Wholly Different Way of Living
18th Conversation with Dr. Allan W. Anderson
San Diego, California
28th February 1974
Meditation - 2
A: Mr Krishnamurti, we were discussing in our conversation last
time meditation. And just as we concluded you brought up the
very beautiful analogy from the flowering of a plant, and it
struck me that the order that is intrinsic to the movement of
the plant as it flowers is a revelatory image of order that you
have been discussing. And we were talking also about the
relation of meditation to understanding on the one hand and
knowledge on the other, a distinction that's very, very rarely
made.
K: Yes.
A: Though in ordinary language we make the distinction perhaps
unwittingly. It's there.
K: It's there.
A: We have the two words.
K: Quite.
A: But then to go into what the distinction is was something you
were beginning to do. And perhaps we could...
K: We could on from there.
A: Yes.
K: Sir, we were talking, if I remember rightly about control.
A: Yes.
K: And we said the controller is the controlled. And we went
into that sufficiently. And when there is control there is
direction. Direction implies will. Control implies will. And in
the desire to control there is established a goal and a
direction. Which means to carry out the decision made by will,
and the carrying out is the duration of time; and therefore
direction means time, control, will, and an end. All that's
implied in the word control. Isn't it?
A: Yes.
K: So what place has will in meditation and therefore in life?
A: Yes, yes.
K: Or it has no place at all. That means there is no place for
decision at all. Only seeing, doing. And that doesn't demand
will, nor direction. You follow?
A: Yes, I do, yes I do.
K: The beauty of this, sir, how it works out. When the mind sees
the futility of control because it has understood the controller
is the controlled, one fragment trying to dominate other
fragments, and the dominant fragment is a part of other
fragments, and therefore it is like going around in circles,
vicious circle, never getting out of it. So can there be a
living without control? Just listen to it sir. Without will, and
without direction? There must be direction in the field of
knowledge. Agreed? Otherwise I couldn't get home, to the place I
live. I would lose the capacity to drive a car, ride a cycle,
speak a language, all the technological things necessary in
life. There, direction, calculation, decision in that field is
necessary. Choice is necessary between this and that. Here where
there is choice there is confusion, because there is no
perception. Where there is perception there is no choice. Choice
exists because the mind is confused between this and that. So,
can a life be led without control, without will, without
direction, that means time? And that is meditation. Not just a
question, an interesting, perhaps, a stimulating question, but a
question however stimulating has no meaning by itself. It has a
meaning in living.
A: I was thinking about ordinary language usage again, as you
were speaking. It's interesting isn't it, that when we regard
that somebody has performed an action, that we call wilful that
this is an action that has been undertaken without
understanding.
K: Of course.
A: So in the very distinction between will as a word and wilful
as an adjective, we have a hint of this distinction. But I'd
like to ask you, if I could, about the relationship of will, for
the moment, even though we are talking about meditation, we did
regard that knowledge, in its own right, does have a proper
career.
K: Of course.
A: And we say that decision is referred to that. Choice is
referred to that and therefore will is operative there.
K: And a direction and everything.
A: And a direction and so on. And so we are, we are making a
distinction here between will and its role in relation to the
whole field of what we call loosely know-how.
K: Know-how, knowledge.
A: Yes. And the confusion that occurs when that activity, so
necessary in its own right is brought over into this.
K: That's right.
A: And then we can't do either of them, really.
K: Then, that's just it. Therefore we become inefficient.
A: Yes.
K: Personal.
A: But you see we don't think that. What we think is that we can
be terribly efficient in knowledge and be what is called
unspiritual. And be a success here and not be a success here.
Whereas, if I understand you correctly, you don't fail in one or
the other, you just fail period. It's a total failure if this
confusion is made. You simply can't operate even well here no
matter what it might look like in the short run.
K: As long as you are not completely in order inside yourself.
A: Right. Exactly. So the very division that we make between
inner and outer is itself a symptom of this terrible...
K: ...of thought which has divided the outer and the inner.
A: Yes, yes. I hope you'll bear with me in going through that...
K: Yes, actually you are quite right.
A: ...because I know in religious thought, my academic
discipline, in religious thought this confusion, well, the
weight of it.
K: I know.
A: You feel...
K: ...oppressed.
A: And as soon as you begin to make a comment of any kind about
it that is simply raising the question. The extreme rigidity and
nervousness that occurs...
K: Quite, quite.
A: ...is dramatic. Yes. Yes.
K: You see, sir. So I'm asking, meditation covers the whole
field of living, not one segment of it. Therefore living a life
without control, without the action of will, decision,
direction, achievement. Is that possible? If it is not possible
it is not meditation. Therefore life becomes superficial,
meaningless. And to escape from that meaningless life we chase
all the gurus, the religious entertainment, circuses, you
follow? All the practices of meditation. It has no meaning.
A: You know, well, of course you do, it's a rhetorical question:
in the classical tradition we have a definition of will. We say
that it's desire made reasonable. Desire made reasonable.
K: Desire made reasonable.
A: Desire made reasonable. Now, of course, we've long since lost
the idea of what the ancients meant, against their contemplative
background, by the word reason. We think it means calculation.
But of course that's not what the classical tradition means when
it says reasonable. It points rather to that order which isn't
defined. And it occurs to me that if we understood that
statement correctly we'd be saying, will is the focus of desire
without my focusing self consciously.
K: Yes, that's right. And watching desire to flower.
A: Yes.
K: And therefore watching the will in operation and let it
flower and as it flowers as you are watching it dies, it withers
away. After all it's like a flower you allow it to bloom and it
withers.
A: It comes to be and passes away in its own time.
K: Therefore if you are choicelessly aware of this movement of
desire, control, will, focusing that will in action, and so on,
so on, so on, let it, watch it. And as you watch it you will see
how it loses its vitality. So there is no control. So from that
arises the next question which is, direction means space.
A: Yes, of course.
K: It's very interesting what comes.
A: Yes it is, it is.
K: What is space? Space which thought has created is one thing.
Space that exists in heaven, in our, what is it, in the
universe, space. There must be space for a mountain to exist.
There must be space for a tree to grow. There must be space for
a flower to bloom. So what is space? And have we space? Or are
we all so limited physically to living in a little apartment,
little houses, no space at all outwardly, and therefore having
no space we become more and more violent.
A: Yes.
K: I don't know if you have watched of an evening when all the
swallows are lined up on a wire.
A: Oh, yes.
K: And how exact spaces they have in between, you follow, sir?
Have you?
A: Yes I have. It's marvelous.
K: It's marvelous to see this space. And space is necessary. And
we have no space physically with more and more population and
all the rest of it. And therefore more and more violence, more
and more living together in a small flat, thousand people, you
know, crowded.
A: Oh yes.
K: Breathing the same air, thinking the same thing, seeing the
same television, seeing the same, reading the same book, going
to the same church, believing the same thing. You follow?
A: Yes.
K: The same sorrow. The same anxiety. The same fears. My country
- all that. So mind, and so the brain, has very little space.
And space is necessary, otherwise I stifle. So can the mind have
space? And there will be no space if there is a direction.
A: Clearly, yes.
K: You see, sir?
A: Of course, of course. Yes I do. Yes.
K: There is no space if direction means time.
A: Yes...
K: And so when mind is occupied with family, with business, with
God, with drink, with sex, with experience, occupied, filled,
there is no space.
A: That's right. Exactly.
K: So when knowledge occupies the whole field of the mind as
thought there is no space. And thought creates a space around
itself as the 'me' enclosed, and you enclosed, we and they. So
the self, the 'me', which is the very essence of thought has its
own little space.
A; Yes.
K: And to move out of that space is terror, is fear, is anxiety
because I am only used to that little space. I don't know?
A: Yes, exactly. That brings us back to an earlier conversation
we had when we touched on the point of terror.
K: Yes, that's right.
A: Amazing.
K: Not being and the being is in the little space which thought
has created. So thought can never give space.
A: Of course not.
K: So, meditation is the freeing of the mind of its content as
consciousness which creates its own little space. You follow,
sir?
A: Yes, I do.
K: So from that says, is that possible. Because I'm occupied
with my wife, my children, my responsibilities, I care for the
tree, I care for the cat, I care for this and that and I'm
occupied, occupied, occupied.
A: This throws a marvelous light on that saying of Jesus which
people have pondered and wondered about and thought it was very
strange: foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests but
the son of man hath not where to lay his head. He doesn't, man
as such who grasps himself understands, is not inventing a space
for himself. It fits perfectly. It fits perfectly. That's
marvelous.
K: I don't know.
A: No, I understand. But I was thinking in the context of the
whole discourse. It just flashed over me. And our conversations
have been such a revelation to me with respect to the
literatures that I've soaked myself in for so many years. And
it's a demonstration to me of what you've said. For instance, in
so far as I ask these questions of myself personally, precisely
as they become answered...
K: Quite, sir.
A: ...so all these things out here become answered. And what
could be more empirically demonstrable to an individual that I
am the world and the world is me than that.
K: That's right, sir.
A: All I am doing is giving a report of the journey without
direction.
K: So, sir, look. The world is getting more and more
overpopulated. Cities are growing more and more, spreading
spreading, spreading, suburbs, and so on. Man is getting less
and less space and therefore driving out animals, killing. You
follow?
A: Oh, yes, yes, yes.
K: Killing the red Indians, the American Indians, killing the
Indians in Brazil, and so on. They are doing this, actually it
is going on.
A: Oh yes.
K: And, having no space out there, outwardly, except on
occasions I go off into the country and say to myself, my god, I
wish I could live here. But I can't because I've got... and so
on. So, can there be space inwardly? When there is space
inwardly there is space outwardly.
A: Exactly.
K: But the outward space is not going to give the inner space.
The inner space of mind that is free from occupation, though it
is occupied at the moment with what it has to do, it is
occupied, but free, the moment it is finished it is over. I
don't carry the office to my home. It is over. So space in the
mind means the emptying of consciousness of all its content and
therefore the consciousness which thought as the 'me' has
created ends and therefore there is space. And that space isn't
yours or mine. It is space. You follow?
A: Yes, yes I was thinking of the creation story in Genesis. The
appearance of space occurs when the waters are separated from
the waters and we have vault now over which the birds fly and
this space is called heaven.
K: It is heaven.
A: It is heaven.
K: That's right.
A: Yes, yes. Of course, of course. But then we read that you,
see and we don't...
K: Fortunately I don't read.
A: Goodness.
K: So space, direction, time, will, choice, control - you
understand, sir. Now, all that has importance in my living, in
the daily living of my life, of every human being. If he doesn't
know what the meaning of meditation is, he merely lives in that
field of knowledge and therefore that becomes a prison. And
therefore being in prison he says, I must escape through
entertainment, through Gods, through this and through that,
through amusement. You know, that is what is actually taking
place.
A: The word vacation...
K: Vacation that's right.
A: ...says it all.
K: Yes.
A: Doesn't it.
K: Absolutely.
A: To vacate is to exit into space.
K: Space.
A: But then we go from one hole to another.
K: To another hole.
A: Yes.
K: If that is clearly established, perceived in myself, I see
the thing operating in my daily life, then what takes place?
Space means silence. If there is no silence there is direction,
it is the operation of will, I must do, I must not do, I must
practise this, I must get this, you follow? The should be,
should not be, what has been, what should not be, I regret. All
that operates. Therefore space means silence inwardly.
A: That's very deep. Very, very deep. Archetypally we associate
manifestation as over against latency with sound.
K: Yes, sound.
A: And what you have said puts the whole thing into
astonishing...
K: Silence isn't the space between two noises. Silence isn't the
cessation of noise. Silence isn't something that thought has
created. It comes naturally, inevitably as you open, as you
observe, as you examine, as you investigate. So then the
question arises, silence, without a movement. Movement of
direction. Movement of thought, Movement of time. All silence.
Now, that silence, can that operate in my daily life? I live in
the field of noise as knowledge. That I have to do. And is there
a living with silence and at the same time the other? The two
moving together, two rivers flowing in balance. No division. You
follow? In harmony. There is no division. Is that possible?
Because otherwise, if that's not possible to be deeply honest I
can only live that in the field of knowledge. I don't know if
you see?
A: Oh yes, yes.
K: So, for me it is possible, therefore, I am not saying that
out of vanity, I say this in great humility. I think that is
possible. It is so. Then what takes place? Then what is
creation? Is creation something to be expressed - in paint, in
poem, in statue, in writing, in bringing about a baby? Is that
creation? Does creation need, or must it be expressed? To us it
must be expressed - to most people. Otherwise one feels
frustrated, anxious, I am not living. You follow? All that
business. So what is creation? One can only answer that if one
has really gone through all this. You understand, sir? Otherwise
creation becomes a rather cheap thing.
A: Yes, it becomes, in terms of the word expressed, simply
something pressed out.
K: Pressed out, of course.
A: That's all.
K: That's all.
A: Yes.
K: Like the life of literary people who - some of them - are
everlastingly in battle in themselves, tension and all that, and
out of that they write a book, become famous.
A: Yes, the psychological theory that works of art are based on
neurosis, which means I am driven.
K: Yes, so what is creation? Is it something, a flowering in
which the flower does not know that it is flowering.
A: Exactly, exactly.
K: Have I made it clear?
A: Yes, you've made it very, very clear. All through our
conversations the one word that has, for me, been like a clean
blade of a two edged sword has been this word 'act'.
K: Yes, sir.
A: But not act over against inaction.
K: No, no, no, no.
A: No, not action as over against the philosophical term of it's
opposite, passion, which is a different use from the one you
were using in our conversations. But sheerly act.
K: Act.
A: Sheerly act.
K: So, sir, see what takes place. Creation in my living. You
follow, sir? Not expressing, creating a beautiful chair, this or
that may come, that will come, but in living. And from that
arises another question which is really much more important:
thought is measure. And as long as we cultivate thought, and all
our actions are based on thought as it is now, the search for
the immeasurable has no meaning. I can give a meaning to it, say
there is the immeasurable, there is the unnameable, there is the
eternal. Don't let us talk about it. It is there. It has no
meaning. That is just a supposition, a speculation, or the
assertion of a few who think they know. One has discarded all
that. Therefore one asks, when the mind is utterly silent what
is the immeasurable? You follow, sir? What is the everlasting?
What is the eternal? Not in terms of God, and you know all these
things man has invented. Actually to be that. Now silence in
that deep sense of that word opens the door. Because you've got
there all your energy. Not a thing is wasted. There is no
dissipation of energy at all. Therefore in that silence there is
summation of energy.
A: Precisely.
K: Not stimulated energy, not self-projected energy, and so on,
sir, that's all too childish. There is, because there is no
conflict, no control, no reaching out or not reaching,
searching, asking, questioning, demanding, waiting, praying,
none of that. Therefore there is all that energy which has been
wasted is now gathered in that silence. You follow? That silence
has become sacred. Because obviously...
A: Of course it has.
K: It has, not the sacred thing which thought has invented.
A: No, not the sacred over against the profane.
K: No, no, no not all that.
A: No, no, no.
K: So it is only such a sacred mind can see this the most
supreme sacred, the essence of all that is sacred, which is
beauty. You follow, sir?
A: I do.
K: So there it is. God isn't something that man has invented, or
created it out of his image and longing and failure. But when
the mind itself becomes sacred then it opens the door to
something that is immeasurably sacred. That is religion. And
that affects the daily living, the way I talk, the way I treat
people, the conduct, behaviour - all that. That is the religious
life. If that doesn't exist then every other kind of mischief
exists, however clever, however intelligent, however - all that.
A: And meditation does not occur in the context of all this
disorder.
K: No.
A: Absolutely not. But in its ongoingness, the way you have
mentioned it, one is precisely in that, where your word
religious is pointing to.
K: That is the most profound religious way of living. You see
sir what takes place, another thing. You see as this thing is
happening, because your energy is being gathered - energy is
being gathered, not your's - energy is being gathered, you have
other kind of powers, extra sensory power, can do miracles,
which has happened all this to me, exorcise, and all that kind
of stuff, and healing. But they become totally irrelevant. Not
that you don't love people. On the contrary religion is the
essence of it. But they are all second issues. And people get
caught in the second issues. I mean, look at what has happened,
man who really can heal he becomes - people worship him, a
little healing.
A: It reminds me of a story you told me once. It was a year ago:
it was about the old man sitting on the banks of a river and the
young man came to him, after the older man had sent him away to
undertake whatever he needed to learn and all this. And he came
back with a marvelous announcement that he could now walk on
water. And then you said that the older man looked at him and
said, "What's all that about? So you can walk on water. And you
have taken all these years to learn how to walk on water. Didn't
you see the boat over there?"
K: Oh yes, that's right, sir. That's right.
A: Of course, of course.
K: You see, sir, that's very important. Religion is as we said,
is the gathering of all energy, which is attention. In that
attention many things happen. Some of them have this gift of
healing, miracles. I've had it and I know what I'm speaking
about. And the religious man never touches it. You follow? He
may say occasionally, "Do this or that" but it is a thing to be
put away, like a gift, like a talent. It is to be put away,
because it is a danger.
A: Exactly.
K: But the more you are talented, the more me, I am important, I
have this talent, worship me. With that talent I'll get money,
position, power. So this too is a most dangerous thing. So a
mind that is religious is aware of all this and lives a life...
A: ...in this space, in this marvelous space. Something occurred
to me about our discussion earlier concerning energy and your
remark that energy, when it patterns itself - I've forgotten
what you used to designate what the pattern energy was, but I
suspect it's what we often call matter.
K: Matter, yes.
A: Wouldn't that be correct? Right. In terms of this pointing to
act that you have mentioned, it throws a very, very different
light on the character of patterned energy and draws our gaze
away from the pattern and reminds us...
K: Quite.
A: ...that the substance, or rather the substantive element - I
don't want to use the word substance there for philosophical
reasons - the substantive element that we point to is not the
pattern but the energy.
K: Energy, quite. You see sir, that is love, isn't it sir?
A: Precisely.
K: And when there is this sense of religious summation of energy
that is love, that is compassion, and care. That operates in
daily life.
A: In love the pattern never resists change.
K: So, you see, sir, that love you can do what you like, it will
be still love. But there the love becomes sensation. You follow?
A: Yes, the whole track of knowledge.
K: And therefore there is no love there.
A: Yes, that image of the Lionel train, the toy that goes round
and round and round. Isn't that extraordinary?
K: You see, sir, that means, can the mind, I'm using the word
mind in the sense mind, the brain, the body, the whole thing,
can the mind be really silent? Not induced silence, silence, not
silence put together, not silence that thought imagines is
silence. Not the silence of a church or the temple. They have
their own silence when you enter a temple or a...
A: Oh yes.
K: ...old cathedrals. They have an extraordinary sense of
silence. Thousands of people chanted or talked, prayed and all
that. But it is above all that. It is not that either. So this
silence isn't contrived and therefore it is real. It isn't, I
have brought about through practice a silence.
A: No, it's not what you mentioned earlier, that space between
two noises...
K: Oh, yes, that's right.
A: ...because that would become an interval.
K: That's right.
A: And as an interval it simply becomes successive.
K: Successive. That's right.
A: This is extraordinary in terms of the continuing return to
question. It seems to me that it's only in the attitude of the
question that there's any possibility even intuiting from afar
the possibility of the silence, since already the answer is a
noise.
K: Ah, yes. So, sir, just a minute, there is something very
interesting. Does this come up through questioning?
A: No. I didn't mean to suggest that questioning generates it. I
meant that simply to take a step back from the enthrallment and
enchantment with answers is in itself a necessary step.
K: Of course.
A: And that in itself has its own terror.
K: Of course, of course. So I'm asking, is silence, is the sense
of the immeasurable, does that come about by my questioning?
A: No.
K: No.
A: No.
K: No. Perception sees the false and discards the false... There
is no question, it sees, and finished. But if I keep on
questioning I keep on doubting. Doubt has its place but it must
be kept on a leash.
A: Now, let me ask you a question here, if I may. The act of
perceiving is, as you have said, the doing.
K: Doing,
A: There's absolutely no interval between one.
K: I see danger and I act.
A: And I act. Exactly. Now, in this perceiving, the act is
totally free...
K: Yes, sir.
A: ...and then every energy pattern is free to become changed.
K: Yes, quite, sir.
A. Yes, exactly. No more hoarding to itself...
K: No regrets.
A: ...all that its worked for all its life. And amazingly
though, it seems to me, there's, if I have understood you
correctly, there's a corollary to this. Not only is the pattern
free to be changed, but the energy is free to pattern itself.
K: Or not to pattern.
A: Or not to pattern. Yes.
K: There it is. The knowledge has to pattern.
A: Of course.
K: But here it can't pattern, pattern for what? If it patterns
it has become thought again. And therefore thought, if it is
divisive, thought is superficial. I don't know if I told you the
other day, somebody was telling me, he was saying that in Eskimo
language thought means the outside. Very interesting. The
outside. When they say, go outside, the word is thought. So
thought has created the outer and the inner. If thought is not
then there is neither the outer nor the inner. That is space. It
isn't, I've got inner space.
A: No. We've been talking about meditation in relation to
religion and I simply feel I must ask you to speak about the
interrelationship of prayer to meditation, with meditation,
because eventually we always refer to prayer and meditation.
K: No. I don't, to repeat a prayer has no place in meditation.
To whom am I praying? Whom am I supplicating? Begging? Asking?
A: A prayer as petition has no place in it.
K: Petition, right.
A: Is there any use of the word prayer that would be consonant
with what we we've been talking about?
K: If there is no petition, you understand, deeply, inwardly,
there is no petition...
A: No grabbing, grasping.
K: ...because the grabber is the grabbed.
A: Exactly.
K: If there is no petition what takes place? I petition only
when I don't understand. When I'm in conflict, when I'm in
sorrow, when I'm in - you follow? When I say, "Oh, God, I've
lost everything. I'm finished. I can't arrive. I can't achieve."
A: When there's no petition I can look. Yes. Exactly. Exactly.
K: A woman came to me once, some time ago. She said, "I have
prayed, enormously, for years. And I have prayed for my
refrigerator. And I got it." Yes, sir! I pray for peace. And I
live a life of violence all the time. I say, I pray for my
country, and I have divided the country opposed to another
country. And I pray for my country. It becomes so childish.
A: In conventional prayers there is usually both petition and
praise, both are there.
K: Of course. Praising, and receiving
A: Praise.
K: You must know in Sanskrit it always begins, some parts of it,
praising and then begging. There's a marvelous chant which is
asking protection of the gods. Protection. And it says, "May you
protect my steps."
A: Yes, yes.
K: Praising God, then saying, please protect my steps. So if
there is no petition, because the petitioner is the petition,
the beggar is the begged, is the receiver, then what takes place
in the mind. No asking.
A: An immense quietude. Immense quietude. The proper sense of
whatever the word tranquillity points to.
K: That's right, sir. That is real peace, not the phony peace
they are all talking about - politicians and the religious
people. There is no asking a thing.
A: There is a very beautiful Biblical phrase, "The peace that
passeth understanding."
K: I've heard that phrase when I was small boy.
A: I've always asked myself since a child, how it's the case
that there is so much talk about such a thing and there's so
little evidence of it.
K: Sir, I think you know, books have become tremendously
important. What they have written. What they have said. And so
the human mind has become secondhand. Or the mind that has
acquired so much knowledge about what other people have
experienced about reality, how can such a mind experience or
find, or come up on that thing which is original?
A: Not that route.
K: No. No, no. And can the mind empty itself of its content? If
it cannot, it cannot acquire, then reject, then receive. You
follow?
A: Yes.
K: Why should I go through all those things? But I'll look.
There is no book in the world that is going to teach me. There
is no teacher that is going to teach me. Because the teacher is
the taught. The disciple is the teacher. I don't know?
A: That is in itself, as a statement, if one will, as we said in
an earlier conversation at the inception of looking, if one will
hold that very statement, "I am the world and the world is me",
is an occasion for healing.
K: Yes, sir.
A: But that very statement, "I am the world and the world is me"
sounds, as you have said so often, so absurd that at that point
one starts to bolt again.
K: I know.
A: Panic again. Meditation, when undertaken, as it must be,
continuously, because we talked about that movement...
K: That means one has to be very, very serious. It isn't a thing
we play with.
A: No. It's not what's called these days a fun thing.
K: No sir!
A: In no sense. No, no, no. The discussion that you have
undertaken concerning it is so total. A meditation isn't a thing
that you do among other things.
K: Meditation means attention, care. That's part of it, care for
my children, for my neighbour, for my country, for the earth,
for the earth, for the trees, for the animals. Don't kill
animals. You follow? Don't kill them to eat. It's so
unnecessary. It's part of the tradition which says, you must eat
meat. Therefore, sir, all this comes to a sense of deep, inward
seriousness, and that seriousness itself brings about attention,
caring and responsibility and all that we have discussed. It
isn't that one has gone through all this. One sees it. And the
very perception is action which is wisdom. Because wisdom is the
ending of suffering. It isn't callous, callousness, the ending
of it. And the ending of it means the observation, the seeing of
suffering. Not to go beyond it, to refuse it, rationalize it or
run away from it. Just to see it. Let it flower. And as you are
choicelessly aware of this flowering, it comes naturally to
wither away. I don't have to do something about it.
A: Marvelous. Marvelous how energy can be free to pattern itself
or not pattern itself. The pattern is free to be energized or
the whole thing is simply all round.
K: Yes, sir. It covers the whole of man's endeavour, his
thoughts, his anxieties, everything it covers.
A: So, in our conversations, all through, we have reached the
point of consummation here where it is round. I wonder if
Shakespeare had some intimation of this when he said, "Ripeness
is all." He must have been thinking of that, not simply as
setting a term to the career of fruit.
K: No sir, time comes to an end, time stops. In silence, time
stops.
A: In silence time stops. Immensely beautiful. I must express to
you my gratitude from the bottom of my heart. I hope you will
let me. Because throughout the whole career of our discussions I
have been undergoing a transformation.
K: Quite. Because you are willing enough to listen, good enough
to listen. Most people are not, they won't listen. They won't
take the time, the trouble, the care to listen.
A: I've already seen, in my relation to my classes, in the
activity my students and I share, the beginning of a flowering.
K: Flowering, quite.
A: The beginning of a flowering.
K: Quite.
A: Thank you, so much again.