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BR70S6 - What is the quality of the mind that has seen the effects of division?
Brockwood Park, UK - 21 June 1970
Seminar 6



0:01 This is the sixth small group discussion with J. Krishnamurti at Brockwood, l970.
0:09 Krishnamurti: Shall we go with what we were talking about yesterday? Shall we?
0:16 Questioner: Just as we finished yesterday someone sitting over there said, ‘The thing that observes all the fragments in their totality must be impersonal,’ and you agreed. Could you talk about the nature of this impersonal observational observer which is able to look at the totality of fragments as you yesterday at the tree outside?
0:53 K: That’s rather tail end of it, wasn’t it? Wouldn’t you... Wouldn’t somebody go over what we discussed yesterday? We were saying yesterday - I don’t know why I have to repeat it but I’m sorry you can’t go over it yourself - we were saying yesterday that the fundamental cause of all this conflict and misery is this fragmentation of the mind in all its activities. This fragmentation exists in every department of our life: the scientist, the artist, the bureaucrat, the housewife, the politician and so on - and the priest. And is it possible for a mind though so broken up to have a comprehensive, a total understanding of all this? And we said that it is impossible. And it is only when the mind sees the whole thing as a total movement - not divided as me and the world, the me and the society, the me and the ideal, the ideal being a self-deceptive activity - it’s only when we can see this life, this universe, the extraordinary nature of ourselves and the thing round us as a whole, then only there is a possibility of an action which does not breed further division, further contradiction and therefore further confusion. What is a mind to do or not to do when it realises or is aware choicelessly of what is actually going on within oneself? Most of us, if we are at all aware of ourselves, we see how fragmented we are, how our activities contradict each other, how thought breaks life as the past, the present and the future, how thought breaks the whole movement of life into time as the past, the present and the future. And the intellect divides life too with all its extraordinary capacity to go to the moon, to invent all this monstrous destruction, machinery of war and all the technological knowledge and so on. So the intellect is separate from our affections, from our tendencies. So one... So when one is really deeply aware of all this - the division between the conscious and the unconscious and all the contents of the unconscious and their contradictions - when you... when one is really, deeply, profoundly aware of all this fragmentation and see what is implied, then what is the quality of the mind that is aware of these fragmentations? I think that’s where we left off more or less. Isn’t that right? Now if we can this morning – please, I am not preaching a sermon or I am giving instructions of what to do because I have a horror of all that because that merely becomes a repetitive, rather idiotic business, silly - but if each one of us could really enter into this, find out for ourselves the quality of a mind that is non-fragmented, that looks at everything as a whole. The whole of this world though geographically divided, man has divided into nationalities, races, creeds, religious beliefs, dogmas, economic levels and so on - all the rest of it. One... What is the quality of the mind that sees all this as a whole so that that quality doesn’t breed... doesn’t bring about any conflict outwardly or inwardly in its activities? If you have followed all this from yesterday and from the previous talks, discussions, you must have come upon this. You must have found out for yourself. So let us go into it again, please, if we may. Is one aware without any purpose, without any choice or without any direction, prejudice, of this fragmentation? Please, let’s go step by step into it. Are you aware of it?
8:35 Q: Can I just say something? I feel aware to a certain extent. I only discovered your books a month ago so I have never read very much at all...
8:48 K: Don’t bother to read. Scrap it.
8:50 Q: No, it meant something but I realise now it only meant something intellectually. Since I have come here I have been trying to understand what you say and I can remember, I have had a moment when I have felt when I was painting abroad, when all tension had gone, when I looked at the landscape and I could have absorbed everything that was there, it came in. Now that’s only a moment. What I cannot feel yet how one can have this same feeling of nothingness and yet everything and part of it or within relationships.
9:21 K: We’ll come to that, madame, we’ll come to that. First let us see if we are aware of our conditioning, of our fragmentation. And in this fragmentation we establish relationships with nature, with other human beings and so on, and therefore that relationship must also be fragmentary. One may have an occasional feeling of the wholeness of life, the beauty of it, the intensity of it, the extraordinary passionate joy of it, but that isn’t good enough. It becomes then a memory and one wants to live in a past memory or resuscitate it by thinking about it. It is still a dead thing. So if we could begin by enquiring if one is aware of all the... of the many fragments of which we are, that may help us to look further. If I am aware of my fragmentation I find that I condemn some and I... and I cherish others. Don’t you? The like and the dislike, the remembrances that have been a great pleasure, great delight, of great delight, and things that have been sorrowful and rather unpleasant, ugly, one puts tries to put it away. So in that also there is a contradiction, there is a division, there is a fragmentation. I see that. One can observe that fairly clearly, consciously, without too much analysis. One can observe it very easily. But the difficulty arises at the deeper levels. Can one observe the unconscious movements of the mind in the same way? And then discover really that there is no division between the conscious and the unconscious at all. Can we go along, please? No, please, don’t... Share it, let’s share it together, don’t let me sit on a platform and talk a lot of words. That’s no meaning. Isn’t it very difficult to examine the fragmentation at the deeper levels?
12:56 Q: Does it not produce sometimes intense suffering? And how can one overcome the suffering from being a spectator of this fragmentation?
13:12 K: Why should you suffer, madame, when you observe? Why should there be sorrow? I am observing myself: sorrow then becomes self pity.
13:28 Q: Perhaps because in my profession I am always helping the wounded or the sick.
13:38 K: Yes.
13:39 Q: This has quite complicated...
13:41 K: But why should one... That’s a different... No, please, just let’s go step by step and not bring in the other. Can one look at the deeper levels of fragmentations of oneself?
14:02 Q: How does one look at the unconscious?
14:10 K: Find out, madame. How does one look? Don’t ask me, I’ll... we’re both sharing.
14:16 Q: I wouldn’t know when I have reached the unconscious level.
14:22 K: Don’t you know when you are doing something which has a very deep motive and you suddenly discover that motive in the very action of...?
14:41 Q: Yes, that’s happened.
14:44 K: Not happened. Don’t you discover as you’re looking at somebody who has said that he’s a Catholic, all your prejudices rising? Or a Communist or a German or a Hindu or a Muslim or God knows what. Don’t you find that?
15:07 Q: Yes, but that’s conscious.
15:10 K: Is it?
15:11 Q: It can’t be conscious because it happens without any volition on your part.
15:17 K: Yes. So there are all the deep laying... layers of prejudices of which most of us are unconscious, of which most of us are unaware. And so the question arises whether these various prejudices, racial conditionings, communal, cultural inheritance of thousand years, have they to be examined bit by bit, analysed, or can they be looked at totally at once? You understand what I’m...? See the whole thing.
16:00 Q: There is a heaviness that comes with trying to look at this terribly...
16:06 K: There is a heaviness that comes when you look at it. What do you mean heaviness? Your mind is lazy? Your body is rather slack? You’re tired, indolent, you have had too much food, too much sleep, too much exercise, whatever it is?
16:24 Q: I think it is very much bound up with the condemnation and the suffering is bound up with the condemnation.
16:31 K: I don’t quite see why one suffers at all when you observe yourself.
16:36 Q: Because you condemn.
16:37 K: No, no. No, sir, watch it, sir, go into it. Why do you suffer when you watch yourself? What’s the idea?
16:52 Q: Because you have to overcome a resistance.
16:56 K: Or it is self pity?
16:57 Q: One’s comparing.
16:58 K: Do watch it, please. Why do I…
17:00 Q: Then you don’t want to see it so you go (inaudible)
17:02 K: That’s it. Why do I when I look at myself see something what I consider ugly, suffer about it? What’s the point of it?
17:13 Q: Is it because we put a name to it?
17:16 K: No, no. Just see that you do first.
17:20 Q: One puts a name to something.
17:24 K: I understand, madame. You’re... Look, I find myself when I am observing that I am violent or rather, you know, unpleasant, ugly, insufferably idiotic. Why should I suffer? Why should I say, ‘My God, how terrible’? Is it that I have an image about myself, a beautiful image about myself which says, ‘You can’t be that, you mustn’t be that’? Do, please, enquire into it. Why should I suffer, have pain or fear, at what I see in myself? Except - that is so. Why all this noise about it?
18:27 Q: Because it’s a division between what’s conscious and what’s unconscious.
18:32 K: That’s... No. I don’t... Please, don’t give an explanation. Just see what the mind is doing. It has an image about itself which is noble, which should be something marvellous and all the rest of it, and when it faces facts as they are, there is a disturbance, a self-pity, a recrimination, a condemnation, a justification, and all this is a form of resistance to ‘what is’.
19:10 Q: But how can you overcome that resistance unaided?
19:17 K: I’m going... Wait.
19:20 Q: Without the help of somebody else?
19:23 K: No, I... How can you overcome that resistance without the help of somebody else. Obviously... Q; To help you to see clearly.
19:40 K: Obviously one means a... a psychiatrist or a priest or somebody you go to and he will help you to get rid of or understand or in some way aid you to get rid of that resistance.
19:56 Q: But is that not just comforting though, not really getting rid of it.
20:09 K: I don’t know, I’ve never been to anybody. [Laughter] What do you mean by resistance?
20:23 Q: The more entrenched someone is in the dream ideal of what they ought, must, should, might be, the more...
20:34 K: Wait, sir, I know. Do you find you resist?
20:38 Q: Yes.
20:39 K: Now, what... Why do you resist? Find out, go behind, don’t give me an explanation of it. Why do you resist?
20:46 Q: Because you don’t want to realise that your instincts are not as beautiful as you assume.
20:55 K: All right, all right, but why do I resist it? Why do I build a wall?
21:01 Q: (inaudible)
21:02 K: Do... Don’t give me explanations. I can give you explanations, dozens of them. But why... why is there this action of immediate defence? What are you trying to protect?
21:19 Q: Vanity.
21:20 K: No, no. See what is implied, sir, go into it. I have done something which I... which isn’t quite nice, which isn’t right, and you come along and point it out. Immediately I resist. Why? I know why I do it. First of all, I don’t want you to criticise me. I don’t want you to find out what is actually is, I want to cover it over. And I resist, react to what you say and I... I live in a... in a... within the walls of resistance, don’t I? That’s my life: resist, resist, resist, and occasionally look over these walls. Now the question was: having built these walls must I go to somebody to help me to tear down these walls? Knowing the other fellow has got as many walls as I have. Why should I go to anybody? Why should I seek help from anybody? Come on, sirs. Because I don’t know? Because I don’t know what to do? Why don’t I know what to do? Is it because I haven’t really enquired into this? Is it because I haven’t said, ‘Look, why am I building these walls of resistance, what is the point of all this’? And I know more I build these walls the more my... my mind becomes shallower, emptier, pettier, shoddier – you follow? – more and more ugly. So can’t I... can’t the... my mind... the mind be aware of these resistances, how they are built, how they... how they come into being and at the moment of their coming into being, aware of them? I don’t know if you are following this. Not after I have built them. That’s one thing: to be aware of the resistances I have built - that’s one point. And also to be aware at the moment the walls begin to be built. There are two things, aren’t there? The things that I have resisted and – the mind has resisted - and be aware of the moment at the moment of... of the activity of resistance. Now what shall the mind do with the past resistances? You understand what I’m talking? Come, sirs, I' am doing all the work.
25:15 Q: How can you overcome at the moment all the past resistances?
25:20 K: We’re going to find out, we’re going to go into it.
25:25 Q: What do you mean by how can the mind overcome the past resistances? Surely the mind is just one or a group of the fragments.
25:32 K: That’s what I want to get at slowly. Come into it, sir. Go into it. You will see it in a minute yourself. There is all the past resistances. Now what... what shall the mind do with them?
25:51 Q: Nothing.
25:52 K: Nothing?
25:53 Q: (inaudible)
25:55 K: Wait. My God. Find out, madame.
25:59 Q: Surely, you can only become aware of them in the present. They are all there, it is only by living and hammering into things you become aware of them.
26:13 K: No, sir, just listen to my question, sir, first, before you answer it. What shall the mind do with all the past resistances it has built? Is the mind different from those resistances?
26:30 Q: No.
26:34 K: Wait. Wait. OK. The mind has... Therefore the mind itself is the machinery of resistance. No? Please, don’t... don’t accept this. Look at it very carefully. There have been past resistances and these resistances are part of the mind. What can the mind do about its... about its own part which it has built? I don’t know if you are following this.
27:39 Q: No, I don’t follow. With what part does the mind look at the past resistances? What is the part of the mind which is looking?
27:51 K: A part looking at the various other parts is not a look of a... of a mind that is... comprehends the whole. Right? That... Be quite sure of that. I mean, not verbally but actually. A mind that is fragmented cannot see the whole. Now I am... we are asking a question which is: the mind which has built many resistances in the past, which I... of which I am, how can that mind be rid of it? One part resisting the many other parts? We went through that yesterday, please.
28:54 Q: It can’t be rid of it.
28:57 K: Therefore what am I asking?
29:02 Q: The impossible.
29:03 K: If it is the impossible – please, see this – if the question is an impossible question then what... what... what is then next movement?
29:25 Q: Couldn’t it be we have to forget about the items of resistance.
29:30 K: Ah, no, no, no, no, there is no question of forgetting anything, sir. That is...
29:35 Q: I mean forget items in order to concentrate on the resistance itself.
29:39 K: No, sir, no. My question was: the mind, frightened, wanting to protect itself, has divided itself through resistance. Right? Has separated itself in order to protect itself by creating walls of resistance. Those resistances are part of the mind in time, they have happened yesterday and there they are. Now I am asking a question: what can the mind do about it? The mind which is part of that. When I ask that question it may be wrong question altogether.
30:28 Q: Do you have to use the mind?
30:32 K: It’s the wrong question.
30:37 Q: I say it has to watch the actions such as they are being committed every day and go into the motivation, the inner motivation, for each of these actions.
31:10 K: Go into the motivations of these resistances.
31:14 Q: Actions.
31:15 K: Yes, yes, the action and the motivation of these resistances. Which is analysis.
31:29 Q: Certain, sir.
31:32 K: Which is analysis. Now who is the analyser? The motive itself is the analyser because the analyser wishes to understand, wants to find out what the motive is, which is... and the analyser has its own motive. And therefore it becomes fragmentary. I don’t...
31:58 Q: One must do nothing then.
32:02 K: Wait. Don’t say that. You will see for yourself what to do. Go slowly. If I put a wrong question and I’ve come to an impasse, saying, ‘It is impossible,’ then what is the right question? Is there a question right or wrong? Which is, the mind itself is the machinery of resistance. Right? No, please, don’t agree. You follow? Thought resists because thought has created a certain image of itself and wants to protect itself and resists. And this resistance is division: me and not me, my country, your country and all the rest of it. So thought is the factor of resistance. No? And when thought says, ‘I must find out what is the motive of these resistance,’ then thought itself has a motive for finding out the motive of these resistances. So it... thought breaks up, brings about a fragmentation in motives. Right? So thought is responsible for resistance. My belief - I believe in God, whatever that may mean – and I resist a man who doesn’t believe it. No? And when he begins to question, ‘Do you really believe it? Do you... Does it actually...’ you have, you know, all the rest of it, probes into it and you kind of want to hit him. [Laughter] And there you are, you have resisted. So I... one discovers - and you are discovering, not me - one discovers thought divides and in this division there is resistance, resistance is part of this division. And when thought says, ‘I must analyse the motive of these resistances’, then thought has a motive in itself. So its examination of resistance is distortion. I don’t know if you get it. You’ve got it?
35:10 Q: It’s running round in circles.
35:14 Q: It’s another resistance.
35:16 K: No, no, therefore what shall the... what shall... what shall thought do?
35:24 Q: Give up. [Laughter][K laughs]
35:33 K: Sir, it’s really very important to understand this. Please, give your mind and heart to this because it’s extraordinarily interesting if you go into it.
35:47 Q: But, you see, if thought says, ‘What shall thought do?’ again it is still going on.
35:54 K: Quite right. So please see what is going on. Which is, our lives are fragmented, inwardly and outwardly. In all our relationship there is fragmentation of the me and the you, we and they, the ideal and ‘what is’. Our whole life is broken up: living and dying, love and hate and all the rest of it. And when one becomes aware of this, thought begins to say... begins to operate, resisting some and holding on to some, divided. And that division creates more conflict and so that’s our existence. Right? Now, now, am I... is this mind, after this explanation, sees this completely, not just glimpse of it, see the reality of it? If I... If the mind sees the reality of it then it is free of it. You understand what I am saying? The reality of what actually is. And so then the observer who wants to examine with his own motives, the resistances - see what takes... what goes on – the observer with his motive to examine the resistance and to discover the motives of those resistances is again brought... has brought about the division. Right? Please, do see this very simply and clearly. It has brought again this division. And nobody can help.
38:27 Q: But how else can I look at my thoughts but by dividing myself? How else can I look?
38:38 K: I’ll... I am pointing out, madame, I am pointing out. How else can I look except with the division which thought breeds.
38:53 Q: Yes.
38:56 K: How can I look at anything without thought - are you saying? Why do you want to do it? Why do you want to look at anything without thought?
39:18 Q: Because we’ve just discovered that part fragments everything.
39:23 K: How do you know? Who has told you?
39:28 Q: I can observe it.
39:30 K: Wait, madame, who has told you?
39:33 Q: First you told me and then I observed. [Laughter]
39:39 K: If somebody tells you you are hungry, does that make you hungry?
39:46 Q: It may make me conscious that I am very hungry.
39:51 K: No, no, no, no, no. Nobody has to point out to you that you’re hungry, you know jolly well when you’re hungry. How do you know that thought brings about fragmentation? Know in the sense not verbally, know it - I know fire burns - know, aware, conscious, understand completely. How do I... How do... Have I found out or somebody, some idiotic person on a platform tells me?
40:32 Q: It’s a matter of one’s own insight, really.
40:39 K: What, sir?
40:41 Q: Insight.
40:43 K: No, no. Do you know because somebody tells you? Please, find this out, sir. This is very important question, do go into it. Do you know that thought brings about fragmentation because the speaker said so?
41:05 Q: No.
41:07 K: No. Then you’re aware of it of yourself?
41:12 Q: I don’t see that it is wrong if we have...
41:16 K: You will see it in a minute, madame, you will see it in a minute, go with it, find out. If I... If the speaker tells you this and you say, ‘Yes, by Jove, he’s perfectly right, he’s logical’ – you can see what he means and it is so. Right? Now that is one thing. But if you actually saw it, understood it completely, it is yours not the speaker’s.
41:45 Q: But you can accept a gift.
41:49 K: Wait, wait. If you can accept a gift. It all depends who is giving the gift. And the... And the speaker is not giving a gift. He says, ‘Don’t accept a thing.’ OK. [Laughter] Now, this is, please, this is important to find out. You see because we are the result of what we have been told, we are second-hand human... shoddy human beings, second-hand people. And somebody comes along and says, ‘Look, thought divides, it brings about conflict through resistance.’ And I say... And I like what he says and I add another chapter of what somebody else has said. So I have increased this second-hand living. And I don’t want to live second-hand, I want to find out. And I want to see the truth of it for myself... for itself not because somebody else says so.
43:18 Q: But I am told how to read and now I can read for myself.
43:25 K: That’s quite a different matter, isn’t it really? I don’t know why one should read but that doesn’t matter.
43:33 Q: I feel I’m beginning to see something universal. Everybody has their own minds but this something that I want to feel or should come is something that everybody – there’s a sort of universality.
43:55 K: You see, the universe, this whole world, to look at this whole world, the universe with all the contradictions, the human... human misery, human torture, the loneliness, the lack of love, the wars, to see the totality of this movement as one. You... You understand? Not war against war, I am against war or this or that, broken up. But to see this movement as whole. You know, when.. when you see it as a whole that is quite different from seeing it in fragments and then your action is entirely different. So we come back to that. The mind being broken up, conditioned, the obvious conditioning of nationalities, religions and all the philosophical theories of communism and socialism and capitalism, and the obvious things. And also the subtle forms of divisions. You know, the subtle forms. Don’t you know the subtle forms? Need I go into it? What do you say, sirs? Of vanity, pride, of hidden motives, subtle forms of fear, deep-rooted anxieties, which respond instantly when there is some kind of crisis arises and so on. Now that is our living, all in fragmentation. And a fragment... And one of the fragments assumes the authority of the censor and that fragment is going to analyse the rest of the fragments, which is obviously absurd because that fragment divides itself, separates itself from the rest of the fragments [Gap in audio] and says, ‘I am going to analyse’. And therefore in the very analysis is breeding division. Right? Isn’t this obvious? No?
46:54 Q: Isn’t it the same process, well a similar process, when the observer observes?
47:12 K: Analysis. Yes. Now seeing all this, seeing the futility, the how extraordinary subtle the whole thing is, the mind says it is impossible to get out of it. Right? And so you have already blocked yourself by saying it is impossible. [Audio continues] And being caught in the impossibility of it there is all forms of neurosis. And then being caught in neurosis then we go to somebody who is also neurotic and say, ‘Please help me.’ And we’re two neurotics helping each other – lovely idea! [Laughter] The one has a label and the other fellow hasn’t got a label – that’s all. So seeing all that - please, let’s proceed - seeing what the nature of this division is, how this division breeds endless conflict and divisions and sub-divisions and subtle forms of division, seeing all that, what does the mind... what has happened to the mind?
48:52 Q: It is seeing things as they really are.
49:01 Q: It doesn’t seem to be there any more; it’s disappeared.
49:02 K: What has happened to the mind? Can’t disappear! What is the quality of the mind that has seen all this division, all the results of these divisions, the brutality, the tenderness, the... the appalling triviality of it all?
49:22 Q: It is transformed.
49:25 K: What is your mind, sir? Look at your mind. What has happened to it?
49:31 Q: It frees itself.
49:34 K: Look, look what you’re saying: it frees itself. From what?
49:41 Q: The ‘me’.
49:44 K: When it frees itself from the fragmentation, it is still part of the fragmentation.
49:53 Q: It has a certain sharpness about it.
49:57 K: Ah, yes, it has certain... now you have got a certain sharpness of words, of perception and you have become pretty smart in repeating all this. What does it matter, all that kind of stuff?
50:15 Q: I don’t mean it becomes pretty smart; I mean that it has the ability to look.
50:28 K: To observe.
50:29 Q: To observe, yes.
50:30 K: Now find out, sir: what is the nature of that observation? The mind hasn’t disappeared.
50:36 Q: No, it’s still there.
50:38 K: It’s still... I mean... Look, look...
50:41 Q: It is silent.
50:43 K: No, madame, don’t guess, please, don’t guess. Look, you have observed this division first of all. Logically it has been explained, outwardly and inwardly. You have listened to it. You have seen what resistance does. Resistance is brought about by thought, thought then says, ‘I must investigate the causes of these resistances, what the motives of these are.’ But thought in examining these resistances has its own motive therefore it brings about a division in itself. Right? So you see all this very clearly. It has been explained and the explainer says, ‘The explanation is not the explained, the word is not the thing,’ and so on and so on. So what has happened to the mind that has observed all this?
51:44 Q: It is robbed of the possibility of any action.
51:57 K: Any action of what?
51:58 Q: No, it’s robbed of any possibility of action, that mind.
52:02 K: Ah. It has been... No, sir, surely not. What has... the mind has been robbed of is the activity of division. You follow? But it is tremendously active, it is not just gone to sleep.
52:26 Q: It is very receptive.
52:32 K: No, sir. Look, sir, you have read fairly intelligent book, you have seen or... in the book he has explained everything and you have followed it very, very closely. At the end of the book, he says after having read this book, find out – please, listen – the quality of your mind, the quality, the nature of it, the feel of it. Not what it does, what it doesn’t do, what it sees, doesn’t see, whether it’s silent, what is the quality, the - you know? You understand, sir, what I mean quality.
53:22 Q: When you think of quality you have to make a comparison.
53:29 K: No, no, no. [K laughs] All right, then let’s use another word. What is the nature of it? What has happened to it? Let’s put it that way: what has happened to it?
53:43 Q: The mind is not divided any more.
53:50 K: What? Sir, you have done a great deal of exercise regularly for the last five years, what has happened to the body? What has happened to it?
54:00 Q: It’s healthy.
54:02 K: Yes, healthy - you see - it becomes supple and vital. Now same way what has happened to the mind?
54:13 Q: It’s alive.
54:15 Q: It’s fresh. [Laughter] [K laughs]
54:20 K: I give it up! [Laughter]
54:22 Q: It’s stuck.
54:23 Q: I think it’s still there.
54:24 Q: Sensitive.
54:25 Q: You want to know the nature of it. Would ‘a cornered rat’, would that...?
54:39 K: No. [K laughs] [Laughter] No, sir, the mind is much too clever to be cornered like a rat, it’ll slip out of any little hole.
54:49 Q: It can see that it can see without thought and it can see that when it was thinking it was asleep.
55:01 Q: That’s another thought.
55:04 K: Sir, don’t you find you look at things entirely differently? I daren’t suggest a thing! [Laughter] [K laughs] Don’t you? What can I say?
55:14 Q: It isn’t the same question that you asked us last week: what happens when the mind is still? The question you asked last week...
55:38 K: Not quite, not quite. Look, madame, not quite. Let the last week thing go by. You know, your life is divided, isn’t it? I am not talking to you personally. I am talking generally. Fragmented - and being fragmented every action must breed more fragmentation, more confusion, more contradiction. Right? And you see this thing very clearly, in talking over with a friend you have gone into it, you see all the nature of the structure of it, the nuance, the subtleness of it, and in the understanding of it something has happened to the mind, hasn’t it? What has happened?
56:37 Q: It is being aware of oneself.
56:47 Q: How can we know that the state is different?
56:53 K: I don’t know. I’m not... It’s no good your asking me. Find out what has happened to it yourself. How you look at the universe, at the clouds, at the stars, at another human being, at these impossible politicians.
57:11 Q: It’s a vicious circle: I look, I see it’s fragmented, that’s another thought, there’s another fragment. So what do I do?
57:23 K: Then, madame, you haven’t read the book properly. [K laughs] [Laughter]
57:32 Q: It seems as though it has become just part of one without any...
57:42 K: No, no. No, madame, no, madame. You can’t use that ‘part of one’ – what is the one? One is the... One is the result of many fragments. One is fragmented.
57:59 Q: One must speak from oneself. Here...
58:08 K: Look, sir. Do you look at that tree, do you look at that tree differently?
58:15 Q: Yes.
58:16 K: Find out. Do you look at that tree - that’s a cedar - differently? In the sense that there is no observer looking at that tree - the observer being all the thought and memory, all the rest of it - do you look at it and yet not say, ‘Well,’ vaguely, ‘Oh, yes, I look at it.’ In the look of that tree the space between the observer and the thing disappears, not that you identify yourself with it. The space created by thought disappears, therefore your look at that tree is entirely different.
58:57 Q: But the moment you realise that it’s different...
59:02 K: Look. No, you don’t realise. If you say, ‘You realise that it’s different,’ then you are part of that... - then begins. I am asking you how you look at... how the mind looks at that tree.
59:17 Q: With acceptance.
59:23 K: No, sir. And look at... look at the divisions of nationalities. Look at it, sir, observe it very closely. Each country with its government, with their parties, with their self-interest, not only... not only of the... of the politician but also the national community and group are opposed to the other group, each talking of brotherhood, each wanting to unify, each wanting – and each keeping itself separate. You observe that, you see that - and leading to war and all the horrors of it all. You listen to that and then you say to yourself, ‘The ideal is the... the unification of man’ – the ideal. The ideal arises only when you... when the truth of division is not seen. You understand what I’m saying? Do you? Please.
1:00:46 Q: I don’t understand what you mean that the ideal arises from what you see...
1:00:52 K: Look, somebody listens to this and says, ‘Yes, that’s perfectly true, nationalities are a curse, they divide people, self-interest and all the rest of it.’ The ideal is that there should be one human group, everybody concerned with... so that everybody has food, clothes, proper education - you know, it can be done, for God’s sake, it can be done. And you listen to that and your thought begins to operate and you say, ‘By Jove that’s a marvellous idea, lovely concept,’ because it... intellectually, emotionally you feel for the human being and say, ‘It’s marvellous.’ That’s the ideal. Right? And then what takes place? You want to carry that ideal out. Therefore you organise it. Therefore you are back in the old monstrous trap again. Right? Whereas if you saw the truth of it, the truth of it not the conceptual truth but the actual truth of it what division does, then your action is entirely different, isn’t it? You’re not an idealist, there is no ideal which divides, but you say, ‘Look!’ to people. You then become the teacher, the... – you follow? – you tell them, you are burning with it.
1:02:46 Q: It seems to have a quality – I use a word now which means something to me – intuition.
1:02:58 K: No, no. I don’t know. I don’t want to use... Intuition is a... I don’t... Look, madame, it’s not a question of... I am asking you’re the... when you have listened to all this, when you have seen the effects of all the divisions in the world and what it has done, the cause, the effect and so on, and you have looked at it inwardly and outwardly and not divided the inner and the outer and you see it is a total movement - you understand? - then what has happened to the mind?
1:03:46 Q: There no longer seems a need to look for something. There’s no compulsion, no fear.
1:04:01 Q: It’s still.
1:04:04 Q: Just look.
1:04:06 K: Hasn’t that mind, isn’t that free of all the stupid ideals?
1:04:16 Q: Yes.
1:04:18 K: Wait, wait. Be careful, be careful, I am going to trip you up. Of all the ideals? And you realise how the ideals divide action. Right? If you have an ideal your action is never complete because it’s always approximating itself to what it should be and therefore it’s never complete and therefore that action is fragmentary, therefore that action is contradictory, which means effort, which means all the rest of it. Now you see that, you see it with your heart, with your blood, with everything, you see the truth of it. So the mind says, ‘I’m free of all ideals, it’s gone, what are you talking about, ideals?’ because it’s living with something which has nothing to do with ideals.
1:05:31 Q: Isn’t that an ideal in itself: living without any ideals?
1:05:37 K: Absolutely, sir. I am just telling you. Isn’t... Why do you want an ideal? My God! Look, sir, action – to act, to live wholly, completely in a state of non-fragmentation – why should such a mind have an ideal? What is an ideal? Of what should be - right? - or what must be, what is noble - an ideal. And it’s always at the end of time, somewhere else. And the fact is ‘what is’. In understanding ‘what is’ what is the use of having an ideal? Oh for God’s sake, this is so clear.
1:06:43 Q: It’s useless.
1:06:46 K: Which I... Which doesn’t mean I live a stupid kind of irresponsible life. I see the futility, the idiocy, the - whatever name you like to call it - of having an ideal because I am concerned with ‘what is’ and the changing of ‘what is’ and I see the ideal prevents the revolution of ‘what is’. So I come back and I say to myself, ‘I have listened to all this, very clear, I have listened to it with real attention in my heart and my mind, not the division, but my whole being I’ve listened to it, and I say to... and I... question is, what has happened to the mind after listening? Am I still sticking to my petty nationalities, to my ideals, to my efforts, to my divisions of this and that, the good and the bad and all the rest of it? Am I? Or is the mind now free to observe the life as a whole? Look, sir, look, life is a whole thing, how the sun shines – you follow? - without the sun... I don’t have to look at it, look at the marvel of it all. And... And the footling little mind goes off to seeking God or some principle or some purpose or some ideals, therefore it begins to fragment itself.
1:08:59 Q: Sir, I wish I could be clear about this. I am still hanging on to the feeling that one can be attentive now and in some way (inaudible) and have a sense of evolution. You have talked about harmony, you have described disharmony as we normally live it. Isn’t it possible to have just one aim, however worded, which allows you to live in the present but perhaps evolve, whatever that means. [K laughs] Can I just say, when you talked about harmony one could say ‘in tune’. People do say ‘in tune’, things go out of tune or approaching in tune.
1:10:10 K: Sir, you are saying - are you, sir? - all this needs time, slowly.
1:10:12 Q: No. Well...
1:10:14 K: When you use evolution, progress, it implies that: you plant a... olive tree and it takes time to grow.
1:10:20 Q: Yes, sir, but the olive tree as it is growing doesn’t seem to worry.
1:10:34 K: It doesn’t. [Laughter] It doesn’t talk about evolution. [Laughter] I wish we could wipe away from our minds completely the idea of evolution, progress. Then you will...
1:10:57 Q: Does the mind become selfless then?
1:11:05 K: No, madame, I don’t know what you mean by that word ‘selfless’.
1:11:12 Q: Not self-centred.
1:11:16 K: You see, these are all words I don’t understand. When we abuse the word which has been clearly defined and understood, and we have gone into the word of ‘division’, ‘separation’, ‘fragmentation’, ‘broken up’ - we know what that means. A self-centred mind is a fragmented mind, which doesn’t mean when the fragmentation ends that the mind is selfless. It has quite a different quality altogether.
1:11:55 Q: It seems that the mind has the capacity to focus light on ‘what is’ in the moment.
1:12:06 K: That’s right, sir. And the focusing of that light of ‘what is’ at the moment is not possible if there is any form of a future concept. Right? I cannot look if my eyes are over there. If I have given my energy in living an ideal life I cannot look now.
1:12:33 Q: Sir, you ask what is the motive to find out.
1:12:43 K: What is the motive to find out.
1:12:45 Q: What is the motive to do what you say? We come here all with a motive obviously.
1:12:51 K: Do you?
1:12:52 Q: Well, I come in order to perhaps see a bit more.
1:12:55 K: Wait, sir, wait, sir. Do listen to it quietly. Do you? Do you come with a motive? Or do you come because of the atmosphere, the quietness, the intensity, because you begin to learn about yourself. Not... You just watch yourself here. That’s all. Why should you have any motive. I go for a walk and see the beauty of the nature. I have no motive, I just love to look at all this.
1:13:35 Q: That love is a motive.
1:13:45 K: Is it?
1:13:45 Q: Why not?
1:13:46 K: Is it? I’m asking, ‘Is it?’ I don’t say, ‘Why not?’ Is it? Is... Has beauty any motive? Pleasure has a motive. The appreciation of a marvellous sunset or the... or the lovely trees in the wind or the stillness of these trees – is there any... in that beauty is there any motive inside me, inside the observer? It has a motive if I’m a - what? - if I want to cut the tree down and make a house and so on. But if I’m just in the... observing and the mind is merely observing, there is an extraordinary intimacy between the tree and yourself, isn’t there? I don’t want to interpret for you because then you’ll go off and it’ll be, ‘I’m going to look for intimacy with a dead tree.’ [K laughs]
1:14:51 Q: But the tree is a physical object. Isn’t there a difference between my thoughts and a physical object?
1:15:06 K: Now - thought is a physical object. Thought is object, thought is matter as much as that tree is. Isn’t it?
1:15:18 Q: It’s a function.
1:15:19 K: So is that.
1:15:20 Q: It’s a kind of energy.
1:15:29 K: Sir, you know, the people who talk about spiritual life and yet are terribly involved in thought, they are really unspiritual because thought is matter.
1:15:49 Q: But if thought is matter then my next idea would be: then there must be something which is not matter.
1:16:00 K: [K laughs] I give it up! [Laughter] Why should there be? Madame, it’s too... Don’t let’s go what is not matter but let’s stick to this thing. What is the quality of the mind that has seen division and the causes... and the effects of division? Seen, understood, seen the truth and the beauty in the truth of all this, what has happened to that mind? I wish you could stay with that and find out for yourself. Then you’ll never resist - never - because you’d have nothing to resist. Oh, you don’t see this. Therefore one has to go into something which is: what is love? If it is... If love is a form of resistance, is a form of pleasure and all the rest of it, division, then love is a miserable affair. No? And that’s what we know as love. I love you, I must possess you or dominate you, you’re mine. And therefore you don’t belong to anybody, therefore when you look at anybody else I’m jealous, I’m furious, angry – there it is, that’s what we call love. And in that there is this division: the me and the you. The me built up with all the pleasures, sex and comfort and companionship and the nagging and the... - all the rest of it, the thoughtless movements of relationships and there is division. And that’s what we call love. What happens to the mind and to the heart - which is really same thing, I am just dividing it for convenience – what happens to them when there is no division at all? When you are... That is, when the mind and the heart have understood the... the nature of division. Understood it, felt it, lived it, seen the truth of it – you know – what happens? Surely it won’t go around saying, ‘Everybody is my brother’?
1:19:29 Q: How can one say if no-one has experienced it?
1:19:41 K: What can... Are you saying, ‘What can one say if one has not experienced it’?
1:19:44 Q: Yes, how can one...
1:19:46 K: Why not? Why don’t you... Why don’t you see it?
1:19:51 Q: Because I can’t.
1:19:53 K: Why not?
1:19:55 Q: I don’t know.
1:19:56 K: Either you haven’t listened – I am not talking to... being rude to you, madame – either you have not listened or you don’t want to listen or it is too much burden all this. You just want to live as you have lived, carry on with our struggles, with our miseries and suffering and annoyances and bullying and all the rest of it. So I have to find out why have I not understood this thing. Why have I not seen this thing? The wars are going on, people are killing each other, the division of the politicians, why haven’t I seen all this? You may say, ‘Well, it will take time, evolution,’ and by then you and I are dead and something else happens. You can’t just say, ‘I haven’t seen it, I don’t know,’ and just leave it. I’ve got to see it.
1:21:04 Q: The important thing one has not seen. One has seen the wars, the miseries, the sufferings, in oneself as well, but the one thing necessary one hasn’t seen.
1:21:29 K: What will make one see it? More experience? More reading? More talks? More explanations? Knocks on the head? Things being taken away from you? More confusion? More sorrow? Will that help you? Or all that will make you more and more resist, more and more tight. You know, once you saw in India a dead body being carried to the river in Benares where they generally burn the bodies on the banks of the river because that’s considered holy. And you saw this body jogging up and down on a little carriage, rough roads and the poor body up and down for miles and miles in the hot sun and you understood the whole thing, didn’t you? No? You have seen it all, haven’t you? Death? Must... Who is going to give you experience? Didn’t you feel sorry for poor Mr. Wilson? And if you are Conservative, you say, ‘My golly, I’m so glad.’ [Laughter] There it is. If you understood those two, if you looked at those two in and out, you have understood the whole of life. And so... Is that enough? What time is it?
1:24:27 Q: Almost half past.
1:24:36 Q: Can I come back to thought being physical matter as well? As our mind is built up of thoughts there must be something physical we can do about it.
1:24:52 K: Operate. [Laughter]
1:24:54 Q: Yes, something in that measure. A clean operation, something of that sort.
1:25:00 K: Which is to prevent thought coming in? Lobotomy – you know what they have done? - make you completely a vegetable.
1:25:12 Q: But if thought as you say is as physical as...
1:25:23 K: Not I say.
1:25:24 Q: All right. I can feel it moving in my head so I feel it’s physical. Then there must be something physical we can also do to make it cease perhaps.
1:25:38 K: They have tried it, madame. I know a monk, poor chap, he came to see me, to see us one day and he had taken vows of celibacy when he was fifteen and he was... as he grew older he became more and more passionate but the vow held him, more and more and more battle inside. So he said the way to end it is to operate. [Laughter] No, don’t laugh, sir. And he had his organs out. It didn’t stop it and he was caught. No, madame, these things don’t end through operation. And he said, ‘What am I to do? I’ve destroyed my life in the name of God, seeking God.’ You understand what tradition does to people? Never mind, that’s another matter.
1:27:32 Q: Can anything be said about love that is positive?
1:27:46 K: Love is only positive when there is no negative qualities to it, when the mind is no longer envious, comparative, seeking pleasure, fear and all the rest of it. When the mind is no longer ambitious, competitive, comparing. Sir, then it’s quite a different thing.
1:28:11 Q: Sir, you spoke about sleep last time and there was something I didn’t quite understand. As I understood you yesterday, it wasn’t necessary to sleep for eight or seven hours in the night. Did I understand you correctly? One is told that it is good to sleep for seven hours at night.
1:28:43 K: Sir, you have to find out what is necessary for your body, for yourself. What happens... No, I didn’t say... we didn’t say seven hours, eight hours or ten hours is necessary. We said what... what happens during sleep is much more important than how many hours of sleep.
1:29:01 Q: Well, we dream, which is the chatter of the mind, and we also have a very deep sleep.
1:29:12 K: Now, sir, wait. Why do you dream at all?
1:29:16 Q: Continuing chatter.
1:29:17 K: Continuing of the daily activity, the daily actions in different form but it’s still the same movement. And so where the mind is active during sleep - repeating, repeating the day’s activity... of the day’s activity - the mind has no rest at all, and therefore when it wakes up it is still dull, there isn’t clarity. So we suggested that during the day watch everything, watch your... how you look at the trees, how you look at people, what you consider your prejudices, watch it all, you know, play with it, look at it and have some periods of silence, quietness to observe. And when you do go to sleep then perhaps you will find that when you do dream the dreams are interpreted as you dream, you don’t need somebody else to interpret or you yourself interpret them when you wake up. And when you... when there are no dreams, find out. I mean mind then has a quite a different awareness, mind is much... something else happens. We... I... What’s the good if you don’t do all this? You see when you sleep the divisions of daily life go on. Isn’t that enough?