Krishnamurti meets Scientists 1974

J. Krishnamurti in Discussion with Scientists 1974 at Brockwood Park, England

Text: HEIKKI PELTOLA

Professor David Bohm invited a group of eminent scientists to explore the role of knowledge in the transformation of man and society with Jiddu Krishnamurti. They met twelve times in seven days, starting on 13th October 1974. The participants were the physicists David Bohm, David Peat, Fritjof Capra, and George Sudarshan, the psychiatrists Gordon Globus, Bryan Goodwin, David Shainberg, and Montague Ullman, the brain scientist Karl H. Pribram, the biophysicist Maurice Wilkins, the biologist Robin Monro, the medical doctor Elizabeth Ferris, and the philosopher Julian Melzack. There were also some non-participating scientists and people from Brockwood Park School.

The invited scientists gave short presentations, after which they engaged in discussion about a wide range of topics concerning humanity. Krishnamurti challenged them with questions typical of him: What is the self, can we live without it, and so solve all human problems? Could we all live as free human beings and cooperate without any psychological labels?

In order to answer these questions, we must look beyond theories and speculations and confront our life as it is. The key point is to see directly that the human mind is conditioned by the fictitious idea of a separate self. Why do we live trapped in this detrimental illusion, and is there a way to get rid of it? The answer may lie in the mind itself and the way our thoughts divide the world. According to Krishnamurti, thinking is the root cause of suffering and conflict that dominate our consciousness.

To bring about the transformation in the human mind, we must see that the world is one; everything is connected to everything; it is our thinking that creates separation. Can the human mind see the mistakes it makes in perceiving the world and correct them immediately, not gradually?

Krishnamurti emphasizes that we must live this, not just talk about it. We must communicate this verbally and non-verbally, meeting each other at the same level, at the same time. That leads to real communion, care, and love. That is not possible if we live partially, keep on repeating other people's ideas about life, however uplifting they may be.

Seeing that we actually are the world and not separate entities changes our relationship with everything: ourselves, other people, nature, and the whole universe. When the self is not, the observer is the observed.

All meetings were recorded and are available on YouTube. From the link below, you can join a group of top experts in their field and explore fundamental questions. Krishnamurti emphasizes that life is not a theory or a clever phrase; it is very factual. In order to face living as it is, we must forget all ideation and then enter a dimension in which there is no conflict or suffering.

Knowing is always limited; to find something new, the mind must be open and ready to move with the endless flow of life.

Preparatory meeting (without K) 13th October 1974

David Bohm began the conference by stating that the purpose of the meeting was to explore what place has knowledge in the transformation of man and society. He said that there is chaos of all kinds in the world, and that the ultimate root of this is that "man himself is inadequate" and that something has to be done about it.

Many ancient religions have called for a transformation of man, especially Buddhism calls for the radical transformation of the entire psyche of man or his whole being. Christianity states that human beings are in a state of original sin and must be saved. However, religious impetus has died out in modern times, with a very similar theme being carried on in a secular way.

Religious knowledge was considered a part of the process of transformation of man. Following the Renaissance, it turned into the acquisition of secular knowledge in the form of science and technology. Some people believed that knowledge of the order of existence would itself be a transformation. Albert Einstein believed that ordinary life is rather petty and confused, and it doesn't mean much but if men get together to study the order of the universe scientifically, then they really work together, and they have a different spirit, and in a way, they would be transformed.

However, only a few people could participate in this type of transformation, for most people, scientific knowledge was considered important for its practical applications. It would remove poverty and ignorance from society, and combined with technology and political change, this would transform society and humanity.

This has been the theme of modern secular development initially. Initially, it took the form of the Age of Reason – the idea that man would be transformed through reason – but this collapsed at the end of the French Revolution.

In the nineteenth century, the idea took the form of steady progress. By accumulating knowledge, we could steadily improve. However, by now, very few people have much faith that knowledge will produce the transformation. In fact, many regard knowledge as dangerous and destructive. There is overpopulation due to medical knowledge, pollution, and a general decrease in quality of life with more traffic, noise, and smoke. There is also violence and a shortage of energy (oil), breakdown of the economy, and many people are predicting a collapse of our civilisation.

A deeper question is that man cannot cooperate when technology is making the whole world interdependent. Therefore, the crisis originates squarely in man himself: why can't he cooperate? In order to get men to cooperate, a real change in human nature is needed.

Marx, Engels, and Lenin aimed to change people through social revolution. They believed that a new social order would create a new man. They talked about the Soviet man. In China, they had a similar aim. They wanted to change man psychologically. By accepting and obeying Mao Zedong's ideas rather mechanically, people destroy their intelligence, and cooperation without intelligence is dangerous.

Some have used the approach of self-knowledge, while others have emphasized religious knowledge or technological knowledge. Some scientists think that genetic structure (human engineering) would make a better man, while behaviourists advocate reconditioning man.

When an intelligent approach to the transformation of man is not found, it's likely that somebody is going to attempt an unintelligent approach. Bohm assumes that participants will find the conference theme relevant.

Bohm sees that what is needed is intelligence. The opposite of intelligent is being stupid or mechanical. It seems that mankind is really fantastically stupid if there is so much destruction in the world and has been for centuries. Why can't we change or stop this childish behaviour? The brain is stupefied by the whole situation and is not capable of taking the right action. Because of this tradition of stupidity, the world is a terrible mess.

According to Bohm, there are two kinds of intelligence: general all-round intelligence, and there is intelligence which is at the service of stupid aims. Some people are highly intelligent in some narrow field, but they serve destructive aims and cause problems in the world. A clever person can build a trap for himself, not seeing the consequences of his behaviour.

Although man has achieved much in many areas as art and science, Bohm acknowledges that destruction has dominated our history. The need for transformation is still there.

When asked about intelligence, Bohm does not want to explain or define too much. If we were truly intelligent, we would get what we intend to produce, but that is not the case now.

Rational knowledge is needed, but it is not enough; we also need intuitive knowledge. People's brains are currently stupefied by self-interest and by thousands of emotions.

Bohm hopes that participants will listen to each other and also keep in mind that there is always a great deal implicit in what is said verbally. They should and could learn a lot from each other.

Second meeting 14th October 1974
Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism, the Self and Seeing

Physicist Fritjof Capra began the meeting by talking about two kinds of knowledge: scientific and mystical. In modern physics, the universe appears as an inseparable, interconnected whole that cannot be divided into isolated, distinct things or events. The world cannot be reduced to basic building blocks, fundamental constituents. Everything must be viewed through a web or network of complicated relations. We cannot talk about the properties of any objects as such, they are meaningful in the interaction with us. Therefor, the scientist is not a detached observer, but is involved in the world and influences the properties of the objects he observes. He can be called a participator.

Space and time are fused into a four-dimensional continuum called space-time in which there are no static objects but dynamic patterns that have space aspect and a time aspect. They have a certain mass and energy. Mass is a form of energy, and therefore the objects cannot be separated from their existence, from their being. They are living, there is a dynamic interplay in which particles are created and displayed continually, producing some kind of inseparable cosmic web.

This endless cosmic dance of energy also appears in the writings and teachings of mystics. Physicists derive this knowledge from experiments, mystics from their direct meditative insights. These are complementary activities, manifestations of the human mind.

The difference is that mystical knowledge cannot be transmitted verbally, through words and books. It is inaccessible to our ordinary senses. In physics, this is the realm of the subatomic world. Mystics talk about higher planes of consciousness, multidimensional experiences.

Capra summarizes that acquiring mystical knowledge is in itself the transformation, whereas scientific knowledge remains abstract and theoretical.

Many physicists are not aware of the philosophical, cultural, and spiritual implications of their theories. Something in the structure of science allows physicists to do research and yet escape the conclusions of their research. However, the survival of our civilisation seems to depend on our ability to realise the basic oneness of nature and on our ability to live in harmony with it.

Professor George Sudarshan comments that most practising physicists do not accept a holistic interpretation preferring to deal with isolated domains of phenomena instead. Secondly, they do not accept the notion that space-time dimension can be transformed on a personal level. They are also reluctant to acknowledge that their personal experience has any relevance to their scientific work.

Capra acknowledges all this. To him, this Greek type of natural philosophy, which looks for elementary constituents of matter, is a great handicap and a stumbling block in modern physics. Yet we need both views to understand the whole.

Bohm briefly comments that the Greeks also had holistic views, for instance, Heraclitus said that everything flows.

Next, Professor of Psychiatry and Philosophy Gordon Globus raises two questions in his presentation. His view of the state of the world is more optimistic than that of Bohm's and Krishnamurti's. He feels there are more enlightened people in the world than ever before.

Globus sees that the self is very real and important to everyone. Furthermore, the self is more than just sensory impressions. As Freud said, the self is concerned with its own interests. Self-interest has very deep biological roots. Narcissism is inherent in the human condition – it is how our brain is built to work.

Psychiatrist Montague Ullman comments that large groups of people are unaware of the destructive fallout of their policies and attitudes towards other people and nations, and the unintended consequences of their behaviour. Secondly, although we are born with a narcissistic framework and fragmentation, the self has the potential to transcend itself.

Psychiatrist David Shainberg comments that according to Freud, narcissism is a means of protecting ourselves from basic anxiety about being in the world. Compulsive self-holding is based on the Newtonian view of the world, mechanistic and fragmentary. It is rigid.

Brain scientist Karl H. Pribram (who is referred to by his peers as "The Einstein of Brain Science") criticises the idea of biological conditioning as a nativistic view. There are significant variations in how individuals express themselves. He adds that it is not good to set up dichotomies here and overdo the nativistic element. We have inherent capabilities that can be expressed and used in different ways.

Krishnamurti asks, what is the self actually in our daily life? If we forget all theories and speculations about it, is the 'me' actually separate from the thing that is perceived? Should we react to what we see happening in the world, or should we stay out of it?

After some comments, they decided to come back to this question about the nature of the self later.

The next theme is whether we need a guide or assistance in transformation. Sudarshan says that sometimes some people need help from someone. Capra uses the metaphor of cleansing the mirror. The mirror is yours, but someone helps you to cleanse it. Once it is clean, nothing interferes with it, it is your own seeing. Bohm reminds of a Zen saying: "There is no mirror and no dust." This revolutionises the whole thing. Seeing is fundamental to transformation; the way we see the world affects the way we react

Krishnamurti points out that seeing something as being true or false changes the way we see it. This is immediate, there is no time involved. The change is instant. He also asks whether compassion or love can be taught to us. If they could be, and if we had love and compassion, all human problems might be solved. There would be no wars or other horrors. However, knowledge is not love; knowing something does not cause the transformation.

Third meeting 14th October 1974
Defining Being Human, Compassion, Feeling Special

The next morning, philosopher Julian Melzack begins the meeting by stating that science has a dilemma in understanding humans. In short, knowledge plays a crucial role in explaining and helping to make human beings better.

Pribram comments that there are two types of science: descriptive and normative. In the latter, the context in which a particular observation is made, must be specified. The social sciences have both descriptive and normative aspects. Limiting humans within a biological frame makes an artificial boundary.

Bohm agrees. Assuming humans to be within some particular concept may be totally false. When it comes to something as subtle as humans, such a mechanical description may leave out the essential features. No machine will be able to explain quantum mechanics. First, we must decide what the essential qualities are that makes a person human. Certain feelings and reactions are necessary, but a machine cannot feel depression or other human emotions.

Pribram insists that describing human beings as an automaton (machine-like) – as Melzack did – will not fit the facts of perception. An extension is needed to this restricted definition.

Next up is Robin Monro, a biologist and pioneer in yoga therapy. He takes up three issues. Parapsychology presents a radical challenge to mechanistic biology. There is also the consciousness issue and mystical experiences.

It seems obvious that our state of consciousness actually affects the state of the world around us. However, objective analysis will not provide solutions to our problems because, at some stage, we always feed presuppositions about values.

There seems to be not much compassion in science. Compassion and wisdom go hand in hand.

Krishnamurti asks again whether compassion and love can be taught. If they could be, then everything would be solved. Pribram says that we can at least un-teach those things that stand in the way.

Globus asks Krishnamurti, how he could teach compassion to medical students. He replies that we all know what physical and psychological suffering is. If we don't escape it through ideas, comforts, and beliefs, we see that the observer is the observed. Then all suffering ceases.

Trying to escape the fact of suffering wastes our energy. To remain with suffering means that the division between the observer and the observed comes to an end. Out of that comes compassion.

Fourth meeting 15th October 1974
The Brain, Images in Relationship, Yoga

The morning session begins with Karl Pribram talking about perception and knowledge. But what actually goes on in the brain? In the light of experiments, the information is distributed all over the network: the brain is holographic.

Secondly, there is an illusion of direct perception. The world out there is not the way it looks to us. The classical way of thinking about brain function is that there is input to the brain and that is abstracted and organised in the brain, and forwarded as an output to the motor systems. However, this is not a fruitful way of looking at brain function.

There is a great deal of evidence that not only is there input to the brain, but also output from the brain itself. These outputs actually act as filters or sieves on the input. They act as output mechanisms to the motor parts of the brain, and the motor parts of the brain do not wiggle muscles around directly, but alter the sensitivity of input functions. So, there is actual evidence that the retina itself is altered when we stimulate the so-called association cortex.

There are three types of output function: know-how, know-what, and know-that. These are not hierarchical and analytical, but heterarchical and holistic. Knowledge systems work downstream, they alter the way we perceive the world. We must make the holistic/subjective approach as hard-headed and precise as analytical/objective approach has been in the past. Then so-called mystical and scientific thinking emerge. Analytical thought is overly simplistic.

Gordon Globus finds that Pribram's model of the brain explains why it is so difficult for people to change their views. According to Bohm, Pribram's model is radically different from the old view, because the totality is enfolded into each part of the brain.

Fifth meeting 15th October 1974
Transformation, Feeling Responsible, Being Attached

George Sudarshan talks about personal change. According to him, one can choose to be outside the cause-effect chain. There seem to be many routes to transformation. It can happen when listening to another, reading something, in meditation, chemical stimuli, or in the presence of a master.

Krishnamurti asks Sudarshan whether a transformation is recognisable; can one know he is transformed? Can transformation be achieved? If you know you are within the world of words.

Secondly, is freedom from attachment (the 'me') a gradual or instant process? What is the 'me' if we are not attached to our ideas, prejudices, country, furniture?

Sixth meeting 16th October 1974
Dreaming, Meditation and Laziness

The next day, psychiatrist Montague Ullman begins by stating that science is one-sided and dualistic. Too little attention has been paid to man's homonomous needs. Personally, he felt "impelled to build a psychic closet" towards paranormal phenomena. He has now started to open the door and is trying to "transform the skeletons".

Ullman finds Freud's theory of dreams wrong. It approached dreams through the wrong mode and casting a paralysing shadow over dreams and dreaming. Rather than interpret dreams, psychiatrists should be taught to appreciate them. The powers displayed by our dreaming selves far exceed the scope of our waking faculties. Dreams reflect creatively the distortions created by society and tune our psyche with the world.

Seventh meeting 17th October 1974
The Brain, Meditation, Compassion in Science

Krishnamurti asks Pribram if the brain can ever be still. Pribram says no, because the neurons are always beating. However, in some states like meditation and deep sleep do not involve any thoughtful activity. Krishnamurti clarifies that he means movement stirred by thought. Pribram says there is electrical activity that goes on, but it is very slow. It is cyclic, repetitive, with a different quality of rhythm, and configuration of energy.

Maurice Wilkins began his presentation by saying that he is aware of the dichotomy between thought and feeling and art and science. Although he was fascinated by science, he was repelled by analytical thought. He shared Kierkegaard's conviction that thought was dead, however, he, on the other hand, recognized that beyond the world of thought, there was the world of life and love.

He thought that scientists are like overgrown schoolboys. They are obsessively interested in a subject for a few years, but the scientific community as a whole is somehow trapped, mesmerised in this world of thought, and is not conscious of how trapped they actually are.

It is important to be conscious of our conditioning and the limitations of man, as Krishnamurti points out. To build a good society, we need a wider view of man and to remove the obstacles to its development.

However, personal transformations cannot lead very far. There must be a deeper systemic change. In studying history books, we can learn that there has been much oppression in the name of God and the divine rights of kings. Even changing a political system has not prevented the gross misuse of power.

Wilkins then asks, how can we bring compassion into science? Education does not ask fundamental questions. It works in separate disciplines. We get crippling of the mind by the fragmentation of thought throughout the educational system.

There is hope that scientists get out of their academic isolation by engaging with alternative technology, and adopting more ecological views will bring us more directly in contact with nature. It is also important to study the relationship between art and science.

Melzack insists that compassion is totally irrelevant in science, and being more holistic does not help him in his work as a scientist. However, Sudarshan comments that compassion has a very important place, even in basic science. Bohm adds that if scientists do not feel all together, their work has no meaning. Pribram comments that, as a brain scientist, it is important to him to understand compassion and how the brain works. The two are intimately connected, obviously interconnected.

Krishnamurti asks if they all feel a responsibility as scientists to stop killing. Pribram says yes, but Melzack no. He finds the idea ridiculous. Compassion does not help to solve the equations. It applies to human beings but not to being a scientist. Capra says he does not separate the two.

Krishnamurti says that scientists should transform themselves, and in doing so, they would change the world. This transformation must be instant, it cannot happen gradually.

Eighth meeting 17th October 1974
Alternative Medicine and Holism

On Thursday, medical doctor Elisabeth Ferris will open by talking about alternative medicine.

She argues that the fragmentation of medicine is paradoxical, as health is defined as being whole. However, the focus of medicine is not on health but on diseases. Medicine has become associated with Pasteur's germ theory of disease. Diseases are seen as something separate from the person.

The general view is that medicine is not suited to dealing with people but with bits and pieces of people. It is difficult to feel compassion for an elbow or a knee, but a holistic view of humankind and his condition is essential in medicine.

The discussion then moves on to Chinese and Indian medicine, such as acupuncture and Tai Chi, as well as homeopathy, and then to compassionate doctors.

Bohm also argues that a different way of thinking and perceiving is needed in medicine. A holistic view cannot be achieved without bringing in both feelings and intellect.

Ninth meeting 18th October 1974
The Immeasurable, Non-verbal Communication,
Love, and Krishnamurti's Youth

In the Thursday afternoon session, David Bohm tells his personal path. He found that in the universe, there is immense order and things are interrelated, yet the highest virtues of people he knew and of entire society were very trivial and narrow. There was a deep contrast between the two.

He got interested in physics, especially after realising that there is energy in atoms and perhaps it could be released. The next leap came when he learned about quantum theory. There, he discovered the inseparability of the observer and the observed. The observing instrument affects the result you get. The entire universe is one and indivisible. That is what Krishnamurti said, which led to their friendship in the early sixties.

Bohm says that he has always done his scientific work with love and passion, it was never just a job. He also became interested in politics. The key areas he was interested in were freedom and democracy, and he believed that slavery was the worst thing that could ever happen. It seemed to be a degradation and corruption of human beings. Then came fascism and Nazism, which were even worse.

Before the war, America was semi-fascist in Bohm's view, and he became favourable to Communism and Marx's ideas. However, when he saw that Stalin was a monster second only to Hitler, he abandoned this view and turned his attention to science. It seemed true; there seemed to be a brotherhood of scientists. Later, he discovered that this was not the case.

Bohm felt that Krishnamurti was right in saying that the basic trouble of mankind is not lack of knowledge or political organization, it is thought, which is misused and confused. This requires our attention. To do anything new in science, there must be love and passion, a strong feeling to work together. Bohm was convinced that thought is the problem and the key to solving it!

In the West, measurement has been primary. In the East, the emphasis was on the immeasurable.
The observer establishes the measure. Our general modes of expression have evolved to heavily emphasise measurement or space-time causal action.

According to Krishnamurti, the fundamental question is not to understand and explain the world in words, but rather to ask oneself, Can we live in this world without the self? This cannot be discussed unless one is not in that state. Otherwise, it would merely be a verbal exchange. That thing must actually be as we talk. Then we will communicate not only verbally but actually.

In order to be in that state, we must see that thought has created this awful mess in the world, the division between people. All religions are based on thought. Krishnamurti feels a tremendous sense of responsibility to bring about a change inside and outside. Everything is self-centred, and thought cannot change that because the activity of thought is the root cause of self-centredness.

The immeasurable is there when we negate everything what it is not; it is not time, not thought, not the word, nor the description. The immeasurable is not incommunicable, but thought alone can never get it because it is limited. Bohm says we need a preliminary analysis to straighten this out, but we have to "be there" and perhaps need a different kind of language so that we can see the world differently.

Knowledge is very limited, and we are talking about something in which there is no observer.

Krishnamurti points out that we have to know how to listen to another. Understanding verbally is not enough. You may hear something you have never heard or experienced before. In this case, we are verbally expressing something non-verbal.

When you actually listen, you are not projecting your opinions, judgments, conclusions, prejudices. When you so listen, are attentive, there is actual communion.

Thought has created this awful mess in the world, the division between people, but thought cannot change the social structure it has created. So, what is the factor that will change man? Another element is needed.

First, we must see that we are not whole; our thought is fragmentary and making our life a constant battle inside and out. Attention changes that, seeing without the observer. The observer is the factor of disorder, because it divides. We have divided living and dying, you and me, we and they, humans and nature.

Thought as knowledge cannot transform humans psychologically. We can start with verbal dialogue and investigate together without jumping into conclusions. Then we find out, what is our relationship to the whole of mankind.

Tenth meeting 18th October 1974
The Masters, Krishnamurti, Meditation and Silence

Krishnamurti tells about his youth and how he was found and "prepared for the manifestation of the World Teacher" by the Theosophists. He says he talks about simple things such as pleasure and fear, of human behaviour. It is either so or it is not so. He is not doing any kind of propaganda.

Capra asks Krishnamurti if he has changed over the years. He replies that only the phrases he uses have changed; the central core remains the same. Capra also wants to know how his verbal method could help bring about the change. To Capra, it seems that Krishnamurti just sits on a chair and tells people to stop thinking. Other teachers use different methods, often completely non-verbal.

Krishnamurti responds that there is a great danger that his words are translated by listeners' prejudices. Their thoughts easily assume the authority as the introspector, who knows and can differentiate what is right and what is false. However, there is a chance that by listening totally to another person, the listener will see the limitations of their own thinking, and the mechanism of the endlessly chattering mind will stop naturally. Then control disappears, and there is no self being an authority.

Can we actually end the me every day? Not just say it, but do it! To understand the sacred in life, one needs a silent mind, no images.

Sudarshan asks Krishnamurti if there is a time when he is in that state of no 'me'. He replies that nobody can know that state. In fact, it is not even a state, it is a movement. This movement is not in time! One cannot imagine or experience that state. We know nothing about it!

There is silence in the mind, and that silence has no motive. It cannot be induced. When the mind is silent, then "the heavens are open to you". In that silence, the sacred is.

Our minds are not silent because we are conditioned to live in conflict. We like conflict, Krishnamurti says. We like to live in a state of conflict because it gives the ego the sense of being alive. We don't want to get rid of the self, because we assume it is the most important thing in our life. It IS our whole life! As this is the case for most people, there is nothing more to be said. They don't listen! If something gives us profit – both financially, emotionally, and intellectually – we go with it.

Eleventh meeting 19th October 1974
Meditation, death, the mind when the self is not

In both last day's sessions, Krishnamurti talked about death and meditation. He says that we are all second-hand people, repeating what we have learned; saying nice things but not living them. We are very self-centred and do not feel serious responsibility towards other people. The self is not compassionate, it cares very selectively. The 'me' does not know what real love is; we love the images we have adopted. This is part of our conditioning.

What does it mean to die to the 'me'? Who is the entity that joins the physical to the spirit, the "joiner"? Can there be psychological death? Is there anything permanent in me? What is the 'me' actually, not according to someone else, a specialist? Is it a series of words, concepts, and forms that have put together the idea of me?

Seeing is more important than the one who sees. Realising that there is no seer separate from seeing is crucial. The seer distorts what is seen. The seer is the past, our conditioning. It is the central factor of distortion, contradiction, and division, giving rise to conflict and effort.

Bohm calls the observer a fiction. We believe that there is an observer and that it has tremendous energy and reality behind it. Going beyond what is gives us much more energy, because there is no contradiction. However, the illusion of the self is not merely a fiction, it appears to have some genuine force behind it. Another thought emerges, taking this as proof that the illusion is not an illusion.

Krishnamurti asks now, can that fiction die, not at the end of life but each day? Bohm commented that it would only be a fictitious death.

Selfish people are tremendously vital. Their activity causes much mischief and misery to themselves or others. Being aware of this is a form of intelligence. Can we see that the suffering and the sufferer are not two different things? Can the mind remain there, not escape or suppress suffering?

The difference between a toothache and psychological suffering is that a toothache is actual, whereas suffering comes from a fictitious, imagined entity.

What happens to a mind in complete emptiness and complete nothingness? Krishnamurti says that when the self is not, we care much more. There is freedom, and also a great sense of love. Real love has nothing to do with thought or thinking. Love can only be when action is not based on a formula, a concept.

There is no way we can understand this with thought. Life is not a formula to be expressed. Our mind is too petty to cover the whole of life.

According to Bohm, the fiction of the self is interfering with action and wasting our energy, confusing us. If one drops this image, there is real affection and care. There is something totally different then. There is nothing inside, there is only a vast sense of space and energy without any direction.

If the self is not there with all its burdens, there is real freedom and a great sense of love.

The love that we know is a product of thought, of remembrance. That love is part of fear and pleasure, and it can be cultivated by thought. It is part of the 'me'. If the me is not, the thing we call love has quite a different meaning, vitality, and energy. It acts, not just that you preach about it.

Twelfth meeting 19th October 1974
Cooperation and Action Not Based on Ideals

Krishnamurti starts the final session by asking what is there when the self is not. What is action, then? Also, what is action when it is not based on an idea, an ideal, a concept? How can you get people with have definite ideas to work together and solve human problems?

Life is about cooperation and relationships. You cannot cooperate if you are prejudiced, if you have a formula, if there is authority or too much self-interest, or if you want to dominate others.

We must be free first, free to see the facts together and then act, not based on an idea or authority. This happens when you love somebody, Krishnamurti says. But we are so damn intellectual that we don't see and do this. There is no self at the moment I love.

Freedom of action is not possible when I have ideals, belief, a concept, a formula. Seeing the same thing together without opposing or agreeing is the key to right action.

Concluding remarks

It is inspiring to hear these brilliant minds explore consciousness and its obvious limitations. However, it seems obvious that not all of them got the key point Krishnamurti tried to make.

It is very human to limit our mind to what we can understand. Nobody understands the whole of life, but it becomes clear that we might at least have an insight into the nature and limits of thought. That is the theme that Krishnamurti and Bohm discussed in depth after this meeting.

It was startled to hear Krishnamurti say that "we humans like conflict". This may be one of the reasons why we have not solved the problem of violence. Conflict makes us feel that we are alive.

Another striking point is in the eleventh meeting when Krishnamurti and Bohm talk about the self being fictitious. Yet we all feel that it is very, very actual. Why? What would our life be like without the self, without the content of our consciousness?

Would it be empty?

The self is afraid of the idea of emptiness. Being empty, it feels as though it loses everything dear to it. Krishnamurti takes the opposite view. To him, an empty mind is full of energy and that
element we call love or joy. It is a free mind – free of sorrow, fear and the pursuit of pleasure.

As an idea, this has no value. However, when the mind is actually free, it is timeless and beyond the known.

Ninth meeting 18th October 1974
The Immeasurable, Non-verbal Communication, Love, and Krishnamurti's Youth

In the Thursday afternoon session, David Bohm tells his personal path. He found that in the universe, there is immense order and things are interrelated, yet the highest virtue of people he knew and the entire society was very trivial and narrow. There was a deep contrast between the two.

He got interested in physics, especially after realising that there is energy in atoms and perhaps it could be released. The next leap was when he learned about quantum theory. There, he learned that there is the inseparability of the observer and the observed. The observing instrument affects the result you get. The entire universe is one and indivisible. That is what Krishnamurti said, and that led to their friendship in the early Sixties.

Bohm says he has always done his scientific work with love and passion, it was never just a job. He also got interested in politics. Freedom and democracy were the key areas he was interested in, and slavery was the worst thing that could ever happen. It seemed to be a degradation and corruption of human beings. Then came fascism and Nazism and they were even worse.

To Bohm, America was, before the war, semi-fascist, and he became favourable to Communism and Marx's ideas. When he saw that Stalin was a monster second only to Hitler, he dropped it, and his attention changed to science. It felt true, there seemed to be a brotherhood of scientists. Later he found out that that was not at all so.

Bohm felt that Krishnamurti was right in saying that the basic trouble of mankind is not lack of knowledge or political organization, it is thought which is wrongly used and confused. It requires our attention. To do anything new in science, there must be love and passion, a strong feeling to work together. Bohm came convinced that thought is the problem and the key to solving it!

In the West, measurement has been primary. In the East, their emphasis was on immeasurable.
The observer establishes the measure. Our general modes of expression have evolved to very heavily emphasise this measurement or space-time causal action.

Krishnamurti says that the fundamental question is not to understand and explain the world in words, but to ask oneself, Can we live in this world without the self? You cannot discuss this unless you are not in that state. Then it would be a mere verbal exchange. That thing must actually be as we talk. Then we will communicate it not only verbally but actually.

To be in that state, we must see that thought has created this awful mess in the world, the division between people. All religions are based on thought. Krishnamurti feels tremendous responsibility to bring about a change inside and outside. Everything is self-centred, and thought cannot change that because the activity of thought is the root cause of self-centredness.

The immeasurable is there when we negate everything what it is not; it is not time, not thought, not the word, nor the description. The immeasurable is not incommunicable, but thought alone can never get it because it is limited. Bohm says we need a preliminary analysis to straighten this out, but we have to "be there" and perhaps need a different kind of language so that we can see the world differently.

Knowledge is very limited, and we are talking about something in which there is no observer.

Krishnamurti points out that we have to know how to listen to another. Understanding verbally is not enough. You may hear something you have never heard or experienced before. In this case, we are verbally expressing something non-verbal.

When you actually listen, you are not projecting your opinions, judgments, conclusions, prejudices. When you so listen, are attentive, there is actual communion.

Thought has created this awful mess in the world, division between people, but thought cannot change the social structure it has made. So, what is the factor that will change man? Another element is needed.

First, we must see that we are not whole; our thought is fragmentary, and it makes our life a constant battle inside and out. Attention changes that, seeing without the observer. The observer is the factor of disorder, because it divides. We have divided living and dying, you and me, we and they, human and nature.

Thought as knowledge cannot transform man psychologically. We can start with verbal dialogue and investigate together without making conclusions. Then we find out what is our relationship to the whole of mankind?