(The following two articles were solicited and published by a small,midwestern Buddhist newsletter.

The article was posted by Bob James -silenus@calvino.alaska.net
The Krishnamurti ConnectionScience and medicine tell us that humans are mammals and are therefore related to many other animals which share our environment. Among the thingsthat we share in common with animals are certain characteristic bodilyfunctions. More specifically these functions are grouped into systems suchas the circulatory system, the muscular system, the digestive system, andthe nervous system. All animals need these systems in order to survive.Some animals depend more on one system than on the others for survival.Most animals make heavy use of the muscular system and the digestive systemto move about and to assimilate food, but parasitic worms have little needfor muscles to move or a digestive tract to process their nourishment.Perhaps more so than any other animal humans depend on a highly developednervous system which has evolved into a higher capacity for memory with anenhanced ability for abstract thinking.So highly developed is the human ability for memory and abstract thinkingthat humans have given various names to the products of their nervoussystems. Names such as concepts, theories, ideas, and beliefs have beenapplied to human thought processes. Over the ages the thoughts and beliefsof humans have grown more and more important to them, partly becausethoughts were often heavily relied upon for survival, but also because theintense emphasis that was placed on thoughts and beliefs made them seemreal to most all humans. As time went on many of the beliefs began to takeon a reality and a life of their own, independent of the external realitythat humans and other animals had hitherto known. Some of the beliefsbecame so real and so powerful to those whose nervous systems created them,that they became substitutes for reality. In the harsh struggle forsurvival suffering was frequently inevitable, and it could only be expectedthat humans would sooner or later learn to escape from the miseries ofexistence by living in a non-real world generated by their highly advancednervous systems.The enhanced ability of humans to think their way out of problems thus ledto a surprising new activity - escape from the realm of reality into aworld inhabited by beliefs. In all likelihood this activity came aboutmerely as an accidental byproduct of a superior brain stem. Thus the humananimal separated itself from other animals by using its nervous system forsomething that it had never been used before to any great degree by anyother animal - for the sustenance of beliefs that had no basis in reality.Up to this point the use of beliefs and thoughts as a human diversion awayfrom the acute struggle for survival seems somewhat innocuous. But anotherunexpected surprise was in store for that advanced human nervous system.Humans began to idolize and worship their beliefs. They grew attached tothe thoughts that they felt could cushion them from the fearful necessitiesof living. Their thoughts became crutches which they could always fall backon. Like cripples, many humans began to cling to their beliefs desperately.Beliefs were treated like possessions. Fearful that some outside group withdifferent beliefs might deprive them of their mental possessions, many ofthem were prepared to fight and die for the products of their own nervoussystems. Animals had fought and died for food, for territory, and formates, but never before had animals engaged in deadly battles to preserveone set of beliefs over another. By this time the beliefs were given evenmore high- sounding names such as ideals, freedom, conscience, God,country, sacred path. Humans lacked the objectivity and insight to see thatconcepts such as "my ideal", "my freedom", "my God", "my path", and "mycountry" never appear walking down the streets in broad daylight, and thattheir reality was an illusory one that only existed within the brain stemsof the humans who harbored the beliefs.Most humans lacked the perspective to know and understand the dilemma thatthe human animal had inadvertently fallen victim to, but there were some.In human history mention is made of a few rare individuals who had theobjectivity and the perspective with which to understand the human plight.Many of the words recorded from these prophets echoed again and again inone form or another: "Know thyself" was probably the most common adviceoffered by all prophets. And yet, this advice has been almost totallyignored, being drowned in one belief system after another throughout mostcultures and religions of the world. Humans, being blinded by theirpossessiveness for their own thought creations, failed to pay attention tothis most important dictum. Instead they took the words of their prophetsand tried to interpret them as beliefs, almost literally. Rather thantrying to look inward and trying to understand what they had created withintheir brain stems, they succumbed to the tyranny of their petty beliefs.They unwittingly followed paths which their nervous systems and its beliefshad laid to ensnare them.We know too little about some of the prophets that may have had someinsight into the human predicament. Those who may have had the gift of thisinsight include the leaders of the major religions and a handful of giftedmystics. Jiddu Krishnamurti was one of these mystics. Krishnamurti(1895-1986) was born of a brahmin family of less than moderate means insouthern India. His life might have been a much more uneventful one if ithad not been for the Englishman, Charles Webster Leadbeatter, whodiscovered the boy, dirty and undernourished, walking along a beach nearMadras at the turn of the century.Charles Leadbeatter shared the prestigious position of being one of the twotop leaders of the Theosophical Society with Amy Besant, its president. TheTheosophical Society had evolved into a powerful organization that had itsroots in every industrialized country throughout the world. Its memberswere often wealthy and influential. Its goals were to form a sort of worldorder or religion that would ultimately combine all existing religions,both western and eastern, into one unitary world order. The Theosophicalsociety was looking for a world teacher, a prophet of sorts, who wouldbecome the leader for this new world order. It was in Krishnamurti thatLedbeatter saw an instrument for this new order. With the approval of AmyBesant and his parents Krishnamurti and his brother, Nitya, were sent offto England to be educated.By the time he had reached the age of twenty Krishnamurti had become veryfluent in English. As a gifted speaker and writer he had been introduced tothe intellectual and social life of England. The Theosophical Societyformed a new inner echelon named "The Order of the Star of the East" andmade Krishnamurti its leader both in temporal and spiritual matters.For a number of years Krishnamurti presided over large gatherings oftheosophists from all over the world. He was acclaimed and accepted as theprophet of the new order. Then two unexpected events changed things foreverin the life of Krishnamurti. His brother, Nitya, died of tuberculosis in1925, and in 1929 while resting in the estate of a friend in the OjaiValley of California, Krishnamurti was attacked by feverish dreams. One dayhe wandered into a nearby grove and stopped to rest underneath apeppertree. It was while he lay under the tree that indescribable feelingsof unity with nature overtook him. He claimed that he could in some sensemerge with the insects and the leaves on the peppertree. He claimed to beable to see things with greater clarity than ever before in his life andthat he had touched the face of the infinite.Within two years of these experiences Krishnamurti formally disbanded "TheOrder of the Star of the East". To the amazement and disappointment of AmyBesant and other theosophists, he gave up all the power and prestige thathe had gained under their tutelage. He proclaimed that truth could not befound through membership in any organization that was created by man andthat no organization should be established by men to show others thecorrect path to truth. In short, each person would have to find truth forthemselves. "Truth is a pathless land."For Krishnamurti the conglomeration of thoughts and beliefs that each humanacquires and builds upon into adulthood go together to form the ego. Aself-propagating thing, the ego is that bundle of nervous energy whichstrives to maintain the thoughts which it needs to identify itself. Forexample: I am white, I am black, I am christian, I am pagan, I am anEnglishman, I am a Chinese, I am John, I am a republican. The ego thriveson labels such as these. Labels are thoughts, having no objective reality,but they do serve a purpose, to discriminate between what I am and what Iam not. The use of labels facilitates the fragmentation of the universe. Byvirtue of labels and fragmentation the human nervous system (ego) hassubdivided a universe which in its primeval innocence had hitherto onlyknown oneness. Krishnamurti often refers to this process as one ofdivisiveness and insularity.For Krishnamurti the ego is a process that consumes nervous energy in orderto set itself apart from the rest of the universe. The ego owes itsexistence to fear of all that is unknown, and this fear is acquired afterbirth by all humans as soon as they begin to deal with the unknown. Theenergy tied up in the beliefs which comprise the ego serve as a bufferagainst the memories of hurt that each human acquires and subsequentlycarries as a burden.The divisive nature of mankind is responsible for all of the sufferingwhich mankind endures. Divisiveness occurs both internally and externally.Within ourselves we build images of what we want to be or what we think weshould be. But these images can never reflect what we truly are. A conflictexists between reality and mental images which cannot be resolved bythought, because it is thought that is projecting these images in the firstplace. Any attempt by thought to resolve the conflict ends in moreconfusion, frustration, and suffering.External divisiveness occurs with thoughts, images or beliefs like "we aredifferent from them" or "we are better than them". Comparisons are made,and in order to make comparisons we must first create mental scales of goodand bad, black and white, smart and stupid, right and wrong, high and low.These, of course, are all examples of duality, and thus duality becomes atool for subdividing and fragmenting external reality. As usual, fear isthe prime motivation. We are fearful of the reality of knowing exactly whatwe are. To avoid this fear we find security by indulging in mentalcreations - images of being good as opposed to being bad or being right asopposed to being wrong. The process leads us gradually into a state ofinsularity or separation from that which causes the fear. For example, onemight have jewish blood and be fearful of learning the truth. To avoidhaving to acknowledge the truth one could go on a rampage of hate anddestruction bent on a "final solution" of eliminating all the evidence thatthe jewish race ever existed. Clearly, external divisiveness can be thecause of much suffering.What are we exactly? According to Krishnamurti we are emptiness. In some ofhis writings he describes this emptiness as the nowhere from which joyemerges without a cause and the nowhere to which it returns. The nowhere istimeless - not having a beginning or an ending, but not having a durationeither for duration would imply time.Subjective time is a product of our advanced human memories. We canremember our pasts so well that we very readily form images of the pastthat seem real. We do this better than most other animals. But our superiorability for abstract thinking enables us to foresee certain events in thefuture, e.g. when the temperature drops low enough we may predict thatwater will freeze. We may become so obsessed with our ability to anticipatefuture events that our anticipations may seem to be real to us. We'believe' that a past and a future exists because our nervous system hasvery real powers of making predictions for the future and our memory islikewise powerful in recalling the past. The flow of images that ournervous systems construct of the past and the future deceive us intothinking that there is something like a concrete past and a concretefuture. Like many other prophets and mystics, however, Krishnamurti remindsus that the only reality lies 'now' in the present moment.The illusion which we experience as the passage of subjective time isintimately tied into the ego. When we experience time we are always doingsomething of this sort: 1. Waiting to get something or to go somewhere. 2. Working (and waiting) to earn money. 3. Studying to become better in a skill or a discipline. 4. Growing impatient to achieve or obtain something.In each case the ego is using its favorite tool, duality, and makingcomparisons to go from a state of lesser possessiveness to greaterpossessiveness. Krishnamurti points out that this process which has ego atits heart gives rise to the passage of subjective time. Egolessness,therefore, implies timelessness.He acknowledges that there is a place for ego. Humans need ego to survivein daily living. Beliefs, thoughts, and memory are necessary to fend forour daily requirements. We need to earn a living and know when to cross astreet safely by remembering what a green light means. The aborigine mustuse memory and thought in order to prepare the tips of spears or the shaftsof arrows. But thoughts and beliefs are never sacred! They are not to beworshipped as things in themselves. Thought, no matter how elevated or holyit may seem, is no more a sacred product of the nervous system thandefecation is a sacred product of the digestive system. How easy it is tobe deceived by the illusion of sacred thoughts.Krishnamurti has stated that there is only one way to achieve a deep,fundamental and permanent change in our personalities, and that is througha kind of profound, spontaneous insight into our inner nature - "knowthyself". This insight, it turns out, is the equivalent of meditation. Inorder to cause such a change, this meditation must be without concentrationbecause concentration involves will power and this implies ego activity.Any activity involving concentration, discipline, effort, or force willonly cause superficial changes. The underlying mechanism will remainunchanged. He describes a type of meditation where insight and revelationcome to the meditator of their own accord as opposed to meditation whichrigidly follows a path, a discipline, or a method set down by others. Onecannot use the ego to force itself into inactivity because the use of forceimplies ego activity.When Krishnamurti refers to insight he means an instantaneous insight. Hemeans insight which does not require time, deliberations, or tediousanalysis by the ego process. Krishnamurti's insight is so vivid and dynamicthat it also becomes its own action. In other words action with a responsetakes place simultaneously with insight, and there is no passage ofsubjective time in which to think or invoke belief systems.Experiences of this sort may be incredibly powerful. Examples:1. A mother who steps between her child and a rattlesnake threatening tostrike. She does this without a moment's hesitation to think aboutchristian ethics deploring suicide, whether she should say ten hail Mary'sfirst, etc.2. The many accounts of soldiers in combat who threw themselves upon handgrenades etc. to save their comrades without wasting an instant on theirbelief systems. One may well guess that even some atheists may have been upto it.3. Some years ago a passenger airliner lost part of its hull near Hawaii, afew passengers perished, but most landed and survived. A stewardess,interviewed on TV, said: "there was no fear - no time for fear, we allacted spontaneously to the needs of each other without giving thought." Shesaid it was all played out in slow motion. Time seemed to stop. There wasno time for belief systems and no time to get out a handy-dandy bible orkoran or 'Gita'. No time for the Lord's prayer.4. Young persons in love (perhaps for the first time) refer to dying foreach other and moments when time seems to stop. One notices that love inthis case crosses all artificial, man-made, religious boundaries. Not muchthought given to the christian, hindu, or moslem God when lovers meet. Notime to waste on belief systems. A communist can love a capitalist, asatanist a christian, no time, no thought given to the 'rules', the'covenants', the 'commandments.' Love cannot be constrained by rules thatare taught at the foot of a guru.5. Athletes in long distance racing sometimes attain a state where they areovercome with passion. They report experiencing feelings of such intensejoy that they become overwhelmed and begin to cry. They report that theysometimes seem to be running in slow motion. Once again time seems to slowor stop. Their whole thoughts, minds, bodies are given up, surrendered, orsacrificed to the task at hand. There is no time to waste on beliefsystems. All energy must be sucked back out of belief systems and appliedto the race.The same pattern appears in all the examples above. The ego has beensidestepped because the effort and the task at hand are so intense thatthere is no time for ego involvement. In such moments the ego loses itsauthority and its energy. It is the same energy which is used to maintaindivisiveness or insularity. The energy then becomes available to bechanneled for more efficient use in accomplishing the task. Without egotime seems to stop. There is no doubt about the need to accomplish the taskbecause doubt implies a divisive personality, and divisiveness has vanishedwith the ego. The act becomes an act of love, sacrifice, or surrender,because all the mental, physical, and psychic energy expended inmaintaining the ego must be withdrawn from selfish pursuits and focused onthe task at hand without any second thoughts. This act is unconditional,all-consuming and therefore, very passionate.If one feels a need to hesitate and give a thought to the advice of Jesusor Mohammed or Buddha then one's whole being is not totally united in theact, because some ego with its divisiveness still remains. In that case onecould not say that one unconditionally loved one's child, acomrade-in-arms, or the other airline passengers. In this manner love andcompassion are negated by faith, belief, thought, and even hope.We often hear testimony from persons, such as the stewardess, who statedthat their lives were permanently changed by their experiences. They claimthat because of their "peak experience" they feel that they live more fullynow. It is much more common for us to feel that we love this person or thatthing or some god, but no sooner is the statement made and our minds arealready thinking about rules to follow, Christian rules, Hindu rules,conditions, etc. "You will love your God by not eating meat on Fridays" or"You will love your God by destroying the infidels."Krishnamurti in his discussions and dialogues is not being theoretical orotherworldly. Denying any guru-like authority, he urges us not to take hisword for anything he says, and urges us to find out for ourselves. Hismessage, therefore, becomes very immediate and real.The Krishnamurti Connection With BuddhismIn many ways Krishnamurti's message is similar to the one that Buddhismteaches. Both point to the ease and susceptibility of the human mind tosuccumb to conditioning as the origin of all our human problems. Bothdoctrines, therefore, prescribe the use of an intense awareness of all ofour mental processes, thoughts, memories, beliefs, hopes, and fears inorder to gain that state of enlightenment which Krishnamurti calls insightor complete and unconditional freedom.On the surface there appears to be conflict between Krishnamurti andBuddhism on some points.Instant Enlightenment.To Krishnamurti the process of enlightenment takes place instantaneously,like a sudden awakening. To most Buddhists enlightenment would take placeonly after years of painstaking meditative practice and countless rituals.In the preceding article on Krishnamurti we examined the nature of humanpsychological time. Time is measured by humans usually through a process ofincrease or decrease. We sense that time is passing because we are growingolder or earning more money or waiting to be promoted to a higher rank.More precisely, psychological time is our perception of the process ofincrease or decrease and nothing more. Without that perception there wouldbe no sense of passage of time.When we talk of working and meditating over a period of years to achieveenlightenment it is the same as saying, "I will create the passage of timeby undergoing a process of 'increase' from a lower to a higher spirituallevel". By taking this approach we will have avoided taking thediscontinuous leap into enlightenment, and instead we will have created ourown delay in achieving enlightenment. As we mentioned earlier, the humanego is involved with this process. In fact, one could say that the humanego is this process, i.e. perception (increase/decrease) = psychologicaltime = ego.It stands to reason that any Buddhist authority who urges others to workreal hard over a long period of time in order to achieve enlightenment isselling an ego package. Yet, we sometimes hear such advice coming fromBuddhists. Krishnamurti's view of enlightenment is not that of a gradualone which increases slowly over years of hard work, because that sort ofego-related process creates its own delay and thus insures that the end isnever attained. In Krishnamurti's view enlightenment comes by its ownaccord where and when it chooses, and there is little that we can do aboutit. It comes to us at auspicious times like a major discontinuity in ourlives, and it reminds us of some Buddhist accounts of awakening which wereinduced by an unexpected slap to the face or a blow to the body. Egoinvolvement in enlightenment (or meditation for that matter) is no morethan an interference which will negate the process.It is the author's opinion that Krishnamurti's views provide us with moreinsight into The Sutra of the Heart of Transcendent Knowledge than mostexplanations available from the Buddhist world. In the Sutra,Avalokitesvara states that there is no birth and no cessation,..., nodecrease and no increase,... It is the exact same process whichKrishnamurti dwells upon in volume after volume of his works. Enlightenmentis a state that is timeless which means that its chief attribute is one ofno-time, meaning no involvement with ego or ego-created time. Once anacknowledgement is made by the ego that time is required to attainenlightenment, the search has gone off on a hopeless tangent and will endin failure. The ego has to surrender its jurisdiction in the matter ofenlightenment and allow something which is infinite and unknowable to takeits course.No Sacred Thoughts.To Krishnamurti any process of thought is unsacred. Thoughts of the dharmaor Buddha are as unsacred as any other type of thought. The only thingremaining sacred in Krishnamurti's view is that which thought is incapableof capturing or the unknowable. All thoughts are mere human creations ofthe human brain stem and are forever incapable of capturing that which isinfinite and unknowable.At first it seems that most Buddhists would agree with the foregoingparagraph. But there is plenty of Buddhist literature available whichencourages Buddhists to meditate upon sacred images or thoughts or TheEight-Fold path or some mandala or mantra. It is self-evident that a stateof complete emptiness is impossible as long as any images whatsoeverpersist in the mind. The Sutra says that emptiness is form and all form isemptiness, yet many Buddhist leaders keep on encouraging others to fillthis vast, wonderful emptiness with a product of the human nervous systemas if that product is sacred enough to occupy space as long as it hasreceived the authorized stamp of approval from a duly appointed Buddhistauthority.Some Buddhist groups conduct prayer meetings. Prayer is an obvious exerciseof the ego, a deliberate, calculating way to gain an increase over a periodof time. There are some who feel that more prayer results in more gain. Itis another attempt to attain something despite the fact that there is noattainment.No Path, No Progress, No Goal."...the bodhissatvas have no attainment,they abide by means of prajnaparamita."To Krishnamurti there is no "path", no procedures, no organization, and norules that should be laid down by men for other men to follow on the roadto enlightenment. As part of the path, Buddhists must observe a verytypical, man-made, structure which begins at the top with The ThreePrecious Ones: the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. Each of thesepillars has subsets of rules associated with it: The Five Skandas, TheEight Siddhis, etc. Some would have us believe that learning all thesearticles of faith are necessary for enlightenment.Much Buddhist literature suggests that in following Buddhism there is agreat object that one must attain and that one progresses towards this goalas one takes each step along the path. To Krishnamurti setting apsychological goal and working for progress in any direction will only leadto more confusion and suffering. Any attempts at psychologicalself-betterment will amount to no more than just one more futileduplication of many similar past efforts, all of which had previouslyfailed.The typical pattern of human behavior that we always seem to fall into,perhaps by virtue of conditioning, is the "work for a reward" stereotype.One finds a religion and sees something desirable in it which becomes anobject of attainment. The next step is to devise a plan to acquire theobject, and finally, with great deliberation we set about to carry out thatplan with hard, unrelenting work.Krishnamurti tells us that the "work for a reward" operandi has been triedcountless times by homo sapiens, but it has never led us to anything new ordifferent in the area of spiritual enlightenment. What do we make of allthis? Buddhist leaders round the world tell us that there are Buddhistgoals and a path of hard work and attainment for reaching these goals.Here again Krishnamurti seems to be more in agreement with the very core ofBuddhist teachings then the Buddhists themselves. The Sutra of the Heart ofTranscendent Knowledge sounds more like Krishnamurti than does many of theBuddhist teachers: "There is... no path, no wisdom, no attainment, and nononattainment..." Here Krishnamurti is telling us to live up to theprecepts of this great Buddhist Sutra. He is not telling us to follow apath, but to understand that there is no path. He tells this just asbluntly and simply as the Sutra does. There is no sympathy orembellishments for the benefit of those who either fail to understand orfor those who have beliefs in goals to which they must continue to cling.No Apostolic following.Buddhist teachers are prone to exhort us to believe in the principles thatBuddhist leaders have laid down for them over the centuries, and there areauthoritative Buddhist lineages with apostles who have been appointed tocarry out this task.For Krishnamurti even the faintest aroma of authority is totallydetrimental to spirituality, because authority implies that someone hasbeen placed in a position of acceptance. Anyone who accepts anything, anytruth from someone else has not yet found it within himself. As long aspeople are unwilling or for any reason unable to find truth withinthemselves there will be no possibility of obtaining any true spiritualinsight.According to Krishnamurti the person is not important, but what he says is.In many of his writings he pleads and begs the reader not to acceptanything on his authority, but instead to undertake a profound inwardsearch to verify the truth (or untruth) of anything he says. Advice with anuncanny similarity appears in the Kalama Sutra where the Buddha says,"Don't believe in me, don't believe in others, don't believe in somethingbecause it is written in books, but really see for yourself what practiceis conducive to the weakening of greed and delusion."If we are not to believe in the Buddha, other Buddhists, or Buddhistscriptures then of what value is a Buddhist lineage? Perhaps not much, butKrishnamurti has an answer to this. The only useful function that he couldever claim for himself was, as he put it, as a mirror. He felt that hecould help those most in need by reflecting an image of themselves thatwould be so vivid that no one could fail to recognize the simple fact thatour true nature was that of a vast, unlimited emptiness. If Krishnamurti'srole for himself were also applicable to Buddhist leaders then the Buddhistclergy would serve better as instruments of reflection rather thanreservoirs ready to spout endless dictums: The Six Realms of cyclicexistence, The Ten Bhumis, The Four Performances, The Four Noble Truths,and so on and on and on.What of all the rules that the Buddha has passed down to us over thecenturies? Accounts have it that just before his death the Buddha entrustedhis monks to discard all minor rules, saying he knew they were able todiscern the essence of dharma. Overcautious, the monks decided theycouldn't decide, and kept all the rules. In effect, they denied theBuddha's last wish. Had Krishnamurti sat in the place of the Buddha, andhad he made but one rule, it might have been "know thyself", and all otherrules would have been declared to be minor and therefore to be discarded. * * *Although Krishnamurti has left us with no apostolic succession to continuewith his work, he did establish a foundation before he died. TheKrishnamurti Foundation which has its central office at Ojai, California,makes all of his work available either in print or on videorecordings. Someof the tapes contain various impressions of Krishnamurti which wererecorded during interviews with prominent world figures from many differentfields.In one such interview with Rinpoche Sumdung the Buddhist teacher statedthat in his opinion the Buddha taught on two different levels. The firstlevel was that of the average human being. This was the level that Buddhaused when he spoke to the masses, and it was on this level that Buddhataught rules, dharma, rituals, etc. Rinpoche Sumdung went on to say thatthe second level, a higher level, was the one which the Buddha used tocommunicate in-depth wisdom as in the sutras. The "Heart Sutra" was such ahigher form of communication.Finally, Rinpoche Sumdung said that the Buddha compromised himself byteaching on the two different levels, because eventually obviousdiscrepancies were sure to appear between the two levels. In the precedingparagraphs we have been dealing with some of these problems. RinpocheSumdung concluded by saying that in his opinion Krishnamurti neveraddressed the masses from the lower level like the Buddha did. He alwaystaught at the level of the sutra and for that reason there is muchagreement between Krishnamurti and "The Heart Sutra". Krishnamurti,therefore, never compromised himself in the same manner as the Buddha did.Rinpoche Sumdung felt that on this second level Krishnamurti's teachingswere identical with those of the Buddha. Krishnamurti remained true, attimes obstinately steadfast, to the Sutra level of teaching during hiswhole life, and his teachings were consequently more difficult for thepublic to assimilate.-