Thought and the centre

I would like to remind you, if I may, that this is a serious gathering, not something that the intellect can be entertained with, not a sentimental, romantic, mystic, or imaginative theoretical issue; but rather, being serious, we are concerned with the world about us, which is in a very tragic condition, and also see the absolute necessity of total psychological revolution. So on this basis we are talking over together - not intellectually be amused, or theoretically offering various opinions, judgements and so on. We are concerned with what actually is, not only out there but also in here, in oneself; and the imperative necessity of this psychological transformation of man which will affect the whole of consciousness of human beings. I hope we realise that is what we are trying to do, what we are gathered here to do.

So what shall we talk over this morning which would be worthwhile?

Questioner: Continue from yesterday.

Krishnamurti: The gentleman says continue with what we were discussing or talking over yesterday.

Q: (Inaudible)

K: She wants to know what is the right kind of relationship between parents, the children, wife and husband and so on. Do we discuss, talk over together, what we were talking about yesterday, or shall we talk about relationship between human beings?

Q: Yesterday.

Q: It is the same thing we were talking about yesterday.

K: Which shall we do? You tell me, I don't... This isn't a verbal exchange. We are dealing with serious problems, it isn't you pick up a subject and say, let's talk about it. It is ourselves we are talking about.

Shall we go on with what we were talking about yesterday?

Q: Yes.

K: And perhaps we will include in that, relationship and other things which may be relevant.

We were saying yesterday, weren't we, that our minds, our brains, cling to tradition, because in tradition, whether it is a modern tradition or an ancient tradition, in clinging to tradition the brain feels totally secure, safe, and it will go on functioning in that area which thought has created and considered that as secure, which becomes the tradition and hold on to that. That is what we are doing all the time - all our responses, all our attitudes and our solution to our problems, is along traditional lines. The word 'tradition' means handing down, 'tradere', to hand over, hand down, and all our culture, whether in India, or all over the world, is utterly traditional. There may be varieties in that tradition, changes in that tradition, a modification in that tradition but it is always within that area. I do not know if you have considered that at all. Our responses to any challenge, whatever it be - political, economic, social, personal, or universal, it is always from the remembrance of things, from the acquired knowledge, or imposed knowledge, or knowledge that one has gathered through generations, which is the background; from that background we respond to any challenge, and so we always remain within that limited area.

And that is what we were talking about yesterday, that the brain, your brain, if you observe it, the speaker is not a specialist on the structure of the brain, or the responses of the brain, how it works, the electric movement and so on, so on. One has watched one's own brain in operation, in activity, in function, and one sees that one's brain always moves from the known to the known, because in that there is complete security. The known becomes the tradition, the known may be tomorrow, and the known of the tomorrow becomes the tradition. So the brain always seems to move from the known to the known, which is our tradition.

And we were saying yesterday, if I remember rightly, please correct me if I am wrong, that suffering in its widest sense, because being wide it includes everything, every form of physical, psychological, neurotic, fearful suffering, the suffering of loneliness, despair, anxiety, death, the suffering of a person who is arrogant and sees he cannot fulfil that arrogance and so on, so on - that suffering which we term as selfishness, it is that stream in which human beings right throughout the world, whatever their occupation, whatever their position, whatever their status are caught in that. I think that is fairly clear. And we were saying yesterday, we seem to accept, live with this suffering, this selfishness, though it brings wars, enormous sums are spent on armaments, each nation trying to say we are seeking peace through force - you know the game they are playing all over the world. And we seem to accept it, not knowing what to do. And what can one do? How does one affect by one's action the whole movement of degeneracy? It used to be considered in the ancient days that to be a soldier was the lowest rung in social order - you understand? - the lowest rung - but now it is the highest. And this current in which human beings are caught, is there any action within that current, within that area which will affect the structure and the nature of the brain. You understand my question?

Being a serious person - I mean serious in which there is laughter, smile and delight - and also watching all the tragedy, the misery, the confusion, which the politicians are making in the world, for which we are responsible, because we have elected, or they are dominating us, how can I, as a human being, affect this whole current, which is destroying man, which is destroying the earth, the animals, the ocean - you follow? - polluting everything it touches. As a serious person, what can I do? I do not know if you want to discuss that. If you want to talk over that, please let me again remind you, if I may, that it is a very, very serious thing, not a plaything, not a game, not a verbal exchange. You must be totally committed to it, not occasionally, not for the next two, or one week while you are in Saanen. You must be committed for the rest of your life, otherwise don't play with it - go to the cinema, or play golf, or climb a mountain, or jump in the lake. This is very serious.

Can one affect this vast stream through one's action - politically, religiously, psychologically? You understand my question? I am serious, I want to affect this awful thing that is going on in the world - the drugs, the alcohol, smoking, killing animals, you know what is happening, wars. Now what shall I do? Shall I, as a human being, take politics and work at that? You follow? Or, as a human being concerned with a psychological transformation, be only concerned with that? Or as an artist, only with that? You understand my question? Or is there a way of looking at the whole - politics, religion, psychology, inward struggles, relationship, the misery, the confusion, the anxiety, the arrogance, vanity, look at all that as one unitary movement, not divided movement? You understand? I don't know if I am... Am I making this clear?

Q: Yes.

K: Shall I take relationship only and neglect the rest? Or will relationship, politics, everything will be included if I can look at the whole movement - you understand my question? That is, is it possible - I am not giving a talk, please we are discussing, talking over together - is it possible for the mind to see this totality of this misery, this selfishness, this suffering, the brutality, all that, see it as a whole? Is that possible? You understand? Please, avanti.

How is the mind, how is one to see the totality of anything? You understand my question? Please, let's go on. How is a human being, who lives in fragments, who lives a broken up life - the wars, married, divorced, children and so on, so on, so on - broken up. How is that human being to see the total, the whole? You understand my question? Can thought see the whole? Please, we must be quite sure of this before we go further. Can thought, which is memory, which is experience, which is knowledge - and knowledge being the past - can that thought see the totality of existence? You understand? Bene? Yes, sir?

Q: Thought is always fragmentary because it is always moving from one centre, therefore it can never see the whole issue.

K: So you are saying thought in itself is fragmentary, therefore thought cannot see the whole - right? Now be quite clear on this point.

Q: (Inaudible) ...think about what is concept.

K: We're going to find out, sir. We are going to find out whether thought is capable of seeing all the complexity, all that the human being is and what he is creating out there, see it, as a total movement. It was suggested that thought is fragmentary and therefore it cannot see the whole. Why is thought fragmentary? We must find that out. We say thought is fragmentary, broken up, therefore it cannot see the whole. But why is thought itself fragmentary, what makes it into a fragment? Vous avez compris? We are going to find that out.

Q: (In French)

K: Because there is a thinker. Now who created the thinker?

Q: Thought.

K: Of course, obviously. So we are going round and round in circles. If you say thought created the thinker, and therefore the thinker becomes the fragment, and therefore the thinker can never see the whole - which is the same as saying, thought cannot see the whole.

Q: Can thought create energy?

K: Wait, sir, just go step by step.

Q: He said that thought created the thinker. Can thought create anything?

K: Can thought create anything. Of course, thought has created this tent. But the thought has not created the mountain, thought has not created the river, thought has created this microphone, and the microphone is free of thought, that which has been created is independent of thought. The tent, created by thought, is independent of thought. Is the thinker independent of thought? Wait, wait. Go slow, go slow.

Q: The thinker thinks he is independent of thought.

K: So the thinker thinks he is independent of thought. But thought has put him together. Please go slowly, you will see something extraordinary taking place in you, if you observe it in yourself.

Q: I don't agree that thought has created the thinker.

K: She doesn't agree thought has created the thinker.

Q: Well, you identify the thinker with a human being.

K: No, no. You say you do not agree that thought has created the thinker. The thinker identifies himself or says he is separate from thought. That is all what we are discussing. Is there a thinker if there is no thought? Obviously not. So just see the importance of this: thought creates the tent and the tent is independent of thought. The mountain is not created by thought and yet it is independent. But thought created the thinker and the thinker says, I am independent of thought. And the thinker says, I identify myself with this and that and that, therefore I am independent of thought.

Q: I agree.

K: Please, it is not a matter of agreement or disagreement. This is so... Look at it. I am not trying to persuade you to anything, or influence you to any kind of thought or conclusion. The obvious thing is, thought has created this tent, the tent is independent of thought. Right? Thought has created the thinker, and the thinker says, 'By Jove, I am independent, I am original. I am the soul, I am god', 'I am Brahman, I am everything'. But thought has put him together.

Q: Whether I think or not I have a feeling that I am.

K: Whether you think or not there is a feeling, I am. Is feeling different from thought? Wait, wait.

Q: A sense of being.

K: Sense of being. What do you mean by, sense of being?

Q: The same as what the plant feels, what the tree would feel, it is aware of being.

K: I can't hear...

Q: The same as the tree would feel.

K: Oh, the plant, the tree, the mountain, it is there.

Q: It feels it is there. The tree is aware of being there.

K: Oh, the tree, I can't, I don't know what the tree feels. (Laughter) No, please, don't bring in what the tree feels. No, please, stick to something simple, we will go into it, you don't proceed. We are asking why thought is fragmentary. You haven't answered that question.

Q: I do not know.

K: Thought can say I do not know, and acquire knowledge and therefore know. No, you're not... (laughs)

Q: When you see the truth you don't need to think.

K: When you see the truth, you don't need to think. What is truth? Is it related to thought? Is it part of thought? Or is it within the area of reality, which is the reality that thought has put together? Or is truth something totally outside reality? - reality being all that thought has put together. So don't use these... (laughs) Please let's go slowly.

So why is thought fragmentary? We are asking that question because we said, can thought see the whole - the whole movement of existence, including itself, including what it has made, what it has put together, its gods, its hell, its heaven, its misery, all that, can thought see the totality of this? And we said, somebody said, thought cannot see it because it is a fragment. And we are asking, why is it a fragment? Keep to that. Why is it a fragment?

Q: It has detached itself from the whole.

K: Because it has detached itself from the whole.

K: Now what made it detach from the whole? I want to find out why thought is fragmentary. Aren't you interested in this?

Q: Time is involved in thought. Time is always in fragments.

K: So you are saying thought is a movement in time, so thought is time, therefore it is fragmentary. But who created time?

Q: Thought.

K: Thought. Yesterday, today and tomorrow. Twelve o'clock, one o'clock and six o'clock. Thought has created time, time is thought.

Q: I do not know that, sir. Thought has created time - maybe.

K: Sir, look, look. Just go into it slowly. There is time by the watch, chronological time - the sun rises this morning at five o'clock or five-thirty and the lovely pink of the mountains and the beauty of shadows, and there was a meeting here at 10.30, all that is by the clock. That is chronological time. Is there any other time at all? We say there is, which is the 'me' that is going to evolve, the 'me' that is going to become, the desire that is going to fulfil, I must be perfect, I must achieve - all that is the movement of thought in time. Shall we go on?

So we are asking, can thought solve the human problem, which it has created; or can thought see the whole and the perceiving of the whole is the solution of our problem? So, we are asking, can thought see the whole? And you say, no, because it is fragmentary. And I am asking myself, and you are asking yourself, why is it fragmentary?

Q: Is it because thought is mechanical?

K: You are saying thought is mechanical, which means the brain is mechanical, which means the mind, totality, is mechanical. But that doesn't answer yet my question.

Q: Thought is creating a centre.

K: Go slowly. A centre. The lady says thought is creating a centre. Wait, just, go slowly. Why does it create a centre?

Q: Thought needs security in order to function, therefore it creates a centre.

K: Sir, I have said all this. But I want you, if you don't mind, to think of it anew.

Q: By identification.

K: My identification. Thought identifies itself with something called the 'me'. Is that it? But it has created the 'me', therefore it has no need to identify itself with 'me'.

Please, give me two minutes, will you? Let me talk and I'll show you, I'll point out, then we will discuss.

We are asking, thought has created the outside world and the world inside me. The world is in chaos, and the world is 'me', I am also in... human beings are in chaos. And we say, can thought solve this problem? And the politicians are trying to do it - cunningly, subtly, deceptively, with spies, with, you know, all that business that is going on. And can the religious people solve this? Christians, believers, non-believers. So thought, apparently, has not been able to solve this centuries upon centuries. (Pause)

Please, madame, don't take photographs, if you don't mind. I am not a circus. I have a horror of all that kind of thing. Please, do have some kind of sensitivity and respect, when somebody doesn't want to be photographed, don't do it.

We are asking, as thought created all this can thought undo all this? And we said, can thought see this whole movement of suffering, anxiety, politics, all the things that thought has put together which we call reality. And we said thought cannot solve it because thought itself is fragmentary. And I say to myself, why is thought fragmentary, why can't thought see what it is doing and grasp it and finish it? And we see thought is a fragment, is broken up, whatever it touches breaks up - the businessman, the artist, the socialist, the capitalist, the communist, the nationalist, the believer - everything thought touches is fragmentary. Now I say to myself, why is it a fragment? If I can find that out, not be told because then you repeat - repetition is like a monkey anyhow. So I want to find out why. Thought creates a centre - watch it. The centre becomes a means of unifying, like a bureaucracy is the unifying factor in politics, like a party, a centre, the democratic party, or the labour party, is a centre round which one hopes to create a unified entity. This is what is happening. The family is a centre, which means the father, mother and the children are one unit. So thought creates the centre - politically, religiously, in family life, in the human being - a centre, hoping thereby to bring about unity. After all, the family is a unit - they quarrel, they beat each other, whatever they do, all the ugly things that go in a futile little family, but yet there is a unit. The communists tried to break up that unit but have come back to it again. And so on, so on, so on, so on. So thought creates a centre in the hope that it will be the unifying factor. Because in a unifying factor there is a vitality, there is strength, there is stability. Right? So thought has created that, and that has become independent of thought. I don't know if you have noticed this. Having created that centre, that centre then feels itself independent of thought, and that centre begins to dictate to thought - what it should do, what it should not do. Therefore thought becomes an outside thing, an irrelevant factor though a necessary factor, and therefore it is fragmentary. Got it?

Please don't accept what I am saying. Just look at the world, look at the world and see how the world is trying to unify through centres - you understand? - American centre, with their president, with their army - you follow? - it is a unit though in that Federation there are all kinds of troubles, ambitions, each wanting to be president - you know, but it is still within the centre of America, the idea of America. So the idea becomes a centre.

Q: (In French)

K: No, no, pas avoir peur, madame, nous ne parlous, pas de peur. We are just watching it. Please, I said please give me two minutes to go into this.

So there are various centres formed by thought - the Indian centre, the Italian, the Russian, the American, there is the centre in me, and the centre in you, and the centre in the family, all trying to unify - like the sun is the unifying factor of this universe, without the sun we would all be gone. So it is the unifying factor. So thought having created that centre, and the centre feeling itself totally independent of thought, then thought becomes something outside, therefore it is fragmentary, therefore it is broken up - it is not the centre. As thought created the tent and the tent is independent of thought, so the centre is independent of thought and it dictates to thought what it should do. And thought has created that in the hope of creating unity. So thought, wanting to create unity, becomes fragmentary because it cannot create unity. I wonder if you see that. Va bene?

I am not going to move from that till we completely understand that, because it is a very important factor in life.

Q: There's the question also, why does thought have the propensity to create the centre?

K: Why does thought feel the necessity of creating a centre.

K: Thought can condition itself to any pattern. It can become Catholic, Protestant, Capitalist, anything it can make itself. So thought realises that it is very changeable, that it is in a flux, and yet thought says there must be security. You follow? So it creates the centre in which it hopes there is security. The centre is 'me', the centre is my country, the centre is my god, the centre is my wife - you follow?

Q: What stops thought from seeing what it is doing? You speak of thought seeing and act.

K: I never said, I never said, sir, please be accurate, I never said thought can see the whole - because it is fragmentary. And I keep on repeating that, and you tell me... (laughs) So please, are you aware of this, do you know this as a fact, not as a theory, not as somebody telling you it is so and then you accepting it, but as a fact that you, that your thought has created the centre? And the centre is the hope of unifying, bringing people together.

Look, thought creates an ideal - Marxist ideal, or Mao ideal, thought has created it. And people work for that - Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin - whether you approve or disapprove, that is not the point. And a Catholic and the whole of Christendom is based on that - the centre as Jesus, the saviour, whether he existed or not, that is not the point. And that held all Christendom at one time, then they began to break up. Which means thought realising its own insecurity, because it is constantly in movement, changeable, it creates a centre, as my country, my god, and so on, so on, and that becomes the security, the unifying factor of human beings. You are all Catholics or Protestants, aren't you? As the Hindus - you follow? So thought cannot see the whole. Right? Can we move from there? Don't accept this. Do you feel it in your bones?

Q: (In French)

K: Can thought be modified by education.

K: My god, are you asking me that? Can thought be modified as communist - oh god, don't let's go on into this.

Q: But I don't see why thought cannot remain with its own insecurity.

K: He does not see why thought cannot remain with its own insecurity. Do you know what would happen? Please see the consequence of that. You are asking a question, which is, why does not thought remain and realise its own insecurity? Wait. Watch it, sir. Watch it, watch it in yourself. What would happen to you if thought had no security, no certainty - can it function? Therefore it must have a pattern, a centre, an ideal, a god, something which gives it safety. Now proceed from there.

So we are saying that thought cannot see the total movement of selfishness, the stream, which is suffering, anxiety and so on. Then what is it that sees the whole? You understand? If thought cannot see the whole then what is it that sees the whole? Wait, we are going into it, don't agree or disagree, put it away. I want to find out. Because that may be the answer, that may be the solution to all our problems - human, mechanical, political, everything. If thought cannot see it, what is meant by seeing, or perceiving the whole? Is there such a thing? Or must we always live with this centre which creates fragments and all the rest of it, which is our tradition? Bene? Right? Can we go on from there? This is our tradition, to live with the fragment, with the centre, and constantly modifying the centre by thought and never bringing about a human unity, never answering fundamental problems of human beings - like relationship, whether there is truth, whether there is god, whether there is a reality - you follow? - it cannot answer it. Therefore one asks: is there a quality of mind that sees the whole? Now wait a minute. Are we going together, discussing this, talking it over together?

So I am asking, what does it mean to see the whole?

Q: I don't know.

K: I don't know. I have gone into it a great deal, but I am still saying don't know. So I am willing to learn. Learn. I can only learn if I have leisure. Right? I can't learn if I am constantly moving, constantly offering opinions, judgements, evaluation. So I am going to learn. I am going to learn what it means to apprehend - apprehend means to take hold, what is meant by the 'whole' - so I have to understand the word first. The word means sanity, health, rational, clear thinking, and also that word means holy - H-O-L-Y - holy, rational, sane, objective, in which there is no emotional, sentimental, romantic, imaginative quality at all. So I have understood that word, the meaning of that word. Now is the mind capable of seeing the whole - the whole being health, good body - you follow? - healthy body, or, unhealthy body which doesn't distort perception? I may have cancer or disease, diabetes, or whatever it is, but that physical condition doesn't affect the clarity of perception, it doesn't distort. That's why we said health. Right? And also it means sanity, that means sane thinking. Please watch it. Can there be a sane thinking if you believe in this and that and the other, if you are a nationalist, or if you have faith in something? C'est beaucoup plus difficile, n'est ce pas? So sanity implies a non-belief, non-attachment, observing clearly 'what is' without any distortion, and therefore such a mind is a holy mind. So we have understood the meaning of that word.

I am asking, can thought see the whole, and we said, no, and we have gone into it pretty thoroughly. So I am asking myself, can there be a perception of the whole? So I have to understand, I am going to learn what it means to perceive. Right? Am I talking too much, or to myself? I want to learn, not to be told, not to accept, I want to learn, because the moment you learn it is yours, it is finished. So I must find out what it means to learn - you understand how I'm going? I can only learn if I don't know. If I know then... there is... (laughs) So I really don't know what it means to look at something wholly. So I am going to learn. I can only learn when there is curiosity. Right? There can only be curiosity when I don't know and I want to find out. And learning implies leisure. I must have space, I mustn't be crowded, I mustn't have all kinds of problems shouting at me. So I must have leisure. And I must have it to learn, and I create it to learn. I wonder if you follow this. I create leisure in order to learn. If I say, I have no leisure because I am occupied with my family, with my job, with my - you follow? Don't learn. (Laughs) But if you want to learn you have to create leisure. That means also curiosity. You can only be curious when you don't know. I don't know Russian, and I am curious to learn. So I learn. So I am learning what it means to observe totally - curiosity and a driving interest. If I want to learn something, it doesn't matter, technology, to be a doctor, to be a good carpenter, I must have driving interest in it, a sustained, driving interest. You follow? All this is implied in learning. I don't know if you are capable of it, if you want it, if you really pursue it.

Then learning implies never accumulating what you have learnt as knowledge. I wonder if you see that. We learn a language - what am I doing with all of you? Why are you all listening to me? Are you learning something from me? I doubt it! (Laughter)

Learning implies a driving interest, curiosity, and sustained energy. All that is implied in that word 'leisure'. Now I am saying, is there a perception which sees the whole? So we know what we mean by whole, by learning, now I want to look into that word 'perceive'. Is there a perception if my mind is looking at something else? I want to listen to what you are saying, therefore I must give attention to what you are saying, which means I mustn't compare what you are saying with what already I know - right? - I mustn't interfere, translate, or substitute something from what you are saying. I must listen to you totally, mustn't I? No?

Q: How is it possible for me to listen in the stream of desire.

K: I am telling you sir. I am telling you though we are in the stream how to look at the totality of the stream. If thought is not capable of looking at it, is there a way of looking at it which is not the movement of thought as time and measure? That's what we are saying.

So what does it mean to perceive? To see you there must be no screen between you and me - screen of my prejudice, screen of my desire, or this or that, there must be freedom between you and me, a space between you and me. Then I can see. If there is no space between me and the mountain I can't see the mountain. If there is no space between me and the tree I can't see the tree. So is my mind capable of looking at this vast stream with space between me and that? Consider it, look at it. If the space is created by thought, then it is not space. I don't know if you see that. Right? If I say to myself, I must look at my wife, and I have never probably seen her properly, I must have some space between her and me, but if I have no space but images about her, how she has hurt me, how she gave me delight, sex, or a damn nuisance, vulgarity, you know, space, if there is no space between her and me I can't see her. Right? That space which thought has created, which is the image between her and me, that image prevents me from looking. So to perceive I must have space - space being no image, no conclusion, no prejudice - I must look, which is rational. If I want to see you, though you have colours which I may not like but I must put aside those prejudices and look at you. So is my mind capable of looking with space, which means freedom from all the structure of thought as image? Can you do it? Can you?

Q: No.

K: You say you can't, why? Why do you say you can't? Is it because you have never learnt about yourself? What we are talking is about yourself, so you have never looked at yourself, actually what you are. Therefore when a new thing is proposed, you say, 'For god's sake, I don't know what you are talking about.'

So we are saying, to perceive there must be self-knowledge. I am putting it round the other way. Without knowing myself as I am, I cannot see the whole. So I must learn about myself. Learn. Not learn according to Freud, Jung and all the rest of them, not learn about myself according to Socrates or according to the ancient Indians, but actually what I am. I don't know what I am. I think I know what I am. So thought says, 'I know myself, I know what I have created', but see the trick it is... what it has created it doesn't know. I wonder if you realise this. Sir, thought has created this whole structure of 'me' - right? - and the 'me' has separated itself from thought and says, 'I am independent', and so thought says, 'I don't know you'. And thought says, you are what others have said, you are angry, you are this, you are that, but those are all the creations of thought. So I have to learn about myself, not according to any professional enquirer, classical professors, with doctorates and, you know, all the rest of it, I must look at myself and see what I am. I cannot look at myself because I have got so many ideas about myself. If I see something of myself, I say, that's wrong, I must change it, I must look at it, it is right, it is wrong - you follow? I am always clothing it according to opinions, judgements, evaluations. So can I look at myself without any interpretation? You can, can't you?

Q: (In French) Ca prend du temps.

K: Ca prend du temps. Wait a minute, that's another of our traditions: to look at myself will take time. That is one of the things that we have learnt from school, from professors, from analysts, from psychologists, that is the whole structure of tradition - you will learn gradually. I will learn gradually mathematics, I will learn gradually Algebra or Russian. Why should I say the same thing about myself? I may learn instantly the whole of myself, but if I say, well, it will take time, I am lost. You follow?

Q: (Inaudible)

K: I haven't understood a word. If somebody understands it please tell me what it is. Could you put it briefly, sir?

Q: I see in myself more than one centre.

K: Of course. He sees in himself more than one centre. Obviously. But they are all centres. I may see a centre in the morning when I wake up, rather joyful and clear-eyed, having slept well, there is a marvellous centre, and later on, as the day goes on, I meet people whom I don't like, or I like, they begin to insult me, there is another centre, but it is all the same movement of centre. So don't waste time on this!

Q: Has thought created awareness?

K: Has thought created awareness? Now what do you mean by awareness? In awareness - please listen - in awareness if there is choice - I like, I don't like, this is beautiful, that is ugly - in awareness, because awareness implies seeing everything. When there is in that awareness choice, there is a preference, there is a conclusion, it is the movement of thought, therefore thought is not aware. Now let's go on.

Q: Krishnaji, is there anything else in human beings except thought?

K: Is there anything else in human beings except thought. That's what we are going to find out. We like to think there is something beyond thought, something extraordinary - god, spark of divinity, something utterly beautiful, romantic. That is all the structure of thought. But to find out if there is something beyond thought I have to know the right place of thought, I have to know the limits of thought.

Oh lord! I think we better stop, it's quarter to twelve. Do you want to go on?

Q: Yes.

K: You want to go on? Or I want to go on. (Laughter)

Look, sir, we will stop in a little because you can't maintain this for a whole hour and a quarter. First let's see: we said thought is fragmentary, thought, being fragmentary, cannot see the whole - the whole being health, sanity, holiness. And to see the whole one has to learn about it. To learn about it is not the same as learning a language. Learning a language takes time, but this may not need time. So I break away from the tradition of time. I wonder if you see that. This may require something totally different, but if I say, 'Well, I need time, as I need time to develop a certain muscle', then I am caught in something which is irrelevant.

So to perceive there must be space. There can only be space when there is no image, no word, no movement of thought; then only I can see. I have to learn about it because I have always seen through interpretation, through memories, through images - my image, my conclusion dictating what I see. My conclusion of being a Hindu, or whatever it is, and that conclusion prevents me from seeing, or I see through that conclusion. So a space is necessary. That space cannot exist if there is any form of image, any symbol, any word, any kind of prejudice. So I have to learn about myself. Because I am prejudiced, I have got all kinds of attachments, all kinds of beliefs. So I must learn about myself. That means I must learn not according to professional investigators and their conclusion, I must learn about myself as I am. I can only learn about myself in relationship with you - how I act, how I behave, what my speeches are, what my actual thoughts are. So in knowing myself I then learn to have a space which will bring about the perception of the whole, which means there is no perceiver at all because the perceiver is put together by thought.

Is that enough for this morning? We'll meet tomorrow.