Is the Indian society highly cultured?
Q1: Again there is a difficulty because we will have to define what is culture.
K: We will, we will. What do we mean by *culture*? I mean, the ordinary meaning, the word means surely ‘to grow’, ‘to flower’.
Q1: The culture also, we have to have control over the external, also the internal conflicts. So this internal culture and the external culture, from that point of view.
K: Can both be in harmony, together, not two separate things. I would like to ask—I am not being rude—has India any culture?
Q1: Has India any culture?
K: In the sense we are using—growing, flowering, not technologically, not merely that, but inward flowering.
Q1: I don’t think any country has.
K: Ah no, no. We are not saying, I am not saying any country. It isn’t that I am saying Europe has, America has, but here we are, has it any?
Q1: No. I don’t think neither India nor any other country has the culture in which we can define, say, one culture, from that point of view.
K: So if India has no culture, then what are we talking about?
Q1: I didn’t use the word *culture*.
K: Ah, I introduced it, sir, in the sense that a cultured human being, in the sense a human being who is good, intelligent, who is creative and who is totally aware of all… you know all that. What has such a person in a society which is disintegrating?
Questioner 2 (Q2): But perhaps you are trying to say that the society is a distraction from your spiritual self. That perhaps being involved in society may be a distraction from the spiritual self. How can you blend the two?
K: I do not know what you mean by the word *spiritual*. I am a little bit shy about that word.
Q2: Well, I mean, maybe he is asking, are you asking in the traditional sense of renouncing things?
Q1: No.
Q2: That involvement…
Q1: No, no. I can be spiritual without renouncing the world or any other… I can be a cultured person, but culture, there is an outward culture and inner culture. I may appear to be a very cultured person outwardly, but within myself there is so much turmoil and conflict that I am not a cultured person.
GS: Could I interject a word here? It seems to me that the question is not whether intellectual or rational integration would be a disadvantage. No doubt about it being an advantage. The question is the effort that is necessary in the pursuit of rationality, of philosophical and introspective nature, this would certainly have to be made by a certain person. Should the priority of this be with us, that you take effort away from involvement in society for betterment of other peoples’ lives and one’s own economic and social well-being?
K: Sir, how can I improve society if I am not also improving, work at…
Q1: That’s correct, yes.
K: …if I am not regenerating myself and I try to regenerate the rest of the world [*Laughs*] there is no meaning! Both subjectively, objectively, in every way there is not a flowering inside me and instead of merely just repeating, repeating, repeating, I can go around, do a lot of social work, and that doesn’t have any value.
Q1: But this flowering, it may have some saturation in the sense that we cannot go on continuously improving and improving.
K: I don’t think…
Q1: We may come to a limit.
K: I don’t think that it is a question of improving. There is only regeneration, not improving. I do not know—the word *regeneration* and the word *improving* which is*,* all the time I am getting better and better and better and better—which is the enemy of the good. If you admit that, then it is not a matter of improvement but a matter of change, complete change. And whether that is possible—that is the whole question.
Q1: Now, this question has—for instance, the human civilization is very old, maybe say twenty thousand years old, I live in a society, but the problems remain with him. Most people…
K: Then what are we to do, sir?
Q1: May I say, is there any hope that we human beings with the help of science and other kinds of learning, we can change society and help?
K: What are we to do?
Q1: Whether some of us can really with the help of this regenerative process, can help society.
K: I wonder why we separate ourselves from society.
Q1: Because we oversee, we are there, and we are aware of the problems.
K: We are right in the thick of it. Why do we separate ourselves from them? Q1: No, even if we do not separate ourselves, say even if there is a problem within me, I know of the problem, I have to solve the problem. Similarly I am in the society, I know the problems of society.
K: Yes.
Q1: So I will have to solve them.
K: Where do I solve it, sir? Out there or out here?
Q1: Both.
K: Where do you begin?
Q1: First with ourselves.
K: Ah, ah, obviously. So we are back where we began.
Q1: But we shouldn’t stop there. We shouldn’t stop after reforming ourselves.
K: No, no. I don’t think—if one says the inward growth is apart from society, then there is a separation between society and oneself. But if one says society is me and me is society—which is obviously so— then the flowering of me *is*, affects the society—must!
Q1: No, it will affect. But how many persons take to this message? If only very few persons take to this…
K: What can I do?
Q1: …then the problem remains.
K: No, has—at least, it is like a drop of poison or something in a bottle: it changes, the whole thing changes.
Questioner 3 (Q3): On Saturday, you asked us to share with you the idea that we should think about our minds without being fettered by any rituals, images, and such other things. How does this automatically guarantee that you improve yourself? On Saturday you were talking to the group of people at Lalbagh…
K: Yes, yes.
Q3: …and you asked us to share with you the idea that we should be completely free of all rituals, pujas, and such other things and dwell upon what our mind is. Now the question I would like to ask you: supposing I did this, how will it automatically mean that there is an improvement in me as the initial point of the society?
K: Can we remove the word *improvement?*
Q3: No, I didn’t mean improvement in that sense. But supposing, in which way does it ameliorate all my other sense of living in misery, poverty, subjugation, etc.?
K: [*Pause*] Sir, shall we—what is consciousness? It comes to that, doesn’t it? What is consciousness? You are involved in it.
GS: Yes, I am in it all the time.
K: What is consciousness?
Q3: I can define it at various levels for myself, which implies an awareness of one’s existence at any level.
K: What is that existence?
Q3: All right. Surely in the sense of what I am saying, if I feel pain in my hand, I am aware that my hand exists.
K: So the content of consciousness is consciousness—put it very simply. I am conscious—that means my consciousness is its content—the pain, the anxiety, the attachments, the fears, the pleasures. All the content makes up consciousness. The consciousness is its content. Right, sir?
Q3: Yes.
K: And we are trying to, we are moving in that field all the time. I can know the content completely—both the unconscious, conscious—and I am moving there all the time, and the mind is never beyond it. Now, is it possible for the mind not to be caught in this?
Q3: So, is the person looking at the mind to be not caught in any of this consciousness or the content of the consciousness?
K: So I must first know the content.
Q3: Yes.
K: Is it possible to know the content? You understand, sir, what I mean?
Q3: Yes, I am trying to understand if it is something…
K: No, no, I’m not… Can I know the content of my consciousness? Is it to be known through analysis? Is it to be known through investigation? Is it to be known through introspective, non-analytical observation? How is the content of my consciousness to be revealed?
Q3: Well, people have tried all these things, surely, I don’t know the answer.
K: My question…
GS: How would *you* do it?
Q3: How? That is a different question. I mean, how is it to be known is a more general question. How would the content…
GS: Not for other people. K: How would *you* know? That is what I mean.
Q3: Well, actually I was quite drawn to the theme of your lecture that one should for oneself, individually, think one’s mind without all the obligations that one has either to the books or to the rituals or this or that. Given my free choice, I would probably do it that way—to know the content of my consciousness.
K: How would you, sir—I am asking—how do you know it?
Q3: How do I know it?
K: Your content.
Q3: No, I don’t know. I would like to proceed to know if I am given a choice.
K: Would it take time?
Q3: I am sure it takes time.
K: Wait, wait, I question that.
Q3: You think it is instantaneous?
K: Wait, wait. Now, go slowly. If it takes time, what happens? Time is movement, time is direction. And you are saying the content is this, let’s say, and it will take time to uncover each one. Right, sir? And by the time I have done, I am dead. Of course. There are too many things involved in it.
Q3: Yes.
K: So is there another way of looking at the whole thing which is non-analytical, which doesn’t demand time, which isn’t directional? Is there a way of looking—looking, and it shows everything? Otherwise I am caught in time.
GS: I would like to add that if you are moving from thing to thing and if you think of moving from thing to thing, think of uncovering, then you are not uncovering, because…
K: Of course.
GS: …you are only dealing with a more superficial level.
K: Of course.
Q3: Well, I may be, I am very naïve. I don’t know how we can proceed in action without knowing what it is we are proceeding to. So if I were to follow your advice on Saturday…
K: I am not advising.
Q3: No, no, the sharing of the views that we talked about. If my objective is to know the content of my consciousness, then if I don’t know gradually, then it will be, I think…
K: I know, and is my content different from yours?
Q3: I don’t know. I don’t know the answer.
K: How can it be, sir?
Q3: What?
K: Wait, wait. Anxiety—we share it with the world. Hate—we share it with the world. Violence—we share it with the world. Guilt—we share it with the world. Identification with my house, with my family, with my knowledge, with my office—all that is the world consciousness which is me. Am I expanding it too much?
Q3: No.
K: Let’s proceed then. Then my consciousness is not very different from yours because I am the society, the result of the society and the culture in which I was born and you are, so on, so on. So can that consciousness be revealed with its content? If it is revealed and if there is a transformation, a regeneration, I affect the consciousness of the world. It is not ‘What is the good of you flowering and the rest of the world rotting?’
Q3: Now, do I take it then that there is a way of doing it?
K: We are going to discuss it, sir.
Q3: All right, I’ll see how it can be done.
K: We are going to discuss it. Right, sir? You’re keeping silent.
GS: No, I am agreeing with the exchange. It seems to me—perhaps I might interject at this point—it seems to me that when you talk about these things in the public talks, say, for example, the Saturday talk, you emphasize what not to do. Some of the things that many of us have been discussing after that is that you seem to be very anxious that one should not follow certain practices.
K: Practices.
GS: Certain practices.
K: Yes, yes.
GS: Suppose I were to tell you that I follow this path and I arrive at the place of regeneration of the spontaneous flowering, the being in the timeless state, it seems to me I should note what you say, but I should pay no more attention to it than I would pay to a book that I have read.
K: Ah, yes, I understand, I understand.
GS: I think most of these people are even more polite than I am, and therefore they find it difficult to…
K: You can be as rude as you please, sir. I am not that kind of a fool. So what is the question, sir? No, let’s finish this question. GS: No, I just interjected the thing so that if you wanted to pursue this, you could pursue it.
Q3: No, my only question is, simply, assuming that this is what, you know, the knowledge of what we want to do is necessary to do it. Now, if I want to know the state of consciousness or the content of my consciousness, which is common to all of us, as you say, then is there a quick way, this timeless way that you talked about, to do it? Because, as Professor Sudarshan was saying, sure, we can shun rituals, we can shun all your societal hang-ups if you wish, and then go on this adventure. Now, what I have not understood or got the impression: how does one go on?
K: Sir, suppose—let’s be clear that we both understand what we are talking about—I want to know the content of my consciousness. I know analysis, the psychoanalytical process, introspective process, watching every day, every minute the thoughts, the feelings, and I find that has no value because I am moving in the same circle. Right? And do I reject it? Do I deny analysis? Because in negating there is energy. Right? I negate analysis; in that negation there is energy.
Q3: You mean you expend energy…
K: Yes. Energy! So it matters very much how I negate. Right, sir? So do I negate actually or merely intellectually? I negate, say for instance, that to follow anybody, quickly I see that. I negate that and it gives me, and a burden is off. So I have got more energy. It is a rational negation, not just blind negation—rational, sane, objective, clear negation—and that gives me a tremendous energy to proceed. Energy. Can we do that? Can you do it? Do it, sir. Have you done it now? Sorry, it is not personal, you understand?
Q3: No, no, sure. But in negating, are we not spending energy also?
K: No, sir.
Q3: No?
Questioner 4 (Q4): Sir, do you mean energy the way physicists would interpret it or in a slightly different way? It is not quite clear to me.
GS: Could I amplify the question?
K: Yes, sir, delighted.
GS: It is not as if—the question that is being asked is that, first we use *energy* in a very technical sense.
K: Yes, yes.
GS: And like a person who is well-acquainted with language and enjoys it, if somebody uses, mispronounces or misuses the syntax, it is physical pain. So.
K: I know, I know.
GS: Well, we have great difficulty in discussing questions like energy, force, power, movement.
K: I mean by *energy* not only physical energy—vitality, intensity, non-frictional energy, I mean all that.
GS: Could I restate it and ask if this is what you mean? That in the case when spontaneity gains ground, when there is natural flowering, then you feel a release.
K: A release, that is correct.
GS: Very much like a piece of cork which is kept under water: it shoots up. It is not a case of somebody having pushed it up. But in a certain sense like a balloon which is tethered to the ground, the rope is cut, the natural thing acts up. This is what I mean by release. It is not a case of something positive coming to move it because natural things move by themselves, but the constraints…
K: That is right, that is right.
Q2: Hasn’t everyone experienced that temporarily? But it is very difficult to sustain it. You know, you temporarily have flashes like that.
K: No, no, we are not discussing temporary. That’s not—I can’t deny, negate, temporarily something. You either negate or you don’t negate at all; it is not temporary. Say, that I have given up alcohol for a few days and then pick it up again—that is not negation.
Q2: I didn’t mean it in that sense. I was referring more to that total feeling of release that Dr Sudarshan was talking about—that you feel free inwardly, free, and that you are not bound by society or the past, you know, past traditions and so on. And somehow you can see like in a flash the total meaning in your own definition.
K: Aren’t we going a little bit too…
Q2: But isn’t that what he was talking about, that’s where we…
GS: May I again please…
K: Yes, please, sir.
GS: She says that as far as the experience of release—*release* is a loaded word—but what is meant by spontaneity…
K: Even that word…
GS: Yes, I know. The natural taking place of things in which you are both inside and outside, you are it and you are watching it also. This experience comes, she says, sometimes with no effort. In fact whenever it comes, it comes with no effort.
Q2: It is like an aesthetic experience.
K: Therefore I must understand effort and whether the mind can be free of effort, not how to keep the other thing going.
Q2: You mean such strange feeling, like an aesthetic experience? You know, you are looking at the stars. This type of—I think Dr Sudarshan defined it. Doesn’t it come naturally within?
K: I don’t… These words *natural*, *spontaneous*.
Q2: I mean, without a concentrated effort. But the thing is if it is not done with an effort, then it cannot be sustained at will.
GS: Let me restate it again in a surgical but not very polite language. If she had never listened to you, never read anything that you have written, never listened to anybody else who said similar things, but just remained Monique, then she says, ‘I have been in situations when I have ceased to be having the question whether I am part of society or not, whether I am happy or not.’
K: I just drag along, I just go along.
GS: Not drag along.
Q2: That you are…
GS: It will imply…
Q2: You are in essence yourself.
GS: You are there.
Q2: You are…
K: Aha, but, sir, that’s [*Laughs*] you are in the middle of society; you are not out of it. You suffer, you have anxieties, you have all the rest of it. So let’s come back: in negating you have energy in the sense, vitality, clarity. It’s like a burden being taken off, some weight taken off from your mind and from your body, and then you feel light, and that implies for me—perhaps I may be misusing that word—*energy*. That energy is needed to proceed—not proceed—to explode; it will explode by itself. So do I negate analysis, totally, not just partially?
Q3: That won’t be easy, if I were to answer your question. Just because I am brought up in a certain way, I probably don’t negate analysis totally.
K: Therefore what happens? You are still functioning…
Q3: That’s right. Now, by this do I take it that you totally negate analysis?
K: *I* do, totally. Because analysis implies time, analyser and the analysed; who is the analyser who is analysing?, is the analyser different from the analysed? That is part of my content of my consciousness, and part of my consciousness is, getting better and better and better and better—improve.
Q3: It is not still clear to me and that is my failing. Supposing you did reject analysis, totally…
K: Reject.
Q3: Or negate.
K: Negate, doesn’t matter.
Q3: Totally. How does it, energy that you have, this added energy or …
K: It is…
Q3: …this spontaneous thing work for this so-called betterment?
K: Wait. Not betterment.
Q3: What word, this elevation of oneself.
K: Look, look. Analysis implies time, right? Analysis implies the analyser and the analysed. Is the analysed different from the analyser?
Q3: Not in this context of consciousness.
K: Of course not, of course not. I mean I am not the tree, so. And analysis implies an examination or analysis of that which we are analysing. And each analysis must be totally complete; otherwise, you carry the memory of it to the next, with that memory you examine, therefore incomplete and so on, so on, so on. And during this process, analysis is a form of paralysis. And if you reject that, negate it totally, then how do you understand and act without analysis?
Q3: That would be the thing I would most like to know.
K: That is what we are discussing, sir. Right, sir? You approve of this?
GS: Yes, I approve of it. [*Laughs*] You have so far not objected to the word *how*.
K: I object to the ‘how’. ‘How’ means a process, ‘how’ means a practice, ‘how’ means an end to be achieved.
GS: So he who negates analysis cannot ask ‘how’.
K: That’s it—no, no, wait, wait. Not ask ‘how’*.* What is the next step? What takes place? Look, I am greedy, envious. I know the analytical process: cause, effect and the effect becomes the cause and so on, so on, so on. I know that, and I negate that. But I have still envy, right? I have negated the means of getting rid of envy, which is the analytical process, but at the end of it, I am still envious of that man with that big house. That remains a problem, right?
GS: Yes.
K: Now, how am I to transcend it? How is the mind to go beyond it? The mind can go beyond it if it has sufficient energy, in the sense I’m using that word *energy*. Not the mechanical energy, you know all that. I *need* energy to, there must be energy to transcend. There must be energy to climb a mountain.
GS: Yes.
K: In negating I have that energy.
GS: This is the kind of theory that we physicists make about physics.
K: I agree, sir. I agree. Bohm and I talked about it.
GS: [*Laughs*] This is David Bohm.
Q3: Oh, David Bohm, I know…
K: He is a friend of mine.
Q3: Yes, right. He is my friend also.
K: Oh, you know him?
GS: This is a theory about how certain things happen.
K: It is not…
GS: It is still…
K: It is not a theory. I object to the word *theory* because this is, for me, sir, if I may humbly put, if I may state it—I start with *what is,* not with *what should be*. I start, for myself, I’m envious. Will that envy be transcended through analysis? And I say it cannot. That envy can be transferred, or change the object of envy, but still envy. Instead of a car I change to house or God or something else, that’s still envy. That envy means comparison. Can the mind be free of comparison?
GS: Yes, that is the question, that is really the question. You can, by analysis, by introspection, by discipline, you can change from one configuration to another configuration, maybe a nobler…
K: Ah, ah!
GS: …more approved configuration.
K: But still within the same field.
GS: Except that the man whom you envy for his car or his house or his wife or his children, you may later on decide that in fact he was not worth envying. You may envy somebody else.
K: But I move to something else. It may be something else.
GS: He may even be a person who does not have any envy. You envy him.
K: Of course, of course. [*Laughs*] Negative, positive and then negation of it. So can my mind be free of comparison and therefore imitation, therefore envy, and all the rest of it? And analysis will not change it. So can I, can the mind throw off that burden? You can’t proceed beyond that if you cannot throw it off. [*Laughs*] You follow?
Q3: As we always think in terms of a framework, and to act absolutely and completely without comparison to anything, whether abstract or real, is a difficult process. At least to me it is a difficult process.
K: Sir, am I dull because I compare myself with you who are clever? If I don’t compare myself with you, am I dull? I may be something else. But if there is no comparison, what takes place?
Q3: Yes, this is essentially what I felt. When people say ‘I’m dull’ or ‘I’m smart’, it is always in comparison with a framework; operationally this is the way all things happen, and to absolutely refrain from that is a difficult process.
K: Yes, sir! [*Pause*] That means to be completely alone—not isolation, that’s a different matter. So can my mind, can the mind discard analysis? And what do I do, if I discard, with envy? It is no good transferring the objects of envy; they are all the same, whether it is a car or a woman or a god, it is the same. Or then again, if I try to be non-envious it is the same. Now, what shall I do with that envy? Because I have seen what envy has done in the world. I have seen all the… you follow?—all the cause-effect of all that. So, can the mind be free of all envy? If not, I am functioning, mind is functioning within the field of the known with its content.
Q4: Sir, may I ask a question in this matter?
K: Sir, I am not the chairman; he is the chairman.
GS: [*Laughs*] I didn’t realize I was the chairman.
K: [*Laughter*] We are all chairmen.
Q4: In this general context, do I understand analysis to mean looking at part of the contents of consciousness—any part, but only a part? If this is the meaning of analysis at present, suppose you say you negate analysis, and then you ask the question, ‘Can my mind get rid of envy?’ it seems to me we are back at the level of analysis.
K: No, no. I’m still envious. Analysis. Sir, I try to be rid of envy through analysis, and I haven’t succeeded.
Q4: I think I have not understood clearly what is meant by negation of analysis. It might even be that if one really negates analysis, one, by then, has moved beyond envy. Is that not the question?
K: Sir, we are going to find out, sir, we are going to find out. Unless I have done it, the other thing is…
Q4: We don’t know.
K: …theoretical and nonsensical and has no value.
Q1: I like to put a little positive approach to this. Suppose I find a very good man when compared with myself, I perhaps begin with envy which is not good. But out of this, I want to ask, is it not possible that I might be able to become good myself? Is it likely that…
K: Ah, no!
Q1: …this part of envy may have a positive effect?
K: I can’t—you are good, I am not. I compare myself with you and realize that I’m not good, and therefore I want to become like you. You are the epitome, the essence of goodness, and I’m not, and I would like to be that. That is, I become like you. Right, sir?
Q1: Right. That is what we think.
K: I can’t do that. Goodness is not yours or mine; goodness is goodness. Right?
GS: Yes, but I would like to interpose something here at this point. It seems to me that Mr Ramamurthy wears a very nice shirt. I see it, I envy him. I decide I would go and get a shirt somewhat like that. In the process of getting it, I find that in fact it is not simply stylishness, that it is aesthetics, it is pleasant, happy…
K: Right, sir.
GS: …and therefore if I want to look back at the history of why I feel happy, I may say, Oh, I was envious of Raman and he was wearing something, so I did this one. But in a certain sense my happiness is totally without cause: I’m happy. I may want to create a pre-history for that happiness, I may want to condition it by saying that this, this and this made me happy. But after a certain time these are inventions, these are sheer reconstructions, I mean, fantastic history, stories which never happened.
K: Quite.
GS: …because you don’t remember but you make one king marry another queen because then history could continue. So in this case the envy is thought of as a good thing in the sense there is competition, you hate someone, you dislike, envy someone or you are envious of some one else’s prowess. You proceed just because you want to best him. Then you find out that in fact this was just like duck taking to water, it was something that you were—quite natural to you. But you may never have walked in into the thing but for the fact that your sensibility to this was awakened by an emotion which is normally considered negative. But eventually when you are in it and enjoying yourself, you don’t ask the question, ‘Now, who turned me on to physics and why did I do physics?’
K: Quite, quite.
GS: This was the point.
Q4: I mean I could perhaps, something I might not have used. Suppose I meet a very generous man—I am not as generous—I might first envy him, but I might be converted in this process. I just want to see the good.
K: All that takes time! Is time the means of flowering of goodness?
Q4: Well, I think it varies—the amount of time it takes. I might be transformed at one stage instantly when I see something that’s…
K: Therefore that is the important thing, not time. My becoming good is still not good because it is ‘me’ that is trying to become something. I don’t know.
GS: Is this not a difference in perspective rather than a difference in content? In the sense that in one case you talk about not even my ‘becoming good’, but Indian tradition would say ‘goodness’, not even say ‘my being goodness’ or ‘goodness is’, not even that, just ‘goodness’. That is one; that is a timeless, eternal, sacred perspective. There is a profane way of looking at it, historic way of looking at it, in which you say, ‘Now I am this one, but previously I was this.’ Not I should become, but previously I was. It is a pre-history.
K: Yes, pre-history.
GS: I can see that the other thing takes away energy. If I say I want to be the fastest runner, then I would be always thinking now I am not running fast enough. If I want to be the best scientist, then I would say, ‘Well, Raman did this, and I have not yet done that, so I am not as good.’ But on the other hand if I say, ‘I was just like somebody else walking along the street, but now I am able to contemplate something. Isn’t it nice? How did it happen? Oh, this teacher helped me, this friend helped me, this man made me envious, so I tried to compete with him.’ So it seems to me comparisons, retrospective glances, saying, talking about history of how one arrived at this point is not taking away energy. In fact, sometimes it gives you more energy. You see that after all things are not so bad. [*K laughs*] And then you say…
K: This is the good old way of looking at this. So what is it we are now discussing?
Q4: What happens after you negate analysis? How can one talk about it? That was the question.
GS: Now you want to pursue this? Otherwise…
Q4: Yes.
GS: Could you say it again, Mukunda?
Q4: Sir, what is it that one, where does one go if one is able to negate analysis? It is not clear to me that I can do it. And I have not clearly understood what is involved in negating analysis.
K: I think that is fairly clear. Analysis implies all that we have just now said.
Q4: If analysis means…well, words are…
K: The analyser is the analysed. The observer is the observed. Therefore he is biting his tail all the time— that’s all he’s doing when you analyse. If that is so—I mean, at least to me it is a fact—if that is so, then what is to be done with envy? That was the question which we were talking just now. Is envy different from the observer? Or is the observer envy also? The observer *is* the observed, and therefore there is no division between the observer and the observed and therefore no conflict.
GS: I believe the question is with regard to the following. These statements are meaningful at a level at which in a sense you have done a certain amount of preliminary analysis.
K: No.
GS: Because if you have not done the preliminary analysis, to that person you say you should not analyse. It does not mean anything.
K: Of course that’s what I am…
GS: Therefore a sensibility has to be woken up. One has to—what in tradition is normally referred to as *mumukshatwa*, there must be a certain tendency, certain desire to be yourself. It would appear very natural that a person would want to be himself.
K: I have never said to myself I must be myself because I don’t know what my self is. I can investigate who is ‘me’. I am the name, I am the country, I am the quality, I am the etc., etc.—words, words, words, words. Ideas, conclusions, prejudices, tradition, all that is ‘me’. And the ‘me’ says I must become better, I must imitate, I must—I never looked at it that way. The ‘me’ is words, it has no reality. It is not an abstraction. It isn’t a thing which I say ‘me’ is a lot of words, and go and do something which is ‘me’.
GS: This I can very well comprehend. But, what however, is brought up is that not everyone is you.
K: No, I think that’s a mistake. If you put it that way—forgive me, it is not everyone is me, of course, but the analysis of which… [*Laughs*] I must stick to that, because I am a bundle of all these things, sir. My consciousness is its content, right?
GS: Yes.
K: Now, can the mind be free of its content? This is, please forgive the phraseology, I may be using a lot of crude words and all the rest of it. But if the mind is functioning always within the field of the known, it is always living in a prison, there is no freedom. You can invent freedom, *moksha*, whatever you like to call it, but it is all ideological nonsense. Now, can the mind step out of that? That is the real issue.
GS: That is the real issue. To get to this real issue…
K: That’s all.
GS: …you need, most people need preliminary work.
K: Wait, sir, wait, sir. You accept, you think—I don’t think it is necessary. I know this is the whole problem, sir I know, this is the whole problem.
Questioner 5 (Q5): Sir, is it not a fact by constant awareness one finds, one observes the constant interactions in the mind, the emotions in the physical plane, the physical thing, and if you go to the analysis and further, the constant, these reactions, the biological human organism faces, we find that the desires in its various forms, whatever it may be, a stigma is always there to produce these things.
K: Yes, sir. I understand all that.
Q5: So how is this, these reactions, you can go out beyond the periphery of it?
K: Let me try to understand all desire. It comes to that, put it differently, desire, which is…
Q5: In various forms…
K: …stimulation, contact, sensation, desire. Right? That’s what you are saying, sir. Now, can desire not flower without any discipline?
Q5: Yes.
GS: Can desire flower?
K: Not flower.
GS: Not flower.
K: Without control.
GS: Depends on how you say ‘control’.
K: Ah, wait.
GS: It seems to me that if you abandon control, then too the desire will disappear.
Q1: And also flower. What is the flowering of desire?
K: Flowering? Let it blossom. I want that house—fight for it. Go through all the whole misery of it. That’s what we do, that’s the flowering of desire. I see a woman and I am… all that.
Q1: It is not necessarily always struggle and strife. I might desire something, I might achieve it without all this, the pain.
K: Ah, ah, wait, wait, sir. What kind of thing you achieved without struggle?
Q1: Oh, to build a house, for example.
K: I know. You ought to have money, you have to… Therefore it is not easy.
Q1: Something which I enjoy. It can be anything. I may go for a Ph.D.
K: We are talking, sir, of the flowering of goodness. Does it happen through conformity, through envy, through saying, ‘You are the essence of goodness, I must become that’? I would like to come back to this, sir, which is what we began: Can the mind be free of the known and yet function in the known, otherwise it has no reality. Now, is that possible?
GS: It is possible if we do it almost every day—in my work, for example. How do you discover a physical law or mathematical theorem? You cannot discover it because if you knew how to discover it, then it is already known. On the other hand, if you don’t do anything about it and I don’t think about the problem at all and I am occupied with other things, I don’t discover it.
K: Of course, that is right.
GS: So I take a pad and paper and find a man who is willing to listen to me, talk to him. He doesn’t really understand what I’m talking, what I don’t know myself. I scratch something on the paper, and then I spend day after day on it, and then suddenly it happens. And when it happens, it comes full-blown with all the trimmings. And you don’t know where it came from, and yet to a certain extent you know that if you did not think about similar things, if your mind was not ready to receive it, it would not come.
K: Are you saying, sir, you go through the problem, investigate all the problem, all the things involved in it and let it go, let it die.
GS: Let it die.
K: And next day it has fully blossomed.
GS: Yes. K: Yes, yes.
GS: When it happens.
K: When it happens, that of course.
GS: Sometimes in mid-sentence you tell somebody how hard you worked on it and it…
K: Yes.
GS: …looked totally hopeless, and then you change your mind.
K: Yes, sir. But the preliminary work and then abeyance of the work, absence of the work. And in that quietness, in that non-frictional world, this thing pops up.
GS: I guess I speak for all of you, isn’t it?
Q1: Yes.
K: Is there another way—I am just asking this—is there another way of not preliminary work at all? That is, I have a problem—not mathematical, not physics—other problems: problem of hate. I feel hate, I hate you.
GS: I hope it is not true. [*Laughter*]
K: I hate somebody. Is it possible to be free of that hate without any previous movement? You know, previous movement in the sense, analysis, going through it. You have hurt me deeply, and the hurt remains. Can the mind be free of that hurt without any friction, without any previous analysis? Free of it, you understand, sir, step out of it?
Q3: Now that would be my first question: it couldn’t be.
K: I am answering, sir.
Q4: On a very low level.
K: No levels. I’ve no level.
Q4: Suppose one had control over one’s memory, suppose one just forgot about something, then one would be free.
K: Look, I can’t forget, I can’t forget. I can close my eyes, suppress it, push it away, but the thing is there, the wound is there.
Q4: When there are things that one can completely forget, it may have a simple explanation in terms of some damage or something. I mean…
GS: I can answer you, and I’m sure you’ll like the answer because this echoes something that you have said in your talk on Saturday. There is a possibility of loving someone without asking them to change. You have a friend who did you a bad turn, and you are very hurt for some time, and then you have other things to do. You think about other things, and then sometime later you look back, and then you still remember that he did that to you, but there is no reaction in you.
K: Yes, sir.
GS: You love him. In fact, it is usually preceded by a feeling of compassion for that person. But afterwards even that compassion disappears and you know. For example, Dr Mukunda was my student when he was a young man. Suppose he had done something which hurt me deeply. I look back two years later or two days later, and then I say, ‘Well, he did hurt me, but I don’t suffer from it now.’ At that time I did suffer, but I have nothing against him. I don’t even pity him because pitying is a certain sense of retaliation.
K: Of course, of course.
GS: Is this what you mean?
K: No.
GS: In this case one does not work for the thing; it just happens. I was going to say that…
K: I would go a little bit, I’m just, please, sir. Can I be aware when he hurts and therefore no mark of hurt? I don’t have to go through all the process of…
GS: Sometimes.
K: No, no. I don’t want ‘sometimes’. I don’t want, I want food all the time, not sometimes.
GS: No, what I mean by *sometimes* is that some time…
K: Ah, I don’t. You follow, sir? I won’t. Not I won’t. You understand? He hurts me, and I know what to do. I go—and all the rest of it. But is it possible to be so aware that you are never hurt?
GS: I can say it would be desirable…
K: Ah, oh.
GS: …but I don’t know whether it is possible.
K: No, no. We are going to find. I think it is possible.
Q3: Can I amplify that question? Is it possible not to be hurt at all and, if so, can you reach that stage without any preparation?
K: Yes, I will show you. Sir, the word *innocence*—I am introducing that word—means in Latin and all the rest of it, a mind that is not capable of being hurt. Now, can my mind be never hurt? Do what you will—you are my wife, husband, neighbour, business—never hurt, because that is much more important than having been hurt, how to be rid of hurt. Right? And there are two things: the preventative and what to do with the hurt, the prevention and the cure. Prevention is far more important than the cure. Can my mind never be hurt? Doctor says yes, it may be desirable, but it is impossible.
Q3: I don’t know if I said that.
K: I am adding that, sorry.
GS: I wish it were possible.
K: Yes.
GS: One has desire to return to the state of pristine innocence.
K: Right.
GS: But that too is a desire.
K: Is it possible never to be hurt? That’s the first question. Having been hurt, what to do with it? That is a different matter. Now, is it possible?
Q3: Are you trying to say then that if you look at your mind in this absolutely abstract sense, without any, any fettering of thought…
K: I don’t know what I’m saying, sir. Just a minute.
Q3: Yes.
K: Go slow, go slow.
Q3: This is the state of innocence then.
K: I am going to find out. Is it possible for the mind not to be hurt? For you not to be hurt?
Q3: Yes, if I can achieve that state of innocence.
K: No, no, not ‘if’. That is not ‘if’. There is no ‘if’—then it is not possible. I want to find out the state of mind which can never be hurt. Not through escape, through resistance, through building a wall around itself, and that’s all too silly.
Q3: All right. The English language is very terrible in this context, but what I’m trying to say is, my abstract mind is never hurt.
K: Ah, no! Come off it, come off it. [*Laughter*]
Q3: I follow your logic…
K: No, no.
Q3: Is it not an extension of what we are following through if…
K: No, no, there is no abstract mind. I am hurt. I know what…
Q3: What is hurt in me is my wealth, my money, or my wife…
K: I’ve got an image of myself which is hurt. Now, put in a very simple way, I have built an image about myself, and that image has been hurt. Full stop.
Q3: Actually I think I am seeing your point of view which I think for the first time I have understood, I think. Which is, what is hurt is really the image, or the tradition-bound concept of myself that I have, and if you can, of course, think of yourself as…
K; No, no, no, no, no.
Q3: I should… [*Laughter*] Sorry, but it’s a habit of language.
GS: Would you prefer… when he is thinking that way, rather than if, when he is in that state rather than if?
K: Can you be in that state? Not theoretically.
GS: No, but…
K: Actually. Sir, we are discussing facts, not theories. I’m hungry, and you talk about lovely food. I want food, not your description of food. [*Laughter*]
Q1: Can I?
GS: Sure.
Q1: It comes exactly to the point in the previous discussion where you are at the brink of the substance of whatever you were talking—the analyser and the analysed—both are consumed and both are consumed by the envy. How can they transcend? This was where we left off at previous one, and it has come exactly to the same point.
GS: He says we have recognized that analysis has come to the point of seeing that in fact the analyser and the analysed are the same, and one becomes much more realistic, and then says all these intellectual exercises have not rid me of the envy. I am envious
Q1: How to transcend it.
K: Sir, is this an idea or an actuality?
GS: Which? The statement of becoming envious, envy?
K: No. The fact is envy and you say, well I’ve listened to you, and you say the analyser is the analysed, the experiencer is—and that can go on. Or do I see it, sir, the truth of it? You follow? The fact of it, the reality of it and say that is perfectly true. I am the Muslim, and the Muslim is me. Right? Pakistan and the… Either we spin a lot of words, or it is an actuality; then I won’t kill you. We are coming to the same point, sir. We are taking, which is envy, hate and not to be hurt—it is all the same. Can my mind never be hurt? I mean to me that is more than a problem; I must find out. And Dr Sudarshan, may say, ‘Well, I have to find out some theory, and I am working at it. I must put my *guts* into it.’ We sit on the edge of it and say, look, say, ‘Well, let me see what you are talking about.’ I want to find out if my mind can never be hurt, not through escape, not through resistance, not through self-identified glory, some state and all the rest of the illusion. Actually, in daily life, never to be hurt. I know I’ve been hurt, and I know how to cure it. The curing of it is not to have an image about myself, right? I *mean* it—not just words. I have no image of myself: either great, small, petty, big, wide, noble, ignoble—nothing. So I’m finished with it.
Q3: So that you forget hurt that way, but can you not get hurt?
K: Ah, no. I have not forgotten it. You’ve hurt me and the mark remains. Can the mark disappear? Actually disappear? Not verbally disappear but actually disappear. And how is it possible to make it disappear. Not to have an image about myself, whether I am living in a good house, poor house, whether I’m surrounded with friends or no friends—not to have an image. That means…
Q1: (Inaudible)
K: No, sir.
GS: I was going to say something in the same direction but little different. It seems to me that—I don’t know how to say without sounding autobiographical and boastful—but it seems to me, I not only agree, but I can tell this from my own experience.
K: Quite right.
GS: Sometimes I want to talk about it, sometimes I don’t want to talk about it. Sometimes I want to talk about it very rationally, in very detached, scientific imagery, and sometimes I want to talk about it in poetry, sometimes I might use traditional expressions. And it seems to me that there are no big experiences and small experiences, big things and small things. Writing a big treatise and discovering one little formula are both exactly of the same magnitude when you are intent, when you are not comparing with something else.
K: Quite right.
GS: If I were to talk about scientific discoveries with some, if I know them extremely well and they are intimate with me, I might use an imagery which says that this is a blessing.
K: A blessing.
GS: A blessing. This is a gift. In this case I have invoked the goddess of learning or whatever nonsense, I mean, I might use some word or the other.
K: I understand, I understand.
GS: But if I may use the word *Saraswati*, not in terms of somebody who is wandering around, sitting on a lotus, and so on. But I may use the word *Saraswati* and then say that in this particular case, I have invoked Saraswati, I have, you know, performed the rituals, namely, take a piece of paper and scribble on it, doodle on it and scratch my hair, or pull my beard or talk to somebody or smoke or sit up all night or drink—whatever may be necessary. In some other cases it comes without anything. I mean, I might be waiting to catch a taxi, and then in the process of that suddenly something…
K: This is what I want—without that process all the time taking place.
GS: Except that, being a scientist, I don’t really feel that I must only wait for gifts of this kind. K: Ah, I don’t want gifts.
GS: I am free and therefore those times when I want to work, I work. When results come, I may write it on paper or a book, or I may not write. But some other times it comes by itself. So there are cases of…
K: No, I want…
GS: …grace or blessing or deliberate invocation.
K: No, I don’t want deliberate invocation.
GS: Sir, what I really ask you is, why do you say you do not want invocation? It seems to me that I’m free to invoke.
K: Ah no, ah no.
GS: Some days I get up in the morning and I want to sing.
K: No, I don’t want to invoke anything, even Saraswati. [*Laughs*]
GS: Even that I could see. I could see up to that point. But if you tell me, ‘Don’t invoke Saraswati’ or ‘Don’t struggle for this thing’, that seems to me a limitation. If you said, ‘Do work’, that also is a limitation.
K: Yes, yes.
GS: I have for example, now a special gift of my friends which is that I’ve no particular duties when I am in Bangalore. Doesn’t prevent me from working. But on the other hand they don’t say, ‘Don’t work.’
K: Quite, quite.
GS: But you seem to want to share this feeling ‘don’t do it.’ I could leave the question at this level or ask the question at the level at which you took strong exceptions to guides, gurus…
K: Yes, yes.
GS: …philosophers, etc. To me it seems magnificent to be with a guru who can make you feel more of this kind. Magnificent to recite something which would make—since I return to India only periodically I am enchanted with names, I mean, somebody says his name is Rajasekharan, it seems to be beautiful. Other people may not feel the same thing. And I’ve no pity for them, nor I have any envy for them. It seems to me that different people seem to find different modes of expression at different times. I’m myself a different person at different times. In a different company I may not say any of these things.
K: To be one thing all the time—a pear is a pear, a rose is a rose; rose doesn’t become something else.
GS: Why should I be even worried about that?
K: Ah no, no. You’ve stated it, sir. I am not worried about it. I mean, you stated that you are a different person at different times and I said all that is…
GS: No, this is in a historical sense. This is a profane, chronological statement, saying that, ‘Yes, today I am a father, tomorrow I am a son, next day I am a friend and philosopher, the other day I am a scientist.’
K: I know, I know.
GS: And it seems to me that it is essence of freedom to be what I want to be at any time if I want to be.
K: Is that freedom?
Q2: This is the question: must you renounce these things to be spiritual? For example, we were talking about anger. Anger in the sense that if you are a mother it is necessary to socialize the child, to tell the child not to throw rocks at you. Even if you are not angry, you have to show the anger or give him a talking that it is wrong…
K: Beg your pardon, madam?
Q2: I mean, is it not necessary?
K: That is not anger if I talk to the child.
Q2: No, no, but let’s say that I always had reached a stage that nothing hurts me. What would happen to me if I allow the child to beat me from morning till night? I could show him it was wrong by getting angry, isn’t it? I mean, is it, aren’t these envy, anger and so on, if you are role-playing, that’s necessary in order to live in society? Aren’t these socializing things that alter you?
K: But you could… [*Laughs*]
Q2: I mean, in psychiatry, role-playing, isn’t it necessary? Otherwise what is the defence mechanism that makes us be human to one another?
K: I don’t know.
Q2: I mean they are necessary part of ourselves.
GS: You resolved already by interposing two parts of the question. One is, when you show anger, but you are not angry. That of course is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. There is another question implied in her remark that there are times when you get angry with your child, somebody whom you love.
Q2: Isn’t it absolutely necessary to have that ingredient? If that ingredient isn’t there and if you are forced to be in society, role-playing is we are all obliged to do, then how do we socialize one another? How do we alter one another? Otherwise a child would always be a tyrant.
K: How do you socialize?
Q2: One would…
K: Have we socialized each other? Have we…
Q2: I think these mechanisms do help in a way.
K: Have we changed so very much? We are still monkeys, aren’t we?
Q2: We are still monkeys, but actually what is the matter of, you know, there is no doubt that the spirituality that you talk about…
K: I am not talking about…
Q2: No, no, no, but that state of mind, whatever that indefinable, non-verbal ideas that we all understand that we’ve got an image. But all the other aspects that one talks about, you know, the ending anger and so on, aren’t they necessary to be human?
K: Is it human to be angry?
Q2: Yes, it is.
K: Oh, that is all right then.
Q2: I know, I mean to say that this is the way, how would you define that, people interacting with one another in order to be more human, we have certain things that alter each other and socialize each other in the process and that doesn’t mean that we should take advantage of another, you know, or become violent with another. But even non-verbally, facial expressions, you know the anger, discontent…
Q4: No, as I understand it, this is our concept of humanness, which itself is being questioned at the moment. Are we doing what we want to do?
K: I have got this problem.
Q2: What do you do? You renounce moving with others because certainly you have to interact with them if you are human.
Q4: No, no. Is there another pattern of growth right in society, this is what we are investigating rather than a preconceived notion of normality.
Q5: Extending this to something which we were discussing earlier, we were talking about hurt, for example and you asked the question: ‘Is it possible not to be hurt at all?’ Now I would rather say it is good to be hurt. It is better to forget the hurt rather than not to be hurt at all. This is my view.
K: Sir, sir, you both stated just now. We said we are hurt, and also is it possible not to be hurt?
Q5: My answer to the question is no, it is not possible not to be hurt at all.
Q2: You abstract my angers, my husband says, can I be even—which are human self…
GS: There are two statements: one, that it is not possible not to be hurt and, second, it is good to be hurt.
K: Quite.
Q4: Why are you using the word *human being*?
K: Which is the way you are using ‘good to be hurt’? What is ‘good to be hurt’? What is good about being hurt?
Q5: To go through this experience and …
K: But, sir, every child goes through this.
Q5: Every one of us goes through.
K: I know I am questioning that. Why should we be hurt? Why should human beings be hurt?
Q5: Even animals get hurt.
K: Ah, no. It is no good saying even animals. Why should I get hurt?
Q5: Because you are in a society.
K: Is there a way of living which is of not being hurt?
Q5: There is no way.
K: Ah, wait, wait. Then the question is finished. [*Laughter*]
Q5: I am sorry, I am sorry.
K: The question is over. If you say there is no other way, then the door is closed. If I had a son, I want to find out a way of educating, bringing him up, you know, without being hurt because I love him, I have compassion for him, I want him to live a life without a single scratch. Isn’t that more human than getting hurt? If you say, sir, that is not possible, then the thing is over.
Q5: No, no, with due respect I like to say it is not only not possible, but I think it is desirable to go through.
K: To be hurt?
Q5: To be hurt, but not to remember this hurt. It is a part of existence.
Q4: But that’s what we think at the moment.
Q5: Well, it is my view
Q4: Ah, that is quite different.
Q5: In fact, I wouldn’t like to be a human being not hurt at all.
K: Let’s, sir…
Q1: Is it possible to have only positive qualities in a person rather than some negative qualities?
K: Yes.
Q1: Compassion and love, say, if you define as positive qualities.
K: It is very positive, isn’t it, not to be hurt?
Q1: Yes. But is it possible in life to have all the positive qualities, say, have only compassion, love, not to have hate and envy?
K: But we have all that. That is why unfortunately we have too much of that and very little of this.
GS: No, he raises the question, is it at all possible not to be hurt, not to be envious?
K: I am saying that, sir. And that gentleman says it is necessary to be hurt.
Q1: Then how shall we define these positive qualities if we don’t have the negative attributes? If the child is not aware, if he is trained in such a way that he is not…
K: Ah, no.
Q1: …how will he…
K: Sir, is it possible, I am asking, if I had a son, if you have a son, you want to educate him. You know he will get hurt. He’ll get hurt the moment he is in a school, when we say, ‘You are not as good as that boy.’ And it begins there and the tragedy begins right through life. And is it possible? I am suggesting, I am not saying it is or it is not possible to see that the child is not hurt. I know the other way: That is the regular way of living, that we must get hurt, that it is good to be hurt, you will get over it, old boy, but get hurt, be kicked around and bruised and brutalized, but you—and all the rest of it. And I am asking, is there a way of bringing up a child without any hurt? Which is a normal question.
Q2: I think I tried that with my son. I told him always to be verbal because that’s what made us human, rather than physical, you know, fighting. I also told him that he belonged to himself and that he should never compete with other children and that insults, you know, for example people would call him bad names and he didn’t know that the names were bad, but they were arbitrary. All right? But you know, finally one day he came to me and he said, ‘You know, mummy, I talk so much that I can feel good’.
K: That’s what we are talking about.
Q2: How can you do it?
K: You never give me a chance. [*Laughs*] Sir, I call you a fool. Can you listen to me without getting hurt? I mean, listen carefully. And I *mean* it. I want to hurt you because you hurt me in a different way and I want to retaliate, and you don’t know I want to retaliate and I am full of venom and I call you something and you are hurt, aren’t you? Now, can you prevent it? Prevent, in the sense, never *receive* the hurt?
Q3: I would like to know.
K: No, no, wait, I will show you. Sir, for God’s sake, you keep on…
Q3: Yes.
K: Is that possible? Q3: Possible not to receive the hurt at all?
K: At all. All that implies self-knowledge: that you must know yourself very well. Right, sir? Which means you must *be* very, you know all your reactions, the quickness of them—of everything inside you, all that. Which means great awareness, isn’t it? Attending. Now when you are attending, when I call you a fool, does it take root?
Q3: No, no.
K: That’s all.
Q3: I got it.
K: Wait, wait. You accept it as a theory.
Q3: No, I accept it in practice.
K: Yes. Not practice. You *see* it. Therefore you won’t be hurt.
Q1: Could you amplify it, sir? Could you say it more clearly?
K: Sir, I was saying, sir, to me it is very important not to be hurt because then I am a healthy person, I am a whole person, because if I have a lot of hurts. *I* can’t, it is like a bruised animal; it is never a whole animal, not a healthy, sane animal. So I want to find a way of living never to be hurt by *anything* that happens. Not that I am selfish, you understand?—all that. So to do that, I see I must know myself a great deal, I must learn about myself. Right, sir? That means I must be aware of myself. You know what I mean by awareness, in the sense, a choiceless observation of myself: my thoughts, feelings, which can be done very quickly and all that business. Then in that state of attention, he calls me a liar, whatever it is. And I listen. I am fully attentive; I am not half-asleep. It’s only when I’m inattentive that I’m hurt.
Q1: It does mean that I should be aware without creating an image of myself.
K: That is right, sir.
Q3: How does one reach this realm?
K: You can’t reach it.
Q3: How does one achieve it, or how does one have it? Instantaneous?
K: I’ll show you. You have it when you want pleasure, don’t you?
[Tape ends abruptly]
Participants: Prof. S.P. Sinha, Prof. Ramamurti, Mrs. Monique Ramamurti, Prof. Seshachar, Mrs. Gadgil, Prof. Sudarshan, Dr. Mukunda.