See, sir, what is immortality?
What is eternity?
What is the immeasurable?
They all talk about that.
All religions more or less touch on this, even the metaphysicists...
...and the logicians and the monks have gone into this: what is immortality?
That is, an author writes a good book and he becomes immortal.
His name becomes immortal.
Or a politician - unfortunately politicians last, endure.
We have related immortality as something beyond death...
...mortal and the immortal, beyond mortality, beyond death.
No?
F:That's the usual conception. K:Of course.
Well, sir, what have you to say to all this?
R:What happened to our question? K:Death - rebirth?
R:Yes, what happened there. K:I've told you.
Rebirth is this constant stream...
...manifesting itself into A, B, C, down the alphabet.
I know this is most disappointing, depressing...
...and I say, 'My God, this is too horrible, I won't listen to it.'
X:Are you also suggesting therefore death is part of that stream?
K:Yes, body dies.
By usage and wrong way of living it dies.
Dies inevitably.
X:But I meant more...
K:You see, sir, to find out what death is, one has to be with death.
That means, end.
End my attachment, end one's attachments, one's beliefs...
...end to everything that one has collected.
Nobody wants to do that.
M:But that, that definition of death would not be in the stream.
K:What?
M:That action of death would not be part of the stream.
K:No.
You see, in the man who is gone, understood this...
...he doesn't think even in streams, it's something entirely different.
It's not a reward for the man in the stream. (Laughs)
M:No, it's the action of the insight, is it not?
K:Yes, the action of insight.
Action of insight, you cannot have insight if there is no love...
...compassion, intelligence, that's part of all that.
And then, it's only then there is a relationship to truth.
X:You seem to be suggesting in some way then that death is a key.
K:Yes, sir.
Free investigation, not the scientific investigation...
...the thinking tank, you know; but investigation into this whole myself...
...which is me, that stream, myself is that stream.
Enquire into that, so that there isn't a shadow of the stream left.
We don't do this because we are too learned, we have no time...
...we are too occupied with our own pleasures, our own worries.
So we say, 'Please, leave that to the priests; not for me.'
So have we answered the question?
Is there reincarnation, a continuation of the 'me' in different forms?
I say, no!
R:Of course not, of course not.
As you say, I also say, there is no.
First of all there is no 'me' to be reborn, to incarnate.
K:No, sir, the stream manifests and B says, 'I am I'...
...therefore I'm frightened to die.
R:Yes.
K:And therefore he invents various comforting theories...
...he prays, please save me and all the rest of it.
But that stream, as long as B lives in that stream...
...his consciousness is part of that stream, there's no...
...he's only contributing more and more to the volume of that water.
Obviously, sir, if you see that.
So there is no 'me' to continue.
Sir, I mean this is...
...nobody will accept this, but it's the truth.