K: I say learn also how to live. Then what happens? If I learn how to live, I also
learn how to die. I want to learn how to live. I want to learn about sorrow,
pleasure, pain, beauty. I learn. Because I am learning about life I am learning
about death. Learning is an act of purification, and not the acquiring of
knowledge. Learning is purgation. I cannot learn if my mind is full. The mind
must purge itself to learn. Therefore the mind, when it wants to learn, has to
empty itself of everything that it has known; then it can learn.
So there is the living which we all know. There has to be first of all a learning
about this daily living. Now, is the mind capable not of accumulating but of
learning? Without understanding what is implied in the first act of learning, can it
learn? What is implied? When I do not know, then my mind, not knowing, is
capable of learning. Can the mind not know, so that it can learn about living—in
which there is sorrow, agony, confusion, struggle? Can it come to it in a state of
not-knowing, and so learn? Such a mind, capable of learning about life, is also
capable of learning about death.
What is important is not the learning about something, but the act of learning.
The mind can only learn when it does not know. We approach life with
knowledge of life, with knowledge of cause, effect, karma. We come to life with
the sense of the ‘I know’, with conclusions and formulas. And with these we fill
the mind. But I do not know about death. I want to learn about death, but I
cannot. It is only when I know learning that I will understand death. Death is the
emptying of the mind of the knowledge which I have accumulated.
P: There can be learning about living in learning about death. Deep down in
human consciousness there is this nameless fear of ceasing to be.
K: The nameless fear of not being. Being is knowing that I am this, that I am
happy, that I had a marvellous time. In the same way I want to know death. I do
not want to learn, I want to know. I want to know what it means to die.
P: So that I am free of fear.
K: If I do not know how to drive a car, I am frightened. The moment I know, it is
over. Similarly, my knowledge of death is in terms of the past; knowledge is the
past. Therefore I say: I must know what it means to die, so that I can live. Do you
see the game you are playing with yourself, the game which the mind is playing
with itself?
The act of learning is different from the act of knowing. You see, knowing is
never in the active present; learning is always in the active present. The learning
about death—I really do not know what that means. There is no theory, no
speculation that will satisfy me. I am going to find out, I am going to learn. There
is no theory, no conclusion, no hope, no speculation, but only the act of learning;
therefore there is no fear of death. To find out what it means to die, learn.
In the same way, I really want to know what living is. So I must come to
living with a fresh mind, without the burden of knowledge. The moment the
mind acknowledges it knows absolutely nothing, it is free to learn. Free to learn