Audience
U.G., I would like to probe further into the very essence that I sense you are saying, into the revolutionary, exactly uncompromising statement that there is no self.
U. G. K.
There is no self, there is no I, there is no spirit, there is no soul, there is no mind, there is no self. So that knocks off the whole list. And what you are left with—you have no way of finding out what you are left with. That’s the situation. You may very well ask me the question, “Why do you go on telling people the way I am functioning?” It is only to emphasize that we have been for centuries using some instrument—which is thinking or mind or whatever you want to call it—to free ourselves from the whole lot of things; the I, the self, the soul, the spirit, and all that kind of things. That is what the whole spiritual quest is all about. But once it dawns on you how it dawned on me: I have no way of finding out for myself. So then these questions don’t arise at all.
Audience
No, but there are still some questions that human beings like to ask to see if they can find if there are answers to them.
U. G. K.
The answers I give are only to emphasize that what we are left with is the functioning of this living organism. How it is functioning is all that I am trying to put across, emphasize, and overemphasize all the time to somehow make you see that the whole attempt on another part to understand what we are left with is a lost battle.
Audience
Yes. But I want to begin widely with this, if I can, which is: the reality is that there is, as you were saying, only the vast cosmos, only the natural world, and everything that lives on Earth. But actually, for the individual human being—that is, for you and for me, and for everybody—
U. G. K.
And for everybody. Alright. You see, you have made a statement there—
Audience
Let me finish this. There is only the physical body and nothing else. Is that…?
U. G. K.
So even that statement cannot be experienced by what is left there once the whole thing is flushed out of your system. So the statement that we are left with—the physical body and only the universe—those statements also cannot stand anymore. I don’t know if I make myself clear.
Audience
I think you do, but I want to [???] around a bit.
U. G. K.
Alright. The more questions you throw at me, the more the need there is to emphasize the physical aspect of our existence, and overemphasize, even—that’s my favorite word—all the time that there is nothing to what we have been made to believe. All of our problems have arisen because of our acceptance that it is possible for us to understand the reality of the world, or the reality of our existence. What I am saying is: you have no way of experiencing anything that you do not know. So anything you experience through the help of the knowledge we have is fruitless. It is a lost battle.
Audience
But then you are saying that there is no non-physical elements in the human makeup, no non-physical elements in the human makeup.
U. G. K.
I am not with you. What exactly do you mean by no non-physical elements?
Audience
I mean that it is all in the actual physical body and world as it is.
U. G. K.
Yes, that is the reason why I say that the instrument which we are using to understand the reality of our existence and the reality of the world around us is not part of this mechanism that is there. So that is the reason why I say the thoughts are not self-generated, they are not spontaneous. There are no thoughts even there. If you want to find out if there is any such thing as a thought, the very question which we are posing to ourselves that there is a thought is born out of the assumption that there is a thought there. So what you will find out there is all about thought, but not thought. All about thought is what is put in by the culture, what is put in by the people who are telling us that it is very essential for you to free yourself from whatever you are trying to free yourself from through that instrument.
My interest is to emphasize that that is not the instrument, and there is no other instrument. Then once this hits you, dawns upon you, that there is not the instrument and there is no other instrument, then there is no need for you to find out if any other instrument is necessary; no need for any other instrument. This very same structure which we are using, the instrument which we are using, has in a very ingenious way invented all kinds of things like intuition, right insight, right this, that and the other. And through this very insight that we think we have come to understand something—without the help of this intellect, without the help of our thinking—is the stumbling block. All insights, however extraordinary they may be, are worthless because it is that that has created what we call, given us what we call, the insight, and through that it is maintaining its continuity, it is maintaining its status quo.
Audience
I think I might understand that, but what I am still wanting to pursue is the physical side of this, if I could, which is this: that clearly it is observable, the human organs and their interrelated functions all work harmoniously in the integrated healthy body.
U. G. K.
The master, even that is not possible to experience and understand except through the knowledge that is given to us by the physiologist.
Audience
Or by our own observation.
U. G. K.
But there is no such thing as your own observation. Your own observation is born out of the knowledge you have. This knowledge comes from the physiologist, this knowledge comes from those who have been involved in this medical technology, trying to find out how this is functioning, how the heart is functioning, however you see the whole lot of things that we have become familiar with, with the help of what they have discovered, is something which cannot be experienced by us.
Audience
Then you are saying, really, that there is no such thing as direct immediate experience.
U. G. K.
No experience at all without the knowledge. That is all that I am saying. There is no way you can experience the reality of anything except through the help of this knowledge. So what I am saying is: what you do not know, you cannot experience. What you cannot experience cannot be assumed that there is something beyond the mechanism of the experiencing structure. So in that sense there is no beyond. That beyond is projected by this to maintain its continuity.
Audience
Right, but I asked you this before: is not there the experience of touch?
U. G. K.
No. The only way you can experience the sense of touch is through this contact. That is what you call the sense of touch. So you are bringing your finger here and touching it here. So the “I” is looking at it. It does not translate the movement of that as somebody who is putting his finger here to know what exactly happens when you touch this. So the “I” cannot say that. The sense of touch does not translate for any reason unless you ask the question.
Audience
I suggest you certainly ask the “I.”
U. G. K.
The “I” is looking at it.
Audience
No, I am not looking at it.
U. G. K.
You are not “I.”
Audience
I can feel. I can feel without—
U. G. K.
It is born out of your imagination and the translation of this particular sensory touch within the framework of your past experience. At this moment, if that is not translated as a soft touch, or a hot touch, or even as a touch of your hand, touching my wrist, you have no way of separating the two and experiencing that.
Audience
Even though we are separating the two?
U. G. K.
No. Supposing you ask me the question, for whatever reason you want to know, the same knowledge you have is here in the computer. It comes out and tells me and tells you that you are touching this. The sense of touch is translating that as the soft touch, the friend who is sitting next to you.
Audience
Let me pursue it slightly a bit further. I might be walking along and I feel a breeze come. It’s not me doing anything, but it’s happening. It’s coming the other way.
U. G. K.
If you do not translate the breeze touching your body—
Audience
I can feel it, though.
U. G. K.
The feeling also is a thought. That is—
Audience
[???] identified [???]
U. G. K.
No, the moment you separate yourself from the breeze, the translation of that sensory activity is translated within the framework of the knowledge. I am not for a moment saying that you are the breeze. What I am saying is: you are affected bit it, also—all that you are saying is part of the knowledge we have. So otherwise there is no way you can separate the breeze and the body.
Audience
Right. So you are saying, really, that there is no such thing as new experience.
U. G. K.
Not at all. The demand to experience the same thing over and over and over again is the one that is waving up the whole mechanism of memory for the purposes for which it is not intended.
Audience
If it is possible for the human being to be—for memory not to be the operative factor in consciousness, is it possible? Is there any consciousness—
U. G. K.
No, I question consciousness because what we call consciousness is memory. You become conscious of something through the help of the knowledge we have, and the knowledge is locked up in the memory. You know? So the whole talk of subconscious and conscious and the levels of consciousness and all that is the ingenuous invention of the thinking mechanism. Through this cleverness, ingenuity, it maintains its continuity.
Audience
Do you make any distinction between awareness and consciousness?
U. G. K.
Awareness has no meaning to me because awareness is not an instrument to be used to understand anything, much less to use that as an instrument to bring about a change there. First of all, there is nothing there to be changed. And since there is nothing there to be changed, whether you use awareness or any other instrument to bring about a change is irrelevant. So awareness can never be separated from the activity of the brain. Never be separated. So that is the reason why I always describe what is happening in physical terms. So if you want to save this physical activity—the sensory activity, if I may put it that way—the reflection of that whatever it is on the retina is to experience that without naming. This clever game we are playing with ourselves, that recognition is separate from naming. The recognition and naming are one and the same. So whether I name it or not, the very recognition of you as a man, that means the naming is already there—whether I use the word or not. So that is the reason why I point out to the people who say that the word is not the thing. The word is the thing. If the word is not the thing, what the hell it is? So it is alright for the philosophers to sit and discuss everlastingly that the word is not the thing. That implies that there is something there other than the word. So you cannot accept the fact that the word and this object—even if you say it is an object without using the word “table” means that there is a separation. What I am trying to tell you is that the one thing I can tell you is how this division, separateness, is occurring.
Audience
The separation is really the beginning of the duality of that. The duality of that is the [???] what it is.
U. G. K.
I will never tell myself and tell you that I am the table. That is too absurd. Too absurd. So what I am saying is that there is no way you can separate yourself on your own free will and volition, except when there is a demand from outside. You ask the question. See, what is that? So you and I have the same information in the memory—whether you use French word, English word, German word, Latin word, it doesn’t matter. The reference point is the table you are asking me. So I say: it is a table. It is a white table. You and I have the same information. When the question is not there, I would at no time look at it and tell myself that it is a table. It does not mean that I am choicelessly aware of that. What is there is only the reflection of this object and the retina. Even this statement cannot be experienced by me, because the stimulus and response is one unitary movement. The moment you see there is awareness, there is already a division.
Audience
Why do you assume that we maintain this division, this duality, this separation, this self, this—
U. G. K.
That is the only—that means you are coming to an end. You as you know yourself, you as you experience yourself. That “you” is the identity there. So through the constant demand of using the memory, it maintains its continuity. If that is not there, you don’t know what will happen. So that is why the “freedom from the known” phrase is very attractive—up to a point. When once you are free from the known, there is no way you can say anything about it. So if I am listening to somebody like you talking about the need for freedom from the known, your emphasis that there is a need to free yourself from the known has already become part of it. This has survived for millions and millions of years. It knows every trick in the world. It will do anything to maintain its continuity.
Audience
So think he has no place really in understanding.
U. G. K.
There is no thinking at all. If there is no thinking, there is no thinker. If there is no thinker, there are no thoughts, even. So you can’t say that there are only thoughts if there is no thinker. The thoughts are not from here, they are coming from outside. The translation of a sensory perception within the framework of your experiencing structure is thought. So using those thoughts to achieve a goal.
Audience
You know, I’ve often wondered about this thinking, because thinking is itself sequential. We are sitting here in this room, and it’s all here, but if I think about it, thinking itself is time.
U. G. K.
No, no. You can try that. I am not your teacher. No, no, no. You see, what is happening is a mechanical thing. Like a computer. It is mechanically operating and trying to find out if there is any information there in the computer about what we are trying to do. Say: let me see, let me think. You are not, you say, “let me think” is just a statement you are making, but no further activity on the part of thinking is taking place there. You have an illusion that there is somebody who is thinking and bringing out. You see, this is no different from this extraordinary instrument we have, the word-finder. So you press the button, and “ready,” it says. Then you ask for the word, “searching” it says. That searching is thinking. But it is a mechanical process, that word-finder, the computer, there is no thinker there. So when once it comes out, you think that’s the product of thinking, that’s the illusion there. There is no thinking there at all. If there is any information, it is working it out and throws out. You see, you know?
That’s all that is happening. It’s a very, very mechanical thing. We are not ready to accept that it is so mechanical, because it knocks off the whole image we have that we are not just machines. It’s an extraordinary machine. It’s no different from the computers we have which we are using. But this is something living, you see. It has a living quality to it. It’s a vitality. It’s not just that. Mechanically, it carries with it the life energies like the current, and these are not two different things, but there they are two different things.
Audience
You know, one of the things that the human being normally goes on with is imagination.
U. G. K.
Yes, the fact that you experience the totality of your body is born out of your imagination. Actually, there is no way you can experience the totality of the body. So what you experience as the heaviness of the body is due to the gravitational pull. So the body’s heaviness is your experience. So sometimes when the thoughts are not in operation in the case of everybody, the thoughts slow down. That’s the time when you feel heavier than the heaviest object. You feel as if you weigh 640 kilos, or suddenly you feel as if you are walking on the air. You know, these are all the actual functioning of the body, which they have described in some spiritual terms, and give so much importance to those things.
Audience
The people in this imagination area, they think that unfettered thinking, unfettered things, sometimes can come up with new possibilities, of ways in which you can live more fruitfully or more easily or more pleasurably on this Earth.
U. G. K.
Well, that’s something that is not valid and true, that statement.
Audience
No, but this is what people assume. That if you have a—you can think up what you’d like to do, and then do it.
U. G. K.
See, it works in—you know, we have a mathematical law. We think we are thinking about mechanical problem. You come out with an answer and say that this is the product of your thinking. So sometimes you know in your case, in the case of some people, that they exhaust all the possibilities, the variations and combinations of finding out the solution of a particular mathematical problem or a scientific problem. You go to sleep, you are tired, and you wake up, the answer is there. So it has a chance of working out on his own because the demand to find the answer is not there anymore. It is not exhausting. So you come out with the answer. See, that is the possible only in the area of mechanical instruments, mechanical problems. That cannot help us to solve the living problems. There is no way we can use that to solve the human problems we have. That’s why it has failed to solve all the problems. It has not touched anything there. All of our beliefs have not touched anything there. We don’t know what we would do in a given situation. You can say that I am going to be a nonviolent man—what I would do in a given situation, you will never know. The demand to be prepared for all actions in all situations is the cause of all this. Every situation is different. And our preparedness to meet that situation with this knowledge we have of answering, dealing with those situations, cannot help us.
Audience
Then what meets the living challenge?
U. G. K.
I don’t know the way you are putting— yes?
Audience
For the questions. You meet a new situation—
U. G. K.
It is not a challenge. It is not a challenge. The inadequacy of using what you are preparing yourself, and how to deal with this situation, is absent today. It ceases to be a challenge. Ceases to be a challenge. That is why I say there are no problems there. We create the problem. If the solutions we are offered by those people are really not the solutions. If you don’t have a problem, you create a problem. You cannot live without a problem.
Audience
That’s right. What you are saying in one sense is that the human being is really not different from the animal.
U. G. K.
I must admit that probably we are far more evolved than the other animals. And that’s an advantage to us in functioning in a better way. I don’t like to use the word “better”—more natural ways. We are freed from the dangers, of meeting… the possibility of meeting with the end of us can be handled with the highly evolved structure which we are operating. I don’t know. That is why what we call the psychic powers, the clairvoyance, clairaudience, is there already in the animals. We also have them in us. In the case of some, for some reason—through their techniques of meditation, through all kinds of debates—they have slowed down the thought. Then they experience these things temporarily, and they think that they are all spiritual experiences.
So probably in our case, you see, our mechanism is more sensitive, more sensitized than in the case of the animals. I don’t know. I cannot make any different statements. There is no way you can really understand how the animals are functioning. Really. Really no way. All these gimmicks, all these ideas of experiencing your birth again, re-birthing, this, that, and other things, it’s absolute rubbish because you are trying to go back to your time of your birth and experience your own birth from this point. So what you are experiencing is not the experience of your own birth, but from where you are, using all these experiences, you are coloring that and think, imagine, that you are experiencing your own birth. I think this is good for marketing their re-birthing business.
Audience
Why do you think if the human being is more sensitive and has developed certain traits and qualities, why is it that we are such masterful destroyers of the Earth and the air and the water, and destroyers of ourselves?
U. G. K.
As I said last time, there is separateness from the totality of things around us and the idea that the whole thing is created for our benefit, and that we are created for grander and nobler purposes than all the other species on this planet, is the cause of the destruction. And we have said, you see, this powerful use of thought is destructive. Thought is self-protective mechanism. So anything borne out of thought is destructive. Whether it is a religious thought, or a scientific thought, or a political thought—all of them are destructive. So we are not ready to accept that thought is our enemy. And we don’t know how to function in this world without the use of thought.
Audience
We don’t know. That’s right.
U. G. K.
So you can invent all kinds of things and try to free yourself from the stranglehold of thought, but there is no way we can accept the fact that that is not the instrument to help us to function sanely and intelligent in this world. It’s a self-detecting mechanism. Now it controls, molds, shapes, power, ideas, and actions. Idea and action, they are one and the same. There is no—all of our actions are borne out of ideas. All ideas are thoughts passed down to us from generation to generation. Thought is not the instrument to help us to live in harmony with the life of us. That’s why we will certainly create all these ecological problems—the problems of pollution, the problems of destroying ourselves through the most destructive weapons that we have invented so far. There is no way out. You may say that I am a pessimist, that I am a cynic, that I am this, that, and the other, but I hope one day we will realize that the mistakes we have made will destroy everything. The planet is not in danger. We are in danger. We are in danger.
Audience
Now if we are, I want to get into another aspect of this which, would you say that the desire to survive which seems to be—the brain keeps the body and keeps it sensitive and awake and protects it. But where comes this desire to survive beyond the death of the body and its inevitable demise?
U. G. K.
Because you know in a way that what you know of yourself is coming to an end in death. So you have lived sixty, seventy, eighty, hundred years of life. You have gained so many experiences. You have achieved so many things. You have accomplished, attained so many things. Is that coming to an end, leaving behind nothing? So naturally it creates something beyond.
Audience
Why do you think that then we have allowed an illusion, an unreality, to persist in consciousness or in human thought or in human consciousness? What is passed on?
U. G. K.
You are not separate from illusion. You are the illusion. If the illusion goes, you think the illusion is gone, but it is always replaced with another illusion. The ending of the illusion is the ending of you. That’s the death. The ending of belief is the ending of you. That is death. So death is not the poetic, romantic death of dying [???]. Physical death is the only thing that will flush out what all culture has put in there.
Audience
Right. But in a small and minor way I can see through an illusion that I might be holding, and for it to die or fall away. Would that—
U. G. K.
That is another illusion. The illusion is that the seeing is the ending. There is no way you can see; separate yourself and see. But seeing is the illusion. The seer is the illusion. He tells himself that seeing is the ending, but it does not end! So the seer does not want to come to an end. The seer is the illusion. It’s not a hypothetical thing. The seer is the illusion. Through the invention of what is called “seeing the illusion is the ending,” the seer is gathering momentum. He is continuing.
Audience
Right. Yes, yes, yes.
U. G. K.
The moment you want to see something, you have separated yourself from it. The seer has come into being and, through seeing, is maintaining its continuity. That is why seeing has not helped us. It has not handed anything in.
Audience
All this leads me to ask you whether this dialogue, our talking together now, our interplay, or whatever you like to call it, is a physical exchange only? This interplay that is going on now?
U. G. K.
I really don’t want to repeat again and again. This is just a puppet sitting here. And you are puppets sitting here, too. Two puppets, two computers, two tape recorders playing. That’s all.
Audience
But it is a—what you are saying… in listening to you, there is a change in the…
U. G. K.
No. Not at all. You are not even listening. There is no such thing as the order of listening. You are not listening. Listening is not an instant truth. It is interpreting.
Audience
I am aware of that. But surely there is—when you see something, I am trying to put a key in the door and stop feeling that I am aware of the stuff working.
U. G. K.
We don’t have to use all those, “I am aware of this, and that, and the other.” That is why what they call this, Alzheimer’s disease which is hitting everybody. I read in some magazine that it is hitting, it has hit already the famous musician. What is his name? Frank Sinatra. Yes. It’s there is one of your—
Audience
Is he that old?
U. G. K.
He is very young, seventy years. In his early seventies. So they give this example, you see, of how does a person suffering from what is called Alzheimer’s disease function? You have the key there in your hand. You don’t know how to use the key and open the door.
Audience
Right. Now, if I can. This is the last question to you. Then really, what you are saying is that the body has an enormous intelligence, because all these functions go on, interplay beautifully in their own way.
U. G. K.
And our interest to teach the body something in which it is not intelligent is causing, creating problems to the body.
Audience
Right. Is there anything else that you would like to—
U. G. K.
To say what? I have said a lot now.
Audience
Yes, you certainly have. You certainly have. But just, right back out of the physical again, though, it seems that actually there is nothing else but to let the sensitivity of the brain, the body, to itself.
U. G. K.
To leave it alone. If there is pain, you take some painkiller for a little—no, no, no, I am not saying that you should do nothing and let the body suffer, you see, go through pain. If there is some way of—no, you see, you are adding more to the pain actually. So as long as I am there, I might as well take a pill and free myself from the pain temporarily. Because there is no special charm, spiritual or otherwise, to prove to ourselves and to others that we can endure pain. That’s not what we are talking about. So all we can do is to leave that alone to its own functioning without interfering all the time. So we think we know a lot more, we think that we know what is good for that body. And that is why we are creating problems for them. It knows what it wants to know, so it doesn’t want to know anything from us. It doesn’t want to learn. If we understand that it’s a simple relationship that the thought and the body has, then probably it will allow it to function and use the thought only for functional purposes. It is functional in value, and it cannot help us to achieve anything. Any of the goals we have placed before us are the cultural issues.
Audience
You know, I have a feeling through many different sort of things that have happened, and I’m not bringing the past through this, but the really pain to me is that there is no such thing as physical pain.
U. G. K.
No, it is the healer process. Pain is the healing process. It cannot heal itself, it goes, goes away. But we are paranoid. We are over-anxious to see that we don’t suffer. I’m not saying that you should not take the help of any help that is available to us. There’s no point in suffering. That’s not what I’m saying. Not like these Christian scientists suffer and say don’t go to a doctor. It’s not that I’m saying it. Anything we say now, what we would do in a given situation is anybody’s guess.
Audience
Thank you, UG.
U. G. K.
Thank you. How long?
Audience
38 minutes.
U. G. K.
That’s enough. You know, the problem with me and what the business of these radio interviews, television interviews in India and elsewhere—we feel that there is no summing up.
Audience
That’s right. That’s—do you want to sum it up?
U. G. K.
I don’t want. I never do that. We just talk and leave it at that. If they make some sense of it, let them make some sense out of it. If they don’t, my interest is not only here. When I meet people and talk to them, I wish they wouldn’t remember anything that we discussed. Go out without any—if you remember anything, it’s lost. It’s lost. Not that it is something in a mysterious way, it is affecting us, there is something affecting the whole of human consciousness—nothing. Nothing, you know?
Audience
I agree. I really do think, if I might, that the pain really is—oh, I’m sure.
U. G. K.
It is trying to heal itself. If it can—
Audience
I don’t know why, but I’m not contradicting what you said, or even trying to, but I—because the pain is already in the body, it’s already in, in—so I don’t know why… I have found really, over about twenty years now, literally, that whenever pain comes I just—because it’s already here, it’s not a matter of mine. So I think that… I have not had… I have had… you have… teeth and all sorts taken out. [???] It doesn’t happen here, strangely.
U. G. K.
But what I am suggesting is that there is no special charm in suffering. If there is any—
Audience
I should say there is suffering, is what I am saying. There is no suffering.
U. G. K.
If some helping hand can be given to make it a little bit bearable, I don’t see any point in suffering. That’s all I am saying.
Audience
If we come back please—if the pain is already… it’s in your knee or your back or your head or wherever. It’s already there.
U. G. K.
May I say something? Anything we discuss about pain has no meaning, because we are not having pain in this time. Then we wouldn’t discuss. Some action is there.
Audience
I said the action is you don’t have to do anything.
U. G. K.
No, you don’t have to run there to the doctor or anything. Nothing. I don’t rush to a doctor, you see, all the time. Maybe when time comes, when tooth hurts, have to be replaced, then we see. There is no special charm in going around a toothless man. I don’t see any point in that.
Audience
Quite right.
U. G. K.
Right, thank you. We have enough, Julie? 38 minutes we talked?
Audience
41.
U. G. K.
41?
Audience
It’s just gone up to 41.
U. G. K.
Come on, let us see before what you have made out of that. Cut! I don’t say anything new any time. Same thing repeated again and again.