K: I see the flower, I name it. The name, the form, the verbalization is the
memory; because the flower has been seen before, the brain says: That is a
flower.
B: Does it operate if I close my eyes?
K: Of course. Shut your eyes and close your ears. You can still think. Thinking
about God is within the field of thought. The man who has not thought at all, to
him there is no God. The ancient ones, thinking about something superior,
wanting something greater, said that there was God. That was the product of
thought. So that was within the field of knowledge.
C: Not much importance is given to God in the Upaniṣads. According to their
conception, God and brahman (universal spirit) are the same.
K: Someone who is not a Hindu comes along and says: God is Jesus, and you,
with your culture, speak of the ātman. What is the difference? He has been
brought up in his culture, and you in yours.
C: We speak of both. God is personal; the ātman is not personal.
K: They are all the products of thought. Look how deceptive the mind has
become, caught in words. I have accumulated knowledge about suffering, and
suffering does not end. Not knowing how to end it, thought says that there must
be some other factor. It thinks about it. So it invents the ātman. Otherwise the
ātman would not have come into existence. But the ātman does not end suffering
either, because it is part of knowledge. Knowledge about suffering has not ended
suffering.
C: But they themselves have said that thought will not solve the problem.
K: But the ātman is the product of thought.
C: The ātman is experienced by sages; it is their personal experience.
K: When they say that they experience the ātman, what does it mean?
C: They say that it cannot be described.
K: Of course it cannot be; but it is part of thought.
C: To them it was not part of thought; they realized it.
K: How do I realize anything? I must recognize it, must I not? What do I
recognize?