D: It is free of consciousness.
P: Does it come about when I ask the question: Who am I?
K: All the traditionalists have asked that question.
P: But it is an essential question. Does it come about when I really try to
investigate the source of the ego itself? Or, does awareness come about when one
tries to discover the observer?
K: No. The moment you try, you are in time.
P: It is a question of semantics. You can strip consciousness at any point—where
is the observer? We are taking it for granted that the observer is.
K: Let us begin slowly. One sees what consciousness is. Any movement within
that field is still a process of time: it may try to be or not to be; it may try to go
beyond; it may try to invent something beyond consciousness, but it is still part
of time. So I am stuck.
P: I want to use words which are not yours. So I have rejected all your words. I
have to use my own instruments. What is the element in me which seems to me
the most potent and powerful?—It is the sense of the ‘I’.
K: Which is the past.
P: I will not use your language. It is very interesting not to use your language. I
say the most potent thing is the sense of the ‘I’. Now can there be a perception of
the ‘I’?
F: That is a wrong question. I will tell you why. You ask: Can I perceive the ‘I’?
Now the ‘I’ is nothing but an insatiable hunger for experience.
K: P began by asking: Who am I? Is the ‘I’ an action of consciousness?
P: Let us look, let us investigate.
K: When I ask myself: Who am I? is the ‘I’ the central factor in consciousness?
P: It seems so. And then I say: Let me see the ‘I’, let me find it, perceive it, touch
it.
K: So you are asking: Is this central factor perceivable by the senses? Is the
central factor tangible, to be felt, to be tasted? Or, is that central factor, the ‘I’,
something which the senses have invented?