I think the human brain is not a particular brain; it doesn’t belong to me, or to anyone else. It is the human brain which has evolved over millions of years. And in that evolution it has gathered tremendous experience, knowledge and all the cruelties, vulgarities and brutalities of selfishness. Is there a possibility of its sloughing off all this, and becoming something else? Because apparently it is functioning in patterns. Whether it is a religious pattern, a scientific, a business, or a family pattern, it is always operating, functioning in a very small narrow circle. Those circles are clashing against each other, and there seems to be no end to this. So what will break down this forming of patterns, so that there is no falling into other new patterns, but breaking down the whole system of patterns, whether pleasant or unpleasant? After all, the brain has had many shocks, challenges and pressures upon it, and if it is not capable of renewing or rejuvenating itself, there is very little hope. You follow?
David Bohm: You see, one difficulty might present itself. If you are thinking of the brain
structure, we cannot get into the structure physically.
K: Physically we cannot. I know, we have discussed this. So what is it to do? The brain specialists can look at it, take the dead brain of a human being and examine it, but it doesn’t solve the problem. Right?
DB: No.
K: So what is a human being to do, knowing it cannot be changed from outside? The scientist, the brain specialist and the neurologist explain various things but their explanations, their investigations, are not going to solve this.
DB: Well, there is no evidence that they can.
K: No evidence.
DB: Some people who do biofeedback think that they can influence the brain, connecting an instrument to the electrical potentials in the skull and being able to look at them; you can also change your heartbeat and blood pressure and other things. These people have raised the hope that something could be done.
K: But they are not succeeding.
DB: They are not getting very far.
K: And we can’t wait for these scientists and biofeedbackers – sorry! – to solve the problem. So what shall we do?
DB: The next question is whether the brain can be aware of its own structure.
K: Can the brain be aware of its own movement? And can the brain not only be aware of its own movement, but itself have enough energy to break all patterns and move out of them?
DB: You have to ask to what extent the brain is free to break out of patterns.
K: What do you mean?
DB: Well, you see, if you begin by saying that the brain is caught in a pattern, it may not be.
K: Apparently it is caught.
DB: As far as we can see. It may not be free to break out. It may not have the power.
K: That is what I have said: not enough energy, not enough power.
DB: Yes, it may not be able to take the action needed to get out.
K: So it has become its own prisoner. Then what?
DB: Then that is the end.
K: Is that the end?
DB: If that is true, then that is the end. If the brain cannot break out, then perhaps people would choose to try some other way to solve the problem.
G. Narayan: When we speak of the brain, in one sense it is connected to the senses and the nervous system; the feedback is there. Is there another instrument to which the brain is connected which has a different effect on the brain?
K: What do you mean by that? Some other factor?
N: Some other factor in the human system itself. Because, obviously, through the senses the brain does get nourishment, but still that is not enough. Is there some other internal factor which gives energy to the brain?
K: You see, I want to discuss this. The brain is constantly occupied with various problems, with holding on, attachment, and so on. It is constantly in a state of occupation. That may be the central factor. And, if it is not in occupation, does it go sluggish? If it is not occupied, can it maintain the energy that is required to break down the patterns?
DB: Now, the first point is that if the brain is not occupied, somebody might think that it would just take things easy.
K: Become lazy and all that! I don’t mean that.
DB: If you mean not occupied, but still active…
K: Of course. I mean that.
DB: Then we have to go into what is the nature of the activity.
K: Yes. This brain is so occupied with conflicts, struggles, attachments, fears and pleasures. And this occupation gives to the brain its own energy. If it is not occupied, will it become lazy, drugged, and so lose its elasticity, as it were? Or will that unoccupied state give the brain the required energy to break the patterns?
DB: What makes you say this might happen? We were discussing the other day that when the brain is kept busy with intellectual activity and thought, it does not decay and shrink.
K: As long as it is thinking, moving, living.
DB: Thinking in a rational way; then it remains strong.
K: Yes. That is what I want to get at too. Which is, as long as it is functioning, moving, thinking rationally…
DB: …it remains strong. If it starts irrational movement, then it breaks down. Also if it gets caught in a routine it begins to die.
K: That’s it. If the brain is caught in any routine – the meditation routine, or the routine of the priests.
DB: Or the daily life of the farmer…
K: …the farmer, and so on, it must gradually become dull.
DB: Not only that, but it seems to shrink physically.
K: Yes.
DB: Perhaps some of the cells die.
K: It shrinks physically, and the opposite to that is the eternal occupation with business – by anyone who does a routine job… thinking, thinking, thinking! And we believe that that also prevents shrinking.
DB: Surely experience seems to show that it does, from measurements that have been made.
K: Yes, it does. That’s it.
DB: The brain starts to shrink at a certain age. That is what they have discovered, and just as when the body is not being used the muscles begin to lose their flexibility…
K: So, take lots of exercise!
DB: Well, they say exercise the body and exercise the brain.
K: Yes. If it is caught in any pattern, any routine, any directive, it must shrink.
DB: Could we go into what makes it shrink?
K: That is fairly simple. It is repetition.
DB: Repetition is mechanical, and doesn’t really use the full capacity of the brain.
K: One has noticed that people who have spent years and years in meditation are the dullest people on earth. Also with lawyers and professors there is ample evidence of that.
N: It is suggested that rational thinking postpones senility. But rational thinking itself can sometimes become a pattern.
DB: It might. Rational thinking pursued in a narrow area might become part of the pattern too.
K: Of course, of course.
DB: But is there some other way?
K: We will go into that.
DB: But let’s clear up things about the body first. You see, if somebody does a lot of exercise for the body, it remains strong, but it can become mechanical.
K: Yes.
DB: And therefore it would have a bad effect.
N: What about the various traditional religious instruments – yoga, tantra, kundalini, and others?
K: I know. Oh, they must shrink! Because of what is happening. Take yoga for example. It used not to be vulgarized, if I may use that word. It was kept strictly to the very few, who were not concerned about kundalini and all that, but who were concerned with leading a moral, ethical, so-called spiritual life. You see, I want to get at the root of this.
DB: I think there is something related to this. It seems that before man was organized into society, he was living close to nature, and it was not possible to live in a routine.
K: No, it was not.
DB: But it was completely insecure.
K: So are we saying that the brain itself becomes extraordinarily alive – is not caught in a pattern – if it lives in a state of uncertainty? Without becoming neurotic?
DB: I think that is more clear when you say not becoming neurotic – otherwise uncertainty becomes a form of neurosis. But I would rather that the brain lives without having certainty, without demanding it, without demanding certain knowledge.
K: So are we saying that knowledge also withers the brain?
DB: Yes, when it is repetitious and becomes mechanical.
K: But knowledge itself?
DB: Well, we have to be very careful there. I think that knowledge has a tendency to become mechanical. That is, it gets fixed, but we could always be learning, you see.
K: But learning from a centre, learning as an accumulative process!
DB: Learning with something fixed. You see, we learn something as fixed, and then you learn from there. If we were to be learning without holding anything permanently fixed…
K: Learning and not adding. Can we do that?
DB: Yes, I think to a certain extent we have to drop our knowledge. You see, knowledge may be valid up to a point, and then it ceases to be valid. It gets in the way. You could say that our civilization is collapsing because of too much knowledge.
K: Of course.
DB: We don’t discard what is in the way.
N: Many forms of knowledge are additive. Unless you know the previous thing, you can’t do the next thing. Would you say that kind of knowledge is repetitive?
DB: No. As long as you are learning. But if you hold some principle, or the centre, fixed, and say it cannot change, then that knowledge becomes mechanical. But, for example, suppose you have to make a living. People must organize society, and so on, and they need knowledge.
K: But there we add more and more.
DB: That’s right. We may also get rid of some.
K: Of course.
DB: Some gets in the way, you see. It is continually moving there.
K: Yes, but I am asking, apart from that, about knowledge itself.
DB: Do you mean knowledge without this content?
K: Yes; the knowing mind.
DB: Which merely wants knowledge, is that what you are saying? Knowledge for its own sake?
K: Yes. I want to question the whole idea of having knowledge.
DB: But again, it is not too clear, because we accept that we need some knowledge.
K: Of course, at a certain level.
DB: So it is not clear what kind of knowledge it is that you are questioning.
K: I am questioning the experience that leaves knowledge, that leaves a mark.
DB: Yes, but what kind of mark? A psychological mark?
K: Psychological, of course.
DB: You are questioning this, rather than knowledge of technique and matter, and so on. But you see, when you use the word knowledge by itself, it tends to include the whole.
K: We have said that knowledge at a certain level is essential; there you can add and take away and keep on changing. But I am questioning whether psychological knowledge is not in itself a factor of the shrinking of the brain.
DB: What do you mean by psychological knowledge? Knowledge about the mind, knowledge about myself?
K: Yes. Knowledge about myself, and living in that knowledge, and accumulating that knowledge.
DB: So if you keep on accumulating knowledge about yourself or about relationships…
K: …yes, about relationships. That’s it. Would you say such knowledge helps the brain, or makes the brain somewhat inactive, makes it shrink?
DB: Brings it into a rut.
K: Yes.
DB: But one should see what it is about this knowledge that makes so much trouble.
K: What is this knowledge that makes so much trouble? In relationship, that knowledge creates trouble.
DB: Yes, it gets in the way because it fixes.
K: If I have an image about someone, that knowledge is obviously going to impede our relationship. It becomes a pattern.
DB: Yes, the knowledge about myself and about him and how we are related makes a pattern.
K: And therefore that becomes a routine and so it loses its energy.
DB: Yes, and it occurred to me that routine in that area is more dangerous than routine in, say, the area of daily work.
K: That’s right.
DB: And if routine in ordinary work can shrink the brain, then in that area it might do some worse thing, because it has a bigger effect.
K: Can the brain, in psychological matters, be entirely free from this kind of knowledge? Look! I am a businessman, and get into the car, bus, taxi or tube train, and I am thinking about what I am going to do, whom I am going to meet in connection with business. My mind is all the time living in that area. Then I come home; There is my wife and children; sex and all that. That also becomes a psychological knowledge from which I am acting. So there is the knowledge of my business, and also the knowledge with regard to my wife and my reactions in relationship. These two are in contradiction, unless I am unaware of them, and just carry on. If I am aware of these two, it
becomes a disturbing factor.
DB: Also people find that this is a routine. They get bored with it, and they begin to…
K: …divorce, and then the whole circus begins!
DB: They may hope that by becoming occupied with something else they will get out of their boredom.
K: Yes, by going to church, and so on. Any escape is an occupation. So I am asking whether this psychological knowledge is a factor of shrinkage of the brain.
DB: Well, it could be a factor.
K: It is.
DB: If knowledge of your profession or skill can be a factor, then this psychological knowledge is stronger.
K: Of course. Much stronger.
N: When you say psychological knowledge you are making a distinction between psychological knowledge and, let us say, scientific knowledge or factual knowledge?
K: Of course, we have said that.
N: But I am a little wary of the claim that scientific knowledge and other types of factual knowledge help to extend the brain, to make it bigger. That in itself doesn’t lead anywhere. Though it postpones senility.
K: Dr Bohm makes this very clear. Rational thinking becomes merely routine; I think logically, and
therefore I have learned the trick of that, but I keep on repeating it.
N: That is what happens in most forms of rational thinking.
K: Of course.
DB: I think that there is a dependence on being continuously faced with unexpected problems.
K: Of course.
DB: You see, lawyers may feel that their brains will last longer, because they are presented with constantly different problems, and therefore they cannot think entirely according to routine!
K: But, just a minute! They may have different clients with different problems, but they are acting from fixed knowledge.
DB: They would say not entirely, they have got to find new facts, and so on.
K: They are not functioning entirely in routine but the basis is knowledge – precedents and book knowledge and experience with various clients.
DB: But then you would have to say that some other more subtle degeneration of the brain takes place, not merely shrinkage.
K: That’s right. That’s what I want to get at.
DB: You see, when a baby is born, the brain cells have very few cross connections; these gradually increase in number, and then, as a person approaches senility, they begin to go back. So the quality of those cross-connections could be wrong. If, for example, we repeated them too often, they would get too fixed.
N: Are all the brain functions confined to rational forms, or are there some functions which have a different quality?
DB: Well, it is known that a large part of the brain deals with movement of the body, with muscles, with various organs and so on, and this part does not shrink with age, although the part that deals with rational thought, if it is not used, does shrink. Then there may be other functions that are totally unknown; that is, very little is actually known about the brain.
K: What we are saying is that we are only using one part of the brain. There is only partial activity, partial occupation, either rational or irrational. But as long as the brain is occupied it must be in that limited area. Would you say that?
DB: Then what will happen when it is not occupied? We can say that it may tend to spend most of the time occupied in the limited set of functions which are mechanical, and that this will produce some subtle degeneration of the brain tissue, since anything like that will affect the brain tissue.
K: Are we saying that senility is the result of a mechanical way of living? Of mechanical
knowledge, so that the brain has no freedom, no space?
DB: That is the suggestion. It is not necessarily accepted by all the people who work on the brain. They have shown that the brain cells start to die around the age of thirty or forty at a steady rate, but this may be a factor. I don’t think their measurements are so good that they can test effectively how the brain is used. You see, they are merely rough measurements, made statistically. But you want to propose that this death or degeneration of the brain cells comes from the wrong way of using the brain?
K: That’s right. That is what I am trying to get at.
DB: Yes, and there is a little bit of evidence from the scientists, although I think that they don’t know very much about it.
K: You see, scientists, brain specialists, are, if I may put it simply, examining things outside, but not taking themselves as guinea pigs, and going into that.
DB: Mostly, you see, except for those who do biofeedback, they are trying to work on themselves in a very indirect way.
K: Yes, but I feel we haven’t time for all that.
DB: It is too slow, and it isn’t very deep.
K: So let’s come back to the realization that any activity which is repeated, which is directed in the narrow sense, any method, any routine, logical or illogical, does affect the brain. We have understood that very clearly. Knowledge at a certain level is essential, but psychological knowledge about oneself, one’s experiences, and so on, becomes routine. The images I have about myself also obviously become routine, and all that helps to bring about a shrinkage of the brain. I have understood all that very clearly. And any kind of occupation, apart from the mechanical… no, not mechanical…
DB: …physical.
K: …apart from physical occupation, the occupation with oneself brings about shrinkage of the brain. Now, how is this process to stop? And if it does stop, will there be a renewal?
DB: I think that some brain scientists would doubt that the brain cells could be renewed, and I don’t know that there is any proof one way or the other.
K: I think they can be renewed. That is what I want to get at.
DB: So we have to discuss that.
N: Are you implying that mind is different from the brain, that mind is distinct from the brain?
K: Not quite.
DB: You have spoken of universal mind.
N: Mind, in the sense that one has access to this mind, and it is not the brain. Do you consider that a possibility?
K: I don’t quite follow this. I would say that the mind is all-inclusive. When it is all-inclusive, of brain, emotions – all that; when it is totally whole, not divisive in itself, there is a quality which is universal. Right?
N: One has access to it?
K: Not ‘one’: no, you can’t reach it. You can’t say, I have access to it.
N: I am only saying access. One doesn’t possess it, but…
K: You can’t possess the sky!
N: No, my point is, is there a way of being open to it and is there a function of the mind through which the whole of it can become accessible through education?
K: I think there is. We may come to that presently if we can stick to this point. We are asking now if the brain can renew itself, rejuvenate, become young again without any shrinkage at all. I think it can. I want to open a new chapter and discuss this. Psychologically, knowledge that man has acquired is crippling it. The Freudians, the Jungians, the latest psychologist, the latest psychotherapist, are all helping to make the brain shrink. Sorry! I don’t mean to give offence…
N: Is there a way of forgetting this knowledge then?
K: No, no. Not forgetting. I see what psychological knowledge is doing and I see the waste; I see what is taking place if I follow that line. It is obvious. So I don’t follow that avenue at all. I discard analysis altogether. That is a pattern we have learnt, not only from the recent psychologists and psychotherapists but also through the tradition of a million years of analysis, of introspection, or of saying, ‘I must’, and ‘I must not’, ‘This is right and that is wrong’. You know, the whole process. I personally don’t do it, and so I reject that whole method.
We are coming to a point, which is direct perception and immediate action. Our perception is generally directed by knowledge, by the past, which is knowledge perceiving, and with action arising, acting from that. This is a factor of shrinking of the brain, of senility.
Is there a perception which is not time-binding? And so action which is immediate? Am I making myself clear? That is, as long as the brain, which has evolved through time, is still living in a pattern of time, it is becoming senile. If we could break that pattern of time, the brain has broken out of its pattern, and therefore something else takes place.
N: How does the brain break out of the pattern of time?
K: We will come to that, but first let’s see if we agree.
DB: Well, you are saying that the brain is the pattern of time, and perhaps this should be clarified. I think that what you mean by analysis is some sort of process based on past knowledge, which organizes our perception, and in which we take a series of steps to try to accumulate knowledge about the whole thing. And now you say that this is a pattern of time, and we have to break out of it.
K: If we agree that this is so, the brain is functioning in a pattern of time.
DB: Then we have to ask, what other pattern is possible?
K: But wait…
DB: What other movement is possible?
K: No. First let’s understand this, not merely verbally, but let’s actually see that it is happening. That our action, our way of living, our whole thinking, is bound by time, or comes with the knowledge of time.
DB: Certainly our thinking about ourselves, any attempt to analyse ourselves, to think about ourselves, involves this process.
K: This process, which is of time. Right?
N: That is a difficulty: when you say knowledge and experience, they are a certain cohesive energy or force that binds you.
K: Which means what? Time-binding!
N: Time-binding and…
K: …and therefore the pattern of centuries, of millennia, is being repeated.
N: Yes. But I am saying that this has a certain cohesive force.
K: Of course, of course. All illusions have an extraordinary vitality.
N: Very few break through.
K: Look at all the churches and what immense vitality they have.
N: No, apart from these churches, in one’s personal life it has a certain cohesive force that keeps one back. One can’t break away from it.
K: What do you mean, it keeps you back?
N: It has a magnetic attraction; it sort of pulls you back. You can’t free yourself of it unless you have some instrument with which you can act.
K: We are going to find out if there is a different approach to the problem.
DB: When you say, a different instrument, that is not clear. The whole notion of an instrument involves time, because if you use any instrument, it is a process which you plan.
K: Time; that’s just it.
N: I use the word instrument in the sense of effective.
K: It has not been effective. On the contrary, it is destructive. So do I see the very truth of its destructiveness? Not just the theory, the idea, but the actuality of it. If I do, then what takes place? The brain has evolved through time, and has been functioning, living, acting, believing in that time process. But when one realizes that all this helps to make the brain senile, when one sees that as true then what is the next step?
N: Are you implying that the very seeing that it is destructive is a releasing factor?
K: Yes.
N: And there is no need for an extra instrument?
K: No. Don’t use the word instrument. There is no other factor. We are concerned to end this shrinkage and senility, and asking whether the brain itself, the cells, the whole thing, can move out of time. I am not talking about immortality, and all that kind of stuff! Can the brain move out of time altogether? Otherwise deterioration, shrinkage and senility are inevitable, and even when senility may not show, the brain cells are becoming weaker, and so on.
N: If the brain cells are material and physical, somehow or other they have to shrink through time; indeed it can’t be helped. The brain cell, which is tissue, cannot in physical terms be immortal.
DB: perhaps the rate of shrinkage would be greatly slowed down. If a person lives a certain number of years, and his brain begins to shrink long before he dies, then he becomes senile. Now, if the deterioration would slow then…
K: …not only slow down, sir.
DB: …well, regenerate…
K: …be in a state of non-occupation.
DB: I think Narayan is saying that it is impossible for any material system to last forever.
K: I am not talking about lasting forever – though I am not sure if it can’t last forever! No, this is very serious, I am not pulling anybody’s leg.
DB: If all the cells were to regenerate in the body and in the brain, then the whole thing could go on indefinitely.
K: Look, we are now destroying the body, through drink, smoking, overindulgence in sex and all kinds of things. We are living most unhealthily. Right? If the body were in excellent health, maintained right through – which means no heightened emotions, no strain on, no sense of deterioration of the body, the heart functioning normally – then why not!
DB: Well…
K: …which means what? No travelling, and all the rest of it….
DB: No excitement.
K: If the body remains in one quiet place, I am sure it can last a great many more years than it does now.
DB: Yes, I think that is true. There have been many cases of people living for a hundred and fifty years in quiet places. I think that is all you are talking about. You are not really suggesting something lasting forever?
K: The body can be kept healthy, and since the body affects the mind, nerves, senses and all that, they also can be kept healthy.
DB: And if the brain is kept in the right action…
K: …yes, without any strain.
DB: You see, the brain has a tremendous effect on organizing the body. The pituitary gland controls the entire system of the body glands; also all the organs or the body are controlled by the brain. When the brain deteriorates, the body starts to deteriorate.
K: Of course.
DB: They work together.
K: They go together. So can this brain – which is not ‘my’ brain – which has evolved through millions of years, which has had all kinds of destructive or pleasant experiences…
DB: You mean it is a typical brain, not a particular brain, peculiar to some individual? When you say ‘not mine’, you mean any brain belonging to mankind, right?
K: Any brain.
DB: They are all basically similar.
K: Similar: that is what I said. Can that brain be free of all this? Of time? I think it can.
DB: Perhaps we could discuss what it means to be free of time. You see, at first the
suggestion that the brain be free of time might sound crazy, but, obviously, we all know that you don’t mean that the clock stops.
K: Science fiction and all that!
DB: The point is, what does it really mean to be psychologically free of time?
K: That there is no tomorrow.
DB: But we know there is tomorrow.
K: But psychologically…
DB: Can you describe better, what you mean when you say ‘no tomorrow’?
K: What does it mean to be living in time? Let’s take the other side first, because then we come to the other. What does it mean to live in time? Hope; thinking and living in the past, and acting from the knowledge of the past; images, illusions, prejudices – they are all an outcome of the past. All that is time, and that is producing chaos in the world.
DB: Well, suppose we say that if we are not living psychologically in time, we may still order our actions by the watch. The thing that is puzzling is if somebody says, ‘I am not living in time, but I must keep an appointment’. You see?
K: Of course; you can’t sit here forever.
DB: So you say, I am looking at the watch, but I am not psychologically extending how I am going to feel in the next hour, when I have fulfilment of desire or whatever.
K: I am just saying that the way we are living now is in the field of time. And there we have brought all kinds of problems and suffering. Is that right?
DB: Yes, but it should be made clear why this necessarily produces suffering. You are saying that if you live in the field of time suffering is inevitable.
K: Inevitable.
DB: Why?
K: It is simple. Time has built the ego, the ‘me’, the image of me sustained by society, by parents, by education, which has built it through millions of years. All that is the result of time. And from there I act.
N: Yes.
DB: Towards the future psychologically; that is, towards some future state of being.
K: Yes. Which means that the centre is always becoming.
DB: Trying to become better.
K: Better, nobler, or anything else. So all that, the constant endeavour to become something psychologically is a factor of time.
DB: Are you saying that the endeavour to become produces suffering?
K: Obviously. It is simple. All that is divisive. It divides me from others, and so you are different from me. And when I depend on somebody, and that somebody is gone, I feel lonely and miserable. All that goes on. So we are saying that any factor of division, which is the very nature of the self, must inevitably cause suffering.
DB: Are you saying that through time the self is set up, and then the self introduces division and conflict and so on? But that if there were no psychological time, then perhaps this entire structure would collapse, and something entirely different would happen?
K: That’s it. That is what I am saying. And therefore the brain itself has broken down.
DB: Well, that is the next step – to say that the brain has broken out of that rut, and perhaps could then regenerate. It doesn’t follow logically, but still it could be so.
K: I think it does follow logically.
DB: Well, it follows logically that it would stop degenerating.
K: Yes.
DB: And are you adding further that it would start to regenerate?
K: You look sceptical.
N: Yes, because the whole human predicament is bound to time.
K: We know that.
N: Society, individuals, the whole structure.
K: I know, I know.
N: It is so forceful that anything feeble doesn’t work here.
K: What do you mean – ‘feeble’?
N: The force of this is so great that what has to break through must have greater energy.
K: Yes.
N: And no individual seems to be able to generate sufficient energy to be able to break through.
K: But you have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, if I may point out. When you use the word individual, you have moved away from the fact that our brain is universal.
N: Yes, I admit that.
K: There is no individuality.
N: That brain is conditioned this way.
K: Yes, we have been through all that. It is conditioned this way through time. Time is conditioning – right? It is not that time has created the conditioning, time itself is the factor of conditioning. So can that time element not exist? We are talking about psychological time, not the ordinary physical time. I say it can. We have said that the ending of suffering comes about when the self, which is built up through time, is no longer there. A man who is actually going through agony might reject this, is bound to. But when he comes out of the shock of it, if somebody points out to him what is happening, and if he is willing to listen, to see the rationality, the sanity of it, and not to build a wall against it, he is out of that field. The brain is out of that time-binding quality.
N: Temporarily.
K: Ah! There again when you use the word temporary, it means time.
N: No, I mean that the man slips back into time.
K: No, he can’t. He can’t go back if he sees that something is dangerous, like a cobra, or any other danger, he cannot go back to it.
N: That analogy is a bit difficult, because the structure itself is that danger. One inadvertently slips into it.
K: Look, Narayan, when you see a dangerous animal, there is immediate action. It may be the result of past knowledge and experience, but there is immediate action for self-protection. But psychologically we are aware of the dangers. If we become as aware of these dangers as we are aware of physical dangers, there is an action which is not time-binding.
DB: Yes, I think you could say that as long as you could perceive this danger, you know you would respond immediately. But you see, if you were to use that analogy of the animal, it might be an animal that you realize is dangerous, but it might take another form that you don’t see as dangerous!
K: Yes.
DB: Therefore there would be a danger of slipping back if you didn’t see that this time illusion might come in some other form.
K: Of course.
DB: But I think the major point you are making is that the brain does not belong to any individual.
K: Yes, absolutely.
DB: And therefore it is no use saying that the individual slips back.
K: No.
DB: Because that already denies what you are saying. The danger is rather that the brain might slip back.
K: The brain itself might slip back, because it has not seen the danger.
DB: It hasn’t seen the other forms of the illusions.
K: The Holy Ghost taking different shapes! Time is the real root of this.
DB: Time, and separation as individuality, are basically the same structure.
K: Of course.
DB: Although it is not obvious in the beginning.
K: I wonder if we see that.
DB: It might be worth discussing this. Why is psychological time the same illusion, the same structure as individuality? Individuality is the sense of being a person who is located here somewhere.
K: Located and divided.
DB: Divided from the others. He extends out to some periphery; his domain extends out to some periphery, and also he has an identity which extends over time. He wouldn’t regard himself as an individual if he said ‘Today I am one person, tomorrow I am another’. So it seems that we mean by “individual” somebody who is in time.
K: I think that this idea of individuality is such a fallacy.
DB: Yes, but many people may find it very hard to be convinced that it is a fallacy. There is a common feeling that, as an individual, I have existed at least from my birth, if not before, and go on to death, and perhaps later. The whole idea of being an individual is to be in time. Right?
K: Obviously.
DB: To be in psychological time, not just the time of the clock.
K: Yes, we are saying that. So can that illusion that time has created individuality be broken? Can this brain understand that?
DB: I think that, as Narayan said, there is a great momentum in any brain, which keeps rolling, moving along.
K: Can that momentum stop?
N: The difficulty comes here. The genetic coding is intrinsic to a person. You seem to function more or less unconsciously, driven by this past momentum. And suddenly you see, like a flash, something true. But the difficulty is that it may operate only for a day – and then you are again caught in the old momentum.
K: I know that. But I say the brain will not be caught. Once the mind or the brain is aware of this fact, it cannot go back. How can it?
N: There must be another way of preventing it from going back.
K: Not preventing: that also means time. You are still thinking in terms of prevention.
N: Prevention, in the sense of a human factor.
K: The human being is irrational. Right? And as long as he is functioning irrationally, he says of any rational factor, ‘I refuse to see it’.
N: You are suggesting that the very seeing prevents you from slipping back. This is a human condition.
DB: I wonder if we should go further into this question about prevention. It may be important.
N: There are two aspects. You see the fallacy of something, and the very seeing prevents you from slipping back, because you see the danger of it.
DB: In another sense you say you have no temptation to slip back, therefore you don’t have to be prevented. If you really see it, there is no need for conscious prevention.
N: Then you are not tempted to go back.
K: I can’t go back. If for example I see the fallacy of all the religious nonsense, it is finished!
DB: The only question which I raise is that you may not see this so completely in another form.
N: It may come in different shapes…
DB: …and then you are tempted once again.
K: The mind is aware; it is not caught. But you are saying that it is.
N: Yes, in other shapes and forms.
K: Wait, Sir. We have said that perception is out of time, is seeing immediately the whole nature of time. Which, to use a good old word, is to have an insight into the nature of time. If there is that insight, the very brain cells, which are part of time, break down. The brains cells bring about a change in themselves. You may disagree, you may say, ‘prove it.’ I say this is not a matter of proof, it is a matter of action. Do it, find out, test it.
N: You were also saying the other day, that when the consciousness is empty of its content…
K: …the content being time…
N: …that leads to the transformation of the brain cells.
K: Yes.
N: When you say consciousness is empty of the content there…
K: …there is no consciousness as we know it.
N: Yes. And you are using the word insight. What is the connection between the two?
DB: Between what?
N: Consciousness and insight. You have suggested that when consciousness is empty of its content…
K: Be careful. Consciousness is put together by its content. The content is the result of time.
DB: The content also is time.
K: Of course.
DB: It is about time as well, and it is actually put together by time, also it is about time.
K: Now, if you have an insight into that, the whole pattern is gone, broken. The insight is not of time, not of memory, is not of knowledge.
N: Who has this insight?
K: Not ‘who’. Simply, there is an insight.
N: There is an insight and then the consciousness is empty of its content…
K: No, sir. No.
N: You are implying that the very emptying of the content is insight?
K: No, we are saying time is a factor which has made up the content. It has built it up, and it also thinks about it. All that bundle is the result of time. Insight into this whole movement, which is not ‘my’ insight, brings about transformation in the brain. Because that insight is not time-binding.
DB: Are you saying that this psychological content is a certain structure, physically, in the brain? That in order for this psychological content to exist, the brain over many years has made many connections of the cells, which constitute this content?
K: Quite, quite.
DB: And then there is a flash of insight, which sees all this, and that it is not necessary. Therefore all this begins to dissipate. And when it has dissipated, there is no content. Then, whatever the brain does is something different.
K: Let us go further. Then there is total emptiness.
DB: Well, emptiness of that content. But when you say total emptiness, you mean emptiness of all this inward content?
K: That’s right. And that emptiness has tremendous energy. It is energy.
DB: So could you say that the brain, having had all these connections tangled, has locked up a lot of energy?
K: That’s right. Wastage of energy.
DB: And when they begin to dissipate, that energy is there.
K: Yes.
DB: Would you say that it is as much physical energy as any other kind?
K: Of course. Now, we can go on in more detail, but is this principle, the root of it, an idea or a fact? I hear all this physically with the ear, but I may make it into an idea. If I hear it, not only with the ear, but in my being, in the very structure of myself, what happens then? If that kind of hearing doesn’t take place, all this becomes merely an idea, and I spin along for the rest of my life playing with ideas. Now, we, more or less, are ‘a captive audience’ here. But if there was a scientist here, biofeedback or another brain specialist, would he accept all this? Would he even listen to it?
DB: A few scientists would, but obviously the majority would not.
K: No. So how do we touch the human brain?
DB: You see, all this will sound rather abstract, to most scientists. They will say, it could be so; it is a nice theory, but we have no proof of it.
K: Of course.
DB: They would say it doesn’t excite them very much because they don’t see any proof. They would say, if you have some more evidence we will come back later, and become very interested. And you can’t give any proof because whatever is happening, nobody can see with their eyes.
K: I understand. But I am asking: what shall we do? The human brain – not ‘my’ brain or ‘your’, the brain – has evolved through a million years. One ‘biological freak’ can move out of it, but how do you get at the human mind generally to make it see all this?
DB: I think you have to communicate the necessity, the inevitability of what you are saying. If a person sees something and you explain it to him, and he sees it happening before his eyes he says, ‘That’s so.’
K: But it requires somebody to listen, somebody who says, ‘I want to capture it, I want to understand this, I want to find out.’ You follow what I am saying? Apparently that is one of the most difficult things in life.
DB: Well, it is the function of this occupied brain – that it is occupied with itself and it doesn’t listen.
N: In fact one of the things is that this occupation starts very early. When you are young it is very powerful, and it continues all through your life. How can we, through education, make this clear?
K: The moment you see the importance of not being occupied – see that as a tremendous truth – you will find ways and methods to help educationally, creatively. No one can be told, copy, and imitate, for then he is lost.
DB: Then the question is how is it possible to communicate to the brain which rejects, which doesn’t listen? Is there a way?
K: Not if I refuse to listen. You see, I think meditation is a great factor in all this. I feel we have been meditating, although ordinarily people wouldn’t accept this as meditation.
DB: They have used the word so often…
K: …that its meaning is really lost. But true meditation is this: the emptying of consciousness. You follow?
DB: Yes, but let’s be clear. Earlier you said it would happen through insight. Now are you saying that meditation is conducive to insight?
K: Meditation is insight.
DB: It is insight already. Then is it some sort of work you do? Insight is usually thought of as the flash, but meditation is more constant.
K: We must be careful. What do we mean by meditation? We can reject the systems, methods, acknowledged authorities, Zen, Tibetan, Hindu, Buddhist, because this is obviously mere tradition, repetition and time-binding nonsense.
N: Do you think some of them could have been original, could have had original insight, in the past?
K: If they had they wouldn’t belong to Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism. They wouldn’t be anything. I mean, who knows? Now meditation is this penetration, is this sense of moving without any past.
DB: The only point to clear up is that when you use the word meditation, you mean something more than insight, you see.
K: Much more. Insight has freed the brain from the past, from time. That is an enormous
statement…
DB: Do you mean that you have to have insight if you are going to meditate?
K: Yes, that’s right. To meditate without any sense of becoming.
DB: You cannot meditate without insight. You can’t regard it as a procedure by which you will come to insight.
K: No, that immediately implies time. A procedure, a system, a method, in order to have insight is nonsensical. Insight into greed or fear frees the mind from them. Then meditation has quite a different quality. It has nothing to do with all the gurus’ meditations. So could we say that to have insight there must be silence?
DB: Well, that is the same; we seem to be going in a circle.
K: For the moment.
DB: My mind has silence.
K: So: the silence of insight has cleansed, purged, all that.
DB: All that structure of the occupation.
K: Yes. So, meditation, what is it? There is no movement as we know it; no movement of time.
DB: Is there movement of some other kind?
K: I don’t see how we can measure that by words, that sense of a limitless state.
DB: But you were saying earlier that nevertheless it is necessary to find some language, even though it is unsayable!
K: Yes – we will find that language.
K: I understand. No, love cannot act on hate.
DB: Right. They have no relationship. But perhaps insight could, you see.
K: We have to be quite clear on this point. Violence, and being without violence, are two entirely different factors. One cannot act upon the other.
DB: In that case you could say that the existence of the one is the non-existence of the other, and there is no way in which they can act together.
K: That’s right.
DB: They cannot be there together.
K: Absolutely. I’ll stick to that. So when this material process is in action, the other cannot exist.
DB: What is ‘the other’ this time? Insight?
K: Yes.
DB: That denies what we were saying before; that there is an action from insight on the material process.
K: Now, steady, yes. Where there is violence the other – I hate to use the word ‘non-violence’ – is not.
DB: Peace, or harmony?
K: Where there is violence, peace cannot exist. But where there is peace, is there violence? No, of course not. So peace is independent of violence.
Q: You have said many, many times that intelligence can act upon thought; insight can affect thought, but it doesn’t work the other way round. You have given many examples of this.
K: Intelligence can wipe away ignorance, but ignorance cannot touch intelligence – right? Where there is love, hate can never exist. Can love wipe away hate?
DB: We said that this doesn’t seem to be possible, because hate appears to be an independent force.
K: Of course it is.
DB: It has its own momentum, you see, its own force, its own movement.
Q: I don’t quite get this relationship of love and hate with the earlier discussion of insight.
DB: There seem to be two different areas.
Q: Thought is a movement, and insight seems to be non-movement, where everything seemingly is at rest, and it can observe movement.
DB: That is what we are trying to get at, the notion of something which is not affected by anything else.
Q: Aren’t you then saying, in looking at love and hate, that there is good and there is evil, and that evil is a completely separate, independent force?
DB: Well, it is independent of good.
Q: But is the process in the mind, or is it related to insight?
DB: We are coming to that.
Q: Take light and darkness. Light appears, and the darkness is gone.
DB: Good and evil; love and hate; light and darkness – when one is, the other can’t be, you see. That is all we are saying so far.
Q: Do you mean, in a single brain?
DB: In any brain, yes, or in any group, or anywhere. Whenever there is hate going on in a group, there is not love.
K: Something has just come to my mind. Love has no cause. Hate has a cause. Insight has no cause. The material process, as thought, has a cause. Right?
DB: Yes, it is part of the chain of cause and effect.
K: Can that which has no cause ever act upon that which has a cause?
DB: It might. We can see no reason why that which has no cause might not act on something that has a cause. There is no obvious reason. It won’t happen the other way round. What has a cause cannot act on that, which has no cause, because that would invalidate it.
K: That’s right. But apparently the action of insight has an extraordinary effect on the material process.
DB: It may for example wipe out some causes.
K: As insight is causeless, it has a definite effect on that which has cause.
DB: Well, it doesn’t necessarily follow, but it is possible.
K: No, no, I don’t say it is possible.
DB: I am saying we haven’t quite seen why it is necessary. There is no contradiction when we say the word possible.
K: All right, I see. As long as we are clear on the word possible. We must be careful. Love is without cause, and hate has a cause. The two cannot co-exist.
DB: Yes. That is true. That is why there is a difference between love and insight. That is why it doesn’t follow necessarily that if something has no cause it will act on something that has a cause. That is what I was trying to say.
K: I just want to explore a little more. Is love insight?
DB: As far as we can see it is not the same. Love and insight are not identical, are they? Not exactly the same thing.
K: Why?
DB: Insight may be love, but, you see, insight also occurs in a flash.
K: It is a flash of course. And that flash alters the whole pattern, operates on it, uses the pattern, in the sense that I argue, reason, use logic, and all that. I don’t know if I am making myself clear?
DB: I think that once the flash has operated, the pattern is different, and would therefore be more rational. The flash may make logic possible, because you may have been confused before the flash.
K: Yes, yes! Aristotle may have come to all this by logic.
DB: Well, he may have had some insight! We don’t know.
K: We don’t know, but I am questioning it.
DB: We really don’t know how his mind operated because there are only a few books that have survived.
K: Would you say by reading some of those books that he had insight?
DB: I haven’t really read Aristotle directly; very few people have because it is hard. Most people read what other people have said about Aristotle. A few phrases of his are common, like ‘the unmoved mover’. And he has said some things which suggest that he was quite intelligent, at least.
K: What I am trying to say is that insight is never partial; I am talking of total, not partial, insight.
Q: Krishnaji, could you explain that a little? What do you mean by ‘not partial’ insight?
K: An artist can have a partial insight. A scientist can have a partial insight. But we are talking about total insight.
I: You see the artist is also a human being, so…
K: But his capture of insight is partial.
Q: It is directed to some form of art. So you mean that it illuminates a limited area, or subject. Is that what you mean by partial insight?
K: Yes.
Q: Then what would be total insight? What would it encompass?
K: The total human activity.
DB: That is one point. But earlier on, we were asking whether this insight would illuminate the brain, the activity of the brain. In that illumination, it seems that the material activity of the brain will change. Would that be correct? We must get this point clear, then we can raise the question of totality. Are we saying that insight is an energy which illuminates the activity of the brain? And that in this illumination, the brain itself begins to act differently.
K: You are quite right. That’s all. That is what takes place. Yes.
DB: We say the source of this illumination is not in the material process; it has no cause.
K: No cause.
DB: But it is a real energy.
K: It is pure energy. Is there action without cause?
DB: Yes, without time. Cause implies time.
K: That is, this flash has altered completely the pattern which the material process has set.
DB: Could you say that the material process generally operates in a kind of darkness, and therefore it has set itself on a wrong path?
K: In darkness, yes. That is clear. The material process acts in ignorance, in darkness. And this flash of insight enlightens the whole field, which means that ignorance and darkness have been dispelled. I will hold to that.
DB: You could say, then, that darkness and light cannot co-exist for obvious reasons. Nevertheless the very existence of light is to change the process of darkness.
K: Quite right.
Q: But what contributes the flash?
K: We haven’t come to that yet. I want to go step by step into this. What has happened is that the material process has worked in darkness, and has brought about confusion, and all the mess that exists in the world. But this flash of insight wipes away the darkness. Which means that the material process is not then working in darkness.
DB: Right. But now let’s make another point clear. When the flash has gone, the light continues.
K: The light is there, the flash is the light.
DB: At a certain moment the flash is immediate, but then, as you work from there, there is still light.
K: Why do you differentiate flash from light?
DB: Simply because the word ‘flash’ suggests something that happens in one moment.
K: Yes.
DB: You see, we are saying that insight would only last in that moment.
K: We must go slowly.
DB: Well, it is a matter of language.
K: Is it merely a matter of language?
DB: Perhaps not, but if you use the word ‘flash’, there is the analogy of lightning, giving light for a moment, but then the next moment you are in darkness, until there is a further flash of lightning.
K: It is not like that.
DB: So what is it? Is it that the light suddenly turns on, and stays on?
K: No. Because when we say ‘stays on’ or ‘goes off’, we are thinking in terms of time.
DB: We have to clear this up, because it is the question everybody will put.
K: The material process is working in darkness, in time, in knowledge, in ignorance and so on. When insight takes place there is the dispelling of that darkness. That is all we are saying. Insight dispels that darkness. And thought, which is the material process, no longer works in darkness. Therefore that light has altered – no, it has ended – ignorance.
DB: So we say that this darkness is really something which is built into the content of thought.
K: The content is darkness.
DB: That’s right. Then that light has dispelled that ignorance.
K: That’s right. Dispelled the content.
DB: But still we have to be very careful, in case we still have content in the usually accepted sense of the word; you know, all kinds of things.
K: Of course.
DB: So we can’t say that the light has dispelled all the content.
K: It has dispelled the centre of darkness.
DB: Yes, the source, the creator of darkness.
K: The self Right? It has dispelled the centre of darkness which is the self.
DB: We could say that the self, which is part of the content – that part of the content which is the centre of darkness, which creates it and maintains it – is dispelled.
K: Yes, I hold to that.
DB: We see now that this means a physical change in the brain cells. That centre, that content which is the centre, is a certain set, form, disposition of all the brain calls, and it in some way alters.
K: Obviously! You see, this has enormous significance, in our relationship with our society, in everything. Now the next question is, how does this flash come about? Let’s begin the other way round. How does love come about? How does peace come about? Peace is causeless, violence has cause. How does that causeless thing come about when my whole life is causation? There is no ‘how’ – right? The ‘how’ implies a cause, so there is no ‘how’.
Q: Are you saying that since it is without cause, it is something that just exists.?
K: No, I don’t say that it exists. That is a dangerous statement.
Q: It has to exist at some point.
K: No. The moment you say it exists, it is not.
DB: You see, the danger is that it is part of the content.
K: The question you put was about a mutation in the brain calls. That question has been put after a series of discussions. And we have come to a point when we say that the flash, that light, has no cause; that the light operates on that which has cause, which is the darkness. That darkness exists as long as the self is there, it is the originator of that darkness, but light dispels the very centre of darkness. That’s all. We have come to that point. And therefore there is a mutation. Then I say that the question of how do I get this flash of insight, how does it happen, is a wrong question. There is no ‘how’.
Q: There is no ‘how’, but there is darkness and there is light.
K: Just see first there is no ‘how’. If you show me how, you are back into the darkness. Right?
DB: Yes.
K: It is a tremendous thing to understand that. I am asking something else, which is, why is it that we have no insight at all? Why is it that this insight doesn’t start from our childhood?
DB: Well, the way life is lived…
K: No, I want to find out. Is it because of our education? Our society? I don’t believe it is all that. You follow?
DB: What do you say then?
K: Is it some other factor? I am groping after this. Why don’t we have it? It seems so natural.
DB: At first, one would say something is interfering with it.
K: But it seems so natural. For ‘X’, it is quite natural. Why isn’t it natural for everyone? Why isn’t it possible? If we talk about blockages, education, etc., which are all in the realm of causation, then to remove the blockages implies another cause. So we keep on rolling in that direction. There is something unnatural about all this.
Q: If you would say that there are blocks…
K: I don’t want to use that; it is the language of the darkness.
Q: Then you could say that the blocks prevent the insight from acting.
K: Of course. But I want to move away from these blockages.
DB: Not exactly blockages, but we used the words ‘centre of darkness’, which we say is maintaining darkness.
K: Why isn’t it natural for everybody to have this insight?
DB: That is the question.
K: Why is love not natural to everybody? Am I putting the question clearly?
DB: I think, to make it more clear, some people might feel that it is natural to everybody, but being treated in a certain way they gradually get caught in hate.
K: I don’t believe that.
DB: Then you would have to suppose that the young child meeting hate would not respond with hate.
K: Yes, that’s right.
DB: Most people would say that it is natural for the young child meeting hate to respond with hate.
K: Yes, this morning I heard that. Then I asked myself why? Now just a minute. ‘X’ has been put under all these circumstances, which could have produced blockages, but ‘X’ wasn’t touched by them. So why is it not possible for everybody?
DB: We should make it clear why we say it would be natural not to respond to hate with hate.
K: All right. Limit it to that.
DB: Even when one hasn’t thought about it. You know, the child is not able to think about all this. Some people would say it is instinct, the animal instinct…
K: …which is to hate…
DB: …well, to fight back.
K: To fight back.
DB: The animal will respond with love, if you treat him with love, but if you treat the animal with hate he is going to fight back.
K: Of course.
DB: He will become vicious.
K: Yes.
DB: Now some people would say that the human being in the beginning is like that animal, and later he can understand.
K: Of course. That is, the human being’s origins were with the animal, and the animal, the ape or the wolf…
DB: …the wolf will respond with love too.
K: And we are saying, why…
DB: Look, almost everybody feels that what I said is true, that when we are very young children, we are like the animal. Now you are asking, why don’t all young children immediately fail to respond to hate with hate?
K: That means, is it the fault of the parents?
DB: What you are implying is that it is not entirely that. There must be something deeper.
K: Yes, I think there is something quite different. I want to capture that.
DB: This is something that would be important.
K: How do we find out? Let’s have an insight! I feel that there is something totally different. We are attacking it from a causational point of view. Would it be right to say that the beginning of man is not animal?
DB: Well, that is not clear. The present theory of evolution is that there have been apes, developing; you can follow the line where they become more and more like human beings. Now when you say that the beginning of man is not animal, it is not clear.
K: If the beginning of man is the animal, therefore that instinct is natural and then it is highly cultivated.
DB: Yes, that instinct is cause and effect.
K: Cause and effect, and it becomes natural. But someone comes along and asks ‘Is it?’
DB: Let’s try to get this clear.
K: I mean, scientists and historians have said that man began from the ape, and that, as all animals respond to love and to hate, we as human beings respond instantly to hate by hate.
DB: And vice versa, to love by love.
K: At the beginning there were a few people who never responded to hate, because they had love. Those people implanted this thing in the human mind. Right? That where love is, hate is not. And that has also been part of our inheritance. Why have we cultivated the response of hate to hate? Why haven’t we cultivated the other? Or is the other – love – something that cannot be cultivated?
DB: It is not causal. Cultivation depends on a cause.
K: On thought. So why have we lost the other? We have cultivated very carefully, by thought, the concept of meeting hate by hate, violence by violence, and so on. Why haven’t we moved along with the other line? With love, that is causeless? You follow my question?
DB: Yes.
K: Is this a futile question?
DB: One doesn’t see any way of proceeding.
K: I am not trying to proceed.
DB: We have to understand what made people respond to hate with hate…
K: …To ‘X’, the other seems so natural. So if that is so natural to him, why isn’t it natural to everyone else? It must be natural to others!
You know this ancient idea, which is probably in existence in the Jewish and in the Indian religions, and so on, that the manifestation of the highest takes place, occasionally. That seems too easy an explanation. Has mankind moved in the wrong direction? Have we taken a wrong turn?
DB: Yes, we have discussed this before, that there has been a wrong turning.
K: To respond to hate by hate, violence by violence, etc.
DB: And to give supreme value to knowledge.
Q: Wouldn’t another factor also be the attempt to cultivate the idea of love? The purpose of the religions has been to produce love, and better human beings.
K: Don’t go into all that. Love has no cause, it is not cultivatable. Full stop.
Q: Yes, but the mind doesn’t see that.
K: But we have explained all that. I want to find out why, if it is natural to ‘X’, it isn’t natural to others. I think this is a valid question.
DB: Another point is to say that you could see that the response of hate to hate makes no sense anyway. So why do we go on with it? Because many believe in that moment that they are protecting themselves with hate, but it is no protection.
K: But to go back to that question: I think it is valid. ‘X’ is without cause, ‘Y’ is caught in cause. Why? You understand? Is it the privilege of the few? The elite? No, no. Let’s look at it another way. The mind of humanity has been responding to hate with hate, violence by violence, and knowledge by knowledge. But ‘X’ is part of humanity, and he does not respond to hate by hate, like ‘Y’ and ‘Z’! They are part of ‘X’s’ consciousness, part of all that.
DB: Why is there this difference?
K: That is what I am asking. One is natural, the other is unnatural. Why? Why the difference? Who is asking this question? The people, ‘Y’ and ‘Z’, who respond to hate by hate, are they asking the question? Or is ‘X’ asking the question?
Q: It would seem that ‘X’ is asking this question.
DB: Yes, but you see we were also just saying that they are not different. We say they are different, but also that they are not different.
K: Of course. They are not different.
DB: There is one mind.
K: That’s it, one mind.
DB: Yes, and how does it come that another part of this one mind says no?
K: That’s the whole thing. How does it come about that one part of the mind says we are different from another? Of course, there are all kinds of explanations, and I am left with the fact that ‘A’ ‘B’ and ‘C’ are different from ‘X’ ‘Y’ and ‘Z’. And those are facts – right?
Q: They appear to be different.
K: Oh, no.
Q: They are actually different.
K: Absolutely; not just apparently.
DB: I think the question we want to come back to is, why do the people who cultivate hate say that they are different from those who don’t?
K: Do they say that?
DB: I think they do, in so far as they would admit that if there was anybody who didn’t cultivate hate, they must be different.
K: Yes, that is clear – light and darkness, and so on. But I want to find out if we are moving in the right direction. That is, ‘X’ has given me that gift, and I have not carried that gift. You follow what I mean? I have cultivated one response, but not carried this. Why? If a father has responded to hate by hate, why has the son not responded in the same way?
DB: I think it is a question of insight.
K: Which means that the son had insight right from the beginning. You follow what I am saying? Right from childhood, which means what?
DB: What?
K: I don’t want to enter into this dangerous field yet!
DB: What is it? Perhaps you want to leave that.
K: There is some factor that is missing. I want to capture it. You see, if that is an exception, then it is silly.
DB: All right. Then we agree that the thing is dormant in all human beings; is that what you want to say?
K: I am not quite sure that is what I want to say.
DB: But I meant that the factor is there in all mankind.
K: That is a dangerous statement too.
DB: That is What you were saying.
K: I know, but I am questioning. When I am quite sure, I will tell you.
DB: All right. We tried this, and we can say it seems promising but it is a bit dangerous. This possibility is there in all mankind, and in so far as some people have seen it.
K: Which means God is in you?
DB: No, it is just that the possibility of insight is there.
K: Yes, partly. I am questioning all this. The father responds to hate by hate; the son doesn’t.
DB: That happens from time to time.
K: No, consistently from the beginning – why?
DB: It must depend on insight, which shows the futility of hate.
K: Why did that man have it?
DB: Yes, why?
K: And why if this seems so terribly natural to him, is it not natural to everybody? As water is natural to everybody.
DB: Well, why isn’t insight present for everybody from the beginning?
K: Yes, that is what I am asking.
DB: So strongly that even maltreatment cannot affect it.
K: Nothing can affect it, that is my point. Maltreatment, beating, being put into all kinds of dreadful situations hasn’t affected it. Why? We are coming to something.