Small Group Seminar 2, Madras, 6 January 1982

*Identification: This is the second day seminar by Shri J Krishnamurti at Madras on 6th January, 1982 at 9.30 am.*

Krishnamurti (K): May I start the ball rolling? We were talking about yesterday that when a human being is the past, the present and the future, he is time-bound. He invents his own time. He is the result of all human endeavour. He is like the tide, we said yesterday, that goes out and comes in. This is a perpetual motion in which he is caught, and we should, I think, talk over together whether this movement of the outer and the inner, interrelated, really radically, not separate, like the water going out and the water coming back, whether that movement has ever a stop, or must it always continue? And what is that state of mind which is not caught in this tidal movement? And considering what the world is becoming—utterly immoral, corrupt, without any sense of integrity, what is our responsibility as scientists, as philosophers, as ordinary human beings like us. What is our responsibility? And if we do undertake certain responsibility, will it ever change this enormous disintegration? I’ve let that open for us to discuss.

As educated human beings—so-called educated—do we ever consider of other people at all, or are we only concerned with ourselves, with our becoming, with our achievements, totally neglecting our relationship with each other, and with the world? I would like to discuss these points.

Doesn’t somebody want to come and sit here? Nice and comfortable here. Won’t you come, some? There’s plenty of room, sir. Don’t be nervous, sir, please, I won’t bite. (*Laughter*)

And what have the scientists achieved? They have certainly given us extraordinary technological progress, and also they are responsible for the instruments of war, for the instruments of destruction of other human beings by the million, or by the thousand. They have invented the atom bomb, and also they have invented the computer, the robot, and all the technological necessities of life, which is essential. But also they have invented the biological warfare, the destruction of human beings by the untold number, which has been going on for the last five thousand—historical process, that is, war every year. And those who are responsible for this are the educated people, so-called educated people. The professors and their students, the learned, the men in power have not been able to solve any of these problems, that is the human problems, human misery, the terrible agony that human beings go through. So what do we do? What’s your responsibility? Do we verbally enjoy exchange of words, exchange of theories, or is it possible for human beings like us to transform or empty our consciousness of all the travail, the conflicts, the miseries?

Rupert Sheldrake (RS): It seems to me that the crucial question, this fundamental question of whether changes in people we normally think of as individuals affect everybody else, affect the whole world, and the difficulty of the question seems to me to be this, that if such a change had already happened at any time in human history and transformed humanity, we wouldn’t be in the position we are in now, if there had already been this total transformation. So the fact this transformation has not occurred, which is the reason for the present state of the world, means that we are talking about something for which there is no precedent, which has never occurred. And therefore it seems to me it is extremely difficult for us to know whether such a thing is possible.

K: I understand.

RS: Is it wishful thinking to think that if some change occurs in us or in anyone else that humanity would be transformed. We have no historical evidence for this being possible.

K: I don’t think humanity as a whole can be transformed. Is my consciousness and yours and hers, is it so very different from the consciousness of the rest of mankind? The rest of mankind, whether they live in America or Russia, they are like, they are as my consciousness—miserable, unhappy, incredibly insecure, belief in some outside agency, as God and so on, so on. My consciousness is almost similar, if I am in that position, to the rest of man. So I am questioning whether we are individuals at all, not in the totalitarian sense which denies, you know all that, I won’t go into the Marxist theories and all the rest of it. So I am questioning whether there is individuality at all and if one human being transforms radically, fundamentally, his consciousness is the content of his consciousness, will it not affect the rest of the consciousness of man.

RS: Yes. But the question is, is the present consciousness of man, since there have been various people in the past who have undoubtedly undergone unusual transformations—Buddha and so on—can we say the present state of mankind is already a result of these kinds of transformations which we might think of as for the better, and all these rather negative and destructive tendencies. And if there are further transformations, will it merely change the balance a little in one direction, or is it possible for the whole of humanity, mankind to be radically transformed permanently?

K: No, but can I as an ordinary human being, can we not radically change? I am not talking of general humanity. I am talking about your consciousness, my consciousness, hers, is very similar, and so, if I, perhaps if I can change, empty my consciousness of all the travail and the misery of existence, perhaps I will affect the whole content of human consciousness. That’s all I am saying. And is it possible for me as a human being, to totally empty my consciousness of all the contradictions, lack of integrity, the absurd beliefs or sane beliefs, all that, throw it over, and be totally free as a human being? If I can bring that about, perhaps I may affect the whole of consciousness of man. Like Hitler has affected the consciousness of man, like the Buddha, like anybody, you know, they have affected the consciousness of man.

Ramachandra Gandhi (RG): Is it merely an empirical matter? In any case I think, had these enlightened beings not attained enlightenment, I think things would have been incalculably worse than they are. That’s one thing. But I think even that’s probably not the point. I think Krishnaji’s earlier reference to the possibility of contagion, but I think it is more alchemical and mysterious than this even, the way in which the enlightened consciousness touches everything else. And I don’t think we are meant to know in advance, and this might itself be a disincentive and a pollutant, it seems to me. Of course this can easily become a ground for escape. But it doesn’t have to. I think there is a kind of greed involved in wanting to know precisely how all manner of worthwhile results are going to be attained. Whereas I think there is something here if I may be permitted to draw upon the purely moral notion of the categorical imperative, something which simply has got to be done. I think apart from the category of things like helping your neighbour in distress, and so on, which simply has got to be done; but there is also this call of consciousness, and I think if it were really and I think it certainly is a categorical imperative, then clearly not to do that would be to add to the number of kinds of wrongdoing that already exist. And I am impressed by the suggestion of Krishnaji and others in the past and in recent times, that there are no others, in of course much more radical way, so that in so far as one man, woman, radically alters, all are too in some invisible way. I think sufficiently insightful history would be able to demonstrate this in the case of the Buddha and Jesus, and Sri Krishna and others. But even if this were not possible, if this is a categorical imperative, we are a kind of being that must seek its own absolute centre—put it that way, then we simply must get on with the job.

RS: Well, the question wasn’t either what will exact change be like, and can we predict exact details, nor was it whether or not we should do it, but whether or not this transformation is possible. And it seems to me the difficulty of this question is that if it hasn’t —I mean it hasn’t happened to me. I know that. It may have happened indirectly to me through other people in a subtle way, but for something that hasn’t actually happened, we haven’t actually directly experienced or known or recognized ourselves. We may see the possibility of it in others or encouraged to think, we may wish, I mean I deeply wish that these things would be possible. I really want them to be possible.

K: Sir, but shouldn’t we investigate that question, whether it is possible or not?

RS: Yes. That’s what I am saying. This is a fundamental question.

K: That’s a fundamental question. That’s what you are saying. Is it possible actually…

RS: Yes.

K: … not theoretically…

RS: Yes.

K: …to bring about… Let’s talk over it, let’s discuss it.

Pupul Jayakar (PJ): What are we doing? Are we talking about the possibility of changing the consciousness of mankind or are we talking about the possibility of totally emptying the content of consciousness as is today? Krishnaji, one thing you have to understand. You might say we are the consciousness of mankind, but we are islands. The mainland may be also earth, we are also earth, but we are islands, and therefore we can’t think of it as a consciousness of mankind.

K: I am not thinking of it therefore… All right, let’s forget the whole, (*Laughs*) let’s forget the rest of mankind. I am the mankind.

PJ: Yes, that is it.

K: I am mankind, I am the result of mankind, all their misery, I am all that. My consciousness is in a state of utter confusion, conflict, anxiety, loneliness, despair, depression, immense sorrow—it’s all there. Now I am asking, is it possible to totally be free of all that? Otherwise life has no meaning. I am born and die, if I believe in reincarnation, that is just another flippant theory, but actually I have only this life. And if I am to live that way, I don’t see the point of living that way. There is no meaning in it. I may be rich, I may be poor, I may be very scholarly and very clever, but what, at the end of it all? I may build temples and all the rest of that nonsense, at the end of it I am left where I began. So I say to myself: is it possible radically to empty this stupid existence, not commit suicide—empty. That’s what I would like to discuss.

K.K. Singh (KKS): Sir, birth of this tragedy and this total chaos, I think, is due to oblivion of human existence. I mean man’s inner existence has been completely forgotten. I mean man’s inner existence has been completely forgotten, as you said fear, anxiety, loneliness. He has been alienated from all sort of things, from his own family, from nature, from institutions.

K: Are you saying this has all been eliminated?

KKS: Not soul, self. I mean the human existence, human as such, man as such, man as such who has got fear, loneliness, isolation and all these things you know, with all this embodiment, he has been forgotten totally…

K: Aha.

KKS: …and we are perceiving nothing but mathematics and physics. And all this is nothing but impact of that mathematics and physics, and we have lost totally the human existence, meaning of living.

PJ: That would presume that there was a time when there was no fear, there was no greed, but human existence right from the beginning has shown all these elements. And we are no different basically to what our forefathers were. …I don’t think there is basically any difference.

KKS: I agree with you, but there was no total chaos, the degree of insecurity what today we feel, and previously.

PJ: But I suppose that today was in the seed of that complacency which we may have had fifty years ago or hundred years ago.

K: Are you saying there is partial chaos?

PJ: No. He says that…

KKS: The degree of chaos.

PJ: …the degree of chaos has been very greatly increased because of the increase in technology, science…

K: Whatever the reason, I am there. I may invent ten thousand reasons, but the fact is I am living in this chaos.

Radha Burnier (RB): I think much of the difficulty is that most of the time one is not aware that one is living in this chaos, except at a very superficial level, and occasionally. Otherwise one is lost in a stream of unawareness. It’s only on an occasion like this that one becomes a little aware that there *is* chaos.

K: I think you are, if I may insist or pursue, you are not answering my question. I am the ordinary man caught in this wheel, and what am I to do, or not do?

RG: The answer surely must be an emphatic yes…

K: What?

RG: …to the question whether this total transformation is possible. The answer must be an emphatic yes.

K: I’ll say for myself it is possible. I don’t want you to accept it or deny it. But I say it is possible. Then where are you?

RG: I think even this initial first step needs to be taken more comprehensively and more carefully I think, and more many-sidedly than it has been taken so far. But may I respond to a point that has arisen in the statements just made by Pupulji and others? It occurs to me that again we might commit the fallacy of comparison, of a terrible mess. But I think things are, just as the felicity of enlightenment is qualitatively different from any other kind of felicity, so the badness of this badness is bad enough. I mean comparisons are not really called for. So it is pretty bad, and it must always have been like that, but I accept the remark made by our friend there, that it’s a question of awareness, but also I think of a radical kind of awareness even of the misery of this, not just of a comparative kind, but it really is rock bottom, and it couldn’t be worse than this.

RB: That’s what I mean, an awareness which is real awareness, not some kind of a theoretical awareness.

RG: Right. Completely unself-deceiving kind. I think that must surely be another of the first steps.

KKS: Do you mean to say only if we are intensely aware of the chaos and meaninglessness, can we correct ourself, is there any possibility of our transformation?

RG: Well, if awareness can survive its object, namely total meaninglessness, that is ground for hope I think. If awareness doesn’t cancel itself, when it has as its object this completely despairing thing, that is itself the ground for hope, I think. Or the mind is not meant to dance and sing about it straightaway. But surely it has been possible for human beings to take a completely un self-deceiving look and still survive that moment of recognition. I should have thought is itself, however poorly instantiated though this recognition may be, is ground for hope, and I think that really is splendid news. May I suggest an analogy? Supposing somebody says there are cures for cancer, but these are ad hoc cures, but supposing an announcement to the effect that we have understood the cause of cancer. I think this itself begins to work in its own silent way. So there might be for instance short-term palliatives, of one kind or another, and they may not work. But supposing somebody in some corner of the world, in a completely believable way and scientifically established way announces the cure of cancer and the understanding of the process to save time, I think that is in itself a pure first step. A lot of very, it seems to me I may be wrong, I just share this with you, a lot of very hasty announcements of new plans for the world and so on suffer from a lack of conviction at the heart because there is no real understanding of the causality of misery, whereas if in our understanding of radically transformed human beings in the past and in the present we are able to boldly without hesitation make such an announcement to ourselves first, and to others, that would be a first step.

K: May I interrupt?

RG: Please do.

K: I come to you, professors and scientists, learned people, I come to you with my misery, with my loneliness, all the rest of it. What do you do with me? Give me words? She tells me to be aware, you tell me something else, and he tells me something else. You are not—I want water. You give me words. What am I to do, or not do? What way am I to change? What makes me change? Sorrow? I have had lot of sorrow, lot of problems, knocks on the head, I haven’t changed. I have read—if I have read, I hope I have not—all the sacred books and all the rest of it, and at the end of it all I am just left where I am, after million years just where we started: fear, anxiety, and all the rest of it. And I come to you and say please, sirs, you are all so well learned, please help me. Don’t tell me theories, don’t tell me *if* you are aware, *should* be aware, *how much* awareness. All those are meaningless to me. What am I to do.

RG: I think as persistent an inquirer as yourself in this make-belief situation, would himself bring hope to those whom he asks this question.

K: You give me hope?

RG: No, if the inquirer is as persistent as yourself in this kind of imagined context, then the persons he would ask, would in themselves be transformed a bit, I am convinced.

K: Help me to investigate. I will investigate, but I can’t go much further. Help me, sir, don’t. Give me water!

RG: Yes, but I think it would be presumptuous to offer something which is not water (*K Laughs*) but to welcome you in the community of inquirers and to say let us inquire.

K: Let’s enquire, all right, let’s inquire. Let’s inquire. Where do I start?

RG: I think where do *we* start, then it would become that. The question would be…

K: All right, I am putting myself, ordinary man. Where do I start? With myself, if you say start with yourself. Now how am I to look at myself? What’s the mirror in which I can see all my reactions, all the thoughts, all the misery—you follow?—in which I can see actually, not theoretically, actually, brutally see what I am? Where? There is no mirror like that.

RG: I think the loved one is a mirror.

K: Ah, ah, you see you have gone off already—loved.

RG: Loved one.

K: I don’t know what you are talking about—loved one. I think I love my wife, but… (*Laughs*)

RG: Yes, but do you not see her in comparable misery?

K: No, no, no. Don’t tell me. My wife, she is a bore and I am a bore to her, and what? We are accustomed to each other, we have irritated each other, we have bullied each other, possessed each other, sexually and every other way. At the end of ten years, I’ve—God! So where do I look?

RG: I think the miserable children will be the mirror.

K: Oh no, sir. (*Laughter*) I wish I hadn’t brought them into the world because the world is pretty miserable. I am crying over it, and you are just giving me something, a handkerchief to wipe my eyes, tears. I don’t want your handkerchiefs.

PJ: Why do you need a mirror?

K: Where do I look, I said. Where do I look so as to be very clear that I don’t deceive myself?

PJ: Look at the ground. You look at the ground from which this springs.

K: Yes. Where is the ground?

PJ: My mind.

K: My mind. Tell me, show me, what my mind is. It’s so perverted, so distorted, so degenerate. Your education has done all this to me.

PJ: Still, I can look at the perversion, distortions. Why are you saying that it is not possible to look at…

K: I don’t say it is not possible.

PJ: …perversion, distortion?

K: My mind, my brain, functions in a very, very small narrow groove.

PJ: So I will see the narrow groove.

K: Yes. Do I see it or is it an idea that my mind is in a narrow groove?

PJ: Sir, you said, ‘In what mirror will I look?’

K: I can only look very clearly in my relationship to another. That is the mirror.

PJ: Sir, this is something which I… When you say relationship with another, even that act sprouts from the mind, from the ground of the mind. Even that which accompanies my relationship to another, the sprouting of that is in the ground of my mind.

K: Yes. Proceed.

PJ: So, when you say I see myself in the mirror of relationship, it is really seeing the ground from which the sprouting has been. So whether narrow, wide, it is still the ground.

K: Proceed, help me a little bit more.

PJ: So what is the difficulty in perceiving that ground? It’s, really is it possible, and with what instruments will I perceive that ground and the sprouting from that ground? With what shall I face it?

K: The only instrument I have is this terrible thought.

PJ: Thought is that which sprouts, yes.

K: Don’t, I have only that thought. I have only the instrument with which to look—thought.

PJ: Yes.

K: I have cultivated…

PJ: So I start…

K: Let me finish, please. I have cultivated thought for million years, and that’s the only instrument I have, and with that instrument you are telling me to look. And before I look you say look at the ground from which thought has arisen. Is that it?

PJ: No, sir. I say thought first makes that inquiry. Thought says it can look at the ground, but it also has other instruments. Don’t limit it to thought.

K: The other instrument is seeing, tasting, smelling and the senses.

PJ: Yes, they are instruments.

K: The senses are my misery. (*Laughs*)

PJ: They are also my instruments.

K: My instrument. And I am only partially aware or use one or two senses. I never use all the fullness of my senses.

PJ: Yes, but before I can even get to the fullness of my senses, the starting point of inquiry—may be partial, starting point of the inquiry will be thought and the instruments which I have, which are my senses, to perceive the ground.

K: The instrument I have is thought and desire.

PJ: And also the instrument that I have to see, to listen, to feel.

K: Yes, which is all translated into desire.

PJ: Why sir?

K: Oh, it’s… no?

PJ: Why do you say that?

K: I see a beautiful house, I want it. I see a beautiful woman, I want her. I see a lovely car, I want it. The seeing is translated into the desire of having.

PJ: Yes, but there is a seed of this desire for the car sprouting in the mind.

K: Yes, yes, of course it is sprouting in the mind.

PJ: So that is the first movement.

K: Then all right.

PJ: I am trying to…

K: All right. Then what is my mind? What is the quality of my mind? Are we separating the mind from the brain? Would you help me, sir? Are we separating the brain from the mind? Then what is the mind which is so very different from the brain?

PJ: Is the mind different from the brain?

K: That is why, I am questioning. I would like to go into this.

PJ: You see, you perceive this sprouting. You neither perceive the mind nor the brain.

K: Yes. Quite right. So what.

PJ: So the words *mind* and *brain* in terms of the mirror, have no meaning.

K: Yes. So where am I left at the end of this few exchange of words?

PJ: You said where will I perceive, where will I come in contact, and I am trying to see whether we can proceed into this question.

K: Please proceed… (*Laughs*)

RG: I think contradiction is a word that occurred in one of your recent lectures. I think such a man as the one you pretend to be in this conversation, must be embarrassed by the contradiction in his whole… If the I is so troublesome, and is indeed so pervasive, why does he limit it to just this one finite being? I mean this in itself is a first class contradiction to confront the miserable man with. That on the one hand you have made a cosmos of this ‘I’ in its complaint about its misery, and then you have restricted this very ‘I’ to just one tiny place in the universe. Either you should consistently deny any substantialities of this I, or you should universalize it, cosmosize it and not regard your ‘I’ as other. I think this contradiction perhaps in our own times, our logic-ridden times, I think there might be some irony in this even, I think, to confront individuals with this straight contradiction and not with any moralisms merely. I have risked a straight answer to your question, sir.

E. C. George Sudarshan (GS): I was reminded of a metaphorical story from our traditional knowledge called *Kirātārjunīya*, when you talk about the misery, how overpowering the misery is, and when I hear Mr Ramachandra Gandhi talk about the cosmic, troublesome ‘I’. Arjuna went to do *tapas* to be able to get Shiva to come and sort of greet him and embrace him and give him some additional powers. Naturally he went into a forest to get rid of all the normal disturbances. And while he was doing it a hunter appeared. At the time Shiva was to appear, instead a hunter appeared chasing an animal. Arjuna of course said, look, don’t disturb me, don’t you see I am meditating. He said I don’t know who you are, you do your thing and I do my thing. They fought. Arjuna used all his powers and was completely overpowered. In fact he was so completely exhausted that he could not even close his eyes when he was put back on his back. In this utter shame in not being able to close his eyes, he looks and sees on the top of the hunter’s head the crescent moon. At this point he realises that in fact having exhausted all devices that were at his disposal, that what he had already been wanting at the back of his mind, and wanted to remove the disturbances, has appeared. It appears to me that the onset of misery which you so poignantly and so eloquently portray, is not necessarily a bad thing because a little misery is much worse than a lot of misery…

K: Come off it, sir, come off it. (*Laughs*)

GS: …because if the misery can completely overtake you, completely transform your world, then you see that in fact minor palliatives are simply no good. If I owe somebody hundred rupees and don’t have the money, I would be very concerned. If I owe somebody one crore of rupees and there is simply no way I could pay it back, then I would really have to devise some totally new strategies which could not…

So the misery that surrounds us, I don’t for one really agree with the statement either that the scientists are responsible for the misery, or that the misery is so overpowering. After all, it is the same technology which produces these television things and these various things so that your words could be carried to more people. But assuming for the time being that we go along with the fantasy and metaphor of absolute misery, absolute misery is a very good thing because if it is really so absolute, then you will have to do something about it. And in many ways, if I had a friend who came to me saying that my misery is so overpowering, nobody ever had this kind of misery, I would try to first of all illustrate that it is not so great, because other people also have miseries. And secondly, eliminate all intermediate strategies that are used to hold it back for just the time, to make things totally hopeless by saying that this method does not lead to anything at all. So part of the love that Ramchandra talked about, is really also saying that look, these things don’t work. You are not as miserable as you could be because if only you will realise that these are temporary things, you could be more miserable, and make a total transformation. So the transformations don’t come because your misery is removed. Sometimes great misery could be the threshold for a total transcendence.

K: Yes all right, all right. I am that misery, I am at the threshold. Who, what, who will push me over the threshold?

AP: Sir, I take issue with Dr Sudarshan on two points. One is that I don’t think as a scientist he can disown the curse that his tribe has held over humanity during our lifetime. It did not exist when I was a young man. It exists today—man’s capacity to wipe out life on this planet. This is certainly something which did not exist before. The second thing that you said, is also, to my mind, quite open to question. So both the things that you have said I think are slightly rhetorical, because you must admit that we are facing a totally new crisis; at least the intensity of the crisis. I don’t think man has ever been faced with the crisis of his survival as he is today, and that he is responsible for it. That is, the responsibility of man has never been so total as it is in 1982.

PJ: But may I ask what relationship this has…

AP: With what Krishnaji is saying?

PJ: …with this… First of all…

K: Sudarshan is talking with his tongue in his cheek.

GS: No, sir, I am very serious.

PJ: If I may, if I can ask a question, do we really want to empty the content of one’s consciousness?

AP: That is what I am saying…

PJ: No, no, please. Do we really want to empty, do I want to empty the content of my consciousness? I think that is the fundamental question. It is no use your saying, ‘Give me water.’ Unless I say yes, I am prepared to face it and face the consequences, and in the real tantric sense put my neck under that sword and press the stirrups with my own feet to cut off my own head.

RG: I think you have to draw attention to the irrationality of not emptying the pot overflowing with misery. I think there is an irrationality and I think it is important because of the self-image of modern man as a rational being. It may not be the only style of this spiritual therapy but it may be one way of … deeply.

PJ: No. If one says one wants to be empty, then one can possibly open the door, or even move towards the threshold.

RG: No, but an overflowing pot of misery not being emptied is about the most splendid piece of irrationality that I can think of. And of course, the man who is still vain, I think often then the way is to make holes in the pot. I think this marvellous Socratic-Zen conversation that Krishnaji has initiated is one way of drilling holes in that pot because we of course are too vain to empty it. But I think we must shoot straight into that pot by argument and by example and so on. That’s the only way. Otherwise he will never own this, your question, do you want this, of course I do.

PJ: No. He might say different… He may have emptied the pot, but I was going to ask him when he said give me water. I said it’s really your having to give the water.

RG: To keep the drains functioning within oneself is one way.

GS: I stand accused by two of the most excellent people here, and I must at least put up my own defence.

K: Yes, sir, with your tongue in your cheek still. (*Laughter*)

GS: There is a great deal of notion that modern man is rational, modern man is scientific, modern man is objective, that science is objective, we are dominated by science, we are dominated by technology.

K: I don’t know.

GS: I believe all these are statements which one has heard and not really produced. Because ultimately the decision of how much objective truth is to be accepted is a subjective judgement, and the question of whether the whole world began in a big bang or whether we originated in a cosmic soup, is really something which ultimately we have to decide, whether the argumentation is right, whether the judgements are right, whether the premises are right. And eventually if you feel that things are not really acceptable to us we will say, I disregard this particular whole line of argumentation. I don’t know any of those things, and nor these people know, they were not there, and I shall now attempt a totally new construction.

Similarly, with regard to the question of relating to the world, what are the rational methods, what are the practicable methods of dealing with it, is again based on a certain set of subjective value judgements. And at a certain point whether it be by ultimate misery, or by the end of a long dialogue in which you are painted into a corner, or by a flash of insight, or by no reason whatever, if you are convinced that this particular world-view is not satisfactory, one will change it, not necessarily for something better, but one will change it. The reason why one does not change the world-view is because of the fact that one is really not convinced that all the statements about misery are true. And I for one would like to challenge Achyutji, but this would be a very unequal combat because he will defeat me if I were to do it in public, (*Laughter*) but I would like to say that all of us who are here are reasonably comfortable in the world. In fact I have not seen one person who is really miserable in here. (*Laughter*) I mean nobody is thirsty here, nobody has gone hungry, nobody has not enough to wear or even to know that there is food for tomorrow or day after. There is a great deal of law and order despite all the lawlessness and corruption that one is talking about. Modern life is stressful but not necessarily as insecure as one tries to make it out. I have somehow the conviction that even if I didn’t do a jot of work, I will not starve for the rest of my life. One could be mistaken about it. And I have lived through the Cuban missile crisis and so on, saw President Kennedy address the nation on the television and said well, maybe this is it, this is the big thing, and we will not be around. And you will certainly feel a little different.

But I have also undergone surgery. And the doctor said maybe not much will happen to you. But maybe it would be a wise idea to set your affairs in order and write letters and whatever it is. You feel different at the end of that particular thing. You are a little surprised that you are back again in the same old world. So while the idea about the nuclear destruction of the world or large-scale warfare and so on are there, life goes on much more. In fact small wars, small disturbances create more problems than the large disturbances. So it seems to me that the misery of the world is a little exaggerated for most of us and probably for the majority of people who are seeking. And it seems to me, I used to think that the old days were much better days. It seems to me that the possibilities of encountering oneself is very much greater at the present time than any time in history perhaps. That may be there was a time millions of years ago when people were much freer, but it seems to me today there are very many more opportunities for people to be reminded of the fact that transformation begins with oneself rather than in the outside world. I am accused always of being clever and being sophisticated and tricky and so on, but this comes from my heart. I think that at the present time there is more opportunity for a person to be a *mumukshu* rather than at any time in the past.

The other thing I want to say is, I am a teacher, I have been a teacher for many decades now, and the art of teaching is in fact being able to be one with the student whom you teach. And a good teacher is one not necessarily one who is very clever or very learned, or anything but who can in some sense both be at his level as well as the student’s level, so that you are able to communicate things, you are communicating more to the student *in* you than the student outside. And this transformation, it seems to me, is also the same. When somebody comes to you in misery, how do you communicate? If you can internalize that person’s problem, or if you can enlarge your awareness to be able to absorb both that person’s position and your position, if you simply become one with him and say, agree that the world is very miserable, you are not doing him any favour. You are just making yourself miserable. You may feel less guilty, but you are not doing any good. That communication at this particular level, love at this level, involves the art of teaching, involves the art of being able to comprehend, maintain two different levels of awareness at the same time, your own and the other one, and then you can bring the two together because they are both parts of yourself.

RG: George, would you not say that if there are many special opportunities today to seek freedom, there are also many special opportunities for forgetting these things? I think the two tend to sometimes cancel each other out, although I accept your statement. But on the other side, the forgetfulness of our times is really also as tragic as the other I think is welcome. I think this does alter the diagnosis a bit. I think it does. But about the other thing I do wish to suggest to you that even if nobody here is miserable, if you attribute to us enough empathy—I think many of us are, not for ourselves, not for our tiny little selves here—but given that empathy many of us I bet are very miserable, but of course they are not going to frown all the time. I think that’s not the best kind of expression of empathy either, but deep down they feel terrible. And I don’t want to speak in the first person. I feel terrible and I am sure so many do because of the hunger of others. I wish the sense of identity could be so complete that we would also really like Ramakrishna Paramahansa suffer pangs, but not all of us are gifted in that way. But in some small way I think. But empathy again doesn’t go far enough because it is again itself founded on the view that the other is other than me, I think until we achieve that perfect identity or perfect vacuity, one of the two, I think there are only these two stark choices, really. This is in response to your reprimand. I mean I accept it like your first diagnosis, but there is the other side.

PJ: May I ask one question? There is one factor which I think is present in the human mind, in human consciousness, and that is the factor of curiosity. Probably a lot of scientific investigation in various other areas has been man’s desire to find out, to know, to inquire. Why is it that when it comes to this curiosity being used to discover the spaces, the distances, the whole structure of the human mind and consciousness and the depths which lie beyond, why do we get bogged, why do we put up obstacles ourselves to this curiosity penetrating? Because probably it is as great an unmapped surface which remains to be investigated as any other sphere. Why is it that man’s inquiry is being… never pushes…?

AP: I will supplement what you are saying by directly challenging George that…

PJ: He is saying that never before has it been so…

AP: …never has man perversely striven for degeneration, misusing all his capacities, primarily by the misuse of his brain, to the point of bringing an entire culture to its demise. I say the problem of regeneration has achieved a great urgency today because man seems hell-bent on destroying such culture as he has. I don’t think I agree that I am breaking an important rule of this assembly by bringing in the factor of time, because when I say urgency that means I am in time. I am aware of this contradiction, but I feel that this urgency cannot be wiped out, and the fact that you refuse to take note of it, the urgency does not become less because you see that man himself is striving his utmost to destroy, that is the survival not of the physical, the atom is destroying the physical world, but there is such a thing as the mind destroying its own heritage of all human culture. That is to say like the end of an epoch. Now I feel there is something today in the West and there is something in India, I suppose it must be everywhere, there is an appalling degeneration, and this degeneration exists side by side with some of the best minds. Now I feel that this problem of regeneration therefore has attained an urgency in time which I insist cannot be just brushed aside.

PJ: If that urgency is so monumental, then it would have found expression. The fact is we sit around.

AP: No, you see, permit me, that when we sit with Krishnaji, we sit here because I have heard him say this fifty years ago, and it could ring no bell. When he talked of freedom, I told him that oh, the British were far more important than what he was talking. When he was talking of something, I could tell him that no, sir, something else is more important. Today, I have really come to the point of finding that all my defences have collapsed, and I have to accept that there is a priority to the problem of regeneration which we can only ignore if we are blind as bats. And I feel that our top scientists and top philosophers are blind as bats because they are trying their best to ignore it.

PJ: But he actually said that never has there been a time more propitious for this kind of ..

AP: I know this, but he said something else also.

GS: Well, I have a feeling that we are digressing, but since it is a direct question, I must answer it. I believe at the present time the greatest danger to the world is from the confusion in the minds of people than from the nuclear weapons, because nuclear weapons are not under the command of the scientists. By the way, weapon-making is not a scientific tradition, but a technology tradition, it is an engineering feat and not a scientific issue. But we have a department of science and technology, so let’s put the two together. But the weapons are not under the control in any country of scientists. The weapons are in the control of the administrators, the leaders of the country who are ordinary citizens, very often, who refuse to understand the science of the situation. If there is a responsibility of destruction, potential destruction or threat of destruction, it is carried out by the leaders of the country who are elected by the ordinary people and not by the scientists. I am, however, much more concerned with something else for which the scientists are responsible, and that is the tacit acceptance of a negative philosophy of darkness, of basically saying that the whole world is purposeless, that in fact the atoms and molecules, or genes and chromosomes, or fields and their interactions, are the only things in the world. There are no value judgements, there are no purposes, there is no such thing as enlightenment. In fact, there is almost a prohibition, I don’t think it is written down, but almost a prohibition, for anybody who is interested in consciousness or enlightenment, from holding high office in the scientific and university traditions in this country at the present time. A very eminent scientist, who was in charge of the national, I mean advising the national defence, was basically eased out simply because he felt that the spiritual search was a legitimate search, and asserted that in print. The reason that is possible is not only because of the scientists, because in fact the other intellectuals and other citizens of the country are unwilling to take exception to this statement.

There was a big science Congress in Mysore. You look at the totally political science congress. Major policy statements were made by the leaders of the country. But there is no statement about consciousness, awareness, consciousness, investigation into the nature of perception being the last frontier. All the statements are about technology, about science, about weaponry, increasing production, export earnings and so on. So at the present time, the danger threatening our country as well as the world is coming in from the ascendancy of the philosophy of darkness, a philosophy which is hostile and inimical to enlightenment, and not from the scientists. It is true that if it were not for the scientists many of these things would not have happened. But if it were not for the scientists, we would not have produced the same amount of food, we would not be all together—I have travelled ten thousand miles to be here. It simply would not have been possible. So science and technology is not the thing which is… it’s the people who make the thing. People press the button. People make the decisions with regard to it.

But to come back to the statement about question of intellectuals not being aware, I would like to submit that in fact if intellectuals do, it is only because of the fact that the nation supports it. Who challenges the intellectuals’ right to say what is the nature of reality, and in a practical sense what people do is not to enter into a direct confrontation, but there has been no time in which adventures in consciousness has been more widely persued in this country and in the world than at the present time; may be at medieval times. But on the other hand, don’t forget the fact that at that time, the people who pursued the thing were very limited number of people in monasteries and cathedrals, but now it is the people all over the place. Even this atrocious music at 5’O clock in the morning, in which everybody competes with everything else, if we come right down to it, it seems to be partly stemming from the fact of making people aware early in the morning that they wake up about certain things which they are likely to forget.

I continue to hold the opinion that this is the time when there is greater awareness of the need for doing something radical. I also would like to say that there is a greater urgency now because the pace of life has quickened, that everybody is busy, everything is happening a little too fast. If you don’t do something about it, you will find that your wealth is wiped out, your position is eroded, your house is occupied, and your yard is overgrown. Everything happens faster, but good things happen along with the bad things. I am afraid I somehow seem to be speaking for an elitist, complacent position. No, I am not doing that. I am simply saying that it seems to me that this is the time when there is greater awareness of the genuine nature of our misery, but somehow or other it does not find a unified expression in the country. There are a few isolated people who talk about it, but the standard position of the country is that science is for the saving of humanity or science is for the defence of the country, rather than to say science enables you to see. It is like spectacles. It enhances your view of the world, and that having seen the particular thing, you should be much better able to understand the nature of causation. It seems to me that physics should be made a compulsory subject for everybody somewhere along the line of adult education to show what is the nature of causation, because that is in fact what we are talking about. That somehow once you see the chain of causation, then like the Buddha, perhaps one would be able to see what is the origin of misery.

RG: George, you give with one hand and you take away with another. (*Laughter*) For instance, if there is greater awareness today, there is also very great scepticism about any possibility of a way out in theoretical intellectual, professional circles. Of course you responded splendidly to the moral indictment of scientist, but you yourself indicted them even more thoroughly when you said that their theoretical world-view of course is all wrong. Now I don’t think you can escape that responsibility to it. You can’t. Because if the theoretical world you inspired by ongoing science is so dismal, I think that is a far greater responsibility than any particular collaboration between scientists and politicians. And also, I do feel that we must not base any right effort on fear alone. I remember reading a very clever phrase about that, that man does not live by dread alone. But I think really because I feel that whether or not the world is in danger, worldliness seems to be in no danger at all today. And that’s a terrible thing. If only we think the world is in danger but we keep worldliness intact, I don’t think we are going to make it. We may survive a war for the next fifty years, but I think it will be there in the next hundred years. I think the very idea of worldliness, and I don’t mean in any sort of renunciate sense of this phrase, but this is all that there is. The *pratyaksh apramān*[^1] is all that there is and not even in the profound sense of awareness but in the gross, *sthoola* senses, whatever. I think that if the theoretical scientists and indeed theoretical workers do not question the very fundamentals of modern thought very boldly I think, I see no hope. In fact I think politicians may possess this survival instinct more than scientists, and they may just manage to save the world. I think scientists, like other intellectual workers today in the modern world, tend to suffer from a despairing nihilism. I think they may push the button. You know, it’s very strange that the very politicians whom one hates may in fact, because they want to win the next election, want the world to survive until that time or something like that.

RB: Are we not really digressing in discussing the responsibility of scientists?

RG: But I think we were invited to do that. Krishnaji said, as scientists as philosophers, and so on. I don’t think we are digressing really.

P.K. Sundaram (PKS): Sir, may I have a word? We have two senses in which the word can be used like the word *misery*. Dr Sudarshan was very illuminating when he talked about misery in the first sense, namely, that misery can be put out, eradicated, probably a regeneration of man, transformation of the world could take place. Perhaps we are not miserable at all, and science could do a lot in this direction. There is absolutely no doubt about it. I don’t think there is any difference of opinion with regard to that. We can grant it. But the second sense which appears to be more important and more fundamental, is that the very finitude of man itself is a problem. The finitude of man can never be eradicated by sheer physical science and its methods. There must be some other method whereby we can transcend this sense of finitude, this self-alienation, man alienating from himself, standing aloof from himself as it were. This is the dread, this is the dread, and this dread of nothingness into which we pass inevitably, no science can put it off, no science can prevent it. Man faces nothing as the abyss of the dread of death, the emptiness, the nothingness. How are we going to get out of it? I think that sort of misery in that fundamental sense must have to be tackled. I think it cannot be tackled by science.

RS: It is traditionally tackled by religion. And the answer, going back to this case of the man who is so miserable and says, ‘What can I do? Give me water.’ The traditional answer of most great religions of the world is to give people water, and to say liberation is possible or salvation is possible, and that these are the ways to do it. It may or may not happen in this life, it may happen in a future life, or it may happen after death in another kind of existence. And this is the traditional sphere in which not science but religion offers an answer. I know that, I mean this seems to me a huge question as to whether or not the religious answers are valid or not. I don’t think we can dismiss the whole lot on the basis of a vague dismissal of the historical thoughts of world religions, and it seems to me this is the area to which the question leads us, because the man who comes and says what can I do, I am miserable, give me water, if he goes to a Christian Evangelical, the man will very rapidly respond to that appeal. He will say here is the answer. And if he goes to any other, proselytizer of any other religion, he will say here is the answer. So what’s wrong with their answers? I mean I can’t see how we can dismiss all these answers.

PKS: No, we are not so much concerned with the validity of the answers. That there are answers is enough.

RS: Well, the question we started off with is whether or not there are answers: is there any way out of this state? Is it possible to undergo transformation. Now there are many people who say that it is. They say just follow this method and you will indeed undergo transformation. The question is then whether we believe them or not. There are many people who tell us that it is possible to undergo transformation, and in the end, the authority must always be based on those who claim to have undergone it. It seems to me the question is whether we believe them or not, that is if we are trying to answer the question, is it possible.

K: Where have you left me? (*Laughter*)

AP: Where we started.

GS: I have left you at the point at which you accused me of being clever. So I said no, I mean, it is not only am I not clever, but the entire profession of scientists are not very clever.

K: Aha, I am not talking about scientists.

GS: No, but coming back to the thing, it seems to me that the purpose of any organized body of knowledge is to be able to connect together all the things which are known so that they appear as one piece, so that you actually see what are the things which are not understood. And it is also known that, for example in physical sciences, anything that happens cannot be supernatural.

K: Agreed.

GS: Therefore ultimate emphasis, ultimate test, is in terms of actual things, not in terms of any number of elegant theories, which is a very sad thing for a theoretical physicist because many things that we make are so nice, but eventually an experiment comes along and then says, too bad, that’s not right. So, therefore all intellectual pursuits are simply methods of shorthand understanding of a whole body of experience that you have, and all experience together is not in terms of knowledge, it’s simply a premise for perceiving things at a particular time. And the direct perception, the direct experimentation is the only one. And therefore the prediction of what would happen by following a certain path is always a tentative one. No one can tell you what would happen. One can tell you what is likely, what is probable, what is expected. But ultimately what happens is what happens.

And the purpose of science or any organized form of knowledge is therefore not to connect the things together but in fact to find out what are the things which are not yet together. And the transition from a state of awareness of misery, of fragmentation, of causal chain in which your sequence of events have to take place, from which you cannot get out of, from that state of awareness to a state of awareness, in fact in which there is freedom, freedom subject to all the constraints that are there. Pigs and men don’t fly, so you don’t expect to fly. But if you want to fly, you make another condition, in which you get inside an aeroplane. So you actually come to a situation in which those things that are constrained by law, you don’t even want to change. And then you find out where is the freedom, where is the little chink in the chain so that you may slide through the thing if you want to go out. But any statement by anybody including oneself saying it is possible to get out of this misery is tentative until you actually get out.

K: Of course.

RG: But it is trust about those who have in the past got out. I think this connects with the question that our friend here asked. I mean it really is an age of scepticism, not only about the world but about the past and the present too. Why this inability to say and yes, I think it is absolutely scientific, because it is not that it has to happen for the first time, because if we can be sceptical regarding the whole—and I am not an idolater of the past but let me state this argument—if we can be sceptical about the whole body of the past in respect of this, I don’t see how we will accept the results of any successful experiment even if those results were to stare us in the face. I think we would find a way of doubting them. I worry, George, about the experimental model which you propose.

GS: But at the present time the problem is not so much the fact that one is sceptical whether it will come through or not. But most people are saying don’t confuse me with facts and processes, I already have a theory saying that it cannot happen.

RG: Look, the thing is to fault that theory, and I think the theoretical hard work here is simply not being done. At one level we were invited to state as scientists, philosophers and so on. As a professional philosopher if I may be permitted to say this, the theoretical work is simply not fundamental. It is very pernickety, very clever, very good, I mean I have done it myself. But it is not nearly as fundamental as is required. And there is this gulf between philosophy and science, between science and experiment, and everything and daily living, and the whole thing reeks of contradiction and the modern age is not embarrassed by this. I find it, if it were not so hilarious, it would be tragic, really.

K: Sir, I would like to ask, if I may, I am agonized by fear. Really agonized, not verbally but deeply I feel it’s a terrible state to be in fear. You tell me it is partly good to be in fear, and another tells me it is good, you can get out, and so on. But the fact remains that it is a tremendous agony to be in fear. Help me to get out of it. Don’t say you can help yourself and all the rest of it, but help me to be free of this burden. That’s all I am asking. I am not asking about war, scientist, all the politics, you know, all that. This is my problem. I’ve come to you, as a man who has travelled, who is scientist, who is blah, all the rest of it. I say please help me. And you say it is good to have a little fear, it’s good to have a little cancer, it’s good to be this and good to be that. But I say please, those are not my questions. It is a tremendous feeling that I have, of incredible fear I have. And all that you have told me doesn’t affect me. I want to be free of it, it is, it’s a burning demand. It is not just a pleasant thing to bear. I ask you to help me. If you say I can’t help you, old boy, I understand that very well. But I come to you because you are all very erudite, etc., and help me. You haven’t helped me. So I say to myself, what’s the point of all this? I go to her, and she says do this and do that, I might, but at the end of it I know jolly well that I am not going to be free of it. So what am I to do? There is death, there is birth. I can go into it all as much as you like, but the fact at the end of all this discussion, literature, science, and war, there is this deep-rooted fear in me. I am talking of an ordinary human being, not too bright, not too highly educated, he is fairly intelligent, like me, and I say please help me to be free of it. That’s all my question. I have no other question. Because if I am free of it, then my life is like the tree.

GS: Krishnaji, not many people come to me with fear, but I could talk about a slightly different area.

K: I have come with—don’t move away—I have come to you with fear.

GS: I have never encountered this situation when somebody comes…

K: I—you are encountering now.

GS: You are joking. (*K Laughs*)

K: No, no.

RG: I think this is a very very fundamental question. Because I think it may be, I hope it is an ironical way of getting us to admit that today we do not have such answers, or what memory does…

GS: No, I don’t agree.

RG: No, just a minute, I think we are deceiving ourselves. Suppose, this is a human situation, somebody comes to me, I may be a professor of X or Y or Z, I have to admit, under present circumstances, that I really do not have an answer, and that is a shocking realization. If that is absolutely real, poignant inquiry, anybody, an ordinary man, according to Krishnaji comes to me and I have to say no, I can’t do it.

K: Sir, Dr Sudarshan said, don’t joke with me, you see. He knows me. I have no fear about death, about living, about an object.

RG: Your wonderful empathy is credible, Krishnaji and you will…

K: What?

RG: Your wonderful empathy is credible. So your acting is very real. The acting the part of the miserable man is very real. I don’t think it’s a joke.

K: Sir, lots of people have come to see me about fear. Now I am taking the part of the man who comes to you, and says please don’t talk all this highfalutin stuff, come down to earth and help me to be free of this monster. And you have nothing to say to me!

RG: No, that’s not true, but I think the first…

K: Say, tell me.

RS: Then I would say that say I am a Christian, Evangelical, and I *am* in fact a Christian. Sorry to shock anyone, but I would say in answer to that, that there are answers to this problem which are given by this religion and this faith, and by prayer and so on.

K: Ah, I don’t accept all that.

RS: Well, now you see, you said you are the ordinary man.

K: I am the ordinary man.

RS: Many ordinary men do accept it.

K: I have been through prayers, devotion, a whole lot of that.

RS: Then you are a very extraordinary man. (*Laughter*)

K: You see what they do with me? You see how they push me off? (*Laughter*)

RS: All right, there is confusion there.

K: No, I don’t accept all that. They are only substitute for fear.

RS: Ah, no, this is faith.

K: Wait, sir, let me finish. They are just surrogate to something which is burning me. And I say look, don’t tell me to go and pray, don’t tell me about the Bible, don’t tell me about the Upanishad. I don’t want any of that. I am a very sceptical man.

RG: But the Christian Bible would require your acceptance of that self-description.

RS: Yes. Oh, yes.

RG: Then what would you do? Supposing…

RS: I don’t know. I mean this is a hypothetical example. I think that far from being the ordinary, I think these cases are rare. I think confronted with such a case, I don’t know what one would do.

K: That’s all I want you to tell me. That’s all I want you to tell me: I don’t know what to do with you.

RS: All right…

K: Ah, ah, no, stop there.

RG: He draws the line.

K: Stop there. You say my dear chap, I can’t, I don’t know what to do, because I myself haven’t resolved it.

RS: No, I wouldn’t say that.

K: Wait. (*Laughter*)

RG: But surely you would in relation to such a question you haven’t found a way…

RS: No, what I would…

K: You see the game they are playing with me? (*Laughter*) I won’t accept this game. I won’t accept the ball in my court; it’s in your court.

RS: All right, I have to accept the ball in my court then. What I would say in this situation is that I don’t know the answer, but I would pray.

K: If you don’t know the answer, tell me.

RS: I will say I don’t know the answer.

K: That’s all.

RS: But I would then say the possibility of an answer for that.

K: I’m not interested in the possibility. All that you can tell me is, my dear chap, I don’t know.

RS: No, I think I do know.

K: Then tell me.

RS: You don’t accept my answer then. The problem is that I tell you the answer, you say I don’t accept all that.

K: Of course. I don’t accept it, I have tried all those.

RS: Well, I might reply, maybe you haven’t tried the right way.

K: Aha, that’s a trick of the priests, (*Laughter*) I won’t accept it. You haven’t tried enough.

RS: Yes, but I think it’s the trick of the sceptic. You see, to reject all things in all ways. I think I could ask that question, couldn’t I? I could say if you said I’ve tried all this, I could at least inquire. I am not a priest, so it wouldn’t be a priestly trick in the strict sense of the word. I might inquire in what ways have you tried and you need to find out what sort of trial you have made.

K: I know what I have done. I’ll tell you all the human things we do. I have tried to escape, I have tried to suppress it, I have tried to transmute it by thinking about something else, I have tried to rationalize it, I have tried prayer, I have tried going to Sudarshan and asking him what science tells me, I have been to the analyst, I have done all the tricks that human beings have done. At the end of the day I say I am stuck where I am—I am afraid.

RG: Will you permit me to respond to your question? Unless our friends…

RS: No, I mean I’ve got nothing more to add at present.

RG: Well, Krishnaji, if you were to, in that extraordinarily moving fashion, you come to me and say…

K: It is not moving, it is dreadful.

RG: It’s moving to me. You must accept my response also. I find it dreadful and moving. Because I would say in the light of what I understand, I would say that first, that this simply cannot be you speaking, because…

K: You…? What is it? I didn’t hear it.

RG: …that *that* to which you attribute all this fear, that, in you, to which you attribute all this fear, is not ultimately real.

K: Oh…

RG: Wait a minute, wait a minute.

K: Yes.

RG: I’d like to know if you’ve tried that.

K: Yes, sir, yes, sir.

RG: That I’d like to hear from you. If you have really tried and rejected the thought that, *that* in me, to which I attribute this radical misery, is at bottom unreal. If you have tried and rejected that, I would like to learn from you, because I have not rejected it.

K: That’s just an idea. To me that is the bottom. Fear is to me the bottom of all my life.

RG: Yes, but this ‘you’…

K: You may call it—basically, at the bottom there is no fear. Basically. Fear may be superficial, an illusion, but deep down there is no fear. I say I have touched the bottom of my life.

RG: No, I don’t say that. I am saying that you have not touched the bottom of yourself.

K: Aha, myself is fear. I have touched that blasted thing.

RG: Yes, but you have not called the bluff of the ego.

K: That is me! I *am* the ego.

RG: No, but that’s the ego speaking. You haven’t called the bluff of that style of announcement of the ego which is its cleverest trick.

K: What do you call bluff?

RG: The bluff of the ego that you are not real, this subject of this total misery is not really me. It is a pretender.

K: I don’t go in for that. I say that is me.

RG: No, but you see, I want to know if you have you tried this. As you said you have tried other things…

K: I have tried that. That is just to me a verbal statement which has no reality.

RG: Well, but supposing I were to ask you who is this, as a very great thinker of recent past Ramana used to ask…

K: Ah.

RG: No, why not, because look, you have come to me for help, and I think whatever, you may reject it but not before receiving it. (*Laughter*)

K: I have heard all this.

RG: You haven’t heard it from me. (*Laughter*)

K; Ah.

RG: Supposing I say well, Krishnaji, why don’t you simply ask yourself who you are, who are in this radical way miserable, really, really go into this yourself.

K: I’ll tell you, sir. I have inquired that. I said, who am I? Am I fear or am I different from fear—right?—I say there is no difference between me and fear: I *am* fear.

RG: Is that the real you?

K: That’s the only fear that is real to me.

RG: Is that the only you, you know?

K: That is me.

RG: The only you?

K: The other me is conceit, the other me is arrogance, the other me is feeling loneliness.

RG: No, this family of ‘me’s’, is that the only family?

K: That’s all I know.

RG: Well, I would be the sceptic now, and question whether you do really know this, but I must leave it at that

K: (*Laughs*) Aha, don’t question…

RG: I must leave it at that.

K: I am saying, sir, if you’ll forgive me, there is nothing but fear in me.

RG: I don’t deny that, but I am not sure if there is only that you in you.

K: I told you, I am also, I have tremendous aspirations, I have tremendous feeling of guilt, I am also vain, arrogant, full of fun if I want it, and also I am guilty—all the human things I am. (*Break in audio*) Also, I say I am also the ultra superior entity. I say include all that you have said to me, I am that.

RG: You can’t really say that, because that ultra-superior entity is not the ego which glories…

K: You see…?

RG: Just a minute, which glories in its superiority. So I would simply say as the sceptic, Krishnaji, your ego is playing tricks with itself.

K: All right. It’s playing tricks with itself.

RG: It is reducing the true answer to a caricature of it.

K: It may be playing tricks with itself. But at the end of the day I am still with that burden of fear.

PJ: Sir, may I say? You have been asking this question. I come to you, and say tell me how to be free of fear.

K: I will tell you. (*Laughs*)

PJ: Tell me. (*Laughter*)

K: But you don’t come that way to me.

PJ: I am coming.

K: All right. (*Laughs*) But you see what I was trying to point out is, you don’t help me that way. I’ll show you.

PJ: Show me.

K: Have you time?

AP: Yes, sir.

PJ: I have time.

AP: Yes, sir.

K: Ah, ah. Not by the watch. (*Laughter*) Have you time?

PJ: Yes.

K: Right. Would you admit desire a part of fear?

PJ: Obviously.

K: Time is part of fear, thought is part of fear? So these are the three basic elements of fear. Right? Then we have to see what is desire. We know that. You and I know, we have talked about it. So I can skip that. Right? Agree? Must you and I go into the question of desire, verbally?

PJ: No, but I think you should open it up a little more.

K: All right. Desire is the beginning of thought when it creates the image out of the sensation. You accept that?

PJ: Yes. Obviously, if you look into yourself you…

K: You have asked me if you can be free of fear…

PJ: Yes.

K: …and I say that is the beginning of fear, one of the elements of fear, that desire. Desire is when thought takes charge of sensation and creates the image out of that sensation. Right?

PJ: Yes.

K: Then time is part of fear.

PJ: Yes.

K: That is the future, or the past.

PJ: Fear *is* the future.

K: Yes, and also the past.

PJ: No, it… no, but something…

K: Fear of having done something which is not correct, which is not honourable. I’m using this word, forgive me… Right? So, time is fear. That is, hope is part of fear. Right? Then thought is part of fear. Thinking of the future, which is time plus thought is the movement of fear. Right? So, these are the basic causes of fear. That means the cause…where there is a cause, there is an end to that effect. Right, sir? So, have I really grasped the deep significance of desire? Not discipline desire, not control desire.’

K: Yes. Flattery, insult…

AP: Death.

K: Oh, that’s common. Any kind of external stimuli, is it necessary? Right? Right? Is that what you are asking? What does that imply? It’s only when the brain is not alive, active, then you need a shock, a challenge, a kick. (*Laughs*) Right? But how desire arises, and before thought takes charge of sensation, to be aware of that hiatus between sensation and thought interfering with… I wonder. Are you capturing all this? Do you get what I am saying? That is, I see a beautiful woman or beautiful something; it is a natural sensation, and to be so utterly attentive at that moment, so thought doesn’t make an image out of that sensation and pursue that. Right? Am I making this clear?

Q: Yes, yes.

K: To be so alert, so thought doesn’t interfere with sensation.

PJ: Fear arises.

K: No, these are the causes of fear.

PJ: But let us say…

K: Wait, wait. Let me finish. So that you understand the full movement of desire, where thought doesn’t come into sensation and make a lovely image out of it. That is the beginning of desire, which is the cause of fear. Would you agree to that, sir? Right.

Then time is fear, which is a very complex—time, there is no… I *am* time. My thought is time. I am the past, the present and the future. I am the time-maker. Since I am the time-maker, I am bound to time, in bondage to time. Right? Right? It’s not just words, this has to be in my blood, this thing.

Then I say thought. These three are the basic movement of fear. Thought, which projects the future, you know all that, thought, what it is. If you have understood—not understood, if you have grasped the fullness of it, there is no fear at all.

RB: Sir, it seems to me that there is a primordial fear in which there is no conscious time, thought or desire.

K: Primordial fear…

RB: Primordial in the sense of something which seems to come from an ancient past, from the unknown—the fear of not being.

K: Yes, that *is* it. That fear of being is time. Being is time—right, sir?—and not being is time. When I’ve understood*,* when that is in my breath, there is no fear.

RB: No, I think there is some difference. I see something beautiful with the sensation…

K: That is all: sensation.

RB: Yes, I agree.

K: Stop there. Stop there.

RB: No, I am just trying to analyse it. There is sensation. Then thought makes an image. Already time has come into being.

K: That is, thought *is* time. The thought is not separate from time. They are both movements. Therefore that is time. Time, thought are not different.

RB: Yes, I see that. But I think there is a fear where there is no such movement. It seems to come from some deep…

K: Ah, ah, ah. I won’t accept any primordial, deep down. This is the only fear I have—the unknown and the known.

RG: Krishnaji, so long as you have not given up the thought that you are the proper subject of time, thought and desire, this fear may come back. It may come back.

K: Aha. Just a minute, sir.

RG: No, let me complete.

K: Sorry.

RG: So long as the thought is there in your mind, that of course you were the absolutely legitimate object, recipient of this, there may be a temporary relief from this. It may be of a splendid kind while it lasts, so long as you haven’t seen that you are not this body or that you are not at all—just a minute—or that you are not at all, if you are merely overcome by a process of analysis at a given point in time.

K: No, sir. No, sir. You are assuming—forgive me, if I may be wrong—you are assuming something beyond my comprehension, that there is something primordial freedom, primordial divinity or something like that. I merely go from fact to fact, the fact as it happens.

RG: Yes. But, if I may say so, I think there is something prima facie presumptuous about suggesting that there shall be no fear. I think there is no more presumption in what I have suggested than in what you did. But I think neither is presumptuous. Neither position is…

K: I understand, sir. I don’t understand what you are saying.

RG: Well, it’s my fault, my fault. Let me try again.

K: No, no, please.

RG: Let me try again. It’s my fault, assuredly. In your very wonderfully, helpful conversation just now, you said that if you can, if you can see this, that this is the movement of fear…

K: Yes.

RG: Splendid phrase.

K: Yes.

RG: Thought, desire, time. Then fear shall end. Now I think this proclamation or this prospect that fear shall end can sound very presumptuous to people—can, precisely in the way in which the thought, that this illusory ‘I’ which regards itself as the proper subject of all this, will cease, and I think they are on the same level, and I think they are not really presumptions at all. I think they are really these two *margas,* and I think what you presented, now I am not quoting scripture or authority, I don’t think that it is about time, that the complementarity of the two *margas* be explored, rather than a mutual rift sustained. I do think that the moment the essential movement of fear is seen, at that very moment the ego dies.

K: I am that, sir. I *am* desire, I am thought, I am time. I am *that*.

RG: No, but if you are still there after this discovery, I am afraid the news isn’t good enough.

PJ: May I say one thing? This movement which has been explored, the ‘I’ is not separate from that movement.

K: That’s it.

PJ: When a statement is made that fear ends, this movement ends, and with the ending of this movement, time ends—in that sense, in his sense. Now, the question which I think would be relevant would be, with the ending of that, is there the void of nothingness? Because after all this is the veil, this is the illusion. When you talk without even making the statement of that, the illusion which hides if you say that there is this super light, there is something which is covering that light, what is covering the light is this movement.

RG: Is it also the ego is my simple question, Pupulji. If the ego survives this cessation. I am afraid that is not good enough news for me.

PJ: Can it survive?

RG: If it doesn’t then the other *marga*, the other path, the other movement they are with, it was never real at any point in time at all.

PJ: But if you start from saying it is not real, you will never see that.

RG: No I think the two must go side by side. All I am suggesting is that we—this is a crude phrase—we put all our resources together. I do suggest, no, no, I do suggest that the one, the actual undertaking of this marvellous process briefly but so powerfully introduced by Krishnaji, and the conviction for those who share it, and I think there are millions who do this, that this ego was never real anyway. I think the two can go together, and in a pincer movement bring freedom, I think. But if you pursue only the one and mind you, in somewhat unfortunate rejection of the other, then I think that would be a false move.

PJ: That would take a great deal of discussion. You know, to go into these two it would take a tremendous…

AP: I would just like to say that we get the constituents. When we get the constituents, what is the importance of the name? After all when we use the word *ego*, the ego is after all a concept. Now I get the constituents, and I get the constituents and I say that time is the factor of fear. And I brood over it, I ponder over it, because it is the toughest nut to crack. Then I hear that thought is fear. Now, when I get each of the constituents and I examine each of the constituents, and I am very critical, very sceptical, and I say that each of the constituents has validity because it is part of my being. It is not external as well as not internal, it is. It is. When I have said this, is there any meaning left to naming? If I have examined the parts, is there any meaning attached to naming? Because then what I have to get rid of is naming.

RG: Supposing I were to say, not with the authority of a *gnani*, but as one…

Q: …

RG: Just a moment. Supposing I were to say the ego is fear. Now I think in the same tone of voice…

K: Ego is fear.

RG: Right. Very good. This is the first time I am hearing this word from you today. But I think if Krishnaji said, it came with the authority of Krishnaji…

K: *Qu’est ce qu’il dit*? I am sorry.

RG: No, this word, this phrase, that the ego is fear, today I heard for the first time from you.

K: Yes, sir.

RG: I think if you were now to address this very sentence along with the other three.

PJ: But also, you see…

RG: No, but I think I am addressing Krishnaji. Please give me one minute. I think that what I am suggesting in my own clumsy way, it has been now I think unclumsied by you in that simple phrase ‘the ego is fear’. If ego is fear then one should begin with this, that naming is fearing. Achyutji, supposing one begins with this thought also, one has to go through this movement of overcoming the movement, in addition to the mantras, forgive me I will regard these statements—thought is fear, desire is fear, time is fear, as three mantras or *mahavakyas*. Now supposing you have the fourth *mahakavya,* the ego is fear, I think that is almost like the four Vedas.

K: I don’t know what you mean by this.

RG: But I think you need the fourth Veda also.

AP: We won’t enter into the semantics of it.

RG: No, but you are. You are talking about naming; you can’t deny semantics.

AP: No, I am saying that for the time being, we have moved along a certain line, and we have come up to that point, then I say that if we also give up naming at that point then perhaps does it leave us at a point which Pupulji has very validly raised, that where are you then. Is there a void, is a very important question.

RG: Void, again, why anticipate the void? But if you are sceptical about naming from the start, then I think your capacity to give it up will be greater.

PJ: The naming is very much part of this.

RG: So is the ego now the fourth mantra? That the ego is fear, I insist on bringing it into the discussion.

PJ: But I won’t enter into it. But I want to tell Krishnaji that there is a fifth element which may be unrelated to these four, but is being stated by Krishnaji, and that is, that there is a meditation of the universe. There is a meditation of the universe with the ending of this. Now can you take all this together?

AP: I would have paraphrased in another word which I think might be helpful. My only excuse for speaking is that it might be. I say that when you have arrived at that point, there is the non-divisive existence.

K: These are all words, darlings.

GS: Krishnaji, I realize time is practically up, but I would like to say that this is like the Columbus… If somebody came to me and then said, I am in mortal fear, I would first say my friend, I don’t know anything to help you, but please tell me. Probably I would have gone somewhere along the way, not so clearly, not so specifically. However I wonder how many common people can benefit from such a thing. Wouldn’t they say Krishnaji, you are a great man, but these are words. I am in tremendous fear, I am in agony. Please help me. Don’t tell me all this, semantics…

K: I won’t tell him all this.

GS: What will you do?

K: Hold his hand.

(Pause)

RG: I knew there was a catch to it.

K: What, sir?

GS: No, no, no, no catch.

RG: I mean there was a—this wonderful surprise waiting for us all. This final statement is the fifth statement and not the meditation of the universe. The fifth mantra is this.

*(Undecipherable conversation for about a minute amongst the participants.)*

[^1]: Sanskrit — direct evidence