from living like an animal. Man is not merely an animal; he is able to think,
design, construct.
P: Do you mean to say that there is an intelligence which manifests itself in the
action of stripping consciousness?
K: Listen carefully. My consciousness is all the time trying to become, to
change, to modify, to struggle, and so on. That and biological survival are all I
know. Everybody operates within these two. And within that struggle, we project
something beyond consciousness; but that is still within consciousness because it
is projected.
The mind that really wants to be free from the wrangle, from the back-
chattering asks: Can the mind strip itself of its own content? That is all. (pause)
And intelligence comes to be in that asking.
P: Is emptying an endless process?
K: Certainly not. Because if it were an endless process, I would be caught in the
same phenomenon.
P: Let us pause here. Is it not an endless process?
K: It is not an endless process.
P: You mean, once it is done, it is done?
K: Let us go slowly. You must first understand this verbally. My consciousness
is made up of all that we have talked about.
P: Does the emptying of consciousness take time or is it free of time? Is it
piecemeal? Or, is it an emptying of the whole?
K: Is the question whether the emptying is piecemeal or whether it is whole?
P: Putting the question that way reveals the whole which contains the piece.
B: Stripping has to be a joint process which includes the part and the whole.
K: Discuss it.
P: What is it that one strips? Or, what is it that one perceives? Or, is there a
dissolution of that which emerges, which is thought?
D: If all these go, what remains?
P: When you say that all goes, what do you mean?