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BR70S5 - Can a divided mind perceive the wholeness of life?
Brockwood Park, UK - 20 June 1970
Seminar 5



0:00 This is the fifth small group discussion with J. Krishnamurti at Brockwood, l970.
0:10 Krishnamurti: I wonder if we could discuss, I mean together seriously and go into it very thoroughly, the question of looking at the whole of life, at life as a whole, all the activities, the contradictions, the dualistic struggles, the me and the not me, the good and the bad, the Labour Party and the Conservatives (laughter), and God and the devil and so on, you know this whole question of looking at every thing as a whole movement and perhaps in discussing that, talking over together, we might be able to find out how to live in this world, what the implications of meditation and all the rest of it, relationship. I think if we could get the real understanding of that most of our problems will be resolved, at least I feel that way. Would that be worthwhile, sir, if we discuss that?
1:39 Q: Hmm.
1:42 K: What do you say, I don’t….
1:45 Q: (inaudible) it must be.
1:47 K: You know we have divided ourselves as the body, the spirit, the intellect, and the emotions, the world and me, the community and me, seeking truth as something apart from me, the family and me, the… everlasting division. And in this division I feel all our problems exist. And is it possible to live in this... to live, not in this world, to live without this division, to look at everything as a whole? Do you think that would be worthwhile to discuss? Please, we can discuss anything you want. Shall we discuss that? Would it be…
2:50 Q: I think if we do discuss that we might also cover the question of whether it is possible, perhaps, having polished our self-esteem all these years to get beyond the limits of this topic.
3:10 K: We are going to find that out, sir. Let’s... shall we really discuss this? Would it be of interest? I don’t know what you feel for goodness sake.
3:15 Q: (general assent)
3:16 K: How shall we approach this question? One asks oneself, I don’t know if you do at least one should, how to look, how to feel, how to live, with a nondualistic outlook. The intellect with its division has a great deal of energy and it brings about its own division and in that division there is great deal of fun, great deal of so called ‘creativeness’ and a certain amount of delight. Isn’t there? Please share with me. I don’t want to go on. And emotionally too, in this division between the intellect and the emotion, there is great excitement, enthusiasm, a sense of driving energy and that’s fun too but each brings its own problems, its own conflicts and its own destructive sorrows and pleasures. And there is the physical abandonment with all the senses in play highly refined if one is refined, if the body is refined, that has its own vitality, its own enjoyment. And there is... there are these three divisions in oneself, conscious or unconscious, each pulling in a different direction, each inventing its own purposes, its own methods and disciplines and contradictions and that’s our life. Calling it good and bad, its pleasures, delights and enjoyments and all the rest of it. And the centre of it all is a purposive memory which is ever expanding, asserting, aggressive, violent and so on and this centre divides or rather a centre is always dividing, comparing, conforming, suppressing, accepting a pattern and rejecting another pattern and one is aware of all this. In every field of life there is this division - the artist, the scientist, the bureaucrat, the wife, the husband, the sovereignty of nations, the limitations of the individuality and the community - the endless division. Now, can a mind which is so divided, so contradictory, can a mind of that kind perceive the wholeness of life? Well, lets… don’t go to sleep over this, please. Hmm. And, obviously it cannot. Then what is it to do? After all, the relationship is based on this division. One shouldn’t ever talk about relationship, really, if you come to think of it because in that the problems of relationships are the problems of division and to try to find out right kind of relationship or to understand relationship is to sustain in that this division. So in taking all that in - the factual division, green and black and white and blue at one level, the feeling of good and bad, the fears, the anxieties, the contradictoriness of our life and so on - taking the whole of it, looking at it all, is it possible for the mind to look at all this as a total a movement of... nondividing movement? I don’t know how to put it. What do you say, please.
11:08 Q: No.
11:09 K: Now, if it is not possible, what shall we do? What shall the mind do that is broken up, that is contradictory, verbally, factually and inwardly, deeply it feels this tearing division and therefore never can see the whole of the universe, the whole of mankind as one. Please, sirs, what shall we do? How shall we look at all this as a total movement and not a separate fragmentary movement and so bringing tremendous problems with it? Please, would you help? (laughs) You must have thought about this or felt about it and used a word like ‘love’ or said to oneself: Well it’s utterly impossible. Only some gifted person has this peculiar quality of a total feeling and so one makes it an impossibility and therefore one rejects it right off. So, if it is your problem and it must be taking the wars, the divisions between people, the divisions between man and woman, all the travail of relationship, taking all that in looking at it all, how do you answer this question, this problem?
14:18 Q: You must start with yourself because…
14:19 K: Beg your pardon?
14:20 Q: You start with yourself and realize that the problems in the world is…
14:25 K: Yes my lady, we have said that. Now you start... how do you come to this feeling of totality? If one has that outlook on life, surely all the problems come to an end because in that there is no comparison, no imitation, no conflict at all and therefore no violence. So it must be a problem to you and how do you answer it?
15:13 Q: One tries to eliminate…
15:20 K: Beg your pardon?
15:26 Q: One tries to eliminate what one knows.
15:30 K: One tries to eliminate what one knows. Who is the eliminator (laughs)? Who does the washing of the brain and the mind (laughs)?
15:43 Q: Perhaps we are there already and we’re doing things or doing things is the mistake we make.
15:57 K: One cannot assume that we are like that already. How can one assume anything? The fact is, the actually what is is this division. If you go very, very, very deeply into oneself rather cautiously and enquiring, you will find there is always this division, this searching, this seeking implies division. Everybody, all the great so-called religious organizations have faced this problem and so they have invented all kinds of theories - the super-self, super-consciousness, the soul, God, the higher self and the lower self - you know you’ve been... you know all this, sir. This endless division and the endless conflict involved in it. The goal, the purpose, a principle, the idealism, the striving after. All that implies a contradiction and a division. Now how would... knowing all that, that is the absolute fact, that is what is without distorting all that both objectively and subjectively, outwardly and inwardly, what is one to do? Don’t please answer by a theory: One should, one must, if. All those are conditional response which have no meaning at all when you are faced with this enormous problem.
18:50 Q: If one sees this whole problem and when looking at it, can one do something? Can you... because the minute you say: I am going to do something. Who is... what is... it’s the same thing isn’t it?
19:11 K: What we’re... sir, there is the problem in front of you. You are the problem and then what? I listened, the other day on the television, one of the Archbishops was saying, when he was being interviewed, that all the religions have truth but their particular religion had the unique quality of Jesus and there it was, complete dualistic attitude and all the writers, all the artist, the scientists, in their own way. Even in silence itself there is this cleavage, this division. Everything we touch seems to divide and breed hatred, antagonism, every form of strife. We know this, I don’t know how much you know it, not intellectually but actually you know it, we know it, in our heart, in our blood, with our minds and what do we do with it? How shall we resolve this state?
21:20 Q: Sir, one sees that the fountainhead of this is the purpose, being purposeful.
21:35 K: What sir?
21:37 Q: Being purposeful seems to be the fountainhead of this tendency to division.
21:46 K: I can’t quite hear, sir.
21:47 Q: Being purposeful seems to be the fountainhead.
21:48 K: Same thing, sir, purposeful, have a purpose, have a goal, have an end. Our very... the structural, linguistic structure is divisive. We know all this, sir (laughs), then what? How do you answer this question? How do you resolve this problem? Or it is inevitable - the national divisions, the religious differences, the differences in social structure, the artist, the scientist, the bureaucrat, the housewife, the creative writer, the... - you follow? We accept that and live like that way. If that is all, then what is the meaning of existence, just striving, struggling? Please do take part in this.
23:20 Q: One must then try to accept.
23:21 K: Beg your pardon?
23:22 Q: One must then try and accept that there is this division and look at it.
23:32 K: We are looking at it, there is no need to accept it, is there? It is there, I don’t have to accept my nose. It is there.
23:47 Q: Then what?
23:48 Q: I don’t understand the equation of word ‘fact’ and the word ‘problem’ (inaudible).
23:50 K: Yes, sir. Leave the word ‘fact’ and ‘problem’, the thing exists, this division.
23:53 Q: Right, why is that a problem?
23:58 K: Why is that? Use another word. Don’t let’s get stuck by a word ‘problem’, we won’t use the word ‘problem’. We will say there is this conflict, there is this division and in division there is no good. Goodness is nondivisible. That is, goodness is where there is no division. The very word ‘goodness’ means that.
24:35 Q: Where is the division, outside or inside or where is this division?
24:51 K: It’s both outside and inside. The Conservative Party and the Labour Party, they’ve been at it, one has won and poor old the other fellow goes out the back door. (laughter). It’s terrible, all this. One is greatly rejoicing you know? And the other fellow sneaks out. It’s appalling to live that way.
25:21 Q: Our question is, can this division (inaudible).
25:29 K: You may not feel for the man who goes out the back door and rejoice for the man who comes from the front door but the two are... to live that way in life, to be identified with either. You know, this is happening all the world over and inside look the struggles that are going on between what is considered the good and what is considered the bad, the ambitions and the frustrations and the despair. It’s all inside and outside. Wanting to fulfill, to be somebody and then being nobody and the pain of it all. It may not be a problem, it is there and looking at it both outwardly and inwardly, can the mind be free of this division? Freedom means a non... a state of... a quality of mind, which has no division in itself.
27:06 Q: Yes.
27:11 K: Sir, I come to you and say: Please help me.
27:23 Q: Sir, how can you resolve division if you don’t understand it?
27:34 K: I do understand it. It is there. I understand very well. The intellectual division, the conceit, the pride of the intellect and all its activity and works. I know it. I have seen it. And also I have seen the poor man who goes out of the back door, helpless, despair, miserable, been turned out. I understand it. I see it in myself, in yourself, you see and do we understand it intellectually by looking at it, theorizing about it, giving thousand explanations why it is this way and is understanding the same as explanation?
28:46 Q: Sir, I understand that you can’t speak about it if you understand.
28:56 K: If I understand… now, let’s take that up a little bit. When you say: I understand something. What do you... what do we mean by that? I understand... one says: I understand it. What do we mean by it?
29:10 Q: It’s clear.
29:11 Q: That you feel it inside, something you feel that…
29:15 K: What is that feeling inside? How does it happen?
29:23 Q: I am aware of it.
29:29 K: You see. What do you mean by that word?
29:32 Q: It’s something you can’t describe, you just know.
29:36 K: I think we can. Please don’t say: We can’t. Let’s go into it. Let’s find out.
29:42 Q: When you say... (inaudible)
29:43 K: I understand danger. Uhm? I understand fire burns, I understand violence, what it has done in the world and yet I am violent, the violence goes on. So, what do we mean by that word ‘understand’? Is it an intellectual, verbal, conceptual perception?
30:16 Q: (inaudible)
30:17 K: No? Then what is it?
30:19 Q: An emotion?
30:20 K: Go into it, madam, go into it.
30:24 Q: But you do use that word ‘polyintellectual’?
30:28 K: We generally use that word intellectually, don’t we?
30:32 Q: Yes.
30:33 K: Yes but that... again division. You follow (laughs)? Then, is that understanding? A verbal comprehension, is that really understanding? Look sir, I understand there is this national division, let’s take very simple fact, national division, with all it’s pride, conceit, and you know all the rest of it, and one observes it and one sees one the causes of this awful, monstrous, brutal, wars is nationality and we understand that intellectually. I say: Yes, I see the cause of it, one the causes of it and the ten different causes, economic, social… you know, all the rest of it. When we use the word ‘understand’ do we use take all the causes and look at them and say: Finished, I am through with all that nationality, never touch it again?
31:58 Q: We try to reach the core of this whole thing.
32:09 K: How do you reach the core?
32:12 Q: Actually, I say it is a feeling again. It’s something I can’t explain in words. It’s enveloping on the whole.
32:17 K: Madam, I want to be helped. You follow (laughs)? I come to you or somebody comes to you and say: Please resolve this problem, we are human beings, we must (inaudible) of this. I want to understand, understand in the real sense, not intellectually, that’s garbage. There’s nothing to do with understanding.
32:39 Q: I don’t think one can touch one’s feelings either, sir.
32:49 K: No sir. That’s what I am saying (laughs). Again, there is a division. So, let’s go into this question of understanding, sir. What do we mean by that? When you see something true, do you say you understand it?
33:23 Q: It has to be experienced emotionally. It has to be experienced.
33:35 K: It has to be experienced?
33:41 Q: Uhm.
33:43 K: Oh, that’s… Who is going to experience it? You see that’s... such words are... linguistically, it is... it divides, isn’t it? To experience. So, do please consider for a moment what do we mean by understanding? One sees the truth, I am using the word ‘truth’ purposely, truth, that all organized religions, with all their circus, with all their show, has nothing to do with reality. That’s the truth of it. I understood it. It is in my blood, you understand? It is so and I don’t belong to any... and seeing that has liberated the mind from organized belief. Uhm? Seeing the truth of it. Now, how does it see the truth of it? Is it a rationalizing process, an intellectual investigation, in intimation of the dangers of division, therefore I will do this, an emotional response?
35:37 Q: It’s an action of awareness.
35:44 K: An action of awareness. Is it?
35:49 Q: Or an action of seeing.
35:52 K: Sir, do go, look at it, sir, do look at it. How do you see, how does the mind see the totality of that thing, all the implications involved in this organized, dividing, religious beliefs and dogmas and all the rest of it, immense propaganda. Uhm? See the whole of it at one glance and free of it completely at with one breath. That is understanding and therefore it has nothing whatever to do with conceptual imagination. It is not the result of reasoning. You can reason afterwards, see the logic of it very clearly but how does the mind see the totality of it and the truth of it and therefore the liberating factor of it?
37:14 Q: Eventually (inaudible) troubled by prejudice or emotion (inaudible) where to see it.
37:22 K: No, you are…
37:25 Q: Therefore, the understanding comes from a mind that’s completely changed.
37:30 K: Completely…
37:31 Q: Changed.
37:32 K: Sane.
37:33 Q: Changed, changed, completely changed.
37:34 K: Changed.
37:35 Q: Yes.
37:36 K: Aha.
37:37 Q: Because it’s in the…as this in the opposite in what I say, it is in a different state from the state which believes in religion. It’s a total change. The mind, which believes in religion cannot understand because it’s in one involuntary, passive state and the mind which understands the fatuity of the multiplicity of religions is in a totally different state, which is understanding.
38:17 K: Sir, look at it. How does it happen? How did it happen if you have changed, not being personal, how did it happen to you? Suddenly you see this and you say: Finished. From that moment you are out. Not, we may not be out from religious division we may be something else, how does that happen? I think if we could go into that little bit we might be able to answer the larger question.
38:55 Q: It seems to happen when the mind is empty, the only time I can remember is when it sees nothing (inaudible)
39:09 K: Madam, no, no, when the mind is empty.
39:10 Q: When it sees nothing in it.
39:11 K: No. Madam, it’s one of the most…(laughs). Do go into it, madam. How does this happen that the mind is empty. When the mind is the result of time, is the result of a thousand experiences, conditioned by society, by culture, by one’s own etcetera and so on, conditioned, how can such a mind be empty?
39:44 Q: There are such moments.
39:48 K: I - wait, wait. Go slowly: There are such moments. See the danger of such a statement. I know there are such moments. When such moments, the mind sees the truth of it and other moments it does not, then there is a conflict between that which has... which the mind has seen as truth and in the darkness, so there is a battle. There is conflict, therefore, it must be some quality of mind, which is... which is... which permeates, which exists, which… you know I don’t want to use word ‘continues’ because it’s time.
40:44 Q: Is it not, sir, an intelligence (inaudible) its own action?
40:51 K: Sir, do go into it with me, will you, please? Don’t make a statement, that’s all. Let’s enquire. How do you see anything new?
41:12 Q: When we feel that the mind corruption.
41:21 K: But my mind... one’s mind is corrupted (laughs).
41:25 Q: (inaudible)
41:28 K: Sir, look sir, the man who invented the jet, he must have known completely the internal combustion machinery engine and there was a gap between the two. Right, you are following this? The man who said: I know all about combustion machine, internal machine. And there must have been a state between knowledge and the unknown. Right, are you meeting my point?
42:09 Q: (inaudible)
42:10 K: And at that moment he saw something entirely different.
42:14 Q: But the knowing is the (inaudible - ‘feel’?) of the mind.
42:22 K: Yes, that is so, but I am asking: Look, how do you see anything new? Look... There is the newness when you discover that, when the mind discovers that all religions with their beliefs are most destructive, organized... suddenly sees (this might be ‘seizes’?) it and that that is the truth and is freer from that moment. How does that happen?
42:57 Q: One becomes confident one becomes part of it or becomes it.
43:08 K: But, I am asking, madam, how you... how does it happen?
43:13 Q: Some (inaudible).
43:15 Q: There is no voluntary action. It’s like seeing the word ‘Poison’ on a bottle, you just... nothing needs do voluntarily the action takes place.
43:39 K: Can we put the question differently? How do you see the totality of anything, the wholeness of anything?
43:58 Q: When I feel some infinite dimension.
44:07 K: Ah?
44:09 Q: When I feel some infinite dimension, I see.
44:13 K: Oh my lord. Not ‘when’, ‘if’…(laughs), look…
44:16 Q: Human (inaudible) is a constant way.
44:18 K: Look, sir. Observe yourself, please do, do experiment, with this, do it. You’ll see that you are in fragments, the contradictions, love and hate and violence, and…you know, all the contradictions. The centre which divides, thought which divides, as pleasure, as fear, as good, as bad… this endless division which is oneself. How do you see the whole of it at one glance? Or, must you look at it all in fragments and put them all together and you see all of it (laughs)? Do you see the totality of yourself? No?
45:17 Q: What with? You couldn’t because there would be nothing to see it.
45:25 K: Wait, do you see... yes sir, wait, wait, that’s a question we will go into in a minute. First, do you see it? Do you see - let’s put it more simply - do you see that you are broken up, fragmentary. Uhm?
45:42 Q: Yes.
45:44 K: Now, wait, go slowly please, let’s go slowly -
45:49 Q: (inaudible)
45:50 K: ...just go slowly (inaudible whisper - ‘two minutes’?). You see that you are broken up, fragmented – mind, the body, the soul, your one desire opposing the other desire, your purpose, your goal, your ambition, your frustrations, your pleasures – you know. You see it all broken up. How do... who sees it?
46:19 Q: Another fragment of the mind calling itself ‘the me’.
46:30 K: Be careful, sir, be terribly honest. Don’t repeat what… see it. Don’t repeat after somebody else. Do you actually see that one fragment of your mind sees the rest of the fragments? (general assent)
46:49 K: Ah?
46:51 Q: Yes, it is so.
46:53 Q: Yes.
46:55 K: Yes?
46:56 Q: Each fragment sees itself?
47:00 K: I don’t know, I am asking you, sir. How do you look at it, how do you look at these various fragments which is you? With your knowledge, with your particular specialized activity, your… you know, all this, all of it, outward, inward, how do you look at it, with what eyes do you look at it? One fragment looking at all the other fragments?
47:33 Q: When you see it you don’t seem to be there anymore.
47:40 K: Why isn’t there any more when you look at it?
47:45 Q: (inaudible)
47:48 K: Madam, do please be simple about it. You are trying to answer something without looking. Surely, most of us look at ourselves with... look at ourselves with all the broken part with one of the fragments, surely, that’s so obvious?
48:18 Q: But that’s (inaudible) more complex than that.
48:21 K:, Wait. That is not the point. How do we look at it, I am asking. How do I look at myself?
48:30 Q: Through your conditioning, through your... (inaudible), you’re bringing up the process of the whole movement.
48:40 K: How do... sir, don’t give… how do you look at yourself?
48:44 Q: With your brain.
48:47 K: Ah?
48:48 Q: With your brain.
48:50 K: You mean with thought?
48:51 Q: With thought, yes.
48:53 K: Yes. Now, what does that thought look at? When it looks, what does that thought say? What is the response of that thought when it looks at all the many fragments?
49:11 Q: It condemns.
49:12 K: Now. Wait a minute. Now, there it is, it condemns or it approves, right? (general assent) Now, what is that thought, which approves or disapproves?
49:25 Q: Thought.
49:26 Q: (inaudible)
49:27 Q: Individuation.
49:28 Q: You separate yourself...
49:30 K: (laughs) It’s one of the fragments, isn’t it? So, thought is fragmentary. No? (laughs) When I look at myself, myself being these thousand broken parts, there is a censor that is looking and says: This is good, this I will keep, this I will reject, this I will pursue and this I will destroy, this I will suppress, this I will… and so on, so on, so on. There is a censor in operation, isn’t there? Ah? And the censor is looking and the censor is one of the fragments. Right? Is that... that’s simple, isn’t it?
50:30 Q: Yes.
50:30 K: Now, can I... can there be an observation of all the fragments without the censor?
50:38 Q: There can only be an observation of all these fragments...
50:44 K: What, sir?
50:45 Q: Surely, there can only be an observation of all the fragments without the censor...
50:52 K: Not surely, but do it (laughs). You are again…do it sir, find out.
50:56 Q: We know the difference in taste between the two, between one fragment looking at other fragments and…
51:33 K: Can the mind observe all this, aware of all this without thought interfering with it? Thought which is remembrance, memory, experience, which is all memory all that, when that responds it is thought. Can the mind look at these various fragments including thought itself without the censor, without division as the observer and the observed? You understand my… now do we… ah?
52:40 Q: That’s our real problem I think.
52:42 K: Yes sir, that is the question. Now, will you do it, sir, please? You are all explaining and… come to the point, sir, put your teeth into it. If and when you look at it that way, is there a total understanding? The total understanding of this division, this fragmentation, so that the mind is free of all fragmentation. Then only one can use the word ‘understand’.
54:59 Q: But, sir, even if the mind has seen these fragments and liberated itself from them, it starts anew and creates more fragments.
55:26 K: Oh, (laughs) yes and if it does… it’s like saying: I have seen the foolishness or the idiocy of various separative, religious organizations and then go and join something else. Ah? (laughs) It has no meaning.
55:50 Q: Because the fear is (inaudible) persist in the old habit.
57:03 K: You see then, there is no gap between action... between the doing... between thought and action, I don’t know if you... Ah? Are we meeting each other? No (laughs)? Isn’t our action broken up? Uhm? That is, I have learnt something from a series of activities, which have given me an experience and these experiences are my memories and these memories have projected an ideal. Right? Are you following all? (assent) Ah? What should be. The perfect ideal of womanhood, manhood, godhood and babyhood and all the rest of it. What should be and according to what should be, I act so there is... in action, there is this division of the past with many experiences and the ideal, which is projected from the past of what should be and acting. So there is in acting this division. Right? The past, the future, the present modifying the action. Is that… please, shall we go on? Ah? You are coming, we are sharing this, communicating with each other? Oh no, (inaudible) come on, sir. And, so there is conflict in that. So, action is never complete. It’s always, it’s an action of association. Ah? Please, right?
1:00:13 Q: But in these… we do it, I mean we are always doing it and our existence is this and within this there’s the fear to lose an existence, there’s a fear…
1:00:28 K: Look sir, just look at this action first, just see, this... in this action there is always division, right? And so, every action brings more conflict. Uhm? Right? More problems, more anxiety or less and so... it is in that, uhm? In that inaction which we do, there is this division and therefore in that action there is conflict. Full stop. Now, my mind asks: Is there an action which is complete, which is not fragmentary? You understand my... you have understood my question?
1:01:25 Q: In other words, one is not the product of the past...
1:01:31 K: Of the past, future, modified by the present and so on. Now, is there such action or is action always fragmentary? And therefore always breeding misery and confusion and all the rest of the horrors that human beings go through.
1:01:49 Q: Isn’t it a spontaneous creation?
1:01:54 K: Beg your pardon?
1:01:57 Q: I mean spontaneous creation (inaudible).
1:02:00 K: I won’t... look, that word ‘spontaneous’ is the most dangerous word. Spontaneity can only takes place when there is real freedom. So, please do listen to this question. I see in myself action which is fragmentary and therefore, a breeding ground of endless conflict. So, I ask myself: Is there an action, which is not of this quality at all? This action is the action of the world, is the action of me in relationship with the world, me in relationship with my wife, husband, boss, whatever. In this action, this action is the action of the world of which I am part. Now, I am asking myself is there action which is not of this nature at all?
1:03:23 Q: If they are seeing the tremendous indulgence of this action.
1:03:33 K: Yes sir. Tremendous indulgence, mischief, misery, all of it, Uhm? Now what shall I do? Please go on, you are only listening and not taking part in this.
1:03:51 Q: This is something else out of this world then?
1:04:01 K: No, no, madam. You see, a movement out of this world, it is a contradiction. It is a division. First of all, do I see, which means you also, do I actually see as clearly as I see that tree and the shadows of that... the shadows, that action as the action in which we live, which is our life, is this divisive action, past, future and the modifying present. The past with all the experiences, the ideal which is the result of those experiences, with the antitheses of those experiences and memories and the synthesis between the two is today, which is again modified and our action is broken up that way, all the time. Do I actually see this?
1:05:29 Q: No.
1:05:30 K: (Laughs).
1:05:31 Q: I don’t think we see it.
1:05:33 K: Well why not sir?
1:05:35 Q: Because, sir, my life (inaudible) first person, my perceptions of the past and my memories of the past of what I am now, my hopes, my wishes, my ambitions for the future (inaudible).
1:05:49 K: Yes, sir. Do you see all that, do you see it?
1:05:51 Q: Yes, sir, but I think you are in a way making the discussion very difficult because you use words like: ‘divide’, ‘fragment’, ‘interference’. These are loaded words, which will not yet allowed members of audience to use (inaudible).
1:06:04 K: Well, sir, we said right at the beginning we said at the beginning or perhaps a little earlier: Words divide. Knowing that, we have to use certain words. Do, I come back to this point, do you, not being personal, see this division in action actually?
1:06:38 Q: Again same answer’s: No.
1:06:42 K: You don’t see it?
1:06:44 Q: No, sir.
1:06:46 K: Why not, sir?
1:06:47 Q: Only in terms that I just explained, the past and my perception of it are part of me now, the future and my perception of it are part of me now, what I think and what I do are all aspects of me. If I (inaudible)…
1:07:03 K: Wait, that’s what I mean. Do you see that?
1:07:05 Q: Yes, sir.
1:07:06 K: Now, how do you see it? How do you observe it? What is the factor of your observation?
1:07:20 Q: That is the question, sir, which I don’t understand and which literally has no meaning for me.
1:07:28 K: Sir, look, when you look out of the window and look at that tree, there is all this visual factor, light and waves, you know, all the things that’s going on when you look at a tree. Do you look at yourself, that is this action, as you look at the tree, completely objectively, nonemotionally, nonintellectually? You look at that tree. You don’t think(?) how lovely, how beautiful, how ugly, oh that tree has broken its branches and so on, so on and so on but just look. Now, do you look at yourself, at this fragmentation in action, with that same look, though it is not a solid thing like a tree and we are told tree is not solid but that doesn’t matter? Uhum? Do you look at it the same way, so clearly? And if you say I can’t, why not? What’s the difficulty? Is it you are afraid to look? And if you... because fear means what might happen if you did look so clearly at yourself, which means you are already projecting the fear and therefore you are not looking. When you look at that tree, you look. It might fall down, it might hurt you, it might pull this house down but at the moment, you look. Can I... can you look at this... at yourself with that same dispassionate... with an outlook which is not touched at all by what you look at?
1:09:58 Q: Isn’t the difficulty the constant activity of the mind which we’ve stilled?
1:10:11 K: All right, then what will you do, you have constant activity? If that activity is going on when you’re looking, you can’t look, which means you are really not interested in looking, which means you are really not interested in listening to anything… you know… look, if you are a mother, when your child cries you are there, baby cries you are there, aren’t you? Whatever you been doing, your attention is there. Uhm? Why is not this attention here when you have to look at yourself? Why does the mind chatter? Which means, you are not really interested in it and I ask myself: Why? Why aren’t you interested in it? When this is the greatest thing... problem in life, why aren’t you interested in it?
1:11:26 Q: (inaudible) circles (inaudible) for dear life and you think that it knows.
1:11:50 K: I beg your pardon?
1:11:51 Q: Because it holds on for dear life and you think that it knows (inaudible)
1:11:52 K: Madam, don’t say these things (laughs). I can... there is no meaning, if you don’t mind my saying so. You don’t do that when you have a baby. The mother says: My God I have so many things, let is cry. You know.
1:12:09 Q: (Inaudible) experience circumstance most of the time.
1:12:19 K: No madam, don’t say all… the fact is you are not interested. Why?
1:12:25 Q: I don’t see it as a danger.
1:12:28 K: Ah?
1:12:29 Q: I don’t see it as a danger, that’s why?
1:12:34 K: Why not madam?
1:12:37 Q: Because of (inaudible) fragmentation, I can’t see it, the fragmentation.
1:12:44 K: No, you are not answering the question, why aren’t you interested when the house is burning?
1:12:48 Q: Because I don’t know it’s burning.
1:12:49 K: Who is going to tell you?
1:12:52 Q: Nobody, nobody can tell me.
1:12:59 K: Therefore what will you do? Just let the house burn, your family destroyed, you’re... you know all the rest of it? You don’t…
1:13:10 Q: (inaudible) problem we don’t see that the house is burned.
1:13:21 Q: This is stupid country divided by two parties but we see them.
1:13:29 K: Yes, sir. This two party or one party in Russia, two parties here and you know all... Don’t we see this obvious thing? Which means the politicians don’t care.
1:13:55 Q: No real love.
1:13:59 K: Madam, yes (laughs). Then you go and talk to these politicians, no real love, what are you talking about? We all want votes. (laughter)
1:14:17 Q: If we do see anything slightly, we want to escape to something else.
1:14:25 K: Don’t escape, sir, don’t repeat the... don’t escape, look.
1:14:29 Q: But one sees, one’s escaped sometimes. Q(MZ?): Sir, the problem of the mind looks at itself, which is fragmented and it remains fragmented but not seen doesn’t it?
1:14:45 K: Yes, it does. So what will you do? When you look your look is fragmented then what will you do? Don’t say it is fragmented and… does an explanation. What is the next step? Q(MZ?): But that perception remains incomplete in its own fragments. Therefore...
1:15:06 K: Then you’ll continue, then you’ll continue then you will say: It’s impossible. And therefore the very impossibility of it destroys your energy. Q(MZ?): Well, doesn’t it say (inaudible) it’s impossible, but one remains in (inaudible) action.
1:15:27 K: Madam, push it more.
1:15:31 Q: That action, which is fragmentary, it changes your opinion about it, changes whether you should have done this or that. But there is an action, it seems to me, which I would say I won’t use a word at all. There is an action that you never question as to whether you should have done that or the other. It was right. It seems to me that thinking about it, the first one.
1:15:54 K: How does that happen?
1:15:55 Q: I don’t know but it happens.
1:15:59 K: May madam...
1:16:01 Q: Because one is pushing to find out.
1:16:06 Q: I (inaudible) one wants to find out an action, which is not this action, which keeps changing. One wants this different action…
1:16:15 K: I don’t want anything. I want to see first of all I realize my actions are fragmentary and therefore destructive, therefore… all the rest of it and in observing this action, one of the fragments is observing it and therefore it is still fragmentary and I go round and round that vicious circle. What am I... what is the mind to do or not to do to break through? Don’t say: Well occasionally I have this...
1:16:54 Q: Oh no, no.
1:16:55 Q: This thought is fragmented looking altogether. (inaudible).
1:16:57 Q: May I continue, sir?
1:17:00 K: Please, madam, continue.
1:17:03 Q: I am sorry. The mind has seen that it’s fragmentary and it’s seen that this action, which follows, is an action, which is undesirable and must change.
1:17:14 K: You see (laughs).
1:17:15 Q: I am probably using the wrong words but what I have got is real, I mean…
1:17:20 K: The moment you use the word ‘must’, the moment change. We are talking, madam, do please listen. We are saying, asking, or enquiring into this question of fragmentation. The mind being fragmented and all its activity being fragmented, broken up such a mind can’t see the totality of anything - the whole universe, the whole of man, the whole of man’s struggle, the entire sorrow of man, all that - it can’t see it. Therefore, it must live without seeing the total, always in fragment and therefore always sorrow. Now, can the mind see this whole life as a total movement? That is the question we have begun and we are still asking it.
1:18:38 Q: May I ask you a question, sir? If you look at the right hand side of an apple and the left side of an apple, do you refer to those as fragments? If you turn the apple around, the right hand side and left hand side (inaudible).
1:18:58 K: No, of course not sir. It is an apple (laughs). It is an apple. You don’t say it is right side of an apple or the wrong side of an apple.
1:19:07 Q: (inaudible) any other option, (inaudible) the right side of anything, any person, the left hand side, I do not regard my right hand side as a fragment of myself. I regard it as a part, my mind labels but (inaudible) it does not necessarily fragment and it does not seem to me that (inaudible).
1:19:29 K: Sir, don’t you call yourself an Englishman?
1:19:31 Q: I call myself first of all, sir, a man.
1:19:39 K: (laughs). Don’t you, I am not talking to you, appealing to you, personally asking you this question personally, don’t you say: I am Protestant, I am a Catholic, I am British, French? Apart from the passport and all that stuff, inwardly don’t you feel that?
1:19:58 Q: Of course, do you call that (inaudible) ‘fragmentation’ (inaudible)?
1:20:01 K: I call that ‘fragmentation’.
1:20:05 Q: Then I think, sir, we would have dispute over terms. (Laughter).
1:20:10 K: What, what?
1:20:11 Q: He says we would have a dispute on terms.
1:20:16 K: No, no, no, sir. Look, not dispute on terms, sir, not dispute over words. When I call myself a Communist or a Catholic and I feel it, not just intellectually but actually a practicing Catholic with all the belief, with all the implications involved in it, savior, prayer, the whole of it, confession, obedience and a Communist feels it the same with the same ardor and with the same passion there is no relationship. There is a division and therefore they are at each other’s throat. It is not a matter of verbal distinction, it’s a matter of profound feeling. I am right, there is God, Jesus is my savior and the other fellow says nonsense. Now, can this mind which knows this fragmentation, Communist - Catholic, see the totality of the his the conditioning, the totality, not just the particular religious conditioning or the nonconditioning in a... but... and the conditioning of the Communist in a different way, see the totality of all conditioning of man, the truth of it, which is the mind, the me, the whole structure is an entity of conditioning. Do I see the whole of it and therefore the truth of this conditioning? And therefore, when there is conditioning, I cannot possibly see the wholeness of anything.
1:22:49 Q: But (inaudible) what you have just said is that can you see the whole... can you see the conditioning, the wholeness of the conditioning, then you say where there is conditioning how can you possibly see...
1:23:15 K: That’s it, sir, quite right.
1:23:16 Q: ...the wholeness, how can you see the wholeness of the conditioning?
1:23:17 K: Therefore, I am asking you are you aware of your conditioning? If you are aware of your conditioning, as a Catholic, whatever it is, if you are aware of it, then what takes place?
1:23:38 Q: Deconditioning, the end of conditioning. To be aware of conditioning is the end of it.
1:23:48 K: Is that so actually with you, sir?
1:23:50 Q: I think if I see something deeply…
1:23:54 K: No, not if, not if, (laughs). Look sir, the Communist through his conditioning, through his reading, through Leninism, Marxism, Maoism and all the rest of it, he is completely convinced. He is conditioned as the Catholic is conditioned. How can that mind, which includes yours, how can that mind see the whole thing of it, whole nature of this conditioning? It can’t because it is conditioned, therefore it has to be aware of its own conditioning. Are you aware of it? If you are aware of it, what is the state of the mind that is looking at the conditioning? Does it want to get rid of it, does it...? You know, all the rest of it. Or does it merely look without any movement of thought?
1:25:15 Q: Seems to be one thing.
1:25:25 K: What is one thing?
1:25:29 Q: The same thing, this conditioning and looking at the conditioning just seems to be the same, (inaudible)
1:25:39 K: No, madam. No, no, no, please. We said: Being aware of one’s conditioning, what does that mean? When you are aware of your conditioning, are you aware... can you look at your conditioning without any movement of thought, any movement of choice? If there is any movement of choice, then it is a movement of fragmentation. Can you look at it that way?
1:26:23 Q: If everything is fragmented because everybody’s action is fragmented, I won’t do anything more. I would just look at it is.
1:26:45 Q: Isn’t when we are in sympathy you speak about this process where we take our memory and we approach the present with the memory and we change it in regards to our desires of the future and isn’t this process more than... you take the example of the Communist or the Catholic but really in a society today that isn’t so strong anymore.
1:27:14 K: No but go deeper, sir, that is only very superficial. Go deeper. You mean... I took that as an indication of the outward conditioning but look at it deeper you’ll find out how we... how the mind condition itself all the time, through memory…
1:27:32 Q: It is constant (inaudible)
1:27:34 K: Therefore, go into it, sir. Find out how the mind is all the time conditioning itself. A prejudice has been formed: I don’t like you. That’s a conditioning because you say something which is not nice to me. You praise me and I... you follow? There is a conditioning going on all... can the mind look at this conditioning without any choice? Not the crude forms of conditioning, which is fairly obvious.
1:28:26 Q: Again, sir, such looking couldn’t be (inaudible) individual in that case.
1:28:37 K: Obviously not. Therefore we have discovered something. Such a look is the total look and therefore doesn’t belong to anybody. It’s not your personal, intelligent outlook.
1:28:58 Q: Isn’t that still a separation (inaudible)
1:29:04 K: Beg your pardon?
1:29:07 Q: Isn’t that still a separation?
1:29:10 K: No, no. You haven’t... please do listen. Do it. How can there be separation when the mind looks without any choice, without any movement of choice? Where is there separation in which there is no like and dislike, no prejudice, no commitment? Oh, I won’t go into...
1:29:44 Q: And yet, within this, physically, there has to be choice, I mean...
1:29:57 K: Oh obvious, sir, obvious.
1:29:59 Q: ...you know.
1:30:00 K: Don’t... You see that? What is the time, sir?
1:30:09 Q: 5:30, sir.
1:30:13 K: We better stop don’t you? Shall we continue with this tomorrow?
1:30:20 Q: Yes.