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BR72DSS1.05 - Prejudice
Brockwood Park, UK - 8 June 1972
Discussion with Staff and Students 1.05



0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s fifth discussion with teachers and students at Brockwood Park, 1972.
0:11 Krishnamurti: What shall we talk about?
0:22 Questioner: Sir, it seems to me at least, if I take something abstract like, I don’t know, a cube, a circle, something which I formulate, which I know all the conditions about, no questions about because it’s abstract, and ask a question about that, I can answer that question fairly well because I know all the conditions about it.
0:57 When I take something real, you see, something like the microphone or the lamp, something real, it seems to me very often you can’t answer finally many questions about it because it’s always something you don’t know about, you see.
1:16 You never say you do, you never come to the point you know everything about it.
1:25 K: Are you saying, sir, that you cannot possibly know about everything?
1:34 Q: Yes...
1:38 K: Is that what we were discussing the other day? Can’t I know myself and my actions, my behaviour completely, totally, or is there so much to be known that I can’t possibly know about myself wholly?
2:06 Is that what you’re trying to say?
2:10 Q: This is what I’m trying to say. That’s the way it seems to me, but I’m asking the question.
2:20 K: That’s what we’re asking, too. The more scientifically, technologically one investigates, the more there is to be known – it’s endless, isn’t it, in one direction.
2:36 And in another direction, about to know oneself, one’s relationship with the world, with individuals, living in a community, co-operation and so on – can I, or can one know oneself totally in all that?
3:02 Right? What do you think? I understand I can’t know in this lifetime, before I die, all about the moon, Jupiter, the atom, how to clear up pollution, control population.
3:37 I don’t know what’s going to happen in that field, in that vast field where knowledge is always expanding.
3:51 So there can be never a statement: I know all about it.
4:01 But does that apply to oneself, one’s behaviour, one’s reactions, what one thinks, what one is?
4:18 You follow? Can we find out together whether there is an end to one’s knowledge of oneself?
4:42 Isn’t it? Right? Or, I want to find out, living in this world, which is more or less insane, how to act intelligently.
5:14 Can we investigate that, and find out what is action and intelligence?
5:24 Right? Can we do that? Because when you leave this place, or when you leave your college and all the rest of it, you have to face all this.
5:41 Right? You have to face the world – the establishment, the revolt, the revolution, the violence, the killing, the pollution, overpopulation, you know, you have to meet all that.
5:59 Either you meet it stupidly or you meet it intelligently.
6:09 So, it’s part of our education, isn’t it, to see how intelligence can be cultivated.
6:22 Or can it be cultivated gradually? You understand? Cultivation means gradually – I cultivate a plant, it’ll take time.
6:36 So one asks oneself whether intelligent action is cultivable, or is it something entirely different?
6:54 Can we discuss this? Do you want to discuss that? You understand my question? It’ll take many months, or perhaps many weeks, to cultivate a tomato [laughs], depending on the weather and so on.
7:20 Now I want to investigate whether intelligence is cultivable – you understand? – you will take time.
7:34 That is, I’ll take time to learn a language – Italian, French, whatever it is, it’ll take many months.
7:51 And is intelligence and action, that is, intelligent action, does it take time?
8:02 You have got my question? What do you think? Come on, sirs. Because it’s part of your education.
8:23 As you learn algebra or whatever it is, are you going to learn gradually to be intelligent?
8:35 Q: [Inaudible]...
8:37 K: Find, go into it, sir, gradually. Or is intelligence nothing to do with time?
8:50 You understand my...? Intelligence doesn’t come into being through a long period of cultivating intelligence.
9:08 So we have got this problem. Society – you know what – society is always corrupt – always, it doesn’t matter what society it is.
9:24 Right? Go ahead, sir, discuss with me.
9:28 Q: I was thinking, if society is insane to a partial extent, then how can the mind distinguish between intelligent action and non-intelligent action?
9:38 K: We’re going to find out, we’re going to find out, we’re going to find out.
9:45 Society will always be corrupt. Do you accept that statement? Why? Why do you accept that statement? Come on, sir, discuss with me.
10:06 Q: I don’t know what you mean by society.
10:14 K: Society? Society – so, the relationship between human beings.
10:19 Q: Well then, it doesn’t have to be corrupt.
10:20 Q: Because there’s so much division.
10:24 K: Wait. You ask what society is. I don’t know what the dictionary meaning of it is but we can find out for ourselves. What is society? A people, a group of people, large or small, vast or limited, living according to a certain pattern, certain moral, ethical, religious sanctions – are you following all this?
10:56 – economic, business – living together, producing a culture which is called society.
11:04 [Laughs] Right? Do you agree to that? We’ll change the definition; definition isn’t important.
11:15 Now, I say society is always corrupt.
11:24 You agree to that?
11:26 Q: But society is the individuals.
11:29 K: You say you agree? Why?
11:32 Q: Isn’t that saying that people are corrupt?
11:37 K: Yes. Wait, wait – people are corrupt, aren’t they?
11:46 You and I may be different – we want not to be corrupt, because we say we’ll use our intelligence to find out how not to be corrupt.
12:00 But the vast majority of people are not interested in that. They are interested in good time, more money, more cars, more this and more – you follow?
12:13 – and having more leisure, more money to enjoy themselves; and they are not interested in bringing about in the individual, in himself, a mind that is incorruptible.
12:28 Therefore, I say society, whatever society it is, communist or a future society or the present society, whatever society is, where there is an accumulation of thousands and millions of people not knowing each other, always in conflict, always aggressive, always in a state of violence, not only physically but psychologically, the society which they produce is corrupt.
13:05 Right?
13:06 Q: That will be so the way you define society because no one within that society will be doing anything that they’ve seen clearly for themselves.
13:14 There will always be someone else giving it to them, and they do it because that’s the best...
13:23 K: Yes, so do you see that? We agree to that? And I’m going to meet that society. Now I want to find out how to act intelligently.
13:42 Right? Not be corrupted by them, by others. I want to find out a way of living, a way of acting, a way of behaving intelligently, sanely.
14:10 Right? And perhaps there will be a small community of people who will not be corrupt.
14:23 This has been the struggle of sane people and insane people.
14:33 You understand? There have been communities in the past, in the Christian community, the Essenes, and in Asia and in every part of... where they said let us live intelligently – they didn’t put it this way, but I’m putting it that way – let us act so that we ourselves will not be corrupt, though there is this immense wave around us, field that’s corrupt.
15:05 So what we’re going to find out is, investigate together – you know what investigation is, to trace till you understand completely, go through – investigate together what is intelligent, intelligence, and action springing from that intelligence.
15:28 Right? Are you interested in this? Now, how do you investigate intelligence?
15:45 You understand? Investigate, that is to trace out, examine, penetrate into by enquiring, investigating what is intelligence.
16:06 You got it? Right? Now, what is intelligence?
16:20 Do you know what it is?
16:27 You don’t, do you?
16:28 Q: No.
16:30 K: What do you say? Not what should be intelligence – you understand? – not your concept of what intelligence is, or what you believe to be intelligent, so you...
16:53 You understand what I’m saying? What you believe or what you think or what you think should be is all based on your prejudice.
17:09 Right? You have a picture of what intelligence is. Why do you have a picture of what intelligence is when you’re not intelligent?
17:24 I don’t know... you follow? Why should I have a belief in God, as most people do, when I don’t know what it is?
17:41 So in enquiring what it is, I shall find out what it is not.
17:48 You get what I’m talking? Right? Are we moving together? Right. So in investigating, which is to pursue to the very end – not just stop in the middle and say, ‘I’m tired today, I’ll do it the day after tomorrow’ – but to pursue it right to the end is to investigate.
18:17 And we are investigating intelligence, and action springing from that intelligence.
18:25 Right? I see I don’t know what intelligence is – actually I don’t know.
18:34 If I am intelligent then there is no problem. I don’t know what intelligence is – I can imagine, I can define ‘what should be’, but that’s all...
18:46 So, I find in investigating what is intelligence that any kind of supposition, any kind of belief in what is intelligence, and in a description of intelligence, a definition of intelligence, are all based on our prejudice.
19:13 Q: What about the dictionary meaning?
19:17 K: The dictionary meaning gives you: intelligence is the capacity to understand. Well, what does that mean?
19:26 Q: Well, do we keep that or do we...
19:32 K: No, we’re not defining at all. The moment you define, your definition will be according to your prejudice – you follow this?
19:45 Do understand this – because you will then say, ‘My intelligence is different from your intelligence.’ Q: Yes, and then you say capacity to understand; but how we can say the word ‘intelligence’ is with our understanding of words, spoken in our language.
20:03 K: Look, we are not defining intelligence.
20:05 Q: No, but we’re using the word.
20:07 K: We are using that word to find out what it means.
20:12 Q: But can’t we only do that by words?
20:16 K: Then we’ll stop talking.
20:17 Q: Yes, but we already have a dictionary meaning.
20:22 K: Look, the dictionary meaning says – Mrs Simmons will help me out with this – dictionary meaning says: the capacity to understand, the capacity to see clearly – that’s good enough.
20:47 That is the description, that is the meaning of that word ‘intelligence’.
20:54 What we’re trying to find out, for ourselves, not according to the meaning of the dictionary or according to the statement of the Archbishop of Canterbury who said, ‘This is intelligence’ – we are enquiring into what is intelligence.
21:12 Right?
21:13 Q: So we’re looking for something new to start with.
21:16 K: Just listen, sir – we are trying to find out what intelligence is. If I say this is intelligence then it is my prejudice, isn’t it?
21:31 I want to make that very clear. If I base my definition of intelligence according to what I think it is, and you base your meaning of intelligence according to your prejudice, then our two... you have your intelligence and I have my intelligence.
21:53 You understand? Therefore they’ll be contradictory. You’ve got it? Therefore, we are not defining or saying what intelligence is.
22:11 Right? So don’t imagine or think what intelligence is, because if you do you’ve stopped investigating, because you’re reacting according to your prejudice.
22:28 Is that clear? Right? And you have prejudices, haven’t you? Long hair, short hair, you must do this, you must not do that, why shouldn’t I – you follow? – you’re full of prejudices.
22:49 I don’t know why, but you are.
22:58 So a man who has any kind of prejudice is not intelligent.
23:07 Right? So we say, ‘By Jove, intelligence means a mind that is free from prejudice.
23:26 Right? Brazil, what do you say?
23:37 Come on. So as we are investigating into what is intelligence, you see that prejudice hinders, blocks being intelligent.
23:57 Right? Now, can you be free now, not tomorrow, of your prejudices?
24:11 Prejudice means pre-judge, have opinions about something, that I must be... have long hair, I must do what I think.
24:24 Isn’t that a prejudice?
24:34 This is what I want and I’m going to do it. I don’t want to study, I don’t want to pass examinations, and therefore I’m not going to do a thing.
24:45 Right? Those are all prejudices, aren’t they? No? You agree so easily? If you do agree then you must drop all your prejudices.
25:06 When you drop your prejudices you are learning.
25:17 You follow? And that’s the beauty of it, you see. You get it? Right? And now we are going to learn what intelligence is, which is, a mind that has any kind of prejudice, any kind of opinion, any kind of assertive statement – about Nixon, Heath, or communism or socialism – opinion, you understand? – is an unintelligent mind.
26:02 Q: But aren’t you now expressing an opinion about opinions?
26:11 K: No. No, I’m not expressing an opinion, I’m merely stating a fact. A fact, which is, I’ve been interested, concerned with action, which is intelligence.
26:25 I say to myself, how am I to act intelligently in this world?
26:34 And in investigating what is intelligence, I see what it is not. And that’s not an opinion. If I have an opinion it blocks my perception, my understanding, clarity.
26:54 If I say all Indians are – what?
27:01 – silly, all Germans, all Russians, all Americans are crude, or beautiful, it would be my opinion.
27:16 And newspapers are full of opinions; they are not factual. And I doubt anybody, including the top politicians, are factual – they can’t be factual, because things are changing so rapidly.
27:33 Right? So, we are not dealing with opinions at all, we are dealing with facts; the fact being, an opinion, a mind that is bigoted, a mind that says, ‘This is so’, ‘I believe’, ‘I want’, ‘I must’, is a mind that is not capable of understanding or investigating what is intelligence.
28:08 Right? Now, can you, being young, drop your prejudices, or will you take time to drop it?
28:22 You understand? You say, ‘I want my prejudices, I’m going to keep them for a while and later on drop them, when it suits me to drop them.’ Which is an act of unintelligence.
28:40 I don’t know if you’re meeting this. So, intelligence is not a thing to be cultivated. Have you got it?
28:55 If I see my opinions, and I act according to those opinions which I have, and therefore my action is based on my prejudices, whether the prejudice be the Christian prejudice or the Hindu prejudice or the Buddhist, and so on.
29:25 I don’t know if you meet all this. Right? So can you drop your prejudice and learn?
29:37 Q: Sir, would you say that likes and dislikes are also prejudices?
29:45 K: Aren’t they? I like – what? – what do you like and dislike?
29:57 I don’t like you; I like you. What is that based on? I like you because you smell better. [Laughs] I don’t like that person because he is not very clean.
30:17 And I like you and I act according to that like. That is a prejudice; and I don’t act friendly because that person is unclean. So it is a prejudice, based on my concept of prejudice... concept of what is cleanliness.
30:39 But, listen carefully, how am I to act when I meet, in the community of this kind, a person who is not clean?
30:58 You see the problem? What’s my action, intelligent action with regard to a person who is not clean? Go on, investigate it, sir, discuss it.
31:10 Q: There’s usually a reaction.
31:13 K: What will you... how will you act? How will you act – please put yourself in the place of Mrs Simmons – how will you act, without prejudice but intelligently, when you meet, as a student, a member of the community who insists that, ‘I like to be dirty, uncombed, I like to do this, I’m sloppy’?
31:45 How will you meet – you in place of Mrs Simmons – how will you act?
31:52 Go on, sir.
32:02 This is the world – you understand? When you leave this place or after college, university, you’re going to meet this, people who have strong opinions about everything.
32:27 And how will you meet them? In certain cases it’s not my business, and avoid them, keep away from them, but you can’t do that with everybody.
32:54 Everybody has an opinion – opinion, a conclusion, a formula – everybody.
33:11 Because to act according to a formula, according to an opinion, a conclusion, is very easy. You follow? Say I conclude that there is heaven, and I act accordingly – it’s very easy.
33:29 But an intelligent mind, because it has no conclusion, it’s going to be... has to learn.
33:36 So you’re learning now. How will you act? Come on.
33:54 And what do you mean by acting? That’s what we’re investigating, isn’t it? Intelligent action – what does that mean, action? What do you mean by action?
34:09 Q: Acting from what you see at that moment.
34:16 K: Action – what you see at that moment. You see – just a minute – you see a snake, not here, but you see a snake.
34:29 You react to that according to your conditioning, don’t you?
34:37 Your conditioning has been: all snakes are dangerous – right? – and you react to your conditioning.
34:49 You say, ‘I must kill it or run away from it.’ So you act according to your conditioning; and your conditioning is your prejudice.
35:10 No? I have been brought up as a Catholic or a Protestant or a Hindu – that’s my conditioning, isn’t it?
35:24 And according to my Catholic, Protestant, or Hindu, Buddhist background, I react.
35:33 And that conditioning is the accumulated prejudices of my race, of my family.
35:45 Right? And I say to act according to my conditioning is unintelligent, except in the case of the snake.
35:59 You’re discovering something? In the case of the snake my conditioning is necessary, otherwise I’ll be dead if the snake is poisonous.
36:15 But if I psychologically have been conditioned as a Hindu and you as a Catholic, we’re acting according to our prejudices, therefore we dislike each other, therefore we say, ‘Join us’ – we and they and all the rest of it, the division.
36:38 So do you see the difference? A conditioning with regard to danger, physical danger – snake et cetera, a bus coming at full speed, a precipice and so on – physical danger, and to react to it according to your conditioning is intelligence.
37:06 You’ve got it? But to react according to my conditioning psychologically is unintelligent.
37:18 So I’m learning. You follow?
37:23 Q: What about the dirty boy?
37:26 K: Dirty boy.
37:27 Q: How do you react to the boy?
37:28 K: We’re going to find out – wait, sir. Take the picture first, general picture, and then apply to the particular. Don’t start with the particular. Have I made myself clear? You are investigating with me, you’re not just agreeing with me. You understand? So, knowledge with regard to the snake is intelligent, and the action of that knowledge is an intelligent action – right? – but psychologically the knowledge which says, ‘I am a Hindu, and you a Christian,’ that is unintelligent action.
38:24 You’ve got it? Now: so action according to our conditioning in one direction is necessary, is healthy, sane, and psychologically acting according to our conditioning is insane – right? – is unintelligent, unhealthy.
38:49 Sane means... sanity means health.
39:00 So, I see that – do you see this?
39:07 Q: I miss exactly what you mean by psychologically reacting.
39:14 K: Psychological reaction: I mean, I have been brought up in India among a certain group of people who call themselves Brahmins, and they have certain traditions, certain behaviour, certain way of looking at life.
39:35 They believe in something – God, Brahman, all kinds of things they believe, and they pass it on to me, because I’m born in that group and they say, ‘You’re a Brahmin, you must behave this way, you must believe this way, you must do your ritual, puja’ – you follow? – and that has conditioned the mind, psychologically.
40:00 Right? And to react, and to act according to that conditioning is unintelligent.
40:07 Q: Would you include in this even the scientific knowledge passed on in that way?
40:15 K: Ah, I’d said very clearly scientific knowledge is necessary.
40:20 Q: There’s ways to pass it on. I mean, for instance, if I remember, in history, for instance, when Aristotle had said certain things, it went on for two thousand years, even though it wasn’t true, it was considered scientific knowledge.
40:45 K: Yes, sir – Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, and before them, the Jewish history, the Egyptian, and before them the Sumerians – you follow? – and so on – they have accumulated great knowledge, both scientific, superstitious, unreal, illogical.
41:02 There it is. Here I am, born in all that, I’m conditioned to all that.
41:13 Q: To all of it, yes.
41:14 K: All of it, not just little bits of it. And I see to act in the scientific field, in the technological field without knowledge is destruction.
41:31 Right? To enter into a computer world not knowing a thing about it is silly.
41:40 Q: Yes.
41:41 Q: So you have to still see something...
41:43 K: I have to learn.
41:44 Q: Yes, yourself.
41:45 K: Yes, I have to learn. My mind has to be conditioned to function in the field of computers.
41:53 Q: So even if scientific knowledge is passed on in such a way that I just...
42:00 K: Of course, of course, that’s understood, that’s very clear.
42:04 Q: OK.
42:06 K: But we are saying: I am born in the world of Italy, where Catholicism is very strong – the priest, the mediator, the saviour, all that – and I’m conditioned to that psychologically.
42:26 You follow? And acting from that is unintelligent. That’s all. Got it? Now what do you do? Have you prejudices?
42:43 And being young, can’t you drop it? Just drop it. Why do you have them, why do you carry them about?
42:52 They’re a burden. We said, we explained clearly what we mean by prejudice.
42:59 Q: But how does one see a prejudice within oneself as a prejudice?
43:07 How does one see it within oneself as a prejudice?
43:09 K: Don’t you?
43:11 Q: Well, often I fool myself.
43:13 K: When I say, ‘This is what I think. I must be right, I must... I don’t want to pass an examination,’ it is a prejudice.
43:30 ‘I only want to play guitar. I don’t want to know a thing about the world.’ Right?
43:42 Now I say, we say, to be educated means... to educate means to learn – right? – and if I say, ‘I only want to do this,’ I’m not learning.
44:07 Right? Now, you have prejudices, haven’t you? My Lord, I don’t know why at your age you have prejudices at all, it’s appalling.
44:18 It’s all right old people having them – not all right, I mean, they’re silly – there it is – but why do you have them?
44:27 Why don’t you say, ‘I’ll learn’ – you follow?
44:34 – ‘I will learn whether I should have long hair’? And why should I have long hair? Learn – you follow? – not assert. Now, can you drop your prejudices this morning and never have them again?
45:09 Then you will know what action, which is intelligence, which is intelligent.
45:23 Now, how will you – please listen – how will you, who have listened to this this morning, saying what intelligent action is, how will you, all of you together, meet me who...
45:41 I am dirty, I’m sloppy, I don’t care, I don’t comb my hair, I come when I like, you know, smell, don’t wash – what will you do with me?
45:51 It’s your responsibility, isn’t it, living in a community? What will you do with me?
46:07 You understand? You are responsible for me, not only Mrs Simmons and the older... but you are, each one of us is responsible for each other living in this community.
46:21 What will you do? How will you act intelligently with me who refuse to comb my hair, clean, not wash, come when I like, and say, ‘Oh, I must do this only, I must not pass...’ – how will you deal with me?
46:41 Come on, don’t go to sleep.
46:44 Q: Sir, it’s difficult because I may like to be clean, it helps me do my work, or I feel healthy or whatever, but the person may like to be dirty.
47:00 Now, I’m conditioned to be clean, I think that’s right.
47:03 K: Ah, no, wait, listen carefully, listen. You may not have listened then. Is cleanliness a prejudice?
47:12 Q: I don’t know.
47:14 K: What do you mean you don’t know?
47:23 Come on, sir, why do you say you don’t know?
47:34 You see, you’re all quiet – what do you mean?
47:37 Q: Sir?
47:40 K: Wait a minute, take...
47:47 You must have, one must have healthy body, supple body, quick body, healthy body – is that prejudice?
47:55 Audience: No.
47:57 K: Why do you say no?
48:04 Q: It’s like the snake.
48:10 K: Yes, like the snake. If you had not healthy body you’ll be in pain, you can’t function properly, your brain won’t operate properly, efficiently.
48:26 So you have to have a good, healthy, sane, supple body – is that a prejudice?
48:39 And to be healthy you must be clean – is that a prejudice? Come on, sir, discuss, don’t...
48:48 Q: It’s a fact.
48:50 K: It’s a fact. You need to be healthy.
48:55 Q: Sir, is – ‘definition’ perhaps is the wrong word, but is the definition of what is right what is good for the human being?
49:05 K: Oh no, I’m not defining what’s good and what’s wrong.
49:08 Q: But how do I...? To me, I feel that the human being should be clean, but why is that right? Is there...?
49:16 K: I don’t... it’s not... I said – look, sir – I said one must have healthy body. Right? Mustn’t one? Is that a prejudice? Oh no, come on, sir, don’t... Is it a prejudice to have a body that’s supple? Because if you have a dull, heavy body your mind becomes... doesn’t it? So you need to have a healthy body; and healthy body implies cleanliness.
49:54 That’s not a prejudice.
50:04 So how will you deal with me, as a group?
50:12 I who am dirty, what will you do with me? Come on, discuss. [Laughs] I believe in... as a Hindu, I’ll go to heaven.
50:33 You follow? Or hell or whatever it is – how will you meet me? Come on, sir, it’s your job. This is how you’re going to... how you’re going to meet in the world.
50:47 Q: I’m sorry, how do you know this? How do you know this, that you’re going to go to heaven or somewhere?
51:00 K: I don’t quite...
51:01 Q: Well, if you say this, you say, ‘How do you know that you’re going to go to heaven?’ And he’ll say, ‘Because I’ve read in a book.’ K: No, sir, no, sir, you’re missing my point. I’ve explained it. I’ve been brought up to believe in a saviour, and the rest of the world says, sorry, we don’t believe in a saviour.
51:23 That’s their prejudice, and it is my prejudice when I say there is a saviour. Right? And I am amidst you. How will you deal with me?
51:43 How will you deal with me who say, ‘This is perfectly all right, my being dirty. It’s your opinion, it’s your prejudice says you must be clean.’ How will you deal with me, sir?
51:59 Come on!
52:00 Q: If I am prejudice, naturally I push you away.
52:07 K: You can’t, I’m here. You can’t say, ‘Get out’ – I’m here. My father sent me here, God knows why but he has. What will you... how will you deal with me? Just be indifferent?
52:20 Q: Try to make you understand.
52:25 K: Now, how will you help me to understand?
52:32 When I say, ‘Oh, that is your prejudice because you have an idea you must be clean’ – you follow?
52:42 [Laughs] How will you deal with me, sirs? Come on. Come on, Geoffrey, what do you say? You have to answer this question because you’re going to meet this in the world.
52:59 Q: You have to know somewhat more about it than just...
53:11 K: What do you mean, about? I’ve explained.
53:15 Q: Yes, but exactly what are the conditions that are making him this way?
53:16 K: Look, old boy, look, don’t make it complicated. The fact is you are clean, I am not. And you... I have to live with you, I have to eat with you, I have to play games with you, I am in the same class – how will you deal with me, intelligently, not based on your prejudice?
53:42 Come on, Brazil, what do you say?
53:50 Q: I would show him the facts. Show him the facts that being dirty is very unhealthy.
54:00 K: Yes, but I say, ‘All right, that’s your prejudice.’ I’m not going to change because you say that. What will you do with me? That’s the problem of Mrs Simmons.
54:12 Q: There’s no real problem.
54:17 K: And Mr Cook – what will you... No problem?
54:23 Q: It’s just that if that could be explained to him, that it is...
54:25 K: Healthy?
54:26 Q: To be healthy you should be clean...
54:30 K: You have explained to me, you have explained to me ten times.
54:33 Q: All right, if he still won’t see it...
54:35 K: Then what will you do?
54:36 Q: ...you can’t do anything for a person like that.
54:38 K: Find out, find out. Go into it. What will you do with a boy or a girl like me who refuse to listen to you?
54:48 Q: You can’t do anymore with anyone who refuses to listen to you.
54:53 Q: We will clean you.
54:55 K: Take me and dump me in the pool? [Laughter] That has been done, you know. In the school I was in they used to throw boys in there.
55:08 You won’t do that, but... I’ll say, ‘You’re violent, you’re authoritarian! I must fulfil myself in my dirt.’ [Laughter] See the problem?
55:33 That is, an intelligent man, a man who says, ‘I have investigated into myself what is intelligence,’ that is, to have no prejudice whatsoever but only function with facts.
55:58 And I meet somebody who’s full of opinions, like you – you’re full of it.
56:06 How shall we meet? And we have to live in this community.
56:13 Q: Together, the both of you investigate cleanliness.
56:24 K: I’m doing it, sir. We have done it.
56:26 Q: With the dirty...
56:27 K: We have done it with the dirty boy. I’m the dirty boy and you have talked to me, you have discussed with me. I don’t listen to you. While you are talking I’m looking at that window, out of the window. I don’t care.
56:37 Q: But if you both discuss it together, you must discuss, you must not look out of the window.
56:43 K: But, sir, keep... So what happens? You don’t – you’re not factual.
56:49 Q: But he has to be factual, he has to see the facts too, unless you...
56:52 K: He doesn’t want to!
56:53 Q: Then how can you discuss? You can’t discuss.
56:55 Q: What can you do with a person who doesn’t want to see the facts?
56:59 K: Wait – that’s right, now you’re coming. Go on, get irritated with it. You’re coming near it. Go on, push it!
57:03 Q: OK, sir, so he doesn’t want to be clean at all, perhaps. Perhaps he doesn’t want to be clean at all.
57:12 K: I’ve said that. [Laughter] Q: If the dirty boy creates walls in his mind, you can’t break them down.
57:28 K: And you are to educate me. Right? It’s your responsibility, not only Mrs Simmons and others but also yours – how will you act with regard to me?
57:43 Q: We say to him first, ‘What is clean?’ and he says something and then you look at that...
57:49 K: Yes, sir, but there is something more. You look at it, take time to look at it. If I was a little boy, little girl, baby, then you’d wash me.
58:05 Say, ‘My God, that boy is dirty,’ and take me up and scrub me. I’m a little older now, a boy, I’ve got full of opinions – you follow?
58:21 – I must be dirty, you’re a boss, you’re authoritarian, you’re this, you are – you follow? Who are you to tell me, I must fulfil, [laughs] I’m identifying myself with my dirt.
58:30 Q: But then you cannot do anything, unless he sees he’s full of prejudice.
58:43 K: Now, find out. I don’t, therefore find out, boy, how to deal with me.
58:54 Q: But it sounds ridiculous, because it seems to me you don’t have any prejudice at that moment.
59:09 I mean...
59:10 K: I will show you a way of dealing with it. I want you to work!
59:13 Q: But we said before that understanding involves time.
59:22 K: Look, you come here with certain prejudices, don’t you? And I want to educate you, that is, to educate you to be intelligent. Right? Not according to my intelligence; according to intelligence, which is neither yours nor mine.
59:42 Right? And we have together examined what is intelligence and what it is not. Right? Now, I say to you at the end of it, have you dropped your prejudices?
59:58 Because you see it, as you see a snake which is dangerous, you see it and drop it.
1:00:05 Right? Have you dropped it? That’s it. Why haven’t you dropped it, if you see it? Now take this thing: you have prejudices and I’ve gone into it, I say, look, what can I do with this boy who is so full of prejudices at the end of this.
1:00:37 I’ve spent an hour explaining, going into it, pointing it out, different examples, and he refuses to move from his prejudice.
1:00:48 What am I to do?
1:00:57 What am I to do?
1:01:09 I know what I would do. You’re waiting for my answer?
1:01:15 Q: Yes. [Laughter] K: Ah, that’s just it, you see – you don’t work.
1:01:19 Q: But when you say that after an hour, explaining for an hour, he doesn’t still understand, and you’re fed up with me, isn’t that a prejudice?
1:01:24 K: I’m not fed up with you.
1:01:28 Q: Then you wouldn’t say it.
1:01:30 K: I said to you, old boy, I said to you – I’m not fed up with you – I say, how am I, who am a little older, how am I to educate this boy so that he will drop his prejudices?
1:01:53 Q: If the boy insists on being dirty, is he interested in being here and learning, and how to drop his prejudices?
1:02:16 K: Look – Lisa?
1:02:17 Q: [Inaudible] K: Brazil, I prefer Brazil. [Laughter] You’ve got prejudices, haven’t you? Be simple and honest. You have, haven’t you? How am I to deal with you who insist on keeping these prejudices? When I say, ‘Look, prejudice is unintelligent action,’ to which you agree – agree verbally, mentally, but not actually.
1:02:42 Now how am I to show you, convince you, to help you, to educate you to be intelligent?
1:02:52 Not ten years later but now. What am I to do? And you say, ‘Well, I...’ – you listen to it for a while but you carry on with your prejudices. What am I to do? I want, very passionately, strongly, that when you leave this room you’re free of all prejudices, you’re intelligent.
1:03:23 And you say, ‘Well, that’s very nice.’ You look at the cloud and say, ‘Yes, that’s quite right,’ and you don’t move, you don’t break through the prejudices.
1:03:39 What am I to do? You know, this is what I’ve been doing for the last fifty years.
1:03:56 You understand? I go to India and talk there, all over India, thousands of people, full, full of prejudices, opinions, judgements, evaluation – this is God, this is not God, this is right politics – you follow?
1:04:13 – bubbling over with words, dishonest. Here you are; I’m telling you the same thing differently, more simply.
1:04:27 And you refuse to move. Right? How shall I deal with you – come and kiss you?
1:04:43 No, listen carefully, don’t laugh at it. Come and hold your hands? When I say, look, Brazil, please, look at the world, the beauty of it, the beauty of the world, the love, kindliness, how can you have these terrible prejudices which destroy you?
1:05:13 Shall I hold your hands?
1:05:20 Then will you give them up? Will you give them up if I reward you? Say, well, I’ll give you a pair of pyjamas, a new suit, [laughter] a clean shirt, a new shirt, a jersey – will you give up your prejudices?
1:05:40 Not a bit of it – you’ll take my gift and go on with your prejudices [laughs].
1:05:48 Right? Right? You’ll hold my hand and carry on with your prejudices. So how am I to deal with you?
1:06:07 And my intention is to educate, to cultivate your intelligence.
1:06:09 Q: Can anyone be educated if they really don’t want to be?
1:06:14 K: What do you mean, you don’t – why not?
1:06:19 Q: I’m just asking the question, can they be?
1:06:22 K: I’m saying you should want to be, that’s part of your education. It’s like saying, ‘I don’t want to learn mathematics’ – my God! – I don’t want to learn how to read, I don’t want to be clean, I want to be unhealthy, sloppy, you know, have no supple body, quick mind.
1:06:51 Shall I talk to you every day?
1:06:59 Hold your hands, give you a shirt, a new dress, point out every day to you?
1:07:13 Will that help?
1:07:15 Q: No.
1:07:17 K: No. Then what will help?
1:07:20 Q: If every one of us is able to stand on his own.
1:07:32 K: Why don’t you? Why don’t you say, ‘Right, this is... today I’ve learnt what it is to be intelligent, and I’ll break through this prejudice, this wall that society, my family, has built round me.’ That is a revolution, isn’t it, not long hair.
1:08:03 Q: Doesn’t that involve patience?
1:08:11 K: Shall I talk to you every day, old boy?
1:08:19 I have patience – will you listen every day to me say be intelligent, be clear, don’t have opinions?
1:08:28 I have patience; you won’t listen to me at the end of a month. You’ll get bored, you’ll look out of the window. So what will you do? Geoffrey, what will you do? Here I am, when you...
1:08:50 Q: Who’s the dirty boy? You? You’re the dirty boy?
1:08:57 K: I’m just a boy and you’re just a boy. [Laughs] We both see what is implied in being intelligent, because you have the capacity to listen, you have the capacity to understand.
1:09:15 Why don’t you drop your prejudices? And when you leave the room you’re free man, free – you follow?
1:09:29 – marvellous human being.
1:09:31 Q: Won’t you pick up more prejudices?
1:09:36 K: Don’t pick up. You can’t pick up prejudices; once you see the absurdity of it you’ll never pick up one.
1:09:49 You won’t pick up a cobra, will you? No. Or a crocodile – whatever the dangerous animal is, you won’t pick it up, because you have seen the danger of it.
1:10:11 You see, Brockwood stands for that. That is the thing, that when you leave here you are intelligent human beings, with technological knowledge, with knowledge of science, mathematics, which human beings have collected for centuries, you are acquainted with it, you know it, you know good music, not only pop music – classical, Mozart, Beethoven, Bach – and good painting, and to know how to meditate, also.
1:11:23 You know that little shed, down – where is it? – down there, isn’t it? It’ll be ready? Dorothy Simmons: It’s ready now.
1:11:31 K: It’s ready now? Marvellous. You know, generally the best room is given to meditation, or they build in monasteries, the one I went to, there’s a special room, beautifully built, marvellous, absolute silence.
1:11:58 And you sat there meditating – you know, a special place. Here, fortunately, we have a shack [laughs] – you understand? – which is very nice! I don’t know if you see it. Now, we’ll go there one day and sit there. It’s a small place, few of us go, and we’ll meditate, we’ll see what it means.
1:12:24 You have to learn about meditation, you have to learn about death, you have to learn what love means, you have to learn about so many things.
1:12:38 And if you’re prejudiced you can’t learn. It’s only the mind that is intelligent that is learning.
1:12:52 Right? What time is it?
1:12:58 Q: Quarter to one.
1:13:00 K: Quarter to one.
1:13:07 Is that enough? Enough for today? Bravo, that’s enough!