stability and knowledge

STABILITY AND KNOWLEDGE

Dialogue 23



SW: I perceive a tree. Then an idea arises from memory which
says: This is a mango tree. This idea comes in the way of my
looking at the tree and, so, I am not able to see the fact of the tree.
This screen of ideas interferres with the present, and there is no real
perception.

K: Are you asking, sir, what relationship is? What is the rela-
tionship between the observed and the observer? What does it
mean to be related, to be in contact? Relationship means to be
related. The relationship between two people; the relationship
between the concept, the ideal and the conceiver of the ideal; the
relationship of the one with the many; the relationship between
one thought and another thought and with the interval between
thoughts; the relationship between the present and the future as
death; the relationship between the world and myself--all that is
involved in relationship, is it not? I may renounce the world, I may
live in a cave, but I am still related to my whole background, and
the background is me. I think relationshp mplies all that. (pause)

A: We always think of relationship in isolation and not as a part of
the whole; relationship is always with something.

K: Can there be a relationship if there is a centre, an observer to
whom you are related? When the centre feels it is related to
somethng, is that relationship?

A: It has been pointed out that it is only when I feel related to
somethiing that the 'I' as the centre is strengthened. The centre
assumes a cohesive character only through its fragmented parts.

K: How do we discuss this? Where do we begin with this vast
subject?

A: Would you start with belief, because belief is the basis of all
relationship?

K: What does relationship mean to you?

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A: To be in communication.

K: What does relationship mean to you? When you look at me, at
her, in what way are you related to me, to her? Are you related?

A: I think so.

K: Let us examine it. I look at you, you look at me. What is our
relationship? Except for a verbal relationship, is there a relation-
ship at all?

R: There is a feeling of relationship when there is a movement
towards something.

K: If both of us are moving towards an ideal, going together to a
point, is that relationship? Can there be relationship when each
one is in isolation?

SW: The first question you asked was: Can there be relationship if
there is a centre?

K: If I have built a wall of resistance, of self-protection around
myself consciously or unconsciously, in order not to get hurt, in
order to be safe, is there any relationship at all? Do look at this. I
am afraid because I have been hurt physically as well as psycho-
logically; my whole being is wounded, and I do not want to be
wounded any more. So I build a wall of resistance, of defence, of 'I
know-you don't know' around myself, to feel completely safe from
futther hurt. Having done that, what is my relationship with you?

A: What do you mean by relationship in our daily life?

K: Why do you ask me? Look at yourself. What takes place in your
normal daily life? You go to the office; you are bullied, insulted by
soneone at the top; with your wounded pride you come home;
your wife nage you; you withdraw further but yet you sleep with
her. Have you any relationship?

A: That means that when there is a centre there is no relationship.

R: But there is ordinary goodwill.

K: Is there goodwill if I live within an enclosure, within this wall of
resistance? What is my goodwill towards you then? I am polite but
I keep my distance; I am always behind my wall.


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SW: Even in the life of an ordinary man there are some relation-
ships which are not always from behind a wall.

A: You say that there is no relationship; but the fact is that in life
we are committed to one another; we do not act on the basis of
self-interest alone.

K: You say that you are acting in the interest of the other; is that
really so? I follow the leader who hopes to revolutuonize society
inwardly and outwardly; I follow him and I obey; I commit myself
to a course of action that both my leader and I have agreed to. Is
there a relationship between me and the leader who is working for
the same end? Relationship means 'to be in contact with; to be in
close proximity to'.

A: The basis of this relationship is utility.

K: So the basis of our relationship is utilitarian.

R: If you apply that test, then there is no relationship.

K: There is an idea, a formula, a pattern, a goal, a principle, a
utopia we agree upon, but is there relationship?

A: Is relationship then merely an idea?

K: You are not addressing the deeper issue here, which is: As long
as there is an observer who is committing himself to a course of
action, is there a relationship between you and me?

A: Is there no relationship between two people?

K: This is really an enormous problem, sir. Am I related to that
tree when I look at it? Relationship is a distance between me, as an
observer,and the tree, which is the observed. When there is a
distance between the observer and the observed, is there any
possibility of relatioship? I am married and have built an image of
my wife, and she has built an image of me; the image is a
dtatancing factor. Is there any relationship between us apart from
the physical one? All of us co-operate to do something; it brings us
together. But I have my own worries, and she has her own
agonies. We are working together, but are we related?

A: Sir, this point of working together has been understood, but not
the other.


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K: Just a minute. I belive it took three thousand people working
together to build the rocket, each man working to create a perfect
mechanism; each man put aside his idiosyncracies and there was
what is called 'co=operation' between them. Is that real co-opera-
tion? When you and I with common motives work together to
build a house, we are still separate human beings. Is that co-
operation? When I look at a tree, there is a distance between me
and the tree; I am not 'in relationship' with the tree. That distance
is not created by the physical space; it is created by knowledge.
Therefore, what is relationship, what is co-operation and what is
the factor of division?

SW: Images in one form or another divide.

K: Go slowly. There is that tree. I look at it. The physical distance
between me and that tree may be a few yards, but the avctual
distance between me and that tree is vast. though I look at it, my
eyes, mind, heart--everything--is very far away. That distance is
incalulable. In the same way, I am very far away in co-operative action.

SW: Is the word, the image, interfering in all this?

K: We are going to find out. There is the word, the image, and the
goal towards which both are co-operating. What is dividing you
and me is the goal.

SW: But there is no goal with regard to the tree.

K: Just stay there. Do not jump ahead. We think that working
together for a goal has brought us in contact. But, in fact, the goal
is separating us.

A: No. How can you say that the goal is dividing us?

K: I do not know; I may be wrong. We are investigating. You and I
have a goal; we work together.

SW: Is it a question of becoming?

K: Do look at it. I say that goals divide people; a goal does not
bring people together. Your goal my goal are separate; they
have dividied us. The goal itself and not co-operation, which is
irrelevant, has divided us.


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SW: I see one thing: where two people come together for the joy
of something, that is different.

K: When two people come together out of affection, love, joy,
then what is the action which does not divide? I love you, you love
me, what is the action out of that love?--Not movement towards a
goal. What is the action between two people who love?

A: When two people come together in affection, it may produce a
result, but they are not comming together for the result. Therefore,
in any such coming together there is no division. Whereas if two
people come together with a goal, that is a divisive factor.

K: We have discovered something. Do go into it. I see that when
people come together with affection, when there is no goal, no
purpose, no utopia, then there is no division. Then all status
disappears and there is only function--then I will sweep the
garden because it is part of the needs of the place.

R: For love of the place--

K: Not love of the place. But love. You see what we are missing.
Goals divide people--the goal being a formula, an ideal. I want to
see what is involved here. I see that as long as I have a goal, a
principle, a utopia, that very goal, that very principle divides
people. Therefore it is finished for me.

Then I ask myself: How am I to live, to work with you without a
goal? I see that relationship means to be in close contact, so that
there is no distance between the two. And I also see that there is a
vast psychological distance in the relationship between the flower
and myself, my wife and myself; therefore I am not related at all.
So what am I going to do? I tell myself that I must commit myself
to the family, to the trees, lose myself in devotion to the goal, and
work together. Intellectuals tell me that the goal is more important
than the person, that the whole is greater than the part. So what
am I doing?

I love nature, I love my family. So I commit myself to the idea
that we must all work together for an end. What is happening to
me? What am I doing?

SW: Isolating myself.

K: No sir, look at what is happening.


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A: The fact is I am not related. I struggle to build a relationship, to
bridge the gap between thought and thought. I have got to build
this bridge between thought and thought because unless I do this, I
feel absolutely isolated. I feel lost.

K: That is only a part of it. Go into it some more. What is
happening to my mind when it is struggling to commit itself to
everything--to family, to nature, to beauty, to working together?

SW: There is a lot of conflict there, sir.

K: I realize, as A has pointed out, that I am not related to
anything. I have come to that point. Not being related to anything
and wanting to be related. I commit myself, I involve myself in
action; and yet the isolation goes on. So what is going on in my
mind?

R: There is a constant struggle.

K: You have not moved away from that point. i am not related,
but i try to be related, i try to identify myself through action. What
is going on in my mind? (pause)

I am moving on the periphery. What happens to the mind when
it moves on the outside all the time?

SW: The escaping from myself.

A: What does that mean? Do look at it. nature becomes very
important, the family becomes very important, and the action to
which I have committed myself becomes very impartant. But what
has happened to me? Every relationship has been comletely
externalized.

Now, what has happened to the mind that has externalized the
whole movement of relationship? What happens to your mind
when it is occupied with the external, with the periphery?

SW: It has lost all sensitivity.

K: Do look at what happens inside you. In reation to the
externalizing process you withdraw, you become a monk. What
happens to the mind when it withdraws?

SW: It is incapable of spontaneity.


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K: You will find the answer, if you really look. (pause) What
happens to your mind when you withdraw or when you are
committed? What happens to the mind when you withdraw into
your own conclusions? In place of one world you create another,
which you call the inner world.

SW: The mind is not free.

K: Is that what has happened to your mind?

SW: It remains committed.

K: The mind is committed to outward phenomena, and the
reation to that is the inward commitment, the withdrawal. The
commitment to the inward, to mystical experience, to your own
world of imagination, is a reaction.What happens to the mind that
is doing this?

R: It is occupied.

K: Is that what is going on? She says that it is occupied. Is that all?
Put your guts into it. The mind externalizes its activity and, then,
withdraws and acts. What happens to the quality of the mind, to
the brain which is withdrawing and externalizing?

A: it does not face the fact.

R: There is a great fear. it becomes dull.

SW: It is not free to look.

K: have you watched your mind when it is externalizing its
actions, both outward and inward action? The inward and the
outward movement are the same--like a tide going out and
coming in. What happens to the mind which is going outward and
withdrawing inward?

A: It is becoming mechanical.

K: It is a mind without any bearing, without order, completely
unstable. because there is no order in the whole movement, it
becomes neurotic, unbalanced, without proportion, inharmoni-
ous, destrutive.

A: It is restless.

K: therefore such a mind has no stability: it invents external goals


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or it withdraws. But the mind mind needs order. Order means stability.
The mind tries to stability in relationships in the external
workd and, not finding it out there, withdraws, trying to find it
within, and is again caught in the same process. is this a fact?
(pause)

The mind tries to find stability in co-operative action; it tries to
find stability in the family; it tries to find stability in commitments,
in relationship with nature. And not finding stability in any of
these, it becomes romantic, which breeds further instability. It
withdraws into a world of infinite conclusions, utopias, hopes,
dreams, and invents an order in that. The mind which is unstable,
narrow, not rooted in anything, gets lost. Is that what is happening
to you?

R: That explains the cult of the beautiful--

K: The cult of the becautiful, the cult of the ugly, the hippies' cult.
Is that what is happening to your mind? Beware. Do not acept
what I am saying.

So, a mind which is not stable, that is not firm, not deeply
rooted in order (not an invented order, for an invented order is
death), is destructive. It goes from communism to the guru, from
Yoga-Vasistha to Raman Maharsi; it is caught in the cult of the
beautiful, the cult of the ugly. the cult of devotion, of meditation,
and so on.

How is the mind to be still? Action which flows from that
stillness is entirely different. See the beauty of it, sir.

A: That is the dead end of the mind.

K: No, sir. I am asking myself: How is the mind to be comptelely
stable?--not the stability of hardness, but a flexible stabitity. The
mind that is completely stable, firm, deep, has its roots in infinity.
How is this possible? I realize that my mind is unstable, and I
understand what that means: I know for myself that the mind is
born of instabiltity; I know that and, so, I negate it: and I ask: What
is stability? I know instability, with all its destructive activity, and
when I put all that away, what is stability? I sought stability in the
family, in work, and I have sought stability inwardly, in with-
drawal, in experience, in knowledge, in my own capacities, and in


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God. I see that I do not know what stability is. The not-knowing is
the stability.

The man who says: I know, therefore, I am stable, has led us to
this chaos, as have the people who say: We are the chosen ones.
And all the vast numbers of teachers and gurus have said: We
know. Rejecting all that, rely on yourself, have confidence in
yourself. When the mind puts aways all this, when it has under-
stood what is not stable, and realized that it cannot know true
stability, there is the movement of harmony--because the mind
does not know.

The mind then moves from the truth of not-knowing. That truth
is stable. The mind that does not know is in a state of learning. But
the moment it syas: I have learnt, it has stopped learning and that
is the stability of division. So the mind says: i do not know; and the
truth is that it does not know. That is all. That gives the mind the
quality of learning, and in learning there is stabiltity. Stability is in
the learning, not in the 'I have learnt'.

See what all this does to the mind: It completely unburdens the
mind, and that unburdening is freedom--the freedom of not-
knowing. See the beauty of it--the not-knowing, therefore free-
dom.

What happens to that part of the brain which functions in
knowledge? To function from memory to memory is part of its
funtion, isn't it? The brain finds tremendous security in know-
ledge. Biologically speaking, that security is necessary, otherwise
it culd not survive. Now, what happens to the brain which says: I
really don't know anything apart from what is necessary for
biological survival? The brain which was once tethered is now free;
it is not occupied; it can act but it is not occupied. That brain has
never been touched; it is no longer capable of being hurt. There is
a new brain born, or the old brain is purged of its preoccupations.


Rishi Valley
28 January, 1971