This is the beginning of the 1948 Bombay talk. Emile posted the answer to a question about relation between thinker and thought that came at the end of this. This leads into it.
JK: I would like this afternoon to discuss the problem of action, which might be rather abstruse and difficult at the beginning, but I hope by thinking it over, we will be able to see the issue clearly. Because, our whole existence, our whole life, is a process of action. It is an action at different levels of consciousness. Please, I am afraid you will have to pay a little attention to this, because it is going to be extremely difficult if you do not follow it very closely, if your attention is distracted by those who are passing behind me. I shall not be distracted; but you will be, unfortunately, and therefore you will not be able to follow it and will miss its beauty; because, it is quite a difficult problem and needs very close attention.
Most of us live in a series of actions, of seemingly unrelated, disjointed actions, leading to disintegration, to frustration. It is a problem that concerns each one of us, because we live by action; and without action, there is no life, there is no experience, there is no thinking. Thought is action; and merely to pursue action at one particular level of consciousness, which is the outer, merely to be caught up in outward action without understanding the whole process of action itself, will inevitably lead us to frustration, to misery. Therefore, if I may suggest, and though the problem is quite simple, one has to be a little concentrated - not with the concentration of exclusiveness, but with the interest which brings, not exclusion, but attention. That is what is needed: to be attentive with interest. Then you and I will go together; then I won’t take the journey alone, and you won’t become a mere spectator. And if we can take the journey together, it will be much more creative, much more interesting, more vital and significant, and therefore you will be able to follow it for yourself in daily action.
So, our life is a series of actions, or a process of action at different levels of consciousness. Now, consciousness, as I explained the other day, is experiencing, naming, and recording. That is, consciousness is challenge and response, which is experiencing, then terming or naming, and then recording, which is memory. This process is action, is it not? Consciousness is action; and without challenge, response, without experiencing, naming or terming, and recording, which is memory, there is no action. Whether you are a big executive, a big business man, raking in money and piling up a bank account, or a writer, or just an ordinary man earning an ordinary livelihood, this is the process that is going on: experiencing, naming or terming, and recording; and this whole process is consciousness, which is action.
Now, action creates the actor. That is, the actor comes into being when action has a result, an end in view, If there is no result in action, then the actor is not; but if there is an end or a result in view, then action brings about the actor. So, actor, action, and end or result, is a unitary process, a single process, which comes into being when action has an end in view. Action towards a result, is will. otherwise, there is no will, is there? The desire to achieve an end brings about will, which is the actor - I want to achieve, I want to write a book, I want to be a rich man, I want to paint a picture. Will is action with an end in view, a result to be gained, which brings about the actor, So, the actor or will, the action, and the end or result, is one process. Though we can break it up and observe these factors separately, it is a total, unitary process.
Now, we are familiar with these three states: the actor, the action, and the end. That is our daily existence. I am just explaining what is; but we will begin to understand how to transform what is, only when we examine it clearly, so that there is no illusion, prejudice, no bias with regard to it. Now, these three states, which constitute experience - the actor, the action, and the result - , these three states, surely, are a process of becoming. Otherwise, there is no becoming, is there? If there is no actor, and if there is no action toward an end, there is no becoming; but life as we know it, our daily life, is a process of becoming. I am poor, and I act with an end in view, which is to become rich. I am ugly, and I want to become beautiful. Therefore, my life is a process of becoming something. The will to be is the will to become, at different levels of consciousness, in different states, in which there is challenge, response, naming, and recording. Now, this becoming is strife, this becoming is pain, is it not? It is a constant struggle: I am this, and I want to become that. The becoming is a constant battle - the rich man competing with the richer to maintain his position, the poor man trying to become rich, the artist trying to achieve a result, write a book or a poem, paint a picture. There is always an end in view, a result to be achieved, and in that process of becoming there is a ceaseless battle, a strife, a pain. With that we are familiar - I have not described anything other than what is.
So, then, the problem is: Is there not action without this becoming? That is, is there not action without this pain, without this constant battle? If there is no end, there is no actor, because action with an end in view creates the actor. But can there be action without an end in view, and therefore no actor? Because, the moment there is action with the desire for a result, there is the actor, and therefore the actor is always becoming; therefore the actor is the source of strife, pain, misery. And, to eliminate that strife, can there be action without the actor, that is, without the desire for a result? Only such action is not a becoming, and therefore not a strife. There is a state of action, a state of experiencing without the experiencer and the experience. This sounds rather philosophical, but it is really quite simple. We know that in our daily actions, in our everyday life, there is always the actor or experiencer, the process of experiencing, and the experience; the actor is acting in order to achieve an end, and I know that that process always produces strife, because I live in strife with my wife, with my husband, with my neighbours, with my boss. I know the life of strife and conflict, and I want to eliminate conflict, because I recognize that conflict does not lead anywhere. It is only creative happiness that brings about a revolutionary state. So, to find action without strife, there must be no actor; and there is no actor only when there is no end in view. Can I live in a state of experiencing all the time, without the desire for a result? That is the only way to solve this problem, is it not? As long as action has an end in view, there must be the actor, the experiencer, the observer, and therefore a process of becoming which creates strife, and therefore a state of contradiction. Can one live in action without a state of contradiction? There can be freedom from contradiction only when there is no actor and no end to be achieved, which means a state of constant experiencing without the object of experience, and therefore without the experiencer. Now, we live in that state when the experiencing in itself is intense. Take, for example, any intense experience that you have. In the moment of experiencing, you are not aware of yourself as the experiencer apart from the experience; you are in a state of experiencing. Take a very simple example: you are angry. In that moment of anger, there is neither the experiencer nor the experience; there is only experiencing. But the moment you come out of it, a split second after the experiencing, there is the experiencer and the experience, the actor and the action with an end in view - which is to get rid of or to suppress the anger. So, we are in this state repeatedly, in the state of experiencing; but we always come out of it and give it a term, naming and recording it, and thereby giving continuity to becoming.
Now, the problem is, how can there be freedom from conflict in action? As I said, only when experiencing is lived completely, wholly, all the time. You can live completely, wholly, only when there is no terming, when there is no naming, and therefore no recording, which is memory. Memory is the recorder of the outcome of action with an end in view. Sir, when you have an experience and you are in that moment of experiencing, if you don’t term it, f you don’t give it a name and therefore record it, put it in the frame of reference which is memory, then that experiencing is joy, that experiencing is creation.