K: Yes. Now when that brain is in operation, it is always acting from the past.
First of all, what is wrong with that?
P: If you observe, it is like ripples being shown up—thought as ripples. Then
suddenly I am attentive, and there are no ripples.
K: In that state of attention, there is perception; that state of attention is
perception.
D: When I see the fact that my brain is registering everything, and I suddenly
realize that it is going on without the observer, that annihilates me. If it goes on
without me, then I am finished.
K: It is like a recording machine that is registering everything.
D: Why do I need to call it a machine? It is a wondrous thing. And I do not know
the why and the how of it.
K: You have heard that noise of the horn blowing. The brain cells have
registered it; there is no resistance or acceptance.
D: There is more to it than that.
K: Go slowly. This brain is a machine which registers. It is like a tape recorder
that is registering everything all the time. If you challenge the brain, it will
respond in terms of its likes, or of its dislikes: you are a danger, and she is not a
danger. In that instant is born the ‘me’. It is the function of the brain to register.
D: That is a partial statement. That it registers is a fact, but there may be
something more to it.
K: You are jumping ahead. The function of the brain is to register, to record.
Every experience, whether conscious or unconscious, every sound, every word,
every nuance, is going on irrespective of the thinker as a separate entity.
Registering that noise which is unpleasant, listening to some flattery, to some
insult, wanting more or less—out of this registration emerges the ‘I’.
P: When the registration takes place, I am conscious of the sound.
K: What does that mean?—that it is pleasant or unpleasant. At the moment of
experiencing, there is no ‘I’ in it at all.
P: There is a state with the sound, and there is a state without the sound.
K: Now comes the new action. I register that noise—the hideous noise, the ugly
noise—there is no response to it. The moment there is a response, that response