K: Timeless means timeless. Why do you ask this? Isn’t perception which is
non-verbal also non-thought, non-time? If you have answered this question, you
have answered that one also. A mind which is perceiving is not asking this
question; it is perceiving. And each perception is perception; it is not carrying
over perception. Where does the question of stripping or not stripping arise?
P: Perception is never carried into another thought. I see that lamp. The seeing
has not been carried. Only thought is being carried.
K: That is obvious. My consciousness is my mind, which is the result of sensory
perception. It is also the result of evolution and time. It is expandable and
contractible. And thought is part of consciousness. Now somebody comes along
and asks: Who am I? Is the ‘I’ a permanent entity in this consciousness?
D: It is not permanent.
K: Is this ‘I’ consciousness?
D: It cannot be.
K: Consciousness is heritage. Of course it is.
F: We are mixing the concept of consciousness with the experience of
consciousness.
K: This is very clear—the ‘I’ is that consciousness.
P: The ‘I’ has a great reality for me until I begin to investigate.
K: Of course. The fact is that after looking, after observing, I see that I am the
whole of this consciousness. This is not a verbal statement. I am the heritage—I
am all that. Is this ‘I’ observable? Can it be felt, can it be twisted? Is it the result
of perception and of heritage?
F: It is not the result of the inherited; it is the inherited.
K: And then she asks: Who is that ‘I’? Is that ‘I’ part of consciousness, part of
thought? I say yes. Thought is part of the ‘I’, except where thought is functioning
technologically, where there is no ‘I’. The moment you move away from the
scientific field, you come to the ‘I’, which is part of the biological heritage.
F: The ‘I’ is the centre of perception; it is a working centre of perception, an ad
hoc centre, and the ‘other’ is an effective centre.
K: Be simple. We see that consciousness is the ‘I’; the whole of that field is the
‘I’. The ‘I’ is the centre in the field.