K: Is the capacity to rationalize independent of the brain cells? Or, being a part
of the brain, can it ever be independent? You cannot rationalize independently,
because the brain cells and the intellect are part of cause-effect.
Can the intellect observe the background of memory, which is the brain? I
believe modern scientists are trying to isolate the various cells which contain
memories and to explore the cells, to investigate them under the microscope.
If the intellect is the product of the brain, the intellect must always be
conditioned by memory, by knowledge. It can project very far, but it is still
tethered. The intellect can seek freedom; it can never find it. It can be free only
within the radius of its own tether; in itself it is limited. And freedom must be
beyond the capacity of the intellect; it must be something outside the field.
Now, what is it that is aware of this whole phenomenon—that the intellect
can never be free? It can think it is free and it can project an idea, but that is not
freedom, because that is the product of the brain cells which are the residue of
memory. What is it that is aware that the intellect cannot go beyond the range of
its own radius? I do not know if you understand the question.
A: The intellect itself can be aware of this.
K: I do not know; I am asking.
R: The intellect is a fragment.
K: There is no freedom within the field. Therefore the intellect says that there
must be freedom outside the field. It is still rationalizing and, therefore, its search
outside is still within the field. Then what is it that is aware of the whole field? Is
it still rationalization?
A: No.
K: That record has created an instrument which you call the intellect; it has the
capacity to investigate, to explore, to criticize. The intellect sees that there is no
freedom within the field and that freedom lies outside. So the intellect seeks
freedom outside itself; it thinks it moves outside its own field.
A: The Buddhists say that this process, which has come into being with a cause,
has an end (namely, the perception of it as a dead-end.) They maintain that to see
that nothing is permanent, to see that rebirth is a product of ignorance of the true
nature of the pudgala (ego), to observe all this without any attachment, is the
perception of the dead-end. All that one is to do is to contemplate, without
attachment, the impermanence of everything which has a cause. The Buddha
himself saw disease, old age and death only once. Seeing it once he never turned
back. The boy Krishnamurti also never looked back. The Buddha said: See the
impermanence of everything; in that seeing there is no effort. Krishnamurti just
says: See.