time and deterioration

Tradition and Revolition(J. Krishnamurti KFI) 중에서


TIME AND DETERIORATON
Dialogue 9



P: The key to your teachings appears to be in the understanding of
time. The human mind, that is, the structure of the brain cells, has
come to its present state with an in-built sense of time--as the
yesterday, the today and the tomorrow. It is along this axis that the
mind sustains itself. You appear to explode this process, to break
through and, therefore, give the mind a new state of time. How is
the time cycle to end?

What is your concept of time? The Buddha talks of the endless
cycle of births and deaths, which is the yesterday, the today and
the tomorrow, and the liberation from this cycle.

K: What is time? Is it the movement of the past through the
present to the future, not only outwardly, but also inwardly from
yesterday, to today and tomorrow? Or, is time that which is
involved in covering physical and psychological distance?--to
achieve, to fulfil, to arrive. Or, is time an ending?--as death. Or,
is time the memory of pleasant and unpleasant experience? A time
to learn and a time to forget--all these involve time. Time is not
merely a concept.

P: We know time as a sense of duration, as clock time.

K: Time is duration, a process, a continuiity and an ending. There
is not only physcal time, that is, time by the watch, but also
psychological, inward time. Time by the watch is very clear--
going to the moon requres clock tme. Is there any other time?

P: We see time by the clock, the sun settng and rising. Psy-
chological time is not different from that. If physiical time has
validity, my stating that I shall be tomorrow also has validity, not
only physically but also psychologically. All becoming is related to
the tomorrow.

K: All becoming is not only clock time, but also the desire to
become.


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P: The latter is possible only because there is a tomorrow.

K: Do you think that if there was no physical tme, there would be
no psychological time?

P: I question the distinction that you draw between the two--
physical and psychological time.

K: I go to Madras--that needs time as today and the tomorrow.
We can also see that because there is time as the yesterday, today
and tomorrow, one will become 'perfect'.

P: It is easy to see that time does not bring perfection. But the
nature of the movement of thought, the sprouting, is a projection
in time. I question the distincton you make.

K: I know that physical time exists. Even if I do not think about
tomorrow, there would be a tomorrow. Why am I sure that apart
from chronologcal time there will be a tomorrow? it is fairly clear.
This evening I will be going for a walk and between now and the
walk there is an interval of ten hours. In the same way, I am
something now, but I want to be something else. In that also time
is involved. I am asking myself if there is such time at all. If I do
not think about the walk, or about my becoming something else, is
there time?

P: Certain measurements have to be made.

K: I need only physical measurement, not psychological mea-
surement. I do not have to say: I will become that; I will fulfil; I
will achieve my ideal. All that involves time. If it does not enter
my consciousness, where is time? It is only when I want to change
this into that, that time comes into being. I have no such desire.

P: So long as there is desire for improvement, a change for the
better, which to me is a fact, there is validity to the sense of time.

K: That is. two years ago, I did not do my exercises properly. In
two years, I have learnt, improved. I apply the same kind of
argument to an inward process, which is, I say: I am this but i will
improve in two years time.

I know only physical time, and I do not know any other time.
Why do you have any other time except physical, chronological
time? Why?

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You see, what is really involved here is movement--the
movement of improvement involves both physical and psycho-
logical time. Is there any other movement except the movement of
thought? And thought which says: I have been and I will become,
is time. If thought functioned only in the movement of the
physical, would there be any other time? If there is no psycho-
logical being and no psychological time, and say: I
will be. The verb 'to be' is time.

Now what happens when you do not want to do anythng, one
way or another?

P: What would have happened if man did not have this movement
of becoming as time?

K: He would have been destroyed. So the movement of becoming
was a movement of protection.

P: Then the movement of protection as time is necessary.

K: Agreed. Protection against fire is necessary; but is there any
other form of protection?

P: Once you admit protecton against fire, the other protection is
of the same nature.

K: If the psychological is non-existent, is there need for pro-
tection?

P: What you say is true. If the other is non-existent, there is
nothing to protect. But we see that is the other.

K: You accept that there is the other; you take it for granted that
there is. But is there? I need physical protection; I need food,
clothes and shelter. physical protection is absolutely necessary;
nothng else. Physical protection involves time. But why should
there be protecton with respect to something which may not exist
at all? How can you protect me psychologically? And that is what
we are doing; we are doing something to protect that which does
not exist; and therefore we invent time. So psychologically, there
is no tomorrow; but there is a tomorrow because I need food.

P: If one sees that, in that seeing, is there the ending of time?

K: This is it. (pause) Shall we investigate further? Consciousness is

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made up of its content. Consciousness is not separate from its
content. The content of consciousness is made up of time.
Consciousness is time, and that is what we are trying to protect.
We are using time to shiield a state conditioned by time. We are
trying to protect that which has no existence.

If we look at the content of consciousness, we find memories,
fears, anxieties, the I-believe-I-do-not-believe--which are all
products of time. And thought says: This is the only thing I have; I
must protect t, shield it against every possible from of danger.
What is it that thought is trying to protect? Is it words, dead
memories, a formula which encourages movement, that makes it
move from here to there? And is there such movement except as
an invention of thought?

The movement of thought, born of memory, is from the past,
even thought it may appear to be free. Therefore, thought cannot
bring about radical change. Therefore, it is deceivng itself all the
time. When you see this, is there time at all for self-protection? If
one really understood this, one's whole actiivty would be entirely
different. Then one would protect only the physical, and not the
psychological.

P: Would that not mean a state of emptiness, a meanngless
emptiness inside?

K: If I only protect the physical and nothing else, obviously it is
like protecting a glass. Therefore one is frightened of being empty,
frighttened of meaningless emptiness. But if one sees the whole
thing, there is an emptiness which is tremendously significant.

S: Does time have a point at which there is an impact? How does
one know the texturre of time?

K: We live between regret and hope. If there is no movement, no
psychological movement backwards or forwads, what is time? Is it
height, which again means measurement? If there is no measure-
ment, no movement, no backward or forward movement, no
height and depth--actually no movement at all--is there time?
And also, why do we give such extraodinary importance to time?

P: Because time is age, decay, deterioration.

K: Follow it up. Time is decay. I see this body, young and healthy,



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getting older, dying--the whole mechanism unwinding. That is all
I know. Nothing else.

P: The mind also deteriorates.

K: Why should it not decay? It is part of the decaying process. I
brutalize the mind in order to achieve, to succeed--which are all
factors of unnatural deterioration. Then what have I left? The
dody grows old; I have regrets because I cannot walk up the hill
anymore; the psychological struggle is coming to an end, and I am
frightened. So I say: I must have a next life.

P: Does age diminish the capacity to see, to perceive?

K: No, if you have not spoilt it by scars, memories, quarrels.

P: And if you have?

K: Then you are going to pay for it.

P: Then there is no redemption.

K: At any point, the first step is the last step.

P: So time can be wiped out at any point.

K: The mind which says: Let me be aware of this whole move-
ment, and perceives totally for one second, becomes young again
for that second. But then the mind carries that over and again
deteriorates.

P: The carrying over is karma is also time.

K: There is past action, present action. Cause is
never a static thing. The effect become the cause. So there is a
constant movement undergoing change all the time.

P: Karma in itself has validity.

K: I plant the seed, it will grow. I plant the seed in the woman, and
the child grows.

P: So psycholgical time has existed as karma; it has reality.

K: No. Is it the real? When you look, it ceases. Let us look at this
question of cause and effect. I plant a seed in the earth, and it
grows. If I plant an acorn, it cannot grow to be anythng but an
Oak. What the seed is, the bush will be, or the tree will be. I cannot
change that.


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S: Can the effect be changed in psychological action?

K: Yes, of course it can be changed. You have, for whatever
reason, hit me physically or with words. Now what is my response
to that? If I hit you back, the movement continues. But what
happens if I do not react when you hit me? Because there is
observing, watching. I am out of that situation.

P: I understand at that level. I set a process in motion. I observe.
The process has ended. That act affects another. It is going to
affect others.

K: It will affect others--yours family, and the world around you.

P: The reactions arising out of my action are, in a sense, inde-
pendent of my action.

K: The wave goes on.

P: The wave is karma: a certain energy is released which will work
its consequences out unless it meets other minds which quench it.

K: The wave can only end when both of us see it the same level,
at the same time, with the same intensity. This means love.
Otherwise you cannot end it.


New Delhi
27 December, 1970