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Part III - Chapter 2 - Small Group Dialogue, Ojai, California - 24th March 1977
KRISHNAMURTI: We were discussing how one can know what Krishnamurti is saying is true. He might be caught in his own conditioning, illusions and knowing them, and not being able to free himself from them, have put together a series of observations, words, and call them truth. How do you know whether what he is saying is actual, truthful and lasting?
Dr Bohm said that when one has an insight, a direct perception into what is being said, then there is no doubt that it is the truth. Having that insight you can work it out logically to show that the perception is true. But is that perception brief, only to be had at intervals and therefore gathering a lot of debris - those things that block perception - or is one perception enough? Does it open the door so that there is insight all the time?
Q: Does that mean that you would never have any confusion?
K: Yes, we came to that point. One has a perception, an insight, and that insight has its own capacity for reason, logic and action. That action is complete, because the perception is complete for the moment. Will further action confuse perception? Or, having perception is there no further confusion?
Q: I think we were saying that there is danger in this. If you say: My action is always right...
K: Oh, that is dangerous!
Q: We also said that logic has its danger. One could think one has an insight when one has not.
K: Suppose I have the capacity to reason it out and act and then say: That is a perfect, complete action. Some people who read the Gita act according to it and they call that insight. Their action is patterned after their reading. They say this action is complete. I have heard many of them say this; also Catholics and Protestants who are completely immersed in the Bible. So we are treading on very dangerous ground and therefore are greatly aware of it.
Q: You also said that the mind tries to find security in all this.
K: The mind has always been seeking security and when that security is threatened it tries to find security in insight, in direct perception.
Q: In the illusion of insight.
K: Yes, but it makes the insight into security. The next question is: Must there be a constant breaking of perception? That is, one day one sees very clearly, one has direct perception, then that fades away and there is confusion. Then again there is a perception and an action, followed by confusion and so on. Is that so? Or is there no further confusion after these deep insights?
Q: Are we saying this perception is whole?
K: Yes, if the perception is complete, whole, then there is no confusion at any time. Or, one may deceive oneself that it is whole and act upon it, which brings confusion.
Q: There is also a possible danger that one has a genuine perception, an insight, and is not fooling oneself and that out of that comes a certain action. But then one could fall into making whatever that action was into a formula and stop having the insight. Let's say that out of an insight which was real a certain action came. One then thinks that is the way things should be.
K: That is what generally happens.
Q: But isn't that a corruption of the perception, just making a pattern out of the action instead of continuing to look? It is like being able to really look at something, for instance looking out of the window and something is seen. But then you don't look out again and think everything is the way it was. It may have totally changed. The perception starts out being genuine, but you don't continue to look, have insight.
K: Yes. Scientists may have an insight in some specialized field and that insight is put into a category of science unrelated to their life. But we are talking of a perception that is not only in the field of action but also in daily life.
Q: As a whole and so there is a continuity.
K: Yes.
Q: But I still don't think we have gone into the question of danger. You said that one day a man came to you and said maybe you were stuck in a groove.
K: Yes, caught in a rut.
Q: You didn't say immediately, "I know I am not because I have had a perfect insight."
K: Ah, that would be deadly!
Q: But rather, you said you looked at it for several days.
K: Of course.
Q: I am trying to find out what we are driving at. Perhaps we are saying that there may be an insight which never goes back into confusion. But we are not saying there is one.
K: Yes, that's right. Now would you say, when there is complete perception - not an illusory perception - there is no further confusion?
Q: It seems reasonable to say that.
K: That means from day to day there is no confusion at all. 30 Q: Then why did you feel it necessary to look into it?
K: Because I may deceive myself. Therefore it is dangerous ground and I must be alert, I must watch it.
Q: Are we seeing this as an insight now? - that when there is an insight of that kind there is no further confusion? But we may deceive ourselves nevertheless.
K: Yes. Therefore we must be watchful.
Q: Do you mean after the real insight you could then deceive yourself?
K: No. You have a deep insight, complete, whole. Someone comes along and says: "Look, you are deceiving yourself". Do you instantly say, "No, I am not deceiving myself because my perception was complete"? Or do you listen and look at it all afresh? It doesn't mean that you are denying the complete perception, you are again watching if it is real or illusory.
Q: That is not necessarily an intellectual process?
K: No, no. I would say both. It is intellectual as well as non-verbal.
Q: Is perception something that is always there and it is only that we...
K: That leads to dangerous ground. The Hindus say that God is always there inside you - the abiding deep divinity, or soul, or Atman, and it is covered up. Remove the confusion, the debris and it is found inside. Most people believe that. I think that is a conclusion. You conclude that there is something divine inside, a soul, the Atman or whatever you like to call it. And from a conclusion you can never have a total, complete perception. Q: But this leads to another problem, because if you deny that, then what makes one step out of the stream? Does it mean that the stepping out is for certain individuals only?
K: When you say "certain individuals" I think you are putting the wrong question, aren't you?
Q: No. If the possibility exists for everyone...
K: Yes, the possibility exists for human beings.
Q: For the totality?
K: For human beings.
Q: Then there is some energy which...
K: Which is outside of them or which is in them.
Q: Yes. We don't know.
K: Therefore don't come to any conclusion. If from a conclusion you think you perceive, then that perception is conditioned, therefore it is not whole.
Q: Does that mean that there would not be the possibility of a deepening of perception?
K: You can't deepen insight. You can't deepen perception. You perceive the whole - that's all.
Q: What do you mean then by saying there was this mind into which you could continually go more deeply?
K: That is something else.
Q: Are you saying that perception, if it is partial, is not perception?
K: Of course, obviously not.
Q(1): So the deepening of perception would only be a partial step. That wouldn't be perception.
Q(2): You mentioned watchfulness after perception.
K: What happened was: A man came up to me and said, "You are getting old, you are stuck in a groove." And I listened to it. For a couple of days I thought about it. I looked at it and said to myself, "He may be right."
Q: You are almost suggesting that it could be possible.
K: No, I wanted to examine it. Don't say it could, or could not.
Q: I was going to ask: to be caught in habit after a perception, could that not ever happen again, at certain levels?
K: There is partial perception and total perception - let's divide it into those two. When there is total perception there is no further confusion.
Q: You don't get caught in habit?
K: There is no further confusion. Because it is so.
Q: What if something happens to the brain physically?
K: Then of course it is gone.
Q: So there seems to be a limitation to what you say, because one assumes that the brain remains healthy.
K: Of course, assuming that the whole organism is healthy. If there is an accident, your brain suffers concussion and something is injured, then it is finished.
Q(1): The major danger is that we would mistake a partial perception for the total.
Q(2): But it still means that it is "here". You are not tapping it from "out there". That energy is within you, isn't it?
K: One has to go into this question of what is perception. How do you come to it? That is very important, isn't it? You cannot have perception if your daily life is in disorder, confused, contradictory. That is obvious.
Q: Doesn't this perception mean that there is constant renewal?
K: No. is that energy outside, or inside? She is asking that question all the time.
Q: Isn't that an artificial division: Outside and inside? Is that a real thing, or is it just an illusion?
K: She said that this perception needs energy. That energy may be an external energy, a mechanical energy, or a non-mechanistic energy which may exist deeply inside you. Both are mental concepts. Would you agree to that? Both are conclusions which one has either accepted because tradition has said so, or one has come to that conclusion by oneself. Any form of conclusion is detrimental to perception. So what does perception mean? Can I have perception if I am attached to my position, to my wife, to my property?
Q: It colours the act of perceiving.
K: Yes, but take the scientists, they have their family, their attachments, they want a position, money and all the rest of it, but they have an insight.
Q: It is not total.
K: So we are saying that total perception can only take place when in your daily life there is no confusion.
Q: May we look more closely into that, because couldn't it be that a total perception can take place in spite of that and wipe it away?
K: I can see if the windows are not clean my view is confused.
Q: Would that mean that there is a conditioned insight?
K: If I am in fear my perception will be very partial. That is a fact.
Q: But don't you need perception to end fear?
K: Ah, but in investigating fear I have a total perception of fear.
Q: Surely if there is fear, or attachment, even one's logic would be distorted.
K: One is frightened - as we said, that distorts perception. But in investigating, observing, going into fear, understanding it profoundly, in delving into it I have perception.
Q: Are you implying that there are certain things you can do which will make for perceptions? Which means although you have fear and it distorts, the distortion is not so total that you cannot investigate it. There is still that possibility, although you are distorting through fear?
K: I realize I am distorting perception through fear.
Q: That's right, then I begin to look at fear.
K: Investigate it, look into it.
Q: In the beginning I am also distorting it.
K: Therefore I am watching every distortion. I am aware of every distortion that is going on.
Q: But you see, I think the difficulty lies there. How can I investigate when I am distorting?
K: Wait, just listen. I am afraid and I see fear has made me do something which is a distortion.
Q: But before I can see that, the fear has to fade away.
K: No, I am observing fear.
Q(1): But I cannot observe fear if I am afraid.
Q(2): How can you observe it if you are not afraid?
Q(3): What is it that is observing?
K: Take a fact: you are afraid. You are conscious of it. That means that you become aware of the fact that there is fear. And you observe also what that fear has done. Is that clear?
Q: Yes.
K: And you look more and more into it. In looking very deeply into it you have an insight.
Q: I may have an insight.
K: No, you will have insight, which is quite different.
Q: What you are saying is that this confusion due to fear is not complete, that it is always open to mankind to have insight.
K: To one who is investigating, who is observing.
Q: If you try to investigate something else while you are afraid you get lost in fear. But it is still open to you to investigate fear.
K: Yes, quite right. One suffers and you see what it does. In observing it, investigating it, opening it up, in the very unrolling of it you have a certain insight. That is all we are saying. That insight may be partial. Therefore one has to be aware that it is partial. Its action is partial and it may appear complete, so watch it.
Q: Very often it looks as if it is totally impossible to have an insight, since you say: "If you are distorting how will you look?" But you are also saying, that as a matter of fact, when you have a distortion, the one thing you can look at is the distortion.
K: That's right.
Q: That factually you have that capacity.
K: One has that capacity.
Q(1): So when you are distorting something through fear or suffering, most things you look at will be distorted. But it is actually possible to look at that distortion itself.
Q(2): You can look at that. The fear which creates the distortion can be looked at; so you can't say that no perception whatsoever is possible.
K: That's just it. Then you have locked the door.
Q: Could one say that the fear can look at itself?
K: No, no. One is afraid: in looking at that fear - not having an insight, just watching it - you see what it does, what its action is.
Q: You mean by looking, being aware of it.
K: Without any choosing - being aware. And you see what fear does. In looking at it more extensively, deeply, widely, suddenly you have an insight into the whole structure of fear.
Q: But there is still the question: in that moment of fear, I am fear.
K: How you observe fear matters - whether you observe it as an observer, or the observer is that. You perceive the observer is the observed and in this action there is distortion, confusion. And you examine that confusion, which is born of fear and in the very process of examination you have an insight. Do it, you will see it - if you don't limit yourself. In saying, "I am too frightened, I can't look", you run away from it.
Q: To simplify it perhaps too much: when we said one can't see through the window because it is dirty, it distorts, the action of examining the fear, the distorting factor, is the cleansing of the window.
K: How you observe, how you investigate, that is the real thing. That is, perception can only take place when there is no division between the observer and the observed. Perception can only take place in the very act of exploring: to explore implies there is no division between the observer and the observed. Therefore you are watching the movement of fear and in the very watching of it there is an insight. I think that is clear. And yet you see, Krishnamurti says: "I have never done this."
Q: Never gone through all this? Then how do you know somebody else can?
K: That's just it. Let's discuss it. Suppose you have not gone through all this, but you see it instantly. Because you see it instantly your capacity to reason explains all this. Another listens and says, "I'd like to get that, I don't have to go through that whole process."
Q: Are you saying that all we have been discussing just now is merely a pointer to something else? We don't have to go through all that.
K: Yes. I want to get at that.
Q: In other words, that helps to clear the ground in some way?
K: Yes.
Q: It is not really the main point.
K: No.
Q: Are you saying there is a short cut?
K: No, no short cut. Must you go through fear, jealousy, anxiety, attachment? Or can you clear the whole thing instantly? Must one go through all this process?
Q: You previously said that you have never done this. And by having that immediate total perception you are able to see what those with the dirty windows can do to clean them. But that isn't necessary, there is perhaps a direct, an immediate way for those who haven't...
K: No. First put the question, see what comes out of it. Dr Bohm says to Krishnamurti: "You have probably not gone through all this. Because you have a direct, a total insight you can argue with reason, with logic; you can act. You are always talking from that total perception, therefore what you say can never be distorted." And another listens to all this and says: "I am frightened, I am jealous, I am this, I am that, and therefore I can't have total perception." So I observe attachment, or fear, or jealousy and I have an insight.
Is it possible through investigating, through awareness and discovering that the observer is the observed and that there is no division, in the very process of investigation - in which we are observing without the observer and see the totality of it - to free all the rest? I think that is the only way.
Q: Is it possible not to have certain fears, jealousy, attachment?
Could that be part of one's conditioning if one were raised in a certain way, or went to a certain school?
K: But there may be deeper layers. You may not be totally conscious of them, you may not be totally aware of the deeper fears, etc. You may say, superficially I am all right, I have none of these things.
Q: But if one went to a certain school, the kind of learning and investigation that would take place in such a school, would that clear the way towards the possibility?
K: Obviously. What we are talking about is: Must one go through all this process?
Q: Couldn't we remove from the problem the personal aspect? We are discussing what is open to man rather than to any individual.
K: Yes. Is it open to any human being without going through all this process?
Q: By "this process" do you mean involvement with the fear?
K: With fear, sorrow, jealousy, attachment, you go through all that, step by step. Or can a human being see the whole thing at a glance? And that very glance is the investigation and the complete, total perception.
Q: Which is what you mean when you say the first step is the last.
K: Yes, total perception.
Q: Then what would one's responsibility be towards someone who is in sorrow?
K: The response to that human being is the response of compassion. That's all. Nothing else.
Q: For instance, if you see an injured bird it is very easy to deal with that because it really doesn't require very much of you. But when you come in contact with a human being, he has a much more complex set of needs.
K: What can you do actually? Somebody comes to you and says, "I am in deep sorrow". Do you talk to him out of compassion, or from a conclusion, or out of your own particular experience of sorrow which has conditioned you, and you answer him according to your conditioning? A Hindu, who is conditioned in a certain way says: "My dear friend, I am so sorry, but in the next life you will live better. You suffered because you did this and that" - and so on. Or a Christian would respond from some other conclusion. And he takes comfort in it. Because a man who is suffering wants some sort of solace, someone on whose lap he can put his head. So what he is seeking is comfort and avoidance of this terrible pain. Will you offer him any of those escapes? Whatever comes out of compassion will help him.
Q: Are you saying that as far as sorrow is concerned you can't directly help anyone, but the energy of compassion itself may be of help?
K: That's right; that's all.
Q: But many such wounded spirits will come to the Centre here and I think it is going to be a problem to know how to deal with them.
K: There is no problem if you are compassionate. Compassion doesn't create problems. It has no problems, therefore it is compassionate.
Q: You are saying that total compassion is the highest intelligence?
K: Of course. If there is compassion, that compassion has its own intelligence and that intelligence acts. But if you have no compassion and no intelligence, then your conditioning makes you reply whatever he wants. I think that is fairly simple. To go back to the other question: Must a human being go through the whole process? Has no human being said, "I won't go through all this. I absolutely refuse to go through all this"?
Q: But on what basis does one refuse? It wouldn't make sense to refuse to do what is necessary.
K: Of course. You see, we are such creatures of habit. Because my father is conditioned, generations after generations are conditioned and I am conditioned. And I accept it, I work in it and I operate with it. But if I say, I won't ever operate in my conditioned responses, something else may take place. Then, if I realize I am a bourgeois, I don't want to become an aristocrat or a militant, I refuse to be a bourgeois. Which doesn't mean I become a revolutionary, or join Lenin or Marx - those are all bourgeois to me. So something does take place. I reject the whole thing. You see, a human being never says, "I will reject the whole thing". I want to investigate that.
Q: Do you mean that even to say: "I am going to get rid of the whole thing" is not necessary?
K: Of course. I mean saying, "I won't be a bourgeois" is just words.
Q: But isn't the key to this somewhere in desire? There is some sort of desire for continuity, for security.
K: That's right. Bourgeois implies continuity, security, it implies belonging to something, a lack of taste, vulgarity - all that.
Q: But Krishnaji, if you are saying that Krishnamurti never said this, never had the need to say it, we can only conclude that you are some kind of freak.
K: No, no. You can say he is a freak but it doesn't answer the question. Krishnamurti says, "I have not touched all this". Somebody asks, "Why should I go through all this?" Don't say Krishnamurti is a freak, but ask: "How does it happen?"
Q: In saying, "I won't be a bourgeois" you are discovering it in yourself.
K: No, no. That is a different matter. If somebody says to you, "I have never been through all this", what do you do? Do you say he is a freak? Or would you say: "How extraordinary, is he telling the truth? Has he deceived himself"? You discuss with him. Then your question is: "How does it happen?" You are a human being, he is a human being: you want to find out.
Q: You ask: "In what way are we different?" He is a human being that has never been through all that, and yet he points out.
K: No, he has never been through it. Don't say he points out. Don't you ask that question: "How does it happen, must I go through all this?" Do you ask that?
Q(1): I have assumed I must.
Q(2): Krishnaji, you are taking two widely separate things. One is the uncontaminated person, who never had to go through the process because he was never in the soup.
K: Leave out why he didn't go through it.
Q: But most other people, apparently, are in some form of...
K: ...conditioning...
Q(1): ...in some form of contamination, it may be fear, or something else. Therefore the person who has already got this sickness - let's call it that - says "This man has never been sick for a day in his life." What good is it to examine that, because one is already sick in some form.
Q(2): That is an assumption. I think we are saying that if any one human being never went through all this, that says something about the essence of mankind, which is a truth for everybody.
Q(3): But one is already sick.
Q(4): That may be a conclusion.
Q(5): It is also an ascertainable fact.
Q(6): I think one is assuming that whatever this sickness is, it is in the essence, it is essentially inevitable.
Q(7): I didn't say that. But I am saying it is a fact - at least it is to me - that there is the sickness in some form or another. I don't think that is an assumption. I think that is a fact.
Q(8): But the question is: What does the fact depend upon? You see, the fact may depend upon an assumption which people make about themselves that it will take time to overcome that sickness.
Q(9): Is it part of the sickness to ask only about small things and not the greater things?
Q(1O): Aside from all that the question is: How can a human being who is sick in some way, how can he get out of it directly without going through endless self-exploration?
K: Can we put the whole thing differently? Do you seek excellence, not excellence for instance in a building, but the essence of excellence? Then everything falls away, doesn't it? Or do you seek excellence in a certain direction and never the essence of excellence? As an artist I seek excellence in my painting and get caught in that. A scientist gets caught in something else. But an ordinary human being, not a specialist, just an average intelligent human being who does not take drugs, does not smoke, is fairly intelligent and decent, if he sought the essence of excellence, would this happen? The essence would meet all this. I wonder if I am conveying something?
Q: Does it exist apart from this manifestation?
K: Listen carefully first. Don't object, or reject and say 'if' and "but". That very demand for excellence - how you demand it - brings the essence of it. You demand it passionately. You demand the highest intelligence, the highest excellence, the essence of it, and when fear arises, then you...
Q: Where does the demand come from?
K: Demand it! Don't say: "Where does it come from?" There may be a motive, but the very demand washes it all away. I wonder if I am conveying anything?
Q: You are saying: Demand this excellence - which we don't know.
K: I don't know what is beyond it, but I want to be morally excellent.
Q: Does that mean goodness?
K: I demand the excellence of goodness, I demand the excellent flower of goodness. In that very demand there is a demand for the essence.
Q: Does perception come from this demand?
K: Yes, that's right.
Q: Could you go into what you call this demand?
K: It is not a demand which means asking, a demand that means imploring, wanting - cut out all those.
Q: It doesn't mean those?
K: No, no.
Q: But then you are back with prayer.
K: Oh, no. Leave out all that.
Q: You are really saying that the impossible is possible to the average intelligent human being?
K: We are saying that, yes. Which is not a conclusion, which is not a hope. I say it is possible for the average human being, who is fairly clean, who is fairly decent, fairly kind, who is not a bourgeois.
Q: Traditionally we are conditioned to believe that there are special people with no conscious content of consciousness, so it is very difficult for someone like me to feel that one could really be completely free of it.
K: You see, you have not listened. K says to you: "Please listen first, don't bring in all these objections. Just listen to what he is saying. That is, what is important in life is the supreme excellence which has its own essence." That's all. And to demand does not mean begging or praying, getting something from somebody.
Q: The point is, we find we confuse demand with desire.
K: Of course.
Q: There must be no beliefs.
K: No beliefs, no desire.
Q: You see, when people feel that they want to give up desire then there is a danger of giving up this demand as well.
K: How can we put this? Let's find a good word for it. Would the word "passion" be suitable? There is passion for this, passion for excellence.
Q: Does it imply that this passion has no object?
K: You see how you immediately form a conclusion. Burning passion - not for something. The Communists are passionate about their ideas. That passion is very, very petty and limited. The Christians have passion for missionary work - that passion is born of the love of Jesus. That again is not passion, it is very narrow. putting all that aside, I say: "Passion".
Q: As you were just saying, people have had some vision, or a dream of something and that has developed a great energy. But you are saying it is not a dream, it is not a vision; but it is nevertheless some perception of this excellence.
K: All those passions feed the ego, feed the me, make me important, consciously or unconsciously. We are cutting out all that. There is a young boy who has a passion to grow up into an extraordinary human being, into something original.
Q: He sees that it is possible.
K: Yes.
Q: And therefore he has the passion.
K: Yes, that's right. It is possible. Is that what is missing in most human beings? Not passion, but the welling up of... I don't know how to put it. There is this passion in a human being who demands the supreme excellence, not in what he writes in his books, but the feeling of it. You know this, don't you? - that may shatter everything else. Again, that human being didn't demand it. He says: "I never even asked for it."
Q: Perhaps that is due to conditioning. We are conditioned to mediocrity, not to make this demand. That is what you mean by mediocrity.
K: Yes, of course. Mediocrity is lack of great passion - not for Jesus, or for Marx or whatever it is.
Q: We are not only conditioned to mediocrity but to direction, so the demand is always to have some direction.
K: The demand is a direction, quite right.
Q: To have a demand without any direction...
K: That's right. I like the word "demand", because it is a challenge.
Q: Doesn't a demand without direction imply that it is not in time?
K: Of course. It demands no direction, no time, no person. So does total insight bring this passion? Total insight is the passion.
Q: They can't be separate.
K: Total insight is the flame of passion which wipes away all confusion. It burns away everything else. Don't you then act as a magnet? The bees go towards the nectar. In the same way don't you act as a magnet when you are passionate to create? Is it that there is this lack of fire? That may be the thing that is missing. If there is something missing I would ask for it.
Q(1): Could we talk about the relationship between the conditioned and the unconditioned mind, and whether it is only possible to ask for small things, or can we somehow leap beyond that into something bigger?
Q(2): Whatever the me asks for, the asking in a direction is the small thing.
K: Quite right.
Q: We have to ask for the unlimited, for the unconditioned.
K: She is really asking: What is the relationship between the conditioned and the unconditioned? Also, what is the relationship between two human beings, when one is unconditioned and the other is not? There is no relationship.
Q: How can you say that there is no relationship between the unconditioned and the conditioned human being?
K: There is no relationship from the conditioned to the unconditioned. But the unconditioned has a relationship to the other.
Q: But logically one could ask: Is there an essential difference between the unconditioned and the conditioned? Because if you say there is, then there is duality.
K: What do you mean by essential difference?
Q: Let's say difference in kind. If there is an essential difference between the conditioned and the unconditioned there is duality.
K: I see what you mean. X is conditioned, Y is not conditioned. X thinks in terms of duality, his very conditioning is duality. But duality has no relationship with Y, yet Y has a relationship to X.
Q: Because there is no duality.
K: Yes. Y has no duality therefore there is a relationship. You also asked some other question: Essentially, deeply, is there a difference? Are not both the same?
Q: Could one ask the question in another way? Is the conditioning only superficial?
K: No. Then we are lost.
Q(1): Could we put it like this? When you say, "You are the world, the world is you" - does that statement include the conditioned as well as the unconditioned?
Q(2): I am not sure about that. It seems that if the unconditioned mind can be related to the conditioned, can understand the conditioned, comprehend it, then there is not really a duality, that is fundamentally, in essence. The unconditioned mind comprehends the conditioned mind and goes beyond it.
Q(3): The world couldn't be unconditioned, could it?
K: The world is 'me' and 'me' is the world.
Q: That is an absolute fact only to the unconditioned.
K: Oh, not at all. Be careful, it is so. It is an obvious fact.
Q: You mean that only the unconditioned can perceive that?
K: That is what she says. I am refuting it. I say it isn't quite like that.
Q: I mean it in the sense that I may say, "I am the world, the world is me", but I revert to an action which is a contradiction to that. Therefore it is not an absolute fact for me. There may be moments when the fact of it is seen by me.
K: Yes. Do you mean: "I say to myself very clearly, 'I am the world and the world is me'"?
Q: I see it.
K: I feel it.
Q: I feel it, yes.
K: And I act contrary to that. Which is, I act personally, selfishly - my, me. That is a contradiction to the fact that the world is me and I am the world. A person can say this merely as an intellectual conclusion, or a momentary feeling.
Q: It is not an intellectual conclusion, because I am stating my position, but I accept that for you the position is totally different.
K: No, you don't even have to accept that. See the fact, which is, when one says, "I am the world and the world is me" there is no me. But one's house has to be insured. I may have children, I have to earn a living - but there is no me. See the importance of it. There is no me all the time. I function, but there is no me which is seeking a higher position and all that. Though I am married I am not attached, I don't depend on a wife or husband. The appearances may give you the impression that the me is operating, but actually to a man who feels, "The world is me and I am the world", to him there is no me. To you, looking at him, there is. That human being lives in this world, he must have food, clothes and shelter, a job, transportation, all that, yet there is no me.
So when the world is me and I am the world, there is no me. Can that state, that quality operate in all directions? It must operate in all directions. When you say, "I am the world and the world is me", and there is no me, there is no conditioning. I don't put the question: In that unconditioned state does the conditioned exist? When a human being says, "I am the world and the world is me", there is no I.
Q: Therefore the other person also is not there. There is no you.
K: There is no me, there is no you. When you ask if the conditioned exists in this state you are asking a wrong question. That is what I was getting at. Because when there is no I there is no you.
Q: The question is: How does that person see the kind of confusion that arises around I and you. He sees what is going on in the world, that people are generally confused about this.
K: I exist: there is you and me. And you also think the same thing. So we keep this division everlastingly. But when you and I really realize, have profound insight that, "The world is me and I am the world", there is no me.
Q: There is no me and no you. "No" means "everything".
K: The world of living - everything.
Q: Then the question, "Is there an essential difference between this and that, the unconditioned and the conditioned", doesn't arise, because there is no "between".
K: Yes, that's right. There is no you, there is no I in that state, which doesn't include the conditioned state. Is this too abstract?
Q: Why do you have to say, "I am the world" first, and then deny this?
K: Because it is an actuality.
Q: But then you imply that the I is still there if I say, "I am the world".
K: That is merely a statement. It is an actual fact that I am the world.
Q: Whatever I mean by the word "I", I also mean by the word "world".
K: Yes.
Q: So we don't need those two words.
K: Yes. You and I - remove that.
Q: There is just everything.
K: No, this is very dangerous. If you say I am everything...
Q: I am trying to find out what you mean by "the world',.
K: If you say, "I am everything", then the murderer, the assassin is part of me.
Q: Suppose I say, "I am the world" instead, does that change it?
K: (laughing) All right. I see the actual fact that I am the result of the world. The world means killing, wars, the whole of society - I am the result of that.
Q: And I see everybody is the result of that.
K: Yes. I am saying the result is I and you.
Q: And that separation.
K: When I say I am the world, I am saying all that.
Q: You mean to say I am generated by the world, I am identified with everything. 280 K: Yes. I am the product of the world
Q: The world is the essence of what I am.
K: Yes. I am the essence of the world. It is the same thing. When there is a deep perception of that, not verbal, not intellectual, not emotional, not romantic, but profound, there is no you or me. I think that holds logically. But there is a danger. If I say the world is me, I am everything, I'll accept everything.
Q: You are really saying that one is the product of the whole of society.
K: Yes.
Q: But I am also of the essence of the whole of society.
K: Yes. I am really the essential result of all this.
Q: Does it help to use the word "ego"?
K: It is the same thing, it doesn't matter. You see, when you say me, or ego, there is a possibility of deception that 'I' is the very essence of God. You know about that superstition.
Q: The Atman.
K: Yes.
Q: But there is still another question. Is the unconditioned mind also a product of all this? Then we come to a contradiction.
K: No, there is no contradiction. Without using the word "I" it can be said: the result of the world is this. The result of the world is that also. We are two human beings, which means the result has created the I and the you. When there is an insight into the result there is no "result".
Q: The result changes and vanishes when we see it.
K: That means there is no result. Therefore 'you' and 'I' don't exist. That is an actual fact for a man who says, "I am not the result". You see what it means? There is no causation in the mind and therefore there is no effect. Therefore it is whole, and any action born of it is causeless and without effect.
Q: You have to make that clear, in the sense that you still use cause and effect concerning ordinary, mechanical things.
K: Quite. This human being, X, is a result. And Y is a result. X says I, and Y says I; therefore there is you and I. X says I see this and investigates, goes into it and he has an insight. In that insight the two results cease. Therefore in that state there is no cause.
Q: There is no cause and no effect although it may leave a residue in the mind.
K: Let's go into it. In that state there is no result, no cause, no effect. That mind acts out of compassion. Therefore there is no result.
Q: But in some sense it would look as if there were a result.
K: But compassion has no result. A is suffering, he says to X, "Please help me to get out of my suffering." If X really has compassion his words have no result.
Q: Something happens, but there is no result.
K: That's it.
Q: But I think people generally are seeking a result.
K: Yes. Let's put it another way. Does compassion have a result? When there is result there is cause. When compassion has a cause then you are no longer compassionate.
Q(1): It is an extremely subtle thing, because something happens which seems final and yet is not.
Q(2): But compassion also acts.
K: Compassion is compassion, it doesn't act. If it acts because there is a cause and an effect, then it is not compassion: it wants a result.
Q: It acts purely.
K: It wants a result.
Q: What makes it want a result is the idea of separation. Somebody says, " There is a person suffering, I would like to produce the result that he is not suffering. " But that is based on the idea that there is me and he.
K: That's it.
Q: There is no he and no I. There is no room, no place to have this result.
K: It is a tremendous thing! One has to look at it very, very carefully. Look, "The world is me and I am the world". When I say me, you exist: both of us are there. The you and the I are the results of man's misery, of selfishness, and so on - it is a result. When one looks into the result, goes into it very, very deeply, the insight brings about a quality in which you and I - who are the result - don't exist. This is easy to agree to verbally, but when you see it deeply there is no you and no me. Therefore there is no result - which means compassion. The person upon whom that compassion acts wants a result. We say, "Sorry, there is no result." But the man who suffers says, "Help me to get out of this", or, "Help me to bring back my son, my wife", or whatever it is. He is demanding a result. This thing has no result. The result is the world.
Q: Does compassion affect the consciousness of man?
K: Yes. It affects the deep layers of consciousness.
The I is the result of the world, the you is the result of the world. And to the man who sees this deeply with a profound insight, there is no you or I. Therefore that profound insight is compassion - which is intelligence. And the intelligence says: If you want a result I can't give it to you, I am not the product of a result. Compassion says: This state is not a result, therefore there is no cause.
Q: Does that mean there is no time either?
K: No cause, no result, no time.