A: At a certain level knowledge is essential.
K: Of course, half our lives are that. We see that the brain, which is put together
through millennia, lives with the experience of the present and the past—the
racial past, the familial past and the personal past are all weighted down there.
We call this progress. We know technological progress—from the bullock cart to
the jet. The brain says that it can only function within its memories; and thought
says that it wants to get out of the prison of memories. So thought moves into the
future which is enlightenment. So enlightenment is also a movement of thought.
See what we are doing.
A: We apply the principle of the bullock cart and the jet—that the mind through
acquired knowledge, through discipline, through control of desires, can move to
freedom.
K: I do not think we are clear yet. We accumulate knowledge, which is
experience, memory, and through knowledge we try to find a way out.
A: Yes.
K: The traditional approach to freedom is through knowledge. But can
knowledge bring about freedom? If it can, discipline, control, sublimation,
suppression are all necessary. Because that is all we know. That is tradition.
‘Tradition’ means ‘to carry over’.
A: I clearly see that it is not possible. Then why do we not stop?
K: I clearly see that knowledge which is the accumulation of centuries is a
prison. I see clearly that this is a fact; it is not an assumption or a theory. And yet
the mind cannot drop it.
A: My understanding is verbal; it is based on words.
K: Is it based on words? You hit me. I have physical pain. The remembrance of
the pain is in the form of words, but the pain is not verbal. Why has the mind
translated the pain into words? Watch it, sir.
A: For the sake of communication.
K: Watch it. You hit me; I am in pain. That is a physical fact. Then I remember
it. The remembrance is in the form of words. Why has the fact been translated
into words?
J: To give continuity.