the paradox of causation

Tradition and Revolition(J. Krishnamurti KFI) 중에서











THE PARADOX OF CAUSATION

dialogue 12




GS: In physics we have certain unsolved problems: If the world is
fully causal, you cannot change anythng. If the world is not fully
causal, you cannnot find any laws for such a world. Either the world
is causal or it is not. If you think of cause and effect as one single
entity, if all the world is one and there is no separation into pieces,
then of course there is no cause and effect.

If the whole universe is physical and suffers physical laws, then
you have no choice. In the case of purely physical things, there are
no options. Even if the soul, or whatever it is, were different from
the kind of things that we are talking about, it still would have no
special significance if it were subject to physical laws. You cannt
say that there is no cause-effect relationship because it is not
natural. You cannot also accept cause and effect because then
there would be no control over it, and so what would be the point
in saying that? This is the paradox. What is the way out of this
paradox?

K: Are you talking of karma?

GS: No. The physical universe is closed; there is no movement
here at all.

K: All this implies time, does it not? That is, anything put
together, horizontally or vertically, is time. Cause and effect are in
time. Cause becoming effect, and the effect becoming the cause
are all within the field of time. Whether I move my hand up this
way or move my hand that way, that is, whether the movement is
horizontal or vertical it is within the field of time. Are you asking,
sir: Can move out of time?

GS: No. The experience of a physical law is within time. One does
not ask questions within that law. And what option does one have?

K: None at all. You can operate within the prison, but that would
always be within the field of time; cause-effect and effect-cause are

page 63

within the field of time. Memory, experience, knowledge are
within time, and thught is the respnse of all that. If I have no
memory, I cannot think; I will be in a state of amnesia. And
thought is the response of memory. Thinking is within the field f
time because iit is put together through experience, knwledge,
memory--and memory is part of the brain cells.

So thought can never moove out of the field of time, because
thought is never free; thought is always old. In the interval
between two thoughts, one may come upon something new, and
translate it in terms of time. There s a gap between two thoughts;
in that interval there might be a different perception. The trans-
lation of that perception is time, but the perception itself is not of
time.

GS: I have serveral questions to ask here.

K: Go slowly. Living in time, when thought, which is put together,
tries to nvestigate something beyond time, it is still thought; living
in time, there is nothing new. So, as long as thought and time are
within the field, it is a prison; I can think it is freedom but it would
be merely a conception, a formula. It is like a man who is violent
and pretends he is non-violent. The whole ideoloogical conception
in this country of being non-violent and violent at the same time is
a pretension.

So, as far as thought functions, it must function within the field
f time. There is no escape from it at all. I can pretend that I am
thinking outside time, but it is still within time. Thought is old,
whether it is about the atman or about the super ego; it is part of]
thought.

GS; Where is the way out of the paradx?

K: The intellect, thought functions there, and we are trying to find
an answer here--as physicists, biologists, mathermaticians, as a
bourgeois or as a sannyasi.

GS: But there are laws in physics.

K: Of course there are. This is anyhow a madhouse, and we are
trying to find an answer within it. This is a fact. I have to accept it
as it is. Then my question is: Is there an action which is not of this?
Here all action is fragmentary: you are a religious man; I am a
scientist. In this everything is in a state of fragmentation.


page 64



K: Of course, but these laws have not solved human problems.
Apart from being a physicist, you are a human being. Take the
problem as it is--that human being live in fragments, that society
is broken up. Thought is responsible for this.

GS: Thought is also responsible for all other things.

K: Surely. It is responsible for the inventions, the discoveres, the
gods, the priests, the yogis--everything. So that is what actually
is. The problem is how to live here and find something else. You
cannot. The question is not how to intergrate the various frag-
ments, but how it is possible to live without fragmentation.

GS: To the extent to which it is possible, you have no questions. At
that point it ceases to be physics; at that level I am no longer a
physicist.

K: Of course. If you are first a human being, a nn-frragmentary
human being, your action can then be non-fragmentary.

GS: For the non-fragmented person, physics dooes not exist.

K: What is the importance of an artist?

GS: He transports people into states which they themselves are not
able to reach--still fragmentary, but different.

K: Being fragmented, he needs self-expression‎; and his self is part
of the fragmention. So would you deny the artist his function?
Now the physicist is important, but he does not come before the
universe, before the human heart, before the human mind; he is as
important or unimportant as the artist.

GS: There is a diffeence in the quality. The artist is usually not
clear.

K: The artist is clear in his feeling, but the expression‎ goes wrong
because he is conditioned to objectivism, non-objectivism and all
that. So, can I live in this world non-fragmentarily--not as a
Hindu, Buddhist, Christian or Communist, but as a human being?

GS: Why not just live; why the word 'human'?

K: The way we live is not human at all. It is a battle--country,
wife, children, the boss. We live that way, at with each other.


page 65


You call that living. I say that this perpetual struggle is not living.

GS: Life is not a perpetual struggle all the time.

K: But most of the time it is. The window is closed.

GS: But why the word 'human'?

K: Sir, I did not use the word 'individual'. Do you know the
meaning of the word 'individual'? It means 'one who is indivisible'.
Man is not. So one realizes this fact of fragmentation, and of time:
the constant battle for position, power, prestige, succes, domina-
tion, and the effort to escape from all this to reach enlightenment
throught the mantra, through yoga. How is this everlasting chat-
tering to come to an end? Is it at all pssible not to be fragmented?
How is it possible for the brain cells themselves to be quiet?
Because that is the mechanism of time, put together slowly over
years, which we call evolution. This is the central question.

GS: And that is rightly so. You bring the problem back to physics,
because physics talks about the external universe but it does not
talk about the brain cells. If you had only a fragment of reality,
then you would not accept it as consistent. If it is consistent, then it
is fiction. Could the fragment be self-consistent?

K: I woould put it this way: Is it possible for a human being to be a
physicist and be self-consistent without fragmenting himself? I see
that time is the central factor here. Thought is the response of
memory; thought is time.

GS: For the experiencer.

K: The experiencer is the experienced, the observer is the
observed. But the observer separates himself through conclusions,
images, formulas, etc., and so creates space and time, and this is
one of the major fragmentations.

Can one look without the observer who is the maker of time,
space, distance? After all, sir, how do you as a physicist discoover
anything?

GS: I am peculiar, I invent.

K: There must be a period in which the invertor is silent.

GS: Yes.



page 66



K: If he is constantly in movement, there is continuty. But there
must be a break in which he sees something new. The observer
sees through the image, and the image is continued in time. And
so he cannot see anything new. If I look at my wife with the image
of years, and I call that relationship, there is nothing new in that.

So is it possible to see something new without the observer? The
observer is time. Can I look at 'what is', the fragmented, without
the observer that is time? Can there be a perception without the
perceiver?

GS: There is no perception without the perceiver, but the per-
ceived is sort of waiting to be perceived.

K: The tree no perception without the perceiver, and the
perceiver is looking at it through fragmentation, through the
censor. Can the censor be absent and, yet, can there be obser-
vation?

GS: Certainly not. Perception is a single act. There is no possibility
of breaking it up.

K: Who is the censor? Who is the perceiver? Who is using the verb
'to perceive'?

GS: When you are perceiving, you do not talk about the perceiver.

K: I look at the tree with knowledge. Can the observer observe
without the past? Who is the thinker, the examiner?

GS: When you are perceive, you do not need all this.

K: There is the tree. Can I look at it without the observer?

GS: Yes.

K: There is only that. Then the perceiver comes into operation. So
the image-maker can look without the image. Otherwise you
cannot invent.

GS: We were talking about communication. If time itself is the
product of thinking, then hoow can thinking be imprisoned in time?
Then what maked time common to all people?

M: Different people have the same notion of time.

K: I wonder if they do. Why do you want a concept of time? You
look at the watch, you have no concept about it.

page 67


GS: The idea of time as movement is assocated with the watch.

K: Within the rising and setting of the sun, there is numercal time,
but is there any other time that is psychological, inward?

GS: There is anther time when you think of action in the future.

K: So time is the movement of the past through the present to the
future.

GS: Time is part of thought.

K: Time is thought; time is sorrow.

GS: How can thought transcend itself? What is the significance of
saying that thought cannot transcend itself?

K: But it is all the time trying to do so. Let me put it this way:
What validity has time? I have to go from here to there, from this
house to the other house, from one continent to another con-
tinent; I want to be a manager of this factory--all that involves
time, which is being put together sequentially or non-sequentially.

GS: There is a great limitation to this. Time is single but ex-
periences are not single. Time is one dimensional, one string with
beads collected on it. Experiences connected together give you an
impression of time, but time itself is one dimensional, a single
string. You can think of diferent strands and scales off time; they
are a string of time. The connectivity of things can be complex. We
do not experience several things together; for example, I am
listening to you, part of my toe while my understanding is func-
tioning. I watch all that. I see a series of pictures but I do not live
anything.

K: That means the self is absent.

GS: There is no single self.

K: That is, there is no centre.

GS: There is no centre which has time in it.

K: That means in oneself there is no fragmentation at all. At the
very core of one's being, there is no ragmentation.


page 68


GS: Put that way, one sees that there is a state in which there is no
fragmentation.

K: Can one find out a quality in which there is no fragmen-
tation?--Which means the ending of thought that breeds frag-
menation, of thought which is time.

Look, sir, when you go through the world there are separate
actions--social, political, communal, the action of the hippies
--all of which are fragmented. Is there an action which is not frag-
mented, but which will cover all that?

GS: You use the word 'action', but action is associated with time.

K: I mean the active present.

GS: Yes, it is.

K: It means that there is a quality of mind in which there is no
fragmentation at all. It is the active present all the time.

What relationship has all this with love? Love has been reduced
to sex and all the morality around it. If love is not, fragmen-
tation wll go on. You will be a physicist, I will be something
else, and we will communicate, discuss--but these are mere
words.

GS: How do you communicate? There has been some communi-
cation after you have talked. How do I understand that? How is it
that I understand it?

K: Wait, we are using time to communicate. Having something in
common implies that both of us want to understand, examine,
share an issue together--I am not giving, you are not receiving.
We are sharing. So a relationship of sharing is established. What really
happens when you share a problem like sorrow in human beings?
It is tremendous.

GS: At the time you are sharing sorrow, you do not see the person.


page 69


I can understand that with regard to deep personal emotions, but
with an idea it is not possible.

K: What is the point of sharing ideas?

GS: We share insights.

K: Which is understanding; but ideas are not understanding. On
the contrary, formulas about understanding prevent understand-
ing. Sir, when you share together, what takes place? Both of us
have the same intensity, at the same time, at the same level. That
is love. Otherwise there is no sharing. After all, sir, to understand
something together, I must forget all my experiences, prejudices,
and so must you. Otherwise we cannot share. Have you ever
discussed with a Communist, with a Catholic?

GS: I try to understand him.

K: But he will not understand you. That is simple. Take Chardin,
he may have travelled extensively, covered a wide canvas, but he
was fixed as a Catholic. You cannot share with a man who is fixed.
Sharing implies love. Can a man who is fixed in a certain attitude
love?

GS: He can have mystical experiences.

K: Because he is conditioned, he sees Krishna, he sees Christ, he
sees what he wants to. The question is whether the mind can
uncondition itself--not throught time, for when the mind uses time
to undo time, it is still within time. Real understanding is out of
time. There is so little of love, of sharing, but of the other there is
plenty.(pause)

Sir, here we ask the question: What is meditation? Can the mind
be free of all its content, because consciousness is made up of the
content?

M: Most often when you talk of understanding you think of one
individual. To have communication you must have two minds.
Also there are some thoughts which arise only when two people
are together.

GS: M says that there are situations when two people have ideas
together which neither coould have had independently.

K: When two people come together, what takes place? You


page 70


express something verbally, I hear it, translate it and answer; that
is werbal communication. And in that process certain other factors
enter. You do not quite know what you are saying. I hear it,
partially understand and partially answer. So communication
remains broken. If you say something very clearly and I listen to
you without any reaction, there is immediate communication.

May I put it this way? Because I do not know what love is, I
want you to love me. But when I know what love is, I can
communicate with you. I do not want anything.

But you are asking a futher question, and that is: Is there a
necessity at all for communication?--necessity in the sense that
throught communication I uncover something more, I discver
something new. it is like a man who plays the vioon, and uses the
instrument for himself or uses the instrument, and there is nothing
beyond it.

GS: Neither for good nor for evil.

K: Yes. like a flower--take it or leave it. Through communication
we discover something together. Without communication, can I
discover anything without verbalization? When you and I have a
common interest and intersity at the same level and at the same
time, then communion is possible non-verbally. I do not have to
tell you that I love you.

I think we are caught so much in words, in linguistic, semantic
inquiry. The word is not the thing; the description is not the
described.

GS: And since this high level of communication is not a techinque
or a skill, the question arises: How does one learn anything? A
child is able to learn.

K: Is learning a process of accumulation? That is what we do--I
learn Italian, store up the words, I speak. This is what we call
learning. Is there learning which is non-accumulation? The two are
totally different actions.

GS: May I ask something? It may be totally irrelevant but you will
understand. Is there the 'other'? Are there other people?

K: It all depends upon what you mean by the 'other'. what you
mean by 'the other people'.


page 71


GS: Most times there is multiplicity--but there is also aloneness.

K: Obviously.

GS: Since aloneness is real--

K: Why do you call aloneness real and the 'other' unreal? We
know loneliness, resistance, the dual movement of action--de-
fensive or aggressive. Being caught in thought brings greater
isolation--we and they, my party and yours. Now, can the mind
go beyond isolation, beyond resistance? Can it be completely
alone, without being isolated? It is only then that I discover
soomething new, something which is real.

GS: I have experience of that state, but you caught me at that point
when you asked: Why do you divide? There are two situations--
states when I do not see multiplicity, and states in which I see
multiplicity. I have a feeling that the states in which I see
multiplicity are falling off.

K: Be careful, sir, you are caught. When you say, 'falling off' what
do you mean? Falling off is time. Anything that you can get rid of
slowly is time. Whereas the other does not involve time at all. So
do not get caught, sir.(pause)

So is there a perception and an action without time? I see
physical danger, and there is instant action. I do not say: I will
gradually withdraw from danger. Is there a perception, a seeing-
the-danger-of-it completely? The very seeing is the getting rid of
it.

GS: If you see the whole thing completely, there is no falling off. It
is not there.

M: Which means that there is no peparing for it.

GS: This statement is at variance with my experience. I have
experienced timeless moments. I loved it. I have a memory of it.

K: Leave it alone,sir.

GS: When I hold it, then it is pleasure.

K: That is what it is. Pleasure is our one main ruling principle.



Madras
3 January, 1971