H: Perhaps we could come back and stick to one question. We started by saying can the brain understand itself, what does that mean, is it possible that thought can understand the brain? I think we should stick to that.
K: Would you say the brain is the centre of thought? V: No. K: Just a minute.
Thought, feelings, physical responses, biological responses, and also the brain is the centre of one's 'consciousness': fears, pleasures, anxiety, all that, sorrow, the whole of that consciousness – if you will accept that word – is in the brain, it is not out there. Would you agree? V: I'm afraid I would have to disagree.
K: Oh, delighted. V: I don't think that thought or consciousness is in the brain. That this is precisely one of the greatest mistakes.
K: Wait, thought is outside? V: It's neither outside nor inside, there is a quality of relationship which thought is of. K: Wait, then we have to inquire what is thought.
Can we begin with that? Would you agree? V: Yes, let's do that.
K: What is thought, what is thinking? V: Do you want to go first? K: It is a discussion.
V: I would say that thought belongs to a form of action which is related to separating, precisely, to separating a unit from its context. That any separation of a unit from its context is a form of cognition or thought, at a fundamental level. Therefore, the thought cannot exist without the relationship between that which is distinguished and what it is distinguished from.
S: Wait a second. Do you think that thought is an event that arises de novo, or is it some sort of process event which articulates the separation and arrives at the awareness? In other words, that the arrival of thought is the articulation of the separation?
V: No, it's an emergent quality. S: So it's not a de novo separation, it's an emergent event. K: It's emerging.
S: That's important, the emerging, not a separation at the instant. V: It's immanent in the action of the separation. K: It's emerging, it's being born.
V: Exactly. S: That's an important distinction. K: Yes, being born all the time.
S: Exactly. K: From where? H: What is the source?
K: Wait. The thought is being born, emerging, growing, coming and going, from where? S: That may be the wrong question, from where, because by saying from where, you've already made a definition, and you've separated out process, you've made a distinction.
. . – by saying where, you've got a definition.
K: No, put another word if you like. S: I would prefer what's the action that arrives in thought? K: Wait, then you have to ask what is action?
V: So it is a movement? K: Yes, what is this whole movement? V: OK, when I inspect that question in myself the only answer I can get to is it's an unlimited frontier.
That is, the moment I am in thought I have obscured for myself that which I am asking. Therefore the source of movement, or the source of thought is an unlimited space which is beyond thought. K: I wonder.
S: About what, what do you wonder? K: What is the relationship between thought and action? That's what we are discussing.
V: Yes, but thought occurs, thought happens. I find myself in thought. S: Therefore it is action.
K: You just now said thought is born, comes into being. It must have some causation. V: Yes, but in order to see the causation I will have to put myself out from thought.
K: We'll see. So, now we have to inquire whether it is possible to observe the causation without the observer, who is the outside, right? V: Right, absolutely.
K: So, can one observe the cause without the observer? Can the causation be observed without the outsider or the observer, the witnesser? Which means the observer, the person who perceives.
Is not the observed the observer? S: Say that again. V: Can you say that again?
K: I know, I can't repeat it, I'll put it another way. There is a perception of you sitting there and I sitting here. When I see you, you have been introduced to me, I remember all that memory of it, it is the observer.
Can I look at you without the observer, without the knowledge of you? Of course I can. H: I think we have to go slowly because it is a great step.
V: Yes, you can. K: Of course, therefore the observer is the observed. There is no separation.
There is separation only when the observer is different from the observed. V: Correct. Absolutely.
So that is an observation. K: That's real observation without the observer. The observer is the past, memory, knowledge, experience.
All the observer is the past. Can I look at something without the past? Of course it's possible.
