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BR70S3 - When there is complete attention thought does not interfere
Brockwood Park, UK - 13 June 1970
Seminar 3



0:00 This is the third small group discussion with J. Krishnamurti at Brockwood, l970.
0:09 Krishnamurti: What shall we talk about?
0:13 Questioner: Could we talk about apathy and indifference?
0:16 K: Beg your pardon?
0:17 Q: Apathy and indifference.
0:19 K: Could we talk about indifference. We were talking about the other day, when some of you were here, about violence, whether human beings can live completely without any kind of violence. Because it seems to me a really major crisis in the world that human beings are becoming more and more violent, and we were asking ourselves whether it is at all possible to end this violence. Because one sees that there must be a change in society, in the structure and the whole social injustice, and so on, wars, there must be a change, and whether that change is to be brought about through violence, which only gets more violence and repression, or whether there is a way for human beings to live totally without any kind of violence in all their relationship. Do we go on with that? I don’t know if some of you were here - I think probably might want to discuss something else entirely.
2:30 Q: We can’t see the violence in ourselves although we seem to be able to see it quite clearly outside.
2:44 K. The gentleman says that one can’t see it, see this violence in oneself but one can observe it in others and in the world. Don’t we know when we are angry? Don’t we know when there is great sense of division in ourselves, between ourselves and others? And there is a form of aggression. Surely that doesn’t take very great deal of awareness to see that one is violent. I think really the problem is not only to be aware of this violence in oneself, but also to find out if it can really end in oneself, not an individual but in a human being. I think there is a great deal of difference between an individual and a human being. So if you want to discuss that, shall we go on with what we are discussing? Please, do… Or would you like to discuss something else? It’s a pretty warm afternoon, sir.
4:20 Q: I would like to discuss the difference between the conscious mind and the so-called unconscious mind.
4:38 K: Could we include that, that question, the difference between the conscious and the unconscious when we are discussing this question of violence? Can we approach this problem differently, which is, why is the mind divided in itself, as the conscious and the unconscious, as war and peace, as aggression and non-aggression, and so on - why is there this difference? Black and white, the racial differences, the individual opposed to the community, the various differences of religious beliefs, and so on? You know, this everlasting division in oneself and in the world. Can we approach this problem that way? Oh God, please. This is not a talk by me. This is supposed to be a discussion, exchange, a dialogue, where we are going to share together.
6:03 Q: Okay, may I say something?
6:08 K: Any question, not something else, madame [laughs].
6:12 Q: Its on the same line: how do I know where the unconscious mind starts?
6:17 K: We’ll find that out - wait a minute. This is not a talk by the Speaker; this is a discussion, a dialogue, and we must, please, do share in it. Let’s talk it over informally, in a friendly kind of way so that we all share in it, not just accept a few ideas or reject ideas or keep to your own particular ideals or beliefs, and so on. So, please, let us share together, which means really communicate with each other. So I think we might begin this question: why is the mind dividing everything? Why is there this division, this contradiction?
7:24 Q: The fundamental division of the individual against nature - the ego surviving against the whole environment, which must be the root, and it seems to me to be with the root of almost everything, every thought one has.
7:44 K: Yes, sir, but why is there this division? The ego, the ‘me’ and the community. The ‘me’ and… oh… and the you, the ‘me’ and God - why is there this tremendous activity of division all the time in our lives? Me and my wife, me and my family, me and my house, me – you follow? – country, gods, beliefs – this division?
8:21 Q: It would seem to me that the ego could not exist if it did not attempt to maintain the division.
8:34 K: Yes, sir, but shouldn’t we find out why this contradiction? Is it for survival? Is it that the ego is separate and divides itself against the community so as not to be smothered by the community?
9:00 Q: Is it because mind has the ability to think? He can think in the abstract and he can classify. And therefore in that classification he separates himself.
9:19 K: No, sir. Look at the problem in yourself. Why is there in you this division?
9:24 Q: Is it implanted by upbringing and education, in nearly everybody?
9:32 K: Is it, is this the fault of education? The fault of the society in which we live? Isn’t there…
9:47 Q: Is it something to do with the mechanism with which we look at things? We look at things in various ways. If there is some mechanism which divides…
10:05 K: Sir, the mechanism is the observer and the observed. This division again - why? If you blame the society; the society is what we have made it. So, I wish we could go into this a little bit.
10:36 Q: If we go into this corridor of opposites in ourselves, all of us together, shouldn’t the affect of it be that we all change in one flash?
10:58 K: Oh! [Laughs] Sir, have you noticed in yourself this contradiction? The ‘me’ and the ‘not me’, the opposing desires, ‘what should be’ and ‘what is’, the conscious and the unconscious - this division, this cleavage, this separation - haven’t you noticed in yourself? Now, why? Why does it exist?
11:37 Q: We have never known anything else.
11:42 K: Yes, all right, agreed, but why? Why does it… you are not answering the question.
11:48 Q: I don’t think you can answer that question. You can say that it is a natural order of existence, but it may not necessarily be that there is not some other order of existence.
11:58 K: I think we can find out, sir. Let’s find out. Let’s ask the most impossible question to find out.
12:04 Q: Doesn’t it come into being when a thought arises? The moment I notice when I start to think, I am separating from what I am, and I seem to be in a world of memory.
12:27 K: Sir, you see, sir, this is a tremendously complex question because there is the whole question of time - the yesterday, today, and tomorrow, the division between you and that, and the space between you and that, the past memories, the remembrances, and the present, which is not related to the past. There is this extraordinary division going on.
13:06 Q: Well, the fundamental division of the ideational world from the objective world.
13:12 K: Yes.
13:13 Q: There is one of the most fundamental divisions.
13:16 K: So, what is the cause of all this? What is the basis for all this division? Why does this division exist? Why can’t we live harmoniously, totally, without this constant contradiction?
13:32 Q: The division is the cause of not being able to live harmoniously but that doesn’t answer the question of why it is there.
13:41 K: No. That’s what I am asking - why is it there?
13:44 Q: Well, you know, it’s a fundamental fact of nature, it’s there.
13:50 Q: The thing is, why does it continue, sir? It continues because we want to alter, it seems, change it, and that…
14:01 K: No, I don’t want to change it, sir, I just want to see why it exists before I begin to change or do something about it.
14:07 Q: I don’t think that any such cleavage in a very small child for which the ego is everything and everything is related to it, and in the process of upbringing it is more and more opposed to certain things which then get a substance of their own and are generally becoming opposed - people, things, everything.
14:48 K: So, is it a matter of education?
14:51 Q: Not exactly education. I would think it is the normal process of upbringing, such as the existence…
14:54 K: So, you are saying, sir, it is the normal process to live a life of disharmony. A normal process of conflict, battle between the conscious, unconscious, between me and you, between my ideas and so on, so on.
15:12 Q: I would think that disharmony may be the origin of it, but wrong education and a wrong attitude to life does nothing to make it disappear again. That means that once this stage has been developed and there is that cleavage, and present education and present society tends by competition in schools, universities, professions…
15:42 K: Yes, those are all the methods…
15:46 Q: …to emphasise it more and more.
15:50 K: Yes. Then you are saying by changing the structure of education, structure of society, we can break down this disharmony.
15:59 Q: I should think so, yes.
16:06 Q: It seems to me that in education, particularly today where there are many progressive schools, that many people say this, but a child is fairly awake and he looks at the person who says, ‘I want to break down this disharmony,’ and he sees disharmony. We speak about it and yet we don’t do it on ourselves.
16:18 Q: Is it related to our collection of experiences and knowledge?
16:21 Q: I would like to hear some more about the validity of these contradictions. I think many of them are so artificially upheld and nurtured. I wish it could do more good to actually talk about their basis amongst ourselves…
16:42 K: That’s what we are… aren’t we, sir, trying to do that? Trying basically to find out fundamentally why this division exists in us.
16:54 Q: Isn’t it simply fear, and ultimately terror, and ultimately not going out of a door?
16:59 Q: We are separate. There is you and there is this person and there is another person - they are separate.
17:10 Q: Not necessarily. [Laughter]
17:14 Q: Haven’t we got caught up in the words we have created?
17:25 K: Surely there is differences between blue and black, between a brown skin and a white skin and a black skin and a yellow skin or purple skin, there is a big house, small house, and so on - there is surely division. But psychologically, inwardly, why is there this division?
17:49 Q: When I look at myself, it seems as if there actually is no separation. Intellectually there is a separation but in terms of my action and what I do in life, it is a unity instead of a separation. I may have an idea when I say that I should not do this, but I may still do it, and intellectually I will say I am divided against myself, I have gone…
18:25 K: But, sir, if… I mean, there is a contradiction there. I do something which I don’t want to do.
18:30 Q: Yes, but that’s intellectual conflict.
18:31 K: No. Is it contradiction? Is it intellectual when I want to hold somebody’s hand and I hit someone? No, surely it is not an intellectual concept.
18:40 Q: I think it’s very unlikely that we can talk about these contractions satisfactorily in a language and a vocabulary which is distinguished by its oppositions and by its own contradictions in any way other than on the level of contradictions. We are just going round in a big circle.
19:02 K: Is it the linguistic structure that makes for this division?
19:09 Q: You yourself have raised an interesting division, which I would like to hear more about - it might throw more light on it. You made a division between the individual and a human being.
19:20 K: Yes, I know. I will go… we will go into that, sir. But I wish we could go into this.
19:30 Q: So it isn’t linguistic…?
19:34 K: What, sir?
19:35 Q: It isn’t the linguistic structure exactly but all the emotional charges that become fixed within certain words.
19:44 K: Sir, look, can we put the question this way: as a human being, we want to live harmoniously, completely, without contradiction, without this contradictory desires and opposed desires, in total harmony. Is it possible? I am putting the question the other way round. Is it possible? And what are the things that are preventing it?
20:19 Q: I think it is that everybody has got a different conception of harmony.
20:25 K: Ah, no, no - harmony, which means no conflict.
20:29 Q: It must depend entirely who asked this question. Because if one type of mind asked the question, he is doing it because he wants a quiet life, egotistically.
20:40 K: No, no, I mean…
20:41 Q: If another type of mind wants it, its because of something else.
20:43 K: No, sir. Observing what is taking place in the world, observing what is happening in oneself, seeing that man has lived for, I don’t know, millions of years in contradiction, in battle, in conflict within himself and outwardly with his environment, seeing all that, one ask naturally this question. Not the answer depending upon some particular individual with his particular temperament and characteristic but as a question that must be answered as a human being, not according to one’s particular opinion.
21:26 Q: Are we born like that or have we been told we are separate, or are we born naturally like that?
21:39 Q: Isn’t it much easier, I mean lazier or whatever word you want to use, for the mind not… it means that the mind isn’t functioning. When you say that I am separate, it is much easier for you. It is sort of… you don’t have to watch and keep awake to something, you don’t have to… It’s sort of a laziness.
22:04 K: But, sir, don’t you ask of yourself this question?
22:05 Q: We can’t say yes, it is possible - we don’t know.
22:15 K: Of course we don’t know but we are going to find out. And where do we find it out? In ourselves, surely, because we are part of the society and all the rest of it. So, I am asking if you and I and others who are here can live in harmony. Why is there this disharmony, this contradiction?
22:46 Q: I see it is the movement of thought in comparison to the image-making, which so long as it continues then there is conflict and disharmony. Now, that’s what I am. The thing is, having seen this, where does the urgency come along? How can I see it so clearly that there is a burning urgency in me to put this aside?
23:15 Q: Sir, we inherit from all the forbearing experience of man - the need to struggle to survive and therefore to affirm one’s individuality.
23:33 K: Is this… does this disharmony exist because of the inevitability of death?
23:44 Q: The principle of survival.
23:52 K: Which means survival.
23:54 Q: Yes, survival against death…
23:55 K: Yes, survive…
23:56 Q: From the root of nature upwards.
23:57 Q: But if it was survival against death, many of the things we do, we go out and kill ourselves for this conflict… [inaudible] …and then its no survival. But then what does that mean? That has no…
24:09 K: Because we are afraid of death, so we cling to life and say we must survive at any price.
24:23 Q: This is an instinct implanted in us in nature.
24:27 K: Right. And the desire to survive, and that very desire is creating other desires which produce non-survival.
24:43 Q: Produces what has been called a parasitic farm.
24:47 K: Yes. And contradiction - you know, all the rest of it.
24:50 Q: Everything living on everything else.
24:51 K: Yes.
24:52 Q: I think it is very clear to say we have an instinct for survival which makes us afraid of death. And I’m not saying we are not afraid of death but I would like to explore more fully why.
25:02 K: Sir, we are trying to find out if human beings, you and I, can live in complete harmony within ourselves.
25:11 Q: Aren’t we afraid of the death of every idea that we have?
25:22 K: Yes, but you see, please, let’s stop answering each other – we can give a dozen explanations, we can go on endlessly explaining. Now, I want to… if you and I want to live with harmony, how do we… what is the root of this disharmony? I want to find out. I am really tremendously interested in it because I see the other way is the way sheer destruction. Now, how do I find out?
26:00 Q: Because you threaten my existence.
26:05 K: No, sir, you are not answering. I want to - please do listen to this - I want to find out. How do I find out?
26:17 Q: Look at it.
26:18 K: Now, how do I look at it? I know one’s life is in disharmony - that’s an actual fact. Now, how do I look at that fact, at ‘what is’, with eyes that will not bring about activity or action that’ll increase further disharmony?
26:48 Q: I would have to look at it in a fashion that was not judging it.
27:01 K: Do look at it, sir. Look at it, don’t explain it. Do I look at it with eyes that produce instant action of harmony or do I look with eyes that are analytical, and therefore postpone action? Have I conveyed…? No, I am not sure I have. If I see danger I act instantly, and in that there is no postponement of analysis or explanation. There is instant action. Am I looking with eyes at this question with analytical eyes, with eyes that are crippled with words, and so on? How am I looking at this problem?
28:54 Q: If think what you are asking us to feel, or to say…
29:14 K: Yes, feel. Feel, see…
29:17 Q: …or to explain, in some way it’s a particular conception of reality, the mechanism.
29:19 K: Yes, see, feel what… how you look at this question, sir.
29:21 Q: But you can only look for something if you know something perhaps of what it is, I am suggesting, so therefore you need some sort of conception of reality amongst us, which would be extremely hard for us to articulate, and perhaps we would lose a sense of that in our explanations.
29:46 K: How do we approach this subject? Go on, sirs, please. [Laughs]
30:00 Q: This means as long as we…
30:03 Q: This entity that looks - you used the word ‘looks’ or ‘see’ - but in fact, if you are looking with ideas there is no entity apart from the idea…
30:19 K: Yes, sir.
30:20 Q: The [inaudible], so-called, is really non-existent at that time as a separate thing. It is given over and absolutely up to thinking and can no longer see itself as separate. And looking that way, it is the ideas that are looking. There is no question about this. But if it looks at the ideas, which are after all only subjective pictures and size, then he no longer sees them. And the answer to the question is a void.
30:52 K: So you are asking me, are you sir, how to look.
30:58 Q: No, I am saying that the so-called observer, the entity that looks, is rather a fickle and subtle thing to find.
31:11 K: Yes…
31:12 Q: If this entity is the subjective pole of ideation, he is not there. It’s the ideas only that were there.
31:22 Q: Can I just question that? The part of your assertion that if you do in fact look at something with an ideation content, you are no other than that idea. It is a very common experience to have some sort of reflection during the process of looking at something with an idea in your head and to have some sort of [inaudible] in the brain, elementary interplay - you can save two ideas or three ideas. I know that… [inaudible] …would knock out the first part of the assertion entirely, but…
31:55 Q: It seems to me that if you look at an idea, which is a quaint way of putting it, but if you have an idea you do not see any actuality. And if you do see an actuality, you are not having the idea. So if you are thinking about something and seeing it, there’s a rapid alternation.
32:11 K: That’s right, sir. So, am I looking at this question - whether I am living… whether it is possible to live harmoniously without contradiction - as an idea? Or am I looking at it without the idea but the fact that I live in disharmony? I don’t know what harmony is but I do know what disharmony is, what is contradiction, what is this division. And am I looking at that division with an ideation of what is division? Or am I free to observe without ideation? I don’t know if I am conveying…
33:19 Q: Yes, indeed yes.
33:21 K: Which is it that one is doing? Ideation being analysis, explanation and the structure of words.
33:34 Q: Surely you can’t ever stop analysis because your eyes, your whole existence is based on analysis, on recognition…
33:48 K: Is it? Sir, is everything based on analysis? Here I am - just take this, sir. I have discovered that I live in disharmony and I also have seen when there is danger I act instantly without analysis. And in observing disharmony there must be an action which must be as instantaneous as in facing danger. Right? And I see that instant action is not possible if there is any form of analysis. Right?
34:37 Q: Yes, any form of ideation.
34:40 K: Or ideation. Now, am I… can I look at this disharmony without analysis? Without the whole process of analysis in which there is the analyser and the analysed, the division. I don’t know if… Now, am I looking at it without analysis?
35:08 Q: In which case there is no problem.
35:15 K: Which means - look, sir, look at this what’s involved in it - analysis is a postponement faction.
35:22 Q: Yes.
35:27 K: And the mind is so accustomed to analysis and it uses it as an escape from action. And it begins to discuss: isn’t it one is born with the analytical process - one gives a thousand explanations but the action which comes when there is danger doesn’t take place here. Now, can the mind see the truth of this? Not the verbal truth but the actual truth of the fact that analysis prevents instant action. If that is seen, we can proceed a little further. I don’t know if… Right? Do we see it? [Pause]
36:33 Q: What do you mean by instant action?
36:58 K: Sir, when you see something dangerous, you act, don’t you?
37:10 Q: But that can be due to instant analysis…
37:12 K: Wait, wait, sir, I am going… I am going to go into it a little bit. I see a snake and there is instant action, isn’t there? That instant action is the accumulated knowledge of the danger of snake, which is the conditioning of the mind to snake. Right? And therefore that conditioning responds instantly. Right? Now, that kind of instant response to danger is entirely different from the response of a mind which sees the truth that analysis is postponement of action. The two are entirely different.
38:30 Q: Then it is only a postponement is a negation.
38:34 K: Negation of action. Negation of action – let’s put it that way.
38:38 Q: Analysis is the negation of action?
38:42 K: Yes. Yes, sir - analysis is the negation of action. You understand what it means?
38:48 Q: Well, I understand…
38:49 K: Do, sir, listen to it, take two seconds, see what is involved in it.
38:53 Q: Analysis is the negation of a free mind.
38:59 K: Negation of a free mind.
39:04 Q: Rather than action.
39:07 K: Yes.
39:09 Q: Yes, but, sir…
39:12 K: And free mind must act.
39:13 Q: Is already acting.
39:14 K: Yes.
39:15 Q: But, sir, there is also a place for analysis. There is also a place for analysis.
39:17 K: I understand that. Of course, sir, there is a place. Now, I am taking… Do please put your mind to this. We said analysis is a negation of action or negation of freedom, and freedom means action.
39:33 Q: Why? Why should you have to respond to things?
39:41 K: Why should I respond to things?
39:44 Q: Yes. There are not snakes around us, why should we ever have to respond?
39:48 K: No, no, wait, wait. If you don’t respond to danger, you are finished, you are dead.
39:54 Q: There’s not always danger though, especially now. There is not always danger around our immediate environment. And then…?
40:03 K: There is danger. Violence is danger - to survival. National division is danger, is a tremendous danger for survival. Prejudice is a danger, and so on, so on. So, please, let us see the difference between a mind that realises the truth that analysis is the negation of action, and a mind that has been conditioned to respond instantly to danger.
40:47 Q: You have to find out what danger is. It may well be within you.
40:49 Q: Just how arrogant are you being, responding to something?
40:52 K: No, no, danger, sir, physical danger, I am taking physical danger. Physical danger, when there is physical danger there is instant response, which is the response of our conditioning. Man has conditioned himself from the beginning of time, probably, to the snake, saying, ‘Look out, there is a tremendous danger.’
41:21 Q: [Inaudible]
41:24 K: That action is entirely different from the action of a mind which has perceived the futility of all negation… of all analysis. I put it in different ways. Can the mind observe this fact of disharmony in one’s life without analysis and therefore immediately bring about harmony? Which is action. I don’t know… Right? Have I got my question clear now?
42:18 Q: If we could see with the same intensity that a motorist sees danger and puts his foot on the brake.
42:30 K: Yes.
42:31 Q: That’s better than the snake in this country.
42:35 K: All right, sir. I mean, right… [laughs].
42:37 Q: Is it a different mode of action altogether?
42:42 K: Quite right.
42:45 Q: To see the headlong passive flight of our ideas that’s something of the utmost danger is a different type of – ‘action’ is an unfortunate word - a different type of seeing than merely seeing the dangerous snake.
43:01 K: Now its clear, sir. The question is fairly clear now. Do we, do you see disharmony with all its contradictions and so on with eyes that are free from analysis, ideation, division? Otherwise we will live in disharmony all the time. And a mind that wants to live in harmony has to act. And this action is not possible when there is a great deal of ideation of any kind, when there are formulas, or when the mind is caught in analysis. Please... Now I am asking: is my mind caught in analysis when I observe this disharmony in myself? [Pause]
44:59 Q: It depends quite on the weight of meaning you put on the word ‘observe’. I think perhaps it depends quite on the weight of meaning you attach to the word ‘observe’. You could feel disharmony perhaps as well.
45:09 K: Yes, sir, observation means feel. Don’t battle over words. [Laughs]
45:33 Q: What kind of action have you got in mind?
45:37 K: No, sir, sir. Look, I have no action in my mind. [Laughter] Ah, no, not what kind of action I have in my mind - what kind of action takes place when you are not observing with analytical eyes? Observing the disharmony that a human being lives in, not my attitude towards action. Then we’ll begin to differ - it is your idea, it is my idea.
46:09 Q: When I am in front of a snake I know what to do, namely run. But when I am in front of a new idea or a new approach I don’t know what to do.
46:29 K: You don’t know what to do?
46:33 Q: No.
46:36 K: Why?
46:39 Q: I wouldn’t know which way to turn.
46:42 K: No, no - why? Why don’t you know what to do? Because you are not looking at it, are you?
46:48 Q: I don’t know how to.
46:49 K: No, he is telling you how to look. He is saying: can you look at your disharmony, at your contradiction without all the ideations that you bring when you look at it - your condemnation, your judgment, your formulas, your right and wrong, your analytical process - let’s call all that the analytical process - can you look at that disharmony in which one lives with eyes that are completely empty of analysis?
47:29 Q: Sir…?
47:31 K: If you say, ‘I cannot,’ then find out why you cannot. Can somebody tell you what to do and do it for you?
47:54 Q: Perhaps, yes. Yes, I think one could. Because my mother told me, ‘It’s hot,’ so I don’t touch it.
48:02 K: So you depend on somebody else to tell you what to do.
48:08 Q: [Inaudible]
48:09 K: Of course.
48:10 Q: [Inaudible]
48:11 Q: She told me, ‘Don’t touch it, it’s hot.’
48:16 Q: Suppose you didn’t find out if it’s hot, and if you touched it in defiance of own...
48:23 K: No, I didn’t. [Laughter]
48:26 Q: I think the question asked is that if only as a child one discovers it oneself…
48:30 K: Sir, look, we have come to the point, sir, that one finds one can’t do it.
48:37 Q: Yes.
48:39 K: That you can’t look with eyes that are non-verbal, non-ideational, non-analytical. Now I say, why?
48:49 Q: Because I look to escape.
48:53 K: Wait, wait, sir, go slowly. Why can’t you do it? Is it because you don’t see the danger of analytical observation?
49:10 Q: [Inaudible].
49:13 K: Danger in the sense that it prevents you from changing when life demands it to change. Come on…please…eh?
49:31 Q: When I see clearly that analysis is the barrier to understanding, I stop analyzing, but there is another barrier to me and that is the purpose, the object. Sometimes, it is no longer just the understanding but the purpose of achievement of…for instance, where you speak about violence, one tries to achieve nonviolence, and all these things. Therefore, the barrier is not just the analysis, it is also the purpose of a trying to understand.
50:09 K: No, sir, if you have a purpose, it is already a contradiction [laughs].
50:15 Q: I think so.
50:17 K: So, can you look at disharmony without a purpose, same thing, without a motive? Now, if you can’t, why? Just proceed sir, why, why can’t I see that analytical mind prevents action. Why can’t I see the truth of it? Is that I am not listening?
50:57 Q: Because in order to find that out you define extinguished and opposed, you have already analyzed that decision.
51:05 K: Sir, look. We are doing it now, do it sir, don’t…do it.
51:12 Q: I can’t look because that thought is swimming through my head.
51:17 K: Now, all right. Your thoughts go through your head…umm? Does that prevent you from looking?
51:21 Q: Yes.
51:22 K: Now, find out why it happens. When you know that you have to change and thought, this movement of, prevents you from changing. Then find out why? Its an analytical process but go into it, why?
51:45 Q: It comes on by itself, like on a screen, just goes on.
51:53 K: Surely it doesn’t when you are interested in something, does it? When you are completely attentive, the thought doesn’t come in to interfere. You observe, you are passionate in your observation, which means you are really not interested in radical change, and therefore your thought plays with the mind. It prevents you. Then, the question is why aren’t you…why aren’t you interested? When the house is burning, you understand…the house is burning…
52:31 Q: Then I know what to do [inaudible].
52:39 K: No, no. Please madam…you…no, you don’t know what to do when actual house is burning, but psychological mould is burning, and that fire is going to destroy us physically. So, you got to change, and why aren’t you interested in this change, in this psychological revolution?
53:13 Q: But I am [inaudible]. I look right and left and center and I am looking all the time and it doesn’t help.
53:24 K: [Laughs].
53:25 Q: It’s not [inaudible] case starts with not being interested so much as how can a division in yourself, which prevents you from…[inaudible].
53:36 K: All right, sir. Then find out why this division exists. You see, you go… we all go from one explanation to another and the explanation has no value when you are concerned with the same that is not the result of it…that is not the words.
53:56 Q: Why bother…as it is difficult to do it?
54:02 K: Why bother?
54:03 Q: [Inaudible]. K. Why bother not to live in violence, why bother…then one accepts things as they are.
54:13 Q: I was thinking of bothering process of finding out individual obstacles to…
54:24 K: Not only…sir…
54:25 Q: Any ideational approach.
54:27 K: Any individual…to me…the individual…me…we have been through all this. The individual is the community icon. There is no such thing as the individual. What does the individual means? The word individual means an entity which is not divisible, in whom there is no contradiction. Such a person is really is an individual.
54:47 Q: Mindless, instinctive, and intuitive action provoke even more violence…
54:53 K: What sir?
54:54 Q: Analytical.
54:55 K: What sir?
54:56 Q: I said would mindless and spontaneous intuitive action not provoke more violence, possibly, than analytical thought.
55:11 K: Sir, that’s just a supposition, sir. Look, I…
55:13 Q: Shall we say somebody attacks me spontaneously…[inaudible].
55:16 K: No, sir, you are asking questions that would be answered when I know how to live in harmony and I want to find out how to live in harmony. That’s my passionate interest because that is the only way one can survive in this world or the world can survive.
55:37 Q: Why he wants to survive?
55:42 K: No, no. Then, lets go and commit suicide, which we are doing, in a rather long [laughs] and round about way.
55:55 Q: Sir, I think perhaps I find some clue in my own physical way, one sort of violence I find that this must get attention and I have observed that if one focuses attention upon the muscular tension, tension disappears.
56:20 K: Yes. All right, sir, now…
56:23 Q: It’s a clue perhaps.
56:26 K: Now, why doesn’t…when you are concerned with this disharmony, why doesn’t the mind give complete attention to it…attention being non-division? Right sir? Non-separation…it means giving one’s whole mind and heart to observe, to listen. Why don’t we do this?
57:03 Q: Because one is frightened.
57:06 K: Frightened? Frightened about what?
57:09 Q: About what we should see.
57:10 K: What will happen?
57:11 Q: No, what we should see.
57:13 K: What…I can’t…
57:14 Q: What we should see.
57:17 K: What we should see. You will find out. Why should you be frightened about it.
57:22 Q: I know, but we are, in fact frightened of us.
57:25 K: No, no, no. Which means, you are not attentive. You are letting fear come in. As the gentleman pointed out, when there is a physical tension and you give complete attention to that tension, that tension disappears. It must have happened to you, probably, yeah. Now, why can’t we give the same attention and much more to this question? When you give attention completely, then there is no question of fear. Find…go in…lets go into it. Why does the mind refuse to give its complete attention to something that is so vitally important?
58:19 Q: It’s a very difficult thing to do.
58:25 Q: It seems to be difficult in finding a focusing point on which to [inaudible]
58:28 Q: I think the whole [inaudible] experience that full process of attentiveness is necessarily a fear that in a disillusion of the ideas, which remain your personality, your whole personality may in fact obliterate.
58:44 K: All right, we will…you see you are just supposing this might happen.
58:48 Q: I think its true to me.
58:51 K: Sir, did you listen to what that gentleman said? He said if you give attention, if there is a tension to physical strain, that strain disappears, tension disappears. Now, I am asking why the mind does not give its complete attention to something much more vital? What is preventing it?
59:24 Q: Possibly, each one of ourselves is wondering if [inaudible] is observing or [inaudible].
59:35 K: Oh, sir. I have no time for that, I want to find out [laughs].
59:45 Q: Too many people would like to know.
59:53 Q: Well, I have noticed I like physical tension.
1:00:01 K: Then, keep them.
1:00:05 A: [laughter].
1:00:07 K: Enjoy them. All right, there is no problem.
1:00:13 Q: But sir, if I am left in wood, I also want to get out and I don’t know which way to take, I am very much in the same situation. I also want to find but I don’t know how.
1:00:18 K: I am…we are finding out madam [laughs]. Have you noticed if you give attention to something you begin to understand it completely, attention being no division, giving complete attention with your heart, with your mind, to attend.
1:00:42 Q: Of course [inaudible].
1:00:50 K: Two minutes sir, right? Should we pursue this question of attention?
1:01:07 Q: Yes sir, all right.
1:01:08 Q: May I say something? It seems to me when I have been watching that I very rarely give attention. My attention is to think. So that it is very difficult for me now to give all my attention to this very problem when it comes in the usual way and small things have happened.
1:01:36 K: Is being absorbed in something attention? A child is absorbed by a toy, is completely absorbed by it. Actually, that’s different from being completely attentive.
1:02:01 Q: Well, in the case of physical pain, tension, or physical pain, you can’t have that attention if you are looking an aspirin or some other….[inaudible].
1:02:15 K: Yes, yes, yes [laughs].
1:02:16 Q: And the same surely?
1:02:18 K: No, we are now enquiring what does it mean to attend.
1:02:23 Q: You stop looking elsewhere, surely.
1:02:26 K: Do it…lets find…go into it, sir. Look at it. Am I…is you mind being absorbed by something? The something may be very interesting…a marvelous mountain, a beautiful picture, symphony or whatever, and person, individual, and all the rest of it…and that being absorbed in something is entirely different from being attentive. Is that right…umm?
1:03:04 Q: Yes. I think that it will be the distraction from complete attention.
1:03:08 K: Yeah. Now we will go into it. See the difference. So, we are not being absorbed or being absorbed by the…by disharmony…eh? But, we are being attentive to observe this disharmony. The two things are different. Now, what does this attention mean?
1:03:35 Q: I think it involves a certain amount of detachment.
1:03:46 K: Does it involve detachment, little or much? And, what do we mean by detached, detachment? Which means we are attached.
1:03:57 Q: The ego must not be involved.
1:04:00 K: No, not that. You see, sir, that must or must not imply that one is living a theory. Actually, I want to find out with my blood, I want to find out what it means to attend. I won’t indulge in any theory what it should be, what is in, I want to find out how to attend. So, in looking at that question, I have discarded any form of being absorbed by something, so I see that…that’s all. I cannot attend if there is any form of movement away from the thing, which is being attended to, right?
1:04:58 Q: I have noticed, sir, there was something necessary for this part of attention that is intention.
1:05:11 K: That is intention. No, I am not sure it involves intention. I just want to attend. Sir, shall we find out what it means through negation of what its not. Through denying or negating what is not attention, we will find out for ourselves what it is, right? Can we do that? What you say gentlemen? Please.
1:05:51 Q: I say it is not feeling of ‘I’ or ‘ego’.
1:05:57 K: What, sir?
1:05:58 Q: Attention is not a feeling of ‘I’.
1:06:01 K: No…right. So, its not the…what does it mean? Because you see, sir, we are saying or we are enquiring into this to find out how to live in complete harmony, which is to be totally attentive to disharmony and that is not possible to be so completely attentive to disharmony if there is any form of ideation as analysis and so on. So, my mind has completely discarded analysis. I put it aside completely and I also put it aside completely, the mind has put it completely aside any form or being absorbed in something. That’s a trick, like a child to be given good toy and for an hour is quiet. So, those two are put aside. Is concentration attention…umm? What? Why do you say no.
1:07:17 Q: Because it means that someone concentrating.
1:07:24 K: No, go into it yourself. Don’t enquire, find out, push it, find out more into it. We asked is concentration attention?
1:07:36 Q: This must be the case of concentration not meditation.
1:07:51 K: Sir, find out if you are concentrating and that you need concentration to do acts…you follow? Concentration implies, doesn’t it, a resistance, an exclusion, and it implies an effort.
1:08:23 Q: A decision.
1:08:28 K: A decision. A purpose towards achievement of whatever, a purpose, a motive. So, is inattention is their purpose, motive, division, which means any form of effort to attend. Now, when you have set aside analysis, absorption, effort involved in concentration, is your mind now attentive?
1:09:34 Q: I feel it tends to drift [inaudible].
1:09:42 K: No, no, watch, sir. Is it attentive? You said drift. Then, why is it drifting because we are not concerned entirely with the problem involved…umm…why? You come to the same point. If you are not interested in finding out the truth of this matter of living harmoniously and therefore understanding disharmony, in that understanding harmony comes, and therefore action, complete action. If you are not interested in that its all right, don’t be interested in it…hum. But if you want to find out, you have to be passionate about it. You have to give your energy to it. Then, why is the mind drifting? How can it drift? What do you mean by… Then, if it is drifting, how will you stop it. And then, who is the entity that will stop this drift. Another thought, which again is up, another division. Therefore, its not attentive. Therefore, when you see the truth of that, mind will not refer, won’t come into it at all. So, truth is something to be seen from moment to moment as you live. So, we have found several things. Attention is not absorption. Attention is not division brought about through concentration. Attention is not analysis. And a mind that is completely attentive, thought doesn’t enter with all its divisions. Now, is you mind like that?
1:12:03 Q: It’s quite.
1:12:04 K: No, no, don’t verbalize it yet, sir. We will see…is your mind like that, so completely attentive. Now, when it is so attentive and it is attentive with regard to disharmony and therefore free of ideation, free of analysis, free of all those things, and at that moment of great attention with regard to disharmony, disharmony disappears. Therefore, there is action of harmony, right? Are you doing it?
1:12:50 Q: What kind of fuel do I use if I don’t use my thoughts?
1:13:03 K: What kind of fuel do you use if you don’t use your thought? Now, madam, we said, is thought productive of attention? Is attention a matter of time? Thought is a matter of time. Thought is the product of time; attention is not. So, we have discovered something new, good. Thought, as we said, is the response of memory, right? Memory, which is the past experience, knowledge of all that is the past. From that background the response is thought, and can thought be where attention is. Attention is the present, isn’t it?. Thought can’t enter it.
1:14:32 Q: That means we are on two levels.
1:14:41 K: What?
1:14:42 Q: We are on two levels, we can’t stop thinking.
1:14:43 K: No, no. Are we? A mind that is in harmony is not living at two levels; not one level at the office, another level at home, and third level at, god knows, somewhere else. Is living a total harmonious life whether it is in…. You see, you don’t pursue this thing to the end.
1:15:11 Q: Does attention excludes the use of all the senses; not just thought but sight, palate, hearing?
1:15:23 K: Does attention exclude all senses? What do you think? I don’t know.
1:15:36 Q: It includes.
1:15:39 K: What do you mean by includes.
1:15:41 Q: We are listening…
1:15:43 K: Look at it sir, be careful. Go and watch it carefully. Don’t be too quick in answering, find out. Does attention include all the activity of the senses?
1:15:58 Q: But you said it’s out of time, so it could not be an activity.
1:16:20 K: Actions, sir, [inaudible]. Does attention include the movement of the senses? Put it anyway you like. Does it…huh? If one of the senses is not healthy…umm…can there be attention? If one of the senses, like eyesight, is not very clear, can there be attention?
1:17:16 Q: Of course.
1:17:18 K: You says yes?
1:17:20 Q: Yes.
1:17:21 K: So what? So, there can be attention without the movement of the senses [inaudible]. Wait, you follow, sir. Look what we are finding out.
1:17:37 Q: That’s what I am looking forward to.
1:17:43 K: So, there is attention in which the senses don’t operate. No, go with, sir, please, this is not a theory, for god’s sake. So, there is an attention, which is different when the senses operate, right? And an attention in which the sense operation is nonexistent…umm…that is, when one has pain, physical pain, one can attend completely…umm…and therefore that has an affect on the pain. You must have noticed all this, this is obvious. So, an attention, which is not of the senses is attention, and when there is the attention, which is the movement of, which is aware of the movement of senses, that attention is still a division, right? Look sir, now when the body is completely still and your eyes are closed and therefore completely muscularly, nervously, everything is very still, there is an attention, which is not at all of the senses, right?…Eh? Eh?
1:20:03 Q: [Inaudible] the body at that time.
1:20:09 K: No, sir, no. The body must be completely relaxed.
1:20:13 Q: You can feel it relaxed.
1:20:16 K: No. No. Sir, look. Sit now, please do try to experiment, just for fun. Try, sit completely still with eyes closed – please, I am not mesmerizing…eh?
1:20:36 A: [Laughter].
1:20:37 K: I am not trying to introduce a new kind of experience or all that nonsense.
1:20:44 Q: [Inaudible] completely…
1:20:47 K: No, it is…madam…I am not…you know, please. Then don’t do it, please, then don’t do what I am telling you. If the body is completely still, and it can only be still when the eyes are also very still, and that means the brain cells themselves are still, which means thought is not operating, then are you aware of your…of your senses.
1:21:35 Q: What if he hears.
1:21:40 K: What, sir?
1:21:43 Q: What if he hears something.
1:21:47 K: What is that?
1:21:49 Q: What if one hears, the hearing.
1:21:53 K: What is the hearing…you hear birds and your rumblings of your own tummy or heart or whatever it is. Sir, we said complete silence. You don’t hear a thing, you ever done all this? See, there is some humming noise going on of some machinery making a noise. Now, if your body, the whole being is completely silent and therefore completely attentive, what takes place? Is the attention then muscular? Is the attention then the result of control of the senses?
1:23:15 Q: No, I don’t think so.
1:23:19 K: Therefore, what does that mean, that attention is not necessarily related to the relaxation of the senses? It means when attention is when the senses are not interfering with it. Now, that attention, with that attention look at disharmony…uh…right sir? You understand?
1:24:09 Q: I do.
1:24:10 K: With complete attention at disharmony, therefore no ideation, no analysis, no absorption, therefore there is instant action.
1:24:20 Q: Would you please complete it, please.
1:24:22 K: I beg your pardon, sir.
1:24:24 Q: If you complete it please.
1:24:28 K: And when you go outside this room, will you have disharmony again? Will you be again have no peace? That’s where the test is, not sitting here. So, is it possible to attend so completely when you are outside? I think when one has really understood question of attention, then you will answer it for yourself, whether it is momentary, the attention being brought about through influence, by somebody else, or this attention is there because you have understood the whole…you have seen the whole process of this inattention. Therefore, if one has seen it, then there is not inside the room or outside, one is attentive.
1:26:04 Q: I think we should perhaps be able to see our reactions faster than we did before.
1:26:17 K: What, sir?
1:26:20 Q: Catch, catch the resentment before it comes out eventually.
1:26:24 K: No, no, no [laughs].
1:26:25 Q: Can I just ask in that state you got your eyes open and you are using thoughts.
1:26:35 K: No, sir, no.
1:26:38 Q: All right [inaudible].
1:26:41 K: Can you look attentively with thought at that tree? Look with your eyes open.
1:26:47 Q: But you are still using eyes there, so you are not really attentive, your eye is not closed…I mean…
1:26:57 K: Oh no, which means again you are going back. Can there be attention when the senses are in operation? Can the mind completely attend when looking at that tree or listening to that bird or attend to what is happening around one or attend in observing oneself. What time is it, sir?
1:27:37 Q: Half past five.
1:27:38 K: Half past five. We'd better stop, don't you? We go on tomorrow morning, shall we?