P: What you say is valid. There are many times when what you say is valid
within me.
K: My point is this: Were those people who spoke of inward movement aware of
its dualistic nature?
P: They must have been aware. The Yoga-sūtras say that the seer is nothing more
than the instrument of seeing. They make an absolute statement like that.
K: Probably the man who perceived reality said that the seer and the seeing are
one. Then the followers came along and made theories without experiencing that
state.
I cannot separate the observer from the observed. When I close my eyes, there
is no observer at all. Therefore, there is no inward movement as opposed to the
outward movement.
P: Do you see yourself as a person?
K: If you mean the body, yes. As an ego, as a person talking on the platform,
walking, climbing the hill, no.
P: Does the sense of existence, the sense of ‘I am’, operate in you?
K: One of the things I have never had is the sense of the ‘I’. Never.
P: ‘I exist’ is the central core in all of us; it is the very fabric of our existence.
K: The peripheral expressions of Krishnamurti appear to suggest a person, but at
the centre there is no person. I really do not know what it means. You ask
whether there is a centre, the sense of ‘I am’, in me. No. The feeling of ‘I am’ is
not true.
P: It is not as obvious as that. But the sense of existence, the core of the ego
within us, is unexplored. There is something which holds it together, and as long
as it remains, what you say has no validity for us.
K: There is no movement of the past as the ‘me’ in the centre, in the person. One
has to go into this very carefully. As we said the other day, the first step is the
last step; the first perception is the last perception; and the ending of the first
perception is the new perception. Therefore, there is a total gap between the first
perception and the second perception. In that interval, there is no movement of
thought. There would be the movement of thought when the memory of the first
perception remains, not when it is over. Can the mind not empty itself of every
perception? Can it not die to every expression? And when it does, where would
the root of the ‘I am’ be? When the mind is that, is there any movement of
pattern taking place? When the eyes, ears and desire are non-existent as