Exploration into Insight

K: You see, sir, what I said was that thought is a material process and whatever thought has built - technological, psychological beliefs, the gods, the whole structure of religion based on thought, is a material process. Thought in that sense is matter. Thought is experience, knowledge stored up in the cells and functioning in a particular groove set by knowledge. All that to me is a material process. What matter is, I do not know. I won't even discuss that because I don't know.

K: Sir, her question is very simple. Our brain cells now contain the past, memory, experience, knowledge of millennia, and those brain cells are not holistic.

P: How can one see that? You see, the way Krishnaji puts it does not really lead to the depth of oneself. The depth of oneself says, `I want to, I will become, I will be'. That depth springs from the past, which is knowledge, which is the whole racial unconscious.

A: I am saying that we are looking with our existing knowledge at the stream and identifying ourselves with the stream. The identification is done post facto, whereas it really starts with the momentum.

K: You are asking, is there the `I', the `me' the ego, identifying itself with the past, as knowledge.

P: I will ask you a question which may seem to be a movement away. Isn't the `I' sense inherent in the brain cells which have inherited knowledge?

P: I am asking you, sir: listen to the question. The knowledge of man which is present in the brain cells, which is present in the depths of the subconsciousness, isn't that `I' part of the brain?

P: Doesn't physics (I have no knowledge of physics) accept that there is an energy which dissipates and an energy which in itself does not have the seed of dissipation?

K: No, no. I am not interested in that. I am asking something entirely different: this momentum, this conditioning, the whole o consciousness is the past. It is moving. There is no future consciousness. The whole consciousness is the past, registered, remembered, stored up as experience, knowledge, fear, pleasure. That is the whole momentum of the past. And somebody comes along and says: Listen to what I have to say, can you end that momentum? Otherwise this momentum, with its fragmentary activity, will go on endlessly.

K: That is it. That is my point. You have come into my life by chance. You have come into my life and you have pointed out to me that my brain has evolved through knowledge, through registration, through experience; and that knowledge, that experience is fundamentally limited. And whatever action takes place from that limited state will be fragmentary and therefore there will be conflict, pain. Find out if that momentum which has tremendous volume, depth, can end. You know it is a tremendous flow of energy which is knowledge. Stop that knowledge. That is all.

K: Someone comes along and says: Look, through millennia man has evolved through knowledge and at present you are certainly different from the great apes. And he says: Look, as long as you are registering, you are living a fragmentary life because knowledge is fragmentary and whatever you do from that fragmentary state of brain is incomplete. Therefore, there is pain, suffering. So, we are asking at the end of that explanation, can that registration, can that movement of the past, end? Listen. I am making it simple. Can this movement of millennia stop?

K: It has evolved through knowledge, which is registration.

K: As long as the brain is registering all the time, it is moving from knowledge to knowledge. Now, I am challenging the word. I see knowledge is limited, fragmented and so on and I am asking myself whether registration can stop.

K: The experiencer is the centre, the centre is memory, the centre is knowledge, which is always in the past. The centre may project into the future but it still has its roots in the past.

M: The knowledge that there is pain is compassion.

D: Do we not make a distinction between knowledge and the discovery of the new?

K: Of course, sir. When knowledge interferes there is no discovery of the new. There must be an interval between knowledge and the new; otherwise you are just carrying on the new like the old. R asked: `Why is there division between the mind, the heart and the body.' We see that. How is this division to come to an end naturally? How do you do it - through enforcement, through the ideals we have of harmony?

GM: I adore knowledge because I need it.

K: Of course, I need it. It is very clear, sir, I need knowledge to talk to you in English. To ride a bicycle, to drive an engine, needs knowledge.

Q: I have to solve the problem of disease. I need knowledge to deal with it. That is still within the field of knowledge.

K: knowledge is misused by the centre as the `me' which has got knowledge. Therefore I feel superior to the man who has less knowledge. I use knowledge to provide a status for myself, I am more important than the man who has no knowledge.

K: It gives security - obviously. It gives you status. Human beings have worshipped knowledge - knowledge as identified with the intellect. The erudite person, the scholar, the philosopher, the inventor, the scientist, are all concerned with knowledge and they have created marvellous things in the world, like going to the moon, making new kinds of submarines and so on. They have invented the most extraordinary things and the admiration, the marvel at that knowledge is overwhelming and we accept it. So we have developed an inordinate admiration, almost verging on worship, of the intellect. This applies to all the sacred books and their interpretations. Correct me, if I am wrong. In contrast to that, there is a reaction to be emotional, to have feeling, to love, to have devotion, sentimentality, extravagance in expression, and the body gets neglected. You see this and therefore you practise yoga. This division between the body, the mind and the heart takes place unnaturally. Now we have to bring about a natural harmony where the intellect functions like a marvellous watch, where the emotions and affections, care, love and compassion are healthily functioning and the body, which has been so despoilt, which has been so misused, comes into its own. Now how do you do that?

K: That is very simple, sir. Why does the brain as the repository of memory, give such importance to knowledge - technological, psychological, and in relationship? Why have human beings given such extraordinary importance to knowledge? I have an office. I become an important bureaucrat, which means I have knowledge about performing certain functions and I become pompous, stupid, dull.

K: We have been into that. Thought is time, thought is measure, thought is the response of memory, thought is knowledge, experience, past, therefore the past is time. That thought must function always superficially. That is simple.

K: Just now? The brain cells have acquired the knowledge of the language. It is the brain cells that are communicating.

M: Is knowledge a part of it?

M: The knowledge that there is scratching going on is present.

So where are we? Self-knowledge and the word of K. If there is a movement together, then it is over. It is very simple. You move.

K: All right. K says: `Be a light to yourself.' It does not mean you become the authority. K says: `Nobody can take you there; you can not invite that.' K says: `You can listen to K endlessly for the next million years and you will not get it.' But he says: `Be a light to yourself and you see holistically that thing. To know oneself is one of the most difficult things because in the observation of myself I come to a conclusion about what I am seeing; and the next observation is through that conclusion. Can one observe the actual anger without any conclusion, without saying right, wrong, good, bad? Can one observe holistically? Self-knowledge is not knowing oneself, but knowing every movement of thought. Because the self is the thought, the image, the image of K and the image of the `me.' So, watch every movement of thought, never letting one thought go without realizing what it is. Try it. Do it and you will see what takes place. This gives muscle to the brain.

K: Look, sir, there is something very interesting which comes out of this. Are you learning or are you having an insight into it? Learning implies authority. Are you learning and acting from learning? I learn about mathematics, technology and so on and from that knowledge I become an engineer and act. Or I go out into the field, act and learn. Both are the accumulation of knowledge and acting from knowledge - knowledge becomes the authority. Either you accumulate knowledge and act or you go out, act and learn. Both are an acting according to knowledge. So knowledge becomes the authority, whether it is the authority of the doctor, the scientist, the architect, or the guru who says `I know' - which is his authority. Now, somebody comes along and says: Look, acting according to knowledge is a prison; you will never be free; you can not ascend through knowledge.' And somebody like K says: `Look at it differently, look at action with insight - not accumulate knowledge and act but insight and action. In that there is no authority.

K: To have insight into something; to grasp the thing instantly; to listen carefully. You see, you do not listen, that is my point. You act, after learning; that is, in learning there is an accumulation of information, knowledge and you act according to that knowledge, skilfully or non-skilfully. That is learning; accumulating knowledge and acting from it. Then there is learning from acting, which is the same as the other. Both are acting on the basis of knowledge. So knowledge becomes the authority and where there is authority, there must be suppression. You will never ascend anywhere through that process; it is mechanical. Do you see both as mechanical movement? If you see that, that is insight. Therefore, you are acting not from knowledge; but by seeing the implications of knowledge and authority. Your action is totally different.

K: Of course not. But there is the observation of authority; the observation of authority which is in the demand from another for enlightenment; the leaning on, the attachment to another, all that is a form of authority. And is there `authority' in operation in my brain, in my mind, in my being? `Authority' may be experience, knowledge depending on the past - a vision and so on. Is there an observation of the movement of thought as `authority'?

K: Which is what? Your experiences, your inclinations and motives, all that is the movement of the past, which is knowledge. Movement of the past can only take place through knowledge, which is the past. So the past interferes with the present; the observer comes into operation. If there is no interference, there is no observer, there is only observation.

K: The observer is the past; he is the past, the remembrance, the experience, the knowledge stored up in memory. The past is the observer and I observe the present which is my jealousy, my reaction. And I use the word `jealousy' for that feeling because I recognize it as having happened in the past. It is a remembrance of jealousy through the word which is part of the past. So, can I observe without the word and without the observer which is the past? Does the word bring that feeling or is there feeling without the word? All this is part of self-knowledge.

J. Krishnamurti Exploration into Insight ` Self-knowledge and the Teaching'

In the world today, scientific and technological revolution has unharnessed undreamt-of resources of power and knowledge. However, man has failed to discover in himself the sources of wisdom and compassion. What is needed is an inner revolution in the psyche of man. The insight that man lacks is the apprehension that he is the maker of his problems and that the root of this problem-making machinery is his mind. It is in this area of perception that the ultimate freedom of man lies.

These dialogues extend over a wide range of subjects. For over 30 years, a group of people from various disciplines, backgrounds and pursuits, deeply concerned with the enormity of the challenge facing humanity and with one central interest, the unfoldment of the self through the perceptive field of self-knowledge, have gathered around J. Krishnamurti to undertake together, through dialogue, the investigation of the structure and nature of man's mind and consciousness and the energy resources that lie dormant within man's being. The concern in these dialogues is the freedom of the mind from the bondages of memory and time, a mutation in consciousness and the arising of insight that gives deep roots of steadiness to the mind.