I see there are several questions here, and before we go into them may I point out that we seem to live on explanations. You put a question and if there is an answer to it we are either satisfied or dissatisfied, and explanations, descriptions and commentaries are really a lot of words, a lot of theories, and we seem to live on those, on words, and it is like living on ashes. So we are generally starved, if we live on words, both physically, psychologically and intellectually. So, if one may point out this, that we are together going into these questions, and the explanation, if it is merely investigation of words then I am afraid we shan’t get very far.<\/p>\n
Question:<\/strong> Is there any survival after death? When man dies full of attachments and regrets, what happens to this residue?<\/p>\n Is there any survival after death? When man dies full of sorrow, attachments, regrets, what happens to this residue?<\/p>\n I don’t quite understand to this residue of what? Is there any survival after death – that is the real question, isn’t it sir? No? You want to talk about death? Shall we go into it? Are you interested in it? Probably not, are you? Are you? You are not interested in death? What a lot of fuss you make when somebody dies close to you. Have you noticed that? Everybody else cries with you, you know what goes on in India when somebody dies, the appalling fuss they make about it. Not it doesn’t happen elsewhere. Let’s go into it.<\/p>\n First of all, do you perceive, do you actually realize that your consciousness is the consciousness of mankind? Realize that? Is that a fact to you? As factual as somebody puts a pin into your arm, you feel the pain of it, is it as actual, not the pain, but the fact? That is, your brain has evolved through time and that brain is the result of a million years, and that brain may be conditioned if it lives in one part of the world – right? – under a different culture, different climate, different – but it is the common brain of mankind. Right? Be quite sure of that. It’s not your individual brain. That brain has inherited various responses – right? – that brain with its gene which is also partly inheritance, partly of time, that is the common factor of mankind. Right? Do you understand this? So it’s not your brain. Thought may say, ‘It is my brain’, thought may say, ‘I am the individual’. Right? That’s our conditioning. Are you an individual? Go into it, sirs. Are you an individual? You have a name, you have a different form, different name, different form, a different face – short, tall, dark, etc., etc. – does that make individuality? Does your belonging to a certain type, or a group, or a community, or a country, does that make you different, or make you an individual? Come on, sir, move.<\/p>\n So what is an individual? An individual is who is not fragmented, but since you are all fragmented you are not individuals. You are the result of the climate, etc., etc., with all its trappings. If that fact is soaked into your blood, that is a fact. You may consider yourself, but that’s merely the expression of thought. Thought is common to all mankind, based on experience, knowledge, memory, stored up in the brain. Right? The brain is the center of all the sensory responses, which is common to all mankind. I don’t know if you are following all this. This is all logical.<\/p>\n