1st Public Question ' Answer Meeting - Tuesday, 23rd July, 1985

I have been told that there are so many people who are sad leaving, ending, Saanen. If one is sad it is about time that we left! And as has been announced, we are leaving. This is the last session at Saanen.

There are several questions that have been put. You can't possibly expect all those questions to be answered, there are too many. Probably it would take several days to answer them. The speaker has not seen these questions, he likes to come to them spontaneously, but they have been very carefully chosen.

Before going into these questions which you have put, may I ask you some questions? May I? Are you quite sure?

Why do you come here? That is a good question. What is the raison d'être or the cause of your coming? is it curiosity? Is it the reputation the man, the speaker, has built for the last seventy years? Is it the beauty of this valley - the marvellous mountains, the flowing river and the great shadows and lovely hillside? What has brought you here? Is it that you are concerned with your daily life, the way you are living it, the problems that you have, probably of every kind, old age, death, sex - you know the whole invasion of problems our brain is so used to - and that you expect someone to tell you how to live, how to examine, what to do? Is that the reason you are here? Or is it that one wants to see what one actually is as we are sitting here, examine that very closely and see if we can go beyond it - is that the reason?

So, as you cannot possibly answer all those questions, I am asking you, the speaker is asking you, what is it all about? These gatherings have been going on in Saanen for twenty-five years. A great deal of our life. And, if one may ask the question of you, what remains at the end of it all, what is the content of our life? Is there any breaking of the pattern? Or is the pattern or mould being repeated over and over and over again? One's constant concentrated habits seem so difficult to break - the habit of thought, the habit of one's everyday life. When we look at all that after twenty-five years, is there a breaking of that pattern in which we live? Or do we just carry on day after day, adding a little more, taking away a little more, and at the end of one's existence feeling regret that one has not lived differently? Is this the process we are going through? I am asking the question: what is it all about? Our life. All the appalling things that are happening around us, far away from this lovely land? Where are we as individuals in this whole pattern of existence? What is the residue that remains in the sieve? What remains in us? Are we aware of what is happening to us in our daily thought, aware of every emotion, reaction, response, habit? Or is it just flowing by like a river?

Which would you like to answer first of these questions? (He reads them aloud.)

What do you mean by creation?

Various teachers, gurus, say that essentially they are giving the same teaching as you. What do you say?

What is guilt? One is desperate because the actions that caused the guilt can never be eradicated.

Can we start with the various teachers? Right? Various teachers, gurus, say that essentially they are giving the same teaching as you, What do you say?

I wonder why they compare themselves with the speaker. I wonder why they should even consider that what the speaker is saying is what they are also saying. Why do they say these things? I know this is a fact, that in India, Europe and America, various trumped-up gurus, various groups, say, 'We are also going towards the same thing, along the same river as you are.' This has been stated to me, to the speaker, personally, and we have discussed this matter with these gurus, with these local or foreign - what do you call them? - leaders. We have gone into this question.

First of all, why do they compare what they are saying with K? What is the intention behind it? Is it to ride on the same band wagon? Is it because they think they may not be 'quite quite' but by comparing themselves with K they might become 'quite quite'?

So in talking it over with some of them, we went into it. First of all I doubt what they are saying and I doubt the speaker's own experiences. There is a doubt, a disbelief, not saying, 'Yes, we are in the same boat.' So could we approach this question with doubt, with a certain sense of scepticism on both sides? There are those who say we are rowing the same boat on the same river; perhaps they are far ahead and the speaker is far behind, but it is still the same river. So in speaking with them, you doubt, question, demand, push further and further, deeper and deeper, and at the end of it, the speaker has heard many of them say, 'What you say is perfect, is the truth. You embody truth', and all that business. So they salute and go away saying, 'We have to deal with ordinary people and this is only for the elite.' I said, 'Double nonsense!' You understand?

So why do we at all compare - my guru is better than your guru? Why can't we look at things as they are? Questioning, doubting, asking, demanding, exploring, never saying our side is better than your side, or this side is better than that side, or that we are all doing the same thing. The other day I heard, 'What you are saying I am saying, what is the difference?' I said, 'None at all.' We use the same language, English or French, a little bit of Italian, but the content, the depth that lies behind the words may be quite different. We are so easily satisfied with explanations, with descriptions, with a sense of all the éclat, all the glory, all the paraphernalia. Our brains don't work very simply.

Have you ever watched, seen how your brain works? That is one of the questions I would like to ask you. Watched your brain in action as an outsider might watch it? You understand? Have you ever done it? Or is the brain carrying on with its old habits, beliefs, dogmas, rituals, business and so on - just mechanically carrying on? If I may ask, is your brain like that? Silence! Have you ever watched one thought chasing another thought, a series of associations, a series of memories, holding on to your own experience? The other day, in America, a person whom we have known for some time said that he lived according to his experience, what his experience has told him. His experience was real, actual, very deep, and that experience was all-important to him. And we said, 'Why don't you doubt your experience, it may not be actual? It may be imaginary; it may be romantic, sentimental and all the rest of it. Why don't you doubt that very thing you say: "My experience tells me"?' One has not seen that person again - do you understand?

So is it not necessary to be aware of all these things: why they compare, why they say we are all in the same boat? We may be in the same boat, probably we are, all of us. But why assume we are in the same boat? Can we not refuse to accept any guru, any leader, especially the speaker? Never accept anything psychologically except what we have watched in ourselves in our relationships, in our speech, the tone of voice, the words we use, all that. Can one all day, or some part of the day, be aware of all that? Then perhaps you won't need any guru, any leader, any book, including that of the speaker. Then, when one is really attentive, there is something totally different taking place.

May we go on to the next question? Good Lord! Guilt. I don't have to read the question. It is all rather mixed up here.

Why do we feel guilty? Many people do. It tortures their life. Then it becomes an enormous problem and that is the background of guilt for many, many people. Guilt in not believing, guilt in not being with the rest of the group. You know the feeling of guilt, not the word but the feeling behind that word - that we have done something wrong and feel remorseful, anxious, and therefore frightened, uncertain. This guilt is a very distorting factor in our life. This is obvious. So why do we have this feeling? Is it that we have not done something which is correct, which is not pragmatic, which is against what our environment has put together? The guilt of a man or woman who feels they haven't supported the war of their own country. You know the various forms of guilt and the causes of it. We are asking: why does this feeling exist? Is it because we are not responsible, not demanding excellence of ourselves?

Now, just a minute, the speaker is asking, is it that we are lazy, indolent, inattentive and therefore slightly irresponsible? And facing that irresponsibility we feel guilty? Suppose I have followed somebody, my guru, who has indulged in all kinds of things, sex and so on, and I have done as he does, then he changes his mind, he becomes old and says, 'No more', and his disciples say, 'No more.' One has done all these things in order to follow that guru and then the guru says, 'No more', and I feel I shouldn't have done those things, I have been wrong. You follow? The whole issue of guilt. How do we deal with it? That is more important.

So let's find out what to do about it, shall we? Not investigate the causes of it, we know those. I have done something which is not proper, which is not correct, which is not true and I realize later that that reaction has been unfortunate, causing damage to myself and unhappiness to others and I feel guilty. So what shall we do when we have guilt? How would you deal with it? What is your approach to it? How do you come near the problem? Is it that you want it resolved, that you want it wiped away so that your brain is no longer caught in it? How do you approach it - with the desire to resolve it, to be free of it? How you approach a problem is very important, isn't it? If you have a direction for that problem, it must be solved this way or that way. Or if you have a motive, then that motive directs the issue. So do we approach a problem like guilt without any motive? You understand my question? Or do we always approach a problem with a motive? I wonder, are we meeting this thing together? Is it possible to approach a problem without any sense of the background knowledge which is motive, and look at it as though for the first time? Can we do that?

So, there are two things involved: how you approach a problem and what is a problem. You have problems, don't you, many, many of them? Why? Not that we are condemning the problem or saying it must be solved this way or that way; we are questioning the problem itself, the word, and the content of that word, an issue, something which you have to answer, whether it is a business problem, family problem, sexual problem, spiritual problem - sorry, 'spiritual' should be in quotes - problems as to what leader to follow. Why do we have problems?

First let's examine the word problem. According to the dictionary, a problem means something thrown at you, something propelled against you, a challenge, a thing that you have to answer. Something thrown at you. And we call that a problem. Why does our brain have problems? May we go into it a little bit? Please don't accept anything the speaker says, anything. But let's examine it together. When you send a child to school, he has to learn to read and write. He has never read or written before, so writing and reading become a problem to him. And as he grows up his brain is being trained to problems. Obviously. The whole process of learning is a problem and so the brain is conditioned in problems. This is a fact. My wife becomes a problem, how to live, what to do, and so on and so on. Our brain, your brain, is conditioned, educated to live with problems. This is a fact, not an invention by the speaker. It is so. So our whole life becomes a problem. Can we look at this as a fact, not as an idea, or a theory, but as a fact and see what we can do - whether the brain can be free to solve problems, not approach them with a mind that is already crowded with problems? You understand my question? No? I have been to school where I am not interested in anything the teacher is saying. I am looking out of the window, enjoying myself, he bangs me on the head. I come to, and he says, 'Write.' I say, 'Good Lord, I must learn', and it becomes a problem to me. My whole education - I am not against education but I am pointing out - my whole education becomes a tremendous problem. So the brain from childhood is conditioned to live with problems - right?

Now, our question is: is it possible to be free of problems and then attack problems, for I cannot resolve them unless the brain is free. If it is not free, in the solution of one problem other problems are created. So the speaker is asking: can we be free of problems first - uncondition the brain which has been educated to live with problems? Is it clear? At last.

Now let's proceed. Is it possible to be free and then tackle problems? How do you answer that question? Do you say it is possible or do you say it is impossible? When you say it is possible or impossible you have already blocked yourself. You have already closed the doors. You have prevented yourself from investigating, going into the question.

So here is the question again: is it possible to free the brain from the conditioning of its education? The speaker is going into it not to convince you of anything but just to show you. You are not to do anything. Just listen to what he is saying, not accepting or denying, just looking, listening. The brain is conditioned to this whole culture of problems. That is a nice word - culture of problems. And is the conditioned brain different from the observer? Is the brain, my brain, different from me who is analysing, looking, tearing, examining, accepting, not accepting - is that observer, the person who says, 'I am looking at it', any different from the brain? It is a very simple question, don't complicate it. Is anger, greed, envy, different from me? Or am I anger? Anger is me. Greed is me. The quality is me. There is no difference. But culture, education, has made us separate them. There is envy: if I say I am different from it, that I must control it, or indulge in it, there is conflict. I don't know if you are following all this? Is envy me? is violence me? Violence is not something different from me; me is violent. Do you see this? Once one realizes this fact that there is no difference between the quality and me, then a totally different movement is taking place. There is no conflict. You understand? There is no conflict.

As long as there is separation there is conflict in me.

Now I realize this, that I am the quality. I am violence. I, the me, is greedy, envious, jealous and all the rest of it, so I have abolished altogether this division in me. I am that. I am that quality. So, can my brain remain with that fact, stay with that fact? Can my brain, which is so active, so alive, thinking, watching, listening, trying, making efforts - can that brain stay with the fact that I am that? Stay with it, not run away, not try to control, because the moment you control there is a controller and the controlled, therefore it becomes effort. Please, I am being very simple. If you really grasp this truth, this fact, you eliminate effort altogether. Effort means contradiction. Effort means, I am different from that. Can you see the actual fact, not the idea but the actuality that you are your quality, your anger, your envy, your jealousy, your hate, your uncertainty, your confusion - that you are that? Not acknowledge it verbally or verbally agree, then we don't meet each other, but actually see this fact and stay with it. Can you? When you stay with it, what is implied in that? Attention - right? No movement away from it. Just staying with it. If you have acute pain you can't stay with it, but if you stay with it psychologically, inwardly say yes, it is so - which means no movement away from the fact - then the essence is no conflict, then you have broken the pattern of the brain. The pattern says, 'I must do something. What is the right thing to do? Who will tell me the right thing to do? I must go to a psychiatrist' - you know all that stuff that takes place. When once you see the fact, it is like holding a jewel, marvellously carved; you are looking at it, seeing all the inside, outside, how it is put together, the platinum, the gold, the diamonds. You watch it because you are the jewel, you are the centre of this most intricate, subtle jewel which you are. The moment one sees the fact the whole thing is different.

So guilt - sorry I have gone away from it. We had to. Guilt. It is not a problem, you understand now. It is a fact. It is not something to be resolved, something to be got over. You feel guilty about something you have done; this is a fact, and you stay with it. When you stay with it, it begins - please listen - it begins to flower and wither away. You understand, sir? Like a flower, if you keep on pulling it up to see if the roots are working properly, it will never bloom, but once you see the fact, which is the seed, and then stay with it, it shows itself fully. All the implications of guilt, all the implications of its subtlety, where it hides, is like a flower blooming. And if you let it bloom, not act, not say, 'I must do or must not do', then it begins to wither away and die. Please understand this. With every issue you can do that. About God, about anything. That is insight, not merely remembrance, adding. Is this clear? If you discover it, you see that it is so, then psychologically it is an enormous factor that frees you from all the past and present struggles and effort.

Now for the first question: What do you mean by creation?

Shall we go into that? It is a rather complex question. I will read it again. What do you mean by creation? What does the speaker mean? I would like to put that question to you.

A lot of people talk about creation - the astrophysicists and the theoretical philosophers. God created and so on.

This is a very serious question which the ancient Hindus and the ancient Hebrews have put, not merely recent scientists. This has been a tremendous issue that they want to understand. May we go into this?

What is creation? When you ask that question you must also ask the question, what is invention? Is invention creation? To invent something new, is that creation? Careful please, don't agree or disagree, just look at it. Invention is based on knowledge - right? It is based on somebody else's previous experiments; all those experiments are knowledge in the present and you add to it. This is so. The man who invented the jet knew first all about the propeller and the internal combustion machinery; then from that knowledge he got an idea. I may be putting it incorrectly, or exaggeratedly, but this is so: from a great deal of knowledge, a new inspiration comes, and that inspiration is an invention. So we are adding all the time. And is that creation - something which is based on knowledge and the consequences of knowledge? Or has creation nothing to do with knowledge? Is creation a series of inventions in the universe? Obviously when they look at Mars, Mercury, Venus, Saturn and go beyond, they know what Venus is made of - various gases and so on and so on and so on - but what they have translated as gases is not Venus. You understand? Come on, sirs. The word Venus is not Venus. The gases constituting Venus are not that beauty which you see early in the morning or late in the evening.

So we are asking, is invention totally different from creation? Which means that creation has nothing whatever to do with knowledge. You are going to find this rather difficult. If you don't mind, if you are not too tired, if you still have the energy to investigate, we will go into it. Don't accept what the speaker is saying, that would be terrible. It would destroy you. Don't merely say, yes, yes, yes. It would destroy your brain, as it has been destroyed by others. The speaker has no intention of destroying your brain, or adding to the already damaged brain. So he says have scepticism, question, don't accept or deny, just find out. We know what invention is - at least to the speaker it is very clear. That doesn't mean it is clear to you. We are asking, what is creation?

Is creation related to man's endeavour? Is it related to all experiences? To the duration of time? Please examine all this. Which means, is it related to war, to killing, to business, to all the memories that man has accumulated, acquired, gathered? If it is, then it is still part of knowledge. Therefore it cannot be creation. Right? So what is creation? is it related - please listen, just listen, don't do anything about it - is it related to love? That is, love is not hate, jealousy, anxiety, uncertainty, the love of your wife, which is the love of the image you have built about her, or of your husband or girl friend, or the image you have built about your guru for whom you have great devotion, or the image of a temple, mosque, or church. So we are asking: is love necessary for creation? Or is love, which is also compassion, creation? And is creation or love related to death? You understand all these questions? I am sorry to ask, do you understand - I withdraw that. just listen.

So is love free from all the human beings who have given specific meaning to that word? Free from all that. Is love related to death? And is love compassion and death? Is all that creation? Can there be creation without death? That is, ending. Ending all knowledge - Vedanta. You have heard that word, I am sure. The word Vedanta means the end of knowledge - the end of knowledge which is death, which means no time, timeless, which is love. You understand? Sorry, I won't repeat that. Stupid of me to repeat!

So love, death. Love means compassion. Love, compassion mean supreme intelligence, not the intelligence of books and scholars and experience. That is necessary at a certain level but there is the quintessence of all intelligence when there is love, compassion. There cannot be compassion and love without death, which is the ending of everything. Then there is creation. That is, the universe, not according to the astrophysicists and scientists, is supreme order. Of course. Sunrise and sunset. Supreme order. And that order can only exist when there is supreme intelligence. And that intelligence cannot exist without compassion and love and death. This is not a process of meditation but deep, profound enquiry. Enquiry with great silence, not 'I am investigating'. Great silence, great space. That which is essentially love and compassion and death is that intelligence which is creation. Creation is there when the other two are there, death and love. Everything else is invention.