Truth and Actuality

Chapter 5
2nd Public Talk Brockwood Park
7th September 1975
The Problem of Fear

WE MUST BE serious in facing what we have to do in life, with all the problems, miseries, confusion, violence and suffering. Only those live who are really earnest, but the others fritter their life away and waste their existence. We were going to consider this morning the whole complex problem of fear.

The human mind has lived so long, so many centuries upon centuries, putting up with fear, escaping from it, trying to rationalize it, trying to forget it, or completely identifying with something that is not fear - we have tried all these methods. And one asks if it is at all possible to be free totally, completely of fear, psychologically and from that physiologically. We are going to discuss this, talk it over together, and find out for ourselves if it is at all possible.

First, we must consider energy, the quality of energy, the types of energy, and the question of desire; and whether we have sufficient energy to delve deeply into this question. We know the energy and friction of thought; it has created most extraordinary things in the world technologically. But psychologically we don't seem to have that deep energy, drive, interest to penetrate profoundly into this question of fear.

We have to understand this question of thought bringing about its own energy and therefore a fragmentary energy, an energy through friction, through conflict. That is all we know: the energy of thought, the energy that comes through contradiction, through opposition in duality, the energy of friction. All that is in the world of reality, reality being the things with which we live daily, both psychologically and intellectually and so on.

I hope we can communicate with each other. Communication implies not only verbal understanding, but actually sharing what is being said, otherwise there is no communion. There is not only a verbal communication but a communion which is non-verbal. But to come to that non-verbal communion, one must understand very deeply whether it is possible to communicate with each other at a verbal level, which means that both of us share the meaning of the words, have the same interest, the same intensity, at the same level, so that we can proceed step by step. That requires energy. And that energy can come into being only when we understand the energy of thought and its friction, in which we are caught. If you investigate into yourself you will see that what we know, or experience, is the friction of thought in its achievement, in its desires, in its purposes - the striving, the struggle, the competition. All that is involved in the energy of thought.

Now we are asking if there is any other kind of energy, which is not mechanistic, not traditional, non-contradictory, and therefore without the tension that creates energy. To find that out, whether there is another kind of energy, not imagined, not fantastic, not superstitious, we have to go into the question of desire.

Desire is the want of something, isn't it? That is one fragment of desire. Then there is the longing for something, whether it be sexual longing or psychological longing, or so-called spiritual longing. And how does this desire arise? Desire is the want of something, the lack of something, missing something; then the longing for it, either imaginatively, or actual want, like hunger; and there is the problem of how desire arises in one. Because, in coming face to face with fear, we have to understand desire - not the denial of desire, but insight into desire. Desire may be the root of fear. The religious monks throughout the world have denied desire, they have resisted desire, they have identified that desire with their gods, with their saviours, with their Jesus, and so on. But it is still desire. And without the full penetration into that desire, without having an insight into it, one's mind cannot possibly be free from fear.

We need a different kind of energy, not the mechanistic energy of thought, because that has not solved any of our problems; on the contrary, it has made them much more complex, more vast, impossible to solve. So we must find a different kind of energy, whether that energy is related to thought or is independent of thought, and in enquiring into that one must go into the question of desire. You are following this? - not somebody else's desire, but your own desire. Now how does desire arise? One can see that this movement of desire takes place through perception, then sensation, contact and so desire. One sees something beautiful, the contact of it, visual and physical, sensory, then sensation, then from that the feeling of the lack of it. And from that desire. That is fairly clear.

Why does the mind, the whole sensory organism, lack? Why is there this feeling of lacking something, of wanting something? I hope you are giving sufficient attention to what is being said, because it is your life. You are not merely listening to words, or ideas, or formulas, but actually sharing in the investigating process so that we are together walking in the same direction, at the same speed, with the same intensity, at the same level. Otherwise we shan't meet each other. That is part of love also. Love is that communication with each other, at the same level, at the same time, with the same intensity.

So why is there the sense of lacking or wanting in oneself? I do not know if you have ever gone into this question at all? Why the human mind, or human beings, are always after something - apart from technological knowledge, apart from learning languages and so on and so on, why is there this sense of wanting, lacking, pursuing something all the time? - which is the movement of desire, which is also the movement of thought in time, as time and measure. All that is involved.

We are asking, why there is this sense of want. Why there is not a sense of complete self-sufficiency? Why is there this longing for something in order to fulfil or to cover up something? Is it because for most of us there is a sense of emptiness, loneliness, a sense of void? Physiologically we need food, clothes and shelter, that one must have. But that is denied when there is political, religious, economic division, nationalistic division, which is the curse of this world, which has been invented by the Western world, it did not exist in the Eastern world, this spirit of nationality; it has come recently into being there too, this poison. And when there is division between peoples, between nationalities and between beliefs, dogmas, security for everybody becomes almost impossible. The tyrannical world of dictatorship is trying to provide that, food for everybody, but it cannot achieve it. We know all that, we can move from that. So what is it that we lack? Knowledge? - knowledge being the accumulation of experience, psychological, scientific and in other directions, which is knowledge in the past. Knowledge is the past. Is this what we want? Is this what we miss? Is this what we are educated for, to gather all the knowledge we can possibly have, to act skilfully in the technological world? Or is there a sense of lack, want, psychologically, inwardly? Which means you will try to fill that inward emptiness, that lack, through or with experience, which is the accumulated knowledge. So you are trying to fill that emptiness, that void, that sense of immense loneliness, with something which thought has created. Therefore desire arises from this urge to fill that emptiness. After all, when you are seeking enlightenment, or self-realization as the Hindus call it, it is a form of desire. This sense of ignorance will be wiped away, or put aside, or dissipated by acquiring tremendous knowledge, enlightenment. It is never the process of investigating "what is", but rather of acquiring; not actually looking at "what is", but inviting something which might be, or hopeful of a greater experience, greater knowledge. So we are always avoiding "what is". And the "what is" is created by thought. My loneliness, emptiness, sorrow, pain, suffering, anxiety, fear, that is actually "what is". And thought is incapable of facing it and tries to move away from it.

So in the understanding of desire - that is perception, seeing, contact, sensation, and the want of that which you have not, and so desire, the longing for it - that involves the whole process of time. I have not, but I will have. And when I do have it is measured by what you have. So desire is the movement of thought in time as measure. Please don't just agree with me. I am not interested in doing propaganda. I don't care if you are here or not here, if you listen or don't listen. But as it is your life, as it is so urgently important that we be deadly serious - the world is disintegrating - you have to understand this question of desire, energy, and the enquiry into a different kind of non-mechanical energy. And to come to that you must understand fear. That is, does desire create fear? We are going to enquire together into this question of fear, what is fear? You may say, "Well let's forget about energy and desire and please help me to get rid of my fear" - that is too silly, they are all related. You can't take one thing and approach it that way. You must take the whole packet.

So what is fear, how does it arise? Is there a fear at one level and not at another level? Is there fear at the conscious level or at the unconscious level? Or is there a fear totally? Now how does fear arise? Why does it exist in human beings? And human beings have put up with it for generations upon generations, they live with it. Fear distorts action, distorts clear perceptive thinking, objective efficient thinking, which is necessary, logical sane healthy thinking. Fear darkens our lives. I do not know if you have noticed it? If there is the slightest fear there is a contraction of all our senses. And most of us live, in whatever relationship we have, in that peculiar form of fear.

Our question is, whether the mind and our whole being can ever be free completely of fear. Education, society, governments, religions have encouraged this fear; religions are based on fear. And fear also is cultivated through the worship of authority - the authority of a book, the authority of the priest, the authority of those who know and so on. We are carefully nurtured in fear. And we are asking whether it is at all possible to be totally free of it. So we have to find out what is fear. Is it the want of something? - which is desire, longing. Is it the uncertainty of tomorrow? Or the pain and the suffering of yesterday? Is it this division between you and me, in which there is no relationship at all? Is it that centre which thought has created as the "me" - the me being the form, the name, the attributes - fear of loosing that "me"? Is that one of the causes of fear? Or is it the remembrance of something past, pleasant, happy, and the fear of losing it? Or the fear of suffering, physiologically and psychologically? Is there a centre from which all fear springs? - like a tree, though it has got a hundred branches it has a solid trunk and roots, and it is no good merely pruning the branches. So we have to go to the very root of fear. Because if you can be totally free of fear, then heaven is with you.

What is the root of it? Is it time? Please we are investigating, questioning, we are not theorizing, we are not coming to any conclusion, because there is nothing to conclude. The moment you see the root of it, actually, with your eyes, with your feeling, with your heart, with your mind - actually see it - then you can deal with it; that is if you are serious. We are asking: is it time? - time being not only chronological time by the watch, as yesterday, today and tomorrow, but also psychological time, the remembrance of yesterday, the pleasures of yesterday, and the pains, the grief, the anxieties of yesterday. We are asking whether the root of fear is time. Time to fulfil, time to become, time to achieve, time to realize God, or whatever you like to call it. Psychologically, what is time? Is there such a thing - please listen - as psychological time at all? Or have we invented psychological time? Psychologically is there tomorrow? If one says there is no time psychologically as tomorrow, it will be a great shock to you, won't it? Because you say, "Tomorrow I shall be happy; tomorrow I will achieve something; tomorrow I will become the executive of some business; tomorrow I will become the enlightened one; tomorrow the guru promises something and I'll achieve it". To us tomorrow is tremendously important. And is there a tomorrow psychologically? We have accepted it: that is our whole traditional education, that there is a tomorrow. And when you look psychologically, investigate into yourself, is there a tomorrow? Or has thought, being fragmentary in itself, projected the tomorrow? Please, we will go into this, it is very important to understand.

One suffers physically, there is a great deal of pain. And the remembrance of that pain is marked, is an experience which the brain contains and therefore there is the remembrance of that pain. And thought says, "I hope I never have that pain again: that is tomorrow. There has been great pleasure yesterday, sexual or whatever kind of pleasure one has, and thought says, "Tomorrow I must have that pleasure again". You have a great experience - at least you think it is a great experience - and it has become a memory; and you realize it is a memory yet you pursue it tomorrow. So thought is movement in time. Is the root of fear time? - time as comcomparison with you, "me" more important than you, "me" that is going to achieve something, become something, get rid of something.

So thought as time, thought as becoming, is the root of fear. We have said that time is necessary to learn a language, time is necessary to learn any technique. And we think we can apply the same process to psychological existence. I need several weeks to learn a language, and I say in order to learn about myself, what I am, what I have to achieve, I need time. We are questioning the whole of that. Whether there is time at all psychologically, actually; or is it an invention of thought and therefore fear arises? That is our problem; and consciously we have divided consciousness into the conscious and the hidden. Again division by thought. And we say, "I may be able to get rid of conscious fears, but it is almost impossible to be free of the unconscious fears with their deep roots in the unconscious". We say that it is much more difficult to be free of unconscious fears, that is the racial fears, the family fears, the tribal fears, the fears that are deeply rooted, instinctive. We have divided consciousness into two levels and then we ask: how can a human being delve into the unconscious? Having divided it then we ask this question.

It is said it can be done through careful analysis of the various hidden fears, through dreams. That is the fashion. We never look into the whole process of analysis, whether it be self-introspective, or professional. In analysis is implied the analyser and the analysed. Who is the analyser? Is he different from the analysed, or is the analyser the analysed? And therefore it is utterly futile to analyse. I wonder if you see that? If the analyser is the analysed, then there is only observation, not analysis. But the analyser as different from the analysed - that is what you all accept, all the professionals, all the people who are trying to improve themselves - God forbid! - they all accept that there is a division between the analysed and the analyser. But the analyser is a fragment of thought which has created that thing to be analysed. I wonder if you follow this? So in analysis is implied a division and that division implies time. And you have to keep on analysing until you die.

So where analysis is totally false - I am using the word "false" in the sense of incorrect, having no value - then you are only concerned with observation. To observe! - we have to understand what is observation. You are following all this? We started out by enquiring if there is a different kind of energy. I am sorry we must go back so that it is in your mind - not in your memory, then you could read a book and repeat it to yourself, which is nothing. So we are concerned with, or enquiring into energy. We know the energy of thought which is mechanical, a process of friction, because thought in its very nature is fragmentary, thought is never the whole. And we have asked if there is a different kind of energy altogether and we-are investigating that. And in enquiring into that we see the whole movement of desire. Desire is the state of wanting something, longing for something. And that desire is a movement of thought as time and measure: "I have had this, and I must have more". And we said in the understanding of fear, the root of fear may be time as movement. If you go into it you will see that it is the root of it: that is the actual fact. Then, is it possible for the mind to be totally free of fear? For the brain, which has accumulated knowledge, can only function effectively when there is complete security - but that security may be in some neurotic activity, in some belief, in the belief that you are the great nation; and all belief is neurotic, obviously, because it is not actual. So the brain can only function effectively, sanely, rationally, when it feels completely secure, and fear does not give it security. To be free of that fear, we asked whether analysis is necessary. And we see that analysis does not solve fear. So when you have an insight into the process of analysis, you stop analysing. And then there is only the question of observation, seeing. If you don't analyse, what are you to do? You can only look. And it is very important to find out how to look.

What does it mean to look? What does it mean to look at this question of desire as movement in time and measure?

How do you see it? Do you see it as an idea, as a formula, because you have heard the speaker talking about it? Therefore you abstract what you hear into an idea and pursue that idea - which is still looking away from fear. So when you observe, it is very important to find out how you observe.

Can you observe your fear without the movement of escaping, suppressing, rationalizing, or giving it a name? That is, can you look at fear, your fear or not having a job tomorrow, of not being loved, a dozen forms of fear, can you look at it without naming, without the observer? - because the observer is the observed. I don't know if you follow this? So the observer is fear, not "he" is observing "fear".

Can you observe without the observer? - the observer being the past. Then is there fear? You follow? We have the energy to look at something as an observer. I look at you and say, "You are a Christian, a Hindu, Buddhist", whatever you are, or I look at you saying, "I don't like you", or "I like you". If you believe in the same thing as I believe in you are my friend; if I don't believe the same thing as you do, you are my enemy. So can you look at another without all those movements of thought, of remembrance, of hope, all that, just look? Look at that fear which is the root of time. Then is there fear at all? You understand? You will find this out only if you test it, if you work at it, not just play with it.

Then there is the other form of desire, which not only creates fear but also pleasure. Desire is a form of pleasure. Pleasure is different from joy. Pleasure you can cultivate, which the modem world is doing, sexually and in every form of cultural encouragement - pleasure, tremendous pleasure and the pursuit of pleasure. And in the very pursuit of pleasure there must be fear also, because they are the two sides of the same coin. Joy you cannot invite; if it happens then thought takes charge of it and remembers it and pursues that joy which you had a year ago, or yesterday, and which becomes pleasure. And when there is enjoyment - seeing a beautiful sunset, a lovely tree, or the deep shadow of a lake - then that enjoyment is registered in the brain as memory and the pursuit of that memory is pleasure. There is fear, pleasure, joy. Is it possible - this is a much more complex problem - is it possible to observe a sunset, the beauty of a person, the lovely shape of an ancient tree in a solitary field, the enjoyment of it, the beauty of it - observe it without registering it in the brain, which then becomes memory, and the pursuit of that tomorrow? That is, to see something beautiful and end it, not carry it on.

There is another principle in man. Besides fear and pleasure, there is the principle of suffering. Is there an end to suffering? We want suffering to end physically, therefore we take drugs and do all kinds of yoga tricks and all that. But we have never been able to solve this question of suffering, human suffering, not only of a particular human being but the suffering of the whole of humanity. There is your suffering, and millions and millions of people in the world are suffering, through war, through starvation, through brutality, through violence, through bombs. And can that suffering in you as a human being end? Can it come to an end in you, because your consciousness is the consciousness of the world, is the consciousness of every other human being? You may have a different peripheral behaviour but basically, deeply, your consciousness is the consciousness of every other human being in the world. Suffering, pleasure, fear, ambition, all that is your consciousness. So you are the world. And if you are completely free of fear you affect the consciousness of the world. Do you understand how extraordinarily important it is that we human beings change, fundamentally, because that will affect the consciousness of every other human being? Hitler, Stalin affected all the consciousness of the world, what the priests have achieved in the name of somebody has affected the world. So if you as human beings radically transform, are free of fear, you will naturally affect the consciousness of the world.

Similarly, when there is freedom from suffering there is compassion, not before. You can talk about it, write books about it, discuss what compassion is, but the ending of sorrow is the beginning of compassion. The human mind has put up with suffering, endless suffering, having your children killed in wars, and willingness to accept further suffering by future wars. Suffering through education-modern education to achieve a certain technological knowledge and nothing else - that brings great sorrow. So compassion, which is love, can only come when you understand fully the depth of suffering and the ending of suffering. Can that suffering end, not in somebody else, but in you? The Christians have made a parody of suffering - sorry to use that word - but it is actually so. The Hindus have made it into an intellectual affair: what you have done in a past life you are paying for it the present life, and in the future there will be happiness if you behave properly now. But they never behave properly now; so they carry on with this belief which is utterly meaningless. But a man who is serious is concerned with compassion and with what it means to love; because without that you can do what you like, build all the skyscrapers in the world, have marvellous economic conditions and social behaviour, but without it life becomes a desert.

So to understand what it means to live with compassion, you must understand what suffering is. There is suffering from physical pain, physical disease, physical accident, which generally affects the mind, distorts the mind - if you have had physical pain for some time it twists your mind; and to be so aware that the physical pain cannot touch the mind requires tremendous inward awareness. And apart from the physical, there is suffering of every kind, suffering in loneliness, suffering when you are not loved, the longing to be loved and never finding it satisfactory; because we make love into something to be satisfied, we want love to be gratified. There is suffering because of death; suffering because there is never a moment of complete wholeness, a complete sense of totality, but always living in fragmentation, which is contradiction, strife, confusion, misery. And to escape from that we go to temples, and to various forms of entertainment, religious and non-religious, take drugs, group therapy, and individual therapy. You know all those tricks we play upon ourselves and upon others - if you are clever enough to play tricks upon others. So there is this immense suffering brought by man against man. We bring suffering to the animals, we kill them, we eat them, we have destroyed species after species because our love is fragmented. We love God and kill human beings.

Can that end? Can suffering totally end so that there is complete and whole compassion? Because suffering means, the root meaning of that word is to have passion - not the Christian passion, not lust, that is too cheap, easy, but to have compassion, which means passion for all, for all things, and that can only come when there is total freedom from suffering.

You know it is a very complex problem, like fear and pleasure, they are all interrelated. Can one go into it and see whether the mind and the brain can ever be free completely of all psychological suffering, inward suffering. If we don't understand that and are not free of it we will bring suffering to others, as we have done, though you believe in God, in Christ, in Buddha, in all kinds of beliefs - and you have killed men generation after generation. You understand what we do, what our politicians do in India and here. Why is it that human beings who think of themselves as extraordinarily alive and intelligent, why have they allowed themselves to suffer? There is suffering when there is jealousy; jealousy is a form of hate. And envy is part of our structure, part of our nature, which is to compare ourselves with somebody else; and can you live without comparison? We think that without comparison we shall not evolve, we shall not grow, we shall not be somebody. But have you ever tried - really, actually tried - to live without comparing yourself with anybody? You have read the lives of saints and if you are inclined that way, as you get older you want to become like that; not when you are young, you spit on all that. But as you are approaching the grave you wake up.

There are different forms of suffering. Can you look at it, observe it without trying to escape from it? - just remain solidly with that thing. When my wife - I am not married - runs away from me, or looks at another man - by law she belongs to me and I hold her - and when she runs away from me I am jealous; because I possess, and in possession I feel satisfied, I feel safe; and also it is good to be possessed, that also gives satisfaction. And that jealousy, that envy, that hatred, can you look at it without any movement of thought and remain with it? You understand what I am saying? Jealousy is a reaction, a reaction which has been named through memory as jealousy, and I have been educated to run away from it, to rationalize it, or to indulge in it, and hate with anger and all the rest of it. But without doing any of that, can my mind solidly remain with it without any movement? You understand what I am saying? Do it and you will see what happens.

In the same way when you suffer, psychologically, 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. Out of that suffering comes compassion. And that energy differs totally from the mechanistic energy of thought.

Chapter 6
Longer, Unedited Versions
Brockwood Park
1st Public Dialogue
9th September 1975

This is a dialogue between two friends, talking over their problems, who are concerned with not only their own personal affairs, but also with what is happening in the world. Being serious these two friends have the urge to transform themselves and see what they can do about the world and all the misery and confusion that is going on. So if we could this morning spend some time together having a friendly conversation, not trying to be clever or trying to oppose one opinion against another opinion or belief or conclusion, but together examine earnestly and deeply some of the problems that one has. And so communication becomes rather important. And any one question is not only personal but universal. So if that is understood then what shall we talk over together this morning?

Q: The compilation of your biography has caused much confusion and quite a lot of questions. I have boiled them down to a few. May I at least hand them over to you?

K: Do you want to discuss the Biography, written by Mary Lutyens - do you want to go into that?

Q: No.

K: Thank god!

Q: Briefly and then finish with it.

Q: I would propose that you go into the question of correct and incorrect thinking as that is a problem. Both kinds of thought, or thinking processes are mechanical processes.

K: I see. Now wait a minute. Have many of you read the Biography? Some of you. I was just looking at it this morning. Most of it I have forgotten, and if you want to talk over the questions that Anneka Korndoffer has put, shall we do that briefly?

Basically the question is: what is the relationship between the present K and the former K? I should think very little. The whole question is - if you want to go into it very deeply - how was it that boy who was found there, discovered as it was called, how was it that he was not conditioned at all from the beginning, though he was brought up among a very orthodox traditional Brahmin family with their superstitions, arrogance and extraordinary religious sense of morality and so on? Why wasn't he conditioned then? And also during all those periods of the Masters, Initiations and so on and so on and so on - if you have read any of them - why wasn't he conditioned and what is the relationship between that person and the present person? Right? Are you really interested in all this?

Audience: Yes.

K: I am not. The past is dead buried and gone. I don't know how to tackle this. One of the questions is: do the Masters as they are explained, not only in the Theosophical world, but in the Hindu tradition and the Tibetan tradition maintains that there is a Bodhisattva - do you understand all this? And that he manifests himself rarely and that is called in Sanskrit, Avatar, which means manifestation. And this boy was discovered and prepared for that manifestation. And he went through all kinds of things. And one question that may be asked: must others go through the same process? Christopher Columbus discovered America with sailing boats, dangerous seas and so on. And must we go through all that to go to America? You understand my question? It is much simpler to go by air. That is one question.

What is relevant and irrelevant in all this is the whole structure in which he was brought up is totally irrelevant, and what is relevant is the present teachings, and nothing else. So if you are interested in wanting to find out the reality of the whole past - and I don't know why you should be interested in it - if you are and if the idea that the Bodhisattva - you know this is a very ancient tradition that there is a state of consciousness, let us put it that way, which is the essence of compassion. And when the world is in chaos that essence of compassion manifests itself. That is the whole idea behind the Avatar and behind the Bodhisattva. And there are various gradations in all that - Initiations, various Masters and so on. And also the idea when he manifests all the others keep quiet. You understand? And he, that essence of compassion, has manifested at other times. So what is important in all this is, if one may talk about it briefly: can the mind passing through all kinds of experiences, either imagined or real - because truth has nothing to do with experience, one cannot possibly experience truth, it is there, you can't experience it - but going through all those various imagined or illusory or real states has not left the mind conditioned. The question is: can the mind be unconditioned always - not only in childhood and therefore gradually get rid of conditioning, but start unconditioned? I wonder if you understand this question. That is the underlying problem or issue in these questions.

So as we said, all that is irrelevant. I do not know if you know anything about the ancient tradition of India and Tibet and therefore China and Japan at one time, that the awakening of certain energy, called Kundalini, if you are interested in all this. And there are now all over America, and in Europe, various groups trying to awaken their little energy called Kundalini. You have heard about all this, haven't you? And there are all kinds of groups practising it. I saw one group on a television where a man is teaching them how to awaken Kundalini, that energy, and making all kinds of tricks and all kinds of words and gestures, which all become so utterly meaningless and absurd. And there is apparently such an awakening, which I won't go into because it is much too complex and probably is not necessary or relevant.

So I think I have answered this question, haven't I?

The other question which was put: is there a non-mechanistic activity? Is there a movement - movement means time - is there a state of mind, active which is not only not mechanical but not in the field of time? That is what the question raised involves. Do you want to discuss that, or something else?

Somebody also put a question on a paper which was sent: what does it mean to be aware? Is awareness different from attention? Is awareness to be practised systematically, or does it come about naturally? That is the question. Are there any other questions?

Q: Would you go into the question of what it is to find one's true will?

K: Finding out one's true will. What is one's true will.

Q: What is the difference between denial and suppression?

Q: I lose all my awareness when I am alone.

K: Can we talk over together awareness, begin with that and explore the whole thing, including the will of one's own destiny, the destiny, the will in a certain direction? (Is that what you mean sir?)

Q: Well I am not sure.

Q: What about earnestness and effort?

K: We are now discussing awareness. Does choice indicate freedom? Please this a discussion. I chose to belong to this society, or that society, to that cult, or another, to a particular religion or not, I chose a particular job - choice. Does choice indicate freedom? Or freedom denies choice? Please let us talk over together this.

Q: Freedom means no choice is needed.

K: But we chose and we think because we have the capacity to choose that we have freedom. I chose between the Liberal Party and the Communist Party, or the Conservative Party. And in choosing I feel I am free. Or I chose one particular form of guru or another, and that gives me a feeling that I am free. So does choice lead to awareness?

Q: No.

K: Go slowly.

Q: Choice is the expression of conditioning, is it not?

K: That is what I want to find out.

Q: It seems to me that one either reacts out of habit, or one responds without thinking.

K: We will come to that. We will go into what does it mean to respond without choice. We are used to choosing. That is our conditioning.

Q: Like and dislike.

K: All that is implied in choice. I chose you as my friend, I deny my friendship to another and so on and so on and so on. I want to find out, one wants to find out if awareness includes choice. Or is awareness a state of mind, a state of observation in which there is no choice whatsoever? Is that possible? One is educated from childhood to choose, and that is our tradition, that is our habit, that is our mechanical, instinctive reaction. And we think because I chose there is freedom.

And what does awareness mean? To be aware? It implies, doesn't it, not only physiological sensitivity, physical sensory sensitivity, but also a sensitivity to my environment, to nature, sensitivity to other people's reactions, and sensitivity to my own reactions - not I am sensitive and to every other person I am not sensitive. That is not sensitivity.

So awareness implies, doesn't it, a total sensitivity - to colour, to nature, to all my reactions, how I respond to others - all that implies awareness, doesn't? I am aware of this tent, the shape of it and so on and so on and so on. One is aware of nature, the world of nature, the trees, the beauty of trees, the silence of the trees, you know the shape and the beauty and the depth, and the solitude of trees. And one is aware also of one's relationship to others, intimate and not intimate. Whether in that awareness there is any kind of choice. That is a total awareness, not only neurologically, physiologically but psychologically, to everything around me, to the influences, to all the noise and so on and so on. Is one so aware - not only to the beliefs of one's own but of others, the opinions, judgements, evaluations, the conclusions? All that is implied - otherwise one is not aware. And can you practise awareness? By going to a school, college, or going to a place where there is a guru who will teach me to be aware, is that awareness? Which is, is sensitivity to be cultivated through practise? Come on sirs.

Q: That becomes selfishness.

K: Yes, that is unless there is total sensitivity, awareness merely then becomes concentration on oneself.

Q: Which excludes awareness.

K: Yes, that is right. So there are so many schools, so many gurus, so many ashramas, retreats, where this thing is practised.

Q: When it is practised it is just the old trick again.

K: This is so obvious. One goes to India, or to Japan to learn what it means to be aware. The Zen practice, you know all that. Or is awareness a movement of constant observation - not only what I feel, what I think, but also what other people are saying about me, if they say it in front of me, to listen, and to be aware of nature, of what is going on in the world? That is the total awareness. Obviously it can't be practised.

Q: It is a non-movement.

K: No, it is movement in the sense alive.

Q: It is a participation.

K: Participation implies action. If there is action through choice, that is one kind of action. If there is an action of total awareness, that is a totally different kind of action, obviously. So is one so aware? Or we indulge in words of being aware? You understand? To be aware of the people around one, the colour, their attitudes, their walk, the way they eat, the way they think - you know aware - without indulging in judgement.

Q: Is it something to do with motive? If you have a motive...

K: Of course. Motive comes into being when there is choice. That is implied. When I have a motive then the choice takes place. I chose you because I like you, or you flatter me, or you give me something or other. And the other doesn't, therefore there is choice and so on.

So is this possible, this sense of total awareness?

Q: Is there a degree of awareness?

K: Is there a degree of awareness. That is, is awareness a process of time?

Q: Can one man be more aware then another?

K: Why should I enquire if you are more aware than I am? Just a minute, let us go into it. Why this comparison? Is it not also part of our education, our social conditioning which says we must compare to progress? - compare one musician against another, one painter and so on and so on. And we think by comparing we begin to understand. Comparing means measurement, which means time, thought, and is it possible to live without comparing at all? You understand? One is brought up, educated, in schools, colleges, and universities to compare oneself with A who is much cleverer than myself and try to reach his level. This constant measurement, this constant comparison, and therefore constant imitation, which is mechanical. So can we find out for ourselves whether it is possible to be totally sensitive and therefore aware?

Q: Can you know if you are totally aware or not?

K: Can you know if you are aware or not.

Q: Totally aware.

K: Totally.

Q: Can we think our thoughts? Can we be aware of our awareness?

K: No. Can we be aware of our awareness?

Q: You can be aware when you are not aware.

K: Watch it in yourself. It becomes speculative, verbal, but when you are aware, do you know you are aware?

Q: No.

K: Find out, Test it madame, test it. Do you know when you are happy? The moment you are aware that you are happy it is no longer happiness.

Q: You know when you have got a pain.

K: Wait. That is a different matter. When I have got pain I am aware that I have got pain and I act, do something about it. That is one part of being aware, unless I am paralysed totally, then I am not aware that I have pain. Most people are in other directions.

So we are asking ourselves, not asking somebody else to tell me I am aware, I am asking, one is asking oneself if there is that quality of awareness? Does one watch the sky - you follow? - the evening stars, the moon, the birds, and people's reactions, you know, the whole of it? And what is the difference between that awareness and attention? In awareness is there a centre from which you are aware? You understand? When I say, I am aware, then from a centre I move, I respond to nature, from a centre I respond to my friends, to my wife, husband or whatever it is - right? If there is a centre from which I respond - that centre being my prejudices, my conditioning, my desires, my fears and all the rest of it - then in that awareness is there a centre? You follow? So in attention there is no centre at all, obviously. Now please listen to this for two minutes. You are now listening to what is being said, and to what is being said you are giving total attention. That means you are not comparing, you do not say, I already know what you are going to say, or I have read what you have said, etc., etc. All that is gone, you are completely attentive and therefore there is no centre and that attention has no border. I don't know if you haven't noticed.

So by being aware one discovers one responds from a centre, from a prejudice, from a conclusion, from a belief, from a conditioning, which is the centre. And from that centre you react, you respond. And when there is an awareness of that centre, that centre yields and in that there is a total attention. I wonder if you understand this? And this you cannot practise. It would be too childish, that becomes mechanical.

So we go to the next question, which is: is there an activity which is non-mechanistic? That means, is there a part of the brain which is non-mechanical. Do you want to go into this. No, no, please, this isn't a game. First of all one has to go into the question of what is a mechanical mind - right?

Is the brain, which has evolved through millenia, is that totally mechanical? Or is there a part of the brain which is not mechanical, which has never been touched by the machine of evolution? I wonder if you see.

Q: What do you mean by mechanical?

K: We are going to discuss that sir. Part of this mechanical process is functioning within the field of conditioning. That is, when I act according to a pattern - Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, whatever it is - according to a pattern set by society, by influence, by my reading, and accept that pattern or a belief and so on, then that is part of the mechanical process. The other part of the mechanical process is, having had experiences of innumerable kinds which have left memories, and act according to those memories, that is mechanical - like a computer, which is purely mechanical. Now they are trying to prove it is not so mechanical, but let's leave that alone for the moment.

Then mechanical action is, accepting tradition and following tradition. One of the aspects of that tradition is acceptance and obedience to a government, to priests, you know, obedience. And the mechanical part of the brain is following consciously or unconsciously a line set by thought as the goal and purpose. All that and more is mechanical. And we live that way.

Q: Is thought of itself mechanical?

K: Of course. That is the whole point.

So one has discovered for oneself, not told by others as then that becomes mechanical. If one discovers for oneself how mechanically our thinking, our feeling, our attitudes, our opinions are, all that, if one is aware of that, which means thought is invariably mechanistic - thought being the response of memory, experience, knowledge, which is the past. And responding according to that pattern of the past is mechanistic, which is thought. Right?

Q: All thought?

K: All thought, of course. Whether noble thought, ignoble thought, sexual thought or technological thought, it is all thought.

Q: Part of the great genius also?

K: Absolutely, Wait, wait we must go into the question of what is a genius. No, we won't go into that yet.

Q: So if all thought is mechanical, the expression which you often use 'clear thinking' seems to be a contradiction.

K: No, no. Clear thinking is to see clearly, obviously, clear thinking is to think clearly, objectively sanely, rationally, wholly.

Q: It is still thought.

K: It is still thought. Wait, of course it is.

Q: So what is the use of it?

K: What is the use of clear thought. If there was clear thought I wouldn't belong to any political party. I might create a global party, because obviously - that is another matter.

Q: Can we get back to your question as to whether there is a part of the brain which is untouched by conditioning?

K: That's right sir. To go into this requires one to be very careful and hesitant - you know, one has to enquire into this - not say "Yes, there is", or not. "I have experienced a state where there is no mechanism" - that is all too silly. But to really enquire and find out you need a great deal of subtlety, great attentive quality to go step by step into it, not jump.

So we say most of our lives are mechanistic. The pursuit of pleasure is mechanistic - right? But we are pursuing pleasure. Now how will we find out if there is a part of the brain that is not conditioned? How will you find out? This is a very, very serious question, it is not for sentimentalists, or romantic people, or emotional people, this requires very clear thinking. And when you think very clearly you see the limitation of thinking.

Q: Are we going to look very clearly at the barriers which interfere with an unconditioned mind?

K: No. We are trying to understand, or explore together the mechanistic mind first. Without understanding the totality of that, you can't find out the other. We have asked the question: is there a part of the brain, part of our total mind in which is included the brain, emotions, neurological responses, the total brain, is that completely mechanistic? And when I put that question to myself I might imagine that it is not, because I want the other, therefore I deceive myself. I pretend that I have got the other. So I must completely understand the movement of desire. You follow all this? Not suppress it, but understand it, have an insight in this - which means fear, time and all that we talked about the day before yesterday.

So we are now enquiring: is our total activity mechanistic? That means am I, or you, are we, or is one clinging to memories? - the Hitlarian memories and all that, the memories of various pleasurable and painful experiences, the memories of sexual fulfilment and the pleasures and so on. That is, is one living in the past?

Q: Always I am.

K: Of course! So all that you are is the past, which is mechanistic. So knowledge is mechanistic. I wonder if you see this?

Q: Why is it so difficult to see this?

K: Because we are not aware of our inward responses, or aware of what actually is going on within oneself - not imagine what is going on, or speculate about what is going on, or repeat what is going on because we have been told by somebody else, but actually being aware.

Q: Aren't we guided to awareness by experience?

K: No. Now wait a minute. What do you mean by experience? The word itself means to go through - to go through, finish, not retain. You have said something that hurts me. That has left a mark on the brain and when I meet you that memory responds. Obviously. And is it possible when you hurt me, say something cruel, violent, or justified, to observe it and not register it. You understand? Try it sir. You try it, test it out.

Q: It is very difficult because the memory has already been hurt sir, we never forget it.

K: Don't forget. Do go into this. From childhood we are hurt, which is happening to everybody, in school, at home, at college, in universities, the whole society is a process of hurting others. One has been hurt and one lives in that, consciously, or unconsciously. So there are two problems involved: the past hurt retained in the brain, and not to be hurt. That which has given you and the memory of hurts, and never to be hurt. Now is that possible?

Q: If you are not there.

K: Go into it sir, go into it. You will discover it for yourself and find out. That is, you have been hurt.

Q: The image of myself...

K: Go into it slowly. What is hurt? The image that you have built about yourself, that has been hurt. Why do you have an image about yourself? Because that is the tradition, part of our education, part of our social reactions. There is an image about myself and there is an image about you in relation to my image. So I have got half a dozen images and more. And that image about myself has been hurt. You call me a fool and I shrink, and it has been hurt. Now how am I to dissolve that hurt and not be hurt in the future, tomorrow, or the next moment? You follow the question? There are two problems involved in this. One, I have been hurt and that creates a great deal of neurotic activity, resistance, self protection, fear, all that is involved in the past hurt; and also how not to be hurt any more - right?

Q: One has to be totally involved.

K: Go into it sir. Look at it and you will find out. You have been hurt haven't you - I am not talking to you sir. You have been hurt haven't you, and you resist, you are afraid of being hurt more. So you build a wall round yourself, isolate yourself, and the extreme form of that isolation is total withdrawal from all relationship. And you build a wall and you remain in that but you have to live, you have to act. So you are always acting from a centre that is hurt and therefore neurotically acting - right? You can see this happening in the world, in oneself. And how are those hurts to be totally dissolved and not leave a mark, and also in the future not to be hurt at all? Right, the question is clear, is it?

Now how do you approach this question: how to dissolve the hurts and be concerned with that, or how not to be hurt at all? Which is the question you put to yourself? Put to yourself. Now which do you want answered? To dissolve all the hurts, or no more hurts. You understand? Which is it that comes to you naturally?

Q: No more hurts.

K: Don't guess. If you say "I will find out if it is possible not to be hurt at all" - then you will have to solve the problem of past hurts, won't you? I don't know if you see that. But if you say, "I will try to dissolve my past hurts", you are still living with hurts. I wonder if you see - right? So if you see that: if it is possible to have no hurt, then you have solved the past hurts. Shall we go on? So the question is: is it possible not be hurt? Which means is it possible not to have an image about yourself?

Q: If we see that image is false...

K: No false or truth. Don't - you see you are already operating in the field of thought. So is it possible not to have an image at all about yourself, or about another, naturally? And if there is no image, isn't that true freedom? You see it? We are doing it slowly.

Q: Sir, if what happens to you is of no importance to you, then it doesn't matter, and it won't affect you and it won't hurt you. If you have managed to get rid of your self importance...

K: Yes, sir. The gentleman says if you can get rid of your self importance, your arrogance, your vanity, your etc., etc. then you won't be hurt. But how am I to get rid of all that garbage which I have collected?

Q: I think you can get rid of it by being entirely aware of the relationship between yourself and your physical body and your thinking. How you control your physical body and...

K: I don't want to control anything, my body, my mind, my emotions. That is the traditional, mechanistic response. Sorry!

Please go into this a little bit and you will see. First of all the idea of getting rid of an image implies there is an entity who is different from the image, and therefore he can then kick the image. But is the image different from the entity who says, I must get rid of it? Therefore there is no control. Therefore when you see that you are no longer functioning mechanistically.

Q: Surely by destroying one image we are immediately building another one?

K: We are going to find out if it is possible to be free of all images, not only the present one but the future ones. Now why does the mind create an image about itself? Come on sirs. Why do I create an image about myself? I say I am a Christian, that is an image. I belief in the Saviour, in Christ, in all the rituals, you know, all that, why? Because that is my conditioning. Go to India and they say "What are you talking about, Christ? I have got my own gods, as good as yours, if not better." So that is his conditioning. If I am born in Russia and educated there I say "I believe in neither. The State is my god and Marx is the first prophet" and so on and so on and so on.

So the image formation is brought about through propaganda, conditioning, tradition - right?

Q: Sir, is that related to the fact that out of fear one behaves in a certain way which is not natural for one to behave, and therefore one is not being oneself? And that is making the image that you are talking about.

K: The image is what we call oneself. I must express myself. I must fulfil myself - myself is the image according to the environment and culture in which I have been born. I believe there was a tribe in America, among the Red Indians where anybody who had an image about himself was killed, was liquidated. That lead to ambition and all the rest of it. I wonder what would happen if they did it to all of us. It would be a lovely world, wouldn't it?

So, is it possible not to create images at all? That is, I know, I am aware that I have an image, brought about through culture, through propaganda, tradition, family, you follow, the whole pressure.

Q: We cling to the known.

K: That is the known, tradition is the known. And my mind is afraid to let that known go, the image go, because the moment it lets it go it might lose a profitable position in society, might lose status, might lose a certain relationship and so on and so on, so it is frightened, and yet holds to that image. The image is merely words, it has no reality. It is a series of words, a series of responses to those words, a series of beliefs which are words - I believe in Christ. Or in Krishna, or whatever they believe in India, or Marx. They are just words ideologically clothed. And if I am not a slave to words then I begin to lose the image. I wonder if you see how deeply rooted words have become significant.

Q: If one is listening to what you say and realize that one has an image about oneself, and that there is a large discrepancy between the image one has of oneself and the ideal of freedom...

K: It is not an ideal.

Q: Freedom itself. Then knowing that there is a discrepancy can one think of freedom knowing that it is just an idea?

K: That is why sir - is freedom an abstraction, a word in abstraction? Or a reality?

Q: It is free of relationship, is it not?

K: No sir, please we are jumping from one thing to another. Let us go step by step. We began by asking whether there is any part of the brain, which means any part of the total entity, that is not conditioned? We said conditioning means the image forming - the image that gets hurt and the image that protects itself from being hurt. And we said there is only freedom, the actuality of that state, not the word, not the abstraction, but the actuality of that word when there is no image which is freedom. When I am not a Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Communist, Socialist - you follow? - I have no label, and therefore no label inside. I am a global politician - sorry!

Now is it possible not to have an image at all? And how does that come about?

Q: Isn't it all to do with the activity...

K: No sir. Look. Please we come to a point and go off after something else. I want to find out, one wants to find out whether it is possible to live in this world without a single image.

Q: When there is no observer there is nothing observed and yet one comes across something in this silence.

K: Madame, is this an actual fact that there is no observer in your life, not occasionally? Please, please - we go off into something. Is it possible to be free of the image that society, environment, culture, education has built in one? Because one is all that - right? You are the result of your environment, of your culture, of your knowledge, of your education, of your technological job, of your pleasure, you are all that.

Q: What happens to one's sense of orientation without a centre?

K: All that comes a little later, please.

Q: If you are aware of your conditioning does that free you?

K: Now are you actually, not theoretically or in abstraction, actually aware that you are conditioned this way, therefore you have got an image?

Q: If you don't have the image then you don't know what your place is.

K: Wait, listen to that carefully. If you have no image, you have no place in the world. Which means if you have no image you are insecure. Go step by step. Now are you, having a place in the world, secure?

Q: No.

K: Be actual.

Q: Sir when you see that the image that you have built, you think you are attached to, when you see that it is just a load of words...

K: So you are finding security in a word, and therefore it is not a security at all. You understand sir? We have lived in words and made those words something fantastically real. So if you are seeking security, it is not in an image, it is not in your environment, in your culture. I want security, I must have security, that is essential, food, clothes, and shelter. I must have it otherwise I can't function. Now that is denied totally when I belong to small groups - right? When I say I am a German, or a Russian, or an Englishman, I deny complete security. That is, I deny security because the words, the labels have become important, not security. I wonder if you see? Right, we meet this? This is what is actually happening, the Arab and Israel, both want security - right? And both are accepting words and all the rest of it.

Now we come to the point: is it possible to live in this world, not go off into some fantastic realm or illusion, or monasteries and all the rest of it, live in this world without a single image and be totally secure?

Q: How can we be secure in a sick society?

K: I am going to go into this madame, I'll show it to you.

Q: All right. I am going to hold on to it.
K: All right you have got your security, then hold on to your security. Please go with me. I'll show you that there is complete security, absolute security, not in images.

Q: To be totally aware every moment, then your conditioning does not exist.

K: Not, if you are aware. Are you aware that you have an image and that image has been formed by the culture, society and all the rest of it? Are you aware of that image? And you discover that image in relationship, don't you? How you react in relationship with each other. When you tell me something ugly and I get hurt, that is, the image is hurt, the image is me, carefully put together by words. I am a Christian. I believe in this. I do not believe in that. This is my opinion - you follow? Now we are asking ourselves whether it is possible to be free of images? That means sir - listen to it carefully - that means when you say something to me that is vulgar, hurting, at that moment to be totally aware of what you are saying and how I am responding. Totally aware, not partially - I like what you said about me, it is pleasant and I hold on to that, and what somebody else says is unpleasant and I get hurt. But to be totally aware of both, the pleasurable image which I have and the unpleasurable image which has been put together. To be aware totally at the moment of the reaction to your insult or praise. At that moment you don't then form an image. There is no recording in the brain of the hurt, of the insult or the flattery, therefore there is no image. That requires tremendous attention at the moment. Which demands a great inward perception, you understand sir - which is only possible when you have looked at it, watched it, you have worked. You don't just say, "Well tell me all about it. I want to be comfortable."

Q: Who watches all this?

K: Now who watches all this. If there is a watcher then the image is continuous. If there is no watcher there is no image. Obviously.

So, in that state of attention both the hurt and the flattery, or the pleasant things, are both observed, not reacted to. Both observed and you can only observe when there is no observer, who is the past. It is the past observer that gets hurt. There is only observation when there is flattery and insult, then it is finished. And that is real freedom.

Now follow it. In this world, if I have no image, as you say, I shall not be secure. One has found security in things, in a house, in a property, in a bank account, that is what we call security. And you have also found security in belief. I believe - if I am a Catholic living in Italy - I believe in that it is much safer to believe what ten thousand people believe. There I have a place. And when that belief is questioned I resist. And Protestantism grew out of that and so on and so on.

Now can there be a total awareness of all this? So my mind is tremendously active you understand? Not say, "I must be aware", "I must learn how to be" - play games. It requires that you are tremendously active, the brain is alive.

Then we can move from that to find out if there is in the brain a part that has not been conditioned at all, which is part of the brain which is non-mechanistic. I am putting a false question, I don't know if you see that. Do see it quick; do see it. Please just listen for two minutes, I am on fire, sorry, excuse me.

If there is no image which is mechanistic, and there is freedom from that image, then there is no part of the brain that has been conditioned. Full stop. You understand? Then my whole brain is unconditioned.
Q: It is on fire!

K: Yes, therefore it is non-mechanistic and that has got a totally different kind of energy. Not the mechanistic energy - right? I wonder if you see this. Please don't make an abstraction of it because then it becomes words. But if you see this, that your brain has been conditioned through centuries, saying survival is only possible if you have an image which is created by the circle in which you live, and that circle gives you complete security. We have accepted that as tradition, and we live in that way. I am an Englishman - you follow - I am better than anybody else, or a Frenchman or whatever it is. Now my brain is conditioned, I don't know whether it is whole or part, I only know that it is conditioned. There is no enquiry into the unconditioned state until the conditioning is non-existent. So my whole enquiry is to find out whether the mind can be unconditioned, not jump into the other because that is too silly. So I am conditioned by belief, by education, by the culture in which I have lived, by everything, and to be totally aware of that, not discard it, not suppress it, not control it, but to be aware of it. Then you will find if you have gone that far there is security only in being nothing.

Q: What about images in relationship? Don't belong to a community. I quite agree with you. You don't want any psychological image but you must have a physical image for your physical survival. And even if you want to drop it you can't because the other one puts it on you.

K: Sir, if I want to survive physically, what is preventing it? All the psychological barriers which man has created - right? So remove all those psychological barriers, you have complete security.

Q: No, because the other one puts it on you, not yourself.

K: Nobody can put you into prison.

Q: They kill you.

K: Then they kill you, all right. Then you will find out how to meet death - not imagine what you are going to feel when you die, which is another image. Oh, I don't know if you see all this.

So nobody can put you psychologically into prison. You are already there. We are pointing out that it is only possible to be totally free of images, which is the result of our conditioning. And one of the questions about the biography is that whole point: how was one, that young boy, or whatever he was, how was he not conditioned right through? I won't go into that because it is a very complex problem, I will not go into that. If one is aware of one's own conditioning then the whole thing becomes very simple. Then genius is something entirely different.

That leaves the question of what is creation - right sir?

Chapter 7
Longer, Unedited Versions
Brockwood Park
2nd Public Dialogue
11th September 1975

K: What shall we talk over this morning together?

Q: Continue with the question about security and being nothing.

Q: You were going to speak on what is creation and to say something about creative intelligence.

Q: Is there any reality in the belief of reincarnation, and what is the nature and quality of the meditative mind?

Q: The difference between denial and suppression of habit.

Q: You were saying that for the mind to function sanely one must have great security, food and shelter. This seems logical. But it seems that in order to try and find a way of having this security one encounters the horrors and the difficulties which makes things so hard and impossible sometimes. What is the right action?

K: I don't quite follow this.

Q: How are we to live and have this basic security without taking part in all the horrors that are involved in this?

K: Do we understand rightly that you are asking: what is the correct action in a world that is chaotic, insecure, where there is no security, one must have security and what is one to do? Is that the question? Are you quite sure?

Q: I have a question that when I ask myself I always come up to a wall. I say, "I am the observer" and I would like to see the whole of the observer. I cannot see the whole of the observer because I can only see in fragments: so how is the observer to see the whole of the observer unless there is no observer? So how can the observer see the observer with no observer?

K: How can one see the whole of the observer and can the observer watch himself as the observer? Is that the question?

Q: When a situation occurs, what keeps one into the observingness that the observer is different from what is observed? It seems a lack of attention to the moment, at that point, but that attention to the point requires a tremendous vitality that we don't have.

K: Have I understood the question rightly sir? We do not have enough energy to observe wholly. Is that it?

Q: Yes.

K: Now which of these questions shall we talk over together?

Q: May I just ask a question? Can an act of will-power - I think you call it an act of friction - can this generate the vitality or the passion?

K: Can will generate sufficient energy to see clearly. Would that be right?

Q: Yes.

Q: What happens to the brain and the process of thought during hypnosis? Is hypnosis a way of looking at one's thought process?

K: Have you heard that question?

Q: For medical reasons, we use hypnosis in medicine. What is the process of thought in that particular case?

K: What is the process of thought when there is hypnosis. Is that it?

Now wait a minute sirs: we have got so many questions. What shall we begin with? The observer?

Q: Yes.

K: The observer, and to see the whole of that of that observer one needs energy, and how is that energy to be derived, to be got. How is that energy to be acquired? And will that energy reveal the totality of the whole nature and structure of the observer? Should we discuss that? And what is the quality of the mind that has this meditative process and so on. Now wait a minute.

How is one to observe the whole of something, psychologically? How is one to be aware of oneself totally? Can we begin with that? How am I, or we, or one to be wholly aware of oneself?

Q: Surely one can only be aware.

K: Yes sir. How is one, you or I, to be aware of the totality of our consciousness, with all its content - right? Would you like to discuss this? That is what was proposed. Is it possible to see the totality of one's own reactions, the motives, the fears, the anxieties, the sorrows, the pain, the totality of all that? Or must one see it in fragments, in layers? Shall we discuss that? How is one to be aware of the content of one's consciousness? Right, can we begin with that?

What is consciousness? What do you think is consciousness? Under hypnosis as well as when one is not hypnotized. Most of us are hypnotised - by words, by propaganda, by tradition, by all the things that we believe in, and so on. We are hypnotized not only externally, by external influence, but also we have our own peculiar process of hypnotizing ourselves into believing something, or not believing, and so on and so on. All that - can one see the totality of one's consciousness? Come on sirs, let us enquire into this?

Q: The observer cannot see.

K: Don't let us say one can, one cannot, it is so, it is not so. Let's enquire.

Q: One has the feeling one has to begin.

K: We are going to begin sir. How shall I begin, from where shall I begin? To be aware of myself - myself being all the beliefs, the dogmas, the conclusions, the fears, the anxieties, the pain, the sorrow, the fear and the fear of death, and so on, the whole of that, where shall we begin to find out the content of this? You understand?

Q: You just asked what consciousness was.

K: We are going into that.

Q: If one is going to observe, is it true that one has to stand outside the things that one is observing?

K: Madame I am asking, if I may, how shall I begin to enquire into the whole structure of myself? If I am interested, if I am serious, where shall I begin?

Q: Is the question "Who I am?"

K: Enquire who I am, that becomes intellectual, verbal. Would you please follow this. I can only know myself, begin to know myself in my relationship to others - right? Do let's face that fact. I cannot know myself in abstraction. It would be rather a vain process to say to myself, "I am going to learn about myself". And then I can imagine all kinds of fantasies, illusions and so on. But whereas if I could observe what my reactions are in my relationship to another, then I begin to enquire. That is much closer, more accurate and revealing. Can we do that? That is, in my relationship with my wife, husband, friend, or boy, girl and so on, with my relationship to nature, with my relationship to the neighbour and so on, I discover the nature of myself. Right? Please, this is a dialogue, not a talk by me. So how do I observe my reactions in my relationship with another?

Q: Each time I see something in a reaction about myself it becomes knowledge.

K: I wonder if we are aware what takes place in our relationship with another. You all seem to be so vague about this matter.

Q: When I am very interested in some relationship I notice that I can really observe. When I am angry in my relationship I see immediately that I really can't observe what is going on.

K: Sir, you and I are related. You and I are related as friends, or husband, wife or this or that: what is our relationship? What do we mean by relationship?

Q: When we seem to want something...

K: Look at the word first, the meaning of the word.

Q: I like to compare myself with the other.

K: Sir we are asking, if I may, the meaning of the word itself, relationship.

Q: Communication.

Q: It means you are relating to that person.
K: I am lost! When I say I am related to my wife, or to my husband, father, son, neighbour, what does that mean?

Q: Care for the person, I care for the person.

Q: The whole human race is one's brother.

Q: I'd rather you told us.

K: Ah! (Laughter). I am related to you, either in blood, same father and mother, or I am related to you economically, I am related to you sexually, socially, or I am related to you because we have both the same belief, the same ideal, the same purpose. Relationship means, does it not, I am enquiring please, I am not stating it, doesn't relationship mean to respond accurately. To be related, the meaning in the dictionary, says to respond - relationship comes from that word. Now how do I respond in my relationship to you, if you are my wife, husband and all the rest of it? Am I responding according to the image I have about you? And you are responding according to the image you have about me? Or are we both free of the images and therefore responding accurately? I don't know if you see.

Q: Isn't it largely subconsciousness?

K: We will go into that. First let us see what the word means in itself.

Q: What do you mean by accurate?

K: Accurate means care - the word accurate means to have great care. Therefore accurate, if you care for something you act accurately. If you care for your motor you must be very well acquainted with it, you must know all the mechanical processes of it.

So accurate means infinite care. We are using that word in that sense: that when there is a relationship with another, either intimate, or distant, the response depends on the image you have about the other, or the image the other has about you; and when we act according to that image, that is we respond according to that image, it is inaccurate, it is not with complete care. Is that clear?

Q: What is a love hate relationship?

K: Love and hate relationship. Sir we are just beginning to enquire. We will come to that. Now I have an image about you and you have an image about me. That image has been put together through, it may be one day or it may be ten years, through pleasure, fear, nagging, domination, possession, various hurts, impatience and so on and so on. Now when we act or respond according to that image then that action, being incomplete, it is inaccurate, and therefore without care, which we generally call love. May we go on from there? Please, not verbally. Are you aware, is one aware that you have an image about yourself, about another? And having that image you respond according to the past, because the image has been put together but has become the past.

Q: And also it is according to one's selfish desires.

K: I said that, fear, desire, selfishness.

Q: You can't think of another person without an image, so how can you write a letter?
K: How quickly you want to resolve everything, don't you. First of all can we be aware that we have an image, not only about ourselves but about another?

Q: The two images are in relation, images of the other are in relation with the image of yourself.

K: So there is - you see what you are saying - there is a thing different from the image.

Q: The image of the other is made from the image you have of yourself.

K: That is what we said sir.

Q: Sir would anything practical help?

K: Sir this is the most practical thing if you listen to this. You want something practical, and the practical is to observe clearly what we are and act from there. Is one aware that one has an image about another? And is one aware that one has an image about oneself? Are you aware of that? This is a simple thing. I injure you, I hurt you, and you naturally have an image about me. I give you pleasure, and you have an image about me. And according to that hurt and pleasure you react; and that reaction, being fragmentary, must be inaccurate, not whole. This is simple. Can we go on from there?

Now what do you do with the image you have built about another? I am conscious, I am aware that I have an image about myself, and I have an image about you, so I have got two images, the one that I have about myself and the other is about you. Am I conscious of this?

Q: From moment to moment.

K: Just look now, sir, not moment to moment. Now if I have an image why has this image been put together? And who is it that has put the image together? You understand the question? Why is it that there is an image and who is it that has put it there? Who is the creator of these images? Let us begin there. I have an image about you. How has that image been born? How has it come into being?

Q: Is it a necessary imaginative process? - experience, imagination and previous images.

Q: Lack of attention.

K: How does it come? Not through lack of something, but how does come? You say through experience, through various incidents, through words.

Q: Retaining it all as memory.

K: Which is all the movement of thought, isn't it? No? So thought as movement, which is time, put this image, created this image. It does it because it wants to protect itself - right? Am I inventing or fabricating this, or is this actual?

Q: Actual.

K: Actual. That means 'what is'. Actually means 'what is'. Sorry I am not teaching you English!

Q: It means that it then can see itself.
K: No, no sir. You have an image about me, haven't you?

Q: Well it is changing.

K: Wait, wait, go slow. You have an image about me, haven't you, if you are honest, look into yourself, you see you have an image. How has that image been brought about? You have read something, you have listened to something, there is a reputation, a lot of talk about it, some articles in the papers and so on and so on. So all this has influenced the thought and out of that you have created an image. And you have an image, not only about yourself but about the other. So when you respond according to an image about the speaker you are responding inaccurately, in that there is no care. We said care implies attention, affection, accuracy; that means to act according to 'what is'. Now let's move from there.

Q: Is not an image a thought?

K: We said that sir, a thought.

Q: Thought has created images and it seems to imply that thought has created thought so...

K: Wait sir, we will get very far if we go slowly. So thought has built this image through time. It may be one day or fifty years. And I see in my relationship to another this image plays a tremendous part, if I become conscious, if I don't act mechanically, I become aware and see how extraordinarily vital this image is. Then my next question is: is it possible to be free of the image? I have the image as a Communist, believing in all kinds of ideas, or a Catholic - you follow? It is not just an image but this whole cultural, economic, social thing has built this image also. And I act according to that, there is a reaction according to that image. I think this is clear. May we go on from there?

Now is one aware of it? Then one asks: is it necessary? If it is necessary one should keep it, one should have the image. If it is not necessary how is one to be free of it? Right? Now is it necessary?

Q: Images form the whole chaos in the world where we live, so it is not necessary.

K: He says this whole image making is bringing about chaos in the world - the image as a Hindu, as a Buddhist, as a Communist, as a Mao, as a Trotsky-ite, as a Catholic, as a Protestant, good god, you understand?

Q: Aren't we making a lot of judgement?

K: Are we making a lot of judgement?

Q: In making an image there is a lot of judgement.

K: But we are asking a little more. We are asking whether it is necessary to have these images?

Q: No, we can be free of it.

K: Wait. Is it necessary? First let us see.

Q: No.

K: Then if it is not necessary why do we keep it?

Q: I have a feeling being what we are we can hardly help it.

K: We are going to find out whether it is possible to be free of this image, and whether it is worthwhile to be free of this image, and what does it mean to be free of the image.

Q: What is the relation with the chaos? Judging that chaos is wrong.

K: No, no sir. Look: I have an image about myself as a Communist, and I believe in Marx, his economic principles, I am strongly committed to that. And I reject everything else. But you think differently and you are committed to that. So there is a division between you and me, and that division invariably brings conflict. Wait, go slowly. I believe that I am Indian and I am committed to Indian nationalism, and you are committed to a Muslim and there is a division and there is conflict. So - wait, slowly. So thought has created this division, thought has created these images, these labels, these beliefs and so there is contradiction, division, which brings conflict and therefore chaos. That is a fact. Now wait a minute. That is a fact. So if you think life is a process of infinite conflicts, never ending conflicts, then you must keep these images. Wait. I don't say it, we are asking it sir. All our wars - I believe there have been five thousand wars within the last two thousand years, more, five thousand years - and we have accepted that: to have our sons killed, you know, the whole business, because we have these images. And if we say that is not necessary, it is really a tremendous danger to survival, to physical survival, then I must find out how to be free of the images - right?

Q: I think something else is involved in that because you say we always react from the past but what difference does it make - the past is a cyclic phenomenon that repeats so you can't prevent yourself, you know it is a fact that you will repeat it in the same way all the time.

K: Sir, we are talking about the necessity of having an image, or not having an image. If we are clear that these images are a real danger, real destructive processes then we want to get rid of them. But if you say, I keep my little image and you keep your little image, then we are at each other's throats. So if we see very clearly that these images, labels, words are destroying human beings...

Q: Krishnamurti, doesn't spiritual commitment give us the penetration of energy. I mean if I am a committed Buddhist and I channel my energy into that direction, it doesn't necessarily mean that I am in conflict with those that aren't Buddhist.

K: If I am a committed Buddhist, it does not necessarily mean I am in conflict with another - right? Just examine that please. If I am a committed human being to Buddhism and another is committed equally to the Christian dogma, and another equally committed to Communism...

Q: That is not my concern.

K: Isn't this what is happening in life? Don't say, it is not my business if you are a Communist. It is my business to see if we can live in security, in peace in the world, we are human beings, supposed to be intelligent. Why should I be committed to anything?

Q: Because it gives energy, the power of penetration.

K: No, no. Sirs, let's go on.

Q: The danger is that we are moving away from the central fact.

K: Yes, we are always moving away from the central fact.

Q: We are doing that right now, it is not necessary.

K: You may think it is necessary, people think it is necessary to be an Englishman, to be a German, to be a Hindu - you follow - or a Catholic, they think it is important. They don't see the danger of it.

Q: Some people think it is not.

Q: Why don't you see the danger?

K: Why don't I see the danger. Because I am so heavily conditioned, it is so profitable, my job depends on it. I might not be able to marry my son to somebody else, who is a Catholic. All that stuff. So the point is: if one sees the danger of these images, then how can the mind free itself from these images? That is the next question. Can we go on from there?

Q: Can I be there when no image is formed?

K: Images, whether they are old or new are the same images.

Q: Yes but when an image is formed can I be aware.

K: We are first of all going to go into that. How is an image formed? Is it formed through inattention, when I am not paying attention the image is formed. You get angry with me and if I am at that moment totally attentive to what you say there is no anger. I wonder if you realize this.

Q: So the image and the image former must be the same in that case.

K: Sir, look. Keep it very simple. I say something that doesn't give you pleasure. You have an image instantly, haven't you? Now at that moment if you are completely aware, is there an image?

Q: If you are not trying to utilize what has been said to you.

K: That's right, call it any word you like. Utilize, or liquidate, any word.

Q: If you don't have that image, all the other images are gone.

K: Yes, that is the whole point sir. Can one be attentive at the moment of listening? You understand? You are listening now, can you be totally attentive, so that when you call me a name, not a pleasant name, or give me pleasure, at that moment, at that precise moment to be totally aware? Have you ever tried this? You can test it out, because that is the only way to find out, not accept the speaker's words. You can test it out. Then if there is no image forming, and therefore no image, then what is the relationship between the two? You understand? I wonder if you follow all this? You have no image about me, but I have an image about you, then what is your relationship to me? You are following this question? You have no image because you see the danger of it, but I don't see the danger of it, I have my image and you are related to me, I am your wife, husband, father, whatever it is, girl, boy and all the rest of it. I have the image and you have not. Then what is your relationship to me? And what is my relationship to you?

Q: There is a barrier somewhere.

K: Of course there is a barrier. But we are saying what is that relationship. You are my wife - my god! - and I am very ambitious, greedy, envious, I want to succeed in this world, make a lot of money, position, prestige, and you say, "How absurd all that is, don't be like that, don't be silly, don't be traditional, don't be mechanical, that is just the old pattern being repeated." What happens between you and me?

Q: Division.

K: And we talk together about love. I go off to the office where I am brutal, ambitious, ruthless, and I come home and be very pleasant to you, because I want to sleep with you. What is the relationship?

Q: No good.

K: No, is there any relationship at all? At last. For god's sake. And yet this is what we call love.

So what is the relationship between you and me, I have an image and you have no image? Either you leave me, or we live in conflict. You don't create conflict but I create conflict, because I have an image. So is it possible in our relationship with each other to help each other to be free of images? You understand my question? I am related to you by some misfortune - sexual demands, glands frightfully active and so on and so on, I am related to you and you are free and I am not, of the images, and therefore you care infinitely - you follow? I wonder if you see that? To you this is tremendously important to be free of images, and I am your father, wife, husband or whatever it is, Then will you abandon me?

Q: No.

K: Don't say, no, so easily. Because you care, you have affection, you feel totally differently. So what will you do with me? Drown me? Hold hands?

Q: There is nothing you can do.

K: Why can't you do something with me? Do go into it, don't theorize about it. You are all in that position. Life is this.

Q: It depends if this person has the capacity to see what the truth of the matter is.

K: This is the truth - you have none and I have.

Q: See through it all and don't take any notice of it.

K: When I am nagging you all the time? You people just play with words. You don't take actuality and look at it.

Q: Surely if you have no image in yourself and you look at another person you won't see their image either.

K: Oh goodness! If I have no image I see very clearly that you have an image. Sir, look this is happening in the world, this is happening in every family, in every situation in relationship: you have something free and I am not and the battle is between us.
Q: I think that situation is in everything.

K: That is what I am saying. What do you do? Just drop it and disappear and become a monk? Form a community? Go off to meditation and all the rest of it? Here is a tremendous problem.

Q: I tell you how I feel first of all.

Q: But surely this is fictitious because we are trying to imagine.

K: I have said that madame; if you have an image and I have an image, then we live very peacefully because we are both blind and we don't care.

Q: That situation you have created for us because you want us to be free of images.

K: Of course, of course I want you to be free of images because otherwise we are going to destroy the world.

Q: Of course, I see that. But you say to us that situation.

K: We are not creating the situation for you: it is there. Look at it.

Q: I have an image about you, and I have had it for a long time. And there are different kinds of images. I have been trying to get rid of those images because I have read that they have created problems for me. Now every time I try to work it out with you and it hasn't helped.

K: I'll show you sir how to get rid of it, how to be free of images.

Q: I don't believe you sir.

K: Don't believe me.

Q: You are all the time just sitting there talking.

K: I am not asking you...

Q: Abstractions and abstractions. Me having an image about you means you are sitting up on the platform being an enlightened person. I am here as a listener, a disciple or a pupil. Now I feel very strongly that is really not actuality or reality because we are two human beings. But still you are the guru, you are the one who knows and...

K: Please sirs be quiet, he is telling you something please listen. I'll show you something. Please do sit down. I'll show you something.

If that image of the guru had not created a problem you would live with that guru happily - right? But it has created a problem, whether it is the guru, the wife, husband, it is the same thing. Now how am I, how is one, or you who have got the image about the speaker as the supreme guru - talking about gurus, the word means one who dispels ignorance, one who dispels the ignorance of another. That is one of the meanings. But generally the gurus impose their ignorance on you. This is a fact. Now we won't go into the whole business of the gurus.

You have an image about me as the guru, or you have an image about another as a Christian and so on and so on and so on. First of all, if that pleases you, if that gives you satisfaction, you will hold it - right? That is simple enough. If it causes trouble then you say, "My god, it is terrible to have this" and you move away and form another guru, another relationship which is pleasant, but it is the same image making. Right? So one asks: is it possible to be free of images? The speaker sits on the platform because it is convenient, because you can all see, I can equally sit on the ground but you will have the same image - right? So the height doesn't make any different.

So the question is, please: whether the mind, the mind being part of thought, and thought has created these images, can thought dispel these images? Do you understand? That is the first question. Thought has created it, and thought can dispel it because it is unsatisfactory, and create another image which will be satisfactory. This is what we do - I don't like that guru for various reasons, because he stinks, or I don't like that guru and I go to another because he praises me, gives me garlands and says, "My dear chap you are the best disciple I have". And so on and so on and so on. So thought has created this image. Can thought undo the image?

Q: Not if you are looking at it intellectually. Looking at it intellectually you are not using your senses.

K: I am asking that first. Look at it. Can the intellect, intellection, dispel the image?

Q: No.

K: Then what will?

Q: The thing that stands in the way is merely self, the I. You overcome this.

K: No sir. I know but I don't want to go into the much more complex problem of the I.

Q: You say the image but what do you mean by the I?

K: How does thought get rid of the image without creating another image?

Q: It feels uncomfortable perhaps with the image if the guru causes trouble, so if one can see the trouble then perhaps that guru can help?

K: You are not going into it at all sir, you are just scratching on the surface.

Q: Thought cannot get rid of the image.

K: If that is so, if thought cannot get rid of the image then what will?

Q: Understanding.

K: Don't use words like understanding. What do you mean by understanding?

Q: Getting rid of the thoughts.

K: Getting rid of thought. Now who is going to get rid of thought?

Q: Is it a question of time? Would it be that our energies are all in the past, and we need to think now.
K: All the images are in the past, why can't I drop all that and live in now?

Q: That is what I meant.

K: Right. Yes. How can I, with a burden of the past? How do I get rid of the burden? It comes to the same thing.

Q: Sir if one lives in the present, do the past images still come through?

K: If I live in the present will the past images come? Can you live in the present? Do you know what it means to live in the present? That means not a single memory except technological memory, not a single breathe of the past. And therefore you have to understand the totality of the past, which is all this memory, experience, knowledge, imagination, images, which is the past. I am asking. You go off from one thing to another, you don't pursue steadily one thing.

Q: Please keep going with one having no image and the other having an image.

K: We have been through that sir. I'll answer it, all right, if you want it. You have no image and I have an image. I want you to be the richest man, etc., etc. I have got an image, and you haven't. And I live with you, what happens? Aren't we eternally at war with each other? No?

Q: I can't drown him.

K: No you can't drown me.

Q: What am I going to do with you?

K: I am going to go into it. I have an image and you haven't. We are living on the same earth, in the same house, meeting often, living in the same community, what will you do with me?

Q: I would try to explain to him.

K: Yes, you have explained it to me, but I like my image.

Q: Sir we cannot know because we have this image ourselves.

K: That is all I am saying. You are living in images and you don't know how to be free of it. And these are all speculative questions.

So let's begin again. Are you aware that you have images? If you have those images that are pleasant and you cling to them, and discard those which are unpleasant, you have still images. Right? Then the question is really: can you be free of them?

Q: Go and listen to some music.

K: Go and listen to music. The moment that music stops you are back to those images. This is all so childish. Take drugs, that also creates various images.

Q: Isn't the division between wanting to hold on to the images and wanting to let them go.

K: Wanting to hold on to images and to let them go. What is the line, the division? The division is desire, isn't it? Listen sir. Listen. Desire isn't it? I don't like that image, I am going to let it go. But I like this image, I am going to hold on to it. So it is desire, isn't it?

Q: I feel that there is a pleasure motive even in...

K: Of course sir. You don't stick to one thing sir.

Q: If I have no image then the other person has no image at all.

K: If I have no image, the other person has no images at all. How inaccurate that is. Because I am blind therefore you are also blind. Don't please. This is so illogical. Do think clearly. Let's go into this.

What are the activities, what should I do so that there is no image forming at all? May I talk a few minutes? Will you listen to it? Let us think together.

Q: I think most people - I am sorry - I think most people in this place are, in your words, here for consolation, rather then any other; I mean it all gets such a bore really because the same words get used over and over again, and everybody is looking like a load of zombies.

K: I am aware that I have images - aware being I am conscious, I know - there is no question of it, I know I have images - right? I am an Englishman, Dutchman, or a Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic, Communist and all the rest of it, I have an image about myself and I have an image about you. That is very clear. If I am satisfied - both you and I have the same image, then we are satisfied. That is, if you think as I think, you like to be ambitious, I like to be ambitious, then we are both in the same boat, we won't quarrel, we accept it, and we live together, work together, be ruthlessly ambitious. But if you are free of the image of ambition and all the rest of it, and I am not, the trouble begins. What then will you do, who are free of that image, with me? You can't just say, "Well it is not my business" - because we are living together, we are in the same world, in the same community, in the same group and so on. What will you do with me? Please just listen to this. Will you discard me, will you turn your back on me, will you run away from me, will you join a monastery, learn how to meditate? Do all kinds of things in order to avoid me? Or, you say, "Yes, he is here" - right? He is in my house. What shall I do? What will he do with regard to me, who has an image?

Q: First I would ask you politely to listen.

K: But I won't listen. You people! Haven't you lived with people who are adamant in their beliefs? You are like that. You are so...

Q: It is best not to waste one's time.

K: We are going to find out sir. You see this is really a hypothetical question because you have got images and you live in those images, and the other person lives in those images. That is our difficulty. Suppose I have no images, and I haven't, I have worked at this for fifty years, so I have no image about myself, or about you. What is our relationship? I say please listen to me, but you won't. I say please pay attention, which means care, to attend means infinite care. Will you listen to me that way? That means you really want to learn - right? Learn, not from me, but learn about yourself. That means that you must infinitely care about yourself, not selfishly, care to learn about yourself - right? Not according to me, or to Freud, or to Jung, or to some latest psychologist, learn about yourself. That means, watch yourself and you can only do that in your relationship with each other. When you say, "You sitting on that platform, you have gradually assumed, at least in my eyes, a position of authority, you have become my guru". And I say to you, "My friend, just listen, I'm not your guru. I won't be a guru to anybody. It is monstrous to be a guru". Therefore it means, please are you listening when I say this. Or you say, "I can't listen to you because my mind is wandering." Do you follow all this? So when you listen, you listen with care, with affection, with attention, then you begin to learn about yourself, actually as you are. Then from there we can move, we can go forward, but if you don't do that, keep on repeating, "Oh I have got my image, I don't know how to get rid of it" and so on and so on, then we don't move any further. Right?

Now you have an image with regard to sex, that you must have a girl, or a boy, you must be a Christian - you follow? We are so conditioned. Now I say to you please listen, are you aware that you are conditioned? Aware. Don't choose parts of the conditioning. Right? Totally aware of your whole conditioning. One will explain what it means to be totally aware of one's conditioning, not only at the conscious level but the deeper levels - right? We are conditioned much more at the deeper levels than at the superficial levels - right? Is that clear? One is conditioned very deeply, and superficially less. Now can the mind - are you listening? - listening with your heart, not with your little mind, with your mind, with your heart, with your whole being - then is it possible to be totally aware of all this, the whole of consciousness? Do you follow? To be totally aware implies no observer: the observer is the past and therefore when he observes he brings about fragmentation. This is clear, isn't it? When I observe anything, trees, mountains, you, my wife, my husband, my children, my neighbour, and the politicians, when I observe from the past, what I observe brings about a fragmentary outlook - right? I only see parts, I don't see the whole. So I realize that, I see when I observe from the past there must be a fragmented outlook - right? This is simple. So I have an insight that says, don't look from the past. That means, don't have an observer who is all the time judging, evaluating, saying this is right, this is wrong, I am a Christian, I am a Communist - you follow? - all that is the past. Now can you listen to that, which is a fact, which is actual, which is not theoretical. So you are facing actually 'what is'. Are you? Facing in yourself what actually is going on? And can you observe another without the past - without all the accumulated memory, insults, hurts, so that you can look at another with clear eyes? If you say, "I don't know how to do it", then we can go into that.

As we said, any form of authority in this matter is the reaction of submission to somebody who says he knows. That is your image. The professor, the teacher knows mathematics, I don't, so I learn from him, so gradually he becomes my authority. He knows, I don't know - mathematics, geography and all the rest of it. But here, psychologically I think I don't know how to approach myself, how to learn about it, therefore I look to another, the same process. But the other is equally ignorant as me, because he doesn't know himself. He is traditional bound, he accepts obedience, he becomes the authority, he says he knows and my dear chap you don't know, you become my disciple and I will tell you. The same process. But it is not the same process psychologically. Psychologically the guru is me. I wonder if you see that? He is as ignorant as myself. He has a lot of Sanskrit words, a lot of ideas, a lot of superstitions, and I am so gullible I accept him. Here we say there is no authority, no guru, you have to learn about yourself. And to learn about yourself, watch yourself, how you behave with another, how you walk - you follow? Then you find that you have an image about yourself, a tremendous image. And you see these images create great harm, they break up the world - right? The Krishna conscious group, the Transcendental group, and some other group, you follow? And your own group; you have your own ideas, you must have sex, you must have a girl, you must have a boy, and all the rest of it, change the girl, change the boy, every week. And you live like that. And you don't see the tremendous danger and wastage of life - right? Can we move from there?

Now we come to the point: how am I to be free of all image making? That is the real question. Is it possible? So I will not say it is, or it is not, I am going to find out. I am going to find out by carefully watching why images are made. I realize images are made when the mind is not giving its attention at the moment something is said. Right? At the moment of something that is said that gives pleasure, something that is said that brings about displeasure, to be aware at that moment, not afterwards. But we become aware afterwards and say "My god, I must pay attention, terrible, I see it is important to be attentive but I don't know how to be attentive, I lose it and when the thing takes place it is so quick and I say to myself I must be attentive." So I beat myself into being attentive - right? I wonder if you see this. And therefore I am never attentive. So I say to myself, "I am not attentive at the moment something is said which gives pleasure or pain." And I see that I am inattentive. You understand? I wonder if you see this? I have found that my whole mind, make-up is inattentive, to the birds, to nature, to everything, I am inattentive, when I walk, when I eat, when I speak, I am inattentive. So I say to myself, "I am not going to be concerned with attention, but pay attention to inattention" - you understand? Do you get this?

Q: Yes.

K: I am not going to be concerned with being attentive, but I am going to see what is inattention. And I am watching inattention - do you understand? And I see I am inattentive most of the time. So I am going to pay attention to one thing at a time, that is, when I walk, when I eat, I am going to eat with attention. I am not going to think about something else - you understand? I am going to pay attention to every little thing. So what has been inattention becomes attention. I wonder if you see that?

Q: By fragmentation you mean choice?

K: No. Fragment means broken up.

Q: I mean by fragmentation you mean choice?

K: No sir. Fragmented. Sir is not thought a fragment? Or is thought the whole? There is a fragmentation taking place when I have an image and you have an image. In that relationship, that relationship is broken up, fragmented, it is not whole.

So I am now paying, watching inattention. That is, I am watching I am not attentive. I look at a bird and never look at it, my thoughts are all... I am now going to look at that bird, it may take me a second but I am going to look at it. When I walk I am going to watch it. So that out of inattention without any effort there is total attention. You understand? So when there is total attention, when you say something pleasant there is no image forming, or unpleasant there is no image forming because I am totally there. My whole mind, heart, brain, all the responses are completely awake and attentive. So aren't you very attentive when you are pursuing pleasure? You don't have to talk about attention, you want that pleasure. Sexually, when you want it, you are tremendously attentive, aren't you? And attention implies a mind that is completely awake, which means it doesn't demand challenge. It is only when we have images that challenges come. I wonder if you see this? And because of those images, challenge comes and you respond to the challenge inadequately. Therefore there is constant battle between challenge and response, which means the increase of images and the more it increases the more challenges come, and so there is always the strengthening of images. I wonder if you see this? Haven't you noticed people when they are challenged about their Catholicism, or whatever it is, they become more strong?

So by being completely attentive there is no image formation, which means conditioning disappears. Right.