Cosmic Order 1.3
7TH JUNE 1980 CONVERSATION WITH PROF. DAVID BOHM & JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI
Final part
DB: It may be a non-verbal state… something analogous to a feeling which isn’t fixed, that can’t be named.
N: You are saying it is not feeling, it is similar to feeling, but it is not fixed?
DB: Yes. I am just considering that that could exist if we say that there is no thought. I am trying to clarify this.
K: Yes, there is no thought.
DB: What does that really mean?
K: What it really means is, thought is movement, thought is time. Right? In that emptiness there is not time or thought.
DB: Yes, and perhaps no sense of the existence of an entity inside.
K: Absolutely, of course. The existence of the entity is the bundle of memories, the past.
DB: But that existence is not only thought thinking about it, but also the feeling that it is there; you get a sort of feeling inside.
K: A feeling, yes. There is no being. There is nothing. If there is a feeling of the being continuing…
DB: Yes, even though it doesn’t seem possible to verbalize this… It would be a state without desire. How can we know if this state is real, is genuine?
K: That is what I am asking. How do we know, or realize that this is so? In other words, do you want proof of it?
N: Not proof, but communication of that state.
K: Now wait a minute. Suppose someone has this peculiar compassion, how can he communicate it Lo me, if I am living in pleasure and all that? He can’t!
N: No, but I am prepared to listen to him.
K: Prepared to listen, but how deeply? The man says there is no being. And one’s whole life has been this becoming. And, in that state, he says there is no being at all. In other words, there is no ‘me’. Right? Now you say, ‘Show it to me’. It can be shown only through certain qualities that it has, certain actions. What are the actions of a mind that is totally empty of being? Actions at what level? Actions in the physical world?
N: Partly.
K: Mostly that. All right, this man has got this sense of emptiness, and there is no being. He is not acting from self-centred interests. His actions are in the world of daily living, and you can judge whether he is a hypocrite, whether he says something and contradicts it the next moment, or whether he is actually living this compassion and not just saying, ‘I feel compassionate’.
DB: But if one is not doing the same, one can’t tell.
K: That’s right. That is what I am saying.
N: We can’t judge him.
K: You can’t. So how can he convey to us in words that peculiar quality of mind? He can describe, go round it, but he can’t give the essence of it. Dr. Bohm, for example, could discuss with Einstein; they were on the same level. And he and I can discuss. If one has this sense of not being, of emptiness, the other can go very close, but can never enter that mind unless he has it!
N: Is there any way of communicating, for one who is open, but not through words?
K: We are talking of compassion. It is not, ‘I feel compassionate’. That is altogether wrong. You see, in daily life such a mind acts without the ‘me’, without the ‘ego’. Therefore it might make a mistake, but it corrects immediately; it is not carrying that mistake.
N: It is not stuck.
K: Not stuck. But we must be very careful here not to find an excuse for wrong! So we come to that point that we discussed earlier; what then is meditation? Right? For the man who is becoming, meditation has no meaning whatsoever. That is a tremendous statement. When there is not this being or becoming, what is meditation? It must be totally unconscious, totally uninvited.
DB: Do you mean, without conscious intention?
K: Yes, I think that is right. Would you say – I hope this doesn’t sound silly – that the universe, the cosmic order, is in meditation?
DB: Well, if it is alive, then we would have to look at it that way.
K: No, no. It is in a state of meditation.
DB: Yes.
K: I think that is right. I stick to that.
DB: We should try to go further into what is meditation. What is it doing?
N: If you say that the universe is in meditation, is the expression of it order? What order can we discern which would indicate cosmic or universal meditation?
K: The sunrise and sunset; all the stars, the planets are order. The whole thing is in perfect order.
DB: We have to connect this with meditation. According to the dictionary, the meaning of meditation is to reflect, to turn something over in the mind, and to pay close attention.
K: And also to measure.
DB: That is a further meaning, but it is to weigh, to ponder, it means, measure, in the sense of weighing.
K: Weighing, that’s it. Ponder, think over, and so on.
DB: To weigh the significance of something. Now is that what you mean?
K: No.
DB: Then why do you use the word?
N: I am told that, in English, contemplation has a different connotation from meditation. Contemplation implies a deeper state of mind.
DB: It is hard to know. The word ‘contemplate’ comes from the word temple, really.
K: Yes, that’s right.
DB: Its basic meaning is, to create an open space.
K: Is that an open space between God and me?
DB: That is the way the word arose.
K: Quite.
N: The Sanskrit word Dhyans doesn’t have the same connotation as meditation.
K: No.
N: Because meditation has the overtones of measurement, and probably, in an oblique way, that measurement is order.
K: No, I don’t want to bring in order – let’s leave the word order out. We have been through that, and beaten it to death!
DB: Why do you use the word meditation?
K: Don’t let’s use it.
DB: Let’s find out what you really mean here.
K: Would you say, a state of infinity? A measureless state?
DB: Yes.
K: There is no division of any kind. You see we are giving lots of descriptions, but it is not that.
DB: Yes, but is there any sense of the mind being in some way aware of itself? Is that what you are trying to say? At other times you have said that the mind is emptying itself of content.
K: What are you trying to get at?
DB: I am asking whether it is not only infinite, but if something more is involved?
K: Oh, much more.
DB: We said that content is the past which is making disorder. Then you could say that this emptying of content in some sense is constantly cleaning up the past. Would you agree to that?
K: No, no.
DB: When you say the mind is emptying itself of content…
K: Has emptied itself.
DB: All right, then. When the past is cleaned up, then you say that is meditation.
K: That is meditation; no, contemplation…
N: Just a beginning.
K: Beginning?
N: The emptying of the past.
K: That emptying of the past, which is anger, jealousy, beliefs, dogmas, attachments, etc., must be done. If that is not emptied, if any part of that exists, it will inevitably lead to illusion. The brain or the mind must be totally free of all illusion, illusion brought by desire, by hope, by wanting security, and all that.
DB: Are you saying that when this is done, it opens the door to something broader, deeper?
K: Yes. Otherwise life has no meaning; it is just repeating this pattern.
N: What exactly did you mean when you said that the universe is meditation?
K: I feel that way, yes.
DB: Could we say first of all that the universe is not actually governed by its past? You see, the universe creates certain forms which are relatively constant, so that people who look at it superficially only see that, and it seems then to be determined from the past.
K: Yes, it is not governed by the past. It is creative, moving.
DB: And then this movement is order.
K: Would you, as a scientist, accept such a thing?
DB: Well as a matter of fact I would!
K: Are we both crazy? Let’s put the question another way: is it really possible for time to end – the whole idea of time as the past – chronologically, so that there is no tomorrow at all? There is the feeling, the actual reality, psychologically, of having no tomorrow. I think that is the healthiest way of living – which doesn’t mean that I become irresponsible! That would be too childish.
DB: It is merely a question of physical time, which is a certain part of natural order.
K: Of course; that is understood.
DB: The question is whether we have a sense of experiencing past and future or whether we are free of that sense.
K: I am asking you, as a scientist, is the universe based on time?
DB: I would say no, but you see the general way…
K: That is all I want. You say no! And can the brain, which has evolved in time.?
DB: Well, has it evolved in time? Rather it has become entangled in time. Because the brain is part of the universe, which we say is not based on time.
K: I agree.
DB: thought has entangled the brain in time.
K: All right. Can that entanglement be unravelled, freed, so that the universe is the mind? You follow? If the universe is not of time, can the mind, which has been entangled in time, unravel itself and so be the universe? You follow what I am trying to say?
DB: Yes.
K: That is order.
DB: That is order. And would you say that it is meditation?
K: That is it. I would call that meditation, not in the ordinary, dictionary sense of pondering, and all that, but a state of meditation in which there is no element of the past.
DB: You say the mind is disentangling itself from time, and also really disentangling the brain from time?
K: Yes, would you accept that?
DB: Yes.
K: As a theory?
DB: Yes, as a proposal.
K: No, I don’t want it as a proposal.
DB: What do you mean by theory?
K: Theory – when somebody comes along and says, this is real meditation.
DB: All right.
K: Wait. Somebody says, one can live this way; life has an extraordinary meaning in it, full of compassion, etc., and every act in the physical world can be corrected immediately, and so on. Would you, as a scientist, accept such a state, or say that the man who talks of it is cuckoo?
DB: No, I wouldn’t say that. I feel it is perfectly possible; it is quite compatible with anything that I know about nature.
K: Oh, then that’s all right. So one is not an unbalanced cuckoo! Of course putting all this into words is not the thing. Right? That is understood. But can it be communicated to another? Now can some of us get to this, so that we can communicate it, actually?
