My teaching, if that is the word you want to use, has no copyright. You are free to reproduce, distribute, interpret, misinterpret, distort, garble, do what you like, even claim authorship, without my consent or the permission of anybody. —U.G.
The book is a compilation of discussions between —U.G. and various inquirers in India, Switzerland, Australia, Netherlands, and U.K., between 1985 and 1990. From the back cover:
God or enlightenment is the ultimate pleasure, uninterrupted happiness. No such thing exists. Your wanting something that does not exist is the root of your problems. Transformation, moksha, liberation, and all that stuff, are just variations of the same theme: permanent happiness. The body can't take uninterrupted pleasure for long; it would be destroyed. Wanting to impose a fictitious permanent state of happiness on the body is a serious neurological problem.
I am not out to liberate anybody. You have to liberate yourself, and you are unable to do that. What I have to say will not do it. I am only interested in describing this state, in clearing away the occultation and mystification in which those people in the holy business have shrouded the whole thing. Maybe I can convince you not to waste a lot of time and energy looking for a state which does not exist except in your imagination. —U.G.
There is no teaching of mine, and never shall be one. 'Teaching' is not the
word for it. 'Teaching' implies a method or a system, a technique or a new way
of thinking to be applied in order to bring about a transformation in your way
of life. What I am saying is outside the field of teachability; it is simply a
description of the way I am functioning. It is just a description of the natural
state of man – that is the way you, stripped of the machinations of thought, are
also functioning.
The natural state is not the state of a self-realized or God-realized man, it is not
a thing to be achieved or attained, it is not a thing to be willed into existence; it
is there – it is the living state. This state is just the functional activity of life.
By 'life' I do not mean something abstract; it is the life of the senses,
functioning naturally without the interference of thought. Thought is an
interloper, which thrusts itself into the affairs of the senses. It has a profit
motive: thought directs the activity of the senses to get something out of them
and uses them to give itself continuity.
Your natural state has no relationship whatsoever with the religious states of
bliss, beatitude, and ecstasy; they lie within the field of experience. Those who
have led man on his search for religiousness throughout the centuries have
perhaps experienced those religious states. So can you. They are thoughtinduced states of being and as they come, so do they go. Krishna
Consciousness, Buddha Consciousness, Christ Consciousness, or what have
you, are all trips in the wrong direction: they can never be grasped, contained,
much less given expression to, by any man. That beaten track will lead you
nowhere. There is no oasis situated yonder; you are stuck with the mirage.
Notes by Frank with quotes:
Frank Norohna 21/88 Lodi Colony New Delhi
[Frank, et al. — 'apparent human form'? Really? What are you THINKING? That which 'defies description' is fondly regarded as 'reality' by some, aka 'what-is'..., of which we have no grasp. By choiceless awareness we may iterate away from thought consciousness. By conceptual thought, shaped right and well by guess then test, some can iterate towards some understanding of "a smoother pebble or a prettier shell" but only with all due doxastic humility. When you reach out your believing mind to grasp it, however, it is gone.]
Human thinking is born out of some sort of neurological defect in the human body. Therefore, anything that is born out of human thinking is destructive.Q: U.G., I would like to probe into the very essence of your revolutionary and uncompromising statement that there is no soul.
Religion has invented that wonderful thing called charity. It is the most vicious and vulgar thing that we have done. Nature has provided us with a bounty. But we are individually responsible for the inequities of the world.
Thought is opposed fundamentally to the functioning of this living organism.
All insights, however extraordinary they may be, are worthless, because it is thought that has created what we call insight, and through that it is maintaining its continuity and status quo.
Thought is not the instrument to help us to live in harmony with the life around us. That is why you create all these ecological problems. But the planet is not in danger; we are in danger.
The certainty that I have that there is no mind is something which cannot be transmitted to anybody, however hard I may try. You are not ready to accept this statement because the very thing which we are using to communicate is in jeopardy.
Thought is something dead and can never touch anything living. It cannot capture life, contain it, and give expression to it. The moment it tries to touch life, it is destroyed by the living quality of life.
A guru is one who tells you to throw away all crutches. He would ask you to walk, and he would say that if you fall, you will rise and walk.
If humanity is to be saved from the chaos of its own making, it has to be freed from the saviors of mankind.
The moment you repeat that which is not yours, you have become the follower of somebody.
What these gurus in the market place do is to sell you some ice packs and provide you with some comforters.
Thought in its birth, in its origin, in its expression, and in its action is very fascist. When I use the word 'fascist', I do not use it in the political sense, but I use it to mean that thought controls and shapes our thinking and our actions.
There is reincarnation for those who believe in it. There is no reincarnation for those who do not believe in it. But you have to ask this fundamental question: "What is there now that will reincarnate? Is there any such thing as a soul, 'I', or psyche?" Whatever you see or experience is created by the knowledge we have of that entity.
Q: First of all let us analyze this wonderful notion of happiness in quest of which
every human is on the run. Can you tell us what this happiness is all about?
A: You may not agree with me, but when we talk about 'the quest for happiness', it is
no different from any other sensual activity. As a matter of fact, all experiences,
however extraordinary they may be, are in the area of sensuality. That is one major
problem that we are facing today.
Somewhere along the line, the human species experienced this self-consciousness for
the first time. And it separated the human species from the rest of the species on this
planet. I don't even know if there is any such thing as evolution, but we are made to
believe that there is such a thing. And it was at that time perhaps that thought took
its birth. But thought in its birth, in its origin, in its content, in its expression, and in
its action is very fascist. When I use the word 'fascist' I use it not in the political sense
but to mean that thought controls and shapes our thinking and our actions. So it is a
very protective mechanism. It has no doubt helped us to be what we are today. It has
helped us to create our high-tech and technology. It has made our life very
comfortable. It has also made it possible for us to discover the laws of nature. But
thought is a very protective mechanism and is interested in its own survival. At the
same time, thought is opposed fundamentally to the functioning of this living
organism.
We are made to believe that there is such a thing as mind. But there is no such thing
as your mind or my mind. Society or culture, or whatever you want to call it, has
created us solely and wholly for the purpose of maintaining its own continuity and
status quo. At the same time, it has also created the idea that there is such a thing as
the individual. But actually, there is a conflict between the two – the idea of the
individual and the impossibility of functioning as an individual separate and distinct
from the totality of man's thoughts and experiences.
Q: Who makes us think in a particular way?
A: Here at this point I would like to emphasize that thoughts are not self-generated
and spontaneous. I would go one step further and ask, "Is there any such a thing as
thought?" The very question arises because we assume that there is such a thing as
thought, and that we can separate ourselves from thought and look at it. But when
we look at what we call thought, what we see is about thought and not thought itself.
"What is thought?" – the questions arises only because of the assumption that there is
such a thing as thought.
We use what we call thought to achieve our spiritual or material goals. We may
consider the spiritual goals as 'higher'. The culture in which we are functioning
places spiritual goals on a higher level than the materialistic goals. But the
instrument which we are using is matter, which is thought. Thought to me is matter.
Therefore, all our spiritual goals are materialistic in their value. And this is the
conflict that is going on there. In this process, the totality of man's experiences
created what we call a separate identity and a separate mind. But actually if you
want to experience anything, be it your own body, or your own experiences, you
have no way of experiencing them without the use of the knowledge that is passed
on to us. In other words, I would say that thought is memory. But we have been
made to believe that human beings are created for a nobler and grander purpose
than the other species on this planet, and it is that belief that is responsible for our
thinking that the whole creation is created for the benefit of man.
Everything that is born out of thought is destructive. Anything that we discover, the
laws of nature or whatever you call it, are used by us only for destructive purposes.
And it is true that we have discovered quite a few of nature's laws, and the theories
are constantly changing....
Q: Can we not at least attempt to refine this thought process to make it constructive
and positive?
A: Thought is not the instrument for achieving anything other than the goals set
before us by our culture or society, or whatever you want to call it. The basic
problem we have to face today is this: the cultural input, or what society has placed
before us as the goal for all of us to reach and attain, is the enemy of this living
organism. Thought can only create problems; it cannot help us to solve any.
Q: Then is it desirable to be thoughtless?
A: What I am talking about is not a thoughtless state. Even the invention of what is
called a thoughtless state, placed before us by many spiritual teachers as a goal to be
reached, is created by thought so that it can, by pursuing what it calls a thoughtless
state, maintain its own continuity. So whatever we experience in this process of
achieving the goal of a thoughtless state strengthens and fortifies the very thing that
we are trying to be free from.
Q: You see, we have this cause and effect theory which says, "As you sow, so shall
you also reap." Don't you think that for every action of ours, whether it is thought or
any other action, there is a reaction, if not immediately, at least after some time?
A: It is thought that has invented the ideas of cause and effect. There may not be any
such thing as a cause at all. Every event is an individual and independent event. We
link up all these events and try to create a story of our lives. But actually every event
is an independent event. If we accept the fact that every event is an independent
event in our lives, it creates a tremendous problem of maintaining what we call
identity. And identity is the most important factor in our lives. We are able to
maintain this identity through the constant use of memory, which is also thought.
This constant use of memory or identity, or whatever you call it, is consuming a
tremendous amount of energy, and it leaves us with no energy to deal with the
problems of our living. Is there any way that we can free ourselves from the identity?
As I said, thought can only create problems; it cannot help us to solve them. Through
dialectical thinking about thinking itself we are only sharpening that instrument. All
philosophies help us only to sharpen this instrument.
Thought is very essential for us to survive in this world. But it cannot help us in
achieving the goals that we have placed before ourselves. The goals are unachievable
through the help of thought. The quest for happiness, as you mentioned, is
impossible because there is no such thing as permanent happiness. There are
moments of happiness, and there are moments of unhappiness. But the demand to be
in a permanent state of happiness is the enemy of this body. This body is interested
in maintaining its sensitivity of the sensory perceptions and also the sensitivity of the
nervous system. That is very essential for the survival of this body. If we use that
instrument of thought for trying to achieve the impossible goal of permanent
happiness, the sensitivity of this body is destroyed. Therefore, the body is rejecting
all that we are interested in – permanent happiness and permanent pleasure. So, we
are not going to succeed in that attempt to be in a permanent state of happiness.
Q: You referred to the intellect and to the sharpening of the intellect....
A: To survive in this world.
Q: Yes. How do we sharpen it? With whose help?
A: Through a repetitive process we are sharpening that instrument. But we are
using tremendous amounts of energy in this process. If the use of thought is limited
to achieve only what we consider to be materialistic values and not our spiritual
goals, what is it that is not possible for us in order to function sanely and
intelligently. It does not mean that I am teaching a materialistic philosophy or any
such thing. Thought is not intended for achieving spiritual goals or even to find out
the significance, meaning, or purpose of life, or to be used for the quest for
permanence or permanent pleasure.
Q: We have been familiar with this theory of birth and death – karma, action,
reaction or something that we bring along with us like a bank balance, add
something to it, then spend something, and then carry it forward to the next birth or
whatever it is. How far do you subscribe to this theory, or are you opposed to it?
A: I am not opposed to the theory of karma or reincarnation. But I am questioning
the very foundation of that belief. There is reincarnation for those who believe in it,
and there is no reincarnation for those who do not believe in it. But is there any such
thing as reincarnation as a law of nature, like gravity and other laws of nature? My
answer is, no.
It doesn't matter whether you believe or not in reincarnation. If one is interested in
finding out for himself and by himself, to resolve this problem of reincarnation, and
get an answer for this oft-repeated question, "Is there such a thing as reincarnation?"
you have to ask this fundamental question, "What is there now that you think will
reincarnate?" "Is there anything there? Is there any such thing as soul? Is there any
such thing as the 'I'? Is there any such thing as the psyche? Whatever you see there,
whatever you experience there, is created only by the knowledge you have of that
self. If you are lucky enough to be freed from the totality of knowledge, the
knowledge of the self, reincarnation, and all kinds of things, then is it possible for
you to experience any center, any 'I', any self, any soul? So, to me the 'I' is nothing but
a first person singular pronoun, and I do not see any center or self there. So the
whole idea of reincarnation is built only on the foundation of our beliefs.
Q: What is it that makes one a great person in due course of time and another
stationary, stagnant in his mental processes? Do you attribute this to some kind of
inherent gift?
A: We have always been curious and interested in finding out why a child is born
with deformities. And reincarnation was a very interesting theory evolved by the
human mind at one time to explain away such situations and give us comfort in
facing the situation that we have such people in our midst. But now it is possible for
us, in the light of what they are doing in terms of genetic research and microbiology,
to correct the deformities created by nature. Why should we want to attribute this
misfortune to something terrible that we did in our previous life? That kind of belief
comes in very handy to us. We have in our midst today a tremendous suffering, a
tremendous amount of poverty, starvation, and degradation. It is very comforting for
us to believe that that suffering is there because the people who suffer did something
terrible in their past life. That is no answer to give. That makes us take shelter in the
belief and not do anything to solve the problem there. The belief is neither spiritual
nor human. In the name of doing something human to our fellow beings, we have
perpetrated inhuman deeds. The belief in reincarnation will only help us to look the
other side and not to deal with the problem which is demanding answers from every
thinking man in the world today.
Q: K. always emphasized one fact, that is, nobody requires a guru. In
fact, you too, I understand, would not like to be a guru for anybody. According to
you, what is the role of a guru who shows the way for the Sishya?
A: I think that it is the wrong word to use in these days for all those spiritual gurus
we have in the market, selling shoddy pieces of goods, and exploiting the gullibility
and credulity of people. A guru is one who tells you to throw away all the crutches
that we have been made to believe are essential for our survival. The true guru tells
you, "Throw them away, and don't replace them with the fancy crutches or even
computerized crutches. You can walk; and if you fall, you will rise and walk again."
Such is the man whom we consider, or even tradition considers, to be the real guru,
and not those who are selling those shoddy pieces of goods in the market place
today. It is a business; it has become a holy business to people. I am not condemning
anything. But as long as you depend upon somebody for solving your problems, so
long you remain helpless. And this helplessness is exploited by the people who
actually do not have the answers to your problems, but they give you some sort of a
comforter. People are satisfied with these comforters and fall for this kind of thing,
instead of dealing with the problems by themselves and for themselves.
Q: The spiritualism of the East and the Spiritualism of the West are gradually
exchanging places today, and you have seen the results of both now. What is the
panacea for the human misery, the deprivation, the kind of suffering everyone in this
planet is facing? Everyone has got something they want, something always to seek,
to run after.
A: As we started this discussion we said that the quest for happiness is all that
anybody, whether he is a Russian, an American, an African, or an Indian, is
interested in. I said that it is impossible to achieve such a goal because of the physical
problem (of conflict with the body) that is involved in achieving that goal. It is assumed
that the West is materialistic, and that it is looking towards the East for spiritual
guidance. That is not really true. If you live for a longer period in the West, you will
realize that those who are interested in these spiritual matters are not really the
people who are guiding the destinies of this world. What is responsible for this
sudden interest in spiritual matters and their looking to the East for succor is drugs.
They gave them a new sort of experience. But they were not satisfied with repeating
those experiences. They were looking around for varieties of religious experiences,
whether they are from India, or from Japan or from China. They are attracted to these
things because of the new language and new techniques.
The fact of the matter is that when once you have everything that you can reasonably
ask for in this world, when all the material needs are taken care of, naturally the
question arises, "Is that all?" When once you pose that question "Is that all?" to
yourself, you have created a tremendous market for this kind of business, the holy
business. These people are exploiting the gullibility and credulity of the people,
rather than helping them to resolve the basic problems, the human problems. It is not
that simple. So we have to ask such questions over and over again. But all the
questions we are asking are born out of the answers that we already have. It never
occurs to us to ask why we keep asking the questions when we already have the
answers given by the sages, saints, and saviors of mankind. We fail to realize that the
answers that they have given us are the ones that are responsible for the tragedy of
mankind. We don't question them. If we question the answers, we would be
questioning the teachers. If humanity is to be saved from the chaos of its own
making, it has to be freed from the saviors of mankind. That does not mean that you
would destroy everything. You will have to ask questions not born out of the
answers we already have. But is there any answer? That is all. There it stops. And the
solution is there for mankind.
Society or culture or whatever you might want to call it, has created us all solely and
wholly for the purpose of maintaining its continuity and status quo.
CHAPTER 3
The uniqueness of the individual cannot express itself because of the stranglehold of the experiences of others.
To be an individual and to be yourself you do not have to do a thing. Culture demands that you should be something other than what you are. What a tremendous amount of energy we waste trying to become that! But if that energy is released, living becomes very simple. Then what is it that you cannot do?
Trying to keep the sensation of happiness, or any other sensation that is pleasurable, going longer than its natural duration, is destroying the sensitivity of the living organism.
The mind is interested only in sensuality. In fact, it is born out of sensuality. It maintains its continuity in the field of sensuality. But the body is not interested in any of these except to respond to stimuli.
There are actually no problems; rather, what we are saddled with are only solutions.
The only 'I' that I can find there is the first person singular pronoun. I have to use that to differentiate from the second person singular pronoun.
The perfect man is born out of the value system that we have created. The value system is patterned after the behavior of the great teachers of mankind who have done more harm than good. But every human being is unique.
Q: You mentioned that you could not bring back the experience of what happened
when you were with Ramana Maharshi. But the brain science tells us that the brain
records every experience in our life. Is it all there somewhere in the basement of the
brain? How would you explain that?
A: What I am trying to put across to those who are interested in listening to what I
have to say is that there is no such thing as the totality of experiences. Memory is in
frames. In order to explain what I mean when I say that it is all in frames and that the
whole human body is functioning from moment to moment, I must point to one basic
thing, that is, how the senses are operating. What is there is only a response to a
stimulus. The response is not translated by anything that is there, except that it
registers the stimuli in the same way as information is registered when transferring
images from one floppy disc to another. There is no linking up of all these responses.
Each one is an independent frame. A lot of imagination is involved in our trying to
understand what is actually happening there.
I give you the example of what a friend wanted me to do when I was in a hill resort
in India. He said that when he reached the top of a particular mountain then he
would have a 360 degree view of the whole place. So he dragged me up to the top.
Unwillingly, hesitantly, I pushed myself to the top of that hill and tried to experience
what he called a 360 degree view of the whole place. I said to myself, "That fellow is
kidding himself and imagining things. How is it possible to experience the 360
degree view of this place? I can see only 180 degrees. So what he thinks he is
experiencing is born out of his own imagination." This (pointing to himself) is singularly
incapable of creating images. Translating the sensory perceptions into images is the
cultural input there. When my eyes are not looking at you, there is no way that this
organism (pointing to himself) can create the image of what you look like. The problem
is the creation of images which is born out of our imagination and mostly out of what
is put in there by our culture.
Q: I am listening....
A: So what I am trying to say is that what the brain does is to translate these sensory
perceptions into the framework of memory. Memory is not a constant factor. What
happens is that when the light falls on the object and activates your optic nerve, it
throws an image on the retina. This is what we have learnt from the study of our
biology, and that is what the physiologists have taught us in our schools. But actually
if you want to experience the fact, that is, the image of what you are looking at, it is
something which cannot be experienced by you. Why I give this example is to free us
from many of the ideas we have of what memory is. When once the optic nerves are
activated, they in their turn activate the neurons in the brain, bring the memory into
operation, and tell us that the object is this or that. So the next frame is quite different
from the previous frame.
Let me give the example of a movie camera. The movie camera captures whatever is
happening in frames. You take, for example, the movement of my hand from here to
there — it has ten different frames to show that the hand has moved from here to
there. And in order to see the movement on the screen you have to use an artificial
thing called the projector. And only then do you see the movement of hand
artificially created through the help of the projector. The sound is something like
what they do in the movie industry. The sound is nineteen and a half frames behind
the corresponding picture frame, There is a gap between the picture you take and the
sound — nineteen and a half frames. In exactly the same way, thought is very slow.
By the time it comes and captures this "whatever is there" within its framework, your
eyes have moved somewhere else, and that other thing is completely wiped out.
Q: I am thinking of television. It might be a good example too. There the picture is
never really there. It is just a collection of dots. It required the brain to put the picture
together.
A: The brain is operating in exactly the same way. The whole thing is registered as
dots and the pictures are taken in frames. There is an illusion that there is somebody
who is looking at the things. Actually there is nobody who is looking at the things. It
may sound very strange to you when I say that there is nobody who is talking. You
are the one that is making me talk; there is nobody here (pointing to himself) who is
talking. There is nobody. It may sound very strange to you but that is the way it is. It
is so mechanical, yet we are not ready to accept the mechanical functioning of this
living organism.
Q: So, you have no sense of identity, personal identity, of yourself?
A: No way, because there is no center there; there is no psyche there; there is no 'I'
there. The only 'I' that I can find there is the first person singular pronoun. I have to
use that first person singular pronoun to differentiate it from the second person
singular pronoun. That is all. But there is nothing there which you can say is 'me'.
That is the reason why I cannot tell myself that I am a free man, that I am an
enlightened man. Also I have no way of knowing that you are not an enlightened
man, that you are not a free man. There is no need for me to free you or enlighten
you because to do that I must have an image of myself and in relationship to that I
can have an image of you. So the images we have there are related to what we would
like to be, what we ought to be, what we should be, and what we must be.
Q: As you travel around the world there are people that gather around you. Why do
people gather around you, why do they come to see you?
A: They still think that I can help them. I will relate to you some conversation that
took place recently in Bangalore. They are all my friends. I don't have any devotees
or disciples or followers. I tell them that they are my followers because they are
repeating whatever I am saying. They are memorizing my statements and repeating
them. And there is no use kidding themselves that they are not following me. The
moment they repeat something which is not theirs, they have become the followers
of somebody.
On one occasion, when I asserted with great vehemence that whatever happened to
me had happened despite everything, despite my visit to Ramana Maharshi, despite
my contacts with K. and my personal conversations with him, and
despite all the things that were expected of somebody who wanted to be an
enlightened man, one friend in the audience said, "We cannot accept your statement
of 'despite'...." He said that my statements were irrelevant. "The problem is very
simple," he said. "If we accept what you are saying, namely, that whatever has
happened to you has happened regardless of what you did, and that everything you
did was irrelevant, we lose the only hope that we have in you. We still feel that
although we have lost faith in them all, we cannot lose faith in you." I told him that
that is the one thing that is standing there in him which makes it impossible for him
to free himself from whatever he is trying to free himself from, because he has
replaced one thing with another. That is all that we can do. One illusion is replaced
by another illusion and one teacher is replaced by another teacher. There is no way
you can function without replacing one thing with another.
Q: K. maintained that there is no authority, no teacher, and that there is
no path. Everyone has a life-path that has taken him to wherever he ought to be. You
also have a life-path that has gotten you to where you are.
A: But I cannot suggest anything that did not play a part in my life. That would be
something false, falsifying the thing you see.
Q: Why should you not say that each of us has an individual and unique life-path
and out of that comes whatever that is?
A: The uniqueness of every individual cannot express itself because of the
stranglehold of the experiences of others. After all, you don't exist, and I don't exist.
You and I have been created by the totality of those experiences, and we have to use
them in order to function sanely and intelligently in this world.
Q: So you are creating me now?
A: You are creating me.
Q: You are creating me now?
A: No. I am not creating you because I don't have an image of myself here. So,
whatever you see here (pointing to himself) is your own creation and the projection of
the knowledge you have of me. I don't know if you get what I am trying to say. I am
not involved in what is going on there in you. What is involved here is only a
reflection of whatever is there in front of me on the retina. But the translation of it is
absent because it is part of that movement that is going on there.
Q: So, what I get from what you say is that it is a matter of living each moment as it
comes.
A: Such statements are very misleading. We place ourselves in a situation where we
think that it is possible for us to live from moment to moment. But it is the body that
is functioning from moment to moment.
Q: O.K., the body is functioning from moment to moment.
A: The one that is interested in living from moment to moment, which is the mind
(quote and unquote), cannot live that way because its survival depends upon
repeated experiences. The continuity of the knowledge that it is 'me' is not something
else. You have to maintain that center all the time, and the only way you can
maintain that center is through the repetitive process, repeating the same old
experiences over and over again, and yet imagining that one day you are going to
function from moment to moment. It is this hope that gives you the feeling and also
some sort of experience that you are living from moment to moment. But the
possibility of actually living from moment to moment is never there because the
mind's interest is only to continue. Therefore, it has invented the ideal of living from
moment to moment, no-mind, and all that kind of stuff. Through these gimmicks it
knows it can maintain its own continuity.
Q: Sometimes we are so involved with our activity that we lose ourselves in it, and in
that sense we are living in the moment.
A: It is not correct to say that, because your involvement in whatever you are doing
is a sort of 'high'. It is an experience which you want to place on a higher level and
then think that you are absorbed in it.
Q: But you are not thinking about it, for there is no interval.
A: No. Thought is very much there. But you have made that into an extraordinary
experience, and your wanting to be like that always is one thing that is not possible.
A musician thinks that he is absorbed in what he is doing. It is demanding your total
attention to express whatever you are doing, and when two things are not there it is a
lot easier for you to express it effectively than when you are thinking about it.
Q: I really think about experiences after they happen. Then I reflect on them. When I
look up in the sky and see a hawk flying across the sky, I see the hawk and
afterwards I reflect on it, "Oh, I saw a hawk!" But at the moment when I see it I am
not thinking about it.
A: You see, that is not correct, because we have been made to believe, and you
probably accept that statement, that while you are experiencing a thing you are not
aware of it. The fact that you recall, whether you name that as a hawk or not, implies
that you were very much there. I know a lot of people who tell me that they were in a
thoughtless state, that there were moments when the 'I' was not there. But when once
such a thing really happens, it is finished once and for all, and there is no way you
can link those moments up together and create a continuity there. So, the statements
that when you are experiencing a thing you are not aware of the experience and that
you become aware or conscious of it only after the experience is gone are highly
questionable. If that were so, it would have shattered the whole experiencing
structure once and for all. It would be something of an earthquake hitting this place,
and what happens then nobody knows. A shifting of things would have taken place,
and thereafter the organism functions in a very normal and natural way. It would
have found a new sort of equilibrium.
Q: Why are we here as human beings living right now?
A: Why do we ask that question "Why are we here?" What is it that tells you that you
are here? Are you there now? It is the knowledge that tells you that you are here, that
I am here.
Q: I have some awareness of being here, a feeling of being here.
A: Feeling is also thought. We want to feel that feelings are more important than
thoughts, but there is no way you can experience a feeling without translating that
within the framework of the knowledge that you have. Take for example that you tell
yourself that you are happy. You don't even know that the sensation that is there is
happiness. But you capture that sensation within the framework of the knowledge
you have of what you call a state of happiness, and the other state, that of
unhappiness. What I am trying to say is that it is the knowledge that you have about
yourself which has created the self there and helps you to experience yourself as an
entity there.
I am not particularly fond of the word 'awareness'. It is misused. It is a rubbed coin,
and everybody uses it to justify some of his actions, instead of admitting that he did
something wrong. Sometimes you say, "I was not aware of what was going on there."
But awareness is an integral part of the activity of this human organism. This activity
is not only specifically in the human organism but in all forms of life — the pig and
the dog. The cat just looks at you, and is in a state of choiceless awareness. To turn
that awareness into an instrument which you can use to bring about a change is to
falsify that. Awareness is an integral part of the activity of the living organism. And
so, 'awareness' is not just the right kind of word to use.
It is impossible for us to separate ourselves from the rest of the things that are out
there. You are not different from the chair that you are sitting on. But what separates
you from the chair is the knowledge you have of that — "This is a chair," "You are
sitting on the chair." But the fact is that the sensation that is involved in this
relationship between you and the chair is the sense of touch. The sense of touch does
not, however, tell you that you are separate from this chair in which you are sitting. I
am not trying to say that you are the chair. That is too absurd.
Actually what makes you feel that the body is there is the gravitational pull of the
body, the heaviness of the body. You feel the existence of the body because of the
gravitational pull. I said somewhere in the beginning that you are affecting
everything there and everything that is there is affecting you. The fact of this
statement is something which cannot be experienced by you because it is one unitary
movement. The moment you separate the two and say that this is the response to
that, you have already brought the knowledge you have of the things into operation
and told yourself that this is the response to that stimulus.
Q: The quantum physicists tell us that it is all connected and we are all part of the
universe.
A: But they have arrived at that as a concept. So did the metaphysicians in India.
They arrived at that fact and said that there is no such thing as space. Space is a very
essential thing for you to survive in this world. But the fact that there is such a thing
as space can never be experienced by you. A scientist came to see me and made this
statement that there is no such thing as space, there is no such thing as time, and
there is no such thing as matter. I said, "You are repeating a memorized statement.
Probably you will give me an equation to prove that there is no such thing as space.
But supposing it is a fact in your life that there is no space, (I always give crude
examples,) what happens to your relationship with your wife?" When people throw
these kinds of phrases at me — that there is no observer, or that the observer is the
observed — I give them a hard time and try to make them realize the implications of
what they are saying. It is very interesting for the theologians, the metaphysicians,
and the scientists to discuss these things. But when it percolates to the level of our
day-to-day existence, and of our relationship with the people around us, it is very
different. If you tell yourself that the observer is the observed, and apply that to a
situation where you are about to make love to your wife, what will happen?
Q: Is there a situation where the observer is really the observed?
A: That is the end of all relationship. It's finished. To say the observer is the observed
is a meaningless statement, repeated ad nauseam. They actually do not know what
will happen when that is the case. All relationships will be finished.
Q: So we are just automata....
A: Automatically repeating words and phrases which are memorized. They have no
relevance to the way we are functioning.
Q: Are you just an automaton?
A: Oh, I am an automaton. There is not one thought which I can call my own. If this
computer (pointing to his head) has no information on a particular subject, it is silent. So
you are operating the computer (pointing to himself). It is your interest to find out what
there is in this computer. And whatever comes out of me is yours. What you call the
printout is yours and you are reading something in it.
Q: So I am the dreamer and you are the dream.
A: You have created me. You have all the answers and you are asking the questions.
Q: I think I already have answers.
A: Otherwise how can there be questions? You are not sure that they are the answers.
Q: Well, I am like everyone here, asking questions that any person might ask.
A: ....for which they already have the answers. But they are not sure that they are the
answers. And they don't have the guts to brush aside the persons that have given
those answers. Sentiments come into picture there, and you lose the guts to throw
away the answers, and the ones who have given the answers, out the window.
Q: What I get from this is that you have to be an individual.
A: To be an individual and to be yourself you don't have to do a thing. Culture
demands that you should be something other than what you are. What a tremendous
amount of energy — the will, the effort — we waste trying to become that! If that
energy is released, what is it that we can't do? How simple it would be for every one
of us to live in this world! It is so simple.
Whatever has happened to me has happened despite everything I did. It was like a jolt of lightning or an earthquake, as it were. Everything that every man thought, felt, and experienced before was flushed out of my system. This has become possible for me not through any effort or volition of mine. That is why I say it is 'acausal', and I have no way of knowing what I am left with.
I maintain that memory is not located in any particular area of the body. Every cell in our body is involved.
We have put memory and the brain to such a use for which it is not intended. This is one of the reasons why we find that Alzheimer's disease is on the increase.
We are no different from, nor are we created for any grander purpose than, the mosquito that is sucking your blood.
If there is anything like super-consciousness or higher consciousness that people speak of, you are as much an expression of that as any of the claimants to that cosmic power. Every dog, every cat, every pig, every cow, the garden slug there, you, me, and everybody, even Genghis Khan and Hitler, are an expression of that same thing. Why should nature or some cosmic power, if there is one in the world, need the help of somebody as an instrument to express itself and help others?
Q: I think it was in 1967, just on your 49th birthday when you were listening to K.'s talk, it is said that an experience occurred to you. Would you describe
that?
A: I don't want to go into that in great detail. But what I have been emphasizing
lately is that whatever has happened to me happened despite everything I did.
Whatever I did or did not do, and whatever events people believed that led me into
this (natural state) are totally irrelevant. It is very difficult for me to fix a point now and
tell myself that this is me, and look back and try to find out the cause of whatever has
happened to me, because this is not in the field of cause and effect relationship. That
is why I am emphasizing and overemphasizing all the time that it is acausal. That is
very difficult for people to understand.
Q: By 'acausal' you mean that it happened without any preparation?
A: That is what I am saying. It is something like, to use my favorite phrases,
"lightning hitting you, a jolt of lightning hitting you," and you don't know what you
are left with. You have no way of finding out for yourself and by yourself what has
happened to you. Has anything happened to me at all? But one thing I can say with
certainty is that the very thing that I searched for all my life was shattered to pieces.
The goals that I had set for myself — self-realization, God-realization, transformation,
radical or otherwise, or even enlightenment — were all false, and there was nothing
there to be realized, and nothing to be found there. The very demand to be free from
anything, even from the physical needs of the body, just disappeared, and I was left
with nothing. Therefore, whatever comes out of me now depends upon what you
draw out of me.
I have actually and factually nothing to communicate, because there is no
communication possible at any level. The only instrument we have is the intellect.
We know, in a way, that this instrument has not helped us to understand anything.
So, when once it dawns on you that this is not the instrument, and that there is no
other instrument with which to understand anything, you are left with this puzzling
situation that there is nothing to understand. In a way, it would be highly
presumptuous on my part to sit on a platform or accept invitations like this and try
to tell people that I have something to say, that I have come into something
extraordinary which nobody has come into.
But what I am left with is something extraordinary — extraordinary not in the sense
that it has been possible for me through any effort or volition of mine, but in the
sense that everything that every man thought, felt, and experienced before is thrown
out of my system. So, you can say that it is, indeed, a courageous thing that has
happened to me. But I cannot tell people that through courage you can put yourself
into that kind of situation.
It is very difficult to tell people how it all happened to me. They are only interested
in finding out how it happened to me, because their only interest is to find out the
cause, find out what led me into this. But when I tell them that it is acausal, it is very
difficult for them to understand and accept it. Their interest is to find out a cause and
make it happen to them.
Q: I think it is useful sometimes to talk about one's realization in terms of when and
what happened. In this context, going back to 1967, what happened to you when you
were listening to K.?
A: You see, when I was listening to him it suddenly dawned on me, "Why the hell
have I been listening to this man? From his description I feel that I am in the same
state as that man." I said to myself that I was in the same state as that man, assuming
for the moment that he was in the same state that he was describing and in the same
state that the great spiritual teachers were in. "What the hell have I been doing all my
life? Why the hell am I sitting here listening to him?" I then walked out with just one
single thought whirling in me, as it were, like in a whirlpool. "How do you know that
you are in the same state?" I understand that the question implies that I was familiar
with the descriptions of various states. I had tried to simulate them in me and
experience them, and that is all there is to it. So this question went on and on. But
suddenly this question also disappeared. I said to myself that there is no reason for
me to feel grateful to anybody, to express my thanks to anybody.
Whatever has happened to me has happened despite listening to this teacher or that
teacher, or doing this, that, or the other. But if I say all this, it is something which is
not very interesting to people. They want to know, and I tell them that I myself do
not know. I cannot look at myself and tell myself that I am an enlightened man, that I
am a free man, that tremendous changes have taken place in me. So, I use this phrase
which we very often hear on the commercials. It is not something like "before and
after the wash"; no washing has helped me to reach anywhere. It is just a happening.
I still have to use the word 'happening', because there is no other way that I can
communicate this and give a feel of this to anybody else.
Q: It is all like an infant just coming into the world without any memory or thought,
trying to see the world for the first time, and just figuring it out as to how it all
works, just experiencing it. Will that be similar to what you are talking about?
A: No. It is not correct to say that there is any kind of experience in newborn
children, because we have no way of going through that all over again. Anything we
simulate and try to experience is only from where we stand today. And where we
stand today is the product of experiences of all kinds. So, anything we experience,
although we call it rebirthing or trying to experience what it was like when we were
a newborn baby or an infant, is naturally colored by where we stand today. Anything
we experience has no relevance, no meaning to what I am trying to say.
There are many people who talk of rebirthing. It has become fashionable for people
to indulge in that kind of fantasy. You know in Japan they have some techniques in
which by manipulating certain nerves at the base of your head they will make you go
through the experience of your own birth. I have always maintained that the
experiencing structure is totally absent at the time of our birth. And I always
questioned the psychologists, especially Freud, when he made the statement that
birth is a traumatic experience. I don't think that it is a traumatic experience at all,
because there is no experiencing structure there at all. Actually it is very difficult to
say as to when the experiencing structure in babies comes into operation. I am one of
those who believes that the influence of environment is very limited on us. (I
maintain that I am not an authority on such things.) But the experiencing structure is
genetic in its origin and in its expression. Everything is genetically controlled. If we
really want to change individuals, the only way we can do it is not by changing the
environment, not through changing the cultural input, but by trying to understand
what really is the part that genes play in us. Maybe through some kind of genetic
engineering we can create perfect human beings.
Q: So, you would support genetic engineering?
A: No, I do not. I am at the same time conscious of the fact that it is a very dangerous
thing that we are indulging in. When once we perfect these engineering techniques,
we will hand them over to the state. Thereafter it will be a lot easier for the state to
manipulate individuals and turn them into mere robots. (I am not against robots, as
we are actually robots, whether we like it or not.) The state will make people do
things which they are unwilling to do. Usually it takes a lot of time and a lot of
brainwashing to teach something to people — to make people believe in God, to make
people believe in a particular political ideology. Conversely, to free them from some
kind of belief we have to brainwash them all over again. It is a very elaborate and
long process. But it is a lot easier and faster for us to use these techniques of genetic
engineering to change individuals than it is possible otherwise.
Q: You know, we were speaking about K. He claims to have no
memory of this process. It is the same thing that has happened to you? Do you have a
memory?
A: I don't want to say anything about it. I don't have any idea of what
happened to him. I don't know what he meant when he said this. Actually your
memory becomes very extraordinary after this happening. But the problem which we
have to face today is different. We have been using our memory a lot. I always
maintain (you may question this, and the experts in the field of brain physiology may
question it; but one of these days they will have to accept what I am trying to say)
that the brain plays a very minor role in the functioning of the body. It is not a
creator at all. It is just a reactor. What this memory is we really don't know yet. One
of these days the experts who are dealing with this problem of memory will have to
come out with answers to questions like what the neurons are.
I maintain that memory is not located in any particular area of the body. Every cell in
our body is involved. And my feeling is that we have come to a point in the history
of mankind where we have to confront the problem of people who have lost their
memories. We have put memory and our brain to such use for which they are not
intended. This is one of the reasons why we find that Alzheimer's disease, or
whatever you want to call it, is on the increase. The other day I heard that one in two
of those in the eighty-year-old bracket are affected by it. You know recently there
was also a report of the same disease in England. Six hundred thousand people are
affected by the problem there.
Q: You mentioned about the misuse of the brain.
A: Misusing memory. Using memory for purposes for which it is not intended. After
all, what are you? You are a memory. We have to use memory in order to survive in
the world crated by our society, culture, or whatever you want to call it. There is no
other way. I know that it is an extension of the same survival mechanism. No doubt
it is.
Q: When you burn your finger you withdraw it at once.
A: Automatically. There you don't have to use your memory. That is the way this
human body is functioning. But to survive in this world which we have created, our
world of culture, society, or whatever you want to call it, the constant use of memory
is essential. The whole of our education is built on the foundation of how to develop
our memory. I am afraid that I am going off on a tangent.
Q: Yes.
A: I usually hop, jump and skip. Let me try to stick to this point which I am trying to
make. Unfortunately, humanity has placed before itself the model of a perfect man.
The idea of the perfect man is born out of the value system that we have created.
That value system is born out of the behavior patterns of the great teachers of
mankind.
Q: Jesus might be an example of....
A: Jesus, Buddha and all the great teachers. Every human body, however, is unique.
Nature is not interested in creating a perfect being. Its interest is to create only a
perfect species.
Q: If every one of us is unique, that implies that our code of enlightenment, if there is
such a thing, would also be unique so that each of us reaches that state individually
and uniquely.
A: Exactly. That is what I am trying to emphasize. It is just not possible for us to
produce enlightened people on an assembly line. You know, if you look at history,
even a country like India, which prides itself as a land of spirituality, has produced
only a very few enlightened people. You can count them on your fingers. But
unfortunately, in the market place, we have many claimants who say that they are
enlightened, and they are in turn out to enlighten everybody. There is a market for
that kind of thing. The demand and supply principle is responsible for that. But
actually an enlightened man or a free man, if there is one, is not interested in freeing
or enlightening anybody. This is because he has no way of knowing that he is a free
man, that he is an enlightened man. It is not something that can be shared with
somebody, because it is not in the area of experience at all.
There is no such thing as a new experience. Suppose you go to a new place. What
goes on in your mind, if I may use that word, is that you are always trying to fit
whatever you are seeing into the framework of the past. The moment you say that
something is new, it is the old that is telling you that it is new. So, it is very difficult
for us to experience anything new because, if there is something really new, it is not
in particular frames that the old is destroyed, but the totality of the past is destroyed
in one great big blow.
Q: In effect what you are saying is that we cannot experience anything new.
A: Yes. You may not agree with me, and brush this aside as absurd and nonsense.
But there is no such thing as a new experience. There is nothing new at all. It is the
old that tells us that it is new, and through this gimmick thought is making what it
calls new part of the old, and is thus maintaining its continuity. So, whatever you
cannot experience does not exist. It may sound as a very dogmatic assertion on my
part, but when you try to experience something that you have not experienced
before, the whole movement of the experiencing structure comes to an end.
Q: Having read some accounts of your previous life, I go back to the experience that
you had when you went to see Ramana Maharshi. You asked him, "Whatever it is
you have, can you give it to me?" And he said, "I can give it, but can you take it?"
A: Unfortunately, that is the traditional answer that is dished out by all the spiritual
teachers. What is reported in the so-called story of my life is a garbled version of
what I actually felt at that time. Anyway, anything I say today is irrelevant, because I
don't know what I felt at that particular moment, and there is no way I can relive that
experience from here. I said to myself, "What is it that he has? If there is anybody in
this world who can receive it, it is I." I said this to myself and walked out. That, in a
way, decided another phase of my life.
The old traditional approach to the whole question of enlightenment was thrown out
of my system, although I continued to read books on religion, studied philosophy,
psychology, and science. I tried to find out answers from those people who have not
been contaminated by the traditional teachings. I got interested in Western
philosophy and science, and tried to find the answer to my basic question. My basic
question was one question: "Where is this mind that we are so concerned about, that
we are trying to understand, study, and change? Why do we talk of a total change in
the makeup of the mind? I don't see any such thing as mind there at all, let alone a
transformation or mutation of the mind." This question always intrigued me and I
questioned everybody about the mind. I tried to get answers from every area of
human thought, but nothing helped me to find out the answers to those questions. At
that time I didn't have the certainty that I have today. The certainty I have today that
there is no mind is something which I cannot transmit to anybody, however hard I
may try, because the very thing which we are using to communicate is in jeopardy,
and you are not ready to accept that possibility.
Q: The Buddhists also talk about no mind.
A: They made a tremendous structure out of that philosophical thought. They talked
of the void. They talked of emptiness. You know the whole Buddhist philosophy is
built on the foundation of that 'no mind'. Yet they have created tremendous
techniques of freeing themselves from the mind. All the Zen techniques of
meditation try to free you from the mind. The very instrument that we are using to
free ourselves from the thing called 'mind' is the mind. Mind is nothing other than
what you are doing to free yourself from the mind. But when it once dawns on you,
by some strange chance or miracle, that the instrument that you are using to
understand everything is not the instrument, and that there is no other instrument, it
hits you like a jolt of lightning.
When everything fails, you use the last card, the trump in the pack of cards, and call it love.
The institution of marriage is not going to disappear as long as we demand relationships. It will continue in some way or other. Unmarried couples are more miserable than married couples.
The feminist movement will not succeed as long as the woman depends upon the man for her sexual needs.
It is just not possible to establish any relationship with anyone around you, including your near and dear ones, except on the level of "What do I get out of that relationship?" The whole thing springs from the separation and isolation that human beings live in today.
Sexuality, if it is left to itself, as in the case of other species, is a simple biological need. To survive and reproduce oneself is the object of the living organism. Anything that is superimposed on that is totally unrelated to the living organism. But we have turned sexuality which is biological in its nature into a pleasure movement.
Everything that we are confronting today is born out of the religious thinking of man. But religion has no answers for the future of mankind.
All experiences, however extraordinary they may be, are in the area of sensuality.
Q: When man is the same everywhere, why is there so much difference among men?
I find a contradiction between the problems that man is facing in America and
Europe and those he is facing in underdeveloped countries. For example, drugs, sex,
crime, and pleasure are the issues in America and West European countries, but
poverty, lack of education, and death due to malnutrition are the issues in the
underdeveloped countries.
A: The difference is artificially created by the Western nations. They had the
advantage of the technical know-how which was born out of the industrial
revolution. When the revolution went to America, with the help of that technical
know-how they exploited the resources of God's plenty there. You know there was a
time when anybody could go to the United States without a passport. But in 1911
they introduced the necessity to have a passport to enter the United States. In 1923
they introduced the immigration laws. Once you are there in a particular place and
establish yourself and your rights, it is finished. (I am giving this as an example, but
this applies to every country.) If anybody lands and colonizes any place on any
planet, they will establish their rights there and prevent all other nations from
landing there. The Americans established these same rights. It was God's plenty that
helped the nations to develop and hold on to what they have. But they continue to
exploit the resources of the rest of the world as well as their own resources. Even
today they are doing that. They don't want to give up.
Basically, human nature is exactly the same whether in India or in Russia or in
America or in Africa. Human problems are exactly the same. All the problems are
artificially created by the various structures created by human thinking. As I said,
there is some sort of (I can't make a definitive statement) neurological problem in the
human body. Human thinking is born out of this neurological defect in the human
species. Anything that is born out of human thinking is destructive. Thought is
destructive. Thought is a protective mechanism. It draws frontiers around itself, and
it wants to protect itself. It is for the same reason that we also draw lines on this
planet and extend them as far as we can. Do you think these frontiers are going to
disappear? They are not. Those who have entrenched themselves, those who have
had the monopoly of all the world's resources so far and for so long, if they are
threatened to be dislodged, what they would do is anybody's guess. All the
destructive weapons that we have today are here only to protect that monopoly.
But I am sure that the day has come for people to realize that all the weapons that we
have built so far are redundant and that they cannot be used anymore. We have
arrived at a point where you cannot destroy your adversary without destroying
yourself. So it is that kind of terror, and not the love and brotherhood that have been
preached for centuries, that will help us to live together. But this has to percolate to
the level of human consciousness. (I don't want to use the words 'consciousness', or
'human consciousness', because there is no such thing as consciousness at all. I use
that word only for purposes of communication.) Until this percolates to the level of
human consciousness, in the sense that man sees that he cannot destroy his neighbor
without destroying himself, I don't think it will help. I am sure that we have come to
that point. Whenever and wherever you have an edge over your adversary or your
neighbor, you will still continue to exercise what you have been holding on to for
centuries. So how are you going to solve the problem? All utopias have failed.
The whole mischief originated in the religious thinking of man. Now there is no use
in blaming the religious thinking of man, because all the political ideologies, even
your legal structures, are the warty outgrowth of the religious thinking of man. It is
not so easy to flush out the whole series of experiences which have been accumulated
through centuries, and which are based upon the religious thinking of man. There is
a tendency to replace one belief with another belief, one illusion with another
illusion. That is all we can do.
Q: The developed nations know fully well that if there is a war today they will face
total annihilation. There will be no victor left anywhere. But still there are these
skirmishes here and there, and there is so much violence everywhere. Why is it so? Is
it because that human nature, as some people say, is basically violent?
A: Yes it is. Because thought is violent. Anything that is born out of thought is
destructive. You may cover it up with all wonderful and romantic phrases: "Love thy
neighbor as thyself." Don't forget that in the name of "Love thy neighbor as thyself"
millions and millions of people have died, more than in all the recent wars put
together. But we now have come to a point where we can realize that violence is not
the answer, that it is not the way to solve human problems. So, terror seems to be the
only way. I am not talking of terrorists blowing up churches, temples, and all that
kind of thing, but the terror that if you try to destroy your neighbor you will possibly
destroy yourself. That realization has to come down to the level of the common man.
This is the way the human organism is functioning too. Every cell is interested in its
own survival. It knows in some way that its survival depends upon the survival of
the cell that is next to it. It is for this reason that there is a sort of cooperation between
the cells. That is how the whole organism can survive. It is not interested in utopias.
It is not interested in your wonderful religious ideas. It is not interested in peace,
bliss, beatitude, or anything. Its only interest is to survive. That is all it is interested
in. The survival of a cell depends upon the survival of the cell next to it. And your
survival and my survival depend upon the survival of our neighbor.
Q: Whatever you say, I feel that the only way for humanity to survive is to bring
about a change in the heart — and that is Love.
A: No, not at all, because love implies division, separation. As long as there is
division, as long as there is a separation within you, so long do you maintain that
separation around you. When everything fails, you use the last card, the trump in the
pack of cards, and call it love. But it is not going to help us, and it has not helped us
at all. Even religion has failed to free man from violence and from ten other different
things that it is trying to free us from. You see, it is not a question of trying to find
new concepts, new ideas, new thoughts, and new beliefs.
As I said before, what kind of a human being do you want on this globe? The human
being modeled after the perfect being has totally failed. The model has not touched
anything there. Your value system is the one that is responsible for the human
malady, the human tragedy, forcing everybody to fit into that model. So, what do we
do? You cannot do anything by destroying the value system, because you replace
one value system with another. Even those who rebelled against religion, like those
in the Communist countries, have themselves created another kind of value system.
So, revolution does not mean the end of anything. It is only a revaluation of our
value system. So, that needs another revolution, and so on and so on. There is no
way.
The basic question that we all have to ask for ourselves is, what kind of a human
being do you want? The only answer to this human problem, if there is any answer,
is not to be found through new ideas, new concepts, or new ideologies, but through
bringing about a change in the chemistry of the human body. But there is a danger
even there. When once we perfect genetic engineering and change the human being,
there will be a tendency to hand this technology over to the state. It will then be a lot
easier for them to push all the people into war and see that they can kill without a
second thought. You don't have to brainwash them. You don't have to teach them
love or patriotism. Brainwashing takes a century, [as, for example,] brainwashing to
believe in God took centuries. The Communists took decades to brainwash their
people not to believe in God. But with genetic engineering, there is no need for that
kind of brainwashing process. It is a lot easier to change human beings by giving just
one injection.
Q: What is being said in the Western world is that people there are very happy and
are perfectly satisfied with the changes taking place: there is the rule of law, respect
for human rights, free market economy, freedom of expression and speech, etc.
A: Do you really think that there is freedom in the United States? What does that
mean to a starving man — freedom of speech, freedom of worship, and freedom of
the press? He does not know how to read the newspapers and is not interested in
them. At least in the Communist systems they fed, clothed, and sheltered people,
though that is now being denied to them in those nations. There is more
unemployment than ever before in the Western countries. I don't think this is the
model for the whole of mankind.
The whole system depends upon the exploitation of the resources of the world for
the benefit of the Western nations. These laws that you are talking about are always
backed by force. You know as a lawyer that the decision handed down by a judge is
always backed by force. Ultimately, it is the force that counts. We all agree to submit
ourselves to the decision of the judge. If you don't want to submit to them, the only
recourse you have is to use violence. So, all the gangsters get together and create a
legal structure which is favorable to them. That they enforce on others through the
help of violence, through the help of force.
What right do you have to create this blockade, for example, today around Iraq?
What is the international law which these people are talking about? I want to know.
You as a lawyer know. What happened when America attacked and occupied
Granada, a small nation? Nobody ever objected to it; nobody ever created a blockade
there. I am not impressed by the international law and its legal structure. As long as
it is advantageous to you, you talk of law. When the law fails you use force. Don't
you?
Q: May I return to the question of certain other institutions of the human beings?
A: You are a lawyer and the law is there probably to maintain the status quo. Is it
not? So you cannot talk against the status quo.
Q: May I tell you that there are different schools of thought in the legal field?
A: That is only a theological discussion. You know what all the theologians indulge
in — God is this, God is that, the Ontological, the Teleological and the Cosmological
arguments for the existence of God. All these different schools of law you are
referring to are no different from the discussions of the theologians.
Q: What do you think of the institution of marriage and family?
A: The institution of marriage is not going to disappear. As long as we demand
relationships, it will continue in some form or other. Basically, it is a question of
possessiveness. There was a time when I believed that economic independence for
women would solve many of the problems in India. But when I visited America I
was shockingly surprised that even those women who are economically independent
wanted to possess their drunkard husbands. The husband was beating her every
day, and twice on Sundays. I know many cases. I am not generalizing, but
possessiveness is the most important element. The basis of relationships is: "What do
I get out of the relationship?" That is the basis of all human relationships. As long as I
can get what I want the relationships last.
The marriage institution will somehow continue because it is not just the relationship
between the two, but children and property are involved. So it is not going to
disappear overnight at all. And we use property and children as a pretext to give
continuity to the institution of marriage. The problem is so complex and so
complicated. It is not so easy for anybody to come up with answers to the age-old
institution of marriage.
I can tell you one thing. A lot of couples come to see me with their problems.
Unmarried, unwed couples, if you listen to their stories, you cannot imagine their
miseries. And yet they cannot part company.
Unmarried couples are more miserable than married couples. The answer is not so
easy. As long as we want to establish a relationship, so long this institution will
remain. Maybe it will be modified, changed to suit the changing condition.
A leader of the feminist movement (I am a crude and brutal man) came to see me.
She asked me, "What do you think of the feminist movement?" I said, "I am on your
side; by all means fight for your rights. But remember that as long as you depend on
a man for your sexual needs, so long you are not free. The other way round is also
true: if you can satisfy your sexual needs with the help of a vibrator — that is a
different matter. But if you want a man to satisfy your sexual needs, you are not
free."
Q: You say that the family is not a solution, unwed relations are not a solution. What
other institutions do you have in mind?
A: It is these institutions which are responsible for the misery of mankind. There is
no way you can change or modify these institutions. It is a lot easier for people in
India now to go for a divorce than it was in earlier times. There was no question of
me divorcing my wife or my wife divorcing me at that time. Now it is a lot easier.
The changing conditions are responsible for a change in our idea. But that does not
mean that the problem has an easy and simple solution.
Q: Will there not be anarchy if you do not support the male and female relationship
and the family?
A: If they are ready to accept the misery (Laughs), it is well and good. But it is a
miserable situation. They are not happy with that. Total anarchy is a state of being
rather than a state of doing. There is no action in total anarchy; it is a state of being.
So why are we frightened of anarchy? The anarchy which you are talking about is the
destruction of the institutions which we have built with tremendous care, and of our
belief that those institutions should continue forever. So it is that we are fighting for
- to preserve them in their pristine purity.
Q: Are you not worried about the prospect of old age and the future of children
when there is no family?
A: It is society that has to take care of that problem. Why are you all paying taxes to
the government if they don't do what they are supposed to do? It is the responsibility
of each individual that he should do what he has promised to do. The problem is that
once you put these individuals in the seat of power, then there is less chance of their
sharing their power with others. And you provide them with tremendous weapons
of destruction. A man like me who expresses this view will become the enemy of the
state. They will not hesitate to destroy me. I don't care if I am destroyed. If they say,
"Don't talk," I will stop talking. I don't believe in freedom of speech at all. If they say
"Don't talk, what you are saying is a threat to mankind and to its institutions,"
goodbye, I don't want to talk. I am not interested in changing the world. But they
have promised to do certain things. You have elected them to the office; you have put
them there in the seat of power and have unfortunately provided them with the most
destructive of weapons. They will not hesitate to use them against you and me.
But in these days there is no way you can use your nuclear weapons. I often say that
if Bhutan invades India, India has no way of protecting itself. Bhutan is not going to
invade India, unless it has the backing of some powerful nations. So, we are the
puppets of these people. We are spending so much money on defense. Defense
against what? We talk of freedom of speech. If they say "Don't talk," I am not
interested in talking. I am not interested in saving individuals, and I am not
interested in saving mankind.
Q: You spoke about the state's collecting taxes and said that the state should do
everything to give security to the people and their children.
A: I do not see any reason why anybody should starve on this planet. What are you
doing to solve these problems? You may very well throw that same question at me.
But I have not set myself up in the business of running this world. They have set
themselves up in the business of ruling this or that country. What justification do you
have for the fact that forty percent of the people are allowed to starve in India today?
It is not spiritual; it is not human either. It is inhuman to let your fellow beings
starve. Religion has invented that wonderful thing called charity. Not only that, you
don't stop there, but you give a Nobel prize to somebody because of the charitable
work that particular individual is doing. That is the most vicious and vulgar thing
that the religious man has come up with today.
Every one has a right to be fed. Nature has provided us with bounty. But we are
individually responsible for the inequities of this world. Don't ask me "What are you doing about that?"" "I am not here running a crusade against these people. You have
set yourself up to solve these problems. If you don't solve them, something is wrong
not with the leaders but with the people who have put them there in the seats of
power. If they don't do what they are expected to do, change those rogues. I have no
business to tell someone how to run these governments. I am not running these
governments at all. What business do I have to tell them that this is the way you
should run the government? It is the responsibility of everybody to contribute his
might, his share. But the world remains exactly the way it has been forever. Nobody
wants any change.
Q: But you said that the state should do a number of things for the people.
A: First thing, the state has to feed, clothe, and shelter everybody.
Q: Why is it that there is a maximum number of suicides and a maximum number of
AIDS cases even in countries like Switzerland where there is so much prosperity and
high national income?
A: That is a different problem. What do you mean by 'AIDS'? Not the disease AIDS?
Q: Yes, the disease AIDS.
A: That is the mistake we have made. One of the experiments went wrong. It is easy
for us to blame the homosexuals, but the source of it is somewhere else. Did you read
it in the paper? I think it is there in the paper, that the Nizam's wife died of AIDS in
India: yes, it is there in that Society Magazine. He admitted finally that his wife died
of AIDS. Who is responsible for that I do not know. Somebody says that it is a
transfusion of blood which caused it. I don't know. I haven't read that article. I am
very frivolous in expressing my opinions. It doesn't matter. I am as well-informed as
anybody else in this world. I have seen the world.
Thank you very much.
We have expressed opinions on everything, from disease to divinity. That I can do. I
have seen a lot of the world.
If those who have had the monopoly of all the world's resources so far and for so long are threatened to be dislodged, what they would do is anybody's guess. All the destructive weapons that we have today are only to protect them.
We have arrived at a point where you cannot destroy your adversary without destroying yourself. It is terror, not love or brotherhood, that will help us to live together. Until this message percolates to the level of human consciousness, I don't think there is help.
All the political ideologies, even your legal structures, are the warty outgrowth of the religious thinking of man.
Ultimately it is force that counts. As long as it is advantageous to yourself, you talk of law. When the law fails, you use force.
I don't see any reason why anybody should starve on this planet. You may ask me what I am trying to do to solve the problem. But let me say that I have not set myself up in the business of running this world. It is they who have set themselves up in the business of ruling this or that country. If they don't do what they are expected to do, then there is something wrong, not with the leaders, but with the people who have put them there in the seats of power.
The rich nations are not going to give up what they have unless they are forced to give up. If they are forced to give up, what they would do is anybody's guess. Even if they have everything to lose, I do not think they are going to give up.
Q: What are your views regarding those who want to understand what this life is all
about?
A: The demand to understand and bring about a change in you is the one that is
responsible for the demand to understand the world and then bring about a change
in the world. They are one and the same. That is why you are interested in listening
to others. Through that listening you think you will be able to bring about a change
in you and then also a change in the world around you. Basically there is no
difference between what is here (pointing towards himself) and what is out there in the
world. There is no way you can draw a line of demarcation.
One thing that I always emphasize is that it is culture that has created us all for the
sole purpose of maintaining its status quo and its continuity. So, in that sense, I do
not see that there are any individuals at all. At the same time, the same culture has
given us the hope that there is something that you can do to become an individual
and that there is such a thing as free will. Actually there is no free will at all.
The most important thing for us to realize is that thought is a very destructive
weapon, and that thought is our enemy. However, we are not ready to accept the fact
that thought can only create problems, but cannot help us to solve them.
Q: People go to gurus and read religious texts to bring about a change in their lives.
But you completely brush aside all that. Why?
A: My point is that there is nothing there to be changed. What these gurus in the
market place are doing is to sell you some ice packs and provide you with some
comforters. But when you come to me, you find it very difficult for the simple reason
that I do not offer you any solutions to your problems. My interest is to point out that
there are actually no problems, and what we are saddled with are only solutions.
Also, we are not ready to accept the fact that the solutions that these people have
been offering us for centuries are not really the solutions. If they were really the
solutions, the problems would have been solved long ago. If they are not the
solutions, and if there are no other solutions, then there are no problems to be solved.
Q: Sweeping changes are taking place all over Europe and the Soviet Union. What
part can India play in the new scenario that is emerging all over the world? The
gurus who have been going to the West preaching Yoga and a number of other
attractive new concepts can perhaps take advantage of the situation.
A: The changes that are taking place in Russia are actually no good for Russia and no
good for the world. What has happened in Russia is that they have found suddenly,
or at least the leaders of the Soviet Union have, that their Communist system of
government has failed. But instead of finding solutions for their problems within that
framework, they are looking for them somewhere else.
I do not think India has any answers for these problems, nor do the Western nations,
for that matter. The total failure of the Communist philosophy or ideology or system
of government there in the Soviet Union has unfortunately created a void. I am afraid
that the Russian Orthodox Church will take advantage of the situation and step in. If
it stops there, there is not much of a danger. But all these cults that have thrived on
the gullibility and credulity of people in the Western nations will make a bee-line to
Russia and exploit people there. That is one thing that the Russians should try to
avoid. But there seems to be no way that this exploitation or the other things that
foreign countries are exporting to that country can be avoided. I do not see an
adequate reason why America should export organically grown potato chips to
Russia. Let me say one thing very clearly: it is not your democracy, freedom of
speech, or freedom of a hundred and ten different things that these nations proclaim,
that won Russia over to its side. It is the Coca-Cola in China and Pepsi Cola in
Russia, and then also McDonald hamburgers. That is all that the Western nations can
do there: they have created a market for people to step in and exploit.
This is what I tell even the scientists and psychologists who come to see me. In fact,
they also have come to the end of their tether. They are not able to tackle the
problems that they are confronted with today — both in the field of psychology and
in modern science. They have to find solutions only within that framework.
Unfortunately they look towards Vedanta from India, to the religious answers that
come from Japan or China. But actually those don't have any answers. If the greatest
heritage of India cannot help India, how in the name of God do you think it will help
other nations? I don't think India has any contribution to make to the world. This is
what I strongly feel.
At least you see the West has high-tech and technology to offer to those countries.
Through the help of this technology the West will probably do something to enrich
those countries. Russia has tremendous natural resources still untapped — oil, gold,
diamonds, and other things. High-tech and technology can help there. What can
India offer to those nations? I don't see that India can offer anything. It is a total mess
there. We can pat on our backs and feel that the great heritage of India has kept us
going through the centuries. But we are in a sorry mess in India. I do not think India
has anything to offer to the West. If you say that this is only my opinion, it doesn't
matter. I am not trying to win anybody over to my point of view. And there it stops.
Q: In spite of the radical changes that are taking place in the world, especially in
Europe and Russia, I find that there is a revival of the old religion.
A: The religious revivalism that you are talking about is there even in the Western
countries. There is this whole talk of "Back to Jesus," "Back to the heritage of India,"
"Back to Islam," back to this, that and the other. I am afraid that the rise of Islam not
only in the Moslem world but also in Russia and China is going make it a formidable
force. Once this cry of holy war, "Jihad," spreads around, we will not know how to
tackle that problem. I am not singing a doomsday song. That is what you are going to
face very soon. Islam is going to be a formidable force in the world.
Q: I have been to the United States and Europe. I feel there is much jubilation and
expectation in the minds of the politicians there that the world is changing for the
better. But I find suddenly this crisis in the Middle East. What do you think about the
future of the world in this context?
A: I don't know, I am not a prophet. I cannot say anything, but like anybody else, I
can hazard, if I may use the word, a view of the shape of things to come. I don't
know for sure, and nobody knows, for that matter, what will happen.
There is one thing that I want to say, emphasize, and overemphasize, that there is no
way we can reverse the whole thing. We are heading towards a disaster. Man must
realize (and there seems to be no hope of his coming to terms with the reality of the
situation) that thought and all that is born out of our thinking are the enemy of
mankind, and there is nothing to replace that. Religious revivalism is not really the
answer.
I personally feel that the basic question which we all should ask ourselves is, "What
kind of a human being you want on this planet?" Unfortunately, culture, whether it is
Oriental or Occidental, has placed before us the model of a perfect being. That model
is patterned after the behavior of the religious thinkers of mankind who have done
more harm than good. Everything that we are confronting today is a product of the
religious thinking of man. But that thinking has no answers for the future of
mankind. So if you want, you have to find answers within the framework of the
systems that have failed to deliver the goods. I don't think religious thinking has any
answers for our problems today.
The two things that we have to bear in mind are high-tech and technology. They will
help us to solve the problems of this planet. Genetic engineering and the
understanding of microbiology will take care of what kind of a human being you
want. They now say that we are genetically deficient and that the brain is
neurologically deficient in many areas. Therefore, anything that is born out of the
thinking of man is very destructive. Thought is a protective mechanism. Its interest is
only to protect itself, maintain its status quo, and preserve the continuity of the
knowledge that is passed on to us from generation to generation.
Q: What about the problems of the underdeveloped countries, like poverty and lack
of education?
A: Do you mean to say that literacy is the solution or answer for the problems of
India? We want to educate people so that they can read our newspapers, and
through the media you are going to brainwash these people. In India there are still
peasants who are not touched by the modern man. They are something unique. I
don't know. I have never visited any village recently. But I really don't think
educating people in the sense in which we are talking about, the literacy that we are
talking about, is the way to really educate people. Let me give you the example of my
grandmother. My grandmother was not a literate person, although she knew how to
read and sign papers. I learned more from her about Advaita than I did from the
professors at the University of Madras. She was not an educated woman, nor was she
an enlightened person. But she was a very practical woman. She knew all about the
great culture of India. So, educating the masses to be literate is really not the answer.
We have the tremendous power of the media at our disposal. If this power is in the
hands of the government, there is nothing that you can do to avoid its influence.
Also, if you take the example of the United States, their so-called free media are in no
way better than the media that are under the grip of the government. Both are the
same. I don't know, I am expressing a lot of opinions.
Q: I feel what you are saying is that the present technological and scientific changes
are the only answers for this world.
A: Yes, but I must say one thing. Whatever achievements we have had so far through
the help of high-tech and technology have benefited only a limited number of people
on this planet. If what they say is true, it is possible to feed twelve billion people with
the resources at our command, the resources that nature has provided us, without
the aid of high-tech and technology. But then why amongst five billion people is
there poverty and misery? The answer is very simple. We are individually
responsible for them, and it [poverty] is not some curse of the high gods.
The rich nations are not going to give up their riches unless they are forced to give
them up. You see, the nine rich nations, the nine industrial nations, sit here and
dictate their terms. Are they going to give up the whole of the natural resources of
the world? I don't think so, unless they are forced to. If they are forced to give them
up, what they would do is anybody's guess. Even if they have everything to lose, I
don't think they are going to give up anything.
Even this [
pointing to someone] man sitting here who is a pacifist will fight to the end to
protect his way of life and his way of thinking. I don't believe him at all. He will
fight. He may be a pacifist today, but tomorrow, if everything he has were to be
taken away from him, I wouldn't be surprised if he were to kill me also, his best
friend.
Q: You do not sound like much of an optimist.
A: What does it mean — the difference between an optimist and a pessimist? It is just
a very clever way of putting things — that an optimist does not give up and he still,
somehow, has faith that he can maintain his own way of life and his own way of
thinking. That is all. He would resort to any kind of force to maintain that way of life
and that way of thinking.
Q: I feel that many things you have been talking about for the last few years are
coming true.
A: I don't sit here patting myself on my back, and telling myself, or you, that "I told
you so." No, not at all. Anyway, Sir, thank you very much.
All the questions we are asking are born out of the answers that we already have.
Somewhere along the line, self-consciousness occurred in man which separated him from the totality of life around him.
The function of the brain in the body is only to take care of the needs of the physical organism and to maintain its sensitivity. But thought, through its constant interference with sensory activity, is destroying the sensitivity of the body.
There is no such thing as death at all for this body. The only death is the end of the illusion, the end of the fear, the end of the knowledge that we have about ourselves and the world around us.
There are so many freakish things in nature. If you try to copy them you are lost.
Thought is something dead and can never touch anything living. The moment it tries to touch life, it is destroyed by the living quality of life.
All that is necessary for the survival of this living organism is already there. All that we have gathered and acquired through our intellect is no match for the tremendous intelligence of the body.
Q: In listening to you and reading your two books I get the feeling that what you are
saying is that there is no self, no soul, no anything whatsoever. What you are saying
is that the whole of life lives in the physical form as experienced by the senses.
A: Not separate from or independent of the life around us. It is one single unit. I
cannot make any definitive statement, but somewhere along the line selfconsciousness occurred in man which separated us from the totality of life around us.
(We do not know for sure if there is any such thing as evolution; it is an assumption
on our part. We accept what those who are in the know of things say. Those people
have observed certain things and have established what they call a theory of
evolution.)
Q: Do you mean to say that all the life that we experience is only through the body,
through the senses, and that the body contains the whole human being?
A: What exactly do you mean by 'life'? Nobody knows anything about life, and there
is no point in defining it. Anything that we say of life is a speculation on our part.
What we are trying to understand or experience, life or whatever, is through the help
of the knowledge we have of it. But thought is something dead. It is something that
can never touch anything living. The moment it tries to touch life and capture it,
contain it and give expression to it, it is destroyed by the living quality of life. What
we mean by life, however, is not actually life but living. Living is our relationship
with the people around us, the life around us, with the whole world around us. And
that is all we know. That relationship is actually not a basic relationship, but a
relationship that is born out of our demand to become one with life. So, anything we
do, any attempt we make to become one with it, is fruitless because there is no way
we can establish any relationship with the life around us.
Q: Why do you say that we are not part of it?
A: I am not for a moment assuming or emphasizing that we are not part of it. We are
part of it. But the most important question which we should ask ourselves is, "What
is it that separates us from the life around us, and what is it that maintains the
separateness, or division, if I may use the word, all the time?" Actually, what divides
us is thought. Thought is matter. But that matter cannot stay there for long. The
moment the matter is born it has to become part of the energy again. But this
demand on our part, or on the part of thought, to maintain continuity, is the demand
that drives us to experience the same thing over and over and over again. And thus
we are maintaining this superficial, artificial, non-existent duality, division there
between our life and the life around us.
Q: Thought is considered to be part of the brain. What could be the purpose of the
brain? There seems to be a conflict between the body and the mind.
A: It is only an assumption on our part, and I would say it is a false assumption, that
thoughts are spontaneous and self-generated. They are not. Thought is only a
response to stimuli. The brain is not really a creator; it is just a container. The
function of the brain in this body is only to take care of the needs of the physical
organism and to maintain its sensitivity, whereas thought, through its constant
interference with sensory activity, is destroying the sensitivity of the body. That is
where the conflict is. The conflict is between the need of the body to maintain its
sensitivity and the demand of thought to translate every sensation within the
framework of the sensual activity. I am not condemning sensual activity. Mind, or
whatever you want to call it, is born out of this sensuality. So, all activities of the
mind are sensual in their nature, whereas the activity of the body is to respond to the
stimuli around it. That is really the basic conflict between what you call the mind and
the body.
Q: So you say that the mind, the brain has really no nonphysical traces.
A: I don't think there is any such thing as mind separate from the activity of the
brain.
Q: Would you say that the brain has no nonphysical function?
A: It is not interested in sensual activity. It is not interested in any experiences that
the mind is interested in and is demanding. It is not even interested in the so-called
spiritual experiences, the religious experiences like bliss, beatitude, immensity, and
happiness. Happiness is something which the body is not interested in. It cannot take
it for long. Pleasure is one of the things that it is always rejecting. The body does not
know, and does not even want to know, anything about happiness.
Q: Happiness is only a thinking quality, a sensual experience.
A: Happiness is a cultural input there. Is there any such thing as happiness? I would
say, no. So, the quest for happiness is a cultural input, and that is the common desire
that we know exists everywhere, in every part of the world. That is what we all want,
and that want is the most important want in human beings everywhere. Happiness,
if you want to use that word, is like any other sensation. The moment thought
separates itself from what is called the sensation of happiness, the demand to keep
that sensation going longer than its natural duration also occurs with it. So, any
sensation, however extraordinary, however pleasant it may be, is rejected by the
body. Keeping that sensation going longer than its duration of life is destroying the
sensitivity of the sensory perceptions and sensitivity of this living organism. That is
the battle that is going on there. If you do not know what happiness is, you will
never be unhappy.
Q: If you strip the body of all the psychological factors and attributes, would you say
that there is no difference between a human being and an animal?
A: Not at all. We are all like the animals. We are no different, nor are we created for
any grander purpose than the mosquito that is sucking your blood.
Q: Is there any apparent difference between a human being and the normal sensate
animal?
A: It is thinking that has separated us from the other species on this planet. It is
thinking that we want to maintain. So it is that that is responsible for all the problems
that the human mind (quote and unquote) has created.
Q: Of course, there is what is called purely biological survival. But hasn't thinking
helped man to survive in a better way?
A: As I said a while ago, it is thought which has separated us from the rest of the
species. Through the help of thinking, it has become possible for us to create better
conditions and survive longer than the other species.
Q: Why do you think that we live in this illusion, and why does it persist?
A: The illusion persists because if the illusion comes to an end, what can be called
clinical death will take place. So, if we give up one illusion, we will always replace it
with another.
Q: Why?
A: That is the thing that gives us the feeling of conquering the inevitable end called
death. That is the only death that is there. Otherwise, there is no such thing as death
at all. And death is the end of the illusion, end of the fear, end of the knowledge that
we have of ourselves and of the world around us.
Q: Now this raises the question as to what intelligence is. There is this natural
intelligence of the body, which we talked about, with the help of which the
harmonious and interrelated functions of the body are carried out. But is there an
area wherein intelligence has a function other than the physical?
A: No. You see the body doe not want to know anything. The body does not want to
learn anything. The intelligence that is necessary for its survival is already there. We
have, fortunately or unfortunately as the case may be, acquired what is called the
intellect. Through the constant use and reshaping of thought we have acquired this
intellect. Through the help of that intellect it has become possible for us to live longer
than the other species. This, in its own way, is the cause of the destruction of the
whole structure that we have created for our survival. There is no way of escaping
from this fact that the acquired intellect, which is the product of our thinking, has
helped us to survive longer than the other species.
Q: You mean to say that the intelligence that we have is in no way distinct or
distinguishable from the animal intelligence?
A: Probably in us the functioning of the body and of the brain is more evolved than
in the case of animals. It does not mean that we are any better than the other species.
If what they say is true, the human body, when broken into its constituent elements,
is no different from the tree out there or the mosquito that is sucking your blood.
Basically, it is exactly the same. The proportions of the elements may be higher in one
case and lesser in the case of the others. You have eighty percent of water in the
body, and there is eighty percent of water in the trees and eighty percent on this
planet. So that is the reason why I maintain that we are nothing but a fortuitous
concourse of atoms. If and when death takes place, the body is reshuffled, and then
these atoms are used to maintain the energy levels in the universe. Other than that,
there is no such thing as death to this body.
Q: Is the human brain more sensitive than, say, the tree?
A: If what they say is true, then probably the dog is far more intelligent than most of
the human beings in our midst today, including me.
Q: Maybe.
A: The animals don't try to change anything. That is the most important thing that
we have to understand. The demand to bring about a change in us is the cultural
input. What is there to be changed? That is my basic question. Is there anything to be
changed, radically or otherwise? I don't know. So we have to find out, for ourselves
and by ourselves "What is there? Is there an entity there? Is there a self there? Is there
an 'I' there?" My answer is "No." What is seen or felt there is created by the
knowledge we have of that, the knowledge of the self, the knowledge of the 'I', the
knowledge of the entity there that is passed on to us from generation to generation.
All that is the cultural input.
Q: Is there not a communication here between us — the two individuals?
A: Do you think that there is any communication between us? Are we trying to
establish any communication here?
Q: No, essentially no. It is more a relationship.
A: No. As long as you and I use the instrument which we are using to communicate
with each other, no understanding is possible. You are always translating every
statement of mine within the framework of the knowledge that you have — that is
what I call your reference point.
Q: The fact that we are talking, don't you think, shows that there is a physical or
physiological relationship?
A: That relationship is already there. So, what separates you from me and me from
you is the knowledge we have. But now we are trying to establish a sort of
relationship on a different level. But knowledge is not the instrument for doing it,
and there is no other instrument. If that is not the instrument and there is no other
instrument, no understanding is necessary. That is the understanding which
somehow dawned on me — that there is nothing to understand. How it occurred I
really don't know, and I have no way of knowing it. I have no way of helping
somebody to understand that that is not the instrument and there is no other
instrument. No instrument is necessary for us to create the realization that there is
nothing to understand.
Q: There are various gurus who say that there is a soul or self....
A: I know that. That is why even a saint like Ramana Maharshi, when people
pestered him with all kinds of questions like "What would you suggest for us to do?"
threw back the question "Who am I?" Even this question is not an intelligent
question, because we assume both that there is some 'I' there, the nature of which we
do not know, and that we have to inquire into its nature. As far as I am concerned,
the 'I' that I know of is the first person singular pronoun. I did not succeed and I
don't think I will ever succeed in finding out for myself that there is any other 'I'
which is used for the simple purposes of communication to separate you from me. I
say 'I' and 'You'.
Q: The consciousness of the body....
A: The consciousness of the body does not exist. There is no such thing as
consciousness at all. The one thing that helps us to become conscious of the nonexisting body, for all practical purposes, is the knowledge that is given to us. Without
that knowledge you have no way of creating your own body and experiencing it. I
am questioning the very idea of consciousness, let alone the subconscious, the
unconscious, the different levels of consciousness, and higher states of consciousness.
I don't see that there is any such thing as consciousness. I become conscious of this
(touching the arm of the chair) only through the knowledge that I have of it. The touch
does not tell me anything except when I translate it within the framework of
knowledge. Otherwise I have no way of experiencing that touch at all. The way these
senses are operating here is quite different from the way we are made to believe. The
eye is looking at the movement of your hand, and is not saying anything about that
activity, except observing what is going on there.
Q: But you can feel....
A: No. Feeling is also a translation. This touch does not say anything about the touch
per se except through the help of the knowledge that we have. You have no way of
experiencing the fact that this is 'soft' or 'hard' except through the knowledge that
you have of it. I don't know if this makes any sense to you.
Q: It makes sense to me. But it seems to me that when you do touch there is a
sensation in the body also.
A: No. That sensation is through the sense of touch. It is translated by the activity of
memory, the neurons, or whatever you like to call them, and only then you say that it
is soft and not hard. So, you can kid yourself by telling yourself that this touch is one
with feeling and not just a simple touch. But all that is superimposed on that.
Q: Can you tell me a little bit more about touch?
A: If it is left purely on the physiological level, there is no reaction on your part.
Q: Which part is it?
A: That is the physical response. It is not translated. Probably that is a kind of
pleasure for the body. I don't know. I have no way of finding out whether that is the
response of pleasure or a purely physical response to the touch. When people ask me
"Why do you smile?" I say that it is just a response like any other response to a
stimulus. "Why do you move your hand?" "Why do you make so many gestures?"
You may call all these mere gestures, but they may be there because you feel that you
are not expressing yourself adequately. You are backing your statements with these
gestures. That is only a mode of communication. We all started that way and slowly
developed language. But still you feel that you are not able to communicate things,
convey to your fellow beings whatever you are trying to say. That is why you have
these different gestures to back up and strengthen what you are trying to
communicate to others. In India they have one kind of gestures, and Americans have
a different kind of gestures. Probably even these gestures or movements of hands are
transmitted through the genes.
You know I met a lady in Italy. She was separated from her husband immediately
after she gave birth to her son. They never met for twenty years. The mother told us
that she always observed that the boy's gestures were no different from the gestures
of her husband. Of course, this may not prove anything, but merely suggests that
even these gestures might have been transmitted through the genes. We don't know
what part the genes play and how the whole thing is transmitted from generation to
generation.
Q: All this boils down to one thing: that is, that everything in us is just physical.
A: I have no way of knowing it. Even the idea of separating the body and talking
about it in terms of pure and simple physical responses may be misleading. I really
don't know.
Q: Are you a materialist?
A: I don't know. People call me a materialist. People even go to the extent of calling
me an atheist just because I say that God is irrelevant. But that does not mean that I
am an atheist. So I am not interested in what kind of labels they stick on me. Believe
it or not: it does not make one bit of difference to me. I am not trying to convince you
or win you over to anything.
When once the demand to bring about a change and to be different from what
actually is there is absent, what you are left with is something which you can never
experience. That is the reason why I said that I am just an ordinary man. But people
for their own reasons want to fit me into a framework of this, that, and a hundred
different things. I say that I am just an ordinary man. Everybody thinks that I am not
an ordinary man.
Thank you.
Q: You say that the humankind is no more important than the garden slug. Will you please comment on that?The human organism is not interested in your wonderful religious ideas — peace, bliss, beatitude, or any such thing. It's only interest is its own survival.
What society or culture has placed before us as the goal for all of us to reach and attain is the enemy of this living organism.
The demand to be prepared for all future actions and all situations is the cause of our problems. Every situation is so different; and our attempt to be prepared for all those situations is the one that is responsible for our not being able to deal with situations as they arise.
It is just not possible for us to produce enlightened people on an assembly line.
The whole of our culture or civilization is built on the foundation of killing and being killed.
We are lost in the jungle. We have tried every possible means of escape. But still we have not succeeded. There is, however, a faint hope that one day, somehow, we can get out of this jungle. But we have only to stand still and let things happen.
The brain is only a reactor responding to stimuli. The mechanism that we have implanted in it, as it were, through our education and culture, has made us believe that it is a creator.
The question "How to live?" is totally unrelated to the functioning of this living organism. It is already living all the time.
Q: How are you and I different? In perceptions? Or is there any other difference?When once it is a fact that there is no movement in any direction of improving, changing, or evolving into anything different or better, then what is there is something extraordinary.
It would be a horrible world if this planet were to be only full of Jesuses and Buddhas and all the other teachers.
Revolution only means revaluation of our value system. After a while things settle down, and then they go at it again. But it is basically a modified continuity of the same. In that process what horrors we have committed, you know!
The questions, "Is there any meaning?" "Is there any purpose?" take away the living quality of life. You are living in a world of ideas.
The belief in reincarnation is born out of the demand that something will continue after your so-called death. It is the same mechanism which wants to know what will happen after death. For some reason that mechanism, that movement of thought, does not want to come to an end. But, if you want to know if there is anything beyond, you have to die now.
Q: I wanted to ask you about love.Obviously, our relationships are not so loving. So we want to, somehow, make them into loving affairs, loving relationships. What an amount of energy we are putting into making our relationship into a loving thing! It is a battle, it is a war. It is like preparing yourself all the time for war hoping that there will be peace, eternal peace, or this or that. You are tired of this battle, and you even settle for that horrible, non- loving relationship.
When once love fails to establish the perfectly ideal relationship between two individuals, what we are left with is hate. If not hate, it is antipathy.
Sexuality, if it is left to itself, as it is in the case of other species, other forms of life, is merely a biological need, because the living organism has this object to survive and produce one like itself. Anything you superimpose on that is totally unrelated to the living organism. But we have turned that, what you call sexual activity, which is biological in its nature, into a pleasure movement.
Whether you are here, in Russia, or anywhere else, the one thing that anybody and everybody wants in this world is to have happiness without one moment of unhappiness, pleasure without pain. That is just not possible, because this living organism does not know what pleasure is, what happiness is.
You are not in living touch with anything.
Q: I want to ask you about your personal experiences, and I know you don't want to talk about them....The value system has created 'you', and there is no way you can free yourself from that. Anything you do to free yourself from that value system is adding momentum to it.
Even the idea that you should control your thought in order to be in a thoughtless or peaceful state is created by thought, so that it can maintain its continuity through some petty little experience, through some thoughtless state you are interested in.
There is no such thing as consciousness at all, let alone higher consciousness, super-consciousness or cosmic consciousness. All these notions are created by thought.
Knowledge creates images. But there is no way that this physical functioning can create any image. The so-called psychological images have no place in the scheme of things. The eyes are like a camera. If you turn the camera from what it is looking at to something else, the whole thing where it was focused on earlier is wiped out.
All ideas of time, even those of chronological time, are arbitrary. All measurements are arbitrary. We accept them as workable, that is all.
The terror that if you try to destroy people around you, you are also going to be destroyed with them, may keep us together for a little while now. Certainly, it is not love, bliss, worship, or religious thinking.
For a better view of U.G. than Frank Norohna's, consider Self and No-self [and Look inside] by Jean-Michel Terdjman 2007. Terdjman also wrote The Useless Self in 1996 that makes mention of U.G.: "What U.G. is telling us is not contradictory, incoherent or illogical." Terdjman appears to be an independent scholar (perhaps because he thinks outside the box of self-and-other most other scholars/humans think in, so is largely unread) with an interest in consciousness and the philosophy of mind. He has done what U.G. neglected to—think about (to clarify conceptually) the implications of the no-self vs the I-self narrative and clarify the apparent contradictory, incoherent, and illogical statements of U.G. and others who lack, through no fault of their own, a sense of self. Not all humans suffer from the psychopathology of having and being had by their deeply believed in self (or since there is no self, by the belief itself—the original sin error of the believing mind, the belief in Self which leads to Other errors). For those who think too much and are inclined to think outside the box, Terdjman may help clarify the mind wonderfully. He, however, believes in copyright law, so for those who would read him if they had a Kindle or were willing to install the free but proprietary Kindle Reader (data collector) on their PC, assuming they are not using someone else's computer such as one at the local library like me, then zhenhost.net/the-useless-self.html/ and zhenhost.net/self-no-self.html may be of interest.
Is there an experiencer of experience? Why paint legs on a snake? There is no apparent feeler of your feelings nor dreamer of your dreams, merely an apparent entity as believed in, the belief of all beliefs, the sense of Self and Other, that all who have are had by, possessed by an I-self existing only in the field of thought as the illusion of ego. Who is the agent doing the doing, and what is the entity thinking your thoughts? Thoughts come to the concept-forming mind when active, but no agent exists apart form the movement of information processed by neuro-movement which has neither a separate nor permanent existence.
"In this book [The Ego Tunnel: the science of the mind and the myth of the self, Thomas Metzinger, 2009], I will try to convince you that there is no such thing as a self. Contrary to what most people believe, nobody has ever been or had a self. But it is not just that the modern philosophy of mind and cognitive neuroscience together are about to shatter the myth of the self. It has now become clear that we will never solve the philosophical puzzle of consciousness—that is, how it can arise in the brain, which is a purely physical object—if we don’t come to terms with this simple proposition: that to the best of our current knowledge there is no thing, no indivisible entity, that is us, neither in the brain nor in some metaphysical realm beyond this world. So when we speak of conscious experience as a subjective phenomenon, what is the entity having these experiences?"
"Our conscious model of reality is a lowdimensional projection of the inconceivably richer physical reality surrounding and sustaining us. Our sensory organs are limited: They evolved for reasons of survival, not for depicting the enormous wealth and richness of reality in all its unfathomable depth. Therefore, the ongoing process of conscious experience is not so much an image of reality as a tunnel through reality."
"Whenever our brains successfully pursue the ingenious strategy of creating a unified and dynamic inner portrait of reality, we become conscious. First, our brains generate a world-simulation, so perfect that we do not recognize it as an image in our minds. Then, they generate an inner image of ourselves as a whole. This image includes not only our body and our psychological states but also our relationship to the past and the future, as well as to other conscious beings. The internal image of the person-as-a-whole is the phenomenal Ego, the “I” or “self” as it appears in conscious experience; therefore, I use the terms “phenomenal Ego” and “phenomenal self” interchangeably. The phenomenal Ego is not some mysterious thing or little man inside the head but the content of an inner image—namely, the conscious self-model, or PSM [phenomenal self-model]. By placing the self-model within the world-model, a center is created. That center is what we experience as ourselves, the Ego. It is the origin of what philosophers often call the first-person perspective. We are not in direct contact with outside reality or with ourselves, but we do have an inner perspective. We can use the word “I.” We live our conscious lives in the Ego Tunnel."
"An Ego Tunnel is a consciousness tunnel that has evolved the additional property of creating a robust first-person perspective, a subjective view of the world. It is a consciousness tunnel plus an apparent self. This is the challenge: If we want the big picture, we need to know how a genuine sense of selfhood appears...."
"The sense of being a person, an individual, a self is at the center of our subjective life. The concept of an autonomous self is at the center of our political and social life. Yet the self is not a clear concept. We take it for granted, but do we really know it? The question is never really asked, because the sense of self is the very core of our being; if it is questioned, the danger of falling apart, from within, is too great. ..."
"The three concepts of Error, Ignorance and Illusion define all the limitations of the human mind...."
"This book [Self and No-self] is about the self as a concept that knows itself and by so doing falls into a state of illusion. It is also about the way knowledge functions in a human being, particularly the way the mind apprehends matter and consciousness. Man cannot know the unity of matter and consciousness, because he apprehends them through concepts that mutually exclude one another. Matter is known as what is not consciousness, or has no consciousness. and consciousness is what exists but is not extended matter. It is on this separation that Descartes has built his entire philosophy which permeates man's view of the world and of himself [especially in the West], and which at the same time leads straight to the illusion of the ego. More precisely, this view is itself a direct expression of the illusion of the ego."