Education

And we're saying, 'Can you and I, in the process of thinking, watching, observing, talking over together, feel the absolute necessity of dropping prejudices?'

K: Wait. I am a bundle of prejudices. Now is that bundle different from me? Don't - go into it very carefully. Is that bundle, which we have described, various aspects of it, me? I am observing that bundle. Is the observer different from the bundle? Go on, sir. Our tradition says the observer is different from the bundle. Right? Our whole education, our culture, all that says you are different from that. So it's very difficult for me to accept that - 'I am that bundle? How terrible!' I reject that instantly, because my whole upbringing says I am different. Because it says you can then control the bundle, you can get rid of it, or keep parts of it and so on, so on, so on. You can act upon it. But when I really see the fact that the bundle is me, there is no observer. That's the whole.

Now you say to me, observe that bundle. Yes, I say, I'm observing it. Which is, I am observing it as though it were something separate from me, because that's what I've been used to, that's what my education, my religion, my culture has said, 'You are different from that.' And so that culture, that tradition says, 'Act upon it, change it, break it down, or run away from it, suppress it.' But you come along and say, 'Look, you're living in an illusion, the bundle is you!' Right? Which means what? There is no observer who says, 'I am the bundle.' I wonder if you see.

So I'm asking, do we all of us together here in this room now, quarter to one, before lunch, see this simple point together - the bundle is me. The moment that is a fact, there is already transformation in the observing.

Q: But I think it's misleading because observing implies some action, whereas awareness implies the state of mind which is not moving.

K: Sir, when you are observing through a telescope, you are observing the thing that is happening under the telescope.

Q: Right, but I'm observing, there isn't...

Q: I am observing.

K: You are using the eye to observe but there is no observer who comes to it with lots of prejudices and says, I'm observing.' That's a good, that's a top scientist - I mean, sorry, sir, there are two of them here! (Laughter)

K: No, that's just an idea - sir, don't play with words, for god's sake - come to the point. Have you come to the point that you are the bundle, not that you are observing the bundle? In that observation you have dissipated energy. Right? I don't know if you follow this. Right? Can we go along with this for a few minutes? That when there is division between the observer and the observed, there is a wastage of energy, which is, he says, 'I'm acting upon it, I must do something about it, I must change it to something else.' And so on, so on, which is an indication of wasting energy.