Q: Actually as human beings, we are rather fond of thinking. But why is this rather funny animal thinking all the time?
U.G.: I will ask you the question. You tell me, when do you think? Not why do you think. That's not the question. When do you think? I am asking you a question, when do you think?
Q: As far as I know, all the time.
U.G.: All the time, and for what? What is responsible for your thinking? When do you think? When you want something, [that's when] you think. It is very clear to me.
Q: Not at all.
U.G.: Of course. You don't even know that you are thinking. Do you know that you are thinking now? It's an automatic thing.
Q: It's an automatic thing, that's right.
U.G.: You don't even know that you are thinking and so why this sudden interest in wanting to find out why you are thinking? I don't even know that I am talking. You don't even know that you are talking. When you asked your questions, "Am I thinking?" you would say, "Yes". That "yes" also is an automatic thing.
Q: I don't care if it's automatic.
U.G.: The whole thing is on automatic. Whatever is put in there, when you are stimulated, it comes out. In the jargon of computer language, the input has to be there. So, this has been going on and on and on and on. When there is stimulation, it comes out. If it [the stimulation] is not there, you see, it [thinking] stops. So that's the reason why you go on, acquiring this knowledge, feeding it all the time.
So, what do you know? You know a lot. You have gathered all this knowledge from various sources and filled it up. Most of it is not necessary. You know a lot and you want to know more and more and more -- to use it. Of course. There's no such thing as knowledge for the sake of knowledge. It gives you power. Knowledge is power. "I know; you don't know." That gives you power. You may not even be conscious that your knowing more than the other gives you power. In that sense, knowledge is power. To acquire more and more knowledge, more than the knowledge that is essential for the survival of the living organism, is to acquire more and more power over others.
The technical knowledge that you need to make a living is understandable. That's all. I have to learn a technique. The society is not going to feed me unless I give something in return. You have to give them what they want, not what you have to give. What do have you to give? You have nothing to give anyway.
Otherwise, what value has this knowledge for you? To know more about something which you really do not know.
We are always talking about thought and thinking. What is thought? Have you ever looked at thought, let along controlling thought; let alone manipulating thought; let alone using that thought for achieving something material or otherwise? You cannot look at your thought, because you cannot separate yourself from thought and look at it. There is no thought apart from the knowledge you have about those thoughts -- the definitions you have. So if somebody asks you the question, "what is thought?" any answer you have is the answer that is put in there -- the answers that others have already given.
You have, through combinations and permutations of ideation and mentation about thoughts, created your own thoughts which you call your own. Just as when you mix different colors, you can create thousands of pastel colors, but basically all of them can be reduced to only seven colors that you find in nature. What you think is yours is the combination and permutation of all those thoughts, just the way you have created hundreds and hundreds of pastel colors. You have created your own ideas. That is what you call thinking. When you want to look at thought, what there is is only whatever you know about thought. Otherwise you can't look at thought. There is no thought other than what there is in what you know about thought. That's all that I am saying. So when that is understood the meaninglessness of the whole business of wanting to look at thought comes to an end. What there is is only what you know, the definitions given by others. And out of those definitions, if you are very intelligent and clever enough, you create your own definitions. That's all.
When you look at an object the knowledge you have about that object comes into your head. There is an illusion that thought is something different from objects, but it is you who creates the object. The object may be there, but the knowledge you have about that object is all that you know. Apart from that knowledge and independent of that knowledge, free from that knowledge, you have no way of knowing anything about it. You have no way of directly experiencing anything. The word "directly" does not mean that there is any other way of experiencing things other than the way you are experiencing things now. The knowledge you have about it is all that is there and that is what you are experiencing. Really, you do not know what it is.
In exactly the same way, when you want to know something about thought, or experience thought, it is the same process that is in operation there. There is no inside or outside. What there is is only the operation, the flow of the knowledge. So you cannot actually separate yourself from thought and look at it.
So when such a question is thrown at you, what should happen is [the realization] that none of the answers have any meaning, because all that is acquired and taught. So that movement stops. There is no need for you to answer the question. There is no need for you to know anything about it. All that you know comes to a halt. It has no momentum any more. It slows down, and then it dawns upon you that it is meaninglessness to try to answer that question, because it has no answer at all. The answers that others have given are there. So you have nothing to say on that thing called thought, because all you can say is what you have gathered from other sources. You have no answer of your own.
Q: Even then we can have a conversation.
U.G.: All right. All right.
Q: Apart from the question . . . .
U.G.: All right, yes.
Q: There still are things, like walls and people around you. And what we know about them, what we see about them.
U.G.: But that is not what that person is. You don't actually know anything about that person or that thing, except what you are projecting on that object or the individual. The knowledge you have about it is the experience. It goes on and on. That's all. What that really is, you have no way of knowing.
Q: That is what I understand. When we are speaking about reality, we can only speak of our knowledge about it and call this knowledge reality.
U.G.: What for? Then it becomes a classroom discussion or a discussion in a debating society, each one trying to show that he knows more, a lot more, than the other. What do you get out of it? Each one is trying to prove that he knows more than you, to bring you over to his point of view.
Q: What I am asking is, is there any chance -- I understand that there is no method -- but is there any chance of getting out of this knowledge of reality to [actual] reality.
U.G.: If you are lucky enough (it's only luck), to get out of this trap of knowledge, the question of reality is not there any more [for you]. The question arises from this knowledge, which is still interested in finding out the reality of things, and to experience directly what that reality is all about. When this [knowledge] is not there, the question is also not there. Then there is no need for finding any answer. This question which you are posing to yourself, and also to me, is born out of the assumption that there is a reality, and that assumption is born out of this knowledge you have of and about the reality. ... The knowledge is the answer you already have. That is why you are asking the question. The question automatically arises.
What is necessary is not to find out the answer to the question, but to understand that the question which you are asking, posing to yourself, and putting to somebody else, is born out of the answer you already have, which is the knowledge. So, the question and answer format, if we indulge in it for long, becomes a meaningless ritual. ... If you are really interested in finding reality, what has to dawn on you is that your very questioning mechanism is born