Public Talk 4, Bombay, 5 March 1950

5.3.50. LECTURE

6.5p.m. to 7.50 p.m.

Unless we understand the whole problem of effort, I am afraid the question of action will not be completely understood. Most of us live in a series of efforts, striving to achieve a result, striving either for general welfare, general good, general upliftment or for personal advancement, personal achievement; effort is ultimately, is it not, a process of ambition, collective or individual, and ambition seems to drive most of us into political activity, social and religious advancement; for most of us ambition seems to be the goal, the way of living, and when that ambition is thwarted, there is frustration, there is sorrow, there are series of escapes from the pursuit. Effort ultimately implies, does it not, not only the personal advancement, but also social, political advancement, and if we do not succeed in worldly matters we turn our ambition to so-called spiritual matters; if I do not become somebody in this world, I want to become somebody in the next world, only that is considered spiritual, that is considered more worthy, more praiseworthy, more spiritual, more indicative, more significant; the ambition in any direction is still ambition, by whatever name we may like to call it; and ambition implies, does it not, the accumulation, capacity and the technique and efficiency, which means really, power to do good, the power to be able to speak, the power to write, to think clearly, the desire for power is the way of effort and does power, the search for power, indicate creation, or creativeness? Does creativeness come into being through effort, through advancement, personal or collective? Does creativeness come into being through accumulation of capacity, which is ultimately power, efficiency?

Until we understand the question of creation, creativeness, that sense of “being” ingrained, that sense of being, there is conflict. If we can understand that question of creation then perhaps we shall be able to understand how to act without increasing the problems through action, and to understand that state of creation surely we must understand the process of effort. Where there is effort, obviously there cannot be understanding. Understanding only comes when the whole process, the whole mechanism of striving to be or not to be, to advance or not to advance, comes into being. It is only the imitator that really makes an effort. The man who has disciplined his mind according to a certain pattern, obviously he is an imitator, copyist, and he must make an effort to conform to the pattern, and the conformity to pattern he calls living, however subtle, however hidden and widely existent, and effort in which imitation, copy is obviously not creation and with most of us being caught in imitation we have lost the feeling for creation and having lost it we get more and more entangled in the technique of making effort, more and more perfect, which is to become more and more efficient, more and more technically capable without having the flame, and the search for the efficiency in action without the flame is the curse of the present age; because most of us are concerned with action which will bring about a revolution, but that action is merely the result of a copy and therefore it is invaded in effort and therefore there is no action and it is only surely our problem, sociological, individual, collective or what you will, religious — it can only be solved when we understand the whole process, the mechanism, of effort which is implied in meditation and this question of ambition, which is search for power, efficiency, domination; till we understand the whole process of that and we utterly free, there cannot be action, and it is only the creative man that can solve these problems, not the man who is merely copying a pattern, however efficient, however worthy and the search for the pattern is not the search for creation, the search for a pattern is not the search for true revolution; so as long as we do not understand the process of effort in which is implied power, imitation, ambition, there cannot be creation and creative man is the happy man and it is the happy man that is virtuous man, and the happy man is really creative social entity who will bring about a revolution.

There are several questions. To most of us, problems of life are not very serious, we want readymade answers. We do not want to delve into the problem, to think it out completely, fully, and understand the whole significance of it. We are required to be told the answers and the more acceptable the answer the more quickly we will take it, and if we were made to think about it, if we have to go into the problem, our minds rebel because we are not used to question, enquire, go into the problem; and in answering these questions if we merely wait for a readymade answer, I am afraid you will be disappointed. But if we can go into the question together, think out the problem anew, not along old patterns, then perhaps we shall be able to solve the many problems that confront us, which we are unwilling to look at. We have to look at them, that is, the capacity to face the fact and we cannot face the fact, whatever it be, as long as we have explanations, as long as words fill our minds, and it is the words, the explanations, the memories that cloud the understanding of the fact, because the fact is always new — must be new — because the fact is the challenge and the challenge is not new when we consider it merely as the old and discard. So in answering these questions, you and I, I hope, will think out the problem together. I am not laying down the answer. We think out the problem together and discover the truth of the problem.

QUESTIONER: You seem to be preaching something very akin to the teachings of the Upanishads; why are you then upset if someone quotes from sacred books? Do you want to suggest that you are expounding something no one ever has said before? Does the quotation from another person interfere with the peculiar technique of hypnotising which you are employing?

KRISHNAJI: Why do we quote and why do we compare? Either you quote because you say by quoting I can compare and understand. Or you quote because you are nothing else in your mind but quotation(laughter). Do not laugh, Sirs, you see the truth of the matter. A gramophone record repeating what someone else has said. Has that any validity in the search of truth? By quoting someone, Upanishads, does not matter what book, no book is sacred I assure you, it is only printed words on a paper. It is how you regard the newspaper, so is so-called Upanishad. There is nothing sacred in either. Now you quote because you think by quoting you will understand what I am talking about, that is, by comparing. Do we understand anything through comparison? Or does understanding come only when you deal directly with whatever is said? And by saying that Upanishads have said it or someone else has said it, what is actually taking place in your psychological process? By saying that someone else has said it, you do not have to think any more about it. Have you? You think you have understood Upanishad and when you compare it, that is, what I am saying, you hold it and you say it is just like that and you think of some of the problems, which is by comparing you have really sought a state in which you will not be disturbed, because after all when you have read Upanishad you think you have understood it, and you have settled back in your life and you can keep on repeating it; it will have no effect on your daily life, and you keep on reading Bhagavad-Gita and you are perfectly safe, you are very respectable; you can carry on with daily life, which is monstrously ugly and stupid and someone else comes along and says: look, and says something, and you immediately compare it to what you have read and you think you have understood, which is really you do not want to be disturbed, and therefore you compare end that is what I object to. I do not know what I am saying, whether it is new or old, whether someone else has said it or not; I am not interested in it, but what I am really interested in is to find out the truth of the matter of every problem, not according to the Upanishad or through Bhagavad-Gita or Bible or Shankara. I am not really interested; it is stupid to consider what others have said when you are seeking the truth of a problem.

Sir, this is not a political meeting and the question really, fundamentally, is do we understand anything from comparison? Do you understand life by having your mind full with the sayings of others or following the experience, knowledge of others, or does the understanding come only when the mind is enquiring and seeking, or is still — not made still by dullness, but through enquiry, through search, through exploration, inevitably the mind becomes quiet and then the problem gives a full significance and the understanding of the significance of the problem can only come when the mind is quiet, not when you are constantly comparing, quoting, judging or weighing. Surely, Sir, the man of knowledge, the scholar can never know the truth; on the contrary, knowledge and erudition must come to an end, the mind must be simple to understand truth, not filled with the rings of knowledge of others or of its own, restlessness. Look, if you had no books of any kind, so-called religious, so-called sacred books, what would you do? You have to find truth if you are interested in it at all, are you not? You have to search in your hearts, you have to search out the sacred placed in your mind; you have to look yourself, you have to search out the way, understanding the way your mind is working, because the mind is the only instrument that you have, and if you do not understand that instrument, to go beyond the mind you have to first understand the mind. Surely, sir, those who wrote first the sacred books they could not have been copyists, could they? They won’t quote somebody else, and we are quoting because our hearts are empty, we are dry, we have nothing in us, and we make lot of noise and that we call wisdom. And with that knowledge we went to transform the world and make more noise, and that is why it is important for the mind, which really wants to bring about the fundamental revolution must be free from copy, from imitation from patterns.

Now, does the quotation from another person interfere with the peculiar technique of hypnotism which you are employing?

Am I hypnotising you? Don’t answer me, because the hypnotised man does not know he is being hypnotised. The problem is not I am hypnotising you but why are you listening to me? If you are listening merely to find another substitution, another leader, another picture to worship and put flowers on, then it will be utterly useless because your walls are filled in with pictures; you have got enough images and if you are listening to find gratification in whatsoever said you will be hypnotised; as long as you are seeking gratification, then you will find the means that will gratify you and therefore you are hypnotised, and most of us are hypnotised; those who believe in nationalism are hypnotised, those who believe in certain beliefs as God, re-incarnation or what you will, they are hypnotised by words, by pictures, and they like to be hypnotised, mesmerised, either by another or by themselves; because in that state they can remain undisturbed and as long as you are seeking a state in which you will have no disturbance which you call “peace” of mind, then you will find methods, means, Gurus, anyone that will give you what you want. That state is hypnosis. Surely that is not what is taking piece here? Actually I am not telling you anything. On the contrary, I am saying, I say wake up from your hypnosis, whether you are hypnotised by your Upanishads or by the latest Gurus, be free of them. Look at your own problems, the nearest problems of the truth, not the farthest, and understand relationship, society. Surely that is not to hypnotise you, on the contrary to bring you down to facts, to make you see the facts and the avoidance of the fact, the escape from the fact is the process of hypnosis, which the newspapers, the sacred books, the Gurus, temples, the words, repetition of chants is helping; until we face the fact — and the fact is not something very extraordinary — the fact that you are exploiting, the fact that you are responsible for the mess of the world, not some economic maladjustment responsible, but you are responsible, which is the fact and which you are unwilling to look at, and as long as you do not want to look at it you will be hypnotised, not by me, by your own desire, which seeks a way of not being disturbed, of walking along the usual path, of becoming respectable. Sir, the respectable man is the hypnotised man, the so-called religious man is hypnotised man, because his ultimate escape is in belief, and that belief is invariably gratifying; it is never disturbing you, otherwise you would not believe. So is desire for comforts, for security, for gratification, which is all a state of non-disturbance, either creates the entity outside me which hypnotises me, or is our own desire for security, hypnotises me. But to understand truth, mind must be free. Freedom is something not to be achieved ultimately. It must be at the beginning and because we do not want to be free at the beginning, to be free at the beginning means inward revolution, a drastic perception of the facts all the time, which means constant awareness, alertness of the mind and because we do not want to be that we find usual way of escape, either in social actions or personal ambitions, and the mind which is caught in social activity is much more hypnotised than the mind which is merely self-enclosed in its personal misery; both are hypnotised by their own want, by their own desires, and the mind can only be free from its own self-hypnosis, only when you understand the whole total process of yourself; therefore, self-knowledge is the beginning of freedom and without self-knowledge you are perpetually in a state of happiness.

QUESTIONER: You are preaching a kind of philosophical anarchism which is being the favourite escape of all highbrows, intellectuals; will not a community always need some form of regulation and authority; what social order can express the values you are upholding?

KRISHNAJI: Sir, when life is very difficult, when problems are increasing we either escape through the intellect or through mysticism. We know the escape through the intellect, rationalisation, more and more cunning devices, more and more technique, more and more economical responses to life, all cunning, very subtle intellectually. The escape through the book, through mind, through rationalisation, through book, mysticism, through an established idea, thinking that it is not of the mind and worshipping the idea, idea being the image, the symbol, the entity or what you will, but both the intellectual as well as the mystic are the products of the mind. Only one whom we call the intellectual highbrow, and the other we may despise as a mystic and it is the fashion now to despise the mystic. Kick him out. But both are through the mind, because the intellectual may be able to talk, express himself quite clearly, withdraws himself into his own ideas and lives there quietly, disregarding society and pursues his own illusions which are born of the mind; I do not think there is any difference between the two, because they are illusions of the mind and either highbrow or lowbrow has no answer, nor the mystic who escapes, withdraws from the world, neither the commissar or the yogi have an answer, and as you and I or or ordinary common people, without being highbrow or mystical, you and I have to solve this problem by not escaping either through rationalisation or through vague terms and getting hypnotised by words, methods of your own self-projection; but what I am saying is “what you are the world is,” so without your understanding yourself what you create will always be in confusion and misery, but the understanding yourself is not a process through which you have to go in order to act, the understanding yourself is in the very acting which is in relationship; you must first understand yourself and then you act; action is relationship in which you understand of self; action is the knowledge you see yourself clearly if you will, but if you wait to become perfect, to understand yourself in order to understand, that waiting is dying. But most of us have been active and that activity has left us empty, dry, and we are waiting before we can act further because once we are bitten, we say we won’t act till I understand. The waiting to understand is the process of death, but if you understand the whole problem of action, which does not demand waiting, if you understand from moment to moment the process of action, which is living, then what you are doing is acting, it is the action, it is not separate from living; living is action, living is relationship and because we do not understand relationship, because we avoid relationship, because we are caught in the word, not in the act of relationship, but in the word of relationship, the word has mesmerised us into the action that leads us to chaos and misery. Will not a community always need some form of regulation and authority? Obviously, as long as community is based on violence; our present social structure is, is it not, based on violence, on intolerance, because the community is you and another in relation? Is not your relationship based on violence, are you not ultimately out for yourself, either as a commissar or as a yogi? Yogi wants his salvation first and the commissar wants his salvation first; only he calls you by different names. Is not our present relationship based on violence, violence being the process of self-enclosing, isolation? Is not that your daily action, a process of isolation, and as each one is isolating there must be authority to bring about cohesion, either cohesion of the state or the cohesion of religions, fear, and we have been held so far through fear of religion or through fear of government and a man who understands relationship, whose life is not based on violence, he has no need for authority. The man who needs authority is the stupid man. The violent men is the unhappy man, which is you and I. We need authority, you need authority, otherwise you would think you are lost; that is why you and I have all the religions, beliefs; that is why you have innumerable illusions, leaders, political as well as religious, because in moments of confusion you produce the leader and that leader you follow. That leader is the outcome of your confusion and so obviously the leader must himself be confused, so your authority is necessary as long as you are in your relationship, producing conflict, misery, violence. What social order can express the values you are upholding? Sir, do you understand what values I am upholding? At least those few who have listened with serious intention. Am I upholding anything?

I am not giving you a new set of values for an old set of values, I am not giving you a substitution; I say, look at the very things that you hold, examine them, search out the truth, and the values that you establish will create the new society. It is for you to find out the values, the truth of each problem, not for somebody else to establish, someone else would draw a blueprint and those few of you follow blindly not knowing what it is all about. Surely, that is not what we are talking about. What I am saying is very clear and simple, if you would follow it. Society is the product of your own projection. Society is your projection, world’s problem is your problem, and to understand that problem you have to understand yourself and you can understand yourself in relationship and not in escapes. Therefore, your escapes through religion, through knowledge, have no validity, have no significance, as long as you are not altered fundamentally your relationship with another, and because you are unwilling, because that means trouble, that means disturbance, revolution, because you are unwilling to do it but you speak about highbrow, intellectual, mystic and all the rest of the nonsense. Sir, it is not a society, society is not established by another. Society is established, a new order is established by you. A revolution based on an idea is not a revolution at all. Real revolution comes from within, and that revolution is not the outcome of some escape; it comes when you understand your relationship, your daily activities, the way you are acting, the way you are thinking, the way you are talking, your attitude, to your neighbour, to your wife, to your husband, to your children.

Without understanding that, whatever you do, however far you may escape, it will only produce more misery, more wars, more destruction.

QUESTION: Prayer is the only expression of every human heart, it is the cry of the heart for unity; all schools of Bhaktimarga are based on the instinctive bend for devotion, why do you brush it aside as a thing of the mind?

KRISHNAJI: Most of us pray, all of you know it, either in a temple or in your private room or quietly in your own heart. When do you pray? Surely when you are in trouble, are you not? Surely, when you are faced with a difficulty, when you are in sorrow, when there is no one to help your difficulty. When you are unhappy, confused, disturbed, you want someone to help you out of it, so you pray. It is the cry of every human being to find someone to help out of our misery, so generally prayer is a petition, is it not? A supplication, to someone outside yourself, a separate entity, outside yourself who will help you and to be united with that entity; now, Sirs, most of you obviously pray in some way or another. So try to understand what you are talking about; do not resist, first find out; I am not mesmerising you, I am trying to tell you that to resist something new is not to understand. Do not say I am condemning it, I think it is futile, but there may be a different approach to the problem. Prayer is a supplication, a petition, an appeal to something outside of yourself. Unless you follow this little too closely I am afraid you won’t understand what is going to come out of it. Is there something beyond ourselves? Do not quote Upanishad or Marx, because quotation has no meaning. The Upanishad may say that there is something beyond yourself or the Marxist may say there is nothing beyond yourself, but both of them may be wrong, but you have to find the truth of it, and to find out the truth of it you have to examine the process of yourself in prayer. So you have to understand yourself, why you pray, not if there is an answer to prayer, we will find out how the answer comes presently; whether it is outside entity, whether you pray for it, it is taken for granted that you pray for another, an entity which is superior, which is something beyond yourself, but before we go into that surely we must find out why we pray. What is the process of prayer? We pray obviously, first, because we are confused; happy man does not pay, does he? A man with joy, with delight, he does not pray; the man that is in sorrow, the man that is faced with difficulty, who is in confusion, in pain, he prays. And his prayer is either for the clarify of his confusion or some demand, some supplication which he needs; there is urgency. So a man who is confused prays, a man in misery, a man in travail prays, and what happens when he prays? Have you noticed yourself praying; you take a certain posture, either kneel or sit quiet, you take a certain physical posture, don’t you? Or while you are walking your mind is thinking about, praying, what happens in that process? Please follow it, you will see it, what happens in that process; when you kneel, when you sit quietly your mind is repeating certain words, certain phrases, Christian phrases or Sanskrit phrases, the repetition of certain phrases makes the mind quiet, does it not? You understand, you try it you will see, keep on repeating certain words, certain phrases, obviously your mind must become quiet, at least the superficial, the upper layers of the mind are made quiet through constant repetition of phrases, so the upper layers of mind become still, which is a form of hypnosis. It is not realistic, it is made still. Now next thing, what happens when the upper kind, superficial mind, is quiet, what happens? Obviously the deeper layers of the mind give their intimation, do not they? Because our life is merely on the superficial level, all the deeper levels of consciousness, the racial accumulations, the individual experiences, the past memories, knowledge, all it is there; and our daily life, our daily activities are merely on the surface of the mind, and most of us are not concerned at all about the deeper levels; we are only concerned with it when we are disturbed or occasionally when there is a remembrance, a dream. So the deeper level, layers of consciousness, obviously there are always, and they are always acting, waiting, watching and that the superficial mind through its own troubles, necessities, worries, has become somewhat quiet or made quiet, naturally the inward intimation, the inward memories give their intimations and these intimations we call the Voice of God, but is it a voice of God, is it something beyond yourself? And when these intimations come, obviously they must be also the result of a collective or individual experience. So when the racial memory responds, it is little more alert, wiser than the superficial mind and it is from yourself, not from outside. The collective memories, the collective instincts, the collective idiosyncrasies, responses, all that project into the quiet mind, the hint, it is still from the whole entity, from the whole process of consciousness. It is not beyond consciousness; that is why your prayers are answered. Prayers are answered from the collective, from yourself; collective is yourself, collective is part of yourself and the prayer and the response to the prayer, to the conscious must be satisfactory, otherwise you will never accept, because I am convinced I pray; I want a way out of the difficulty and the way out of difficulty must be gratifying, must be satisfying, otherwise I will never accept it; somehow my prayers are always answered, according to my gratifications.

AUDIENCE: Loudspeaker has failed sir?

KRISHNAJI: Alright? Our prayers, which are supplications, are responded, have an answer from our deeper self, nothing beyond ourselves. The question then is, is there something beyond ourselves? That requires quite a different way of thinking, not through prayer, not through meditation, not through quotation, but through understanding the whole process of consciousness, which is the understanding the mind; the mind can project and what it projects is not beyond the field of thought. So as long as the mind projects, as long as the mind projects is active projection, it cannot find, if there is nothing beyond itself. Obviously, but to find if there is something beyond itself the mind must cease to project, which is as long as thought continues, whatever it can think of, it is still in the field of thought, whether that be conscious or unconscious. What the mind can project is not outside the field of itself, and to find out if there is something beyond the mind, the mind as thought must come to an end. Otherwise any activity, movement, on the part of the mind is still its own projection. Therefore it can never find what is beyond itself. So what is beyond the mind can only be discovered when the mind is still and the stilling of the mind is not a process of the will, of action, is not the action of will of determination; a mind that is made still through action of will is obviously not still mind, so the problem is how can thought come to an end without willing it to come to an end. Because if I make it, if I discipline the mind to be still, then it is a dead mind, it is an enclosed mind, it is not a free mind. It is only the free mind that can discover what is beyond itself, and that freedom cannot be imposed on the mind. Imposition is not freedom, discipline is not freedom, conformity is not freedom, but when the mind sees that conformity is not freedom, then it is free; seeing the fact is the beginning of freedom, which is seeing the false as the false, and the truth as true, not at a distant future, but from moment to moment; then only is there a freedom and then only can the mind be simple and still, and such a still mind can know what is beyond itself.

QUESTION: Do you accept the law of reincarnation and Karma as valid or do you envisage a state of complete unnihilation?

KRISHNAJI: Now most of you probably believe in reincarnation and Karma, so please do not resist to what I am going to say. Through resistance we do not understand, therefore through exclusion there is no communion, to understand something we must love it, which means we must be in communion and not be afraid. First of all belief in any form is the denial of truth; a believing mind is not an exploring mind, a believing mind can never be in a state of experiencing; belief is merely a tether, tie to a particular desire, by a particular desire a man who believes in reincarnation cannot know the truth of it, because for him belief is merely a comfort, an escape from death, from the fear of non-continuity. So such a man cannot find the truth of reincarnation; all he wants is comfort, not truth. Truth may give him comfort or may be a disturbing factor, but if he starts with the desire to find a comfort he cannot see the truth. Now you and I are going to find out the truth of the matter. If you are serious. So what is important is how we approach the problem; how you and I approach the problem of re-incarnation. Are you approaching it through fear, through curiosity, through desire for continuity or do you want to know “what is?” I am not avoiding the question. A mind that wants to know that what is, is surely in a different phase from the mind which says: I am afraid of death and I want comfort. I want continuity and I do not like annihilation. I cling to reincarnation. Such a mind is obviously is not in a state of discovery. So the approach to the problem matters. Now what do we mean? I am taking it for granted that you are approaching the problem rightly, not through desire to cling to comfort, but to find out the truth of the matter. Now, what do we mean by re-incarnation? What is it that reincarnates? We know there is death. Do what you will you cannot avoid it. You may postpone death, but there is a fact, we will go into that presently. What is it that reincarnates? In that question there are two things involved, are they not? Either there is an entity, a spiritual entity and a thing which is merely accumulation of memory, of experience, of knowledge. When we say what is it that re-incarnates, either of these two things must happen. Either the physical entity re-incarnates or the accumulated memories, not only collective but the individual, takes form again in a next life. So let us examine those two. What do we mean by spiritual entity? Is there a spiritual entity in you, something which is not of the mind, which means something beyond sensation, something which is not of time. Something immortal, you will say Yes, all religious people do. They say that there is something beyond time, beyond the mind, beyond death, that spiritual entity you say there is. Please do not resist, let us think it out. If you say there is a spiritual entity in you, it is obviously the product of thought, is it not? You have been told about it, have you not, your experience; as the man who says there is no spiritual entity but only the coming together of various social, economic environmental influences, he is being told that, he is conditioned to that, and when you say there is spiritual entity you are also conditioned, are you not? And if it is your own discovery that there is a spiritual entity, surely it is still within the field of thought, is it not? And thought is the result of time, thought is the product of the past, thought is accumulation, is memory. So if you can think: about this spiritual entity, surely that spiritual entity is then within the field of thought, therefore, it is the product of thought, it is projection of thought, therefore it is not the spiritual entity. What you can think about is still within the field of thought. So it cannot be something beyond thought. So if there is no spiritual entity then what is it that reincarnates? And if there is spiritual entity can it reincarnate? Is it a thing of time, is it a thing of memory, to come and go at your convenience at your desire? If it is born, if it has time, if it is a process, if it has progress, surely it is not a spiritual entity; it must not be of time, therefore there is no question of reincarnating. Take a new life. So if that is not, then there is the accumulated memories which is you, the me; the me is your property, the the me is your wife, your husband, your children, your name, the qualities, the accumulations of experiences of the past in conjunction with the present is the Me, is the You, both the conscious as well as unconscious, the collective as well as the individual, that whole thing, that bundle is you; that bundle says: shall I reincarnate, shall I have continuity, what happens after death? Not the spiritual entity; if there is the spiritual entity it is beyond thought, it cannot be caught in a thing of thought, and to discover that entity, that spiritual state mind must be quiet, it cannot be in a state of agitation, which is the function of thought. Now you are asking whether the Me has continuity, the me, the name, the property, the furniture, the memories, the idiosyncrasies, the experience, the knowledge has that continuity which is that which is thought as thought conditioned by this, has that continuity? Obviously thought has continuity, that you do not have to enquire from far. You have continuity in your children, you have continuity in your furniture, you have continuity in your property, in your name, obviously that continues, in one form or another, but you are not satisfied with that continuity, are you? You want to continue as a spiritual entity, not merely a bundle of reactions as thought; then there is no fun in that. But are you anything more than that? More than your religion, than your belief, than your cast divisions, than your superstitions, traditions, future hopes, are you anything more than that? You would like to think that you are more than that but the fact is that you are that and nothing else. There may be something beyond, but to discover something beyond all this has to come to an end. So, when you enquire into the problem of reincarnation you are concerned with continuity, continuity of thought, identified as Me, obviously there is continuity. There are conditions, but we have not to discuss that at all. Now, there is another problem involved, there are two or three problems — one, what is death, is death the ending of the body, and why is that we are so afraid of death? Because there is continuity, we say there is no continuity when we die and we want assurance of continuity and that is why we believe and any amount of guarantee of continuities is not satisfactory, all the research, society, information and various things that will not satisfy you, death is always the unknown, you may know all the information about it, but the known is afraid of the unknown, and will always be. So the problem is, is it not, one of the problems in this question that continuity, is it creative? As that which is continuous, can that discover anything beyond itself? Sir, that which has continuity, can that know something beyond its own field? And that is the problem. The problem which we are unwilling to face is this and that is why you are afraid of death, because that which continues can never be creative, it is only in the ending is that the new. Only when the known come to an end, then only is there new, the unknown, the creation, but as long as we cling to the desire for thought, which is continuous, identified as the Me, it will continue and that which has continuance has death in it, has decay, it is not creative. It is only that thing which ends that can see the new, the fresh, the whole, the unknown. Sir, this is simple and very clear. As long as you are continuing in habit of a particular thought, surely you cannot know the new thought, can you? As long as you cling to your traditions, to your name, to your properties, you cannot know anything new, can you? It is only when you let go completely, all the new comes, and you cannot let go the old because you are afraid of the new, and that is why you are afraid of death, and that is why you have all innumerable various escapes. More books are written on death than on life because life you want to avoid, and living is to you a continuity and that which continues withers, has no life. It is always afraid of coming to an end; that is why you want immortality, you have your immortality in your name, in your property, in your furniture, in your son, clothes, houses, that is your immortality; you have it, but you want something more, you want immortality on the other side too, and you have it, which is your thought, identify as yourself, continuing yourself being, from furniture, your hats, your substitutions, beliefs, but shouldn’t you find out whether that which continues can ever know the timeless? That which continues implies a process of time, the past, the present and the future, that is continuance, the future again backing, the past and the tomorrow again backing another future, so there is continuity, but does that continuity bring about, can that continuity discover the unknown, the unknowable, the eternal? And if it cannot, what is the point of having that identified as the Me, to continue? The Me identified thought must be in constant rebel, constantly suffering, it must be in perpetual worry, problems, uncertainty and so on, and that is the lot of continuity, it is only when the mind comes to an end, not identified as the Me, then you will know that which is beyond time, but to merely speculate what is beyond is a waste of time, is the action of the sluggard, so that which has continuance can never know the real, but that which has an ending shall know the Real, so death alone can bring, can show the way to reality, death not of old age, or of disease, death of everyday, dying every day, dying every minute, so that you see the New, and in this problem, in this question is involved Karma. I wonder if you want me to discuss this another time? It is already half past seven. You want me to go into it?

AUDIENCE: Yes, Sir.

KRISHNAJI: Have you understood what I have said about reincarnation? Have you Sirs? ….Why this strange silence Sirs?

QUESTIONER: interrupts.

KRISHNAJI; This is not a discussion Sir. Look Sir, we will discuss next Tuesday, day after tomorrow, the question of Time, and on Thursday evening we will discuss Meditation, but what we have just now answered if you really think about it, you will see the extraordinary depth to an ending, to dying, the man who can die every minute, he shall know the eternal, but the mind who has continuance can never know which is beyond the mind, and that is a thing, Sir, not to be quoted, discussed, you can live it, and you will know the beauty of it. You will know the depth and the significance of dying each minute, dying is merely the ending of the past which is memory, in the memory of your recognition of facts, but the psychological accumulation and the fact as the Me and the Mine, that can be ended and in that ending of thought there is New. Now you want me to answer what is Karma.

Please approach it with a freedom and not with resistance, not with superstition, not with your beliefs. Obviously there is cause and effect. The mind is the result of a cause, you are the result of a previous cause, you are the product of yesterday, and many, many thousands of yesterdays, cause and effect are an obvious fact. The seeing has in it the cause and effect. It is specialised; a particular seed cannot become different. The seed of wheat will always be wheat, it is always wheat, it is specialised, but we human beings are different, are we not, because that which specialises can be destroyed; anything that specialises comes to an end, biologically as well as spiritually, psychologically and with us it is different, is it not? That cause can become the effect and what was effect can become the cause, it is very simple. Today is the result of yesterday, and tomorrow is the result of today; yesterday was the cause of today and today is the cause of tomorrow, so what was fact becomes cause, so it is a process of not an end. There is no cause at one time, there is no limit to cause or limit to effect, because cause and effect flow into each other, and so cause and effect if one can see it actually as it operates all that you can be free. As long as we are concerned with the reconciliation of facts then cause takes patterns and pattern then becomes the issue, the motive of action, but is there at any time in our life demarcation, where the cause begins and effect ends, surely not. Because cause and fact are in movement, constantly, in fact, there is no cause and no effect, but only a movement, of “what has been” through the present to the future. And the mind that is caught in this process of “what has been” and

“what will be” and using the present as a passage to such a mind, there is only a result, it is only concerned with result or the reconciliation of facts, to such a mind there is no escape beyond its own projections, so thought caught in the process of cause and effect, to such a mind there can be no freedom it can proceed in its own enclosure, and there is no freedom and there is freedom only when we see the process that cause and effect are not stationary, static, but a movement, and such a movement when understood comes to an end and one can then go beyond. So as long as the mind that is merely responding to stimuli from the past whatever it does is merely enjoying whatever it acts is further creating its own misery, but when it sees this whole process of cause and effect of this whole process of time, understands it, sees the fact of it and the very seeing of the fact is freedom from fact. Then only can the mind know that which is in not the result or the cause because truth is not the result, truth is not a cause, it is something which has no cause, at all, because that which has cause is of the mind, that which has affect is of the mind, and to know that which is causeless, the eternal which is beyond time, the mind which is the effect of time must come to an end. Therefore, thought which is the effect as well as the cause, it must come to an end only then that which is beyond time can be known.