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.