1ST CONVERSATION WITH PUPUL JAYAKAR
BROCKWOOD PARK - 21ST JUNE 1982
PJ: Sir, most of our lives are so futile. And unless one discovers within oneself - I want to use a right word - perhaps the capacity to leap out of the futility. For the mind to have the creative spring so that it can move whatever it does. It is not what it does that is important but the need for something which is new, which is not tainted, so that it doesn't matter what the circumstances are ,you seem to go beyond circumstances. And that only happens when the mind is not dependent on anything, and it has some space, some perception. And I have been wondering, perhaps it is a difficult question but it is a question on which I have been wondering for the last few months, and that is, what is the ground of the creative?
K: I wonder what you mean by creative. I mean an artist says he is creative, a poet, a thinker, or some new discovery by scientists. Would you call all that creative activity?
PJ: Perhaps.
K: But it is limited. They might not acknowledge it.
PJ: Sir, why do you bring in the word limited.
K: Don't let's use 'limited', partial.
PJ: You mean that. Why do I bring it in, I don't know the other.
K: No, it is partial because it is not related to their daily life.
PJ: Again...
K: No, one may be a great scientists, and may lead a very, very mediocre life. And the scientist may discover extraordinary things and call that creative.
PJ: But you see that's why I did not speak of 'a creative action'...
K: ...but a creative mind.
PJ: ...but a mind, a perception which rests in the creative.
K: I think we should make it a little clearer.
PJ: You have never answered any questions on the ground of manifestation, for instance. Let's take it at the simplest level: this coming into being of anything.
K: Of birth, of anything.
PJ: Of birth.
K: Whether it is a baby, or a new tree, or a bird.
PJ: What is involved?
K: Are you asking, what is the source of all life, both the manifest and not manifest?
PJ: Yes. I would like to probe, if it is possible to probe into what you have said just now, unmanifest and manifest, the manifest and the pre-manifest. I won't say unmanifest. That instant before manifestation is.
K: Or birth is.
PJ: That's one instant.
K: Are we discussing this subject in a technological, scientific verbiage, or are we probing - probing into something which you and I don't know? Just a minute, I want to make it clear. Because after all the birth of babies we know that, how that comes into being.
PJ: But one may know how it comes into being but one still does not know the quality of life which pervades it. Knowing that a baby is born doesn't give you experience of birth, the actuality of birth is very different from the description of birth. It is the same with everything.
K: The description is not the thing, or the explanation is not the actual.
PJ: But you cannot live through life without going into this coming into existence.
K: I don't quite follow what you are trying to convey. I am not being obstreperous but I don't quite follow. If you have talked about what is the origin of all life, what is the beginning of all existence, not go back and back and back - you follow what I mean - but try to discover, or come upon something which is the beginning of all things. I mean various religious people have said, god - god is the origin of everything. But that is just a word, that doesn't convey the mind that investigates what is the origin. You follow?
PJ: Yes.
K: Now, are we discussing that, having a dialogue about that - to delve very, very deeply into the origin of all life, without any belief, without any dogma, and so on? Or are we having a dialogue theoretically, moving between the actual and not the actual, and trying to probe into something with thought? I don't know if I am making this clear?
PJ: I understand what you are saying. You see, sir, we have narrowed the word 'creative' to mean, as you said, painting, writing a book, or discovering something in science, but basically the whole meaning of a tree, a human being, the earth, the sky...
K: Man has asked this question.
PJ: Of course he has asked this question.
K: He has asked, what is the meaning of all this, and what is the origin of all this.
PJ: Where does it arise?
K: What is the ground from which this all this arises? That is what you are asking, isn't it?
PJ: Yes.
K: What is the source of all existence, all life, all action? Now how does one enquire into that? What is our approach to it? How do we come to investigate into something that demands an extraordinary freedom, an extraordinary sense of non-conditioned mind - if I can use that. A freedom, perhaps that very word 'freedom' is love - it requires that quality of mind that is both practical, sensitive, and has this quality of great compassion.
PJ: I can't start with that because I don't know what it is.
K: How do we come to that point and from there move?
PJ: So if you put it that way then I am stuck.
K: You are stuck.
PJ: Then I can't move.
K: No, I am just asking: I don't say, it must be there. Isn't that the process of enquiry?
PJ: I say this question arises in my mind, and I would like to move with this question into it. If I say that the mind must be free and therefore it is love, then what do I do?
K: You can't do anything. But how do you enquire into something that man has asked for millions of years, and give it a name and be satisfied with it. But we are not doing that. We are saying, how does a mind enquire into something that must be extraordinary, that must have a quality of not only universal, cosmic - if I can use that word - how does one's mind go into such a question, into something of supreme order? How does one's enquiry begin, where? If you enquire with thought, that doesn't lead very far.
PJ: No. You asked how did the enquiry begin.
K: Yes. What is the manner, what is the approach of a mind that wants to enquire into something that it doesn't know, or aware, something that demands an extraordinary quality of deep subtlety, deep capacity of order, and so on. Where do I begin?
PJ: Obviously by being aware of the disorder within oneself.
K: That is, I begin, I am after all the manifest. I am a human being born. I know the process of being born, how a child is brought into being. We are not talking of that. Now I enquire into myself. Where do I begin? Let's go slowly. Take a little time. Where do I begin?
PJ: I begin by what is around me, what is within me.
K: Yes.
PJ: Obviously sir. There can be no other starting point.
K: The world outside, the world inside. What is the criterion which measures the outer and the inner? What is the measurement? I am using not judgement, I am using purposively the word 'measurement'.
PJ: But is it necessary to measure?
K: If I enquire into myself in a monastery, I can deceive myself so enormously. But if I have a measure - just let me use that for a moment - of what is actually happening in the world outside of me, to observe all that without any bias, and to relate what is happening to what is happening inwardly, so that I see that is one movement, not two separate movements.
PJ: Sir, I am not in a monastery. I am in the midst of life. And being in the midst of life I see action at various levels, connected with things, connected with me. I also see the responses within me to action, all the capacity which I may have over the years, been able to even remain without reacting. I see all that. And I move into that - I move with it - it is not into, but with it.
K: You are it.
PJ: Yes, that's right.
K: I move with it.
PJ: I am it.
K: You are this.
PJ: It is easier with the interior movement to see I am it; it is much more difficult with an exterior thing to see that I am it. If you tell me that I am all the wars which are taking place, that is very difficult for me to see.
K: No, we are responsible for all the wars that are taking place.
PJ: Yes. But that is a distant thing for me. You must understand. That is a distant thing. That responsibility is a distant responsibility. I say, yes, perhaps if I take it to its ultimate I am responsible. But I can't link it to saying in the same way with which I link to a response within me.
K: Quite.
PJ: Actually a response within me is a living response, which has much more reality.
K: My next question - would it deviate from what we are discussing: why don't you feel total responsibility for the wars, the brutality, the terrible things that are happening in the world, why doesn't one feel totally responsible?
PJ: How is one totally responsible? By being involved?
K: No, not involved.
PJ: By being born.
K: No, as a living grown-up human being all my tradition, all my way of living, way of thinking, acting, as a nationalist, this or that, has contributed to this, to the present state of the world.
PJ: Sir, you are making it so difficult. A man commits a sadistic murder. I can't say that I am responsible for that sadistic murder. So when you take it to that extent it is impossible for me to feel the reality of it.
K: Let's leave that for the moment.
PJ: It is better to leave that. But let's probe into the ground of existence which is the 'isness' of life.
K: Isness - the verb, is.
PJ: So the only way to probe is to move into oneself, whatever that means.
K: All right. Let's take for the moment that word, go, or move, or enter into the whole complex of oneself. Enter into it, not as an observer from the outside. I am all that.
PJ: It is not even that I state what I am.
K: Yes.
PJ: I don't state. Let me discover, uncover.
K: Uncover rather than discover.
PJ: Uncover what I am. And in uncovering what I am, I comprehend that one is uncovering the whole existence of man. That is possible to see.
K: That is fairly simple.
PJ: In this journey of uncovering, I mean the superficial things are relatively easy, so we won't go into that.
K: No, those are fairly simple.
PJ: But once the superficial, the room has been swept...
K: Isn't that important too? Who sweeps the room? What does it mean, having swept the room, what it is? You follow what I am asking? Is the sweeping, or cleansing, or uncovering, completely moving away from all the superficial reactions, superficial conditioning, and trying to enter into the nature, or the movement that conditions the mind.
PJ: Obviously, sir, you can't say you have swept the room and it is over, dust gathers again. So sweeping is a movement which is part of living. You can't. But the grosser elements can certainly be eliminated. The subtler things survive in corners in which you have not been able to get to. But the more obvious things it is possible to sweep away.
K: Yes. Obvious things can be swept. No, we must be a little more. What are the obvious things?
PJ: You know, for instance, Krishnaji, ambition, or envy.
K: Yes, hatred.
PJ: Hatred.
K: Pupulji, really to be free of hatred, to wipe it - just go into it a little bit - to be free of hatred means something extraordinary, to be free of all sense of aggression, all sense of - there is no enemy. The enemy is you.
PJ: But hatred is a different thing from the quality of aggression. Let's go into it a little, sir.
K: Aggression is related to hatred because an aggressive nation, or an aggressive person, inevitably hurts the other, and that hurt breeds hatred. It is part of the same movement.
PJ: Yes, that is why I say that there are the coarser things and then the subtler things. Hatred, anyone who has known hatred knows that hatred is a very powerful thing and a very destructive thing. But aggression may be to some extent part of one's nature even. It may be that from the make-up...
K: ...from the animal and so on.
PJ: As a human being you are more assertive than another. And to be assertive is not hatred.
K: All right. Move. Let's move.
PJ: That is why I made the distinction of the grosser things which are possible to sweep clean.
K: But how does one know what is gross and what is subtle? What is the mind that says, this is...
PJ: That's why I think the ordinary way to move into this is to see that nothing is trivial.
K: That no reaction is...
PJ: ...is trivial.
K: Not only trivial but has its source in one's conditioning.
PJ: You know, sir, I saw recently the casting of a tremendous metal cauldron, about seven feet diameter. The slightest flaw, it didn't matter how slight it was, would have cracked the cauldron. And it is exactly like that. It doesn't matter how slight, how subtle, it still cracks the investigation.
K: I understand that. Are you saying to me that it needs a great training, great discipline, a sense of tremendous control, like the potter who did a marvellous thing, it needs a great attention, energy, and very, very subtle hands and so on.
PJ: Does it?
K: Oh, yes it does.
PJ: This is where I think one takes the word 'free' from you.
K: Free?
PJ: Yes. And takes it to mean a certain flabbiness of the spirit.
K: Oh no.
PJ: Please, let me pursue this. It is very important.
K: It is not flabbiness of spirit. Good lord!
PJ: Because it may mean that I don't accept authority, I don't think it necessary to do something. I can live a futile life, I can live a trivial life. It doesn't matter.
K: Freedom. The very word freedom, Pupulji, as far as I understand it, I looked at in several dictionaries, means, the very word is affection, love.
PJ: And a tremendous discipline. Let me use the word discipline.
K: I know you are using the word discipline, but I am not sure.
PJ: When I am using the word discipline, I am speaking of it as the demand for a watchfulness that the trivial does not creep in.
K: Yes, but is watchfulness, which is awareness, does it need training, does it need discipline? Let's understand the meaning of that word discipline.
PJ: No, you see discipline - if I say that I must sit in the morning, cross my legs, look at the wall and fix my eyes and see that my mind has no thought. That is one kind of discipline. But the mind awakening to the fact that it must be aware of every movement within itself is also a discipline.
K: I wonder how you are using that word because discipline, isn't it generally used as training, conformity, imitation, restraint?
PJ: But no sir, without diligence nothing is possible. And so you may discard the word discipline, you put in the word diligence.
K: Wait a minute, wait a minute. Let's go slowly. To be diligent, that means to be aware of what you are doing, what you are thinking. To be aware of your reactions, and from those reactions observe the action taking place, and in that observation, in that awareness is the action controlled, put in a certain framework? What I am objecting to if I may, subject to discussion, what I am objecting to is the word discipline altogether.
PJ: But sir, if I may say so, you have become allergic to that word.
K: No, I am not allergic. I have got an allergy but I am not allergic to the word.
PJ: Because you use it to mean putting it into a framework.
K: Wait a minute. And I also mean the very act of learning is its own discipline.
PJ: Yes. But how does the act of learning come to be? You see, take it one step further back. From what does the need for observation arise?
K: All right. Need?
PJ: Why should I observe?
K: For the very simple reason, whether it is possible for a human mind to change something, to change himself, to change the world which is entering into such a catastrophic area.
PJ: Yes, but if I start with that premise...
K: No, not premise, it is so.
PJ: All right. If I start there, or if I start with sorrow, which is very often the real ground from which one starts.
K: Yes. It is very complex.
PJ: The ground is really sorrow. I think we have moved away. So let's go back to this question...
K: What we started out with was: what was the origin, the ground of all life? Then to enquire into that you have to enquire into oneself, because you are the expression of all that.
PJ: Yes, yes.
K: You are life. Now the origin of that we are trying to discuss. Right?
PJ: Yes, the origin. The state from which that arises.
K: I can only do that by understanding myself.
PJ: Yes.
K: Very simply, understanding myself. Myself is so terribly complex, how do I approach - I am just now asking - how do I approach a problem that is complex, that is not to be easily diagnosed, easily say, "This is right", "This is wrong", "This should be", "This should not be", it is like a living, complex, messy, disordered entity.
PJ: But is it not because one starts with an attention, which is looking for an ordered entity that one is finding disorder.
K: Oh no, I am not looking for disorder.
PJ: In which case if you are looking without concern as to what you are looking for.
K: No, we are missing something. I said the world is in disorder. I observe it. And the world, I see I am also in disorder. I begin with that. I am in disorder. Human beings have lived and created such disorder in themselves, and therefore outwardly. Leave that for the moment there. Now how do I comprehend, be aware of the origin of disorder? You follow what I am saying? If I can begin to understand the origin of disorder I can move more and more deeply into something which may be total chaos, but is orderly. You follow what I mean?
PJ: Isn't it by being as simple as possible about it.
K: Yes, that is what I am trying to be. I am in disorder.
PJ: I have certain instruments of enquiry. I have my eyes, my ears, my senses.
K: Yes, yes. You don't enquire with your ears, or with your eyes.
PJ: Don't you? Don't you enquire with your eyes and your ears?
K: A little bit. I enquire when I look around.
PJ: When you look at yourself.
K: Now can I look at myself with my eyes, my optic eyes, or I can see myself in a mirror. But I can't see the complexity of myself with my eyes. I must be aware sensitively, without any choice into this conditioning.
PJ: Why do you say, sir, that you cannot be aware with your eyes?
K: Again, what do you mean 'with your eyes'? The inward eye?
PJ: No. There is a way of looking out, and there is a way of looking in.
K: Looking in. All right. Looking in with your eyes.
PJ: Looking in, listening in.
K: Yes. We must be a little careful here, we can mislead.
PJ: Yes, let's go into it. Is there any other way?
K: Yes, I think there is.
PJ: Let's go into the other way. But first of all let's go into the way, whatever it is. Is the eye, ear, not part of the other way?
K: Breathing, hearing, seeing, feeling. Those are actually sensory responses. Right? Actually I see that colour. I hear noise. I taste something, and so on. These are sensory responses.
PJ: Yes, but is there not a seeing of anger, the action of anger, and listening to a reaction of anger?
K: Do you listen with your ears, or do you observe anger?
PJ: How do you observe anger?
K: By when you are angry, to look at the cause and effect of anger.
PJ: When you are angry you can't.
K: So later on you...
PJ: You see the nature of the mind which has been in a state of anger. But you see the nature of the mind - the word you use is 'you see the nature of the mind'.
K: All right.
PJ: It is very important, Krishnaji.
K: I understand what you are saying, that the very act of listening, the act of feeling, inwardly, is it that you see it with your eyes, hear with sensory ears?
PJ: You see if you put it that way we will never get to the point because the sensory ear is so used to listening out that it can never comprehend what is, if you take that and try and push it in, you will never get to it.
K: But would it help if we talked about perception?
PJ: No, sir. I say it would help if you talked about seeing, listening with the eye and ear, because there is a seeing, listening, with the eye.
K: I hear you making that statement. From that hearing I have understood the words and see the meaning of what you are seeing. Right?
PJ: Yes.
K: The verbal communication has taken place. But the deeper significance...
PJ: But that is also taking place. While I am listening to you and seeing you I am also listening and seeing my own mind, the ground of the mind.
K: No.
PJ: Then what is taking place?
K: Listening.
PJ: There is listening. I am not saying, who is listening.
K: No, listening.
PJ: There is listening.
K: Just a minute, Pupulji, we must be clear on this point. There is - we must be go into a little more carefully.
PJ: No, sir, but in an act where you are totally attentive, take an act where you are totally attentive, what is the state of that act of being totally attentive?
K: What is the state of action that is born out of complete attention? I think it is clear. I will answer it. First to answer that question we must understand what we mean by complete action, attention. Attention. It's not concentration.
PJ: No, sir.
K: No, no, I want to be clear on this.
PJ: Of course it is not.
K: So attention means there is no centre from which you are attending.
PJ: No, of course not.
K: No, don't say, "Of course not", see what is implied in it.
PJ: You see, sir, I would like to ask you one thing: are we still dusting the periphery?
K: No.
PJ: If you are not dusting the peripheral...
K: ...argument.
PJ: ...then when you ask that question unless I can understand what attention is I can't even take the first step.
K: No, so I just want to be clear: attention means - what does it mean - I attend completely.
PJ: To see, to attend completely is for the 'I' not to be there.
K: That is the real thing. When there is attention there is no 'I'. It isn't, I am attending. There is only that state of mind which is wholly attentive.
PJ: So all the senses...
K: The whole body, the whole...
PJ: Being is awakened, if I may say so.
K: Yes.
PJ: And if you are in that state where the being is awake then you can listen, observe.
K: Yes, yes.
PJ: Now can we proceed from there?
K: We are wandering off. I want to enquire into myself. Right? Because myself is life. In enquiring about what I am, I may, if my enquiry is correct, accurate, not distorted, the ground, the beginning of all life may be discovered - may be uncovered.
PJ: If you are starting from there then I will say the first step you will find that 'I' is there.
K: Yes, yes. First step: see clearly, hear clearly.
PJ: But the 'I' is there. So there is the observer and the observed.
K: Oh, of course.
PJ: Now seeing that, it is also...
K: Now wait a minute, Pupul, don't move away from that. I know there is the observer and the observed. Is that so? I am enquiring? I have taken it for granted.
PJ: No, first obviously, sir, when I first started enquiring I started from the observer.
K: Yes, I start with the observer.
PJ: Now I ask - or you have asked and therefore that thought is in my mind, that is there the observer.
K: Is there an observer different from the observed?
PJ: Now having that statement within me I look for the observer.
K: Yes, yes, who is the observer.
PJ: I look for the observer.
K: Yes, enquire into the nature of the observer. Go slowly into that. Because if I understand the observer - if there is an understanding of the observer, then perhaps the observer may see the falseness of this division between the observer and the observed.
PJ: Who will see it?
K: Not 'who will see it', but the perception of what is truth. Perception, not who sees it, perceiving.
PJ: So the seeing of what is the truth of the observer will end the state of division.
K: Of division, yes. Yes, that's is what I have said a thousand times.
PJ: And it is not a one process, one act, that I end the process of division. You might say it happened once and you have seen everything. But it doesn't happen that way.
K: No. it is generally stated that way.
PJ: For that instance it is so.
K: No. Go ahead, what are you trying to say?
PJ: What I am saying is, diligence - we used that word - diligence or discipline is to have that enquiry alive within one.
K: And that does not, I am saying, that does not need training.
PJ: No, I am not talking of training. You brought it in.
K: When you used previously the word discipline...
PJ: No but I am using the word discipline without yet bringing in the word training. I say discipline is that I cannot expect to have an understanding of this unless the mind is awake to this and is diligent about being awake to this.
K: Yes. All right I won't bring in anything. I'll go ahead.
PJ: You can't deny that.
K: No, it has to be diligent, it has to be watchful, it has to be attentive, subtle, hesitant, it has to be all that.
PJ: It has to observe, and rest in observation, find a new home for itself in observation.
K: Pupul we are wandering off again, perhaps I am wandering off. I said I am enquiring into myself.
PJ: Well that's enquiring.
K: How do I enquire into myself except through my reactions - the way I think, the way I act, the way I respond to the environment, my relationship to another.
PJ: If I am starting from there I find that as I first observe myself - the responses, the reactions, all rapid, confused, continuous...
K: I know, contradictory.
PJ: ...contradictory, but in the very observing some space comes into this.
K: Some space, some order.
PJ: This is just the beginning.
K: I know, I know. We are sticking at the beginning.
PJ: That's what I am asking.
K: I am bored with the beginning.
PJ: So let us proceed further.
K: Pupul, I would like to ask a question. Is it necessary to go through all this? To watch my reactions, to watch my responses, to observe diligently my relationship with another, intimate or not? Must I go through all this? Or...
PJ: Sir, I'll say something now. The fact is one has gone through all this. The fact is...
K: You may have gone through it because you have accepted that pattern.
PJ: No.
K: Just hold a minute, hold a minute, hold on a minute. You see we have all done that: the thinkers, the sannyasis, the monks and...
PJ: And Krishnamurti.
K: I am not sure.
PJ: That's the point.
K: I am not sure. Just a minute. I want to discuss this point very seriously.
PJ: You either have in the last thirty years jumped yourself.
K: Wait a minute, let's see it for a moment. We have accepted this pattern of examination, analysis and investigating these reactions, paying attention to them, and watching, self-recollecting and so on and so on. There is something in it which rings a false note. At least to me.
PJ: You mean to say a person caught in the whole confusion of existence...
K: He won't even listen to all this.
PJ: There has to be space in order to even listen. How does that space arise?
K: Pupul, either you have suffered and you say, "I must find out", or you suffer and say, "God exists, I love him and I am comforted by him".
PJ: So you have still not answered me. You say, is it necessary to go through all this.
K: I am asking that. I think it may not be.
PJ: Then show me how. You can't...
K: Wait, I will show it to you in a minute. Let's go into it. If as long as you accept this analytical process, which we will call for the moment the analytical process of enquiry, watching diligently your reaction and all that, we use one word for that, this analytical self-introspective, this constant watching, watching, watching.
PJ: It is not analytical.
K: All right, put it out. Constantly watching, constantly enquiring - you follow? I feel, as I see it, that man has done that thousands of time.
PJ: He has not, sir.
K: Oh yes he has.
PJ: He has not. He has done something quite different.
K: What has he done?
PJ: He has looked at his mind and tried to suppress.
K: That's part of the pattern: suppress, escape, substitute, transcend, that's all within that framework.
PJ: It is not the same thing as to observe without trying to do anything about the observation.
K: No, I am asking, Pupul, we are not meeting my question, if I may point out, perhaps I may be wrong. You are not answering my question: must I go through all this?
PJ: You are saying the word 'must'.
K: All right, I won't use 'must'. Is it necessary, is it imperative, is it essential that I must go through this?
PJ: No, but are you trying to say that out of the middle of chaos you can leap to a state of total non-chaos?
K: No, I won't put it that way. You see you are trying... No, I wouldn't put it that way.
PJ: Then what are you saying?
K: I am saying very clearly, I am saying, humanity has gone through this process, some diligently, some sacrifice everything and so on. This has been the pattern of our existence. Some have done it. Right? Enquired, analysed, searched, introspective examination, diligently watching every action and so on, at the end he may be just a dead entity, with some illusory concept.
PJ: He may not be.
K: I said, may not be. And very few, very, very few have gone out of it.
PJ: But when you say, is it necessary, then you have to...
K: I know, I know, if it is not necessary then show me the other way. That's what you are saying. I'll show it to you. But first step out of this.
PJ: You see, sir...
K: Wait, wait, wait. I'll show it to you.
PJ: But look what you are asking.
K: I know I am asking.
PJ: If I step out of the other it is already there.
K: Of course. Step out. That's what I am saying. Don't take time to go through all this.
PJ: But what is meant by 'step out of it'?
K: I'll tell you what I mean. I recognize - let me talk a little - I recognize very clearly, perceive, whatever word you use, that this process of introspective observation, diligence and so on, man has tried a great deal, for a million years, in different ways. And somehow his mind is not clear at the end of it, he has got some fixations, he has got some ideas and so on. Somehow this quality of movement is very, very shallow. Now if you listen to that, that it is very shallow to do all this, and you see the truth that it is shallow, which means your disordered mind is now quiet, listening to find out. Right? Your confused traditional mind says, "I am accustomed to this diligent observation of all my activities, and that it is really very, very superficial", if you see the truth of that superficiality you are out of it. It's like putting away something utterly meaningless.
Now wait a minute, let me put it round the other way. My mind is disorderly, my life is disorderly. You come along and say, "Be diligent, watchful of your actions, of your thoughts, of your relationship, diligent, be utterly watchful all the time". And I say, "That is impossible because my mind won't allow to be diligent all the time. It is not diligent, it is negligent." And I struggle between these two: being diligent and negligent. And I see man has done this.
PJ: But you mean to say, Krishnaji, a mind that is not capable of observing...
K: No, I am saying, a mind that is willing to listen.
PJ: But please listen to me, sir. You think a mind can be in that state of listening.
K: That is very simple.
PJ: Is it?
K: Yes. I say just listen to a story that I am telling you, you are interested. Your mind is quiet, you are eager to see what the story is and so on.
PJ: I am sorry, sir, it doesn't happen that way, no.
K: Just a minute. Just a minute. Don't say, no. I asked you, Pupulji, to listen to what I am saying.
PJ: I have listened.
K: Wait a minute. I am going to explain what I mean by listening. Not only with the sensory ear, but with the ear that has no movement, that is really listening, that is not translating, that is not comparing, that is not trying to find - listening. I am listening to what you say so completely, then if you are so listening, a man comes along and says, "Don't go through all this diligent process, it is false, superficial". If you hear that, the truth of it, what takes place? What actually takes place when you see something really true? Now is this diligent process, is it time consuming - right? I have not time. My life is so short. I have got so many problems, and you are adding another - be diligent. And I say, please I am worn out with problems, and you have introduced to me another problem. And I say, please. You have problems, I know you have got many problems which are all interrelated. Forget that for the moment and listen to it. That's all.
PJ: Sir, if that were so, if that were so - listen, sir - if I could listen, and I do listen, to music in that way.
K: Ah, music is different.
PJ: But to listen - if I listen to music in that way it should change me totally. It does not.
K: Of course not.
PJ: Then?
K: We are moving to something else.
PJ: You are talking of a mind which is already - I am using the word in inverted commas - which is mature already, listening to a state like that.
K: No. Pupul, I am not sure we have not made our minds so immature that we are incapable of listening to anything.
PJ: But how, Krishnaji, you start by making things impossible.
K: Of course! See the truth. Something impossible...
PJ: But that kind of energy which is needed to deal with an impossible thing.
K: That's what it is. This has been possible, this diligent affair. I say that is so trivial.
PJ: I'll ask you: what is the mind that can deal with an impossible statement like that? What is the nature of that mind?
K: That which is utterly impossible is non-existent. We are thinking everything is possible. I am getting there.
PJ: See where you are getting to, sir. You are saying, what you said just now, is non-existent. So with a non-existent mind - listen.
K: Look, Pupulji, if you and I, both of us agree, just a minute, even temporarily that this diligent process has really led nowhere. It has led to various activities which may be beneficial and so on, but the enquiry which sees that I must go to the very source of things - not through this way obviously.
PJ: Obviously, that I would accept.
K: That's all. No, if you accept that is not through diligent awareness.
PJ: But, sir, even to come to a point when I see it cannot come to it through this...
K: Therefore, what has happened to your mind? You have then put this aside.
PJ: Yes.
K: Now what is happening to a mind that says, this is too trivial, too superficial, out, put it out, what is then the quality of your mind?
PJ: I know what you are trying to say, sir.
K: You answer my question. What is the quality of a mind which has been caught in the process of diligent enquiry, this time consuming diligence, when it sees that it has no deep fundamental value - value in the sense that this diligent process will led to comprehend, of come upon the origin? This process obviously not because it is time consuming, the other way may have no time at all.
PJ: But look at the danger in what you are saying. The danger in what you are saying is, I will not be concerned with sweeping the room.
K: No, no. I am enquiring into myself. That very enquiry demands that the mind and the heart, the whole existence is orderly.
PJ: You start with the impossible.
K: Of course I start with the impossible, Pupulji, otherwise what is possible - you have done all the possible.
PJ: No, no, sir.
K: You have done everything that is possible. One has fasted, sacrificed, done everything to find the origin of things. That has been possible. And the possibility has led nowhere. It has led to certain benefits, social benefits and so on, and also it has led to a great deal of misery of mankind. So if you tell me that, that this diligent process is time consuming and therefore time-binding, and as long as you are doing this you are just scratching the surface - the surface may be most extraordinary, very nice and pleasant and ennobling and all that but it is just on the surface. If you grant that, not only grant but actually see it, feel it, it is in your blood, that this is false, you have already stepped out of something - that is, the ordinary into something extraordinary. And we are not willing to do that. We want to go through all this. We treat it like learning a language. Learning a language is a disciplinary action, diligent attention and so on and so on. We carry the same mentality into the other. That's what I object to.
PJ: But I put aside the other.
K: It is not a game we are playing.
PJ: No, I am not playing a game. You put aside the other.
K: Which means, careful Pupul...
PJ: Which means even the seeing, listening is at an end - if I may put it this way.
K: Which means what? The movement of diligence has stopped. Of course. If that is false it has gone. So what has happened to my mind? My mind has been caught in the diligent enquiry and so on and so on, which is time-binding, and now it says, "By Jove, I see this to be utterly superficial". And what is the state of the mind which has put away something which man has carried for a million years? What is that state of mind? Right? It is a fresh mind. Right? It is a totally new mind. And such a mind is necessary to enquire - not enquire - necessary to uncover the origin.
If I talked like this to a very disciplinarian, religious man, he wouldn't even bother to listen. He would say, "No, it is all nonsense that you are talking about". But you, in our dialogue, say, "Let's go into it", and so you have put yourself in a position of listening, to find out. But if you keep on repeating this diligent process you are still like everybody else.
Now such a mind, first of all, such a mind has no bondage. Right? It has no bondage to time, which is, this diligent process is to become something, is to clarify, to understand, to go beyond. So this mind has no beyond, it is not becoming something. Would you go as far as that?
PJ: You see the moment movement ends...
K: No, I am asking you, would you go so far as to see the fact that such a mind cannot have any kind of dependence, attachment and so on?
PJ: Yes, that I see, because as movement ends...
K: The movement of becoming.
PJ: ...all this which you have talked about is the movement of becoming.
K: Which is the perpetuation of the self in a different form, in a different network of words. You see if you tell me this, and I start out to uncover the source - and to me that is a passion, I want to find out, I am not just playing a game, and to me it is utterly necessary - if when that uncovering of the origin of all life, when there is that uncovering my life, my actions, everything is different. Must be. But the other diligent process, my god, I will die at the end of it. You see that's why I feel the understanding of that has a time consuming factor which is so destructive. Time consuming is necessary to learn to technique but this is not a technique to be learnt.
PJ: Sir, you have really an antique mind, a mind of great antiquity. Antique in the sense of containing the whole of human...
K: You see, Pupul, that is why it is important to understand, I am the world. You understand? I am the world.
PJ: No one else can make that kind of statement, Krishnaji.
K: One must make it, otherwise where are you when you see all this destruction, brutality, wars, killing which has never stopped. A man who loved - loved - wouldn't be British, or Argentine or Israel, or Arab, or something, he couldn't kill another. So I see this process has been going on for thousands and thousands of years, everybody trying to become something. And all the diligent workers are helping man to become something. Illumination, enlightenment, is to achieve enlightenment. It is absurd!
PJ: You see, sir, with you...
K: Not 'with me'.
PJ: Just listen, sir. The whole movement of the dormant has ended.
K: That is diligence is ended. Becoming has ended.
PJ: The whole thing which is dormant.
K: Pupulji, don't let's make this into something elitist, it is only for the few - the elite can only have this kind of mind. I refuse to accept that. That goes back into the old division of the elite and the non-elite. Any person who gives attention, who wants to hear, who really says, "I must find the source of life", is passionate about it, not just casual, then he will listen - not to me, he will listen. It is in the air. You see, like Buddha is supposed to have achieved enlightenment. Just think of such a statement! Sitting under a tree, meditating, fasting, striving - you follow. And ultimately one day it happened. That's too utterly meaningless. That means you are allowing time to be the factor of enlightenment, time the factor of deep profound understanding. Do we stop?
Receive Krishnamurti's thoughts daily, in your
mailbox
Subscribe to Krishnamurti's Daily Thoughts
Please bookmark to Stumble 
Read the Daily thought of Denis Jones
or, Eileen Caddy's thought for today