asking: When you insult or flatter me, why should the brain register the insult or
the flattery? The brain registers what is important. Why should the brain carry
every superficial impact?
P: How can you ask why?
K: I will show you. You insult or flatter me. Why should I hold on to it? What is
the point of holding on? Can I push it off, and, can the brain only hold things
which are useful for it to survive?
F: You have introduced the word ‘survival’.
K: Why should I hold your insult or flattery? Why should it register? Because if I
do register the insult, then there is the effort to cut it off; there is like and dislike.
F: How can I cut it off?
K: Freedom is the emptying of all this. Freedom is not the burden of carrying
insults, regrets, happiness, fears, miseries.
A: May I ask you one question? Am I capable of living outside the groove of
registering?
K: No.
A: Living in the groove, it will register. There is nothing I can do to stop
registering.
K: If you see this, there is a state of intelligence which refuses to register. Only
the active present can help here, not the past or the future.
P: When there is attention there is no registering; not only that, but attention
wipes out what is registered.
K: That is good enough. If the brain realizes that it need not carry all the burdens
of everyday incidents, that is good enough.
Bombay
16 February, 1971