20TH SEPTEMBER 1980 CONVERSATION WITH PROF. DAVID BOHM & JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI
Continued from Universal Mind 1.1
DB: Perhaps thought could be looked at that way. You see, marble is too static, and remains for thousands of years. So although the original sculptor may have understood, the people who follow see it as a fixed form.
K: What relationship has all this to my daily life? In what way does it act through my actions, through my ordinary physical responses, to noise, to pain, various forms of disturbance? What relationship has the physical to that silent movement?
DB: Well, in so far as the mind is silent, the thought is orderly.
K: We are getting on to something. Would you say that the silent movement, with its unending newness, is total order of the universe?
DB: We could consider that the order of the universe emerges from this silence and emptiness.
K: So what is the relationship of this mind to the universe?
DB: The particular mind?
K: No; mind.
DB: Mind in general?
K: Mind. We went through the general and the particular, and beyond that there is the mind.
DB: Would you say that is universal?
K: I don’t like to use the word universal.
DB: Universal in the sense of that which is beyond the particular. But perhaps that word is difficult.
K: Can we find another word? Not global. A mind that is beyond the particular?
DB: Well you could say it is the source, the essence. It has been called the absolute.
K: I don’t want to use the word ‘absolute’, either.
DB: The absolute means literally that which is free of all limitations, of all dependence.
K: All right, if you agree that ‘absolute’ means freedom from all dependence and limitation.
DB: From all relationships.
K: Then we will use that word.
DB: It has unfortunate connotations.
K: Of course. But let’s use it for the moment just for convenience in our dialogue. There is this absolute stillness, and in or from that stillness there is a movement, and that movement is everlastingly new. What is the relationship of that mind to the universe?
DB: To the universe of matter?
K: To the whole universe: matter, trees, nature, man, the heavens?
DB: That is an interesting question.
K: The universe is in order; whether it is destructive or constructive, it is still order.
DB: You see, the order has the character of being absolutely necessary; in a sense it cannot be otherwise. The order that we usually know is not absolutely necessary. It could be changed; it could depend on something else.
K: The eruption of a volcano is order.
DB: It is order of the whole universe.
K: Quite. Now in the universe there is order, and this mind which is still is completely in order.
DB: The deep mind, the absolute.
K: The absolute mind. So, is this mind the universe?
DB: In what sense is that the universe? We have to understand what it means to say that, you see.
K: It means, is there a division, or a barrier, between this absolute mind and the universe? Or are both the same?
DB: Both are the same.
K: That is what I want to get at.
DB: We have either duality of mind and matter, or they are both the same.
K: That’s it. Is that presumptuous?
DB: Not necessarily. I mean that these are just two possibilities.
K: I want to be quite sure that we are not treading upon something which really needs a very subtle approach – which needs great care. You know what I mean?
DB: Yes. Let’s go back to the body. We have said that the mind which is of the body – thought, feeling, desire, the general and the particular mind – is part of the material process.
K: Absolutely.
DB: And not different from the body.
K: That’s right. All the reactions are material processes.
DB: And therefore what we usually call the mind is not different from what we call the body.
K: Quite.
DB: Now you are making this much greater in saying, consider the whole universe. And we ask if what we call the mind in the universe is different from what we call the universe itself?
K: That’s right. You see why I feel that in our daily life there must be order, but not the order of thought.
DB: Well, thought is a limited order, it is relative.
K: That’s it. So there must be an order that is…
DB: …free of limitation.
K: Yes. In our daily life we have to have that – which means no conflict, no contradiction whatsoever.
DB: Let’s take the order of thought. When it is rational it is in order. But in contradiction the order of thought has broken down, it has reached its limit. Thought works until it reaches a contradiction, and that’s the limit.
K: So if in my daily life there is complete order, in which there is no disturbance, what is the relationship of that order to the never ending order? Can that silent movement of order, of that extraordinary something, affect my daily life, when I have inward psychological order? You understand my question?
DB: Yes. We have said, for example, that the volcano is a manifestation of the whole order of the universe.
K: Absolutely. Or a tiger killing a deer.
DB: The question then is whether a human being in his ordinary life can be similar.
K: That’s it. If not, I don’t see what is the point of the other – the universal.
DB: Well, it has no point to the human being. You see, some people would say, who cares about the universe. All we care about is our own society, and what we are doing. But then that falls down, because it is full of contradiction.
K: Obviously. It is only thought which says that. So that universe, which is in total order, does affect my daily life.
DB: Yes. I think that scientists might ask how. You see, one might say, I know that the universe is constituted of matter, and that the laws of matter affect our daily life. But it is not so clear how it affects the mind; and if there is this absolute mind which affects the daily life.
K: Ah! What is my daily life? Disorderly, and a series of reactions. Right?
DB: Well, it is mostly that.
K: And thought is always struggling to bring order within that. But when it does that, it is still disorder.
DB: Because thought is always limited by its own contradictions.
K: Of course. Thought is always creating disorder, because it is itself limited.
DB: As soon as it tries to go beyond the limit, that is disorderly.
K: Right. I have understood, I have gone into it, I have an insight into it, so I have a certain kind of order in my life. But that order is still limited. I recognize that, and I say that this existence is limited.
DB: Now some people would accept that, and say ‘Why should you have more?’
K: I am not having more.
DB: But others might say, ‘We would be happy if we could live in a material life, with real order.’