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*Krishnamurti: "We said the other day Sidney Field came to see me. His brother John died recently. You knew him. He was very concerned whether his brother was living in a different level of consciousness; whether there was John as an entity born [in the] next life. And did I believe in reincarnation and what did it mean. And so he had a lot of questions. He was having a difficult time with himself because of his brother, whom he loved and whom we have known for years. So out of that conversation two things came up. First, is there a permanent ego? If there is such a thing as a permanent something, then what is its relationship from the present to the future? The future being the next life or ten years later. But if you admit or accept or believe or assert that there is a permanent ego, then reincarnation...
*Alain Naudé: ... is inevitable.
K: Not inevitable. I wouldn't say inevitable. It is plausible, because the permanent ego, to me, if it is permanent, can be changed in ten
years time. It can incarnate differently in ten years time.
A: We read this all the time in the Indian scriptures. We read about children who remember the past life, about a girl who said, "What am I
doing here? My home is in some other village. I'm married to so and so. I have three children." And in many cases I believe that this
has been verified.
K: I don't know. So there is that. If there is no permanent entity, then what is reincarnation? Both involve time, both involve a movement in
space. Space being environment, relationship, pressure, all that existing within that space, time.
A: Within time and temporal circumstances ...
K: ... That is, culture etc ...
A: ... Within some sort of social set-up.
K: So is there a permanent me? Obviously not. But Sidney said, "Then what is it that I feel, that John is with me? When I enter the room,
I know he is there. I'm not fooling myself, I'm not imagining; I feel him there as I feel my sister who was in that room yesterday. It's as
clear, as definite as that."
A: And also sir, when you say "obviously not," would you explain that?
K: But wait. So he says, "My brother is there." I said of course he is there, because first of all you have your association and memories of
John and that is projected, and that projection is your remembrance.
A: So that the John who was contained within you is that.
K: And when John lived he was associated with you. His presence is with you. When he was living, you might not have seen him all day,
but his presence was in that room.
A: His presence was there, and perhaps this is what people mean when they speak of an aura.
K: No, aura is different. Let's not push that in yet.
........
*Mary Zimbalist: May I interrupt - when you say he was in that room, whether alive or dead, was there something external to his brother and sister that was there, or was it in their consciousness?
K: It is both in their consciousness and outside consciousness. I can project my brother and say he was with me last night, feeling he was
with me, that may emanate from me; or John, who died ten days ago - his atmosphere, his thoughts, his way of behaving still remaining
there, even though physically he might have gone.
A: The psychic momentum.
K: The physical heat.
Z: Are you saying there is a sort of energy, for want of a better word, which human beings give off?
K: There was a photograph of a parking lot taken where there had been many cars, and the photo showed, although there were no cars
there, the form of the cars that had been there.
A: Yes. I saw that.
K: That is, the heat that the car had left came on the negative.
A: And also one day when we were living in Gstaad, the first time I was your guest at Gstaad, we were living as Les Capris - you left
for America before any of us left, and I went into that flat - you were still alive and on your way to America and your presence was
there, extremely strong.
K: That's it.
A: Your presence was so strong, one felt one could touch you. This was not simply because I was thinking about you before I entered
the flat.
K: So there are three possibilities. I project out of my remembrance and consciousness, or pick up the residual energy of John.
A: Like a smell that would linger.
K: John's thought or John's existence is still there.
A: That's the third possibility.
Z: What do you mean by that, John's existence?
A: That John is really there as before he died? The third possibility.
K: I live in a room for a number of years. The presence of that room contained my energy, my thoughts, my feelings.
A: It contains its own energy, and when we go into a new house it sometimes takes time before you are rid of the person who was there
before you, even though you may not have known him.
K: So those are the three possibilities. And the other is John's thought, because John clings to life. John's desires are there in the air, not
in the room.
A: Immaterially.
K: Yes, they are there just like a thought.
A: And does that mean that John is conscious and there is a being who is self-conscious calling himself John, thinking those thoughts?
K: I doubt it.
A: I think that is what the people who believe in reincarnation would postulate.
K: See what happens, Sir. This makes four possibilities and the idea that John whose physical body is gone, exists in thought.
A: In his own thought or someone else's?
K: In his own thought.
A: Exists as a thinking entity.
K: As a thinking entity exists.
A: As a conscious being.
K: That is - listen to this, it's rather interesting - John continues because he is the world of vulgarity, of greed, of envy, of drinking, and
of competition. That is the common pattern of man. It continues and John may be identified with that, or is that.
A: John is the desires, the thoughts, the beliefs, the associations.
K: Of the world.
A: Which are incarnate and which are material.
K: Which is the world - which is everybody.
........
A: This is a big thing you are saying. It would be nice if you could explain it a bit better. When you say John persists, John continues
because there is a continuation of the vulgar in him - the vulgar being worldly, material association.
K: That is right: fear, wanting power, position.
A: Desire to be as an entity.
K: So that, because that is a common thing of the world and the world does incarnate.
A: You say the world does incarnate.
K: Take the mass of the people. They are caught in this stream and that stream goes on. I may have a son who is part of that stream
and in that stream there is John also, as a human being who is caught in it. And my son may remember some of John's attitudes.
A: Ah, but you are saying something different.
K: Yes.
A: You are saying that John is contained in all the memories that different people have of him. In that respect we can see that he does
exist. Because I remember a friend of mine died not long ago, and it was very clear to me when I thought about it that in fact he was
very much alive in the memories of all the people who had loved him.
K: That's just it.
A: Therefore, he was not absent from the world, he was still in the stream of events which we call the world, which is the lives of
different people who had associated with him. In that sense we see that he can perhaps live forever.
K: Unless he breaks away from it - breaks away from the stream. A man who is not vulgar - let's use that word, vulgar, representing all
this ... greed, envy, power, position, hatred, desires, all that - let's call that vulgar. Unless I am free from the vulgar, I will continue
representing the whole of vulgarity, the whole vulgarity of man.
A: Yes, I will be that vulgarity by pursuing it, and in fact incarnating in it, giving it life.
K: Therefore I incarnate in that vulgarity. That is, first I can project John, my brother.
A: In my thought and imagination or remember him. The second point, I can pick up his kinetic energy, which is still around.
K: His smell, his taste, his saying the words....
........
K: Third, the thought remains in the room....
A: One might say, the psychic equivalent of his kinetic energy.
K: Yes....
K: Thought, will, if he has a very strong will; active desires and thought, they also remain.
A: But that's not different from the third point. The third point is that thought remains, which is will, which is desire.
K: The fourth point is the stream of vulgarity.
A: That's not very clear.
K: Look, sir, I live an ordinary life, like millions and millions of people.
A: Yes, pursuing goals, hopes and fears.
K: I live the usual life. A little more refined, a little bit higher or lower, along the same current, I follow that current. I am that current. Me,
who is that current, is bound to continue in that stream, which is the stream of me. I'm not different from millions of other people.
A: Therefore are you saying, sir, even, dead I continue because the things which were me are continuing.
K: In the human being.
A: Therefore, I survive. I was not different from the things which filled and preoccupied my life.
K: That's right.
A: Since these things which filled and occupied my life survive, in a manner of speaking I survive since they do.
K: That's right. That's four points.
........
A: The question is about the fifth. Is there a conscious thinking entity who knows that he is conscious when everybody has said, "There
goes poor old John," even put him in the ground. Is there a conscious entity who immaterially says, 'Good gracious, they've put that body
in the ground but I have consciousness of being alive.'
K: Yes.
A: That is the question which I think is difficult to answer.
K: Sidney was asking that question.
A: Because we see that everybody does exist in these other ways after death.
K: Now, you are asking the question. Does John, whose body is burned - cremated - does that entity continue to live?
A: Does that entity continue to have its consciousness of its own existence?
K: I question whether there is a separate John.
A: You said at the beginning, is there such a thing as a permanent ego? You said obviously not.
K: When you say that John, my brother, is dead and ask whether he is living, living in a separate consciousness, I question whether he was
ever separate from the stream.
A: Yes.
K: You follow what I am saying, sir?
A: Was there a John alive?
K: When John was alive, was he different from the stream?
A: The stream filled his consciousness of himself. His consciousness of himself was the stream knowing himself.
........
K: No, sir, just go slowly. It's rather complicated.The stream of humanity is anger, hate, jealousy, seeking power, position, cheating, corrupt,
polluted. That is the stream. Of that stream is my brother John. When he existed physically, he has a physical body, but psychologically
he was of this. Therefore was he ever different from this? From the stream? Or only physically different and therefore thinking he
was different. You follow my point?
A: There was an entity who was self-conscious ...
K: ... As John.
A: He was self-conscious, and the stream was in relationship to himself.
K: Yes.
A: My wife, my child, my love.
K: But was John inwardly different from the stream? That's my point. Therefore what is dead is the body. And the continuation of John
is part of that stream. I, as his brother, would like to think of him as separate because he lived with me as a separate being physically.
Inwardly he was of the stream. Therefore, was there a John who was different from the stream? And, if he was different, then
what happens? I don't know if you follow....
........
K: My point is, this is what is happening with one hundred million people. Millions of people. As long as I swim in that stream, am I
different? Is the real John from the stream?
A: Was there ever a John?
K: That's all my point.
A: There was conscious determination which felt itself to be John.
K: Yes, but I can imagine. I can invent because I am different.
A: There was imagination, thought, calling itself John.
K: Yes, sir.
A: Now, does that thought still call itself John?
K: But I belong to that stream.
A: You always belong to the stream.
K: There is no separate entity as John who was my brother, who is now dead.
A: Are you saying that there is no individual?
K: No, this is what we call permanent. The permanent ego is this.
A: What we think is individual.
K: Individual, the collective, the self.
A: Yes, the creation of thought which calls itself self.
K: It is of this stream.
A: That's right.
K: Therefore, was there ever a John? There is only a John when he is out of the stream.
A: That's right.
........
K: So first we are trying to find out if there is a permanent ego which incarnates.
A: The nature of the ego is impermanent.
K: Reincarnation is in the whole of Asia, and the modern people who believe in it say there is a permanent ego. You take many lives so
that it can become dissolved and be absorbed in Brahma and all that. Now, is there from the beginning a permanent entity, an entity
that lasts centuries and centuries? There is no such entity, obviously. I like to think I'm permanent. My permanence is identified with
my furniture, my wife, my husband, circumstances. These are words and images of thought. I don't actually possess that chair. I call it
mine.
A: Exactly. You think it's a chair and you own it.
K: I like to think I own it.
A: But it's just an idea.
K: So, watch it. So there is no permanent self. If there was a permanent self, it would be this stream. Now, realizing that I am like the
rest of the world, that there is no separate K, or John, as my brother, then I can incarnate if I step out of it. Incarnate in the sense
that the change can take place away from the stream. In the stream there is no change.
A: If there is permanence, it is outside the stream.
K: No, sir, permanency, semi-permanency, is the stream.
A: And therefore it is not permanent. If it is permanent, it is not the stream. Therefore, if there is an entity, then it must be out of the
stream. Therefore, that which is true, that which is permanent, is not a something.
K: It is not in the stream.
A: That's right.
.....
K: When Naudé dies, as long as he belongs to the stream, that stream and its flow is semi-permanent.
A: Yes, It goes on. It's a historical thing.
K: But if Naudé says, I will incarnate, not in the next life, now, tomorrow, which means I will step out of the stream, he is no longer
belonging to the stream; therefore there is nothing permanent.
A: There is nothing to reincarnate. Therefore, that which reincarnates, if reincarnation is possible, is not permanent anyway.
K: No, it's the stream....
A: A separate entity is not real.
K: No, as long as I belong to the stream ...
A: I don't really exist ...
K: There is no separate entity. I am the world.
A: That's right.
K: When I step out of the world, is there a me to continue?
A: Exactly, It's beautiful.
K: So, what we are trying to do is justify the existence of the stream.
A: Is that what we are trying to do?
K: Of course, when I say I must have many lives and therefore I must go through the stream.
A: What we are trying to do, then, is we are trying to establish that we are different from the stream.
K: We are not.
A: We are not different from the stream.
........
K: So, sir, then what happens? If there is no permanent John or K or Naudé or Zimbalist, what happens? You remember, sir, I think I
read it in the Tibetan tradition or some other tradition, that when a person dies, is dying, the priest or the monk comes in and sends all
the family away, locks the door and says to the dying man, 'Look you're dying - let go - let all of your antagonisms, all your worldliness,
all your ambition, let go, because you are going to meet a light in which you will be absorbed, if you let go. If not, you'll come back.'
Which is, come back to the stream. You will be the stream again.
A: Yes.
K: So what happens to you if you step out of the stream?
A: You step out of the stream, you cease to be, but the you which was, was only created by thought, anyway.
K: Which is the stream.
A: Vulgarity.
K: Vulgarity. What happens if you step out of the stream? The stepping out is the incarnation. Yes, sir, but that is a new thing you are
coming into. There is a new dimension coming into being.
A: Yes.
........
K: Now, what happens? You follow? Naudé has stepped out of the stream. What happens? You are not an artist. Not a businessman.
You are not a politician, not a musician, all that identification is part of the stream.
A: All the qualities.
K: All the qualities. When you discard that, what happens?
A: You have no identity.
K: Identity is here. Say, for instance, Napoleon, or any of these so-called world leaders: they killed, they butchered, they did every horror
imaginable, they lived and died in the stream, they were of the stream. That is very simple and clear. There is a man who steps out of
the stream.
A: Before physical death?
K: Of course; otherwise there is no point.
A: Therefore, another dimension is born.
K: What happens?
A: The ending of the dimension which is familiar to us is another dimension, but it cannot be postulated at all because all postulation is in
terms of the dimension we are in.
K: Yes, but suppose you, living now ...
A: Step out of it.
K: Step out of the stream. What happens?
A: This is death, sir.
K: No, sir.
A: This is death, but not physical death.
K: You see, you step out of it. What happens?
A: Nothing can be said about what happens.
K: Wait, sir. You see, none of us step out of the river, and we are always from the river, trying to reach the other shore.
A: It's like people talking about deep sleep from awakeness.
K: That's it, sir. We belong to this stream, all of us. Man does belong to the stream and from the stream he wants to reach that shore,
never leaving the river. Now the man says, all right, I see the fallacy of this, the absurdity of my position.
A: You can't state another dimension from the old dimension.
K: So I leave that. So the mind says, "Out!". He steps out and what takes place? Don't verbalize it....
........
K: You know what it means to step out of the stream: no character.
A: No memory.
K: No, sir, see: no character, because the moment you have character it's of the stream. The moment you say you are virtuous, you
are of the stream - or not virtuous. To step out of the stream is to step out of this whole structure. So, creation as we know it is in the
stream. Mozart, Beethoven, you follow, the painters, they are all here.
A: I think perhaps, sir, sometimes that which is in the stream is vivified, as it were from something which is beyond.
K: No, no, can't be. Don't say these things because I can create in the stream. I can paint marvelous pictures. why not? I can compose
the most extraordinary symphonies, all the techniques ...
A: Why are they extraordinary?
K: Because the world needs it. There is the need, the demand, and the supply. I'm saying to myself what happens to the man who
really steps out. Here in the river, in the stream, energy is conflict, in contradiction, in strife, in vulgarity. But that's going on all the
time...
A: Me and You.
K: Yes, that's going on all the time. When he steps out of it, there is no conflict, there is no division as my country, your country.
A: No division.
K: No division. So what is the quality of that man, that mind that has no sense of division? It is pure energy, isn't it? So our concern is
this stream and stepping out of it.
A: That is meditation, that is real meditation, because the stream is not life. The stream is totally mechanical.
........
K: I must die to the stream.
A: All the time.
K: All the time. And therefore I must deny - not deny, I must not get entangled with - John who is in the stream.
A: One must repudiate the things of the stream.
K: That means I must repudiate my brother.
A: I must repudiate having a brother. You see what that means?
K: I see my brother belonging to this, and as I move away from the stream my mind is open. I think that is compassion.
A: When the stream is seen from that which is not of the stream.
K: When the man of the stream steps out and looks, then he has compassion.
A: And love.
K: So, you see, sir, reincarnation, that is, incarnating over and over again, is the stream. This is not a very comforting thing.
I come to you and tell you my brother died yesterday, and you tell me this. I call you a terribly cruel man. But you are weeping for
yourself, you are weeping for me, for the stream. That's why people don't want to know. I want to know where my brother is, not
whether he is."
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Reference: A conversation in 1972 with Alain Naudé & Mary Zimbalist following the death of Sidney Field's brother, John Field, pp. 135-157,
from the book The Reluctant Messiah, Paragon: New York, 1989; edited by Peter Hay; Copyright, 1989, Sidney Field.
The above quote is courtesy of a page on the Katinka Hesselink website.
(Ellipses added, in bold; all other ellipses, as pauses or interruptions, are in the original; paragraphs, as in ........, are added)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Commentary: There is reincarnation. The stream of humanity is what reincarnates - the stream being consciousness as we know it, the movement of the 'separate,' fictional self. The images of thought, and the image-maker, which is the ego. This is the vulgar (corrupt) society in which everyone lives. We represent and are identified with this vulgarity, through envy, fear, desire and ambition. We simply do not challenge it - in a completely docile manner we accept all of it because we have been trained from childhood to do so. This self will die over time (it survives death temporarily in the form of the stream of desire) but the human stream itself continues, in humanity as a whole. And we all contribute to and strengthen it by not stepping out of it.
This self, this ego, is conflicted energy - thus fear. It is division, which is fragmentation: my self against your self, my ideas against your ideas, my ideology (that is, conservative) against your ideology (liberal), my religion against your religion, my religious sect against your religious sect (Christianity alone, it is said, has now splintered into some twenty thousand sects), my possessions against your possessions, my money against your money, my political party against your party, my country against your country. All this must be repudiated at its core - even if to deny it you must repudiate your brother, your family, your wife or partner, even your job. This is to stand completely alone, psychologically speaking, accepting no authority and letting life carry you as regards physical survival (in the talks elsewhere, there is mention of complete security when one denies all psychological security - and this is not a paradox. There is some greater force, or power, that operates; there is a state of life in which there is absolute security, in insecurity).
Step out of this stream and you end this division that has existed since time immemorial between all human beings. End the self and thought and there is pure energy, which is called compassion, love. This energy, which cannot be destroyed, is the creative emptiness that lies at the heart of all things. It is eternal. (Emptiness is the natural or ground state of the universe, as in vacuum energy, or what is known as the zero-point field. This is the emptiness of vast interstellar space, which although it is a sea of fluctuating quantum energy, is empty of visible matter. Likewise, all matter is really empty, as the atom which comprises everything, including obviously all of us, is 99.99% empty space.)
Actual physical death, therefore, has no intrinsic meaning. Death is simply the end of the form, which in nature signifies renewal. That is, death is an intrinsic part of life itself, death is essential for renewal to take place. Psychological death is rebirth, part of the universal cycle of all things. It is eternity... and it exists in another dimension. Science cannot explore it as it is beyond the reach of the brain's intellect.
So, step out of the stream when you are alive and something else entirely different happens. But this cannot be communicated directly in words, though words can be found to point to it. The key, as always in the entire talks, is the silent, empty mind.
(NB: This is a commentary on only part of the content in the above discussion.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Conversation with Three Entities, including Death, in a Hospital Room:
"It was a short operation [in 1977] and not worth talking about, although there was considerable pain. While the pain continued I saw or discovered that the body was almost floating in the air.... a few minutes later there was the personification - not a person - but the personification of death. Watching this peculiar phenomenon between the body and death, there seemed to be a sort of dialogue between them. Death seemed to be talking to the body with great insistence and the body reluctantly was not yielding to what death wanted....
Death was more and more demanding , insisting and so the other intervened. Then there was a conversation or a dialogue between not only the body, but this other and death. So there were three entities in conversation.
...Though the person [Mary Zimbalist] was sitting there and a nurse came and went, it was not a self-deception or hallucination.... One felt very strongly and clearly that if the other had not interfered death would have won ...
The dialogue began in words with thought operating very clearly....
During this conversation there was no sense of time.... Words ceased to exist but there was an immediate insight into what each one was saying. Of course if one is attached to anything - ideas, beliefs, property or person, death would not come to have a conversation with you. Death in the sense of ending is absolute freedom.
The quality of conversation was urbane. There was nothing whatsoever of sentiment, emotional extravagance, no distortion of the absolute fact of time coming to an end and the vastness without any border when death is part of your daily life....
Death and life are very close together, like love and death....
This dialogue was not illusory or fanciful. It was like a whisper in the wind but the whisper was very clear and if you listened you could hear it; you could then be part of it. Then we would share it together. But you won't listen as you are too identified with your own body, your own thoughts and your own direction. One must abandon all this to enter into the light and love of death."
(Mary Lutyens, Volume 2: Years of Fulfilment, Chapter 19: 'A Dialogue with Death' - pp. 217/19, Avon Books, 1983; emphasis, ellipses and paragraphs added)
Commentary: It all comes down to identification, attachment. The self itself is identification with an idea. We are identified with our thoughts - 'I think,' 'I am' and so on - and thus we are attached to them, as well as to all our past memories and experiences. All this is the known, which is conditioning. Self-understanding is the ending of all attachment, and it is here where we simply walk away from it, regarding this as asking too much.
Attachment is a measure of security in an uncertain world. To be detached implies insecurity. The greatest attachment is to the idea of self and to live a life without the self's direction and control cannot even be contemplated, much less lived. This insecurity invites fear, and this fear blocks all self-understanding, which is the essential nature of true enlightenment.
There is something beyond death, but it is not something we can conceive of, for it lies beyond the mind of thought.
Death, as a part of life, is not separate from it; it is the unknown - therefore the supposedly "secure" mind of the self avoids it. The supreme irony in life is that death itself may be completely different from all our known conceptions of it ...
A Most Extraordinary Discussion - on the Stream, Pure Energy,
Death & Reincarnation
We can step out of the stream of humanity - it is possible, some have done it, which implies that everyone can do it.
It's only non-understanding that prevents us from stepping out of the process of mind self-centeredness that we accept as normal and inevitable in life.
"[Physical] Death has no meaning."
(Krishnamurti and Bohm dialogues: 1985, pp. 149-53)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"One has to find out for oneself what it means to die [psychologically]; then there is no fear, therefore every day is a new day -
and I really mean this, one can do this - so that your mind and your eyes see life as something totally new. That is eternity."
(The Awakening of Intelligence: Talk & Dialogue, New York City, April 24, 1971)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(Site exploring the possibility of the contact of the mind with eternal energy, with something that exists beyond death. Page last updated July 30, 2010)
"I am afraid of the known, which means I am afraid of losing people, things or ideas, I am afraid of discovering what I am, afraid of being at a loss, afraid of the pain which might come into being when I have lost or have not gained or have no more pleasure. ...
Wherever there is a desire for self-protection, there is fear. ...
Do we now know what fear is? Is it not the non-acceptance of what is?"
(The First and Last Freedom: taken from the messagefrommasters.com website; ellipses added)
If we accept all the facts of the moment, without any escape, then there is no longer any fear - this is a matter of basic logic.
Fear arises when there is a recognition of the future, of something that is anticipated may happen beyond the present moment. This means fear is locked irrevocably in with psychological time in the mind; it means that because the mind is time-based, fear is an intrinsic part of it - but this does not mean that all fear cannot be dissolved. It has been.
* * * * *
The Foster Tape: Suffering, nonduality, the oneness of everything, the end of separation, the living of what is ...
"the parallels with the core of the Krishnamurti talks delivered over 60 years ... are quite extraordinary."
The spiritual teacher: Jeff Foster - Is There a Critical Precondition to all Cases of Enlightenment?
