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Dialogue with Bohm: Death has very little meaning

Extracted from The Ending of Time chapter 7

KRISHNAMURTI: Are we saying that human beings are still behaving with the animal instincts?

DAVID BOHM: Yes, and that the animal instincts, it seems, may be overpowering in their intensity and speed, and especially with young children. It may be that it is only natural for them to respond with the animal instinct.

K: So that means, after a million years, that we are still instinctively behaving like our ancestors?

DB: In some ways. probably our behaviour is also complicated by thought; the animal instinct has now become entangled with thought, and it is getting in some ways worse.

K: Far worse.

DB: Because all these instincts of hatred now become directed and sustained by thought, so that they are more subtle and dangerous.

K: And during all these many centuries we haven't found a way, a method, a system - something that will move us away from that track. Is that it?

DB: Yes. One of the difficulties, surely, is that when people begin to be angry with each other, their anger builds up and they can't seem to do anything about it. They may try to control it, but that doesn't work.

K: As we were saying, someone - `X' - behaves naturally in a way that is not a response to the animal instinct. What place has this kind of insight in human society? None at all?

DB: In society as it is, it cannot be accommodated, because society is organized under the assumption that pain and pleasure are going to rule. You could say that friendliness is a kind of animal instinct too, for people become friendly for instinctive reasons. And perhaps they become enemies for similar reasons. So I think that some people would say that we should be rational rather than instinctive. There was a period during the 18th century, the Age of Reason, when they said man could be rational, could choose to be rational, in order to bring about harmony everywhere.

K: But he hasn't done so!

DB: No, things got worse, leading to the French Revolution, to the Terror and so on. But, after that, people didn't have so much faith in reason as a way of getting anywhere, or coming out of conflict.

K: So where does that lead us? We were talking really about insight that actually changes the nature of the brain itself.

DB: Yes, by dispelling the darkness in the brain, insight allows the brain to function in a new way.

K: Thought has been operating in darkness, creating its own darkness and functioning in that. And insight is, as we said, like a flash which breaks down the darkness. Then when that insight clears the darkness, does man act, or function, rationally?

DB: Yes, man will then function rationally, and with perception, rather than by rules and reason. But there is a freely flowing reason. You see, some people identify reason with certain rules of logic which would be mechanical. But there can be reason as a form of perception of order.

K: So we are saying, are we, that insight is perception?

DB: It is the flash of light which makes perception possible.

K: Right, that's it.

DB: It is even more fundamental than perception.

K: So insight is pure perception, and from that perception there is action, which is then sustained by rationality. Is that it?

DB: Yes.

K: That's right.

DB: And the rationality is perception of order. K: So, would you say, there is insight, perception and order?

DB: Yes.

K: But that order is not mechanical because it is not based on logic.

DB: There are no rules.

K: No rules; let's put it that way; it's better. This order is not based on rules. This means insight, perception, action, order. Then you come to the question, is insight continuous, or is it by flashes?

DB: We went into that, and felt it was a wrong question, so perhaps we can look at it differently. It is not time binding.

K: Not time binding. Yes, we agreed on that. So now let's get a little further. We said, didn't we, that insight is the elimination of the darkness which is the very centre of the self, the darkness that self creates? Insight dispels that very centre.

DB: Yes. With the darkness, perception is not possible. It's blindness in a way.

K: Right, then what next? I am an ordinary man, with all my animal instincts, pleasure and pain and reward and punishment and so on. I hear you say this, and I see what you are saying has some kind of reason, logic and order.

DB: Yes, it makes sense as far as we can see it.

K: It makes sense. Then how am I to have reason in my life? How am I to bring it about? You understand that these words which are difficult, are all of them time binding. But is that possible?

DB: Yes, without time, you see.

K: Is it possible for man with his narrow mind, to have this insight, so that pattern of life is broken? As we said the other day, we have tried all this, tried every form of self-denial, and yet that insight doesn't come about. Once in a while there is a partial insight, but that partial insight is not the whole insight, so there is still partial darkness.

DB:Which doesn't dispel the centre of the self. It may dispel some darkness in a certain area, but the source of the darkness, the creator, the sustainer of it, is still there.

K: Still there. Now what shall we do? But this is a wrong question. This leads nowhere. We have stated the general plan, right? And I have to make the moves, or make no moves at all. I haven't the energy. I haven't the capacity to see it quickly. Because this is immediate, not just something that I practise and eventually get. I haven't the capacity, I haven't the sense of urgency, of immediacy. Everything is against me: my family, my wife, society. Everything. And does this mean that I eventually have to become a monk?

DB: No. Becoming a monk is the same as becoming anything else.

K: That's right. Becoming a monk is like becoming a businessman! I see all this, verbally as well as rationally, intellectually, but I can't capture this thing. Is there a different approach to this problem? I am always asking the same question, because I am caught in the same pattern. So, is there a totally different way? A totally different approach to the whole turmoil of life? Is there a different manner of looking at it? Or is the old way the only way? We have said that as long as the centre is creating darkness, and thought is operating in that darkness, there must be disorder, and society will be as it is now. To move away from that, you must have insight. Insight can only come about when there is a flash, a sudden light, which abolishes not only darkness but the creator of darkness.

DB: Yes.

K: Now I am asking if there is a different approach to this question altogether, although an old response seems so absolute.

DB: Well possibly. When you say it seems absolute, do you want a less absolute approach?

K: I am saying that if that is the only way, then we are doomed.

DB: You can't produce this flash at will.

K: No, it can't be produced through will, through sacrifice, through any form of human effort. That is out; we know we have finished with all that. And also we agreed that to some people - to `X' - this insight seemed so natural and we asked why is it not natural to others?

DB: If we begin with the child, it seems natural to the child to respond with his animal instincts, with great intensity which sweep him away. Darkness arises because it is so overwhelming.

K: Yes, but why is it different with `X'?

DB: First of all it seems natural to most people that the animal instincts would take over.

K: Yes, that's right.

DB: And they would say the other fellow, `X', is unnatural.

K: Yes.

DB: So that is the way mankind has been thinking, saying that if there are indeed any people who are different they must be very unusual and unnatural.

K: That's it. Human beings have been responding to hatred by hatred, and so on. There are those few, perhaps many, who say that is not natural or rational. Why has this division taken place?

DB: If we say that pleasure and pain, fear and hate, are natural, then it is felt that we must battle to control these, otherwise they will destroy us. The best we can hope for is to control them with reason, or through another way.

K: But that doesn't work! Are people like `X', who function differently, the privileged few, by some miracle, by some strange chance event?

DB: Many people would say that.

K: But it goes against one's grain. I would not accept that.

DB: Well, if that is not the case, then you have to say why there is this difference.

K: That is what I am trying to get at, because `X' is born of the same parents.

DB: Yes, fundamentally the same, so why does he behave differently? K: This question has been asked many times, over and over again in different parts of the world. Now why is there this division?

QUESTIONER: Is the division really total? You see, even the man who responds to hatred with hatred, nevertheless sees that it doesn't make sense, is not natural and should be different.

K: It should be different, but he is still battling with ideas. He is trying to get out of it by the exercise of thought which breeds darkness.

Q: I just want to say that the division does not seem to be so entire.

K: Oh, but the division is entire, complete.

Q: Well, then, why are people not simply saying, let's continue to live that way, and let's enjoy it to the last moment?

K: Because they can't see anything except their own darkness.

Q: But they want to get out of it.

K: Now wait a minute. Do they want to get out of it? Do they actually realize the state they are in, and deliberately want to get out of it?

Q: They are ambivalent about it. They want to go on getting the fruits of it, but they have a sense that it is wrong, and that it leads to suffering.

DB: Or else they find they can't help it. You see, when the time comes to experience anger or pleasure, they can't get away.

K: They can't help it.

Q: But they want to get out of it, although they are helpless. There are forces which are stronger than their will.

K: So what shall we do? or is this division false?

DB: That's the point. We had better talk of a difference between these two approaches. This difference is not fundamental.

K: I don't think they have anything in common.

DB: Why? You say the difference is false, although fundamentally people are the same, but a difference has developed between them. Perhaps most people have taken a wrong turning.

K: Yes, let's put it that way.

DB: But the difference is not intrinsic, it is not structural, built in like the difference between a tree and a rock.

K: Agreed. As you say, there is a difference between a rock and a tree, but it is not like that. Let's be simple. There are two responses. They start from the source; one has taken one direction, and the other has taken a different direction. But the source is the same. Why haven't all of them moved in the right direction?

DB: We haven't managed to answer that. I was just saying that if one understands that, then going back to the source, one does not have to take the wrong turn. In a sense we are continually taking this wrong turn, so if we can understand this, then it becomes possible to change. And we are continually starting from the same source, not going back in time to a source.

K: Just a minute, just a minute.

DB: There are two possible ways of taking our statement. One is to say that the source is in time, that far back in the past we started together and took different paths. The other is to say that the source is timeless, and we are continually taking the wrong turn, again and again. Right?

K: Yes, it is constantly the wrong turn. Why?

Q: This means that there is the constant possibility of the right turn.

K: Yes, of course. That's it. If we say there is a source from which we all began, then we are caught in time.

DB: We can't go back.

K: No, that is out. Therefore it is apparent that we are taking the wrong turn all the time.

DB: Constantly.

K: Constantly taking the wrong turn. But why? The one who is living with insight and the other who is not living with insight - are these constant? The man who is living in darkness can move away at any time to the other. That is the point. At any time.

DB: Then nothing holds him, except constantly taking the wrong turn. You could say the darkness is such that he doesn't see himself taking the wrong turn.

K: Are we pursuing the right direction, putting the right question? Suppose you have that insight, and your darkness, the very centre of darkness, has been dispelled completely. And I, a serious, fairly intelligent human being, listen to you. And whatever you have said seems reasonable, rational, sane. I question the division. The division is created by the centre which creates darkness.Thought has created it.

DB: Well, in darkness, thought creates the division.

K: From the darkness a shadow is thrown; it makes a division.

DB: If we have that insight, we say there is no division.

K: Yes. And man won't accept that, because in his darkness there is nothing but division. So we, living in darkness, have created the division. We have created it in our thoughts...

DB: We are constantly creating it.

K: Yes, always wanting to live constantly in a state in which there is no division. That movement, however, is still the movement of darkness. Right?

DB: Yes.

K: How am I to dispel this continuous, constant darkness? That is the only question, because, as long as that exists, I create this constant division. You see, this is going round in circles. I can only dispel the darkness through insight, and I cannot have that insight by any effort of will, so I am left with nothing. So what is my problem? My problem is to perceive the darkness, to perceive the thought that is creating darkness, and to see that the self is the source of this darkness. Why can't I see that? Why can't I see it even logically?

DB: Well, it's clear logically.

K: Yes, but somehow it doesn't seem to operate. So what shall I do? I realize for the first time that the self is creating the darkness which is constantly breeding division. I see that very clearly.

DB: And the division produces the darkness anyway.

K: Vice versa, back and forth. And from all that, everything begins. I see that very clearly. What shall I do? So I don't admit division.

Q: Krishnaji, aren't we introducing division again, never the less, when we say there is the man who needs insight?

K: But man has insight. `X' has insight, and he has explained very clearly how darkness has vanished. I listen to him, and he says your very darkness is creating the division. Actually, there is no division, no division as light and darkness. So he asks me, can you banish, can you put away this sense of division?

DB: You seem to be bringing back a division by saying that, by saying that I should do it, you see.

K: No, not `should'.

DB: In a way you are saying that the thought process of the mind seems spontaneously to produce division. You say, try to put it aside, and at the same time it is trying to make division.

K: I understand. But can my mind put away division? Or is that a wrong question?

Q: Can it put away division as long as it is divided?

K: No, it can't. So what am I to do? Listen. `X' says something so extraordinarily true, of such immense significance and beauty that my whole being says `Capture it'. That is not a division. I recognize that I am the creator of division, because I am living in darkness, and so out of that darkness I create. But I have listened to `X', who says there is no division. And I recognize that is an extraordinary statement. So the very saying of that to one who has lived in constant division has an immediate effect. Right?

DB: I think that one has to, as you say, put away the division...

K: I will leave that; I won't put it away. That statement that ere is no division - I want to get at that a little bit. I am getting somewhere with it. `X' s' statement from this insight, that there is no division has a tremendous effect on me. I have lived constantly in division, and comes along and says there is no division. What effect has it on me?

DB: Then you say there is no division. That makes sense. But on the other hand it seems that the division exists.

K: I recognize the division, but the statement that there is no division has this immense impact on me. That seems natural, doesn't it? When I see something that is immovable, it must have some effect on me. I respond to it with a tremendous shock.

DB: You see, if you were talking about something which was in front of us, and you said, `No, it is not that way', then that would, of course, change your whole way of seeing it. Now you say this division is not that way. We try to look and see if that is so - right?

K: I don't even say, `Is that so? `X' has very carefully explained whole business, and he says at the end of it that there is no division. And I am sensitive, watching very carefully, and realizing that I am constantly living in division. When `X' makes that statement it has broken the pattern.

I don't know if you follow what I am trying to explain? It has broken the pattern, because he has said something which is so fundamentally true. There is no God and man. Right, Sir, I stick to that. I see something - which is, where hatred exists the other is not. But, hating, I want the other. So constant division is born out of darkness. And the darkness is constant. But I have been listening very carefully, and `X' makes a statement which seems absolutely true. That enters into me, and the act of his statement dispels the darkness. I am not making an effort to get rid of darkness, but `X' is the light. That's right, I hold to that.

So it comes to something, which is, can I listen with my darkness - in my darkness, which is constant? In that darkness, can I listen to you? Of course I can. I am living in constant division which brings darkness. `X' comes along and tells me there is no division.

DB: Right. Now why do you say you can listen in the darkness?

K: Oh, yes, I can listen in darkness. If I can't I am doomed.

DB: But that is no argument.

K: Of course that is no argument, but it is so!

DB: Living in darkness is not worthwhile. But now we say that it is possible to listen in the darkness.

K: He, `X', explains to me very, very carefully. I am sensitive, I have been listening to him in my darkness, but that is making me sensitive, alive, watching. That is what I have been doing. We have been doing it together. And he makes a statement that there is absolutely no division. And I know that I am living in division. That very statement has brought the constant movement to an end. Otherwise, if this doesn't take place I have nothing - you follow? I am perpetually living in darkness. But there is a voice in the wilderness, and listening to that voice has an extraordinary effect.

DB: Listening reaches the source of the movement, whereas observation does not.

K: Yes, I have observed, I have listened, I have played all kinds of games all my life. And I now see, that there is only one thing. That there is this constant darkness and I am acting in the darkness; in this wilderness which is darkness; whose centre is the self. I see that absolutely, completely; I can't argue against it any more. And `X' comes along and tells me this. In that wilderness a voice says there is water. You follow? It is not hope. There is immediate action in me.

One must realize, that this constant movement in darkness is my life. You follow what I am saying? Can I, with all the experience, with all the knowledge which I have gathered over a million years, suddenly realize that I am living in total darkness? Because that means I have reached the end of all hope. Right? But my hope is also darkness. The future is out altogether, so I am left with this enormous darkness, and I am there. That means, the realization of that is the ending of becoming. I have reached that point and `X' tells me this is natural.

You see, all the religions have said this division exists.

DB: But, they say it can be overcome. K: It is the same pattern repeated. It doesn't matter who said it, but the fact is somebody in this wilderness is saying something, and in that wilderness I have been listening to every voice, and to my own voice, which has created more and more darkness. Yet, this is right. That means doesn't it, that when there is insight there is no division?

DB: Yes.

K: It is not your insight or my insight, it is insight. In that there is no division.

DB: Yes.

K: Which brings us to that ground we spoke of...

DB: What about the ground?

K: In that ground there is no darkness as darkness, or light as light. In that ground, there is no division. Nothing is born of will, or time, or thought.

DB: Are you saying that light and darkness are not divided?

K: Right.

DB: Which means to say there is neither.

K: Neither, that's it! There is something else. There is a perception that there is a different movement, which is `nondualistic'.

DB: Non-dualistic means what? No division.

K: No division. I won't use `non-dualistic'. There is no division.

DB: But nevertheless there is movement.

K: Of course.

DB: What does that mean now, without division?

K: I mean by movement, that movement which is not time. That movement doesn't breed division. So I want to go back, lead to the ground. If, in that ground, there is neither darkness nor light, no God or the son of God - there is no division - what takes place? Would you say that the ground is movement?

DB: Well, it could be, yes. Movement is undivided.

K: No. I say there is movement in darkness.

DB: Yes, but we said there is no division of darkness and light, and yet you said there is movement.

K: Yes. Would you say the ground is endless movement?

DB: Yes.

K: What does that mean?

DB: Well, it is difficult to express.

K: Keep on going into it; let's express it. What is movement, apart from movement from here to there, apart from time - is there any other movement?

DB: Yes.

K: There is. The movement from being to becoming, psychologically. There is the movement of distance, there is the movement of time. We say those are all divisions. Is there a movement which in itself has no division? When you have made that statement that there is no division, there is that movement surely?

DB: Well, are you saying that when there is no division that movement is there?

K: Yes, and I said, `X' says that is the ground.

DB: Right.

K: Would you say it has no end, no beginning?

DB: Yes.

K: Which means again time.

DB: Can one say that movement has no form?

K: No form - all that. I want to go a little further. What I am asking is, we said that when you have stated there is no division, this means no division in movement.

DB: It flows without division, you see.

K: Yes, it is a movement in which there is no division. Do I capture the significance of that? Do I understand the depth of that statement? A movement in which there is no division, which means no time, no distance as we know it. No element of time in it at all. So I am trying to see if that movement is surrounding man?

DB: Yes, enveloping.

K: I want to get at this. I am concerned with mankind, humanity, which is me. `X' has made several statements, and I have captured a statement which seems so absolutely true - that there is no division. Which means that there is no action which is divisive.

DB: Yes.

K: I see that. And I also ask, is that movement without time, etc? It seems that it is the world, you follow?

DB: The universe.

K: The universe, the cosmos, the whole.

DB: The totality.

K: Totality. Isn't there a statement in the jewish world, `Only God can say I am'?

DB: Well, that's the way the language is built. It is not necessary to state it.

K: No, I understand. You follow what I am trying to get at?

DB: Yes, that only this movement is.

K: Can the mind be of that movement? Because that is timeless, therefore deathless.

DB: Yes, the movement is without death; in so far as the mind takes part in that, it is the same.

K: You understand what I am saying?

DB: Yes. But what dies when the individual dies?

K: That has no meaning, because once I have understood there is no division...

DB: ...then it is not important.

K: Death has no meaning.

DB: It still has a meaning in some other context. '

K: Oh, the ending of the body; that's totally trivial. But you understand? I want to capture the significance of the statement that there is no division, it has broken the spell of my darkness, and I see that there is a movement, and that's all. Which means death has very little meaning.

DB: Yes.

K: You have abolished totally the fear of death.

DB: Yes, I understand that when the mind is partaking in that movement, then the mind is that movement.

K: That's all! the mind is that movement.

DB: Would you say that matter is also that movement?

K: Yes, I would say everything is. In my darkness I have listened to `X'. That's most important. And his clarity has broken my spell. When he said there is no division, he abolished the division between life and death. I don't know if you see this?

DB: Yes.

K: One can never say then, `I am immortal'. It is so childish.

DB: Yes, that's the division.

K: Or, `I am seeking immortality'. Or, `I am becoming'. We have wiped away the whole sense of moving in darkness.

Q: What then would be the significance of the world? Is there a significance to it?

K: The world?

Q: With man.

DB: Society, do you mean?

Q: Yes, it seems that when you make that statement, there is no division, and life is death - what then is the significance of man with all his struggle.?

K: Man in darkness. What importance has that? It is like struggling in a locked room. That is the whole point.

DB: Significance can only rise when the darkness is dispelled.

K: Of course.

Q: The only significance is the dispelling of the darkness.

K: Oh, no, no!

DB: Aren't we going to say that something more can be done besides dispelling the darkness?

K: have listened very carefully to everything that you, who have sight, say. What you have done is to dispel the centre. In darkness I could invent many things of significance; that there is light, here is God, there is beauty, there is this and that. But it is still in the area of darkness. Caught in a room full of darkness, I can invent a lot of pictures, but I want to get something else. Is the mind the one who has this insight - who therefore dispels darkness and has understanding of the ground which is movement without time - is that mind itself the movement?

DB: Yes, but it isn't the totality. The mind is the movement, but we are saying movement is matter, movement is mind. And we were saying that the ground may be beyond the universal mind. You said earlier that the movement, that the ground, is more than the universal mind, more than the emptiness.

K: We said that; much more.

DB: Much more. But we have to get this clear. We say that the mind is this movement.

K: Yes, mind is the movement.

DB: We are not saying that this movement is only mind?

K: No, no, no.

DB: That is the point I was trying to get correct.

K: Mind is the movement - mind, in the sense, `the ground'.

DB: But you said that the ground goes beyond the mind.

K: Now just a minute: what do you mean by `beyond the mind'?

DB: just going back to what we were discussing a few days ago: we said we have the emptiness, the universal mind, and then the ground is beyond that.

K: Would you say beyond that is this movement? DB: Yes. The mind emerges from the movement as a ground, and falls back to the ground; that is what we are saying.

K: Yes, that's right. Mind emerges from the movement.

DB: And it dies back into the movement.

K: That's right. it has its being in the movement.

DB: Yes, and matter also.

K: So, what I want to get at is, I am a human being faced with this ending and beginning. And `X' abolishes that.

DB: Yes, it is not fundamental.

K: It is not fundamental. One of the greatest fears of life, which is death, has been removed.

DB: Yes.

K: You see what it does to a human being when there is no death? It means the mind doesn't age - the ordinary mind I am talking about. I don't know if I am conveying this.

DB: Let's go slowly. You say the mind does not age, but what if the brain cells age?

K: I question it.

DB: But how can we know that?

K: Because there is no conflict, because there is no strain, there is no becoming, no movement.

DB: This is something that it is hard to communicate with certainty about.

K: Of course. You can't prove any of this.

DB: But the other, what we have said so far...

K: ...can be reasoned.

DB: It is reason, and also you can feel it. But now you are stating something about the brain cells that I have no feeling for. It might be so; it could be so. K: I think it is so. I won't discuss it. When a mind has lived in the darkness and is in constant movement there is the wearing out, the darkness and is in constant movement there is the wearing out, the decay of the cells.

DB: We could say that this conflict will cause cells to decay. But somebody might argue that perhaps even without conflict they could decay at a slower rate. Let's say if you were to live hundreds of years, for example, in time the cells would decay no matter what you did.

K: Go into this slowly.

DB: I can readily accept that the rate of decay of the cells could be cut down when we get rid of conflict.

K: Decay can be slowed down.

DB: Perhaps a great deal.

K: A great deal. Ninety per cent.

DB: That we could understand. But if you say a hundred per cent, then it is hard to understand.

K: Ninety per cent. Wait a minute. It can be very, very greatly slowed down. And that means what? What happens to a mind that has no conflict? What is that mind, what is the quality of that mind which has no problem? You see, suppose such a mind lives in pure unpolluted air, having the right kind of food and so on, why can't it live two hundred years?

DB: Well it is possible; some people have lived for a hundred and fifty years, living in very pure air, and eating good food.

K: But you see, if those very people who have lived a hundred and fifty years, had no conflict, they might live very much longer.

DB: They might. There was a case I was reading of a man in England who lived to be a hundred and fifty. And the doctors became interested in him. They wined and dined him, and then he died in a few days!

K: Poor devil!

Q: Krishnaji, you generally say that anything that lives in time, also dies in time.

K: Yes, but the brain, which has had insight, has changed the cells.

Q: Are you implying that even the organic brain does not live in time any more?

K: No, don't bring in time yet. We are saying that insight brings about a change in the brain cells. Which means that the brain cells are no longer thinking in terms of time.

Q: Psychological time?

K: Of, course, that is understood.

DB: If they are not so disturbed, they will remain in order and perhaps they will break down more slowly. We might increase the age limit from one hundred and fifty to two hundred years, provided one also had healthy living at all levels.

K: Yes, but all that sounds so very trivial.

DB: Yes, it doesn't seem to make much difference, although it is an interesting idea.

K: What if I live another hundred years? We are trying to find out what effect this extraordinary movement has on the brain.

DB: Yes. If we say the brain is in some way directly enveloped in this movement; that would bring it to order. But there is a real direct flow, physically.

K: Not only physically.

DB: But also mentally.

K: Yes, both. It must have an extraordinary effect on the brain.

Q: You talked earlier about energy. Not the everyday energy...

K: We said that that movement is total energy. Now this insight has captured, seen, that extraordinary movement, and it is part of that energy. I want to come much closer to earth; I have lived with the fear of death, fear of not becoming, and so on. Suddenly I see there is no division, and I understand the whole thing. So what has happened to my brain - you follow? Let,s see something. See this whole thing, not verbally, but as a tremendous reality, as truth. With all your heart, mind, you see this thing. That very perception must affect your brain. DB: Yes. It brings order.

K: Not only order in life but in the brain.

DB: People can prove that if they are under stress the brain cells start to break down. And if you have order in the brain cells, then it is quite different.

K: I have a feeling, Sir - don't laugh at it; it may be false, it may be true - I feel that the brain never loses the quality of that movement.

DB: Once it has it.

K: Of course. I am talking of the person who has been through all this.

DB: So probably the brain never loses that quality.

K: Therefore it is no longer involved in time.

DB: It would no longer be dominated by time. The brain, from what we were saying, is not evolving in any sense, it is just a confusion. You can't say that man's brain has evolved during the last ten thousand years. You see science, knowledge, has evolved, but people felt the same about life several thousand years ago as they do now.

K: I want to find out: in that silent emptiness that we went through, is the brain absolutely still? In the sense, no movement.

DB: Not absolutely. You see, the blood is going in the brain.

K: We are not talking of that.

DB: What kind of movement are we discussing?

K: I am talking of the movement of thought, the movement of any reaction.

DB: Yes. There is no movement in which the brain moves independently. You were saying that there is the movement of the whole, but the brain does not go off on its own, as thought.

K: You see, you have abolished death, which is a tremendously significant thing. And so I say, what is the brain, the mind, when there is no death. You follow? It has undergone a surgical operation.

DB: We said the brain normally has the notion of death continually there in the background, and that notion is constantly disturbing the brain, because the brain foresees death, and it is trying to stop it.

K: To stop the ending of itself, and so on.

DB: It fore sees all that, and thinks it must stop it, but it can't.

K: It can't.

DB: And therefore it has a problem.

K: A constant struggle with it. So all that has come to an end. What an extraordinary thing has taken place! How does it affect my daily life, because I have to live on this earth? My daily life is aggression, this everlasting becoming, striving for success - all that has gone. We will pursue this but we have understood a great deal today.

DB: In bringing in the question of daily life you might bring in the question of compassion.

K: Of course. Is that movement compassion?

DB: It would be beyond.

K: That's it. That's why one must be awfully careful.

DB: Then again, compassion might emerge out of it.