Jiddhu Krishnamurti (1895 - 1986)

EXPLORATION INTO INSIGHT
'HOW DEEP CAN ONE TRAVEL'

K: Could we put the question this way? Most of our lives are very superficial and is it possible to live at great depth and also function superficially? Is it possible for the mind to dwell or live at great depth? I am not sure that we are all asking the same thing. We lead superficial lives and most of us are satisfied with that.

P: We are not satisfied. But we don't know how to go deep.

K: Most of us put up with it. Now, how is the mind to penetrate into great depth? Are we discussing depth in terms of measurement? Depth involves measurement. I want to be clear that we are not using the word in the sense of measurement or in the sense of time, but as something profound. These words have time significance, but we will wash away all the significance of time and measurement. We are asking whether the mind which generally lives superficially can penetrate to great depth? That is the question. I say it needs a build-up of energy, drive, and ask how is this energy to build up?

P: I know no other dimension. It needs a build-up of energy which drives through. How is the energy to be built up, or is it a wrong question?

K: Let us forget the word `energy' for the time being. I lead a very superficial life and I see the beauty, intellectually or verbally, of a life, of a mind that has gone into itself very very deeply. Now, I say to myself I see the beauty of it, I see the quality of it, how is this to be done? Let us stick to that, instead of bringing in energy and all that. How is this to be done? Can thought penetrate it? Can thought become profound? Please, sirs, do listen to this. I live a superficial life. I want to live a different kind of life, at great depth. I understand depth to mean not measurement or time to go down but depth as the bottomless; that which you cannot fathom, and I want to find it and live with it. Now, tell me what am I to do? I don't know. I am asking whether thought which is time, which is the past, whether thought can penetrate into this profundity?

Just listen to what I am saying. I see very clearly any measurable depth is still within a small measurement. I see the going down as involved in time, it may take years, and so I see intellectually, reasoning it out, I see depth means a timeless, measureless quality, an infinite without ever reaching the bottom. It is not a concept. It is not verbal to me. I have only verbalized it to you. Therefore, it becomes a concept to you.

M: Do you put the question to me or am I putting the question to myself?

K: I am putting the question to myself and therefore asking you to put the question to yourself. I see my life is a superficial life. That's obvious. So, I say to myself: Can thought penetrate this depth as thought is the only instrument I have?

Q: In that case, we cannot use the instrument.

R: How does one come upon this depth without using the instrument?

K: I live a very, very superficial life and I want to find out for myself if there is any depth which is not measurable and I see thought cannot reach it because thought is a measure, thought is time, thought is the response of the past; therefore thought cannot possibly touch it, Then, what will bring this about? If thought cannot touch it and that is the only instrument man has, then, what is he to do? Thought in its movement, in its function, has created this world which is superficial in which I live, of which I am. That is obvious. Now, is it possible for the mind, without the usage of thought, to touch something which is fathomless? Not just some moments in my sleep or when I am walking by myself, but to live there. My mind says the depth must be discovered, to let the mind be of the quality of that - I must be aware of that strange fathomless depth of something which is unnamed.

P: Into what does one penetrate, delve?

K: I won't use those words.

P: No, sir. Thought is the instrument of measurement. There has to be freedom from the measurement-making machinery.

K: No, no. Be simple about this.

P: Can you delve into what is thought?

K: We have been into that. Thought is time, thought is measure, thought is the response of memory, thought is knowledge, experience, past, therefore the past is time. That thought must function always superficially. That is simple.

P: What you have said just now ends up in a big abstraction.

K: No.

P: It does, sir.

K: It is not an abstraction. It is a reality. But what is thought?

P: You said thought is time. You have abstracted that out of thought.

K: Thought cannot penetrate it. That is all. Leave it like that.

P: As it is the instrument that measures, can you penetrate this instrument?

K: No, I am concerned with depth, not with the machinery of measurement. The machinery of measurement is fairly obvious, I don't have to delve into all that.

P: If you say that, then I say into what dimension does one penetrate? If you won't have that and thought being the only instrument we know, into what dimension does one penetrate without thought?

K: There is no question of penetration. P: Then what is it?

Q: We are still bound by the available machinery of construction we have, which is not in a position to reveal that fathomless state which we want to live in, because language is delicate. That instrument is too frail. We must have the language to deal with that dimension. We must have the tool to communicate.

P: What is the tool? Language is too frail. I cannot tell you about `how' when I am that state.

K: Are we concerned with verbal communication or are we concerned with the touching of that depth?

Q: I know that sometimes I do touch. How can I tell you about that state?

P: You said that you don't use the existing instrument which you have, which is thought.

R: But I think Krishnaji has pointed out the difference: that it is not a question of occasionally feeling that, but how to be in it, to live in it.

K: As you eat, appetite comes. Leading a superficial life, as human beings do, I say to myself I would like to find that depth, where there is great width and beauty, something immense. Now, what am I to do? What is the other operation or the other movement that must take place when thought is not functioning? Can the mind remain without measure?

P: The question then is: Can that state come into being where there is no measure?

K: That is all. All your life you have known measure. Now, I am asking you: Can the mind be without measure?

P: If I were to ask you `how', you would say `no'. The only thing left then is to observe your mind measuring because there is no other way.

K: Have you done that? Have you observed, has the mind observed its movement and measurement? P: Yes.

K: Comparing, measuring and ending. Then what?

P: Then there is stillness.

K: You say the movement of measurement has come to an end. Would that be right? Can you honestly, really say the movement with measurement has come to an end?

P: Just now it has come to an end.

K: That is not good enough. Good enough means that right through my life measurement has to come to an end.

P: How can I know it?

K: I am going to find out. I want to find out if my mind which has been conditioned in the movement of measurement - measurement equals comparison, imitation, conformity, an ideal, a resistance which safeguards it from non-measurement - can the mind say: `Now I have understood the whole movement of measurement and I see where its legitimate place is and where it has no place at all,?

P: How is that understood by the mind in which there is no thought?

K: It perceives. I will show it to you. Thought has investigated and analysed it for the moment, thought has enquired, pushed, investigated, and it says it has seen the whole movement of measurement and that very perception of that movement is the ending of that movement. The very perception of it, that is, the seeing is the acting and ending. Seeing that this movement is time, is measure, seeing the whole map of it, the nature of it, the structure of it, that very perception acts in ending it. So, the seeing is the ending. There is no effort involved in it all. You say, `I have seen this.' Have you?