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BR72DSS1.01 - Are you revolutionary?
Brockwood Park, UK - 21 May 1972
Discussion with Staff and Students 1.01



0:01 This is J. Krishnamurti’s first discussion with teachers and students at Brockwood Park, 1972.
0:14 What shall we talk about? (Pause) All right, then I’ll have to start it.
0:51 I suppose you know what is happening in the world, do you?
1:00 The world in the sense in America, politically, and more or less economically, in America, what is happening in Russia, whatever little news you may get out of it, and what is happening in China, where Nixon had been, and where, from China there has been a great deal of news, perhaps perverted – all over America, on the television, radio, newspapers, magazines, they are now putting on Chinese dress, selling Chinese hats, Chinese food, and so on – and what is happening in Japan – she is probably second or third, is she, the expanding economy, industrialisation, and they’ve got Okinawa – you know what is happening.
2:15 And what is happening in Europe, which is the Common Market, England has joined it, and so on and so on and so on – the war between Pakistan and India.
2:29 You know, the whole picture. What do you think of it? Are you interested, politically? Are you interested in what is happening in various countries, what is happening in Italy?
2:50 The extreme right is gaining seats – the extreme right being dictatorship – gradually, not the Mussolini type but a different type.
3:13 Do you know all this? Yes? And what the Pope says, which nobody pays attention to nowadays, except the Catholics, and even they rather mildly, not too seriously.
3:35 So looking at all this vast confusion, disturbance, violence, what do you think of it all?
3:53 Because you’re going to meet it. Dictatorship on one hand, so-called democracy on the other, capitalism on one side and state ownership on the other, and so on and on and on.
4:15 You’re going to face all this. Right? How are you going to meet it?
4:34 Are you going to meet it, or withdraw from it into a shell of your own making – selfish, self-centred and totally indifferent to everything that is happening around you?
4:53 There are only two solutions to this: either you are going to withdraw – you understand what I mean, withdraw?
5:04 – not play a part in all this, carve out a small corner of the universe in which you have your own little problems, your own little ambitions, greed, envy, position, success, failure – you know? – all that little corner – or are you going to take part in this vast confusion, this vast destruction, violence?
5:44 And how will you meet it? Right? No answer – quote the raven.
6:05 Are you interested – you must discuss with me – are you interested, mentally active, inquiring, looking, investigating, or are you mentally rather slack, lazy, and so physically lazy, and you say, ‘I’m too young, or I’m too…
6:39 I’m not… I can’t do anything about it,’ and let it go? ‘I’ll pass or not pass an exam; I’ll do what I think is right’ – which all becomes a very small affair.
6:55 Right? So how will you meet all this?
7:05 Will you meet it as a human being who is concerned with the human problems – politics, economy, social justice, property, helping others in the name of God, in the name of the state, or for your own comfort you help others, or actually help others, serve people?
7:43 Or will you just fit into a pattern established by the capitalist or the communist – pattern, you know, a pattern – and just follow?
8:05 I’ve just come back from California and New York.
8:21 America is a strange country, tremendously active, full of energy, vitality; all misdirected, misused.
8:42 New York is filthy. And there is great disturbance in the world, tremendous disturbance.
9:06 One feels terribly sad about all this, at least I do, because we have lived for many thousands and thousands of years and we have reduced ourselves to this.
9:24 You understand what I am saying? We’re very clever, we go to the moon, we go under the sea and live there. We can do the most marvellous things technologically and we don’t seem to be able to live together happily, intelligently – you know?
9:49 – love each other, be kind, be generous – none of that exists. So what are you going to do?
10:06 It’s really a very serious question, you know, it’s not just a school boy question, this.
10:20 What am I going to do, faced with all this?
10:39 Unless I’m dead, neurotic, frightened, I have to respond to this.
11:00 I must respond to it. It’s my responsibility to respond rightly. Now what shall I do? I’ve answered this question for myself, really very deeply.
11:30 When I go to India, as I shall this winter, they’ll be asking me: what do you say about Pakistan and India?
11:50 You understand? The war, the prisoners there. There are 90,000 prisoners, Pakistani prisoners in India, waiting to be exchanged or sent back home, or to be tried, you know, all kinds of things.
12:09 Then they’ll ask: what do you say about reincarnation? Is there a God? What do you do to help the poor people? You have clean clothes and there are millions who have no clothes at all – what are you doing about it? Oh, you can talk endlessly about something or other but you are not helping the poor people – you ought to be a revolutionary with a bomb.
12:44 All these have been asked of me, you know, I’m not just inventing all this. You ought to join us; destroy the present government, put a new government in; get rid of all these temples and these priests and these rich people, shoot them.
13:10 Come and join us, don’t be non-committed, commit yourself, take part in politics, either become this or that, don’t stand aloof.
13:25 You’ve got a name, use it. You understand all this? I’ve answered these questions honestly, what to me is the right action in all this – not according to my fancy, to my desire, but what I think is the right… when I look at it, what to me is an action that will correspond to each challenge, so that there is no contradiction in me with regard to the challenge.
14:23 You understand all this? I wonder if you do. I began – I’m sorry I’m talking a little bit about myself; it’s not really about myself – I began all this when I was a boy of 14, 13 – you understand?
14:47 – your age. So you have to look at all this, you have to think about all this.
15:00 And you’re going to go out in the world, you’re going to be caught in the circus, whether it’s religious circus or political circus.
15:20 You understand? So, what are you going to do? (Laughs) You know, you must begin to think about it now, not when you are 35 and then say, ‘Good lord, what am I doing?’ – then it’s too late.
15:46 So let’s begin. Are you going to imitate, conform? Right? Begin with that. Let’s begin with that for the moment. Are you going to imitate? You know what that word imitate means, conform means? Conform to what others say. Conform to a pattern set by others.
16:22 Conform to a series of ideas, activities, because a million people say so.
16:38 Are you conforming now, imitating now? Do, please, discuss with me. Are you imitating? Imitating the older boy? You’ve all long hair, haven’t you?
17:11 (Laughs) Aren’t you imitating?
17:31 Where do you draw the line where you do not imitate at all?
17:42 And you have to imitate – putting on trousers, I do imitate. When I go to India I put on something else – I imitate. Here I eat with a fork and in India perhaps I don’t eat with a fork; with my fingers. I don’t, but others do. So where do you draw the line, in yourself, where imitation, conformity is necessary, where it is absolutely not necessary.
18:17 Go into it, sir, come on.
18:37 Do you know what I’m talking about? Do you? All right. Do you imitate? Because it’s a tremendous question, you know, this.
18:53 (Laughs) Because we are brought up to imitate. Our tradition is to imitate, to conform.
19:05 If it was the fashion to have short hair, you jolly well would have short hair.
19:18 And you’d have extraordinary good reasons for having short hair.
19:40 So what will you do? The older boys set the example and you kind of fall in because you’re frightened of the older boy.
19:53 And he becomes a bully. You know, the whole game. And this pattern is repeated right through the world. So that you never stand alone, you never say, ‘Look, this is what I think.
20:09 I may be wrong. I’ll investigate it, I’ll find out, but I’m going to stick to it till you prove it to me.’ You know, when I first came to England in 1909 or 8, I had long hair, much longer than any of you, curly hair, beyond the shoulder.
20:47 I couldn’t walk down the street without people shouting at me, ‘Get your hair cut!’ And I got my hair cut because it attracted too much attention.
21:05 Now it is the fashion to have long hair, so you all troop off.
21:13 You follow? And mentally, are you imitating? Are you thinking out for yourself regarding all these problems – social problem, problem of relationship with people?
21:35 Oh, lord. Or are you just growing up blindly? You know, if I had a son I’d be tremendously concerned what he becomes; or a daughter, what they become.
22:04 (Pause) So can we together, you and I together, go into all these questions?
22:38 Shall we? Do you want to go into all these questions?
22:49 First of all, are you mentally awake?
22:58 Begin at that level – not physically awake, begin somewhere else – mentally, questioning, asking, demanding, trying to find out.
23:09 Or are you just lazy?
23:26 What do you say, sirs and ladies? What do you say? Are you mentally lazy?
23:40 You know what that means, being lazy?
23:54 Psychologically, inwardly, mentally unaware, insensitive?
24:05 You may be terribly sensitive where your own feelings are concerned, where your own desires are concerned, you may be sensitive in what you want to do, but you may be totally insensitive to everything else.
24:26 Questioner: Is that being sensitive?
24:32 K: Of course not. If you are sensitive only to your own particular desires and vanities and what you think, and insensitive to others, it’s not being sensitive, obviously.
24:45 But you think you are sensitive, though. When somebody points out your insensitivity to others, you get angry, you say, ‘Well, you’re authoritarian.’ Don’t you?
25:02 If I say, ‘Please, do come to the meals punctually,’ or dress differently, or cut your hair short, don’t grow a beard, whatever it is, because you are sensitive to your feeling and if somebody says, ‘Look, do be a little different,’ you say, ‘You’re authoritarian,’ and push me off.
25:24 Is that being sensitive? Do come on, sir, discuss.
25:26 Q: Well for some things you have to stick to what you think is right.
25:38 K: Yes. What do you think is right? When do you think it is right?
25:48 Q: Well for something you consider important, something that you...
25:49 K: What do you consider important? Go into it, sir, go on. Why do you consider anything important, at your age?
26:05 Come on, sir.
26:13 Have you a right to think, ‘This is important,’ not knowing a thing of the world, about yourself?
26:26 When do you say, ‘This is what I think is right’?
26:33 Can you ever say, ‘This is what I think is right’? Come on, sir.
26:40 Q: Not unless you have investigated.
26:42 K: Can you investigate? Are you capable of investigation? You know what that word investigate means? – to trace it out, to track out, to go through to the very end.
27:00 That’s what it means to investigate. Are you capable of it?
27:12 And if I say, being very young, I say, ‘This is what I think. This is right,’ it’s silly on my part.
27:23 My mind is already crystallised, already held in a pattern and is dead.
27:30 Come on, sir, discuss with me!
27:36 Q: Yes, but on the other hand, it cannot be dispersed.
27:40 K: No, so let’s find out. I know, being young, I can never say, ‘This is what I think. This is right.’ Can I?
27:49 Q: No, I understand that.
27:51 K: No. Wait. Can I seriously say that? I can’t. If I’m honest, I can’t. Then what shall I do? I don’t want to be a plaything of everybody. Right? I don’t want to be pushed around by you or by her or by the oldest boy.
28:14 I don’t want to be pushed around, so what shall I do?
28:26 Come on, sir, what shall I do?
28:38 Knowing I really don’t know what the world is like.
28:48 I can read the newspapers, look at magazines, be told about it, but actually I don’t know it, I haven’t come into contact with it.
29:04 I have a verbal description of it. Do you know what suffering is? You don’t, do you? Then how can you say anything about suffering? I won’t go into the question of suffering. You know what it means to suffer? No. You shed tears.
29:38 Somebody is suffering because he has not a penny, nothing, and you can’t do anything to help him.
29:51 Somebody dies whom you think you love and you suffer.
30:02 And so on and on and on. So, knowing that, being young, I really don’t know deeply the whole process of living, so I can never say, ‘This is right or this is wrong.’ But my mind is looking, inquiring, investigating.
30:28 Right? Are you doing that? Oh, no.
30:31 Q: Sir, if I don’t have some capacity for seeing true things and false things then how can I not be just a plaything for anybody?
30:57 K: I couldn’t quite hear, sir.
31:00 Q: If I don’t have some capacity for seeing truth and falseness, then how can I be anything but a plaything for everyone?
31:11 K: No, but can you see what is truth and what is false? First question yourself – can you?
31:16 Q: No, not… (inaudible) K: Be honest, sir. Let’s talk dreadfully honestly. Can you?
31:21 Q: No.
31:22 K: No, then why do you assume that you can? When somebody says, ‘Cut your hair short,’ why do you get angry about it?
31:31 Q: Usually because I’m prejudiced or biased because of what I want.
31:40 I want something.
31:41 K: So, what you want becomes the most important thing. Right? So what happens from that? What you want is the most important thing. Pursue that, sir, pursue it.
31:57 Q: If everyone’s doing that there’s… (inaudible) K: Wait. Of course everyone is that way. The whole world is built on that – I want something and I’m going to get it – fight, quarrel, butcher – you follow?
32:13 – do anything to get it. Is that what you want?
32:19 Q: No.
32:20 K: Then why do you say, ‘I must have my desires fulfilled’?
32:24 Q: I understand that that direction doesn’t lead anywhere, but, I don’t know, perhaps I haven’t seen it clear enough to change it.
32:38 K: No, sir, what I’m trying to say is: why do we assume that we know we are right?
32:45 Do, please, this is really a very, very serious question. You understand? Can I personally ever say, ‘This is right’?
33:08 What happens, sir? Do look. I’ve got this picture in front of me, the world, described the various kinds of political regimes, dictatorships, various kinds of commitments – religious, political, economic, social, behavioural commitments.
33:29 I see all this in front of me. Now what shall I do?
33:39 Shall I respond to my desires and react according to those desires, in relationship to the world?
33:56 You understand my question? Then I shall respond according to my personal want – right? – which may be totally wrong, when a vast problem is confronted, when I’m confronting a vast problem.
34:16 So I must put aside my particular desire and say now, for God’s sake let me not be personal, stupid about it, let me look at it.
34:30 Can you do that? Not immediately personally respond, say, ‘I don’t like, I like; this is right, this is wrong.’ You understand?
34:45 Can you do that? Say, ‘I have my personal reactions, I’ll hold them back.’ Q: Isn’t the response based on such a base, like my desires, my ambitions?
34:56 K: Those are all your personal reactions. Keep them in abeyance, put them in the cellar and lock it up and then look.
35:08 Look at the world, what is happening. Because your personal desires are very small, are very, you know, little, a petty little affair when tremendous things are concerned.
35:32 The house is burning and you say, ‘Well, who is the man who set the fire, did he have long hair, short hair, was he a hippie or was he a capitalist?’ You follow?
35:44 You put the fire out.
35:52 So can you put aside your personal feelings for the time being and look at the world?
36:03 The world is not out there but here. (Laughs) You understand? The world is here, because you are the world. You represent the world, because you think, you feel like the world. You say, ‘Me first,’ don’t you? My desire first. I want this first. Don’t you? Which is what the world is saying.
36:37 So here we are, this is the world, we are the world, and we have got tremendous problems – religious, economic, social problems.
37:02 You understand, sir? And how do you respond? Say, ‘Oh, I believe in this’ (laughs) – you follow? – or do you say, ‘I’m going to look, I’m going to investigate, I’m going to find out how to behave in this world’?
37:22 Do you understand? Are you doing that? If you don’t do that, you’re lazy – mentally, psychologically, inwardly you are lazy, and therefore physically lazy, from that.
37:48 So let’s begin.
38:02 Are you imitating, conforming, because everybody else has long hair, everybody eats meat, everybody goes to war, everybody says, ‘It’s my country’?
38:28 Come on, sir, discuss.
38:39 Are you? Isn’t this part of education, perhaps the major part of education?
38:55 Not books only; this is the major part: how to meet life, how to react to life – not only your life but the life of others.
39:13 But if you are thinking, ‘Me first,’ then you are… you know?
39:19 Q: There is a difference between a fashion for wearing certain clothes and going to war because everybody goes to war.
39:50 K: Yes, sir. Therefore I said, find out if there is this desire to conform – not only to the majority of people, to conform to one person, or to conform to an idea which you think is right.
40:13 You follow? Are you revolutionaries? Are you? Not the throwing bomb variety, killing people, but otherwise, are you revolutionaries? Oh lord, come on.
40:37 Q: What do you mean by revolutionaries?
40:40 K: What do I mean by revolution? First, not killing others. Right? That doesn’t… What will you do? What is revolution then? Upsetting the government, through violence? Revolution means complete change, isn’t it?
41:04 Q: Yes.
41:06 K: Now where do you begin? Go into it, sir. Where do you begin, out there?
41:12 Q: My way of perceiving things.
41:15 K: I’m asking, where do you begin to be a revolutionary, if you think revolution is necessary in the world?
41:25 Q: With the self, of course.
41:28 Q: In yourself.
41:30 K: How do you begin with yourself?
41:33 Q: When you want things for yourself.
41:40 I mean, you don’t look outside.
41:45 K: No, my chap, how do you find out if you are a revolutionary or just conforming, becoming a bourgeois, a little-minded man who wants a little house, a little property, you know, family and all that business?
42:10 How do you begin to find out if you are a revolutionary? Oh, come on, sir.
42:18 Q: By becoming aware of yourself.
42:23 K: Are you aware of yourself? Vishwas, are you aware of yourself? What you are doing, how you sit, how you walk, how you eat, the things you say to people – are you aware of yourself?
42:46 Without becoming selfish, self-centred and saying, ‘By Jove, I must be very careful what I say.’ Or just aware – as you say it, you know what you are saying.
43:13 Come on.
43:22 It used to be the fashion in the 1920s when we were in Holland, in Ommen, Eerde – communism was fashionable.
43:37 They had quantities of books, people talking about it endlessly, or many of my friends and so on said, ‘We are communists.’ I didn’t know whether I was a communist or non-communist.
44:00 I knew one or two things, obviously. I said to myself, ‘To kill people is dreadful, in the name of peace.’ You might say that you are prejudiced.
44:21 I don’t want to hurt people, I don’t want to shed tears for others.
44:29 So I didn’t know. I waited, I inquired, I went into it in myself. I said: property – you understand what property means? – land, houses, owning things, the desire to own things, that’s property, the desire to own.
44:50 I said to myself: do I want any of that? I said, ‘I know don’t want property. I don’t want to own a thing.’ You understand what I’m talking about? But most people do. They want to own their wives, their husbands, their chair, their ideas, their position – you follow?
45:14 – own things. Do you? Or are you getting tired?
45:24 (Laughs) Do you own a lot of ideas?
45:33 Q: Yes.
45:34 K: Yes, I’m afraid you do. Instead of owning a chair you own ideas, don’t you, and you’re very proud of it.
45:52 Come on, sir, discuss with me.
46:01 Q: I don’t know whether I…
46:06 K: Do you own ideas?
46:07 Q: Well there is some ideas sometimes come and…
46:10 K: Yes. Do you own them? This is my idea, this is what I think, this is what I feel. You know how you protect, when you own property? You own a chair. Do you know how you protect it? Don’t you? Your bicycle, your car, you own it. In the same way, do you own ideas? You don’t own cars now because you’re too young, but later on, that maybe… but now, do you own ideas?
46:47 ‘This is what I think,’ so that your mind...
46:53 Q: But that comes only when there is fear of…
46:56 K: No, but I’m asking you, do you own ideas, not how it comes. So when you own something you’re never free, are you? So you are beginning to discover what it means to be revolutionary.
47:28 That isn’t the end of it – it’s a tremendous thing.
47:36 Ideas mean conclusion; to conclude something and say, ‘This is so.’ The Catholics – you understand?
47:48 You understand, Catholics? They say they believe, whatever they believe, and they stick there, that’s what they own.
48:01 And they’ll fight for it, they’ll slaughter you, they will torture you, but they own that property.
48:08 They own Jesus. Sorry! As the Hindus, the Muslims, the Buddhists.
48:20 They own Marx, they own, I don’t know – you follow? – this ownership.
48:34 So you begin to find out if you own anything. Of course I own this, my trousers, shirt. If you want it I’ll give it, if I have others, but I’m not clinging to it.
48:50 So I begin to say to myself: do I own ideas, beliefs, conclusions?
48:59 Do you understand what I’m talking about?
49:06 Do you? So if you own them then you’re going to protect it, aren’t you?
49:17 No? Look, I own my wife – I don’t know why but that generally is so – I own, I possess.
49:43 See what is implied in it. When I own an idea I’m afraid to let go.
49:56 If I do let go I replace it by a new idea.
50:04 You are following all this?
50:12 So I go from one idea to another till some idea which says, this is safe to own, I’ll own, then I’ll possess it.
50:21 You understand?
50:27 Q: What makes me want to own something?
50:33 K: What makes you own? Why do you ask me? What makes you own something? Go on, Tunki, investigate.
50:47 What makes you own your bicycle? Own – you understand what I mean? – say, ‘Well, this is mine, I must protect it.’ Q: You entrust your security in it.
51:01 K: Go into it, Tunki, find out. I don’t want to tell you – go on.
51:13 Trace it out step by step, go into it.
51:26 Q: I don’t know. I don’t have a strong feeling of ownership.
51:30 K: Look, Tunki, I say I’m a Hindu. Being born in India I say I’m a Hindu. And that idea owns… I own that idea, that idea owns me, I am that idea. Right? An idea, a verbal statement with a certain content in it.
51:53 You understand? A verbal statement with a content in it. You have understood what I am saying?
52:01 Q: The content? What do you mean?
52:03 K: I am a Hindu. Being a Hindu means believing in this, in that, worshipping certain gods, following a certain tradition; if I am a Brahmin, still deeper traditions, much more rooted.
52:29 Those are my ideas to which the mind clings to and say, ‘Well, I am a Hindu.’ You’ve got it?
52:38 Now why does the mind do that? Go on, sir.
52:43 Q: Because it prevents to see yourself. It’s a protection against yourself.
52:51 K: Protect. What is yourself?
52:54 Q: Your conditioning.
52:56 K: What is that conditioning? Go on, sir, go on – don’t stop – push.
53:11 My conditioning is a Hindu, which it says, my father was a Brahmin – you follow? – all that.
53:21 So I say I am a Hindu. That’s my conditioning. Which is, I am conditioned by a series of words, with a significance behind those words.
53:30 All invented. You follow? Go on, sir, investigate, don’t sit there.
53:35 Q: Why does one defend that position?
53:38 K: Why do you defend? What would happen if you didn’t defend? I am a Hindu and I live in a community which calls itself Hindus. If I say I am not a Hindu, what will happen to me in that community?
53:56 Q: You’d be an outcast.
53:58 K: Outcast. Wait, follow it up. Follow it. What will happen? I want a job. I can’t find it so easily, can I? I can’t marry so easily, can I?
54:18 You follow? If I stick to myself as a Hindu, it’s going to be difficult. Right? So I begin to protect myself by joining, by calling myself a Hindu. You see it? If I live in a communist world and I say I am not a communist, I am going to lose – things become very difficult for me.
54:43 In the Catholic world, it becomes awfully difficult, or in a Jewish world, or in the Arab world when I say I am a Jew, they say, ‘For God’s…’ You know what’ll happen?
54:55 (Laughs) So I am asking myself, and you should ask yourself, if you own any ideas.
55:08 Why should you own ideas when you’re so young? It’s only the dead people, dying people or the crystallised people that say, ‘Well, I am.’ Why do you own ideas?
55:25 I mean, young people should be free to look, enjoy life and look and search, ask – not come to any conclusion.
55:36 Q: When you say, for example, ‘I refuse to kill,’ it’s also a series of words with a content.
55:48 K: No, no, wait a minute. I have thought it out. I refuse to kill. Why? I’ve gone into it. This isn’t just a conclusion based on a vague idea that I shouldn’t kill.
56:05 I’ve said to myself: why do I kill? Why do I want to kill? Animals or anything. To eat animals? Why should I if I can live on vegetables, eggs, cheese – you follow? – why should I kill? Scientists are coming to that – you know? They are finding out that cattle, beef, require more land, therefore they are going to gradually find out that we’d better be vegetarians.
56:33 They are saying that already. So I say I won’t kill animals for my belly. I may, if I find myself in Alaska, where there is nothing else.
56:57 You are following all this? But as I am living here I won’t kill. And I won’t kill a human being. Why should I kill a human being? Because my country says so? My government says so?
57:18 You have to find out, haven’t you, how you think, why you think, is it based on personal fear, prejudice – you follow?
57:29 – frightened? Investigate it, that’s all I’m asking. Don’t accept anything you say for yourself or somebody else says. Find out. That means energy, mental energy, drive.
57:52 Don’t take the easiest way.
58:00 (Laughs) What time is it?
58:09 Q: Twelve o’clock.
58:14 K: Is that enough for today? Bullying, being bullied? I really am not bullying but you see, I feel responsible, you understand what I’m saying?
58:36 I really feel responsible, living here, that you should be something entirely different.
58:44 It’s my job, my responsibility.
58:51 Not that I want you to fit into a pattern which I think is different from the rest. That you should be different, not just lazy human beings – you know?
59:03 Q: Sir, can we just talk a little about this question of being responsible, because it seems a very difficult problem.
59:15 Perhaps you’re a member of staff here and you see that somebody is not being punctual or staying in bed late in the morning, so you go and you remind them, and you do it perhaps many times and there’s no change.
59:32 K: So what do you do? What does that word mean, responsible?
59:42 Dr Bohm will tell you the meaning of that word.
59:46 Q: Does it comes from being responsive?
59:49 K: Responsive. What does that mean? Go on, sir, investigate the word. Respond – what? Go on, push. I am pushing. Go on. Responsive. Are you going to be responsive to your like and dislike?
1:00:15 Q: No.
1:00:16 K: No. Let’s understand the meaning of that word first, and how to apply that meaning in our life, how to look at it.
1:00:24 There it is. I’m asleep. I don’t want to get up. You come in and say, ‘Get up.’ You talk to me, reason with me – you know? – bully me, get slightly irritated with me, want to kick me, all the rest of it.
1:00:41 And I just turn back and say, ‘You’re authoritarian’ – all that silly stuff.
1:00:51 And yet you have to wake me up. You know, that’s your responsibility. You have to respond to the challenge of my laziness. Right? Now how are you going to do it? How are you going to make me, who am lazy, indifferent, rude? When I say, ‘You are authoritarian,’ it is rude. It is not thought, it’s plain, obvious rudeness, because that’s a convenient thing: ‘You’re rude, you are authoritarian.’ Right?
1:01:28 Now what shall I do? What will you do with me? Go on, sir, investigate. It’s your job, sir, not his and mine – it’s all our job. What will you do?
1:01:40 Q: Try to show him the necessity of it.
1:01:46 K: Yes, you’ve shown me ten times, five times.
1:01:53 Vishwas, how will you answer this, sir? Go on, think it out. How will you respond to him who says, ‘Please do get up’? And he has told you ten times, and the eleventh time you say, ‘You’re an authoritarian.
1:02:11 This is a free country, I came here…’ etc. – you know? – all that bilge.
1:02:19 Now what is his responsibility? He wants you to get up, to take part in the communal work.
1:02:33 Right? Right? In the communal work. If you don’t take part in it, somebody else has to do it.
1:02:45 So he feels responsible for you in the sense that you should act, respond rightly to the challenge of getting up.
1:02:58 (Laughs) So what will he do and what shall I do?
1:03:05 Go on, sir, this is your problem. Let’s cut out the ‘authoritarian’ escape.
1:03:18 (Laughs) He has to get up. He has to make me get up. That’s his job, because your parents have sent you here, hoping that you’ll be educated human beings, not just whatever it is.
1:03:45 So their responsibility is to send you here. Your responsibility is that you should behave in a community which says cooperate.
1:03:59 You understand? Cooperate. You know what it means? To work together. And if you say, ‘Sorry, I’m going to be lazy and I’m going to wait’ – you know, all the rest of it – you’re not cooperating, you’re not being responsible.
1:04:15 So what will you do and what will he do? Come on, sirs. Beat you up? Perhaps. I mean… no.
1:04:27 Beat you up? No, obviously. Right? He can beat you up with words, can’t he?
1:04:39 No?
1:04:41 Q: You could stand there and argue with him all day long.
1:04:46 K: I know, that’s just what I’m saying – what will you do?
1:04:48 Q: Nothing.
1:04:49 K: Just leave him to lie in bed?
1:04:51 Q: He’ll deserve it when he gets… (inaudible) K: Would you do that?
1:04:59 Let me lie in bed?
1:05:01 Q: Perhaps not.
1:05:03 K: Why do I lie in bed?
1:05:10 For what reason I lie in bed?
1:05:13 Q: Because I’m lazy.
1:05:15 K: Why? At your age, lazy? Why? Go on, sir. Don’t say ‘lazy’ – find out. Why are you lazy? Did you overplay yesterday?
1:05:33 Q: Probably you don’t respond actively… (inaudible) K: No, I understand, sir. Why are you lazy? Is something wrong with you, physically?
1:05:45 Q: We don’t appreciate whatever it is if we do get up.
1:05:53 We tend to stay in bed and be dull and lie.
1:05:55 K: I’m asking you, sir – I understand that – why are you lazy? Find out.
1:05:59 Q: Perhaps he has a problem.
1:06:05 K: (Laughs) What is the problem, being lazy? Why are you lazy? Either you’re lazy because… Don’t let’s use that word lazy – it may not be laziness at all. It may be that physically you’re worn out.
1:06:24 Why? You played too much yesterday? Or you’re bored with your teaching?
1:06:37 Come on, sir. Or you’ve not the right food, not enough vitamins?
1:06:49 (Laughs) Or you like to feel, ‘Oh, I’m…’ – you know, feel comfortable being lazy?
1:06:59 Frightened to get up because you have to meet various things which you are incapable of meeting?
1:07:07 You understand? Therefore you assume this posture of laziness. But you’re not lazy when you have to go out and play games, or to talk endlessly.
1:07:19 You follow? What do you say? So why are you lazy? And that is his responsibility to find out why I am lazy.
1:07:40 Not enough vitamins, not enough rest, chattering endlessly, restless, you know, bored, frightened.
1:07:49 Right? I’m investigating, you’re not investigating.
1:08:00 So if we are to live together in a community of this kind, we have our responsibilities.
1:08:08 Responsibility being to respond fully to the challenge as it happens.
1:08:16 If I’m lazy… What, sir?
1:08:21 Q: And if we meet the challenge with our ideas then this causes… (inaudible) K: Of course.
1:08:33 Q: If we respond to the challenge with our ideas, this causes a...
1:08:38 K: With our ideas – obviously. Go into it, sir. (Laughs) I’m frightened for various reasons. I don’t know I’m frightened. Therefore being unconsciously frightened I resist getting up, because I have to face the day.
1:09:08 And therefore I say, ‘I’m going to be lazy today.’ You follow? I’m lazy and you come and tell me, ‘Get up.’ Ten times. And I say, ‘I won’t get up because I’m really frightened.’ Until you find out why I’m frightened, don’t call me lazy.
1:09:38 Or I may not have enough vitamins, whatever it is.
1:09:48 I eat too fast. My insides don’t work properly.
1:10:00 I have to go into all this to find out why I don’t get up.
1:10:08 You can’t find it, because you’re too young. It’s the older people’s responsibility to find out why you’re lazy, why you assume that you’re lazy.
1:10:19 But when they begin to investigate you say, ‘You’re authoritarian.’ Right? That’s a silly response, infantile response. And you’re frightened, probably, of your parents.
1:10:38 Right? (Laughs) And you don’t want your laziness or that reported, therefore you get up quickly.
1:10:49 But the fear remains. You follow? So unless you go into this very deeply, don’t call it lazy.
1:11:01 Young people are not lazy.
1:11:09 So is the staff – may I go into it a little? – is the staff capable of investigating you when you’re lazy?
1:11:30 ‘Lazy’ in quotes.
1:11:37 And on your part, don’t assume everybody is authoritarian. What is authority? I won’t go into it. Look, I’m sitting on a platform, a little higher up – is that authoritarian?
1:11:47 Q: No.
1:11:48 K: Why do you say no?
1:11:52 Q: It’s practical so that we can hear you and see you.
1:12:03 K: That’s all. But if I assume a certain feeling, saying, ‘Well, I am addressing people, sitting higher up’ – you know, status, then I become authoritarian.
1:12:19 If I have no status, though I sit on a platform, hell to it.
1:12:29 Sorry! So on your part, please don’t assume when they are investigating that they are authoritarian.
1:12:37 Finding out why you are lazy. Frightened? Not enough food? You have been playing too much, talking too much?
1:12:51 Not exercising enough? Also. Or you may be worried about your parents or not passing exam.
1:13:06 You may be worried and that’s why. You follow? All this is implied.
1:13:20 (Pause) As we said – I don’t know if you heard that before – as we said before, this is your home, because you spend most of your time here.
1:13:44 Right? Not at your own home, but here.
1:13:52 If you are frightened here – you understand? – if you are frightened at Brockwood there’s something very wrong with Brockwood.
1:14:09 Or you may come here frightened, because you’re frightened of your parents.
1:14:19 If a report is – listen to this; I’ve been connected with schools in India and in America – if a report is made to the parents, the parents will come down on you – right?
1:14:32 – therefore you don’t want reports. You understand what I am saying?
1:14:46 (Laughs) Therefore you say, ‘Well, why do you judge me? Who are you to judge me?’ You follow – your fear, how it turns round?
1:15:02 After all, the report must be made, whether you’re doing well in French or mathematics or in geometry, whatever it is – a report must be made.
1:15:14 But you say, ‘That’s evaluation. Who are you to evaluate?’ But the parents want to know how you’re studying – right?
1:15:32 – what you’re doing. And the staff may be frightened of you. No? Because they say look – they may not be able to stand up against you.
1:15:52 So you have to take all this in, not just your wish to stay in bed.
1:16:02 You understand, sir? You know, to live in a community of this kind is a tremendous responsibility on each one’s part, not just on my part.
1:16:19 We are sharing something together. That means you are as active in sharing as the person who is giving.
1:16:36 We must both be active.
1:16:56 Are you hurt? Not physically. Inwardly, are you hurt by people? Are you?
1:17:20 Don’t look at somebody else. Are you? Are you hurt by another boy, another girl? Are you hurt by your family?
1:17:48 You are, aren’t you? Quite. And when you’re hurt, do you know what happens?
1:18:00 You withdraw, don’t you, like a snail into the shell, and you don’t want to be hurt any more.
1:18:12 Therefore you resist. And that resistance is another form of laziness.
1:18:22 So you have to find out why you are hurt, and to be never hurt again.
1:18:37 Which doesn’t mean you build a wall of resistance. Never to be hurt, by anybody – your parents, your teachers, your friends, your wife, husband, by your girl, boy – never to be hurt.
1:19:00 Do you know what that means?
1:19:08 (Laughs) So you are hurt, aren’t you?
1:19:15 Why are you hurt? Just look at it – why are you hurt?
1:19:27 I say something to you – harsh, brutal, and you’re hurt.
1:19:40 Why? Investigate with me, sir – why are you hurt? You say something to me, ‘Oh, you’re a fool!’ I’m hurt. Why?
1:19:52 Q: Because I have a certain idea about myself.
1:19:56 K: Yes, which means what?
1:19:58 Q: Also I rely on what other people think.
1:20:00 K: No, no, take that. First, you call me a fool. I am hurt. Why? As Vishwas says, I have an image about myself, don’t I? I think I’m an awfully clever chap, and you call me a fool.
1:20:21 That hurts me because I have an image about myself. Right? You understand? Or ideas about myself. I think about myself not being a blasted fool. Right? Now, next question is: why do I have an image about myself?
1:20:46 Go on, sir, investigate.
1:20:56 Why do I have an image about myself?
1:21:00 Q: Sir, I think it’s because I’m insecure, but could it also be because the reality of myself, I can’t… isn’t valid, I can’t...
1:21:12 K: But you don’t know the reality of yourself. Do you know yourself and say, ‘This is the real’?
1:21:20 Q: The whole process of education, since…
1:21:21 K: No. Look, don’t go into all that, just take… You’re hurt, aren’t you? You’re capable of being hurt. Why are you hurt? We said you are hurt because you have an image about yourself: I think I’m a great man, because I sit on some stupid platform, or write some few books or talk to a thousand or ten thousand people, I think I’m a great man – right?
1:21:50 – I have an image about myself. And you come along and say, ‘You’re a blasted fool.’ You follow? Because I have an image about myself. So, now, why do I have an image about myself? Go on, sir!
1:22:09 Q: Probably something you hold on to.
1:22:12 K: Why? I’m asking you: why do you have it? I understand I’ll hold onto it. Yes, sir?
1:22:20 Q: A defence, a shield, like a defence thing around you.
1:22:25 K: No – why do I have an image? Will image defend me?
1:22:31 Q: It could if you hold onto it.
1:22:38 K: No, you’re not answering my question. I’m hurt. Why am I hurt? Because I have an image about myself. Now why do I have an image about myself?
1:22:56 You have an image about yourself, haven’t you? Be honest, for God’s sake.
1:23:00 Q: Yes.
1:23:01 Q: We’re afraid not to.
1:23:02 K: Now, why are you afraid not to have an image?
1:23:06 Q: Afraid to be nobody.
1:23:08 K: Wait. That means what? Image gives you the idea or the feeling that you’re somebody.
1:23:19 So the feeling of being somebody is more important than the fact that you’re nobody.
1:23:29 So the image gives you – you follow? – the pretension of being somebody. There’s much more in it – I won’t go into all that because I don’t think this is the opportune moment.
1:23:45 I have an image about myself, and that image has been handed down through education, through the society, all the rest of it, religion.
1:23:57 And that image takes the place of reality. The reality is: what am I? Nothing. I’ve certain gifts, or capacity to write, or talk or ski or climb a mountain – that gives me prestige, which is my image.
1:24:22 Remove that image, I am just nobody. Put the Queen of England like anybody – you see? – it’s nobody. You follow? So the image takes the place of reality, which is, I am absolutely nothing.
1:24:42 That’s a marvellous feeling – you don’t know anything about it. (Laughs) And from there you can start to be absolutely… then you won’t be hurt.
1:24:57 Right? But you don’t allow anybody to walk on you either.
1:25:17 I think that’s enough, isn’t it?