an insight. Intelligence can act on thought, but, paradoxically, not when we are thinking.

There is a common source to thought and intelligence. If we find it, there is no me and you. To see it, we must be free. As long as we are caught up in thought, we are not free to see it. Thought can never touch the source because a limited instrument can never hold the immeasurable.

22. A Wholly Different Way of Living

In February 1974, K met Allan W. Anderson, a religious studies professor at San Diego State University. They recorded an intense series of eighteen conversations in a television studio.

The first two episodes were recorded on Monday, 18 February, the final two took place on Thursday 28 February, the following week. Each episode lasted exactly one hour, as they were scheduled to air on American cable channels.

Professor Anderson acted as interviewer, rather than opponent. He later said that these dialogues had been a profound revelation to him.

An Individual Is Not In-dividual

The discussions began with reflections on the role of knowledge in human transformation. Professor Anderson said that he was very taken with K's statement that each human being is responsible for bringing about their own transformation, independent on knowledge or time.

K replied that changing the rapidly degenerating society requires a radical psychological transformation in the makeup of human mind.

He added that few people seem to be seriously concerned with the chaos in the world or in their own minds. We are superficial and worry about external problems without realising their connection with our own minds.

K pointed out the double meaning of the word 'individual'. It usually emphasises our differences rather than our common ground. However, it also means 'undivided' and 'indivisible'. Yet we are not indivisible; we are divided people, not a harmonious whole. Divisions are important to us, and we often emphasise our individual differences more than the factors that unite us.

This emphasis on individuality has led to an awful destruction and chaos. K says that he has travelled the world and found that human beings are more or less the same. They share common problems of sorrow, survival, and death.

"There is no eastern problem or western problem. Human beings are caught in this trap, and they don't seem to be able to get out of it."

One reason for this is that we are looking for solutions in the wrong places. External problems also have their roots inside us, in our psyche and the way we behave. However, when it comes to internal problems, we often fail to identify the root cause.

"We don't realise this basic factor that we are the world and the world is us. This culture has produced this human being, and the human being has created this culture, this rotten and immoral society in which we live."

Recognising this, we ask: is it possible for a human being to transform themselves inwardly, and how would this happen?

The first thing to understand is the limits of knowledge. The human mind is built on knowledge and has evolved over millennia through accretion and tradition. Essentially, knowledge is experience; it is the recollections of the past. We must find an answer to the question of how to deal with all this.

Above All, a Human Being

K begins the second conversation by asking whether the mind can be free from the known. Without that freedom, creative action is not possible, and a division is created between you and me.

Freedom is one thing and knowledge is another. There is no freedom where there is knowledge. Knowledge is necessary for practical functions, such as going home, writing a letter or speaking English, but in human relationships it is destructive. There, it creates conflict and distortion.

Knowledge is based on past experience. In relationships, this manifests as the images we have of others. When we meet someone, we don't actually meet them, but an image of them. It is difficult for us to distinguish between what is real and what is imagined.

When we react to our friend's words or actions, we are always reacting to our interpretation of them, our own version. He or she does the same. We all have internal boundaries, and conflict arises when these are crossed.

"Where there is a division, there is conflict. That is a basic law."

The observer is the cause of division and conflict between us. As long as there is the observer, there must be conflict in relationship.

Hearing this statement, we may translate it into an idea and try to strive to live by that concept. That is our conditioning. We have evolved in contradiction and duality.

Old Can Appear New

When you look at an object and think that you are separate from it, all you see is a reflection of your own mind, based on knowledge and experience.

"That 'me' watching is the past", K sums up.

It is made up of words, feelings, and memories. However, we don't consider this to be old because it appears new and alive to us, and in a sense it is alive, because it is new knowledge and experience.

Creating something totally new requires experiencing events as new, but our old minds are not capable of this. At best, they create new combinations of the old. However, nothing created by thought can
be entirely new.

In relationships, knowledge acts as a wall that prevents us from seeing each other and creates conflict. The observer is the wall, but he doesn't realise it. He thinks he can do something about it. The wall between the self and the world is a fantasy of the mind. When you perceive it as such, something significant happens in the mind.

If this vision is based on direct perception, the wall disappears. If it is based on thought, however, you think you can do something about it. In that case, you haven't seen it properly.

The mind creates a concept of what it sees so quickly that the observer has no time to realise what has happened. We form a mental relationship with another person, yet persistently imagine that we are dealing with a real person, not an image.

This becomes apparent when you ask what you can do about it. We are not satisfied with the answer that there is nothing we can do. The old idea is so firmly implanted in the mind that the new idea
does not take hold.

When the world doesn't please us, we prefer to cling to comforting propaganda that we find credible than face the facts.

"This is a matter of life and death. If the house is burning, I've got to do something, I am not going to discuss who burned the house. I want to put that fire out. I feel it is so urgent because I see everywhere I go this sense of slackness, despair, hopeless activity going on. So a serious man, who is really concerned, must give his total attention to this question of relationship, freedom and knowledge."

When we identify a problem, we look for a solution without realising that we are the problem. This will be continued in the next chapter.

Seeing Is the Solution

In the third session, they explore communication. This starts with thinking and creating together, sharing as well as listening attentively to what is said and also to what is not.

One difficulty is to realise that we don't react to the challenge itself, but to our conclusions about it. This happens quickly and without us noticing it. This is related to the problem of the observer and the observed.

This brings us to the essential point. Seeing a fact is enough to solve any problem, provided it does not become a concept. However, this only applies to internal, self-inflicted problems, such as fear, sorrow and anger. Wars and the climate crisis cannot be solved this way, although we can indirectly influence these issues through our actions.

Rather than trying to solve an internal problem, it is better to allow it to reveal itself. It will do so if we can observe and learn from it. If we wait for someone else to provide the answer, we learn nothing.

The important thing is to go beyond the words. We need direct perception to do that. When responding to an acute crisis or emergency, we can't avoid acting immediately. There is no difference between seeing and doing. When we act, we don't need a precise plan or an ideological programme statement.

Responsibility Means Care

The nature of responsibility is discussed in the fourth chapter. Being responsible for something is different from being responsible. The former is limited; the latter is not.

If you limit responsibility to your own actions and thoughts, you exclude many things that affect our lives. We must not accept the

degeneration of society, the rise of nationalism, the neglect of education, or the misuse of religion or politics. When we feel responsible, we are not indifferent, we want to take action.

Taking total responsibility requires clear thinking and correct action. Our relationships must be based on facts, not imagination. We must be our own guiding light and reject anything that keeps us in a state of confusion.

Order Creates Flourishing

In the fifth session, they discuss order. This cannot be achieved by imposing rules or orders. Authorities try to subjugate us, but at best they achieve conformity and adaptation.

As K concludes, "Out of the understanding of disorder comes order; not first seek order, and then impose that order on disorder."

Thought creates disorder because it operates in a world of concepts rather than facts. The movement of thoughts must be watched like the flow of a river.

Thought creates and lives in opposites. Opposites only exist within an area that can be measured and evaluated. Thought has no means of perceiving the immeasurable or truth. Thought fragments reality and considers the parts to be real – whether they be the borders of people or countries, or gods or saviours.

There is no order in the realm of thought. Sharing and comparing create disorder. By comparing myself to others, I maintain an image of myself. Can the mind not compare? Then there is no contradiction.

The focus should be on the mind which divides and compares, not on external contradictions.

"It is the idea of order that has produced disorder", says K.

The perception is created in the observer as he reacts to the object. Can the mind observe itself as a movement of disorder without trying to correct or justify it? Can it simply observe it? Can the mind see without the 'see-er'? If so, order prevails because the maker of disorder is absent.

This is a universal human problem, regardless of where one lives or what one does. Order in the mind is created when the movement of thought ceases. Then the mind flourishes in goodness every day. Such a life has a great sense of beauty.

"Unless we create such human beings, the world will go to pot. I have a passion for it, it is my responsibility to see that when I talk to you, you understand, live it, move in that way."

How Is Fear Born?

The sixth episode aims to solve the whole problem of fear. Some fears remain undiscovered, while others we recognise and try to overcome. We may fear losing our job, other people, the dark, flying, or death.

K calls on us not to take one leaf of fear, but to consider the whole movement of it. What matters is not what we are afraid of, but how the fear comes about.

The brain needs physical security in order to function efficiently and healthily. However, national divisions have destroyed that security. Sovereign governments are destroying security.

"We are trying to get at how stupid the mind is. It wants security, yet it is doing everything to destroy security."

If you are looking for a solution to the problem of fear, you cannot tackle it branch by branch. Moreover, there is no way we can identify hidden, unconscious fears. Instead, we must examine how fear arises in the first place.

We observe fear as an observer, trying to do something about it. We study it, analyse it, explain it, fight it or run away from it.

In doing so, we separate ourselves from fear. This is where we make a mistake. Fear and its observer are not separate entities. There is only the movement of fear, the influence of which we experience.

If fear could be observed without an observer, it would persist for a while. Trying to do something about it only exacerbates the issue. It is the observer that turns fear into a problem.

Fear can be justified for instance when we encounter a dangerous animal or a violent person, but not when we fear imaginary objects or things we can't do anything about.

Even when we are alive, we fear death because we don't want to lose what we have accumulated. If you can observe the movement of your fear without doing anything about it, the fear will stop by itself.

Joy Is Spontaneous

A closely related issue to fear is that of pleasure and desire, which are discussed in episode seven. K starts by saying that pleasure should be observed, not condemned, as priests often do. Pleasure arises when we experience something pleasant. It becomes a problem when we fail to experience it again.

In many religions, pleasure is seen as a worldly desire to be avoided at all costs. God wants us to control these desires, and he will use his agents to tell us to do so. However, desires cannot be eliminated by willpower, they are often only strengthened.

It is natural to feel pleasure when you see something beautiful. This is something to be enjoyed. But happiness requires something else. It does not involve seeking pleasure or fearing loss. At the actual moment of experiencing something, the self and the object are not separate.

This theme will continue in the eighth episode. There, K distinguishes between pleasure and joy. Pleasure is based on thought, whereas joy is immediate.

Experiencing joy is different from remembering it. Joy can be invited, but it does not come from wanting it. The same is true of happiness. It comes when it is meant to come. It is spontaneous.

K shows how joy does not turn into pleasure. The key word is attention, which does not involve thinking. When you observe something with all your senses and are fully attentive, thought
cannot register what you are experiencing. The experience is so total that the brain cannot recognise it, so no memory of it is formed.

Thought can pick up bits and pieces of experience, but not everything. There is no control involved in seeing. Any attempt to express something extraordinary diminishes what we have experienced.

Anderson wonders how you can understand this miraculous thing if you haven't experienced it yourself.

K replies that you don't have to get drunk in order to find out what it is like to be sober. We have intelligence, which enables us to act sensibly through reasoning and to learn from the mistakes of others.

Intelligence comes from observation. It is not a learned skill. It is not based on intellectual reasoning, but on observing facts. Knowledge plays no role in observation.

The Core of Beauty

The ninth episode begins with a reflection on the essence of beauty.

K states that beauty is the absence of the 'me'. We look for beauty outside ourselves, in nature and museums, in objects and people, in books and words. Yet the viewer never reaches beauty's deepest core.

Seeing beauty requires passion and humility. You must start from a state of not knowing. We think we know, but beauty is not knowledge. Beauty is not a sensory perception and has no form.

The beauty perceived by an observer relates to an object or concept with which they have a connection. There is also another kind of beauty. This cannot be defined. It is found in behaviour, in language usage, in voice, in the way a person walks, and in humility.

"Can a human being tell another, educate another to grow in beauty, grow in goodness, to flower in great affection and care? If we don't do that we are destroying the earth and everything we touch."

The Miracle of Learning

The tenth section deals with the arts of seeing, listening, and learning. We see, listen and learn through our minds. Our self-image is formed by the conclusions we draw from our own reactions.

However, our ego prevents us fromseeing, listening, and learning. It distorts everything with its interpretations. Recognising this brings about "a miracle of complete freedom from all statements".

Attention means having no borders. If I listen without a single interference of thought or ideation, the miracle has taken place.

According to Anderson, this is exactly what happened for him during their discussions. He listened very intensely without trying to understand, and then he understood. The reward was immediate; there was no need to think about it.

K puts it this way: there is no cause or reward for attention. Attention is not given for the sake of an outcome.

In true learning there is no accumulation; you just watch what happens. There is no self as object or learner, no teacher, no student.

Only a free mind can learn. Education tends to pour information into the mind, which one then tries to remember and put into practice. This makes the mind mechanical, narrow and anxious.

This is not a learning mind. It turns freedom into an idea and a goal. The most challenging aspect of learning is to learn about the self, since we can never perceive the self directly. Our perception is based on accumulated knowledge, which is the past.

Our self-image is also affected by what others say about us and how they treat us. We experience both superiority and inferiority, which are largely imagined.

But what is the 'I' without thinking? Is there any 'me'? Logical reasoning can lead to two conclusions. Both answers involve thinking. If you answer, "I don't know", the mind is free from all assumptions, knowledge, self-imposed constraints.

Superstitious Nonsense

The second week begins with Anderson's observation that, in the previous week's ten conversations, K did not once say that we should get rid of thinking and knowledge.

To K, all ideas about God and religion stem from the abuse of thinking. All religions are based on beliefs, superstition, propaganda; they are the worship of images of gods created by the mind.

The essence of true religion is in total attention without frontiers. All energy is focused on understanding what thought cannot capture.

Thought is always conditioned and fragmented; it is never free. Religions are based on fear and pleasure, on romantic sentimentality.

"We must put aside all the superstitious nonsense that is going on in the name of religion, which has really become quite a circus, however beautiful it is."

Anderson agrees, recalling a Bible passage that emphasises the importance of being still and the inability of thought to find the divine.

K raises the stakes by saying that, when we lost touch with nature and the universe, the priests became the mediators between humans and the so-called divine. They invented perdition and began to use it to generate fear rather than the admiration of beauty or adoration of life lived wholly without conflict.

K then moves on to consider the nature of psychological hurt. The religious mind is incapable of being hurt because it does not compare itself to others, nor is it based on an image of itself.

When children identify with their name and realise that they are different from others, they begin to compare themself to them. A child develops a sense of self, and sooner or later, someone will say or do something that does not align with their own perception of himself. They get hurt and blame either themself or the person who hurt them. They may seek revenge or become resentful. They may also start to avoid situations where they might get hurt.

Without an image, we cannot be hurt. However, education is built on an image. Two questions arise: can past hurts be healed and can future hurts be prevented completely without any resistance?

K answers that this is only possible when there is no image between you and me. Then there is no person to get hurt.

Love Without Limits

The twelfth episode is about love and pleasure. No one denies that love is important in their life. We talk about it, but mainly as an emotion, a romantic concept.

We love many things, and our feelings vary greatly. We express our love in many different ways. Many people think that fear, anger and jealousy are part of love. We also love concepts and words.

K says that love can only exist when there is no self, when the ego is absent. The self encompasses desires, imaginings, expectations, self-centredness and passions. While these are part of romance, they have no role in love.

Love has no opposite and no self-imposed limits. Without a self, love is boundless and has no object. The love we feel is directed towards something and involves conflicting emotions that we try to deal with, either alone or with the help of an expert.

Although we say that time heals the wounds of love, it does not teach us to love in such a way that the wounds do not appear. Time is thought, and it is thought that turns love into a problem to be solved.

A different approach is needed. Intelligence and sensitivity are closely related to love. Love is not something that can be called to come; it comes to a mind that acts in the moment with insight, free from imagination or fear.

Another Way to Live

The next episode will explore a different way of living. The current way is one of endless struggle, battle and competition. We have accepted brutality, and violence have become entertainment that we pay to watch. The vocabulary of war has been adopted in all areas of life: art, science, sport, and work. Even religions use terms familiar from battle.

However, few people think that this has to be the case. The way we live is neither meaningful nor right. It is painful, utterly destructive, and absurd for everyone.

It is crucial to recognise that a different way of living should not be seen as a goal, let alone a dream to be achieved, but a necessity. Change must happen now, not tomorrow, and it must transform the way we see and experience the world.

Realising that you are the world changes the way your mind works. There is then no distinction between the inner and the outer, or between the actor and the object of action. The basis of action becomes completely different.

Consciousness consists of its content. We identify with this content, which defines our identity. Our worldview, opinions and concept of God are all part of that content.

But what happens when you realise that without content, there is no consciousness? What is left when the mind no longer reflects the world?

You can, of course, say whatever you want, but it's another thing to realise this for yourself. K replies: "What is, that is, everything else, except the content created by the mind – remains. The world goes on as it will go on after our death."

From there, K naturally moves on to talk about death. When you die, you give up the contents of your consciousness, but the consciousness of everyone else continues. An individual's consciousness is created by his brain, and when the brain stops functioning, that consciousness ceases.

While we are alive, we fear death, and so we invent an afterlife in one form or another. This belief can ease the anxiety of fear and is therefore comforting. More on this in the next episode.

Get Rid of Attachments

K begins by saying that you cannot understand the immensity and the vitality of death if you are afraid of it. He asks what we fear about death. His answer is: the loss of what we know.

K suggests that we should give up all our attachments while we are still alive. The difficulty is that some of these attachments are hidden in the recesses of the mind. You cannot reach them by analysing, picking them out one by one. It is a never-ending task because, when examining himself, the analyser would be chasing a moving target that he can never catch.

Seeing this, it's only natural to stop analysing and focus on what isreally happening. For this, you don't need a self; you just need to observe.

Emptying consciousness of its contents isa kind of death. The body is alive, and the heart and brain are functioning, but the mind is free from time. It only uses memory when it is necessary, not for self-enhancement.

We want our self to be immortal. We want our deeds to live on and believe that we will continue to exist in some form after death. Christians try to live in a way that they will be rewarded with the joys of heaven. Some religions believe that we can be reincarnated while we are still alive, and that if we fail, we will be given another chance.

We live in time, and it is within this framework that we think of death. It will happen one day. The idea of immortality is both logical and imaginary.

If you live every moment fully without recording it, your mind transcends time. In a sense, time stops and the mind is completely freed from dissipating energy. The self no longer needs to be protected or supported.

In living this way, there is a beauty that the 'me' fails to see. There is a love that is not directed at anything. It is living in the moment and death is a natural part of life – not the death of the body, but the emptying of the mind of its psychological content.

Faith Is Not a Fact

The next two sections return to religion and the role of authority.

It is obvious why people are drawn to religions: the brain needs security, otherwise, it cannot function. It finds security in a belief, in images, in rituals, in propaganda. There is a sense of safety, comfort and well-being. When you ask someone to negate all that, they are faced with panic and an immense sense of danger.

Belief and facts are two different things. Believers ignore facts. They escape from unpleasant facts for wonderful images, and religions provide plenty of these in the form of words, rituals, and beautiful melodies during devotional exercises. Religions offer an escape from the harshness of everyday life into a world of imagination.

Beliefs influence people and give them a sense of security. However, at the same time, they also divide people into different sects, thereby dividing the world. The consequences are devastating, but believers do not see the obvious connection because religions claim to preach a message of goodness.

You would think that the contradiction between the words and deeds of religions would be obvious to everyone. You can't kill, but you can kill for your religion. Millions of people have been killed in religious wars.

Many people defend their convictions with their personal experience, but K denies this outright:

"A living thing you can never know, it is moving. What callous indifference it is that you know and I don't!"

Personal convictions are usually based on 'truths' learned from others. We try to live by them, but then we accept tyranny. No matter where they come from, who they come from or how far away they come from, they are borrowed, dead words.

"Repeating tradition – Zen, Chinese or Hindu – is a dead thing and these people are perpetuating the dead thing", says K.

In science, reasoning is necessary, but not in religion. Almost anything goes if an authority figure says it.

"When you see this, you want to cry. The child accepts, because it needs a mother and care, but why we do accept authority, the priest as an intermediary? It is horrifying."

They start the second part by discussing hesitation. When there is intelligence, there is no hesitation. In that case, there is no need for an authority figure to tell you how things are, what God is like, or what to believe.

Freedom and authority cannot coexist, but freedom and intelligence go hand in hand. You have to give up the idea of knowing – as well as the idea that someone else knows.

When Life Flourishes

The last two sessions explore the essence of true meditation. First, K lists different ways to meditate. He states that none of these methods is 'the right one' and that they have little impact on the quality of people's lives.

"Meditation implies freedom from the method, the system," says K.

To achieve this state, the mind must be free from all the burdens of others, the past, control, desire, goals, and motives. This applies not only to meditation, but to all aspects of life. You have to "allow life
to flower" in the same way that a plant does.

All control is disorder, and with it comes direction. This will be continued in the final section.

K begins by stating that meditation does not involve will. This occurs when the mind is clear and understands how control distorts perception. In this case, one fragment tries to dominate the others. A clear mind does not need to choose and a meditating mind is in such a state where it does not need external authority.

The mind also needs space. When we have less physical space, there is more violence. All of the mind's attachments limit its space. A mind filled with knowledge is imprisoned.

Consciousness must be emptied of its contents, of thoughts that manifest as the self, but not by will. There is no set process for achieving silence and sacredness. They are everywhere when you look with an empty mind.

You just need to pay attention. This is the deepest religiosity. It is love and compassion that thought can never generate.

Silence is when you can't hear anything from anywhere, either inside or outside your mind. Perception is direct when there is no observer.

Then it is true that "I am the world and the world is me".