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...what is the central cause, the root of all this? Please, you are thinking together, therefore you are exercising your mind, therefore you are aware of how you approach the problem, you are aware of your own contradictions, your own conflicts, your own divisions, your own apprehensions. And in that consciousness, which is made up of division,...
K: The question is, how do you approach. On that, if you can find out, the response will be right. If I approach it - if someone, if one approaches it, not I, or some, if you approach it from a very narrow, selfish point of view, your approach is limited and therefore your answer will be very, very, very limited because it is a tremendous, complex...
So, how do you approach this question? Because the approach matters much more than the fact. Are we together in this? The approach, whether it be a scientific problem or an artistic problem or a humanitarian problem, or a social, political and so on, or religious - how do you approach it, come near it? Because how you come to it is of great...
Before we answer these questions, or explore these questions, how do we approach a question, a crisis, a challenge, something that we have to investigate? How do we approach it? I think the approach matters perhaps much more than the question itself, because if we approach it negligently, casually then the question itself has very little meaning,...
So I'm just asking, how do we, each one of us, approach this question. Perhaps in the approach may be the real quality of investigation. I think one should be very clear before we start discussing this question.
...To listen so that you immediately understand what he is talking about. That is the art of listening. We are asking now, we have problems and how do you approach the problem - because your approach will dictate or resolve the problem. So find out how you approach any problem. It is very simple if it is a scientific problem, you approach it with all...
...Yes? I wonder how we approach this question. What is your approach to it? You understand my question? How do you come to find out what is the meaning of love, why you, as a human being, have not this perfume, this quality that perhaps may answer all the other questions in life? Now what is your approach to it? How do you come to investigate that...
How do you, if I may ask, you are asking yourself, I am putting it into words, how do you approach a problem, an issue, something that has to be resolved? How do you approach it? Because we are approaching the problem - right? - the central issue. Which is, I'll have to repeat it again: is it a fact that we must always live in isolation, outwardly...
K: Yes, all right. So you are saying I approach the problem, I approach realising the problem is not different from me. That's your approach - approach, not the problem. Am I making this clear, or am I dumb?
So do we know how we approach this question? Are we aware of our approach to it? We say, 'Yes, I know what love is,' and therefore you have stopped enquiring. So, as we said, the approach to the problem is more important than the problem itself. Don't make it into a slogan or a clich, then you have lost it. So are we clear how we approach this...
So do you approach it intellectually, conceptually - concept - do you approach it with a desire to find an answer? All this indicates you are giving a direction to your enquiry. You are directing your enquiry; you are not free to enquire so you will never find the answer because you are directing what the answer should be. Now can So first,...
...Dictate. Of course. So what is your approach? Look, sir, this is a very, very complex question because if the mind is in contradiction and I am not aware that I am in contradiction and try to answer this question it will be too silly. So I have to find out for myself how, in what manner I come to the question, in what manner I receive the...
So what is your approach to it? You understand my question? Because how you approach a problem is really important. Not the problem itself so much but how you come to it, how you look at it, what is your intention and all that. So please find out, if I may request, what is your approach, how you receive that question, whether your mind is...
How have you approached this question? You understand? That is, order and disorder, disorder created by thought. And thought cannot bring about order. Now how do you come to it? What has been your approach to this question? Because on your approach depends the answer. You understand? This is simple, isn't it? If I approach it with fear, with...
...the mind whether it is possible for the mind to uncondition itself completely and not occasionally. That is the question. How do you approach that question because the manner of your approach will find a solution. But if you approach it with an intellectual concept, then your answer will also be very superficial. Right sir? So how Or, you want to...
K: I will I brought in poor god because that is fairly demonstrable. All right. I am psychologically wounded, if I am. And what is my approach to that wound. What's your approach to the wound that you have, if you have any? Come on, sir, tell me what's your approach?
...Is the answer more important than the question? Does the answer lie in the question? Please we are thinking together, not just listening to the speaker. How do we approach a question? A question is a problem. A problem, the meaning of that word, is something thrown at you, the root meaning of that word. A question means a challenge. How does one...
...operating in our relationship in isolation. Now, what happens? I face the fact. You are facing the fact, not I. You are facing the fact. Do you approach it, the fact, with reason, with a ground, with a motive? - which are all Now, so how do you approach it? Without a motive? Without cause? If you approach it, or when you approach it without a...
...the implications of the questions. As we also pointed out, it is important how you approach these questions; any question, any problem of life, whether we approach it personally or with some definite or unconscious motive, or with a desire only to find an answer, thereby we never understand the problem itself. As we said the other day, 'problem'...
K: Yes, saying I can do something about it. And so how does each one of us approach any of these problems? Jesus! Isn't it important to find out our approach?
...we are asking a very simple question, which is really tremendously complex. How you approach that question matters a great deal. Whether you approach it with fear, you approach it with a conclusion, or accepting the authority of others, and your approach then is already limited, circumscribed. To investigate one must be free otherwise you can't...
So we have to find out accurately what your approach is to any problem and especially with regard to psychological problems, the problems in oneself. So what is your approach? Right? Not clear, sir? When you say 'clear', verbally, or actually? That means you want to find out if there is an answer to this question, if there is a resolution to the...
...armaments, the race that is going on, the politicians holding on to their particular ideologies, fighting for that. You know, all the rest of it. How do you, if one may ask, approach these problems? Not only one's own particular problem but the problems that challenge, that require a determined action, how do you approach these problems? The...
...that is what we mean by a problem. How do you, how does one approach a problem? Because how you approach a problem is more important than the problem itself. You understand? I'll explain. If I approach it - suppose I have a problem, if I approach it with fear, with the desire to resolve it, go beyond it, or if I approach it traditionally, fight...
K: So your approach is that you have a block. That is - keep it there. Your approach is you can't approach it, because you have a wall.
So when we observe we are observing through the image which we have created about that thing, or that person. Can we observe that thing without the word, and can we observe the person without the image? That means can the observer be absent in observation. Right? Do you get the point? Are you working with When you look at a person - of course, if...
...You are missing all this. When you are totally attentive there is no structure. Right? That attention is meeting the person at the same level, at the same time, with the same intensity - the other may not, that is indifferent, that is irrelevant. Your mind is meeting that totally. Then begins the objection on the other person, saying 'You are...
...I don't like, just to observe. Right? Have you ever done it? If you are honest, you haven't. Have you ever observed without all the memory, without all the associations of the person with whom you are intimate, have you ever observed that person? Have you ever observed your wife, your children, your neighbour, your politicians, or your blessed...
K: The gentleman asks in Italian, forgive me if I do not put it rightly, correct me. He asks, it is not only that we cry when someone whom we like dies, for ourselves, but also what happens to the other person, what is involved in death with regard to the other person. Even our tears may be for that person.
...you accept it or reject it? It is a fact. There is the sun, why do you accept it or reject it? - it is there. Right? So - wait, let me finish - you are faced with this and if you reject it who is the person who is to reject it? The person is part of that consciousness, he is rejecting only a part that doesn't suit him. Right? And if he accepts it...
K: I don't see why not. Because if I am not jealous, I won't be jealous. There is no sense of attachment to another person, which doesn't mean lack of love.
So the mind must have no identification with the name, with the form, or with any person, idea, conclusion - is that possible? And, as we said, that does not deny love: on the contrary, when you are attached to a person there is no love; there is dependence, there is the fear of loneliness, to be left alone in a world where everything is so...
...to find out. That's your culture, that's your training, that's your religious up-bringing - listen. You don't want to think for yourself but accept what other people say - Shankara, this person, that person, it doesn't matter, your pet guru. All that you are concerned with is, tell me what to do, not find...
...do I suffer? Go on sirs. Is it that I am suddenly left, hurt very deeply through the death of another? Because through the death of another, through that other, I have identified myself with that person - right, you are following all this? It is my son, I want him, I am myself projected in that son, identified myself with that person, and when...
K: No, sir. I myself expressed the question of others. (Laughter) No, don't brush it aside, don't brush it aside. I am not lonely. I won't go through that. Cut me out as a person.
K: Then what happens? Wait - go slowly! What happens? The person is there, the furniture is there or whatever you are attached to. What has happened?
K: Right, sir. That's what we are saying. Quite right. That's exactly - he says that a person on crutches can't walk fully therefore - and so on.
...form of defence, any form of resistance. You are going with it, flowing with it. So please, in the same way, kindly listen, not to be instructed, not to be told what to do, but to understand what is being said, not the person who is saying it, but what is being said. If you are merely concerned with the person, that is, with the speaker and not...
...him, or what he has said, to put away all that and look at him, observe him. Will you do that? Can you do it? That is, to look at something, or a person or anything, without a previous memory, conclusion, remembrance, just to look afresh. Is that possible? That means thought not interfering with your observation. If you have ever tried, or if you...
K: How can you communicate with somebody who is completely down, who is insensitive, who is not interested in what you are talking about, how can you communicate with such a person. You can't!
...you know all the rest of the words that one invents, pleasant sounding words to cover up a corruption. How is one to go beyond it? And so not being capable we have invented an outside agency, which is environment. Change the environment, the social structure, the economic business and man will inevitably also change. That has proved utterly wrong...
...mechanical process of memory, on a repetition of an experience and therefore a continuing in the movement of time as past, present and future. Is there an action that is not conditioned by environment? You know the Marxists say that control the environment then you will change man, and that has been tried, and man has not changed. Man is as...
Is it the fault of the environment, the education that one has, the culture in which one lives - which is the environment, let's call it that, is it the fault of the environment that man, you, are in constant battle, not only during the day but also during the night when you sleep, from the moment you are born till you die, this battle? If you...
...enquire into it you are going to discover an awful lot, but if you just listen speculatively you won't find out. So let's begin by being aware, if one is, of the environment in which one lives - the squalor, the dirt, the pollution. You understand, what is taking place around you. Now if you are aware of it, how are you aware of it? Sensorially,...
K: Just listen to what I have to say first, sir. I am violent, and my tradition and all the people around me, environment tells me, and the religious books and so on, so on - society tells me I must be non-violent. But I am violent. So what happens? There is a conflict between 'what is' and 'what should be'.
This evening I think we ought to go into many other problems: which is, what important is it for a human being to change himself when the environment, the society, the culture, is so corrupt, so disintegrating. And one sees the necessity of changing the environment - the environment being the society, the religion, the culture and so on. And what...
K: No, we were saying the environment can only be, environment in the sense society, the culture, the religion and all that, can only be, radically changed if man himself changes. That's the whole point.
So can we in this talking over together stop all the blaming, or saying the environment, the parents, the past, has made you this. All right, it has made me this, I want to start from here. Right? Can we do that? So I want to know what is going on now, not what has produced it. I don't have to go to Africa to study the gorillas and the apes in...
K: Millions of people feel that there is in them something far superior than this ordinary brain, far superior to environment, economics, etc.
...they're insecure, they are violent, greedy, envious, competitive and so on. They are similar, psychologically, inwardly. Modified perhaps by their culture, by environment, by the climate, but the core of it is similar.
...No. You see you don't understand me, sir. I see that the human mind is shaped by the environment in which it lives - the Eskimo, the Pacific Islander, the Christian and so on, each one is conditioned by the environment in which he lives, the environment is all the rest of it - Catholic, you know, all that. So a child being born in this culture is...
...As long as you have an image about yourself you are going to get hurt. Like a man who says, I have achieved enlightenment - you follow - and he is talking about environment, preaching about environment, such a man knows nothing about environment - about enlightenment. It is just his concept. You...
...feeling, and the demand, what can one do about it all? Can one escape from it into some monastery, into some religious sect, group, community, commune, or join some political party to change the policies, political policies hoping thereby changing the environment, hope to change man. This has been the constant problem: change the environment,...
Now if a few of us see this together, and it is not mine or yours, but it is so, then we create a new generation. You understand? And then you won't be bothered about changing the people, changing the heart of the people in power. They are not worth changing. Any man who is in power is corrupt.
...Desire in itself, per se. Isn't it one of the major causes of conflict? I desire to be powerful - power. We all want power, from the president down to the prime minister to each one of us, we all want power - power in our little yard. And the desire for power is one of the causes of conflict. Another cause is, I seek power, I want power more than...
...are incapable of coming together and resolving this problem. That is, thinking together. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats, in this country, will drop their particular line of thinking, or their personal ambitions, their craving for power, position. Because it is only when we all work together, think together, feel together the necessity,...
...speaker. But if you are concerned, as every human being is concerned, at all awake to all the things that are happening in the world - the tyranny, the search for power, accepting power, living with power; all power is evil, ugly, whether the power over your wife, or the wife over the husband, or the governments throughout the world. Where there...
...so on? Of course. Where there is authority, there is dictatorship. And to bring about a social, religious, a human change, there must be first understanding of this whole structure of thought as the 'me' which is seeking power, whether it is me or the other who is seeking power. Can the mind live without seeking power? Go on, answer this...
...we can pick it up, and go also tomorrow into the question of what is meditation. Because all these things, like power, the demand for power, the hurts, fear, pleasure, the attachments, love, and so on, death and sorrow, are part of this whole process of meditation. You cannot possibly meditate if you have not laid the foundation. You understand?...
2nd Question: Why do we confuse function with role? For instance, we may teach or do some work, but why do we make personal these functions, claiming them as attributes of ourselves, thereby introducing will, position, power, and consequently tremendous harm?
...Yes. Not only that it gives one power, position, status and so on, but also it's very satisfying to have power, power over somebody. The whole tyrannical, political world, the totalitarian states are tremendously powerful. Look at Poland - you know all the rest The few are in power, it's like good old - you know, sir, the good old system of...
K: Is it natural to seek power? Of course it is so-called natural, so is the dog seeking power over other dogs. It is all right there, poor thing it doesn't know, probably doesn't know much better. But we are supposed to be cultured, educated, intelligent. And we apparently, after these millennia, have not learnt to live without power.
...explanations, but we are sharing together the actuality, what is implied in all this - sharing. Therefore we must not only hear and have the meaning of the words, but also there must be a verbal communication, as well as non-verbal communication. Communication means thinking together, sharing together, building together, understanding together....
...this evening rather complex problems, please don't make it more complex for yourself by trying merely to understand the words. Words are necessary for communication, but there is also a non-verbal communication. But the non-verbal communication requires the deeper layers of the mind quickened, sharpened, challenged so that it is capable of...
...is, you say something to me and I listen so completely that there is communication between us totally. There is not only verbal communication but also non-verbal communication - either it is a gesture, a look, a wave of the hand and so on. There is verbal communication and non-verbal communication. In listening both are necessary. The...
K: If you are not interested in what is being said, well, you will think of something else and communication stops. So there is a verbal communication and a non-verbal communication. They are both operating at the same time.
...- thinking about the problem together, partaking, building, doing things together, all that is contained in that word, 'communication'. Now we know there is a verbal communication and non-verbal communication. The verbal communication may also be very deceptive, misunderstood, and the non-verbal communication is much more difficult, much more...
...is a communication which is non-verbal. The non-verbal communication is much more difficult, that requires a mind that is not caught in words, in the trap of expressions and explanations but a mind that can meet directly, face 'what is' instantly, such a mind has no need for words and explanations. But unfortunately we haven't got such minds. A...
...I think about something and I want to communicate it to you. Either we are both telepathically in communication, which is dangerous, misleading, unless we are both at the same level, with the same interest, with the same energy - so there is a non-verbal communication - right? - a gesture, a look, and a verbal communication. But both are involved...
Perhaps it would be good if we could establish between ourselves, between the speaker and you, a communication which is not only verbal, but also a non-verbal communication. The words are never the thing. The description is never the described. So we are not only communicating with each other at the verbal level, that is, at the descriptive level,...
...sharing the thing. So, in communication there is not only a verbal communication, but there is a non-verbal communication, really which comes into being, or which happens when one has the art of really listening to somebody, in which there is no acceptance, no denial, or comparison, or judgement, just the act of listening.
K: So where is there nonconformity? If our mind is merely conforming all the time, one is living in prison. And being in prison it is no good saying, there is freedom. It is only when we leave the prison there is freedom. So one has to find out where is the end of conformity.
K: (Repeating) It is only the man in prison that knows there is freedom and wants to be free. When you are free you are not conscious of it. Look, Madam, look, do you know what conformity is? And the mind is asking, when you become aware of it what takes place?
...to it. Jail means you are conditioned - your culture has conditioned you, your gods have, your saviours, your corrupt governments - no? The environment of which you are, that is the prison you are in. That is the prison which you have created, of which you are a part. Are you aware of this - aware totally, completely. Not the reformation of the...
...all merciful, all powerful, all seeing, all bla bla bla. And we say there is that and I will pray to be part of it. You understand? The same business. I am in prison, there you are free. And I pray. See the tricks I am playing. I am praying to something I have created - I have put together, not created, sorry. Put together by thought, the image,...
...Yes. Is it more than a concept? All right. What is the thing that demands freedom? Is it desire - desire to be free because you are in a prison and you want freedom? Is freedom natural? Or is it something because one lives in a prison, and we live in a prison. We may have marvellous cars to go out, lovely country, the hills and the beauty of the...
...sir. Now, all that has importance in my living, in the daily living of my life, of every human being. If he doesn't know the meaning of meditation, he merely lives in that field of knowledge and therefore that becomes a prison. And therefore being in prison he says, I must escape through entertainment, through Gods, through this and through that,...
...putting things together. You are out of that category. And I am all the time gathering - right? - putting, you know all the rest of it. There is a vast division between freedom and the man who is in prison. I am in prison, of my own making and the prison made by politicians, books and all the rest of it - I am in prison, you are not, you are free....
...superstitions, realities, and the way of life that has conditioned the mind, the brain. And there are those who assert that conditioning can never be changed, they can be modified, they can be somewhat, like living in a prison make the prison rather nice. And we are questioning together whether that condition can be transformed, end, without time....
K: Wait a minute. We always deal with a crisis, not what has brought about the crisis. When the crisis arises we are so concerned - answer the crisis, don't bother about the past, don't bother about anything else, just answer the crisis.
K: Facing a crisis, do you want to discuss that, I mean talk, have a dialogue about - facing a crisis, or what is it to be attentively - the gentleman used, 'passively observant' - seeing. Which of these, please, it's up to you.
The crisis is not in politics, in governments, whether it is totalitarian, or so-called democratic, the crisis is not among the scientists, nor among the established respectable religions. We said all this yesterday. The crisis is in our consciousness, which is in our mind, in our hearts, in our behaviour, in our relationship. And the crisis...
...religious divisions, are bringing about the destruction of man - man and I mean also woman. The crisis is not political; the crisis is not economic, nor religious, but the crisis is in consciousness, in our minds, in our hearts, in our brain. The crisis is there. And the politicians, however capable, and the scientists, the biologists, the...
K: Why do you take only the crisis of a war when people think together, and why don't you there may be thinking together without a crisis.
...We are not teaching you. You can observe it in your life. But this observation of the crisis and the crisis which is in our mind and heart and in our consciousness is always bringing conflict because we are never able to solve any single problem completely without having other problems. So look what is happening to us: problems after problems,...
...more serious than the nuclear war, or the neutron war, whatever war that be, whether it is possible to change radically the content of our consciousness. The crisis is there, not in the world. Please understand all this. The crisis is not in the world, not the nuclear war, not the terrible divisions, the brutality that is going on. The crisis is...
...morning we should go into the content of our consciousness. And we said during the last four talks that the crisis is not in politics, economics, social structure and so on, but the crisis is in our consciousness. And that consciousness is the common ground of all mankind. Because all men throughout the world, wherever they live, men, women, they...
...any kind of propaganda for any ideal, for any person, for any concept. We have been saying that the world is in a crisis, threatened by war, overpopulation, poverty, terrible division between nationalities, and all the absurdities that are going on in the name of religion. But the crisis, as we said, is in the human consciousness, in the mind, in...
So we are not only at a crisis in the world psychologically, a crisis in our consciousness, but also there is a crisis going on at the present time in the world. And we were talking about yesterday morning, and we are talking over together, we are talking over our problems, not mathematical problems, or geographical or other kinds of problems, but...
...gurus that come over here, and all the rest of it. What I want to find out is whether human consciousness, if it is in a crisis, as it is, whether it is possible not only to resolve that crisis, without war destroying humanity, whether human beings can ever go beyond their own limitation. I don't know if I am making myself...
...going to solve our problems, nor the psychologists, nor the priests, nor the specialists. But the crisis is in our consciousness, that is, in our minds, in our hearts, in our behaviour, in our way of looking at the world from a narrow, limited point of view. That is where the crisis...
Considering all this, can you and the speaker think together about this crisis which we are facing? A crisis which is not economic, nor politics, nor social - they are all outward. The crisis is in each one of us. The crisis is in our consciousness, in our minds, in our hearts. And so can we observe that crisis, and come together to resolve that...
...who has been responsible? And, what can each one of us do? What's our action, facing this, not only crisis outwardly, but crisis in ourselves. How has all this been brought about? We have evolved technologically from a bullock cart to the jet, and so on; tremendous evolution. But inwardly, psychologically we have hardly moved. We are still very,...
...nor in politicians nor in any of the so-called - these thoughtless gurus. Man has not changed. And when one has reached this stage of confusion, deeply, then that very confusion demands right action, that very confusion brings a crisis in our life. The crisis is not out there but the crisis is in our consciousness, in our...
...have. That image has been created, has come into being through various incidents, pleasurable, non-pleasurable, and all the rest of it. Now look at that image you have about her or him with complete attention. Then you will see in that attention there is no image at all. So the past image and the image that you might build will disappear when you...
K: The lady says when there is complete attention there is neither the observer nor the observed. Quite right. I mean, I am not saying you are right, I mean if it is so, it is so. And you want to maintain that attention. Right? Now, look: who is the entity that wants to maintain that attention? See what has happened? Do watch it, please watch it....
...is no centre. When you concentrate there is a centre. When you are completely attending there is no me, the image, nothing. When, say for instance, you are listening now with complete attention, if you are, what takes place? There is neither agreeing, nor disagreeing, there is such care, such affection, such love, so you are completely listening....
...to everything that you do. You begin there. How you're dressed, how you talk, how you eat, how you walk - pay attention to all that. Then as you pay attention, you will know what it means to give complete attention. That is, to observe, to watch, to listen, thereby you become highly sensitive - not become - you are highly sensitive when there is...
...is a watching of my chattering. I am aware and in that awareness I am not seeking any reward or punishment, I am just watching. Which means what? I am giving complete attention at that moment. Right? At that second all my energy, all my capacity and attention is there. Which means when there is complete attention, complete, not attention brought...
K: The gentleman would like to discuss, ask, to talk over together, the question of when there is complete attention there is no movement of thought; but thought arises when there is inattention, when there is no attention. So could we go into this question? Any other questions?
K: Have you done it, sirs? Now wait a minute: you and I are quarrelling now, it is a quarrel, I'll show you. Will you give your complete attention? Then what happens? If you, as the husband or the wife, give complete attention what happens to the other person? You don't even come Come on, sirs, what happens?
So, when somebody says something to the picture that is going to be hurt, when there is complete attention there is no hurt. Have you understood? Somebody calls the speaker a fool, arrogant, or this or that. To listen to that word, to see the meaning of that word and give complete attention to it, then there is no past hurt, or the future hurt...
K: Ah, in order oh, yes - mustn't the body be light and sensitive to pay complete attention. Not too many questions, sir because...
K: No, no, you have not. And when do you give total attention - do listen to this, please - when do you give total attention, complete attention? When you are threatened. Right? When there is tremendous danger your complete attention is there. And when there is no danger you slip off.
...energy, it's only when there is inattention, when there is no attention the quarrels begin. Right? Do you understand this, sir? When there is complete attention on both sides, there is nothing, no quarrel, no division. Because we think attention means there is a centre from which I am attending. I say attention means there is no centre at all....
...born out of that intelligence. You will get it, think about it - no, don't think about it, listen to it. So when you see the false, that is, in that perception there is complete attention, there is no concentration, there is just attention. Attention implies there is no centre from which you are attending. There is a centre which demands...
...What happens? One gives complete attention in one's relationship between man and woman; let's begin with that. You have given complete attention. When she insults you, when she flatters you, when she bullies you or when she is attached to you, all that is the lack of attention. If you give complete attention and the wife doesn't, then what...
Attention is like a fire, when that attention is there that thing which is sorrow, the loneliness, the pain, the anxiety, the tears, when there is that complete attention all that goes, disappears. Attention is a flame.
K: So in answering this question: what is attention, what is the nature of thought that ceases when there is complete attention, and when there is no attention, thought arises. That is what we are going to talk over together.
...The question is, I see I am conditioned and yet thought is independent of that conditioning. We have been through that. We said thought has created the conditioning, and the conditioning says, 'I am independent of thought'. Thought has created the tent, and the tent is independent of thought. The mountain is independent of thought, but thought has...
First of all, does it have a life of its own, independent of thought? Or has thought put it together and that self thinks it is independent of thought? You understand the question? Do we understand the question? Thought, we said, is the movement of time. Thought, in the world of reality, thought separates itself from that which it has put...
...a minute. All right. Thought has created the microphone, but the microphone is independent of thought, of the thought which has created it. Right? Please follow this. The mountain is not created by thought, it is independent of thought. Fear is put together by thought. Is that thought independent of fear? No, wait! Listen carefully. This is...
...the sun we would all be gone. So it is the unifying factor. So thought having created that centre, and the centre feeling itself totally independent of thought, then thought becomes something outside, therefore it is fragmentary, therefore it is broken up - it is not the centre. As thought created the tent and the tent is independent of thought,...
...This is so Look at it. I am not trying to persuade you to anything, or influence you to any kind of thought or conclusion. The obvious thing is, thought has created this tent, the tent is independent of thought. Right? Thought has created the thinker, and the thinker says, 'By Jove, I am independent, I am original. I am the soul, I am god', 'I am...
...do I perceive the whole of me - the 'me' constructed by thought, isolated by thought, fragmented by thought which in itself is fragmented? So it creates the 'me' and thinks that 'me' is independent of thought. The 'me' thinks it is independent of thought but it has created the 'me' - the 'me' with all its anxieties, fears, vanities, agonies,...
K: So the thinker thinks he is independent of thought. But thought has put him together. Please go slowly, you will see something extraordinary taking place in you, if you observe it in yourself.
...he is separate from thought. That is all what we are discussing. Is there a thinker if there is no thought? Obviously not. So just see the importance of this: thought creates the tent and the tent is independent of thought. The mountain is not created by thought and yet it is independent. But thought created the thinker and the thinker says, I am...
...hope that it will be the unifying factor. Because in a unifying factor there is a vitality, there is strength, there is stability. Right? So thought has created that, and that has become independent of thought. I don't know if you have noticed this. Having created that centre, that centre then feels itself independent of thought, and that centre...
K: You have stated it and then my mind says - I am fairly ordinary, I have come here - my mind immediately says, 'Give it to me. Tell me what to do'. You see when I ask you, 'Tell me what to do', I am back in the knowledge, into the field of knowledge.
...Why should it be quiet - I've explained. It must be active within the field of knowledge - right? - because that is its function. If I didn't know that a cobra is the most poisonous snake, I'll play with it and be killed. The knowledge that it is poisonous is self-protection - right? - therefore knowledge must exist - technologically, in every...
...and you know all the technological world. So thought which can function only within the field of knowledge - please follow this a little bit, it is not too complicated - thought which can only function within the field of knowledge, and that knowledge is always in the past, knowledge is the past. It may project from the known to the future and...
Because when you are acting in the field of the known all the time, which is in the field of knowledge, knowledge becomes traditional and you are then acting according to a past pattern set by various scientists, philosophers, psychologists, the theologians and their persuasive methods, then the brain must be very conditioned, it has not the flexibility.
...beyond it? That is my problem - you understand? That is what I want to find out. Because I see if we are always functioning in the field of knowledge, we will always be prisoners, very limited, with certain expansive or narrow borders, which are always measurable. And therefore always the mind will be held within the frontiers of knowledge. Right?...
...and operate and not enter into any other area? Am I making something clear? Look sir, if my mind is only operating in the field of knowledge there is no freedom, I am a slave to the past, the mind is a slave to the past, for knowledge is always the past. You may have a future knowledge, future intimation but it is still born from the past. As long...
...that field there is no freedom, though we can imagine there is freedom. The mind must function within the field of knowledge, otherwise you can't write, you can't do all the technological jobs that you have to do, you won't remember your own name, speak any language. There, that's the whole field of knowledge, scientific, biological, mathematical,...
...the world of knowledge. Have you understood? Now there is another kind of learning, in which there is never an accumulation. Because the moment you accumulate and function within the field of knowledge there is no freedom. You are always moving within the field of the known. Do you understand? However wide that known is, however intricate, however...
So I am saying, as long as thought functions within the field of knowledge, and that is its proper place, there freedom cannot exist. Freedom exists outside the field of knowledge. Look sir, it is very simple, if you want to find something, something uninvented, unthought of before, you must put aside all that you know otherwise you can't find...
...So thought is born of knowledge. And so thought is always incomplete. Knowledge always lives within the shadow of ignorance. So we're always functioning within the field of knowledge, which is our conditioning.
As long as we function in the field of knowledge, which we do, we are acting, functioning, living in the field of knowledge and as long as we are doing that our brains become mechanical. It becomes routine like going to the office from 9 o'clock in the morning and coming back home at 5 o'clock or 6 o'clock or whatever it is. This repetition, this...
So thought is the response of memory as experience and knowledge, so we are always operating in the field of knowledge. Right? Oh, come on! And knowledge has not changed man. We have had thousands of wars, millions of human beings have suffered, cried, and we still carry on! The knowledge of war has not taught us anything, except how to kill...
...That's right. Quite right. The field of knowledge. So you move from one knowledge to the other. Knowledge is the same. So do you want to find out how to live a life where knowledge is necessary, where knowledge is not necessary? Knowledge is necessary if you are a carpenter; knowledge is necessary if you want to drive a car; knowledge is necessary...
...go beyond time - not science fiction time - you are following? - but actually not be a slave to time, because time is measurable, knowledge is measurable, action in the field of knowledge is measurable, and therefore man unless he frees himself from that field will always be a slave. You may decorate the field, you may do all kinds of things...
...value, and being relative it is not all-important, which we are now making it. Now can you, sitting there, see the reality of this, that you must operate in the field of knowledge and yet not be dependent on it, therefore a certain quality of freedom from the known.
So experience in that sense - let's be clear - experience in driving a car, building, an architect who has got great deal of experience, skill and all that, that's one kind of experience. Is there any other kind of experience?
...painful things, you only want to experience pleasurable things. And god of course is the ultimate pleasure. Right? So the mind sees that, therefore it is no longer asking for any kind of experience, therefore no illusion. The moment the mind wants to experience something great, it can invent that greatness, it can invent something which it calls...
...What is experience, which most people want? You have experiences of everyday: the office, the factory, the sexual experiences, the fears, the incidents, the accidents, you have every kind of experience; if you have lived thirty or forty years, and being bored with all that you want something more. Either you want to experience through drugs, or...
...please listen to it, if you are interested - that experience which you have had, what is it? Either you have projected it - right? - you want some kind of experience and you will get it because that is what you want. And then that experience is registered in the mind and hold it. That is, something that is dead you are holding on to. Right? So...
...and goes into it deeply, it is not. And the individual has always sought experience. Experience, not only a doctor or a surgeon who has had a great deal of experience and therefore skilful with his hands and mind and so on, that's one kind of experience. Any other kind of psychological experience implies that there is a centre which is...
K: Rocks, and that kind of experience is perhaps necessary, because it furthers knowledge, knowledge of factual, objective things. Now apart from that kind of experience, is there any necessity for experience at all?
K: Why? (Laughter) Sir, we've had every kind of experience. Right? We have had different kinds of experiences: sensory, emotional, romantic, experience of so-called love, intellectual, all that, experiences of cultivating knowledge. Right?
...take pleasure. So that becomes a problem. So the mind has to find out why there is this constant demand for experience. You're following all this? Why do you want experience, any kind of experience? Either you have it directly or indirectly by reading novels or books or watching television. Why do you want experience? Have you ever gone into the...
...to observe, not to experience. Right - please see all this. Most of us want experience - experience which we have had - sensory experiences, sexual, every kind of experience we have had - and thought desires more experiences, an experience of another state, of another dimension. Right? Because we are fed up with this world and its experiences -...
...immediately, because that's what we want - safety, comfort, security. And having all had that kind of experience, and being fed up with it, bored with that kind of experience if you are at all very clever, fairly sensitive and subtle, you want wider, deeper experience. But it is the same...
...have talked more or less for an hour and perhaps you would like to ask questions. To ask a question, or any question relevant, is important, but to put the right question is still more important. And when you put the right question who is going to answer it? And do you when you put a question wait for an answer from the speaker? Or you put the...
...we have time to listen, time to observe and you say we are a small group of people, what can we do, a small - like a drop in the bucket. Right? What can we do? Is that the right question? Is that the valid question when you are confronted with this enormous complex problem of the world in which we live. What can I, as a human being, one...
...I will stop. Perhaps now you will ask, if you are willing, questions on what we have talked about. And one of the things about questioning is that you must ask the right question. And to ask the right question is quite difficult. But we must ask, not only of ourselves but of everybody who can think, ask. But we must have doubt, be sceptical. And...
...is worthwhile; but if you ask some kind of superficial rather obvious questions then I am afraid it won't be. And to ask the right question is also very difficult, because if you ask the right question one is apt to get the right answer. So what shall we talk...
And it's important also to put the right question. Then one asks, what is the right question? A question can be quite superficial: what kind of food should I eat? There are lots of questions like that. Should I take exercise? Do you advocate yoga? Those are rather, one considers, rather superficial, though they have certain necessities. But to...
...question, but why do we question and from whom does one expect answers? You have put here several questions, who is going to answer them? If you put the right question naturally there will be right answer. If there are questions that are merely intellectual, theoretical, something based on some hypotheses then such questions have no value; but if...
...Not it helps sometimes, it doesn't help sometimes, comparison is necessary and not necessary. The right question when it is asked and answered rightly, then that question will bring about the right response when comparison is necessary. But I must ask the right question, the fundamental question first, which is: can I live without comparison? -...
...kind of turmoil, silliness that goes on. I am that, one is that. Then how am I, how is it to move to the other? Right? You are asking that question, aren't you? Is that a right question? Moving from here to there. That is a wrong question obviously. Because if you move from here to that, that is the same as this. Vous avez compris? Move! You...
...greeds, jealousies, anxieties, fears, pleasures, remembrances, imaginations, you know, all that. How am I, how is the 'me' to go beyond itself? Right? Is that the right question? Isn't that a wrong question altogether? How can the 'me' - see this please - how can the 'me' says to itself 'how can I go beyond myself?' And because it cannot, they...
...Of his darkness, yes. (Laughs) Is this right sir? Are we pursuing the right direction, right question? You have that insight, suppose you have that insight, and your darkness, the very source, centre of darkness has been dispelled completely. And I listen to you and I am a serious, fairly intelligent, not neurotic, human being, I listen to you....
K: How can I ask the right question when I've got a rather confused mind. Is that it? But we do ask questions, don't we?, though we have confused minds and rather disturbed minds, we ask questions. And the gentleman asks: what is the right question to ask when one is confused. Right sir?
...Yes sir, may I suggest something? Can we ask the right question? What do you mean by 'right', and what do you mean by 'question'? The right question will inevitably bring about the right answer. But if we ask a wrong question, that wrong question evaporates into nothingness. So can we ask the right question which will awaken our own intelligence,...
...you are so quick to get up to ask a question, it means you haven't really listened, you are occupied with your own questions. You know, sir, to ask a right question is one of the most difficult things, the right question. And if you ask the right question, you have the right answer in yourself, not in the speaker. Don't laugh, it's not clever. See...
K: What is the right question here, the gentleman asks, if I understand rightly. Sorry if you ask questions from the audience we can never get through this. Not that we must get through it, but there are too many people, if you don't mind. What is the right question here and what is the right answer? If it is a right question you will never ask...
K: Change, mutate. You can't change one form into another form. See that you are actually, the truth, that you are the rest of mankind. Sir, when you see that, feel it in your - if I may use the word - guts, in your blood, then your whole activity, your whole attitude, your whole way of living changes.
K: Dependence, same thing. Most people here are dependent on you. And what are you going to do about it. I can't do anything about it, but you can do a lot about it. Because I abhor, to me authority in any form in this field is poisonous, therefore I won't go near it.
...You understand? This is a very important question. And we have gone into it very deeply, if you have gone with it, shared it together. We said, we are name, form and psychological content - you follow? - all that. Memories, really: I remember my name, I identify the name with the form, and the name and the form carry on to the psychological thing,...
...there is a Jew, Arab, Hindu, why this division - the Catholic, non-Catholic and all the rest of it? Obviously, it is so simple. It is so simple you won't see it. The form - right? - the form of your face, your body, then the name - look at what takes place - the name, with the name the associations, so immediately you have a name, a word,...
...go on from there? Please, don't accept the description, not the words, but see the truth of this thing. As you see the fact of this microphone, see that thing. That 'me' has a name, a form. The 'me' has a label, called 'K' or 'John' and it has its form, it identifies with the body, with the face, with the whole business. So there is the...
So fear in any form, both physiological as well as psychological, distorts clarity and therefore a person that is afraid in any form has no compassion. We will go into the whole question of compassion later, much later. But let's take all this together.
K: Wait, wait. You said, you are what you are. What are you? Not only you, everybody: what are you? Your name, your form, the way you look: go on, I am telling you, tell me. (Laughs)
K: No, sir, no, no, no, sorry. I said, any inducement, in any form, subtle or obvious, I would consider doesn't bring about the depth of great silence. I would consider it's all superficial. I may be wrong. We're enquiring.
...The idea of the body, of course, of course. I said the name and the form. Right? In Sanskrit it has got different names - I won't go into all that. So the 'I' is the name, the form, the biological structure of the form, the psychological content. All that is the 'me'. And that 'me' is the image. So when you say something to me which is unpleasant...
...wives, I may change husbands, but the same pattern is repeated over and over and over again. And as I am a serious man I want to find out if it can end, what is the manner of ending it, and what is a way of living in which there is no conflict at all. That's what I want to find out. At least that's what we are gathered here, to do...
And if you will, we will go together into this question, bearing in mind that the speaker has no authority whatsoever, because both of us are going to examine, observe, this phenomenon called life, living, and find out the truth of the matter, if there is an action, a way of living, not at odd moments or in a great crisis but every day, every minute, a way of living in which there is joy, there is no violence, no brutality, no contradiction, and obviously no imitation and dependency.
And when you realise this then the question arises: is there a way of living - please listen - is there a way of living daily life without a single conflict? Not as an idea, not as a slogan, not something you repeat and so on, but to find out for yourself a way of living in which there isn't a shadow of struggle, except in the technological field...
So you find then, that there is a way of living in which there is no - please carefully listen, because what I am going to say is dangerous - a way of living in which there is no control whatsoever. Because for most of us control has become the habit, the tradition, the most respectable thing. Obviously. Your life is all the time controlled,...
K: Which means, a way of living with another, intimately or not intimately, in which there is no possibility at any time of being hurt. Right? Is that possible? So let's find out. Right?
K: All their knowledge is from books, or from their small little self. So I say I am going to investigate this whole way of living, not just parts of it, the whole way of living.
K: All right, if it is not living what are you going to do about it? Do you accept this way of living? If you don't, what is the next step?
Now we are enquiring: is there an action, a way of living, which is non-mechanistic, which is not based on the movement of thought as time? Are we understanding something of each other?
...Just a minute, sir. I am going into the question. A way of life in which there is no need for change. Aren't most of us satisfied with our way of living? There might be a little discontent, dissatisfaction, and slight, peripheral changes, but most of us prefer, don't we, I am just asking, for things to remain as they are, status quo, and hoping...
...from there? I hope you have understood something of it, because it's your life, it's not my life. It's your way of living, your daily existence, which has become so utterly meaningless, so mechanistic, except for occasional freedom and so on. So we are going to go into this question of whether there is an action, a way of living which is not based...
K: Ah, no, again that's a game you are playing. Do you really seriously want to find a way of living in which you cannot possibly be hurt? Do you want to find out?
K: (repeating question) Many people depend on me financially and what is the right, intelligent, way of living, and a livelihood?
K: No, as a living grown-up human being all my tradition, all my way of living, way of thinking, acting - as a nationalist, this or that - has contributed to this, to the present state of the world.
...comparison, conformity, go together and that does not breed - that only breeds a suppression, conflict and endless pain. To find a way of living - not a way - a daily living in which there is no comparison. Do it sometime, you will see what an extraordinary thing it is. It frees you from so many burdens. And to be aware of that, that very...
...of the way we are living, the destructiveness of it, the utter indifference to the earth. We are destroying everything we touch. And to point out a way of living in which there is no conflict. That seems to me is the function of the highest form of...
...Yes, that stream has manifested itself in A. A living, realises he's suffering, he doesn't escape from it, because he wants to know the whole nature of it, the nature and the structure and what is behind suffering. So he examines it, both logically, sanely and also non-verbally. Looks into it. And the very looking into it is the insight. It's not...
So can I, without analysis, see the whole structure and all the depth of it - not just the words of it - of suffering, fear and the everlasting pursuit of pleasure? These are the three basic principles on which we function. Right? This is so. So which shall we start with?
So it is very important to find out for ourselves whether it is possible to be totally free from suffering, which doesn't mean that one becomes callous, indifferent, or builds a wall round oneself in isolation because when one understands suffering then out of that suffering comes passion. And passion is necessary because without passion you...
So to have an insight - please follow this - to have an insight into suffering, which means what place has thought in relationship to love, and in relationship to suffering? Right? To have an insight into it, which means you are neither escaping, wanting comfort, frightened to be lonely, isolated, therefore your mind is free; therefore that which...
K: I mean, I took an example, sir, that I suffer as a Christian and as a great believer always accept Jesus or Christ as the Saviour, I leave all my suffering to Him. Somehow He will help me, save me from suffering. That is an illusion. The fact is I'm suffering. That's all I'm saying.
K: Yes, tell me about it, but why do you make yourself interpreter? Why do you become the intermediary between that - I don't know what that is - and me, who is ignorant, who is suffering? Why don't you deal with my suffering rather than with that?
6th Question: What is it in humanity that has always moved towards something called religion or god? Is it only a projection as a result of fear and suffering, a seeking for help, or is it something deeply real, necessary, intelligent?
...the same way when you suffer, psychologically, to remain with it completely without a single movement of thought. Then you will see out of that suffering comes that strange thing called passion. And if you have no passion of that kind you cannot be creative. So out of that suffering comes compassion. And that energy is totally different from the...
So there are various varieties of explanations for suffering, and how to go beyond it, how to rationalise it, how to suppress it, how to escape from it. Now we are asking something entirely different: that is, not to suppress it, not to evade it, or rationalise it, but when there is that suffering to remain totally with it, without any movement of...
We'll talk more about it when we talk about the whole world, what is the significance of death, suffering, and the great question of compassion.
...is outside, and heaven is outside and all that stuff. But is love something - I am using that word very carefully - something outside of me, which you bring to me, which you awaken in me, which you give me as a gift, or it is in my darkness, in my illusion, suffering, is there that quality? Obviously not - can't...
...whether you are attached to a person, or to an idea, to a concept, to a belief. You see most of you do believe in god, god of the West or god of the East, you are attached to that because you want some explanation for all this misery, vulgarity, pain, ache, suffering. You, you are attached to that idea of god. But that god has been created by your...
You know while we are discussing suffering we ought to talk about death. What is it to die? We will come back to suffering in a minute. You see somebody - I see my son die from disease, accident, or some fatal injury. I see him die. And I shed tears out of my loneliness, out of my attachment. And I want to escape from it. So my mind is seeking...
...also we should go into the question why man has suffered. And whether there is an ending to suffering, not only the personal sorrow, but the sorrow of vast humanity. Right? Don't let's get sentimental about this, but actually all of us suffer in one way or another. The dull man suffers, the most intellectual, learned man, every human being on...
And the questioner asks: can we live on this earth with its great beauty and not bring suffering to others or death. It is a very, very serious question. To live a life without causing suffering to others, or causing death to others, that means not killing a human being, not killing any animal for sport, for your food. You understand all this?...
And man has sought immortality. A writer, if he is a good writer, seeks immortality through his books, through his words, through his thoughts. He is there, at least he is there, he thinks, permanently. There is nothing permanent. There is no permanency of you. Others seek immortality in history - the politicians, the kings. But you and I are not...
...something entirely different, which is not imagined. You know, human beings have sought immortality in their action, one writes a book and in that book there is immortality of the writer; a great painter does a sketch, or a painting, and that painting becomes the immortality of that human being. All that must end, which no artist is willing to...
Then from that problem arises, what is immortality? You know this has been the question right through from the beginning of man. The ancient Egyptians said, living is only a means for the preparation of after-life. They have tried everything. And what is immortality? Will you, as a human being live forever? And what are you, you living in America,...
And there is always the search for immortality. Man wants to be immortal, never asking the question: who is it that is going to be immortal? Does immortality lie in the book I have written? The name, the name in history as a General, as a butcher, or whatever it is? So what is immortality? Which means really to be free, for the mind to be free of...
...is real enjoyment, I am not talking of that, but can that mind, can the whole of me with its content observe and end this whole content? Then what takes place? Is it then immortality? You are following all this? That is, the mortal being made into the immortal. The mortal dies and the immortality is an idea of the mortal who is the content of...
So there are several problems involved in this: what is immortality, and what is eternity, which is a timeless state, and what happens to human beings who do not, who are still caught in this movement of time? You understand? That is, we human beings live extraordinarily complex, irresponsible, ugly, stupid lives, we are at each other's throats,...
...asking, what is religion. Man has always sought something beyond this life, beyond time, beyond all measurement. He has called it eternity, truth, immortality - not immortality - truth, something measureless, nameless, measureless. And there have been those who say, 'I'll lead you to it. We know and you don't know'. This has been from the ancient...
K: Of course. So anything that thought creates must be within the field of time. And yet thought is trying to seek immortality, which is immortality of itself, and the things it has created. You
You know man has sought immortality. That is, to be immortal, not to know death. And in his search for immortality he has done all kinds of idiotic, rational and irrational things. But he has never gone into the question - at least a few may have - into the question of dying totally to all the things that a man has acquired as the me, and...
So, our minds are the result of a thousand experiences and man, as we said, has been searching for this eternity, not immortality; immortality is merely the continuity of one's own ignorance. You accept all this? You won't. I'll show you presently. And there is this deep-rooted, deep-laden, seed which man has not cultivated, nourished, looked...
...the root of fear is time-thought. If you understand that - see the beauty of it, the subtlety of it. And the other thing is: people are afraid, as you are, most human beings throughout the world are afraid of death. That's one of the fundamental fears of life. And we all know death is for everybody, for you and the speaker. That's an absolute...
...it's obvious. You are afraid - losing a job, afraid of death, afraid of public opinion, afraid of old age, afraid of not being somebody, afraid that you will be punished, afraid that you will never get your reward, afraid of darkness, afraid of your wife or husband, afraid of your guru, afraid of the gods - multiplication of fears. Right? Now can...
...What is fear? You are afraid; aren't you? At least be honest to yourself. You are afraid, aren't you - afraid of losing your job; afraid of death; afraid of not reaching god or whatever it is, afraid of not doing the right thing; afraid of not being respectable. Right? So you have many, many forms of fear, which is the fear that you...
...is afraid of a physical pain that one has had last week, and one hopes it will not recur again, and in that there is fear. One is afraid of death, that everlasting thing that is waiting for all of us. One is afraid of one's wife or husband, or girl or boy - there are so many fears. And if you invite one as you are sitting there, what is the cause...
...it is not a practice. You see, you are so afraid of doing anything which might become a practice. I am not saying - sir, aren't you afraid of losing your job? Aren't you afraid of death? Aren't you afraid of not being able to fulfil? Aren't you afraid of being lonely? Aren't you afraid of not being loved? Aren't you? Some form of fear? What your...
...please! What am I afraid of, each one of us? My wife, losing my job, having no status in society, nobody recognising me as a great man? Afraid of death, afraid of darkness, afraid that I might physically get hurt? Go on, sir, please, what is it you're afraid...
...frightened. And having no fear I have no beliefs, whether the entity lives or doesn't live after dying. This is a tremendous I am going into it. The 'me', who is so afraid of death, the 'me' is the known. The 'me' is the known when it is attached to the furniture, to the house, to the family, to the name, to the country, the 'me' is the known. And...
You know we are so afraid of death. We have never enquired into a mind that has not only not fear, which we talked about the other day, but also what is death. Right? You see our mind clings to a continuity. Right? In continuity there is security: I was, I am, I will be. That concept, that idea, gives tremendous strength. Right? I feel secure,...
One is afraid of death - I won't go into the question of death because that is a very complex thing, we will go into it. We are asking what is the relationship between these two. Fear is time. Right? I'll have to explain it. Gosh, must one explain everything, can't we jump into it?
...Wait. Whatever the fear be - daily life of fear, losing money, afraid of your husband, wife, afraid of losing your job, afraid of darkness, afraid what people - afraid - afraid of death, afraid of not becoming famous, fulfilling, wanting to be recognised - you know, fears. Can't you? Need you go back and say, 'Well, I have no fear now, but when I...
...little backyard of a country. So there are innumerable forms of fear. Right? People are afraid of the dark, people are afraid of public opinion, people are afraid of death - we will deal with death later - people are afraid of not fulfilling, whatever that may mean. Apart from the fear of disease, one may have a great deal of pain, physical pain;...
...I am frightened of that too. You are following all this? And of course I am afraid of death, and I am afraid of being lonely, not being loved and so I want to establish a relationship with another in which this fear doesn't exist, this anxiety, this sense of loneliness, this separation. And also I am afraid of the dark, the lift, and the...
...in our life that is common. And we have never gone into it. We are frightened of it. Fear is time. Fear is the product of thought. And being afraid of death, we have put it far away, something to be avoided. And if you are afraid of death, then seeking comfort in afterlife,...
...understood deeply what the deep significance of death is. We can only understand it when there is no fear. Right? But most of us - I am sorry about my voice, it will get better as we go along - most of us are afraid of death. And we separate living from death - our daily life from death. One thing is absolutely certain, which is that we are all...
K: Surely there's something else going on. You're not - examine it a little more closely. That is, individuality has lost its meaning to me, personally. And I realise that I am part of this whole of mankind, I realise it, it means something tremendous, not just words. Something enormous has taken place.
...Could we investigate further? I think you were not here for the last two discussions. What we were saying was that there is actually no individuality at all. And if - when, not if - when the individuality is understood, its nature, its activities and its institutions, is there an ending of that individuality, because the individual is really the...
Now, what is my action, what am I to do in this world? I've lost my individuality, I mean it, I'm talking about myself, I've lost my individuality, I'm no longer separate, fighting for myself, struggling, conflict - all that. Then what is the nature of my mind which sees that I am part of the whole? The realisation that I am the entire mankind.
K: I'm doing it, sir. Is it I'm afraid that if I lose my individuality I face a feeling of nothingness, of not being. Is that it?
I am in the midst of a sea of people who don't seem to react to all this. Your whole religions are based on individuality, all your prayers, your worship, your... It doesn't matter, I'll go on.
So then what place has individuality? You follow? If I have discarded individuality as being not capable of bringing about right action, then when I realise that psychologically I am the rest of mankind, then my individuality has disappeared. That's what I want to find out.
David Bohm: Well, I think that one may feel that, it's true I share some things with my neighbour, but there may be some other things I don't share that may seem more important. You see, for example, if one believes in individuality, one will feel, it's true I suffer but my individuality, which is more important, is not shared with my neighbour.
K: Do you know what's going to happen? You may love, have that - I won't call it love - you may have lost your individuality, I haven't so what happens? I leave you, at the end of talking, talking, talking, talking, you're going to do exactly the same thing now!
...am saying. Please, if I may suggest, please give your attention to this, which is: as long as the 'me' separates himself from the structure, the 'me' that separates itself from the structure, as long as there is this division there will be conflict, there will be fight, there will be nagging, there will be anxiety, all the rest of it. But the fact...
K: No sir, find out why you are - are you aware that you are building the 'me' up? And from that structure you have strong emotions, you want to express, you want to assert.
K: What would I do if I was a businessman, knowing that I'm being corrupted and the whole structure is based on corruption. What shall I do. Is that what you want to discuss? That really interests you, does it?
...No, madam, I am asking this, please listen to it quietly, if I may suggest. I am asking you how do you observe this structure? You can observe the building, see it away from you. But this structure you can't separate it, say 'That is not me', it is you. Your fears, your quarrels, your ambitions, your aggressiveness, your anxieties, all that...
...Sir, I will tell you, I'll tell you. The structure exists with all that we mean by structure, which is the desire for certainty, habit, centuries of tradition and so on, all that is the structure, the picture, the image, which we have made about another. When we are totally attentive there is no structure and therefore you are there is no...
...into yourself what you are. That is self-awareness, to know what you are - not according to psychologists, not according to some philosophers, not according to the speaker, but to know, to be aware of your own nature, of your own structure, of your own thinking, feeling, find out the whole structure of it. Therefore self-knowing becomes...
K: Yes. Now how is that? I perceive, or I am aware that I am building this structure, thought is building this structure all the time, sleeping, waking, dreaming, daydreaming, walking, all the time, concerned about itself. Now what is the way, what is the process to end this thing - you don't ask that.
...No, no. Question it sir, don't hesitate, see, it is so simple. I have built up this structure, the structure has been built. And part of the structure is, I am different from the structure. I am the soul, I am the great man, I am the, etc. etc. Or I am full of knowledge and the structure is not knowledge. You follow? So I am asking: do you see the...
K: Be quite sure. This is really important, please. Don't casually say, 'No'. The whole structure depends on this - the structure of living a totally different kind of life depends on it.
...in all this, both economically, socially, religiously. If you have examined it fairly deeply, be concerned whether the structure can be changed, the structure that has created this world; and what has brought about this structure; and by merely changing the structure will it change the man? This has been one of the problems of the world: change...
K: Yes, sir, I mean I'm asking generally. Is that what you want to do, learn - please listen carefully - learn the whole nature and the structure, which is a movement of yourself. That's why we have come together. Is that it? Right?
...in that word. So please, I am just saying, as long as there is a difference between the structure and the observer there must be suppression, there must be conflict, there must be escape, there must be going off to India, to find how to do this and how to do that, meditate - surely, not cooking, and so on and so on and so on. Whereas when there is...
I think we should be very clear about the whole structure and nature of thought before we can answer what to do. Right? This is a dialogue between two of us, as friends we are talking over together this problem, therefore you are sharing in it. We are taking a journey together, I am not talking to myself.
How many of us have gone into it sufficiently, intelligently, rationally and sanely to find out for ourselves if there is really any structure, either in the future, or in the past, or in the present, if there is any structure whatsoever, philosophical, religious, or ideological, or economic and so on, whether there is any kind of security in that.
K: Do you? I am not talking to you personally madam, but I am just asking: does each one of us realise that we are the structure and structure is not separate from us? If you realise that, if that is an actual fact then a totally different action takes place.
One asks, why the brain in one direction, in the technological world, which is so extraordinarily advancing of which we know very little, like the computer, it can do almost anything that a human being can - write poems, paint pictures, any problem the human has can be answered through the computer. The computer is going to take over our brains. I...
But one should realise what that computer can do. It is the product of thought and whatever thought can do, the computer can do. It can learn, it can correct itself, it can think out problems, and introduce new problems. With the computer, the robot is changing industry. The Japanese are already doing it: introducing the computer and the robot to...
...have accumulated a great deal of knowledge. The machine, the computer can have far greater knowledge than anybody. The size of a finger nail can contain the whole of the Encyclopaedia Britannica - whole of it. You understand? So what is man? Man has lived so far by the activity of brain, keeping it active because he has struggled to survive, to...
...to be nationalists; we have been programmed to have wars. So our brain has become as the computer and it is not so capable because its thought is limited, whereas the computer being also limited but being able to think much more rapidly than human beings, it will outstrip us.
...it is capable of learning and immediately transforming itself into a totally different dimension. If we are not capable of that, the computer, which is much more capable, more rapid, more accurate, is going to take over the activities of the brain. Right? See the importance of this, please. This is not something casual, this is very, very serious,...
...that suffers, that has become something global, then it has a much greater a totally different activity will take place. That is the crisis we are in. We have been programmed like the computer. Like a computer, being programmed, we can learn, occasionally have an insight and being programmed our brain repeats itself over and over and over again....
- which are together, and a thought and thinking, knowing that it is limited, fragmented, always of time, and a brain that is the result of millennia, conditioned, full of memories, knowledge, experience, like a computer, but of course it is much more capable than a computer, the brain has invented the computer, but the brain also is active as a computer.
...psychological problems, unless they are resolved, always overwhelm the technological issues, problems - right? You may have a marvellous technological world, mechanical world, the computer, but the human psyche overcomes the computer. It may bring about a series of good laws - the computer - that you should do this, do that and so on, but the...
Since our brains have been programmed to this conflict, like a computer that is programmed, but the computer can learn, can discover its own fallacies, its own mistakes and correct them. A highest mathematician can inform or programme the computer with all his theories and so on, and the computer being so programmed discovers new theorems. This...
...of the difficulties is that we are becoming mechanical. The computer is learning more quickly than we are learning. The computer can go so far ahead of us. And so if our brains are not extraordinarily alive and active, our brains will gradually wither away, because now we exist because we have to think, we have to be active partially, but when the...
K: Not at all. I agree sir. I agree with you when you say the computer, political things aside, the computer says plant this in the north, that in the east, that in the sun and so on, that is perfectly right. That is a necessity for survival.
This tragedy, the terrifying events that may happen by some crazy person pressing a button, or the computer taking over man's capacities, thinking much quicker, more accurate; and the computer too may destroy the human being, the human mind, the human brain, because the computer, the robot can do all kinds of things as they are doing in Japan. So...
The computer can do everything that man can do. It can learn. It has been programmed as our brain is programmed: to be a Catholic, to be a Protestant, to be a Hindu, to be a Buddhist. You understand all this? Of course if you pay Your brain is programmed, whether you like it not you have to observe it. Otherwise you wouldn't call yourself a Hindu,...
...but to understand the whole psychological movement, the self, the me, the ego, and see if it is possible to go beyond all that. So those are the only two paths left for us when the computer takes completely over. The computer with the robot is already building cars. When the robot doesn't do it properly the computer tells it and it acts properly -...
...of the oldest? Do you look at the moon in the evening? Do you? Not quite! Do you look at the evening star when there is no other star in the sky? Do you? Or you are only concerned with books? Would you answer that question? Are you only concerned with the books that your teacher, your educator puts before you? Or do you look at all this world - a...
...this constantly because most of us are used to being told what to do. We are accustomed, specially in this country where there is specialisation in every field, those specialists have written books and we read all those books and we never are able to think clearly for ourselves. We have become slaves to others. We went into this at the beginning...
Look, sir, first of all let me You see most of you I am afraid are used to reading books and trying to find out how to live according to the books. Right? According to what somebody has said, and therefore you never find out for yourself what is actually going on. You know, which means never to repeat what somebody has said - never. Never to say...
K: Don't read the books! (Laughter) Sir, you are not getting what I am talking about. Look, the first principle in a religious life is - no authority, which implies that you must be a light to yourself, therefore non-dependence on anything - gurus, mantras, books, persons, ideas, nothing. That means to be a light to yourself it implies that you...
...are contradictory, disorderly. Right? You see the relationship between mathematics and yourself - do you? - you see how difficult it is for them to think? - you learn from books, don't you? Why don't you learn looking at the birds, looking at the stars, learn, watch, see? Nobody encourages you, nobody tells you about it. What shall we do? Sir, you...
K: Yes, preoccupied with books. So you neglect all this. And you call that happiness? You call that being happy when you are only concerned with books? Have you ever considered what happens to your brain when you are only concerned with books? Have you? Have you ever given thought to the state of your brain, mind, your capacity to observe when you...
...they say, you can't have heaven here, it is up there, you must have faith - right? - to understand it, to escape from it, you must have faith. I wonder if you have noticed that religions are based on books. Right? Here Christianity is the Bible, and the Islamic world is the Koran; in the Buddhist and the Hindu world there are many, many books,...
...But I have been educated from childhood not to be greedy. The 'not' is the opposite of what I am. I have been educated, conditioned, all the books have said there is duality - or some books - that is not important, the books have said it. And I have accepted it. And it is very difficult for me to break that conditioning, so I begin to discuss with...
...economic, or environmental authority. We are losing all over the world our sense of integrity. We are depending on books - books have their place, but to understand ourselves through books, through another, has led us to this confusion, to this crisis. And as we have pointed out over and over again, that we are thinking, reasoning, observing...
...talk all these matters over together in these two talks, this morning and tomorrow morning. And merely talking about it has no value; one has written books and books and books; there have been a thousand gurus, which is the most silly form of profession! (laughter) There have been thousands of priests, Popes, every form of psychology, from the...
I must say that as I have followed your teachings, your books, for many years, I must say that for a person who knows Buddha's teachings sufficiently well, your teaching is quite familiar, and for a person like that it is not a new thing, it is quite familiar. And what the Buddha taught 2,500 years ago you teach today in a new idiom, a new style,...
So when you look at violence it opens itself more and more, what the content of that word is, and it reveals most extraordinary things. But if you are pursuing non-violence, which is illusory, which is non-factual, it has no meaning. I wonder if you see this?
...No, sir. No, sir. The process goes on only when I have not understood the content of my consciousness, whether it is neurotic or non-neurotic, whether it is homosexual or not homosexual, whether it is heterosexual - you follow? - content. All that is implied in that. And if I choose one part and hold on to it that is the very essence of...
I do not know how to expose the whole content of my consciousness. I thought I could through analysis. I thought I could through drugs. I thought I could do it by following some teacher, philosopher, psychologist or analyst. I have tried all those ways and I see I am still caught in the net of all that, and I discard all that, because that doesn't...
...meeting each other? So that I don't have to examine my unconscious because the unconscious is as stupid and trivial as the conscious. Because consciousness is the content, without the content what is consciousness? We won't go into that for the moment as that leads somewhere...
K: What will you do, madame? You know the content as well as I do, and most of us know what the content is, what we are carrying in the bag for the rest of our lives, most of us know. Then why don't you, or another put it aside?
So any movement to go beyond itself is still within the content. That is why when you take drugs of any kind, LSD, marijuana and all the rest of it, grass, you know, pot, all that, hashish, bhang, opium and all the rest of it, it is the activity of thought within that consciousness, and when you think you are going beyond it you are still within...
...Of course. Paradoxical but it's actual, it is so. I mean I can see wait, let's begin again. I can, one can observe the consciousness of humanity is its content. And its content is all the man-made things - anxiety, fear, and all the rest of it. And it is not only particular it is the general. Having had an insight into this, it has cleansed itself...
So consciousness is its content. Your consciousness is made up of what you think, what you feel, what you desire, what your fears, what your tradition, your culture, your demands, your physical necessities, it is a whole content, and that content makes your consciousness. And that content limits the consciousness. You understand? I wonder if you...
I am asking whether the mind, which is its content, can the content observe itself without an outside agency observing it? Can the mind become aware of its whole content without the division as the observer? You get it? You will see it can if you are completely attentive.
K: Semantic. But I am asking: is it first of all possible to completely end the whole content of my consciousness, of human consciousness which has grown through millennia. And that content is all this confusion, vulgarity, coarseness, and pettiness, and triviality of a stupid life.
...the cruelties, grief, sorrow, pleasure - all that is your consciousness, as a Hindu, as a Buddhist, Muslim: that's your consciousness. Right? The content of that makes your consciousness. The book is its content. It's simple. So, consciousness is its content. Now, is it possible to be free of the content? That is, not being a Hindu, not being a...
...for God's sake, let's both of us look at all this and find out for ourselves what to do, what is our responsibility in this chaos. To find out what is right action we must understand the content of our consciousness. That is...
But I want to point out that all the talks, the seven talks that we have had, and the dialogue, conversation that we are having now, are involved with the transformation of the human mind, the content of it, because the content, the human consciousness has created this appalling, suffering, confused world, where there is hunger, war, violence, division, the corruption of politics - that's going on.
...very perception without any judgement reveals not only the unconscious, the whole movement. Now just a minute. My question you have not yet answered, my question is, I am asking you, can you look at the content of your consciousness? - you being part of that content. If you cannot know the content of your consciousness how can you say that I am...
...Listen to it, sir. What do you do then? There is a fact. The fact is the content makes up your consciousness. The content being a communist, a socialist, a Christian, Buddhist - you follow? - whatever it is - the father, the mother, the pressures of civilisation, the culture - all that is the content. And do you say, 'Yes, that is a fact'? Begin...
Sir, what we have said is very simple. What is the difficulty? Is it that you don't listen? Is it that you are not paying attention to what is being said? Is it that you want to keep your violence, put garlands round it?
Now I am concerned only with the actual happening of violence. That is, a feeling has arisen because you have called me a fool, and I have named it, that reaction, I have named it as violence. Right? Now can I watch - is there an observation of that feeling without naming it? You understand? Try and do it, sir. Do it as we are talking. That is,...
...last, whatever it is, I would like to, if I may, talk about a great many things. First, as one observes what is going on right round the world, both economically and socially, and in the human being, there is really a great deal of confusion, mischief, and violence. These are obvious facts. And the politicians perhaps encourage it, and the...
...how do you observe 'what is'? Do you observe it with your conditioned mind as saying, 'I must not be violent', with the image which you have about violence? You are following all this? Or is there an observation without the word, without the image? To observe without the image requires tremendous energy. Right? Then you are not wasting energy by...
And how do I look at that violence? As a censor who condemns violence? Or justifies violence? Or one who is not capable of dealing with that violence, therefore escapes from it? How do I look at myself, how do I look at that violence? Please do it. Are you looking at it as an observer who is different from violence? The observer who is separate,...
K: If I don't end violence today, that violence has existed million years ago, in the human being, then if I don't leave that violence behind or drop it or radically bring about a mutation, I'll be violent tomorrow. This is a fact. So, is there a progress, development of the psyche as evolution? For me personally there isn't. For me - don't accept...
K: Oh, I see. Biologists and others have said that in the process of evolution we are the result of the animal and so on. The animals are violent, therefore we have inherited that violence. Now what is the question? The question is, whether human beings can be free of that violence.
Whereas if you observe violence in yourself, violence brought about through fear, through insecurity, through the sense of loneliness, dependency, the cutting off of your pleasures and so on, if you are aware of that, observe it totally, without analysis, then you have all the energy which has been dissipated through analysis to go beyond 'what is'.
K: Right? Then you are not a violent human being. Or are you limiting violence to terrorism, killing; limit it there, limit it so that it is something - right? But violence is much deeper than merely, not that it is right to kill another human being, but do you feel violent? If we are really honest.
So let's take violence: what is violence? Why are we violent? Don't say society has made me violent, or the environment has made me violent, because the society is created by each one of us. The environment is structured by all of us, not nature, naturally, but the society in which we live, social interrelationship, social activity and so on - all...
...of the hall in which we are, the rain, the clouds, those extraordinary clouds full of light and depth and quality, just to observe all this. And so one can learn one can observe what it means, violence means. And when there is such observation with great attention - because you cannot observe if there is no attention. The word 'attention' means to...
K: Are you aware, really, of your violence without the observer? And you never say, 'I am violent' - you understand? There is only violence, not, 'I am violent'. Are you in that position? Or there is violence and the entity who observes that there is violence? And I am afraid that is the fact. So there is a division between the observer and the...
...to be completely aware? Now is there a difference - I am asking you - between the outer, that is the political, social, economic, and all the things that are happening in the world, the violence, the brutality, the appalling political chicanery, deception, all that is going out there, is it not also going on inwardly? Is society created by us, or...
K: And aggression and all that is involved. So as long as man accepts violence, lives a way of life which is violent, he perpetuates fear and therefore violence and also accepts authority.
...it, then that prevents you from seeing. So when we look at violence - and that's one of the most difficult things to do, because one can look at an objective thing, cloud and all the rest of it, it doesn't touch you deeply - but if you looked at your own violence, can you look at it without any distortion? Not call it violence because the very...
...flowering of goodness can only take place when there is no time. I wonder if you understand this. Bene? At least, please, even grasp intellectually, see the reason, the logic of it, and then let the logic end and observe what is going on. You follow what I am saying? Don't - I mean if I may point out - don't let reason function all the time,...
...a mind in conflict must inevitably be distorted, and therefore it cannot possibly see clearly what is truth. This is logic, reason, and we are afraid to exercise reason, logic, because we think logic, reason is something not spiritual. But if you do not know how to reason clearly, objectively, impersonally, healthily, you cannot possibly have a...
...we think along those grooves; if you are committed to a particular religion, an ideological structure, again your thinking is conditioned by that. So we begin to lose the capacity to reason. Reason implies a certain quality of scepticism, doubt, not accepting anything, either from the psychologists, professors, or from the sacred books - there are...
...of every kind, old age, death, sex - you know the whole invasion of problems our brain is so used to. Does one expect, if one may ask seriously, for someone to tell how to live, how to examine, what to do, is that the reason you are here? Or is it that one wants to see what one is actually as we are sitting here, and examine that very closely and...
So in listening here this morning, you might say, well, I have really understood it, perhaps verbally, intellectually, I see the whole logic, and the reason and the practicality of it. But when you go outside, are you going to fall into the trap of the old tradition? If you do, then you haven't listened at all.
K: We are coming to that, sir. First look at the reason. Just look at it. And then we'll come to the root of it. We have to use our minds, we have got to use our reason and go beyond reason. We can't just say reason doesn't count.
K: What is the reason for disorder. That is what I am asking. What is the reason, the source, the essence of disorder? Just a minute, don't quote anybody, including myself. Just a minute, sir. Because if you do you are just answering, saying something which others have said. So throw out what others have said, including this person. Don't belong...
Reason has its limitation. Reason is to observe objectively, impersonally the whole phenomenon of our religious organisations and structure with their gurus, priests and images created by the hand or by the mind. One is afraid to use reason but you do use reason: when you go to the office, when you build an engine, when you produce technologically...
K: Yes, madame. Look, I've just looked at a first-class dictionary, (laughs) and it says the intellect is the capacity to reason, capacity to think clearly, to understand, to grasp. So thought is in operation. When you reason, thought is in operation.
...when there is no self, when there is utter denial of selfishness. So is that the reason why human beings throughout the world we are becoming more and more selfish, more and more self-centred, more and more this sense of individual achievement, individual salvation? When that is emphasised selfishness becomes all important, rationalised,...
K: Therefore understanding has nothing to do with thought. You may reason, which is the process of thinking, logic and reason, till you say, 'I don't understand it', then you become silent, and then you say, 'By Jove, I see it, I understand it.' That understanding is not the result of thought.
To go into it one must exercise reason. You exercise reason when you are earning a livelihood, when you have to do some job, when you have to carry out a certain task. Reason is the capacity to think sanely and logically, to think clearly, coherently.
...is lack of order, then what is order. How can a mind, brain, which is so disorderly find out what is order? Why don't we be a little bit logical, rational - though reason, logic are limited, you must begin with that and then go beyond it. But if you say order is this, then it becomes military - right? It becomes a tremendous discipline - agree?...
So can the mind put away authority because it sees the truth of it, the significance of it, the nature of it? Not a reaction to authority - which is what is going on. When you react against authority you are creating another authority. That is obvious. I do not know if you have ever seen that caricature which appeared in 'The New Yorker' - a...
So when there is the acceptance of psychological, so-called spiritual - the authority of the spirit, the inwardness - then there must be disorder because it brings conflict in yourself. You may say 'I accept that authority because it pleases me, it gives me help, it gives me a sense of protection.' So you are depending on another and when you...
Now to find out what is the religious mind, what is the truth of religion, one must be free from all authority, of all belief, faith. Not belong to a thing. Right? There must be a sense of totally being free.
K: Absolutely. Completely that must go, for a man that is serious, and wants to find out the truth, or see things very clearly. That is one of the major points. And the demand of freedom, not only from authority, but the demand from fear, which makes him accept authority.
So you cannot look to a teacher, to a guru, to a priest, to a book, to any authority because all this has produced this world outside of us. So can the mind reject all that, totally deny all that? You understand what I am talking about? Not to look to another for clarity, for clear perception, for understanding. If you do, then you will create...
K: Of course. Like in the school I have been saying: if you behave properly there is no authority. The behaviour we have all agreed to - punctuality, cleanliness, this or that. If you really see it, you have no authority.
...million years with all its vast experience and knowledge, can ever be free and be as originally pure so that it can live without a single problem. And if one may point out, there is no authority here. This is very serious to understand. Authority, specially in the spirit of the mind, has no place whatsoever. Authority, laying down certain...
...person that knows how to live, so if you are really serious then we can go into this question of what actually is seeing. And you can find out for yourself, not from the speaker, because the speaker has no authority. That is the first thing to realise, that one has to be a teacher for oneself and a pupil of oneself. There is no teacher outside at...
K: So you would accept authority to find out what is right action. So you are not free to find out, you have already established in your mind that there must be authority who will tell us what is right action. What happens then? Please follow that one particular issue: if you accept authority and say, authority will tell us what to do, what is the...
...further. Because most of us unfortunately are slave to other people's ideas. Most of us are so easily persuaded, influenced by the specialist, by the authority, and specially when we are going into this question of understanding ourselves, which is of primary importance. There there is no authority whatsoever, because you have to understand...
...and in that conformity there is safety, and so there is conflict. You understand? There is rebellion, revolt against authority, and that very revolt creates its own authority, and so the mind moves from one authority to another, one knowledge to another. And we think discipline - in the ordinary sense of the word we are using - we think that...
...to live a life in which I comprehend this total movement of existence. The monks have tried to do it, various communes have tried to do this; they either accept an authority of a person, or the authority of a belief, or the authority of the necessity of working together. Or does one go, discarding all authority, belief, person, or the necessity...
...into it; I am not talking about myself personally. So I am a human being, an ordinary human being, who sees the reality that religions as they exist have no validity, no meaning or significance whatsoever, with all their rituals, dogmas, superstitions and authority and all that. Such a mind says I want to find out; I want to find out what it means...
...Right? It functions in a hierarchical movement. Right? It follows, it accepts authority, ancient tradition, the authority of some ancient books, the authority of the guru, the authority of someone who says he knows, he is illumined, blah blah, and you follow him. Right? Would this be correct? Which means, where there is authority there is fear....
...I'm acting wholly, when I go and join a commune. There I can live with half a dozen people, fairly co-operating, being friendly, being affectionate to each other and all the rest of it, and I won't accept any authority because if I accept authority I'll go back to the old establishment. And gradually if I don't accept authority there, gradually...
...One has explained very carefully how concepts are formed, ideas are formed. The speaker makes a statement, and from that statement you draw a conclusion. You don't listen to the statement without conclusions. Just listen. That's one of our habits, which is, you listen to something, instantly you form an idea, a conclusion. Now, break that habit,...
...Ah, no, it won't continue the moment it is a reality. How can you say, I am isolated? I am the world, all this thing that I have created. So that's why I have been asking how do you listen to this statement? What does it mean to your mind, to your heart, to your feelings, what does it mean when you make a statement of that kind? Do I...
I hear that statement, that I am the world and... I am the world. I listen. I listen with attention, and there is no attention if I move away from that statement. So I listen to it. I don't draw any conclusion. I don't deny or accept, but I merely attentively listen to that. Then I have the energy to investigate that. I don't if I listen with...
K: The mind does not seek anything any longer. You know what that means, when you make a statement of that kind, so easily - do listen to this. Not seek anything, which means what?
K: I am asking a question: how do you listen to some statement or some fact which you have never heard or listened or seen, how do you come to it, how do you receive it?
...I am just beginning with that. Do you, as a human being, know, or aware that you are registering? You understand my question? Or you have accepted the statement and then you proceed to question the statement? Are you aware that you register certain things? An unhappy incident of yesterday is registered. Are you aware of this registering process...
K: So we come to this point, you make a statement that psychological time has been used by man as a means of achieving his reward.
...going to find out, sir. Obviously the 'I', the centre, can't see the whole. Now just listen, please. I ask you, if I may, do you see yourself as the whole? Now you heard that statement - right? - what do you do with that statement? Do you make an abstraction of it into an idea? Listen carefully, please. I made that statement: do you see yourself...
...but also freedom from the repetitive activity which memory cultivates. So when the speaker makes a statement, as I am going to make it now, that the ending of sorrow is the beginning of wisdom, the ending of sorrow is the beginning of wisdom - how do you receive it? What is your immediate reaction to it, not calculated reaction, not argumentative...
K: Oh, the ending of the body, that's totally trivial. But you understand? Your statement - I want to capture the significance of it - your statement saying there is no division has broken the spell of my darkness, and I see that there is a movement and that's all. Which means death has very little meaning.
K: Ah, but, sir, that's the point. When you say, 'I am that', or 'Thou are that', there is a statement of a supposed fact...
...I'll show you. First I'll go into it carefully, sir. First you must listen to it, mustn't you? You must listen to this statement. Do you listen to the statement? Or do you say, yes, that statement sounds right because some other guru has said it, or some book said it - so you are not actually listening. Are you? So first, please, I beg of you...
...a minute. The speaker says, where there is any form of attachment, there is no love. Now, you hear that. How do you hear it? You understand my question? What is your response to that statement? Do you say, it's nonsense or what do you mean by it? Which means explain. Explanations, commentaries about that statement is what you live on, because you...
K: Ah, wait. I don't know. You see you are coming to a conclusion. You have made a statement that you can only be aware for one second. I say, 'How do you know this?' It may not be.
One can make a statement and as we are educated, most unfortunately, to abstract from that statement a conclusion, then that conclusion becomes a memory, and according to that memory we live. That is, I hear you make a statement and I draw a conclusion from that statement, which is an abstraction of that statement, a conclusion which is stored up...
...There are so many ways to avoid - clever, cunning, superficial and very subtle. All that is involved in avoiding an issue. So what we are trying to say, sir, isn't it, the observer is the past, as we said yesterday. The observer is trying to translate and act according to the past when the crisis arises. The crisis is always new. Otherwise it's...
...nonsense, we never find anything for ourselves. I do not know if you have gone into the whole question of knowledge. Knowledge is always in the past, and we live upon the accumulation of experience and knowledge which is the past. That past may be 10,000 years or the past of a yesterday. So we are always living in the past. And we try to live in...
K: No, I didn't say that. I said, madam, I said we are the past, the past being our experiences, our intentions, our aspirations, our fears, our faith, our belief, all that is memory, is the background. That's the past. Now, slowly, slowly.
...Are they doing that now? You don't know. At present - right? - be careful in your thinking - right? - precise. Future, past, and there is the present, which is now, sitting here. You are not frightened sitting here. So, is fear always in the future or in the past? Think it out, think it out carefully. Always in the future, always in the past, not...
...of one's life. And the motive is always changing. Therefore motive gives shape to our life - right? Desire. Desire, motive and so on. So the past - see it - so the past is giving shape to our life - right? The motive is the past. You understand? So the past, which is the motive, which is giving a direction, is giving the mould of our life. Right?...
...become memory and that memory responds as thought. This is obvious, we don't have to discuss this point. Which is, knowledge is the past, experience is the past, memory is in the realm of the past, and so thought being in the past is limited. Right? I wonder if you see all this. Yes sir? Please don't agree. Watch it. It is so obvious. So thought...
So is it possible to live a daily life - please understand - daily life, so that there is no division between the past, the future and the present? That is, the brain is recording - right? - like that recorder there, every incident, every accident, tendency, impressions, physical hurts, psychological wounds - all that is being taped. The brain is...
...which is meditation, please we are meditating now, can you look at yourself without the process of recognition taking place? That is, can you look at yourself without the observer who is the past, and looking at the present? You understand? What am I to do? So, let me go on, you listen if you can catch it, if you can't it's up to...
K: No, no the past meeting the present then becomes modified. Your Indian tradition which is the past meeting the present challenge of economics, social, you know all that, modifies that tradition and goes on into the future. The future is still the present. Right? Now what is your question?
...That's right. That is, you say you have been hurt - let's take an example - you have been hurt in the past, by parents, by your friends, by your environment, psychologically deeply wounded in the past. And that past meets the present, somewhat healed, but goes on to the future. So can you be free of that hurt which has been given to you in the...
...put the question differently: if there is no tomorrow psychologically, the future, what is my action towards another? The future implies no ideals, and no past either. You understand this? If the future you deny psychologically, you also must deny the past. I don't know if you follow this? Gosh! Will you let your past go? Your hurts, the wounds...
...the next question is: whether it is possible to live in this world daily without any sense of identification? Not only with the senses - the body - but with the name, with all the past, the heredity - you understand? - the Englishman, the German, all the history of all the past, to be completely free from all that and yet live in harmony with...
...as time, always breed fear, which means can thought not operate all the time? I wonder if you understand this at all. You understand, sir? Look, I will put it differently: the past meets the present - right? - then modifies itself and goes on as the future. That's clear, that's fairly simple. The past being what I have done, what I should have...
Time is the past, right? Time is the future, and time is the present. The whole cycle is time. The past - your background, what you have thought, what you have lived through, your experiences, your conditioning, as Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, all the rest of it - or you put aside all that nonsense and say, I'm going to live this way, which is the...
...sir. You have hurt me, you have said something to hurt me. That's my knowledge. Next time I meet you that knowledge of hurt comes forward to meet you. The past comes to meet the present. So knowledge is the past and with the eyes of the past I am looking at the present - you have got it? Now to learn about myself there must be freedom from the...
...say this and I swallow it and I repeat it'. But when we see the fragmentation and the emphasis on the fragmentation and we see out of that arises the whole cause/effect chain, and that's a form of neurosis, when we see all that then the mind sees the totality of the movement without division. Well sir, do you see it? Yes...
K: That's it. So discussing this very issue is a fragmentation. But we are asking, we are asking why this fragmentation exists, why can't I communicate with you completely. And you convey to me completely. So let's find out, let's go into this slowly - what is the process, the mechanism, the cause of this fragmentation.
...why do we do this? What is the reason that the human being, the human mind has broken up, this fragmentation that's going on all the time? Why? Where there is a fragmentation, there is division. Right? And where there is division there is contradiction and where there is contradiction there must be conflict. Right? You are not agreeing with me....
So, let's come back to the point: as long as there is division in myself, fragmentation, broken up, that very fragmentation is one of the major causes of conflict - I want this, and a little later I don't want it. So if you want to go into it very deeply, isn't desire one of the causes of conflict?
K: Is that not fragmentation, I say one thing and do something else? On a simple basis, start with that not with heavens, and
There is fragmentation - the teacher and the disciple, the authority, the follower, the man who says he's enlightened, the man who says, I don't know, teach me - the Communist, the Socialist, you follow - fragmentation. Why? How does it happen? If I could really understand it, learn all about it, I've finished with it. Then my relationship with...
...can the mind see this as a whole? And it cannot see it as a whole if there is a fragmentation which observes. We are asking, what is the quality of the mind that is highly attentive, in which there is no fragmentation. That is what we left off yesterday, where we left off. What is the quality of the mind. I don't know if you have gone through it,...
K: Sir, look, look: if there was no fragmentation, both historically, geographically, nationally, no nations, we would live perfectly safely. We would all be protected, we would all have food, we would all have - you follow? - houses, there would be no wars, we'd all one. He is my brother; I am him, he is me. But this fragmentation prevents that...
K: I don't know anything about it - I'm asking you. I am asking you. Don't ask me that question. When there is a fragmentation of the mind, that very fragmentation is conflict.
K: No. Not see them as one. I said there is this fragmentation, and this fragmentation is created by thought. Right? You must be clear on that.
So that is our life from the beginning to the end. It's a total movement in which there is no fragmentation. But we have made life into fragments, and that fragmentation is corruption. And integrity is the whole, is the sane, is the rational.
And most of that stimulus has come from meeting Dr Bohm, who has moved my thinking along and I have come to feel that specifically there is something about the way we think in psychiatry, which is, that all the theories deal with fragmentation and the relationships between fragmentation, and most of them do not have any understanding of the holistic action, or the holism that gives birth to this fragmentation.
K: We cannot think without forming, without bringing about fragmentation. So you are all saying, in more or less different words, that thought is the source of all fragmentation.
...Who is yourself? Yourself is the structure of thought, and that thought says, 'Now, I have done mischief there, now I will do something else' - which is fragmentation. You understand, sir? Therefore, where there is fragmentation there must be conflict. And thought cannot canalise itself in the right direction. The right direction will be projected...
K: Sir, look, I see in the world - and the world is myself, and myself is the world, that's a fact - I see fragmentation everywhere - nationalities, the Muslim, the Hindu, the Christian, the Buddhist - you follow? - fragmented - the artist, the writer, the thinker, the philosopher, the scientist, you know, division after division, fragmentation....
So look what we have done with our life - such a mess, such confusion. And becoming aware of that confusion, one gets deeply frightened, because one doesn't know what to do. Out of such confusion, there can be no correct action. And living in a world where everything is in disorder - governments, you know, all that's happening in the world, I...
Now I say please let us drop our opinions, our conclusions, our ideas, let's consider the common factor, which is, as there is confusion between ourselves, who are supposed to be serious (laughs), we have met to discuss this thing, even here we can't clear that up. And we want to clear up, do something out there! Right? So can we clear up this...
So when we are confused, to seek the light out of confusion is to further the confusion. Right? I wonder if you see that. I am confused, whatever I do out of that confusion will still be confused. Whatever my choice, will still be confused. So first is this possible to clear this confusion in myself? It is possible when there is - I am taking...
...to find order is still disorder. Right? You understand? I am confused. My life is in disorder, I am fragmented, broken up inside, and being confused, out of that confusion I create a pattern, an ideal, a scheme, and I say I am going to live according to that scheme. But the origin of that scheme is born out of my confusion. Right? Clear? So what I...
...and I must act, and I see I have relationship - wife, husband, boy, girl, whatever it is, relationship, father, parents, and so on. And there too I am confused. Confusion implies conflict. Confusion implies uncertainty. Confusion implies a sense of division. I am aware of all that. So what shall I do, knowing that whatever I do will lead to...
...from patterns, from ideas, from a direction? You understand my question? Please go into it with me, with us, together. Are you aware first of the confusion of the world which is becoming worse and worse and worse every day? And the confusion in us which we have inherited, to which we have added, the society in which we live which is so utterly...
So to find a light for oneself, action out of confusion leads to further confusion. Right? Can we not accept it as a fact - it is like the blind leading the blind. So the first requirement, it seems to me, is to be free from the desire to find truth, to find something away from 'what is'. Right? I wonder if you Are we meeting each other? So are we...
...or Hindu monks, which is the same old pattern repeated over and over and over again. And as one observes one asks: why doesn't a human being, living as he does in confusion, disorder, always in conflict, always struggling, why doesn't he change basically? I don't know if you have asked that question of yourself. Which is: why don't you, as a human...
...- all that I have done which is a wastage of energy. Now when there is the realisation I am confused, what has happened? Go on sirs, come with me. My mind therefore is completely attentive to confusion. Right? My mind is in a state of complete attention with regard to confusion. Right? You are following this? Are you? Therefore what takes place?...
...I am showing it to you. The mind is in confusion, the brain is in confusion because it is responding all the time according to the old pattern. Be aware, see the truth that it is acting according to the old pattern. See the truth of it, not your intellectual seeing, see the fact of it. The very seeing of that fact is the liberating factor. Like...
K: Is it, therefore, is it that human beings love or hold on to their own misery, confusion, and all the rest of it because they don't know anything else?
K: Be patient, we are going to find out how we got into this, but first see the difference, please see the actual verbal, intellectual and otherwise, a difference between the confusion with regard to action, and confusion for itself, per se. Right? Do you see the difference between that? Then I say to myself, not, what I am going to do about...
