K: I want to possess her, and that is why I need her. The brain cells establish a
pattern of habit and refuse to leave habit.
A: I want to understand what you are saying—that our entire consciousness is
words, is knowledge.
K: Knowledge is put together; it is a process. A process implies time. Time
implies thought. So through thought, through knowledge, through time, you are
trying to find something which is out of time, which is not knowledge, which is
not thought. You cannot.
A: The whole process which we have described must also be non-verbal.
K: We use words to communicate, to share together something common between
two people. The common factor between human beings is despair, agony,
sorrow. Can this be dispelled through time or can it be dispelled instantly? Is this
process to be ended with words or without words? The word is not the thing. You
may describe the most marvellous food, but the description is not the food. The
word is not the thing, but we have to use the word in order to understand the
thing. Why do we make words so important?
A: In order for communication to take place, there have to be words.
K: When does communication, the sharing together of a common problem, take
place?
A: It can take place non-verbally.
K: To me, communication means sharing together, thinking together, creating
together, understanding. When are we together? Surely not on the verbal level
alone. We are together to share the problem when we are tremendously vital,
passionate at the same level with the same intensity. When does this happen? It
happens when you love something. When you love—it is finished. I kiss you,
and I hold your hand; it is finished. When we lack that thing, we spin around
with words. I am sure all the professionals miss that.
So our problem is how to meet, to come together at the same time, at the
same level, with the same intensity. That is the real question. We do that when
there is sex which we call love. Otherwise you battle for yourself, and I battle for
myself. This is the problem. Can I, who am in sorrow, say: Let us come together,
let us talk it over, and not talk of what Nāgārjuna, Śaṅkara and others say?
Madras
5 January, 1971