STABILITY AND KNOWLEDGE
Dialogue 23SW: I perceive a tree. Then an idea arises from memory which says: This is a
mango tree. This idea comes in the way of my looking at the tree and, so, I am
not able to see the fact of the tree. This screen of ideas interferes with the present,
and there is no real perception.
K: Are you asking, sir, what relationship is? What is the relationship between the
observed and the observer? What does it mean to be related, to be in contact?
Relationship means to be related. The relationship between two people; the
relationship between the concept, the ideal and the conceiver of the ideal; the
relationship of the one with the many; the relationship between one thought and
another thought and with the interval between thoughts; the relationship between
the present and the future as death; the relationship between the world and
myself—all that is involved in relationship, is it not? I may renounce the world, I
may live in a cave, but I am still related to my whole background, and the
background is me. I think relationship implies all that. (pause)
A: We always think of relationship in isolation and not as a part of the whole;
relationship is always with something.
K: Can there be a relationship if there is a centre, an observer to whom you are
related? When the centre feels it is related to something, is that relationship?
A: It has been pointed out that it is only when I feel related to something that the
‘I’ as the centre is strengthened. The centre assumes a cohesive character only
through its fragmented parts.
K: How do we discuss this? Where do we begin with this vast subject?
A: Would you start with belief, because belief is the basis of all relationship?
K: What does relationship mean to you?
A: To be in communication.
K: What does relationship mean to you? When you look at me, at her, in what
way are you related to me, to her? Are you related?
A: I think so.
K: Let us examine it. I look at you, you look at me. What is our relationship?
Except for a verbal relationship, is there a relationship at all?