Tuesday, September 09, 2008

16. KRISHNAMURTI: A DIALOGUE


“Someone comes to you because you have gone from the beginning to the end. And now you are at the end with a totally different kind of movement, which is timeless, and all that. You are in that. I come to you and ask, ‘What is that state of mind? What is the state of your mind, that has walked on that path and ended something, that has totally moved out of darkness?
“If we could find out the quality of a mind that has been through all that from the beginning to the end, all that we have talked of in our recent discussions; that man’s [woman’s] mind is entirely different, yet he [she] is in the world. How does he [she] look upon it? You [as the ‘Changed One’] have reached and come back – these are approximate terms – and I [the ‘Unchanged One’] am an ordinary man [woman], living in this world. So what is your relationship to me? Obviously none, because I am living in a world of darkness and you are not. So relationship can only exist when I come out of it – when darkness ends. … But now there is division between you and me. And I look at you with my eyes, which are accustomed to darkness and to division. You have to have some contact with me – however superficial, however slight – a certain relationship with me. Is that relationship compassion, and not something translated by me as compassion? From my darkness I cannot judge what compassion is. … You [the ‘Changed One’] have been through all that and come back.”

Questioner: “Why hasn’t [the Unchanged One] done so?

“I [the Unchanged One) ask, ‘Who are you? You seem so different. Your way of looking at life is different.’ And what will I [the Unchanged One] do with you [the Changed One]? That is the question. Not what will you [the Changed One] do to me [the Unchanged One]. I think what would happen generally is that I [the Unchanged One] would worship, kill, or neglect you [the Changed One]. Right? If the Unchanged One worships the Changed One, then everything is very simple, but what will the Changed One do with the Unchanged One, but say, ‘Look, walk out of this darkness; there is no answer in the darkness, so walk out.’ It doesn’t matter, whatever phrases we use – walk out, dispel it, get rid of it, etc. And the Unchanged One says, ‘help me, show me the way’ and is back again in darkness – you follow? The Changed one says he [she] is sorry; I am not interested in proving anything. It isn’t a mathematical or a technical problem to be shown and proved. The Changed One says that he [she] has walked from the beginning of man [woman] [human] to the very end, and that there is a movement which is timeless. The ground, which is the universe, the cosmos, everything, doesn’t need the man [woman] [human], but the man [woman] [human] has come upon it. …. I am not ‘satisfied’ in leaving this immensity to be reduced to some few words. It seems so stupid, so incredible. You see, man [woman] [human] – the Unchange One – is concerned with concepts like ‘show me,’ ‘prove it to me,’ ‘what benefit has it?,’ ‘will it affect my future?’ So, he [she] reduces that immensity to his [her] pettiness, and puts it in a temple and has therefore lost it completely. But the Changed One says, ‘I won’t even look at that; there is something so immense, please do look at it.’ But the Unchanged One is always translating it by wanting demonstration, proof or reward. He [she] is always concerned with that. The Changed One brings light. That’s all he [she] can do. Isn’t that enough?”

Questioner: “Do you think it is possible that something like this could divert the course of mankind away from the dangerous path it is taking?”

“Yes, that is what I think. But to divert the course of man’s destruction, somebody must listen. Right? Somebody – ten people -- must listen!”

Questioner: “Yes.”

“Listen to that immensity calling.”

Questioner: “So the immensity may divert the course of man. The individual cannot do it.”

“Yes. The individual cannot do it, obviously. But the Changed One, who is supposed to be an individual, has trodden this path, and says, ‘Listen.’ But man [woman] does not listen.”

Questioner: “Well, then, is it possible to discover how to make people listen?”

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