K: Let us examine that. Let us stick to that question for the moment. Thought has
a legitimate field of operation. If it impinges upon other fields it brings pain,
suffering. What operated in this area is still consciousness, as we know it, with
all the things we have put into it. The ‘other’ is not.
P: The ‘other’ is not what?
K: It is not thought.
P: But is it consciousness? Let me open out the problem a little more. Sensory
perception continues to operate; there is seeing, listening. So why do you say that
it is not consciousness?
K: I am saying that it is not consciousness in the sense that there is no conflict.
P: There is no conflict in consciousness. There is only conflict when
consciousness operates as thought in the field where it has no legitimate place.
Why should there be conflict in consciousness when thought is not operating?
K: There is no conflict at all there. Let us go slowly.
P: Then what is it that operates there?
K: It is intelligence. Intelligence is not consciousness.
P: Now we come to a stage where we just listen.
K: My mind has followed all this. It has seen, as A pointed out, that the whole
content of consciousness contains the Indian tradition as well as the whole
human heritage, and that I am all that; consciousness is all that. Heritage is
consciousness, and that consciousness as we know it is conflict. My chief
concern is to end that conflict—conflict being sorrow, pain. In examining that,
there is a discovery that it is all a process of thought. There is pleasure and pain.
And from that the mind says that it must operate in the field of knowledge and
not here. It operates legitimately in one field, but not here. What has happened to
my mind? It has become pliable, soft, alive. It sees, it hears. It does not have the
quality of conflict in it. And that is intelligence; that is not consciousness.
Intelligence is not heritage, whereas consciousness is heritage. Do not translate
intelligence as God.
Now that intelligence can use knowledge, it can use thought to operate in the
field of knowledge. Therefore its operation is never dualistic.
D: The language of intelligence must be different from the language of thought.