J.Krishnamurti

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Question: Is there not a guide who leads? I have too often seen in my life and in other lives that they could only have been guided by a higher foreseeing Will. Events have been foretold years before. Is there no predestination?


KRISHNAMURTI: All guides, if they are true guides, must show the way to yourself, to the realisation of the potentiality within yourself. That is true guidance‑‑not the adoration of another "I am"; not looking to another individual for your enlightenment, for your incorruptibility, for your well‑being, for developing in you that capacity to be, which lies only within yourself.

 

[Iyest]

I have followed all these old paths of discipleship, of worship, and I see that they are much too long, too complicated, unnecessary - because whatever path you may follow, whatever god you may worship, whatever shrine you may build, you are forced at last to come back to yourself and solve that self.

--- Early Writings, 1929.

 

[Iyest]

Question: You often use the expression "another 'I am'". We do not understand. Please explain.


KRISHNAMURTI: Whenever you treat another person as a separate being, as another "I am", you are in illusion. In the ultimate sense there is in life no other "I am". So any worship which separates off the object of worship from yourself and makes you look outward for your growth is also illusory. There is only one life in the whole universe, and you are that life.

 

[Iyest]

Question: You say: "I am the whole" and again you say that you are not an oracle to solve all problems. If you are the whole, you should have the capacity to solve all problems. If you are the whole, I understand that then you are omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent. Please explain fully. I am sure others have the same idea.


KRISHNAMURTI: To realize the Self that is in everything is, in one sense, to be omnipresent and omniscient. But the fact that I have solved my own problems and have become one with that Self does not mean that I can therefore solve your problems. A man's problems can only be solved from within, by growing in understanding. You are again seeking a spiritual drug‑store. You are afraid; you want to be saved. My function, if I have one, is to make you realize that you are creating illusions, and so stimulate you into breaking them. The moment you are conscious of your illusions, you will cease to create them. This is the kind of help I am trying to give you, and it is, after all, what anyone might do. But it is difficult, and it is you who create the difficulties. You have not suffered enough to feel real dissatisfaction. You are content with your little gods, with your little lives, with your little ceremonies, with your authorities. You are afraid to step off the beaten path and seek. You would rather seclude yourselves and be certain in your illusions, claiming these to be knowledge. It is because you do not know the Real that these illusions are realities for you.

--- Early Writings, 1929.

 

[Iyest]

Body:

You are primarily a human being related to all other human beings. Therefore you are the rest of humanity. Your body may be different from another body, the organism, the physical organism, may be different from other physical organism. You are obviously different from the speaker, physically. But the body never says, 'I am.' You understand? You are following? The body never says, 'I am something special' - my progress, my success, 'I must seek god' - the body never says all that. But thought says all that. You are different physically from another and the physical organism is the most extraordinary organism, which we despoil. And the body is never conscious that it is separate from somebody else. It is thought that says 'I am different'. You understand? This is important - it is thought that divides.

---Bombay, 1983.

 

[Iyest]

Being:

Question: You say that universal life acts but never reacts. Does this mean that the liberated man is insensitive to the sufferings of others? Is it not rather true to say that the liberated man reacts more fully to the sufferings of others than the unliberated man?


KRISHNAMURTI: Reaction belongs to separateness. But the liberated man has no separateness and hence he is pure action. He helps by simply being. He is like a beautiful flower which sheds its beauty unconsciously.

--- Early Writings, 1929

 

[Iyest]

When man is free, without any motive of fear, of envy or of sorrow, then only is the mind naturally peaceful and still. Then it can not only see the truth in daily life from moment to moment but also go beyond all perception; and therefore there is the ending of the observer and the observed, and duality ceases.

But beyond all this, and not related to this struggle, this vanity and despair, there is—and this is not a theory—a stream that has no beginning and no end, a measureless movement that the mind can never capture.

When you hear this, sir, obviously you are going to make a theory of it, and if you like this new theory you will propagate it. But what you propagate is not the truth. The truth is only when you are free from the ache, anxiety, and aggression which now fill your heart and mind. When you see all this and when you come upon that benediction called love, then you will know the truth of what is being said.

---The Only Revolution

 

[Iyest]

Space and Silence:

Q: That reminds me of the old statement about thought: it is a thief disguising himself as a policeman in order to catch the thief.

Krishnamurti: Don't bother to quote, sir, however ancient it is. We are considering what actually is going on. In seeing the truth of the nature of thought and its activities, thought becomes quiet. Thought being quiet, not made quiet, is there space?

Q: It is thought itself which now rushes in to answer this question.

K: Exactly! Therefore we do not even ask the question. The mind now is completely harmonious, without fragmentation; the little space has ceased and there is only space. When the mind is completely quiet, there is the vastness of space and silence.

Q: So I begin to see that my relationship to another is between thought and thought; whatever I answer is the noise of thought, and realizing it, I am silent.

K: This silence is the benediction.

---The Urgency of Change

 

[Iyest]

The 'me' cannot be aware:

So there is the superficial awareness of the tree, the bird, the door, and there is the response to that, which is thought, feeling, emotion. Now when we become aware of this response, we might call it a second depth of awareness. There is the awareness of the rose, and the awareness of the response to the rose. Often we are unaware of this response to the rose. In reality it is the same awareness which sees the rose and which sees the response. It is one movement and it is wrong to speak of the outer and inner awareness.

When there is a visual awareness of the tree without any psychological involvement there is no division in relationship. But when there is a psychological response to the tree, the response is a conditioned response, it is the response of past memory, past experiences, and the response is a division in relationship. This response is the birth of what we shall call the "me" in relationship and the "non-me". This is how you place yourself in relationship to the world. This is how you create the individual and the community. The world is seen not as it is, but in its various relationships to the "me" of memory. This division is the life and the flourishing of everything we call our psychological being, and from this arises all contradiction and division. Are you very clear that you perceive this?

When there is the awareness of the tree there is no evaluation. But when there is a response to the tree, when the tree is judged with like and dislike, then a division takes place in this awareness as the "me" and the "non-me", the "me" who is different from the thing observed. This "me" is the response, in relationship, of past memory, past experiences. Now can there be an awareness, an observation of the tree, without any judgement, and can there be an observation of the response, the reactions, without any judgement? In this way we eradicate the principle of division, the principle of "me" and "non-me", both in looking at the tree and in looking at ourselves.

Questioner: I'm trying to follow you. Let's see if I have got it right. There is an awareness of the tree, that I understand. There is a psychological response to the tree, that I understand also. The psychological response is made up of past memories and past experiences, it is like and dislike, it is the division into the tree and the "me". Yes, I think I understand all that.

Krishnamurti: Is this as clear as the tree itself, or is it simply the clarity of description? Remember, as we have already said, the described is not the description. What have you got, the thing or its description?

Questioner: I think it is the thing.

Krishnamurti: Therefore there is no "me" who is the description in the seeing of this fact. In the seeing of any fact there is no "me". There is either the "me" or the seeing, there can't be both. "Me" is non-seeing. The "me" cannot see, cannot be aware.

---The Urgency of Change

 

[Iyest]

Awareness:

Questioner: Can the mind be free of the past.

Krishnamurti: Who is putting that question? Is it the entity who is the result of a
great many conflicts, memories and experiences - is it he who is asking - or does
this question arise of itself, out of the perception of the fact? If it is the observer
who is putting the question, then he is trying to escape from the fact of himself,
because, he says, I have lived so long in pain, in trouble, in sorrow, I should like
to go beyond this constant struggle. If he asks the question from that motive his
answer will be a taking refuge in some escape. One either turns away from a fact
or one faces it. And the word and the symbol are a turning away from it. In fact,
just to ask this question at all is already an act of escape, is it not? Let us be
aware whether this question is or is not an act of escape. If it is, it is noise. If
there is no observer, then there is silence, a complete negation of the whole past.

Questioner: Here I am lost. How can I wipe away the past in a few seconds?

Krishnamurti: Let us bear in mind that we are discussing awareness. We are
talking over together this question of awareness.

There is the tree, and the conditioned response to the tree, which is the "me"
in relationship, the "me" who is the very centre of conflict. Now is it this "me" who
is asking the question? - this "me" who, as we have said, is the very structure of
the past? If the question is not asked from the structure of the past, if the question
is not asked by the "me", then there is no structure of the past. When the
structure is asking the question it is operating in relationship to the fact of itself, it
is frightened of itself and it acts to escape from itself. When this structure does
not ask the question, it is not acting in relationship to itself. To recapitulate: there
is the tree, there is the word, the response to the tree, which is the censor, or the
"me", which comes from the past; and then there is the question: can I escape
from all this turmoil and agony? If the "me" is asking this question it is
perpetuating itself.

Now, being aware of that, it doesn't ask the question! Being aware and seeing
all the implications of it, the question cannot be asked. It does not ask the
question at all because it sees the trap. Now do you see that all this awareness is
superficial? It is the same as the awareness which sees the tree.

Questioner: Is there any other kind of awareness? Is there any other dimension to awareness?

Krishnamurti: Again let's be careful, let's be very clear that we are not asking this question with any motive. If there is a motive we are back in the trap of conditioned response. When the observer is wholly silent, not made silent, there is surely a different quality of awareness coming into being?

Questioner: What action could there possibly be in any circumstances without
the observer - what question or what action?

Krishnamurti: Again, are you asking this question from this side of the river, or
is it from the other bank? If you are on the other bank, you will not ask this
question; if you are on that bank, your action will be from that bank. So there is an
awareness of this bank, with all its structure, its nature and all its traps, and to try
to escape from the trap is to fall into another trap. And what deadly monotony
there is in all that! Awareness has shown us the nature of the trap, and therefore
there is the negation of all traps; so the mind is now empty. It is empty of the "me"
and of the trap. This mind has a different quality, a different dimension of
awareness. This awareness is not aware that it is aware.

Questioner: My God, this is too difficult. You are saying things that seem true,
that sound true, but I'm not there yet. Can you put it differently? Can you push me
out of my trap?

Krishnamurti: Nobody can push you out of your trap - no guru, no drug, no
mantra, nobody, including myself - nobody, especially myself. All that you have to
do is to be aware from the beginning to the end, not become inattentive in the
middle of it. This new quality of awareness is attention, and in this attention there
is no frontier made by the "me". This attention is the highest form of virtue,
therefore it is love. It is supreme intelligence, and there cannot be attention if you
are not sensitive to the structure and the nature of these man-made traps.

---The Urgency of Change

 

[Iyest]

Silence and energy:

Questioner: Then what action is possible? If I am the past - and I can see that I am - then whatever I do to chisel away the past is adding to it. So I am left helpless! What can I do? I can't pray because the invention of a god is again the action of the past. I can't look to another, for the other is also the creation of my despair. I can't run away from it all because at the end of it I am still there with my past. I can't identify myself with some image which is not of the past because that image is my own projection too. Seeing all this, I am really left helpless, and in despair.

Krishnamurti: Why do you call it helplessness and despair? Aren't you translating what you see as the past into an emotional anxiety because you cannot achieve a certain result? in so doing you are again making the past act. Now, can you look at all this movement of the past, with all its traditions, without wanting to be free of it, change it, modify it or run away from it - simply observe it without any reaction?

Questioner: But as we have been saying all through this conversation, how can I observe the past if I am the past? I can't look at it at all!

Krishnamurti: Can you look at yourself, who are the past, without any movement of thought, which is the past? If you can look without thinking, evaluating, liking, disliking, judging, then there is a looking with eyes that are not touched by the past. It is to look in silence, without the noise of thought. In this silence there is neither the observer nor the thing which he is looking at as the past.

Questioner: Are you saying that when you look without evaluation or judgement the past has disappeared? But it hasn't - there are still the thousands of thoughts and actions and all the pettiness which were rampant only a moment ago. I look at them and they are still there. How can you say that the past has disappeared? It may momentarily have stopped acting....

Krishnamurti: When the mind is silent that silence is a new dimension, and when there is any rampant pettiness it is instantly dissolved, because the mind has now a different quality of energy which is not the energy engendered by the past. This is what matters: to have that energy that dispels the carrying over of the past. The carrying over of the past is a different kind of energy. The silence wipes the other out, the greater absorbs the lesser and remains untouched. It is like the sea, receiving the dirty river and remaining pure. This is what matters. It is only this energy that can wipe away the past. Either there is silence or the noise of the past. In this silence the noise ceases and the new is this silence. It is not that you are made new. This silence is infinite and the past is limited. The conditioning of the past breaks down in the fullness of silence.


---The Urgency of Change

 

[Iyest]

Meditation is the essence of energy:

Questioner: When you say that meditation is the essence of energy, what do you mean by the words energy and meditation?

Krishnamurti: Every movement of thought every action demands energy. Whatever you do or think needs energy, and this energy can be dissipated through conflict, through various forms of unnecessary thought, emotional pursuits and sentimental activities. Energy is wasted in conflict which arises in duality, in the "me" and the "not-me", in the division between the observer and the observed, the thinker and the thought. When this wastage is no longer taking place there is a quality of energy which can be called an awareness - an awareness in which there is no evaluation, judgement, condemnation or comparison but merely an attentive observation, a seeing of things exactly as they are, both inwardly and outwardly, without the interference of thought, which is the past.

---The Urgency of Change

 

[Iyest]

The guru and the search - I

[Swami Venkatesananda was one of the chief disciples of Swami Sivananda who was asked to spread the message in Africa and Europe.]

Swami Venkatesananda: Krishnaji, I come as a humble speaker to a guru, not in the sense of hero worship but in its literal sense, as the remover of darkness of ignorance, which the word guru stands for. 'Gu' stands for the darkness of ignorance and 'ru' stands for the remover, the dispeller. Hence guru is the light that dispels the darkness of ignorance and you are that light for me now. We sit in the tent listening to you, and I cannot help visualizing similar scenes. For instance, Buddha addressing the Bhikshus, or Vasishta instructing Rama in the royal court of Dasaratha. We have a few examples of these gurus in the Upanishads; first there was Varuna, the guru, he is very much like you. He merely prods his disciple with the words 'Tapasa Brahma... Tapo Brahmeti'. What is Brahman? Don't ask me. Tapo Brahman, tapas, austerity or discipline or as you yourself often say, 'Find out'. And the disciple himself discovers the truth, though by stages. Yajnyavalkya and Uddhalaka adopted a more direct approach. Yajnyavalkya
instructing his wife Maitreyi, used the neti-neti method. You cannot describe Brahman positively, but when you eliminate all the others, it is there. As you said the other day, love cannot be described, "this is it", but only by eliminating what is not love.
Uddhalaka used several analogies to enable his disciples to see the truth and then nailed it with the famous expression Tat-Twam-Asi. Dakshinamurti instructed his disciples by silence and Chinmudra. It is said that the Sanatkumaras went to him for instruction. When I read the descriptions of what Krishnamurti was when he was a young age, I am often reminded of that. These old sages went to him and Dakshinamurti just kept silent and showed the Chinmudra and the disciples looked at him and got enlightened. It is believed that one cannot realize the truth without the help, or whatever you call it, of a guru. Obviously even those people who regularly come to Saanen are greatly helped in their quest. Now, what according to you is the role of a guru, a preceptor or an awakener?


Krishnaji: Sir, if you are using the word guru in the classical sense, which is the dispeller of darkness, of ignorance, can another, whatever he be, enlightened or stupid, really help to dispel this darkness in oneself? Suppose 'A' is ignorant and you are his guru -
guru in the accepted sense, one who dispels darkness and one who carries the burden for another, one who points out - can such a guru help another? Or rather can the guru dispel the darkness of another? - not theoretically but actually. Can you, if you are the
guru of so and so, can you dispel the darkness of another, for another? Knowing that he is unhappy, confused, has not enough brain matter, has not enough love, or sorrow, can you dispel that? Or has he to work tremendously on himself? You may point out,
you may say, 'Look, go through that door,' but he has to do the work entirely from the beginning to the end. Therefore, you are not a guru in the accepted sense of that word, if you say that another cannot help.

Swamiji: It is just this: the 'if' and 'but'. The door is there. I have to go through. But there is this ignorance of where the door is. You, by pointing out, remove that ignorance.

Krishnaji: But I have to walk there. Sir, you are the guru and you point out the door. You have finished your job.

Swamiji: So darkness of ignorance is removed.

Krishnaji: No, your job is finished and it is now for me to get up, walk, and see what is involved in walking. I have to do all that.

Swamiji: That is perfect.

Krishnaji: Therefore you do not dispel my darkness.

Swamiji: I am sorry. Now I do not know how to get out of this room. I am ignorant of the existence of a door in a certain direction and the guru removes the darkness of that ignorance. And then I take the necessary steps to get out.

Krishnaji: Sir, let us be clear. Ignorance is lack of understanding, or the lack of understanding of oneself, not the big self or the little self. The door is the 'me' through which I have to go. It is not outside of 'me'. It is not a factual door as that painted
door. It is a door in me through which I have to go. You say, 'Do that.'

Swamiji: Exactly.

Krishnaji: You, as a guru, have finished. You do not become important. I do not put garlands around your head. I have to do all the work, all the work. You have not dispelled the darkness of ignorance. You have, rather, pointed out to me that, "You are the door through which you yourself have to go."

Swamiji: But would you, Krishnaji, accept that that pointing out was necessary?

Krishnaji: Yes, of course. I point out, I do that. We all do that. I ask a man on the road, "Will you please tell me which is the way to Saanen", and he tells me; but I do not spend time and devotion and love and say, "My God, you are the greatest of men." That is too
childish!

Swamiji: Thank you, sir.

 

[Iyest]

The guru and the search - II

Swamiji: Thank you, sir. Closely related to what the guru is, there is the question of what discipline is. The disciple is discipline which you defined as learning. Vedanta classifies the seekers according to their qualifications, or maturity, and prescribes suitable methods of learning. The disciple with the keenest perception is given instruction in silence, or a brief awakening word like Tat-Twam-Asi. He is called Uttamadhikari. The disciple with the mediocre ability is given more elaborate treatment; he is called Madhyamadhikari. The dull-witted is entertained with stories, rituals, etc., hoping for greater maturity; he is called Adhamadhikari. Perhaps you will comment on this?

Krishnaji: Yes, the top, the middle and bottom. That implies, sir, that we have to find out what we mean by maturity.

Swamiji: May I explain that? You said the other day, "The whole world is burning, you must realize the seriousness of it." And that hit me like a bolt - even to grasp that truth. But there may be millions who just do not bother; they are not interested. Those we shall call the Adhama, the lowest. There are others like the Hippies and so on who play with it, who may be entertained with stories and who say, "We are unhappy," or who tell you, "We know society is a mess, we will take L.S.D.", and so on. And there may be others who respond to that idea, that the world is burning, and that immediately sparks them. We find them everywhere. How does one handle them?

Krishnaji: How to handle the people who are utterly immature, those who are partially mature, and those who consider themselves mature?

Swamiji: Correct.

Krishnaji: To do that, what do we mean by maturity? What do you think is maturity? Does it depend on age, time?

Swamiji: No.

Krishnaji: So we can remove that. Time, age is not an indication of maturity. Then there is the maturity of the very learned man, the man who is highly, intellectually capable.

Swamiji: No he may twist and turn the words.

Krishnaji: So we will consider him not mature. Whom would you consider as a mature, ripe man?

Swamiji: The man who is able to observe.

Krishnaji: Wait. Obviously the man who goes to churches, to temples, to mosques is not; the obvious things are not. So what would one consider a mature man? Not the intellectual, the religious and the emotional, not who plays intellectually and all the rest of it. We should say, if we eliminate all that, maturity consists in being not self-centred - not 'me' first and everybody else second, or my emotions first. So maturity implies the absence of the 'me'.

Swamiji: Absence of fragmentation, to use a better word.

Krishnaji: The 'me' which creates the fragments. Now, how would you appeal to that man? And to the man who is half one and half, 'me' and 'not me', who plays with both? And the other one who is completely 'me', who enjoys himself? How do you appeal to these three?

Swamiji: How do you awaken these three in other words. That is the trouble.

Krishnaji: Wait! The man who is completely 'me', there is no awakening in him. He is not interested. He won't even listen to you. He will listen to you if you promise him something, heaven, hell, fear or more profit in the world, more money; but he will do it in order to gain. So the man who wishes to gain, achieve, is immature.

Swamiji: Quite right.

Krishnaji: Whether Nirvana, Heaven, Moksha, attainment, or enlightenment, he is immature. Now, what will you do with such a man?

Swamiji: Tell him stories.

Krishnaji: No, why should I tell him stories, befuddle him more by my stories or by your stories? Why not leave him alone? He would not listen.

Swamiji: It is cruel.

Krishnaji: Cruel on whose part? He won't listen to you. Let us be factual. You come to me. I am the total 'me'. I am not concerned with anything but 'me', and you say "Look, you are making a mess of the world, you are creating such misery for man", and he says, please go away. Put it any way you like; put it in stories, cover it with pills, sweet pills, but he is not going to change the 'me'. If he does, he comes to the middle - the 'me' and the 'not me'. This is called evolution. The man who is the lowest reaches the middle.
Swamiji: How?

Krishnaji: By knocking. Life forces him, teaches him. There is war, hatred; he is destroyed. Or he goes into a church. The church is a trap to him. It does not enlighten him, it does not say, "For God's sake break through," but it says it will give him what he wants - entertainment, whether Jesus entertainment, or Hindu entertainment, or Buddhist, or Muslim or whatever it is - it will give him entertainment, only in the name of God. So they keep him at the same level, with little modifications, a little bit of polish, better culture, better clothes, eat properly, consider a little bit, not too much, others. That is what is happening. He probably makes up (as you said just now) eighty per cent of the world, more perhaps,ninety per cent. And you have the churches, the temples, the mosques, the shrines and so on.

Swamiji: What can you do?

Krishnaji: I won't add to it, I won't tell him stories, I won't entertain him; because there are others who are already entertaining him.

Swamiji: Thank you.

Krishnaji: So why should I join that group? Then there is the middle one, the 'me' and the 'not-me', who does social reforms, a little bit of good here and there, but always the 'me' operating. Socially, politically, religiously, in every way, the 'me' is operating. But a little more quietly, with a little more polish. Now to him you can talk a little bit, say, "Look, a social reform is all right in its place but it leads you nowhere," and so on. You can talk to him. Perhaps he will listen to you. The other one will not listen to you at all. This chap will listen to you, pay a little attention and say, well, this is too serious, this requires too much work, and slips back into his old pattern. We shall talk to him and leave him. What he wants to do is up to him. Now, there is the other one who is getting out of the 'me', who is stepping out of the circle of the 'me'. There, you can talk to him. He will pay attention to you. So one talks to all the three, not distinguishing between those who are mature and those who are not mature. We will talk to all the three categories, the three types, and leave it to them.

Swamiji: The one who is not interested, he will walk out.

Krishnaji: He will walk out of the tent, he will walk out of the room. That is his affair. He goes to his church, football, entertainment or whatever it is. But the moment you say "you are immature and I will teach you more", he becomes...

Swamiji: Boosted up.

Krishnaji: The seed of poison is always there. Sir, if the soil is right, the grain will take root. But to say, 'You are mature, and you are not mature', that is totally wrong. Who am I to tell somebody that he is immature? It is for him to find out.

Swamiji: But can a fool find out that he is a fool?

Krishnaji: If he is a fool he won't even listen to you. You see, sir, we start out with the idea of wanting to help.

Swamiji: That is what we are basing our whole discussion upon.

Krishnaji: I think that approach is not valid, except in the medical world or in the technological world it is necessary. I may go to the doctor to be cured. Here, psychologically, if I am asleep, I won't listen to you. If I am half awake, I will listen to you according to my vacant state, according to my moods. Therefore, to the one man who says, "I really want to keep awake, keep psychologically awake", to him you can talk. So we talk to all of them.

Swamiji: Thank you. That clears up a big misunderstanding.

 

[Iyest]

The guru and the search - III

Swamiji: When sitting alone, I reflected over what you had said earlier in the day. I cannot help the spontaneous feeling. "Ah, the Buddha said so", or "Vasishtha said so", though immediately I endeavour to cut through the imagery of the words to find the meaning. You help us find the meaning, though perhaps that is not your intention. So did Vasishtha and the Buddha. People come here as they went to those great ones. Why? What is there in human nature that seeks, that gropes and grasps for a crutch? Again, not to help them may be a cruelty, but to spoon-feed them may be greater cruelty. What does one do?

Krishnaji: The question being, why do people need crutches?

Swamiji: Yes, and whether to help them or not.

Krishnaji: That is it: whether you should give them crutches to lean on. Two questions are involved. Why do people need crutches? And whether you are the person to give them the crutches?

Swamiji: Should one or should one not?

Krishnaji: Should one or should one not, and whether you are capable of giving them help? Those two questions are involved. Why do people want crutches, why do people want to depend on others, whether it is Jesus, Buddha, or ancient saints, why?

Swamiji: First of all, there is something that is seeking. The seeking itself seems to be good.

Krishnaji: Is it? Or is it their fear of not achieving something which the saints, the great people, have pointed out? Or the fear of going wrong, of not being happy, of not getting enlightenment, understanding, or whatever you call it?

Swamiji: May I quote a beautiful expression from the Bhagvad- gita? Krishna said: four types of people come to me. The one who is in distress; he comes to me for the removal of distress. Then there is the one who is a curious man; he just wants to know what is this God, truth, and whether there is heaven and hell? The third one wants some money. He also comes to God and prays to get more money, let me become a millionaire, a multi millionaire. And the Gyani, the wise man, also comes. All of them are good, because they are all, somehow or the other, seeking God. But of all these, I think the Gyani is the best one. So the seeking may be due to all sorts of reasons.

Krishnaji: Yes, sir. There are these two questions. First of all, why do we seek? Then, why does humanity demand crutches? Now, why does one seek, why should one seek at all?
Swamiji: Why should one seek?

Krishnaji: Why does one seek and why should one seek at all?

Swamiji: Why should one seek? Because one finds something missing.

Krishnaji: Which means what? I am unhappy and I want happiness. That is a form of seeking. I do not know what enlightenment is. I have read about it in books and it appeals to me and I seek it. Also I seek a better job, because there is more money, more profit, more enjoyment and so on. In all these there is seeking, searching, wanting. I can understand the man wanting a better job, because society is so monstrously arranged, as it is, that makes him seek more money, a better job. But psychologically, inwardly, what am I seeking? And when I do find it, in my search, how do I know that what I find is true?

Swamiji: Perhaps the seeking drops.

Krishnaji: Wait, sir. How do I know? In my search, how do I know that this is the truth? How do I know? Can I ever say "This is the truth"? Therefore why should I seek it? So what makes me seek? What makes one seek is a much more fundamental question than the search, and saying, "This is the truth." If I say, "This is the truth", I must know it already. If I know it already, it is not truth. It is something dead, past, which tells me that is the truth. A dead thing cannot tell me what is truth. So why do I seek? Because, deeply I am unhappy, deeply I am confused, deeply there is great sorrow in me and I want to find a way out of it. You come along as the guru, as an enlightened man, or as a professor and say, 'Look, this is the way out.' The basic reason for my search is to escape from this agony and I posit that I can escape, and that enlightenment is over there, or in myself. Can I escape from it? I cannot in the sense of avoiding it, resisting it, running away from it; it is there. Wherever I go, it is still there. So what I have to do is to find out in myself why sorrow has come into being, why I am suffering. Then, is that a search? No. When I want to find out why I am suffering, that is not searching. It is not even a quest. It is like going to a doctor and saying I have tummy ache, and he says you have eaten the wrong kind of food. So I will avoid wrong food. If the cause of my misery is in myself not necessarily created by the environment in which I live, then I have to find out how to be free from it for myself. You may, as the guru, point out that that is the door, but as soon as you have pointed it out, your job is over. Then I have to work, then I have to find out what to do, how to live, how to think, how to feel this way of living in which there is no suffering.

Swamiji: Then to that extent the helping, the pointing out, is justified.

Krishnaji: Not justified, but you do it naturally.

Swamiji: Supposing the other man gets stuck somewhere, that as he goes there, in going there he knocks against this table...

Krishnaji: He must learn that the table is there. He must learn that when he is going towards the door there is an obstacle in the way. If he is enquiring, he will find out. But if you come along and say, "There is the door, there is the table don't knock against it", you are treating him just like a child leading him to the door. There is no meaning to it.

Swamiji: So that much of help, the pointing out, is justified?

Krishnaji: Any decent man with a decent heart will say, look, don't go there, there is a precipice. I once met a very well-known guru in India. He came to see me. And it was quite an odd performance he put up. There was a mattress on the floor and we said to him politely, please sit on the mattress. He quietly sat on the mattress, assumed the position of the guru, put his stick in front of him and began to discuss. nd he said: we need gurus because we know better than the layman; why should he go through all the danger alone? We will help him. It was impossible to discuss with him because he had assumed that he knew and everybody else was in ignorance. At the end of ten minutes he left, rather annoyed.

Swamiji: That is one of the things for which Krishnaji is famous in India! Next, while you rightly point out the utter futility of blindly accepting formulas and dogmas, you will not ask for their summary rejection. While tradition can be a deadly block, it is perhaps worth understanding it and its origin; else we might destroy one tradition and an equally pernicious one might spring up.

Krishnaji: Quite right.

 

[Iyest]

The guru and the search - IV

Swamiji: Hence may I offer a few traditional beliefs for your scrutiny so that we may discover where and how what you called 'good intentions' veered towards hell - the shell that imprisons us? Each branch of Yoga prescribed its own disciplines in the firm conviction that if one pursued them in the right spirit one would end sorrow. I shall enumerate them for your comments.

Karma Yoga: it demanded Dharma, or a virtuous life, which was often extended to include the much abused Varnashrama Dharma. Krishna's dictum 'Swadharme... Bhayavaha', seems to have indicated that if a man voluntarily submitted himself to certain rules of conduct, his mind would be free to observe and learn with the help of certain Bhavanas. Would you comment on this? The concept of Dharma and rules and regulations: 'do this', 'that is right', 'that is wrong....'

Krishnaji: Which means really, you lay down what is right conduct.

Swamiji: And I voluntarily adopt it.

Krishnaji: There is a teacher who lays down what is righteous behaviour, and I come along and voluntarily, to use your word, take to it, accept it. Is there such a thing as voluntary acceptance? And should you lay down what is right conduct, should the teacher lay down what is right conduct, which means he has set the pattern, the mould, the conditioning? You follow the danger of it? He has laid down the conditioning which produces right behaviour, which will lead one to heaven.

Swamiji: That is one aspect of it. The other aspect in which I am more interested, is if that is accepted, then the psychological apparatus is free to observe.

Krishnaji: I understand. No, sir. Why should I accept it? You are the teacher. You lay down the mode of conduct. How do I know that you are right? You may be wrong. And I won't accept your authority. Because I see the authority of the gurus, the authority of the priest, the authority of the Church, they have all failed. Therefore, with a new teacher laying down a new law, I would say, "For God's sake you are playing the same game; I do not accept it." But if I voluntarily accept it, is there such a thing as voluntary acceptance, free acceptance? Or am I already influenced, because you are a teacher, you are the great one, and you promise me a reward at the end of it, unconsciously or consciously, which leads me to 'voluntarily' accept it? I do not accept it freely. If I am free, I do not accept it at all. I live. I live righteously.

Swamiji: So righteousness must come from within?

Krishnaji: Obviously, what else, sir? Look at what is going on in the study of behaviour. They say outward circumstances, environment, culture, produce certain types of behaviour. That is, if I live in a communist environment with its domination, with its threats, exposure, going to the concentration camps, all that will make me behave in a certain way; I put on a mask, frightened, and I behave in a certain way. In a society which is more or less free, where there are not so many rules, because nobody believes in rules, where everything is permitted, there I play.

Swamiji: Now, which one is more acceptable from the spiritual point of view?

Krishnaji: Neither. Because behaviour, virtue, is something which cannot be cultivated by me or by society. I have to find out how to live rightly. Virtue is something which is not an acceptance of patterns, or following a deadly pattern of routine. Goodness is not routine, surely? If I am good because my teacher says I am good, it is meaningless. Therefore there is no such thing as voluntary acceptance of the righteous behaviour which is laid down by a guru, by a teacher.

Swamiji: One has to find it.

Krishnaji: Therefore I have to begin to enquire. I begin to look, to find out how to live. I can only live when there is no fear.

Swamiji: Perhaps I should have explained this. According to Sankara it is meant only for the lower.

Krishnaji: What is low and high? The mature and the immature? Sankara or X Y Z says, "Lay down the rule for the low and for the high" and they don't do it. They read the books of Sankara, or some pundit reads it to them, and they say how marvellous it is and go back and live their own life. This is an obvious fact. You see it in Italy. They listen to the Pope, and nobody cares either - they listen earnestly for two or three minutes and then go on with their daily life; t does not make any difference. That is why I want to ask, why the so-called Sankaras, Gurus, lay down laws about what is behaviour.

Swamiji: Otherwise they think there will be chaos.

Krishnaji: There is chaos anyhow. There is terrible chaos. In India they have read Sankara and all the teachers for ten thousand, or five thousand years. Look at them!

Swamiji: Perhaps, according to them, the alternative is impossible.

Krishnaji: What is the alternative? Confusion? And that is what they are living in. Why not understand the confusion in which they are living instead of studying Sankara? If they understand confusion, they can change it.


Swamiji: Perhaps that leads us on to this question of Bhavana where a bit of psychology is involved. Coming to the Sadhana of Karma Yoga, the Bhagavad Gita prescribes among other things a Nimitta Bhavana. Bhavana is undoubtedly Being and Nimitta Bhavana is being an egoless instrument in the hands of God or the Infinite Being. But it is also taken to mean an attitude or a feeling in the hope that it will help a beginner to observe himself and thus the Bhavana will fill his being. Perhaps it is indispensable for the people of little understanding; perhaps it will permanently distract them by self-deception. How shall we make this work?

Krishnaji: What is the question you are asking, sir?

Swamiji: There is the technique of Bhawana.

Krishnaji: That implies a system, a method, by the practice of which, you ultimately reach enlightenment. You practise in order to come to God or whatever it is. The moment you practise a method, what happens? I practise day after day the method laid down by you. What happens to me?

Swamiji: There is a famous saying, "As you think so you become".

Krishnaji: I think that by the practice of this method I will reach enlightenment. So what do I do? Every day I practise it. I become more and more mechanical.

Swamiji: But there is a feeling.

Krishnaji: The mechanical routine is going on with the feeling added, "I like it", "I don"t like it", "it is a bore" - you know, there is a battle going on. So anything I practise, any discipline, any practice in the accepted sense of the word makes my mind more and more narrow, limited and dull, and you are promising at the end of it, heaven. So you are saying, become dull to achieve heaven. I say it is like soldiers being trained day after day - drill, drill - till they are nothing but instruments of the commanding officer or sergeant. Give them a little initiative. So I am questioning the whole approach of system and method towards enlightenment. Even in factories a man who merely moves a button or pushes this or that does not produce as much as the man who is free to learn as he goes along.

Swamiji: Can you put that into Bhavana?

Krishnaji: Why not?

Swamiji: So it works?

Krishnaji: This is the only way. That is real Bhavana: Learn as you go along. Therefore no method. Therefore keep awake. Learn as you go along, therefore be alert as you go along. If I take a walk and I have a system, a method of walking, that is all I am concerned with: I shall not see the birds, the trees, the marvellous light on the leaf, nothing. And why should I accept the teacher who gives me the method, the mode? He may be as peculiar as I am, and there are teachers who are very odd. So I reject all that.

Swamiji: The problem again is that of the beginner.

Krishnaji: Who is the beginner? The immature one?

Swamiji: Probably.

Krishnaji: Therefore you are giving him a toy to play with?

Swamiji: Some sort of opening.

Krishnaji: Yes a toy and he enjoys that toy. He says, I am practising all day, and his mind remains very small.

Swamiji: Perhaps that is your answer to this Bhakti Yoga question too. Again, somehow they wanted these people to break through.

Krishnaji: I am not at all sure, sir.

 

[Iyest]

The guru and the search - V

Swamiji: I will discuss this Bhakti. Coming to Bhakti Yoga, the Bhakta is encouraged to worship God even in temples and images, feeling the Divine presence within. In quite a number of mantras, it is repeated again and again, "You are the All Pervading... you are the Omnipresent", etc. Krishna asks the devotees to see God in the objects of nature and then as the 'All'. At the same time through japa, or the repetition of mantra with the corresponding awareness of its significance, the devotee is asked to perceive that the divine presence outside is identical with the indwelling presence. Thus the individual realized his oneness with the collective. Is there anything fundamentally wrong with that system?

Krishnaji: Oh! Yes, sir. The Communist block does not believe in God at all. They don't believe in that at all. They are selfish, they are frightened, but there is no God, no mantras, etc. Another does not believe in any of that, mantras, japa, repetition but he says, "I want to find out what truth is. I want to find out if there is a God at all. There may be no such thing." And the Gita and all of them assume that there is. They assume there is God. Who are they to tell me there is or there is not, including Krishna or X, Y, Z? I say it may be your own conditioning; you are born in that peculiar climate and with that peculiar tradition, with that peculiar attitude and you just believe in that. And then you lay down rules. But if I reject all authority, including the Communists, including the Western and the Asiatic authorities all authority, then where am I? Then I have to find out, because I am unhappy, I am miserable.

Swamiji: But I might be free from conditioning.

Krishnaji: That is my business, to be free. Otherwise I cannot learn. If I remain a Hindu for the rest of my life, I am finished. The Catholic remains a Catholic and the Communist is equally dead. But is it possible - that is really the question - to reject all conditioning which accepts authority? Can I really reject all authority and stand alone to find out? And I must be alone. Otherwise, if I am not alone in the deeper sense of that word, I am
just repeating what Sankara, Buddha, or X, Y, Z said. What is the point of it, knowing very well that repetition is not the real? So, must not I - mature, or immature, or half mature - must not they all learn to stand alone? It is painful because they say, "My God, how can I stand alone?" - to be without the children, to be without God, to be without the Commissar? There is fear.

Swamiji: Do you think that every one can work out this?

Krishnaji: Why not, sir? If you cannot, then you are caught in it. Then no amount of Gods, and mantras, and tricks will help you. They may cover it up. They may bottle it up. They may suppress it and put it in the refrigerator. But it is always there.

Swamiji: Now there is the other method, that of standing alone: Raja Yoga. The student here is again asked to cultivate certain virtuous qualities which, on the one hand, make of him a good citizen and on the other, remove possible psychological barriers. This Sadhana, which is mainly awareness of thought which includes memory, imagination and sleep, seems to be close to your own teaching. Asana and Pranayama are auxiliaries, perhaps. And even the Dhyana of Yoga is not intended to bring about self-realization, which is admittedly not the end product of a series of actions. Krishna clearly says that Yoga clarifies perception: 'Atma Shuddhaye'. Do you approve of this approach? There is not much of help involved here; even Iswara is only 'Purusha Visheshaha'. It is a sort of a guru, invisible in the indwelling process. Do you approve of this approach: there is this method of sitting in meditation and trying to delve deeper and deeper.

Krishnaji: Now wait. One has to go into the question of meditation.

Swamiji: And Patanjali defines meditation as, "The absence of all world idea or any extraneous idea." That is the 'Bhakti Sunyam'.

Krishnaji: Look, sir, I have not read anything. Now here I am: I know nothing. I only know that I am in sorrow and that I have got a fairly good mind. I have no authority - Sankara, Krishna, Patanjali, nobody - I am absolutely alone. I have got to face my life and I have got to be a good citizen - not according to the Communists, Capitalists, or Socialists. Good citizenship means behaviour, which is not one thing in the office and different at
home. First, I want to find out how to be free of this sorrow. Then being free, I shall find out if there is such a thing as God or whatever it is. So how am I to learn to be free of this enormous burden? That is my first question. I can only understand it in relationship with another. I cannot sit by myself and dig into it because I may pervert it; my mind is too silly, prejudiced. So, I have to find out in relationship - with nature, with human beings - what is this fear, this sorrow; in relationship only, because if I sit by myself I can deceive myself very well. But by being awake in relationship, I can spot it immediately.

Swamiji: If you are alert.

Krishnaji: That is the point. If I am alert, watchful, I shall find out; and that does not take time.

Swamiji: But if one is not?

Krishnaji: Therefore, the problem is to be awake, to be aware, alert. Is there a method for it? Follow it, sir. If there is a method which will help me to be aware, I shall practise it; but is that awareness? Because in that is involved routine, acceptance of authority, repeating, repeating, repeating, which is gradually making my alertness dull. So I reject that: the practice of alertness. I say I can only understand sorrow in relationship and that understanding comes only through alertness. Therefore, I must be alert. I am alert because my demand is to end sorrow. Therefore I must be alert. If I am hungry, I want food and I go after food. In the same way, I discover the enormous burden of sorrow in me and I discover it through relationship - how I behave with you, how I talk to people. In that process of relationship, this thing is revealed.

Swamiji: In that relationship you are alI the time self-aware, if I may put it that way.

Krishnaji: Yes I am aware, alert, watching.

Swamiji: Is it so easy for an ordinary person?

Krishnaji: It is, if the man is serious and says, "I want to find out." The ordinary man, eighty to ninety per cent of them, says, I am not really interested, what are you talking about. Go away, I want to be entertained, by the Gita, by the church, by Jesus, by Buddha. I want to be entertained, football. But the man who is serious, he says, "I shall find out - I want to see if the mind can be free from sorrow." And it is only possible to discover it in relationship. I cannot invent sorrow. In relationship sorrow comes.

Swamiji: The sorrow is within.

Krishnaji: Naturally, sir, it is a psychological phenomenon.

Swamiji: You would not want man to sit and meditate and try to sharpen?

Krishnaji: So let us come back to the question of meditation. What is meditation? - not according to what Patanjali and others say because they may be totally mistaken. And I might be mistaken when I say I know how to meditate. So I have to find out, I have to
say, "Now what is meditation?" Is meditation sitting quiet, concentrating, controlling thought?

Swamiji: Watching, perhaps.

Krishnaji: You can watch when you are walking.

Swamiji: It is difficult.

Krishnaji: You watch while eating, when you are listening to people, when somebody says something that hurts you, flatters you. That means, you have to be alert all the time - when you are exaggerating, when you are telling half-truths. You follow? To watch, you need a very quiet mind. That is meditation. The whole of that is meditation.

Swamiji: To me it looks as though Patanjali evolved an exercise for quietening the mind, not on the battlefield of life, but to start it when you are alone and then extend it to relationship.

Krishnaji: But if you escape from the battle...

Swamiji: For a little while...

Krishnaji: If you escape from the battle you have not understood the battle. The battle is you. How can you escape from yourself? You can take a drug, you can pretend that you have escaped, you can repeat mantras, japas and do all kinds of things, but the battle is going on. You say, "Get away quietly from it and then come back to it." That is a fragmentation. We are suggesting: "Look at the battle you are involved in; you are caught in it: you are it."

Swamiji: That leads us to the last discipline: you are it.

Krishnaji: You are the battle.

Swamiji: You are it, you are the battle, you are the fighter, you are away from it, you are everything. That is perhaps what is implied in Gnana Yoga.

 

[Iyest]

The guru and the search - VI

Swamiji: According to Gnana Yoga, the seeker is asked to equip himself with the four means: Viveka, seeking the real and discarding the false; Vairagya, not seeking pleasure; Shat Satsampath, which meant in effect living a life conducive to the practice of this yoga; and Mumukshutva, a total dedication to the search of Truth. The disciple then approached a guru and his Sadhana consisted of Shravana (hearing), Manana (reflection) and Nisyudhyajna (assimilation), which all of us do here. The guru adopted various means to enlighten the student, which usually implied the realization of the All or the Whole Being. Sankara describes it thus: "The infinite alone is real, the world is unreal. The individual is non-different from the infinite," So there is no fragmentation there. Sankara said that the world is Maya by which he meant that the world-appearance is not the real, which one has to investigate and discover. The Upanishads envisaged the Truth in the following: consciousness is the Infinite. I am the Infinite. Or, I is the Infinite. Thou are That, the self is Infinite. Even these should lead to Cosmic Consciousness, or Realization. Everything is the All, All is Infinite. The Infinite is Infinite. And its active manifestaion in daily life which Krishna describes thus in the Gita: "The yogi is then aware that the action, the doer of the action, the instruments involved, and the object towards which the action is directed, are all one whole and thus fragmentation is overcome."

How do you react to this Gnana Yoga method? First there is this Sadhana Chaturdhyaya, for which the disciple prepares himself. Then he goes to the guru and sits and hears the Truth from the guru and reflects over it and assimilates the truth, till it becomes one with him; and the truth is usually said in terms of these formulas. But these formulas that we repeat are supposed to be realized. Has this perhaps some validity?

Krishnaji: Sir, if you have read none of these - Patanjali, Sankara, Chan Upanishads, Raja Yoga, Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Gnana Yoga, nothing - what would you do?

Swamiji: I shall have to find out.

Krishnaji: What would you do?

Swamiji: Struggle.

Krishnaji: Which you are doing anyhow. What would you do? Where would you start? - knowing nothing about what others have said, including what the Communist leaders have said - Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin. I haven't read a thing, I don't want to. I am here, an ordinary human being. Where am I to begin? I have to work, Karma Yoga, in a garden, as a cook, in a factory, an office, I have to work. And also there are the wife and children: I love, I hate, am a sexual addict, because that is the only escape offered to me in life. Here I am. That is my map of life and I start from here. I cannot start from over there; I start here and I ask myself what it is all about. I know nothing about God. They can invent, pretend: I have a horror of pretending. If I do not know, I do not know. I am not going to quote Sankara, Buddha, or anybody. So I say: this is where I start. Can I bring about order in my life? - order, not invented by me or by them, but order that is virtue. Can I bring it about? And to be virtuous there must be no battle, no conflict in me or outside. Therefore, there must be no aggressiveness, no violence, no hate, no animosity. I start from there. And I find out I am afraid. I must be free of fear. To be conscious of it is to be aware of all this, aware of where I am; from there I will move, I shall work. And then I find out I can be alone - not carry all the burdens of memory, of Sankaras, of Buddhas, Marx, Engels. You follow? I can be alone because I have understood order in my life; and I have understood order because I have denied disorder, because I have learnt about disorder. Disorder means conflict, acceptance of authority, complying, imitation, all that. That is disorder, the social morality is disorder. Out of that I will bring order in myself; not myself as a petty little human being in a backyard, but as a Human Being.

Swamiji: How do you explain it?

Krishnaji: It is a human being who is going through this hell. Every human being is going through this hell. So if I, as a human being, understand this, I have discovered something which all human beings can discover.

Swamiji: But how does one know that one is not deceiving oneself?

Krishnaji: Very simple. First, humility: I do not want to achieve anything.

Swamiji: I do not know if you have come across people who say, "I am the humblest person in the world."

Krishnaji: I know. That is all too silly. Not to desire achievement is not.

Swamiji: When one is in it, in the soup, how does one know?

Krishnaji: Of course you will know. When your desire says, "I must be like Mr Smith who is the Prime Minister, the General, or the Executive Officer", then there is the beginning of arrogance, pride, achievement. I know when I want to be like the hero, when I want to become like the Buddha, when I want to reach enlightenment, when desire says, "Be something." Desire says in being something there is tremendous pleasure.

Swamiji: But have we still tackled the root of the problem in all this?

Krishnaji: Of course we have. 'Me' is the root of the problem. Self-centredness is the root of the problem.

Swamiji: But what is it? What does it mean?

Krishnaji: Self-centredness? I am more important than you, my house, my property, my achievement, 'me' first.

Swamiji: But the martyr may say, "I am nothing; I can be shot."

Krishnaji: Who? No, they don't. They are silly to be shot.

Swamiji: They may say they are completely unselfish, selfless.

Krishnaji: No sir, I am not interested in what somebody else says.

Swamiji: He may be bluffing himself.

Krishnaji: As long as I am quite clear in myself, I am not deceiving myself. I can deceive myself the moment I have a measure. When I compare myself with the man with a Rolls- Royce, or with the Buddha, or with Marx. Comparing myself with somebody is the beginning of illusion. When I do not compare, why should I, I move from there.

Swamiji: To be the Self?

Krishnaji: Whatever I am; which is: I am ugly, I am full of anger, deception, fear, this and that. I start from there and see if it is at all possible to be free of all this. Without that my thinking about God is like thinking about climbing those hills, which I never will.

Swamiji: But even so you said something very interesting the other day: the individual and the collective are one. How does the individual realize that unity with the collective?

Krishnaji: But that is a fact. Here I am living in Gstaad; somebody is living in India, he has the same problem, the same anxiety, the same fear, only different expressions but the root of the thing is the same. That is one point. Second, the environment has produced this individuality and the individuality has created the environment. My greed has created this rotten society. My anger, my hatred, the fragmentation of my life has created the nation and all this mess. So I am the world, the world is me. Logically, intellectually, verbally, it is so.

Swamiji: But how does one feel it?

Krishnaji: That comes only when you change. When you change, you are no longer a national. You do not belong to anything.

Swamiji: Mentally I may say I am not a Hindu, or I am not an Indian.

Krishnaji: But, sir, that is just a trick. You must feel it in your blood.

Swamiji: Please explain what that means.

Krishnaji: It means, sir, when you see the danger of nationalism, you are out of it. When you see the danger of fragmentation, you no longer belong to the fragment. We do not see the danger of it.That is all.

 

[Iyest]

The Mahavakyas:

Swami Venkatesananda: Krishnaji, we are sitting near each other and enquiring, listening and learning. Even so did the sage and the seeker, and that is the origin they say of the Upanishads. These Upanishads contain what are known as Mahavakyas, Great Sayings, which perhaps had the same effect upon the seeker then as your words have upon me now. May I beg of you to say what you think of them, are they still valid, or do they need revision or renewal? The Upanishads envisaged the Truth in the following Mahavakyas:

Prajnanam Brahma: "Consciousness is infinite, the absolute, the highest Truth."
Aham Brahmasmi: "I am that infinite", or "I is that infinite" - because the "I" here does not refer to the ego.
Tat Tvam-asi: "Thou art that".
Ayam Atma Brahma: "The self is the infinite", or "the individual is the infinite."

These were the four Mahavakyas used by the ancient sage to bring home the message to the student, and they were also sitting just like us, face to face, the guru and the disciple, the sage and the seeker.

Krishnaji: Yes, what is the question, Sir?

Swamiji: What do you think of them? Are these Mahavakyas valid now? Do they need a revision or a renewal?

Krishnaji: These sayings, like "I am that", "Tat Tvam-asi" and "Ayam Atma Brahma"?

Swamiji: That is, "Consciousness is Brahman".

Krishnaji: Isn't there a danger, Sir, of repeating something not knowing what it means? "I am that." What does it actually mean?

Swamiji: "Thou are that."

Krishnaji: Thou art that." What does that mean? One can say, "I am the river". That river that has got tremendous volume behind it, moving, restless, pushing on and on, through many countries. I can say, "I am that river." That would be equally valid as, "I am Brahman."

Swamiji: Yes. Yes.

Krishnaji: Why do we say, "I am that"? And not "I am the river", nor "I am the poor man", the man that has no capacity, no intelligence, who is dull - this dullness brought about by heredity, by poverty, by degradation, all that! Why don't we say, "I am that also"? Why do we always attach ourselves to something which we suppose to be the highest?

Swamiji: "That", perhaps, only means that which is unconditioned. YO VAI BHUMA TATSUKHAM That which is unconditioned.

Krishnaji: Unconditioned, yes.

Swamiji: So, since there is in us this urge to break through all conditioning, we look for the unconditioned.

Krishnaji: Can a conditioned mind, can a mind that is small, petty, narrow, living on superficial entertainments, can that know or conceive, or understand, or feel, or observe the unconditioned?

Swamiji: No. But it can uncondition itself.

Krishnaji: That is all it can do.

Swamiji: Yes.

Krishnaji: Not say, "There is the unconditioned, I am going to think about it", or "I am that". My point is, why is it that we always associate ourselves with what we think is the highest? Not what we think is the lowest?

Swamiji: Perhaps in Brahman there is no division between the highest and the lowest, that which is unconditioned.

Krishnaji: That's the point. When you say, "I am that", or "Thou are that", there is a statement of a supposed fact....

Swamiji: Yes.

Krishnaji: ...which may not be a fact at all.

Swamiji: Perhaps I should explain here again that the sage who uttered the Mahavakyas was believed to have had a direct experience of it.

Krishnaji: Now, if he had the experience of it, could he convey it to another?

Swamiji: (Laughs)

Krishnaji: And the question also arises, can one actually experience something which is not experienceable? We use the word "experience" so easily - "realise", "experience", "attain", "self- realisation", all these things - can one actually experience the feeling of supreme ecstasy? Let's take that for the moment, that word. Can one experience it?

Swamiji: The infinite?

Krishnaji: Can one experience the infinite? This is really quite a fundamental question, not only here but in life. We can experience something which we have already known. I experience meeting you. That's an experience, meeting you, or you meeting me, or my meeting X. And when I meet you next time I recognise you, don't I? I say, "Yes, I met him at Gstaad." So there is in experience the factor of recognition.

Swamiji: Yes. That is objective experience.

Krishnaji: If I hadn't met you, I should pass you by - you would pass me by. There is in all experiencing, isn't there, a factor of recognition?

Swamiji: Possibly.

Krishnaji: Otherwise it is not an experience. I meet you - is that an experience?

Swamiji: Objective experience.

Krishnaji: It can be an experience, can't it? I meet you for the first time. Then what takes place in that first meeting of two people. What takes place?

Swamiji: An impression, impression of like.

Krishnaji: An impression of like or dislike, such as, "He's a very intelligent man", or "He's a stupid man", or "He should be this or that". It is all based on my background of judgment, on my values,on my prejudices, likes and dislikes, on my bias, on my conditioning. That background meets you and judges you. The judgment, the evaluation, is what we call experience.

Swamiji: But isn't there, Krishnaji, another... ?

Krishnaji: Wait, Sir, let me finish this. Experience is after all the response to a challenge, isn't it? The reaction to a challenge. I meet you and I react. If I didn't react at all, with any sense of like, dislike, prejudice, what would take place?

Swamiji: Yes?

Krishnaji: What would happen in a relationship in which the one - you, perhaps - have no prejudice, no reaction; you are living in quite a different state and you meet me. Then what takes place?

Swamiji: Peace.

Krishnaji: I must recognise that peace in you, that quality in you, otherwise I just pass you by. So when we say, "Experience the highest", can the mind, which is conditioned, which is prejudiced, frightened, experience the highest?

Swamiji: Obviously not.

Krishnaji: Obviously not. And the fear, the prejudice, the excitement, the stupidity is the entity that says, "I am going to experience the highest." When that stupidity, fear, anxiety, conditioning ceases, is there experiencing of the highest at all?

Swamiji: Experiencing of "that".

Krishnaji: No, I haven't made myself clear. If the entity - which is the fear, the anxiety, the guilt and all the rest of it - if that entity has dissolved itself, discarded the fear and so on, what is there to experience?

Swamiji: Now that beautiful question was actually put in just so many words. He asked the very same question: VIJNATARAM ARE KENA VIJANIYAT
"You are the knower, how can you know the knower?" "You are the experiences!" But there is one suggestion that Vedanta gives and that is: we have so far been talking about an objective experience:

PAROKSANUBHUTI

Isn't there another experience? Not my meeting X Y Z, but the feeling "I am", which is not because I encountered desire somewhere, or because I was confronted with some desire. I don't go and ask a doctor or somebody to certify that "I am". But there is this feeling, there is this knowledge, "I am". This experience seems to be totally different from objective experience.

Krishnaji: Sir, what is the purpose of experience?

Swamiji: Exactly what you have been saying: to get rid of the fears, and get rid of all the complexes, all the conditioning. To see what I am, in truth, when I am not conditioned.

Krishnaji: No, Sir. I mean: I am dull.

Swamiji: Am I dull?

Krishnaji: I am dull; and because I see you, or X Y Z, who is very bright, very intelligent..?
Swamiji: There is comparison.

Krishnaji: Comparison: through comparing, I find that I am very dull. And I say, "Yes, I am dull, what am I to do?", and just remain in my dullness. Life comes along, an incident takes place, which shakes me up. I wake up for a moment and struggle - struggle not to be dull, to be more intelligent, and so on. So experience generally has the significance of waking you up, giving you a challenge to which you have to respond. Either you respond to it adequately, or inadequately. If it is inadequate, the response then becomes a medium of pain, struggle, conflict. But if you respond to it adequately, that is fully, you are the challenge. You are the challenge, not the challenged, but you are that. Therefore you need no challenge at all, if you are adequately responding all the time to everything.

Swamiji: That is beautiful, but (laughing) how does one get there?

Krishnaji: Ah, wait, Sir. Just let us see the need for experience at all. I think it is really extraordinary, if you can go into it. Why do human beings demand not only objective experience, which one can understand - in going to the moon they have collected a lot of information, a lot of data...

Swamiji: ...rocks...

Krishnaji: That kind of experience is perhaps necessary, because it furthers knowledge, knowledge of factual, objective things. Now apart from that kind of experience, is there any necessity for experience at all?

Swamiji: Subjectively?

Krishnaji: Yes. I don't like to use "subjective" and "objective". Is there the need of experience at all? We have said: experience is the response to a challenge. I challenge you, I ask, "Why?" You may respond to it, and say, "Yes, perfectly right, I am with you." "Why?" But the moment there is any kind of resistance to that question, "Why?", you are already responding inadequately. And therefore there is conflict between us, between the challenge and the response. Now, that's one thing. And there is a desire to experience, let's say God, something Supreme, the highest; or the highest happiness, the highest ecstasy, bliss, a sense of peace, whatever you like. Can the mind experience it at all?

Swamiji: No.

Krishnaji: Then what does experience it?

Swamiji: Do you want us to enquire what the mind is?

Krishnaji: No.

Swamiji: What the "I" is?

Krishnaji: No! Why does the "I", me or you, demand experience? - that is my point - demand the experience of the highest, which promises happiness, or ecstasy, bliss or peace?

Swamiji: Obviously because in the present state we feel inadequate.

Krishnaji: That's all. That's all.

Swamiji: Correct.

Krishnaji: Being in a state in which there is no peace, we want to experience a state which is absolute, permanent, eternal peace.

Swamiji: It is not so much that I am restless, and there is a state of peace; I want to know what is this feeling, "I am restless". Is the "I" restless, or is the "I" dull? Am I dull, or is dullness only a condition which I can shake off?

Krishnaji: Now who is the entity that shakes it off?

Swamiji: Wakes up. The "I" wakes up.

Krishnaji: No, Sir. That's the difficulty. Let's finish this first. I am unhappy, miserable, laden with sorrow. And I want to experience something where there is no sorrow. That is my craving. I have an ideal, a goal, and by struggling towards it I will ultimately get that. That's my craving. I want to experience that and hold on to that experience. That is what human beings want - apart from all the clever sayings, clever talk.

Swamiji: Yes, yes; and that is perhaps the reason why another very great South Indian sage said (in Tamil:
ASAI ARUMIN ASAI ARUMIN
ISANODAYINUM ASAI ARUMIN
It's very good really.

Krishnaji: What's that?

Swamiji: "Cut down all these cravings. Even the craving to be one with God, cut it down", he says.

Krishnaji: Yes, I understand. Now look, Sir. If I - if the mind - can free itself from this agony, then what is the need of asking for an experience of the Supreme? There won't be.

Swamiji: No. Certainly.

Krishnaji: It is no longer caught in its own conditioning. Therefore it is something else; it is living in a different dimension. Therefore the desire to experience the highest is essentially wrong.

Swamiji: If it is a desire.

Krishnaji: Whatever it is! How do I know the highest? Because the sages have talked of it? I don't accept the sages. They might be caught in illusion, they might be talking sense or nonsense. I don't know; I am not interested. I find that as long as the mind is in a state of fear, it wants to escape from it, and it projects an idea of the Supreme, and wants to experience that. But if it frees itself from its own agony, then it is altogether in a different state. It doesn't even ask for the experience because it is at a different level.

Swamiji: Quite, quite.

Krishnaji: Now, why do the sages, according to what you have said, say, "You must experience that, you must be that, you must realize that"?

Swamiji: They didn't say, "You must"...

Krishnaji: Put it any way you like. Why should they say all these things? Would it not be better to say, "Look here, my friends, get rid of your fear. Get rid of your beastly antagonism, get rid of your childishness, and when you have done that..."

Swamiji: ...nothing more remains.

Krishnaji: Nothing more. You'll find out the beauty of it. You don't have to ask, then.

Swamiji: Fantastic, fantastic!

Krishnaji: You see, Sir, the other way is such a hypocritical state; it leads to hypocrisy. "I am seeking God", but I am all the time kicking people. (Laughs)

Swamiji: Yes, that could be hypocrisy.

Krishnaji: It is, it is.

 

[Iyest]

Vedanta:


Krishnaji: What is Vedanta?

Swamiji: The word means, "The end of the Vedas".... Not in the manner of "full stop".

Krishnaji: The end of all knowledge.

Swamiji: Quite right, quite right. Yes, the end of knowledge; where knowledge matters no more.

Krishnaji: Therefore, leave it.

Swamiji: Yes.

Krishnaji: Why proceed from there to describe what it is not?

Swamiji: As I've been sitting and listening to you, I've thought of another sage who is reported to have gone to another greater one. And he says, "Look my mind is restless; please tell me what must I do." And the older man says, "Give me a list of what you
know already, so that I can proceed from there." He replies, "Oh, it will take a long time, because I have all the formulas, all the shastras, all of that." The sage answers, "But that's only a set of words. All those words are contained in the dictionary, it means
nothing. Now what do you know?" He says, "That is what I know. I don't know anything else."

Krishnaji: Vedanta, as it says, means the end of knowledge.

Swamiji: Yes, it's wonderful, I never heard it put that way before. "The end of knowledge."

Krishnaji: Freedom from knowledge.

Swamiji: Yes indeed.

Krishnaji: Then why have they not kept to that?

Swamiji: Their contention is that you have to pass through it in order to come out of it.

Krishnaji: Pass through what?

Swamiji: Through all this knowledge, all this muck, and then discard it.

PARIVEDYA LOKAN LOKAJITAN
BRAHMANO NIRVEDAMAYAT

That is, "After examining all these things and finding that they are of no use to you, then you must step out of it."

Krishnaji: Then why must I acquire it? If Vedanta means the end of knowledge, which the word itself means, the ending of Vedas, which is knowledge - then why should I go through all the laborious process of acquiring knowledge, and then discarding it?

Swamiji: Otherwise you wouldn't be in Vedanta. The end of knowledge is, having acquired this knowledge, coming to the end of it.

Krishnaji: Why should I acquire it?

Swamiji: Well, so that it can be ended.

Krishnaji: No, no. Why should I acquire it? Why should not I, from the very beginning, see what knowledge is and discard it?

Swamiji: See what knowledge is?

Krishnaji: And discard, discard all that: never accumulate. Vedanta means the end of accumulating knowledge.

Swamiji: That's it. That's correct.

Krishnaji: Then why should I accumulate?

Swamiji: Pass through, perhaps.

Krishnaji: Pass through? Why should I? I know fire burns. I know when I am hungry, when I must eat. I know I mustn't hit you; I don't hit you. I don't go through the process of hitting you, acquiring the knowledge that I'll be hurt again. So each day I discard. I free myself from what I have learnt, every minute. So every minute is the end of knowledge.

Swamiji: Yes, right.

Krishnaji: Now you and I accept that, that is a fact, that's the only way to live - otherwise you can't live. Then why have they said, "You must go through all the knowledge, through all this?" Why don't they tell me, "Look my friend, as you live from day to day acquiring knowledge, end it each day"? Not "Vedanta says so and so".

Swamiji: No, no.

Krishnaji: Live it!

Swamiji: Quite right. Again this division, classification.

Krishnaji: That's just it. We are back again.

Swamiji: Back again.

Krishnaji: We're back again to a fragment - a fragmentation of life.

Swamiji: Yes. But I'm too dull, I can't get there; so I'd rather acquire all this...

Krishnaji: Yes, and then discard it.

Swamiji: In the religious or spiritual history of India, there have been sages who were born sages: the Ramana Maharishi, the Shuka Maharishi, etc. etc. Well, they were allowed to discard knowledge even before acquiring it. And in their cases of course, the usual argument was that they had done it all...

Krishnaji: In their past lives.

Swamiji: Past lives.

Krishnaji: No, Sir, apart from the acquiring of knowledge and the ending of knowledge, what does Vedanta say?

Swamiji: Vedanta describes the relationship between the individual and the Cosmic.

Krishnaji: The Eternal.

Swamiji: The Cosmic, or the Infinite, or whatever it is. It starts well:

ISAVASYAM IDAM SARVAM
YAT KIMCHA JAGATYAM JAGAT

"Till the whole universe is pervaded by that one..."

Krishnaji: That one thing...

Swamiji: ...and so on. And then it's mostly this, a dialogue between a master and his disciple.

Krishnaji: Sir, isn't it extraordinary, there has always been in India this teacher and disciple, teacher and disciple?

Swamiji: Yes - Guru.

Krishnaji: But they never said, "You are the teacher as well as the pupil."

Swamiji: Occasionally they did.

Krishnaji: But always with hesitation, with apprehension. But why? - if the fact is, you are the teacher and you are the pupil. Otherwise you are lost, if you depend on anybody else. That's one fact. And also I would like to ask why, in songs, in Hindu literature, they have praised the beauty of nature, the trees, the flowers, the rivers, the birds. Why is it most people in India have no feeling for all that?

Swamiji: Because they are dead?

Krishnaji: Why? And yet they talk about the beauty, the literature, they quote Sanskrit, and Sanskrit itself is the most beautiful language.

Swamiji: They have no feeling for...

Krishnaji: And they have no feeling for the poor man.

Swamiji: Yes, that is the worst tragedy of all.

Krishnaji: Nor for the squalor, the dirt.

Swamiji: And heaven knows from where they got this idea because it is not found in any of the scriptures. That means we are repeating the scriptures without realizing their meaning.

Krishnaji: That's it.

Swamiji: Krishna:
Ishwara SARVABHUTANAM
HRIDDESSERJUNA TISTHATI

"I am seated in the hearts of all beings." Nobody bothers about the hearts of all beings. What would you think is the cause? They repeat it daily, every morning they are asked to repeat a chapter of the Bhagavad Gita.

Krishnaji: Every morning they do Puja and the repetition of things.

Swamiji: Now why have they lost the meaning? Obviously great meaning was put into those words by the authors. We are even asked to repeat them every day in order that we might keep them...

Krishnaji: Alive.

Swamiji: Keep them alive. When and how did I kill the spirit? How was it possible? How to prevent it?

Krishnaji: What do you think is the reason, Sir? No, you know India better.

Swamiji: I am shocked at it.

Krishnaji: Why do you think it happens? Is it over population?

Swamiji: No, overpopulation is a result, not the cause.

Krishnaji: Yes. Is it that they have accepted this tradition, this authority...

Swamiji: But the tradition says something good.

Krishnaji: But they have accepted it. They never questioned it. Sir, I have seen M.A.s and B.A.s in India, who have passed degrees, are clever, brainy - but they wouldn't know how to put a flower on a table. They know nothing but memory, memory, the
cultivation of memory. Isn't that one of the causes?

Swamiji: Perhaps. Mere memorizing.

Krishnaji: Memorizing everything.

Swamiji: Without thinking. Why does man refuse to think?

Krishnaji: Oh, that's different - indolence, fear, wanting always to tread in the traditional path so that he doesn't go wrong.

Swamiji: But we have discarded the tradition which they say didn't suit us.

Krishnaji: Of course. But we find a new tradition that suits us - we are safe.

Swamiji: We never felt that the healthy tradition is a good tradition to keep.

Krishnaji: Throw out all tradition! Let's find out, Sir, whether these teachers and gurus and sages, have really helped people. Has Marx really helped people?

Swamiji: No.

Krishnaji: They have imposed their ideas on them.

Swamiji: And others have used the same ideas...

Krishnaji: Therefore I question this whole thing, because they are really not concerned with people's happiness.

Swamiji: Though they say so.

Krishnaji: If the Marxists and all those Soviet leaders are really interested in the people then there would be no concentration camps. There would be freedom. There would be no repressive measures.

Swamiji: But I suppose they think, we have to imprison the lunatics...

Krishnaji: That's it. The lunatic is a man who questions my authority.

Swamiji: Yesterday's ruler might be today's lunatic.

Krishnaji: That always happens, that's inevitable, that's why I'm asking, whether it's not important to make man, a human being, realize that he's solely responsible.

Swamiji: Each one.

Krishnaji: Absolutely! For what he does, what he thinks, how he acts. Otherwise we end up in this memorizing, and complete blindness.

 

[Iyest]

We are too apt to judge everything in relation to persons. We want to know who understands truth, who is a disciple of truth, and to follow such a disciple. But what I say is: if you would understand truth, put aside all worship of persons; and here I include myself also. Please do not accept anything because I say it. You cannot live by merely accepting. You only live through personal realization. It is vain to seek growth through teachers because no teacher can take the place of truth. Truth lies within yourself and the moment you externalize it, you are losing the positive and dynamic quality which only your own heart and mind can give to it. If you would become disciples, then be disciples of truth itself, for in this way you are not held in bondage to any personality.

- May 1930.

 

[Iyest]

There are three stages in the evolution of desire. In the first stage a man thinks he will be happy if he has a house, a car, books or money. I am not condemning this stage‑‑it is a natural first attempt to formulate a true longing which the person concerned does not yet understand. What he is really seeking is a beauty and a happiness which are impersonal; but he does not realise this and quite naturally interprets it as a quest for personal possessions. But such a quest involves envy, greed, hatred and exploitation of others, for it has to be achieved at others' expense, and being of this nature, it must sooner or later bring disillusionment. The time must come when a man discovers that through possessions happiness can never be attained; and, when he realises this, he usually enters the second stage of desire, the transference of the longing for possessions into the realm of subtler things. Here desire takes the shape of grasping at spiritual comforts which shall protect him against the conflicts of life. Just as he wished for riches, and so forth, to protect him from the struggle of physical existence, so now he reaches out for guides, gurus, authorities, in order to save himself from conflict at a higher level. But this in turn must prove illusory, for the only escape from conflict is by conquest. And so the second stage of desire also is relinquished, and he enters upon the third. (Please remember that these stages are not real divisions. Life itself cannot be subdivided in this way. It is merely for convenience that I speak of them.) The third stage seems at first like pure negation, because it is the giving up of all attempts to find happiness in anything outside oneself‑whether this be in external physical comforts or in such external spiritual comforts as Masters and teachers. But if we have the courage really to enter it we shall find that it is positive, not negative. To eliminate all desire for external help is to liberate the true desire, which is for the help which can only be found within oneself. This is what we are really seeking all the time, but do not know it. It is the real meaning of the quest for external help. When desire is thus freed, life itself is freed. For such desire is nothing else than life. True desire is pure being, it is the highest truth, the highest spirituality, the absolute. It is the blending of love with intuition, it is God, it is everything.

 

[Mani_Chennai]

There are three stages in the evolution of desire. In the first stage a man thinks he will be happy if he has a house, a car, books or money. I am not condemning this stage‑‑it is a natural first attempt to formulate a true longing which the person concerned does not yet understand. What he is really seeking is a beauty and a happiness which are impersonal; but he does not realise this and quite naturally interprets it as a quest for personal possessions. But such a quest involves envy, greed, hatred and exploitation of others, for it has to be achieved at others' expense, and being of this nature, it must sooner or later bring disillusionment. The time must come when a man discovers that through possessions happiness can never be attained; and, when he realises this, he usually enters the second stage of desire, the transference of the longing for possessions into the realm of subtler things. Here desire takes the shape of grasping at spiritual comforts which shall protect him against the conflicts of life. Just as he wished for riches, and so forth, to protect him from the struggle of physical existence, so now he reaches out for guides, gurus, authorities, in order to save himself from conflict at a higher level. But this in turn must prove illusory, for the only escape from conflict is by conquest. And so the second stage of desire also is relinquished, and he enters upon the third. (Please remember that these stages are not real divisions. Life itself cannot be subdivided in this way. It is merely for convenience that I speak of them.) The third stage seems at first like pure negation, because it is the giving up of all attempts to find happiness in anything outside oneself‑whether this be in external physical comforts or in such external spiritual comforts as Masters and teachers. But if we have the courage really to enter it we shall find that it is positive, not negative. To eliminate all desire for external help is to liberate the true desire, which is for the help which can only be found within oneself. This is what we are really seeking all the time, but do not know it. It is the real meaning of the quest for external help. When desire is thus freed, life itself is freed. For such desire is nothing else than life. True desire is pure being, it is the highest truth, the highest spirituality, the absolute. It is the blending of love with intuition, it is God, it is everything.

At what approximate age does one slowly get detached from worldly things and begins his or her inward journey to find the truth and true love? This is to know if what kind of environment promotes this kind of inwardness and inner peace? This is not to tease or make fun off, but a curiosity only.

 

[Iyest]

At what approximate age does one slowly get detached from worldly things and begins his or her inward journey to find the truth and true love? This is to know if what kind of environment promotes this kind of inwardness and inner peace? This is not to tease or make fun off, but a curiosity only.

It is not a question of age. It is about understanding or realising the futility.

 

[Mani_Chennai]

It is not a question of age. It is about understanding or realising the futility.

If that much understanding is there, no one will ask these questions too. It is just a trial