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Jiddhu Krishnamurti (1895 - 1986)

THE ENDING OF TIME - CHAPTER 4 - 10TH APRIL 1980
CONVERSATION WITH PROF. DAVID BOHM
'BREAKING THE PATTERN OF EGO-CENTRED ACTIVITY'

I would like to ask a question which may lead us to something: what will make man change, deeply, fundamentally, radically? He has had crisis after crisis, he has had a great many shocks, he has been through every kind of misfortune, every kind of war, personal sorrow, and so on. A little affection, a little joy, but all this doesn't seem to change him. What will make a human being leave the way he is going, and move in a totally different direction? I think that is one of our great problems, don't you? Why? If one is concerned, as one must be, with humanity, with all the things that are going on, what would be the right action to move man out of one direction to another? Is this question valid? Has it any significance?

DAVID BOHM: Well, unless we can see this action, it won't have much significance.

K: Has the question any significance?

DB: What it means is, indirectly, to ask what is holding people.

K: Yes, same thing.

DB: If we could find out what is holding people in their present direction...

K: Is it the basic conditioning of man, this tremendous egotistic attitude and action, which won't yield to anything? It appears to change, it appears to yield, but the centre remains the same. perhaps this may not be in the line of our dialogue over the last two or three days, but I thought we might start with this.

DB: Have you some notion of what is holding people? Something that would really change them?

K: I think so.

DB: What is it then? K: What is it that is blocking? Do we approach through environmental conditioning, from the outer to the inner, and discover from man's outer activities, the inner? And then discover that the outer is the inner, the same movement, and then go beyond it to see what it is? Could we do that?

DB: When you say outward, what do you mean? Do you mean the social conditions?

K: The social conditioning, the religious conditioning, education, poverty, riches, climate, food; the outer. Which may condition the mind in a certain direction. But as one examines it a little more, the psychological conditioning is also from the outer, somewhat.

DB: It is true that the way a person thinks is going to be affected by his whole set of relationships. But that doesn't explain why the conditioning is so rigid, and why it holds.

K: That is what I am asking too.

DB: Yes. If it were merely outward conditioning, one would expect it to be more easily changed. For example, you could have some other outward condition.

K: They have tried all that.

DB: Yes, the whole belief of Communism was that with a new society there would be a new man. But there have been none! I think that there is something fundamentally in the inward that holds, that resists change.

K: What is it? Will this question lead us anywhere?

DB: Unless we actually uncover it, it will lead nowhere.

K: I think one could find out, if one applied one's mind. I am just asking: is this question worthwhile, and is it related to what we have been discussing? Or shall we take up something else in relation to what we have been talking about?

DB: Well, I think that we have been talking of bringing about an ending to time, an ending to becoming. And we talked of coming into contact with the ground, through complete rationality. But now we could say that the mind is not rational.

K: Yes, we said man is basically irrational. DB: This is perhaps part of the block. If we were completely rational, then we would of necessity come to this ground. Would that be right?

K: Yes. We were talking the other day about the ending of time. The scientists, through the investigation of matter, want to find out that point. Also the so-called religious people have endeavoured to find out - not only verbally - if time can stop. We went into that quite a bit, and we say it is possible for a human being, who will listen, to find out through insight the ending of use insight is not memory. Memory is time, memory is knowledge stored up in the brain, and so on. As long as that is in operation there is no possibility of having insight into Total insight, not partial insight. The artist, the musician, they all have partial insights and therefore they still time-bound.

It is possible to have a total insight, which is the ending of the `me' because the `me' is time? Me, my ego, my resistance, my hurts, all that. Can that `me' end? It is only when that ends that there is total insight. That is what we discovered.

And we went into the question, is it possible for a human being to end totally this whole structure of the `me'? We said yes, and went into it. Very few people will listen to this because it is perhaps too frightening. And the question then arises: if the `me' ends, what is there? just emptiness? There is no interest in that. But if one is investigating without any sense of reward or punishment, then there is something. We say that something is total emptiness, which is energy and silence. Well that sounds nice, but it has no meaning to an ordinary man who is serious and wants to go beyond it, beyond himself. And we pushed it further: is there something beyond all this? And we say there is.

DB: The ground.

K: The ground. Is it that the beginning of this enquiry is to listen? Will I, as a human being, give up my egocentric activity completely? What will make me move away from that? What will make a human being move away from this destructive, self-centred activity? If he will move away through reward, or punishment, then that is just another thought, motive. So discard that. Then what will make human beings renounce - if I may use the word - renounce it completely without motive? You see, man has tried everything in this direction - fasting self-torture in various forms, abnegating himself through belief and denying himself through identification with something greater. All the religious people have tried it, but the `me' is still there.

DB: Yes. The whole activity has no meaning, but somehow this does not become evident. People will move away from something which has no meaning, and makes no sense, ordinarily speaking. But it seems that the perception of this fact is rejected by the mind. The mind is resisting it.

K: The mind is resisting this constant conflict, and moving away from it.

DB: It is moving away from the fact that this conflict has no meaning.

K: People don't see that.

DB: Also the mind is set up purposefully to avoid seeing it.

K: The mind is avoiding it.

DB: It is avoiding it almost on purpose, but not quite consciously, like the people of India who say they are going to retire to the Himalayas because nothing can be done.

K: But that is hopeless. You mean to say that the mind, having lived so long in conflict, refuses to move away from it?

DB: It is not clear why it refuses to give it up; why the mind does not wish to see the full meaninglessness of the conflict. The mind is deceiving itself, it is covering up.

K: The philosophers and so-called religious people have emphasized struggle, emphasized the sense of striving, control, effort. Is that one of the causes why human beings refuse to let go of their way of life?

DB: Possibly. They hope that by fighting or struggling they will achieve a better result. Not to give up what they have, but to improve it by struggle.

K: Man has lived for two million years; what has he achieved? More wars, more destruction. DB: What I am trying to say is that there is a tendency to resist seeing this, but also to go back to hoping that the struggle will produce something better.

K: I am not quite sure if we have cleared this point; that the intellectuals - I am using the word respectfully - the intellectuals of the world have emphasized this factor of struggle.

DB: Many of them have, I suppose.

K: Most of them.

DB: Karl Marx.

K: Marx and even Bronowski, who talk of more and more struggle, of acquiring more and more knowledge. Is it that the intellectuals have such extraordinary influence on our minds?

DB: I think people do this without any encouragement from intellectuals. You see, struggle has been emphasized everywhere.

K: That is what I mean. Everywhere. Why?

DB: Well, in the beginning people thought it would be necessary because they had to struggle against nature in order to survive.

K: So struggling against nature has been transferred to the other?

DB: Yes, that is part of it. You see you must be a brave hunter, and you must struggle against your own weakness to become brave. Otherwise you can't do it.

K: Yes, that's it. So is it that our minds are conditioned, shaped, held, in this pattern?

DB: Well that is certainly true, but it doesn't explain why it is so extraordinarily hard to change it.

K: Because I am used to it. I am in a prison, but I am used to it.

DB: But I think that there is a tremendous resistance to moving away from it.

K: Why does a human being resist this? If you come along and point out the fallacy, the irrationality of this, and you show the whole cause and effect, give examples, data, everything else? Why? DB: That is what I said, that if people were capable of complete rationality they would drop it, but I think that there is something more to the problem. You see, you may expose the irrationality of it but there is something more, in the sense that people are not fully aware of this whole pattern of thought. Having had it exposed at a certain level, it still continues at levels that they are not aware of.

K: But what would make them aware?

DB: That is what we have to find. I think people have to become aware that they have this tendency to go on with the conditioning. It might be mere habit, or it might be the result of many past conclusions, all operating now, without people knowing it. There are so many different things that keep people in this pattern. You might convince somebody that the pattern makes no sense, but when it comes to the actual affairs of life he has a thousand different ways of proceeding which imply that pattern.

K: Quite. Then what?

DB: Well, I think that a person would have to be extremely interested in this to break all that down.

K: Then what will bring a human being to this state of extreme interest? You see, they have even been offered heaven as a reward if they do this. Various religions have done this, although that becomes too childish.

DB: That is part of the pattern - reward. Ordinarily the rule is that I follow the self-enclosed pattern except when something really big comes up.

K: A crisis.

DB: Or when a reward is to be obtained.

K: Of course.

DB: That is a pattern of thinking. people must in some way believe that it has value. If everybody were able to work together and suddenly we were able to produce harmony, then everybody would say, fine, I will give up myself. But in the absence of that, I had better hold on to what I have! That is the sort of thinking.

K: Hold on to what is known.

DB: I don't have much, but I had better hold on to it. K: Yes. So are you saying that if everybody does this, I will do it?

DB: That is the common way of thinking. Because as soon as people begin to start to cooperate in an emergency, then a great many people go along.

K: So they form communes. But all those have failed.

DB: Because after a while this special thing goes away and they fall back to the old pattern.

K: The old pattern. So I am asking, what will make a human being break through this pattern?

QUESTIONER: Isn't it related to the question we dealt with before - time and no time?

K: But I know nothing about time, I know nothing about all this, it is just a theory to me. Yet the fact is, I am caught in this pattern and I can't let it go. The analysts have tried it, the religious people have tried it, everybody has tried to make human beings intelligent - but they have not succeeded.

Q: But they don't see that the very attempt at letting go the pattern or ending the conflict is still strengthening the conflict.

K: No, that is just a theory.

Q: But you can explain that to them.

K: You can explain. As we said, there are a dozen very rational explanations. At the end of it we fall back to this.

Q: Well, you only fall back to that if you have not really understood it.

K: Have you understood it when you say that? Why haven't I, or you, said `finished'! You can give me a thousand explanations, and all probably a bit irrational, but I say, have you done it?

Q: I don't even understand the question, when you ask, have I done it?

K: I am not being personal. You have given an explanation of why human beings can't move away from this pattern, or break through it.

Q: No, I give you more than the explanation. K: What do you give me?

Q: If I observe something to be correct, then the description of the observation is more than just explanation.

K: Yes, but can I observe this clearly?

Q: Well, that is the problem.

K: So help me to see it clearly.

Q: For that there must be an interest.

K: Please don't say `must'. I haven't got an interest. I am interested, as Dr. Bohm pointed out just now, when there is a tremendous crisis such as war. Then I forget myself. In fact, I am glad to forget myself, to give the responsibility to the generals, to the politicians. Under a crisis I forget, but the moment the crisis goes away I am back to my pattern. That is happening all the time. Now, I say to myself, what will make me relinquish this pattern, or break through it?

Q: Isn't it that one must see the falseness?

K: Show it to me.

Q: I can't, because I have not seen it.

K: Then what shall I do as a human being? You have explained to me ten thousand times how ugly it is, how destructive it is, and so on, but I fall back to this pattern all the time. Help me, or show me how to break the pattern. You understand my question?

Q: Well then you are interested?

K: All right. Now what will make me be interested? Pain?

Q: Sometimes it does for a moment, but it goes away.

K: So what will make me as a human being so alert, so aware, so intense that I will break through this thing?

Q: You state the question in terms of an action, breaking through, relinquishing. Isn't it a matter of seeing?

K: Yes. Show me, help me to see, because I am resisting you. My pattern, so deeply ingrained in me, is holding back - right? I want proof, I want to be convinced. Q: We have to go back to this question - why do I want to have proof? Why do I want to be convinced?

K: Because someone says that this is a stupid, irrational way of looking. And he shows us all the effects of it, the cause of it, and we say, yes but we can't let go!

DB: You may say that is the very nature of `me', that I must fulfil my needs no matter how irrational they are.

K: That is what I am saying.

DB: First I must take care of my own needs, and then I can try to be rational.

K: What are our needs then?

DB: Some of the needs are real and some are imaginary but...

K: Yes, that's it. The imaginary, illusory needs sway the other needs.

DB: But you see, I may need to believe I am good and right, and to know that I will be always there.

K: Help me to break that!

DB: I think I have to see that this is an illusion. You see, if it seems real, what can I do? Because if I am really there, I need all this, and it is foolish to talk of being rational if I am going to vanish, break down or something. You have proposed to me that there is another state of being where I am not there - right? And when I am there, this doesn't make any sense!

K: Yes, quite. But I am not there. Suppose as a human being, heaven is perfect, but I am not there; please help me to get there.

DB: No, it is something different.

K: I know what you are saying.

Q: Can one see the illusory nature of that very demand that I want to go to heaven? Or I want to be enlightened, or I want to be this, I want to be that? But this very question, this very demand is...

K: This demand is based on becoming, on the more.

Q: That is illusory. K: No. You say that.

DB: You haven't demonstrated it to me, you see.

K: That is an idea to you. It is just a theory. Show me.

Q: Well, are we willing really to explore the question?

K: We are willing on one condition - that we find something at the end of it. See how the human mind works. I will climb the highest mountain if I can get something out of it.

Q: Can the mind see that this is the problem?

K: Yes, but it can't let go.

Q: Well if it sees...

K: You are going round and round in circles!

DB: It sees the problem abstractly.

K: That is it. Now why do I see it abstractly?

DB: First of all, it is a lot easier.

K: Don't go back to that. Why does my mind make an abstraction of everything?

DB: Let's begin by saying that to a certain extent it is the function of thought to make abstractions outwardly, but then we carry them inwardly. It is the same sort of thing as before.

K: Yes. So is there something else - I am just asking - that we are missing in this altogether? That is, if I may point out, we are still thinking in the same old pattern.

DB: The question itself contains that pattern, doesn't it?

K: Yes, but the pursuit of the pattern is traditional.

DB: I mean that in framing this question, the pattern has continued.

K: Yes, so can we move away altogether from this, and look at it differently. Can the human mind say, all right, we have tried all this - Marx, Buddha, everybody has pointed out something or other. But obviously after a million years, we are still somehow caught in that pattern - saying we must be interested, we must listen, we must do this, and so on. DB: That is still time.

K: Yes. Then what happens if I leave all that, actually leave it? I won't even think in terms of it. No more explanations, or new twists, that are the same old twists! So I say let's leave that area completely and look at the problem differently, the problem being why do I always live in this centre of `me'? I am a serious human being; I have listened to all this and after fifty years I know all the explanations - what I should, should not do, etc. Can I say, all right, I will discard all that? That means I stand completely alone. Does that lead anywhere?

DB: Possibly, yes.

K: I think it does lead somewhere.

DB: It seems to me that basically you are saying leave all this knowledge of mankind behind.

K: That is what I am saying.

DB: Apparently it is out of its place.

K: Yes. Leave all the knowledge, and experiences, explanations, causes that man has created - discard all that.

Q: But you are still left with the same mind.

K: Ah! I have not such a mind. It is not the same mind. When I discard all this, my mind has changed. My mind is this.

Q: No, isn't the mind also the basic set-up?

K: Which I have discarded.

Q: But you can't discard that.

K: Oh, yes.

Q: I mean this is an organism.

K: Now, wait a minute. My organism has been shaped by knowledge, by experience. And more knowledge which I have acquired as I have evolved, as I have grown. As I have gathered more and more, it has strengthened me, and I have been walking on that path for millennia. And I say, perhaps I may have to look at this problem totally differently - which is not to walk on that path at all, but to discard all knowledge I have acquired. DB: In this area, in this psychological place.

K: Psychologically, of course.

DB: At the core, at the source, knowledge is irrelevant.

K: Yes.

DB: Further down the line it becomes relevant.

K: Of course. That is understood.

Q: But I have one question. The mind at the beginning of its evolution was in that same position. The mind at the beginning of whatever you call man was in that position.

K: No. I don't accept that. Why do you say that? The moment it comes into being, it is already caught in knowledge. Would you say that?

DB: I think it is implicit in the structure of thought.

K: That is just it.

DB: First of all, to have knowledge about the outward, and then to apply this to the inward, without understanding that it was going to be caught in it. Therefore it extended that knowledge into the area of psychological becoming.

Q: Well, if the mind started new, it would go through the same mistake again.

K: No, certainly not.

Q: Unless it has learnt.

K: No, I don't want to learn. You are still pursuing the same old path. I don't want to learn. please, just let me go into this a little bit.

DB: We should clear this up because on other occasions you have said it is important to learn, even about observing yourself.

K: Of course.

DB: Now you are saying something quite different. It should be made clear why it is different. Why is it that you have given up the notion of learning at this stage?

K: At this stage, because I am still gathering memory. DB: But there was a state when it was important to learn about the mind.

K: Don't go back. I am just starting. I have lived for sixty, eighty, or a hundred years. And I have listened to all this - the teachers in India, the Christians, the Muslims; I have listened to all the psychological explanations, to Freud, Marx and everybody.

DB: I think we should go a bit further. We agree that is all negative stuff, but in addition perhaps I have observed myself, and learned about myself.

K: Myself, yes, add that. And, at the end of it, I say perhaps this is a wrong way of looking at it.

DB: Right. Having explored that way, we finally are able to see it might be wrong.

K: Perhaps.

DB: Well I would say that in some sense perhaps it was necessary to explore that way.

K: Or not necessary.

DB: It may not have been, but given the whole set of conditions it was bound to happen.

K: Of course. So now I have come to a point when I say discard - we will put in that word - all that knowledge, because that hasn't led me anywhere, in the sense that I am not free of my egocentricism.

DB: But that alone isn't enough because if you say it hasn't worked, you can always hope or suppose that it may. But in fact you could see that it can't work.

K: It can't work. I am definite on that.

DB: It is not enough to say it hasn't worked, actually it cannot work.

K: It cannot work because it is based on time and knowledge, which is thought. And these explanations are based on thought - to acquire knowledge and so on and so on. Would you say that? DB: As far as we have gone we have based them on knowledge and thought. And not only thought, but the habitual patterns of skill are an extension of thought.

K: So I put those aside, not casually, not with an interest in the future - but seeing the same pattern being repeated and repeated; different colours, different phrases, different pictures, different images - I discard all that totally. Instead of going North, as I have been going for millennia, I have stopped and am going East, which means my mind has changed.

DB: Has the structure of the `me' gone?

K: Obviously.

DB: Without insight into it?

K: No. I won't bring in insight for the moment.

DB: But there was insight to do that. I mean to say that to consider doing it was an insight. The insight was the thing that worked.

K: I won't bring in that word.

DB: When you said that the whole thing could not work, I think that is an insight.

K: For me. I see it cannot work. But then we go back again to how do I acquire insight, and all that.

DB: But leaving that aside and just saying that it was an insight, the question of how to acquire it is not the point.

K: It is an insight that says `out'.

Q: Out to the pattern.

K: No, finished with this constant becoming through experience, knowledge, patterns. Finished!

Q: Would you say that the kind of thinking afterwards, is a totally different kind of thinking? Evidently one still must think.

K: I am not sure.

Q: Well you may call it something else. K: Ah, I won't call it anything else. Please I am just fishing around. After having lived a hundred years, I see everybody pointing out the way to end the self, and that way is based on thought, time, knowledge. And I say, sorry, I know all that, I have used that. I have an insight into that; therefore it falls away. Therefore the mind has broken the pattern completely. Not going North but East, you break the pattern.

Now, all right. Suppose Dr. Bohm has this insight, and has broken away from the pattern. Please let us help another human being to come to that. Don't say you must be interested, you must listen, then fall back - you follow? What is your communication with another human being, so that he hasn't got to go through all this mess? What will make me absorb so completely what you have said, so that it is in my blood, in my brain, everything, so that I see this thing? What will you do? Or is there nothing to do - you follow my question? Because if you have that insight it is a passion, it is not just a clever insight, nor is it possible to sit back and be comfortable; it is a passion that won't let you sit still, you must move, give - whatever it is. What will you do? You have that passion or this immense insight. And that passion must, like a river with a great volume of water flowing over the banks, move in the same way.

Now, I am a human being, ordinary, fairly intelligent, well read, experienced. I have tried this, that and the other thing, and I meet someone who is full of this, and I say, why won't I listen to him?

Q: I think we do listen.

K: Do we?

Q: Yes, I think so.

K: just go very, very slowly. Do we so completely listen that there is no resistance, no saying why, what is the cause, why should I? You follow what I mean? We have been through all that. We have walked the area endlessly, back and forward from corner to corner, North, South, East, West. And `X' comes along and says, look there is a different way of living, something totally new; which means listening completely.

Q: If there is a resistance one does not see the resistance. K: Don't begin all over again on why you resist. I will show you your resistance, by talking. You know. But yet you go back.

Q: Krishnaji, did not your initial question go beyond this, when you asked, let's leave the listening, the rationality, the thought.

K: Yes, but that is just an idea. Will you do it? `X' comes along and says, `Look, eat this.'

Q: I would eat it if I could see it.

K: Oh, yes, you can see it, very clearly. We said, don't go back to the pattern. See! Then you say, how am I to see? which is the old pattern.just see! `X' refuses to enter that pattern.

Q: The pattern of explanation?

K: Knowledge, all that. He says come over, don't go back.

Q: Krishnaji, to talk about a normal situation in the world; there are a number of people who ask one with similar words to see, put thought aside; if one would really look at this thing one would see it. That is what the priests tell us. So what is the difference?

K: No, I am not a priest. I have left all that. I have left the church, the gods,jesus, the Buddhas, the Krishnas, I have left all that, Marx, Engels, all the analysts, all the pundits, everybody. You see, you haven't done that. Ah, you say, no, I can't do it until you show me there is something else beyond all that. And `X' says, `Sorry.' Has that any meaning?

DB: Yes. I think that we say, leave all the knowledge behind. But knowledge takes many subtle forms which we don't see.

K: Of course. You are full of this insight and you have discarded all knowledge because of that. And another keeps on paddling over the pool of knowledge. And you say, leave it. The moment we enter into explanations we are back in the game. And you refuse to explain.

You see, explanations have been the boat in which to cross to the other shore. And the man on the other shore says there is no boat. But `X' says, cross! He is asking something impossible, isn't he?

DB: If it doesn't happen right away, then it is impossible. K: Absolutely. He is asking something impossible for one to do. I am meeting `X', who is immovable. Either I have to go round him, avoid him or go over him. I can't do any of that. But `X' won't leave me alone, in the sense that I have met something immovable. And it is there night and day with me. I can't battle with it because there is nothing to get hold of.

So what happens to me when I meet something that is completely solid, immovable, absolutely true, what happens to me? Is that the problem? That we have never met something like that? We may climb the Himalayas, but Everest is always there. In the same way, perhaps human beings have never met something irrevocable. Something absolutely immovable. Either we are terribly puzzled by it, or we say, well we can't do anything about it. Walk away from it. Or it is something that we must investigate - you follow - we must capture. Which is it?

Here is a solid thing. I am confronted by it. As I said, I might run away from it, which I generally do. Or worship it. Or try to understand what it is. When I do all these things, I am back in the old pattern. So I discard that. When meeting `X', who is immovable, I see what the nature of it is. I am movable, as a human being, but `X' is immovable. The contact with it does something, it must. It is not some mystic, occult stuff but it is simple, isn't it?

Q: Sir, it functions like a magnet, but it doesn't break something.

K: No, because you haven't let go the pattern. It is not `X's' fault.

Q: I didn't say it was.

K: No, the implication is that. Therefore you are back, you are dependent.

Q: What is taking place?

K: I am saying, you meet `X; what happens?

Q: You said, an effort to understand.

K: Ah, there you are, lost. You are back in the old pattern. You see it, you feel it, you know it, you recognize it. It doesn't matter what word you use, it is there.

DB: Well, can't you say that `X' communicates the absolute necessity of not going on with the old pattern, because you see it absolutely can't work. K: Yes put it in your own words. All right.

DB: And therefore that is unalterable, immovable - is that what you mean?

K: Yes, I am movable; `X' is immovable.

DB: Well, what is behind `X', what is working in `X' is immovable. Wouldn't you say that?

K: What is working is something of a shock at first, naturally. I have been moving, moving, moving, then I meet something that is immovable. Suddenly something takes place, obviously. You can see what takes place. `X' is not becoming, and I am becoming. And `X' has been through explanations and all the rest of it, and he shows that becoming is painful. (I am putting it quickly, in a few words.) And I meet that. So there is the sensitivity - all right, let's put it the other way. The explanations and the discarding of all the explanations have made me sensitive. Much more alert. When I meet something like `X', naturally there is a response not in terms of explanation or understanding. There is a response to that. There is bound to be. Explanations have been given over and over again. I have listened, but either they have made me dull, or I begin to see that explanations have no value at all. So in this process I have become extraordinarily sensitive to any explanation. I am allergic!

There is a danger in this too, because, you know, people have said when you go to the guru he gives; so be silent and you will receive. That's an illusion, you know. Well, I have said enough.

DB: I could just say that when one sees that this whole process of time and knowledge and so on won't work, then it stops. Now, this leaves one more sensitive - right?

K: Yes, the mind has become sharp.

DB: All this movement was getting in the way.

K: Yes, psychological knowledge has made us dull.

DB: It has kept the brain moving in an unnecessary way.

Q: All knowledge?

DB: Well, no. You could say in some sense that knowledge needn't make you dull, I suppose, if it starts from the clarity of where we don't have this knowledge at the core... K: Yes. You remember we said too, in our discussions, that the ground is not knowledge.

DB: You see the first thing is, it creates emptiness.

K: That's it.

DB: But not yet the ground, not immediately the ground.

K: That's right. You see, we have discussed all this; I hear it on the tape, it is printed in a book, and I say, yes I get it. By reading it, I have explained, I have acquired knowledge. Then I say, I must that.

DB: The danger is that there is great difficulty in communicating a book because that is too fixed.

K: But that is what generally happens.

DB: But I think that the main point, which could communicate it, is to see that knowledge, in all its forms, subtle and obvious, cannot solve the psychological problem; it can only make it worse. But then there is another energy which is involved.

K: You see now what is happening? If any trouble arises I go to a psychologist. In any family trouble I go to somebody who will tell me what to do. Everything around me is being organized, and making me more and more helpless. That is what is happening.