CONFLICT AND CONSCIOUSNESS
Dialogue 14A: You say that memory is the function of the brain cells. Do the brain cells, as a
source of the intellect, have any valid part to play in their own silencing?
K: We were talking yesterday of why knowledge has been made important as a
way of enlightenment. Apparently every religious teacher has insisted on
knowledge, not only in the East but also in the West. And as tradition is so strong
in this country, it is really necessary to find out what part this whole systematized
thinking plays in attaining enlightenment. What part does environmental
conditioning play in enlightenment? How does culture, the conditioning by
culture, come into being? You must cover the whole field. Take a traditional
outlook like that of Nāgārjuna or Śaṅkara, and approach it from there.
A: The traditionalists say that all action, all activity, arises from causes, and that
these causes are known.
K: You are making an incorrect statement: from a fixed cause to an effect. There
is no such thing.
A: It starts with this sūtra: All these manifestations of behaviour, it is the Buddha
who has given you the source of all these manifestations. If you know the cause,
you can eliminate the cause. This is a statement of the Buddha. By understanding
the cause you get rid of it, and he has told you the cause. All manifested thought
or behaviour is within the field of cause-effect.
K: I question this. We see that what was the cause becomes the effect and what
was the effect becomes the cause. The acorn produces an oak tree. We think that
karma operates on this principle of cause-effect. But, if there were a fixed cause,
everything would be fixed. Then there would be no explanation or inquiry
possible. Now, is there a fixed point at all, or is there only a constant movement
which the mind and brain are incapable of following, of living? And, so, the
mind says that there is cause and effect, and the mind is held in that pattern.
A: Is there such a thing as cause-effect? If there is a chain of cause-effect, at any
point you can hold it. To hold the chain at the point of the cause, at the point
where the effect becomes the cause, that is the key to this.
K: Who is to hold it? You insulted me yesterday, that is the cause. The insult
may have been the result of my previous insult to you, and in reacting again there
are a series of actions, modifications going on all the time. You insult me; at that
moment, if the mind is totally aware, there is no cause-effect at all. You insult
me. The response to that insult is from the old brain which has divided itself and