Krishnamurti Subtitles home


BR72DSS1.06 - What am I?
Brockwood Park, UK - 11 June 1972
Discussion with Staff and Students 1.06



0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s sixth discussion with teachers and students at Brockwood Park, 1972.
0:11 Krishnamurti: What shall we talk about? Questioner: Last week we talked about physical things – do you think we could talk today about mental things, meditation?
0:29 K: You want to talk about meditation? Do you want to talk about meditation this morning? Do you want to discuss it? Good. Do you know what it means? You know nothing about it, do you? I hope you don’t. Or have you opinions about it?
0:57 Or have you read books about it and come to your own conclusion what it should be?
1:11 Go on, sir.
1:12 Q: Well, to be quite honest we have heard what you said about it.
1:17 K: No, you see, if you know nothing about it, really nothing – as you don’t know anything about, say, how to get to the moon – then perhaps we could start with an open slate, as it were, and we could then go into it step by step, very deeply.
1:46 But if you know something about it, you’ve already come to an conclusion, already think meditation is this or not that, then we have to battle with each other.
1:59 You understand? Right? Do you know something about it? Go on, Brazil. All right, let’s take for granted that you know nothing about it.
2:25 You see, man has always been searching for something more than the mere physical existence.
2:42 This is what I have been told – I’ve not read about it, but I’m passing on the information to you.
3:00 The Sumerians are supposed to be the oldest civilisation – from Mesopotamia, you know, which is round Tigris and Euphrates – and they branched out, going east and west and south and north, you know, spreading out.
3:23 They had also at their time, they said this isn’t enough just to live and die, there must be something much more to life than this: work, work, get to old age, disease and die.
3:42 So they began to inquire if there was something more than mere physical existence.
3:54 That was about 5,000 BC or 7,000 BC. Then a whole group went to India and they also said life is very short.
4:12 One may live 50, 60, 70 years, and during that time mere labour, feeding the body, and trying to see what thinking is, was not merely enough.
4:36 I won’t go into all the complications of it. Then they said – some of the few people – said there is something beyond all this, because we have discovered through great sacrifice, through great intelligence, through great control of our appetites, of our sexual demands, of our brutality, we have found something beyond all this.
5:17 In India they called it the Brahman. And some of them later, during the Buddhistic period, that is 350 BC – no, 500 BC – after the death of the Buddha, they went to China from India.
5:41 And they carried the message of the Buddha, which was – I won’t go into all that – and they introduced there the word, the Sanskrit word dhyanam.
5:53 You’re interested in all this? Many: Yes.
5:58 Q: Good. And as the Chinese and the Japanese couldn’t pronounce the word Chán they said Zen.
6:10 From that grew, Zen Buddhism – you follow? – the whole business of Zen practice in archery, control and all that.
6:21 You follow? At that period, about 500 BC and before that, they said, the people who went into this whole question, whether there is something beyond time, something beyond mere physical survival, if there was something more than death and the daily turmoil of life.
7:00 And the few of them said there is. Then people began to theorise about it. You follow? In India there is the whole – the Vedas, all that – they began to theorise.
7:20 Two or three people or half a dozen people experienced the real thing then their followers came along and began to imitate – you follow? – began to theorise, began to invent, and thereby there grew a whole series of theologies.
7:40 Then there was Judaism. They said too – a few of them, not many of them – that there is something which is not nameable, which cannot be mentioned.
7:59 It’s so sacred, holy that lips cannot utter it, the tongue cannot put it into words.
8:11 From Judaism came Christianity – Jesus and all that – and then again the interpreters began, the priests.
8:26 So throughout the world there has been this inquiry into the question whether there is or there is not a reality which is not the invention of thought.
8:48 You’re following? And a few of them said there is, but only you must... it can happen only to a mind that’s completely quiet.
9:10 You understand? You’ve got the picture? You’ve got the picture?
9:18 Q: Yes.
9:21 K: A mind, and the body, that is astonishingly, frighteningly still.
9:36 Then only, if there is such thing as reality, it can take place.
9:49 But you cannot invite it, you cannot say, ‘Well, I’ll meditate, I’ll sit quiet, I will sacrifice, I will control,’ in order for it to come.
10:02 Right? You’ve got the... You see what... Then a whole group of people right throughout the world, trying to copy, imitate, wanting that experience, did all kinds of things: fasted, took drugs, sacrificed, tortured themselves physically, did everything possible to come upon that.
10:43 I know a man, I used to know a man, who was high up in the Government, very high up, and one morning he said, ‘What am I doing?
10:59 What am I spending my life passing judgements, bureaucracy, having a family – what is it all about?’ So one morning he called all his family together and he said, ‘I’ve finished.
11:16 I’m going to resign from everything. From you’ – you understand? – ‘from my job, and I’m going to find out for myself what truth is.’ So he left.
11:32 And he said, ‘I can only find out what is truth by meditation.’ So as he happened to be in India, and being an Indian, he put on the sanyasi, you know, monk’s robe, and went on from village to village meditating, being silent, doing everything.
12:00 Unfortunately somebody brought him along to one of the talks which I was giving in Bombay, and I said meditation without self-knowledge is hypnosis.
12:14 You understand? And he came to see me the next morning and he said, ‘You’re perfectly right.
12:23 I have been mesmerising myself.’ Mind you, he has been doing it for 25 years, and he’s very... needs courage to say, ‘I am wrong.’ You understand?
12:40 Now… And there have been dozens and dozens and dozens of gurus all over the world who said, ‘I will help you if you follow my system, because I know what it is, because I have experienced it, I am enlightened, I have seen the Brahman, the God’ – you follow? – ‘and you do exactly what I tell you and you will get it.’ And they are doing that now all over the world, in different ways.
13:17 The word guru in Sanskrit means originally weight, heavy.
13:26 You understand? The word guru means that which is heavy. And through the ages it has become corrupted to mean one who will help you to cross the river, one who’ll help you, one who will point out to you the truth, one who will – what is it? – who will lift your burden, carry…
14:00 I mean, yes, lift your burden so that you’re lighter. But they impose their own burden on you. You understand? (Laughs) And on this goes on throughout the ages.
14:17 Now what we’re going to do this morning, if you’re going to discuss it, is to find out first of all whether our minds are clear.
14:34 You understand? It’s only when your mind is very clear you can see.
14:43 Right? Agree? No, see the truth of it and see the fact of it, not because I say it.
14:54 If you want to see something very clearly you must look and not distort.
15:06 If I want to look at you I must look at you, pay attention in my regard, how I look at you.
15:17 Right? That means my mind mustn’t be prejudiced, my mind must be very clear, my mind must be capable of not distorting whatever it sees.
15:30 Got it? Can you do that? Otherwise meditation has no meaning. You are following all this? I must be capable of listening to what you say – listening, not interpret what you are saying in terms of my conditioning.
16:04 I must listen to you and not distort what you’re saying according to my comfort or my convenience.
16:20 Then only I hear what you say. Right? Now can you do that?
16:35 Find out if you can. Now you’re listening to me – I don’t know why but you are – and can you listen to what is being said so carefully, so attentively that you are absorbing every word that is said and the meaning of every word, so that your mind is completely attentive?
17:09 You understand? Can you do that?
17:17 So let’s begin then.
17:26 You have heard of the word yoga? Some of you do it here, don’t you, regularly. You know, that word yoga in Sanskrit means to join, yoke, you know?
17:44 Two bullocks are drawing a cart, you put a yoke across it to join.
17:54 The word yoga means to join.
18:01 And I’m pretty sure that is the exact Sanskrit meaning of that word, the root meaning, but it has been corrupted to mean all kinds of things.
18:17 That is, to join. Now what are you to join? The soul and the body? You understand? The higher self and the body? The Atman, the soul and the body? Or is it a psychosomatic state, not dividing?
18:44 I don’t know if you follow all this. Does it interest you, all this? Many: Yes.
18:56 K: Lord, I’m surprised! (Laughter) You see, throughout the ages they have divided man into the higher man and the lower man.
19:12 They have used different terms for this: the soul, the Atman in India, and something else.
19:20 This division existed throughout history. You have understood? And this division is false, obviously.
19:35 Do you see that? Do you see it?
19:48 You can invent a higher self, can’t you? You can say there is a superior self, can’t you?
20:01 You can say, ‘I am different from my body,’ can’t you?
20:09 But the statement that I am different from the body is made by an entity who is separate from the body and the higher self.
20:19 I don’t know... (laughs) You understand? So man in himself is fragmented, broken-up: the higher, the lower.
20:34 In India you would say the Atman, and the division there, and so on – in Western culture and religion, the soul and the body.
20:47 Now if you go into it, think about it very carefully, the division is non-existent.
20:56 I can’t separate myself from my body. I am the body. When I get angry, anger is not different from me. Right? When I get jealous, furious or ambitious, that ambition is me; the me that invents God.
21:28 You understand? The me says, ‘I’m frightened, I must find God.’ It is still the me that invents God, whether the God is the Christian God or the Hindu God or whatever God it is.
21:46 So this division is essentially false.
21:53 And the word yoga – I am talking like a professor, I’m so sorry, I’m not – and the word yoga has been, I’m quite sure, misrepresented.
22:08 You know, I was talking to somebody who seems to know about all these things. He said at the beginning of, oh, about 3,000 years ago, the kings and the rulers and the high aristocracy chewed a certain leaf from the Himalayas, a leaf which kept their body very supple, and therefore their mind, their hearts, their feelings very clear, strong.
22:50 And you can imagine if all the super-aristocracy at that time ate all the leaves then the tree or the bush began to die.
23:01 (Laughs) And they had to invent a system by which the body was kept healthy, all the glands working superbly, and the mind clear.
23:20 And yoga exercises are the inventions of those people. Have you got it? Because if you know, if you have done yoga, you will see that they are based on the strengthening and maintaining the health of the glands so that the body is supple, healthy, vital – and also the mind, because if you have an unhealthy body your mind is unhealthy naturally, not clear.
23:59 So, you get the picture of all this? How man throughout the ages, even if you go into all the ancient paintings, sculptures, Egyptian tombs and so on, so on, you will see the same pattern: man frightened of death, frightened of the short life he lives, wanting to find out something much greater, and inventing something great, and then worshipping that great, which is all the work of the mind, the work of thought.
24:48 You’ve got it? So, first, if you are interested in meditation, you see the necessity of having a very good, healthy, supple body.
25:06 Right? That means exercise, right food – look, you’re going to do all this, not just discuss with me and not do it – and sleep, and having an extraordinary quick body, not a lazy, sluggish, dull body.
25:46 Can you do this? You know, when I was in Delhi two years ago, I used to walk in the gardens of the ancient Moghuls, beautiful gardens.
26:04 There were the tombs where the old Moghuls were buried, and it’s in decay – not the Moghul body but the tombs are.
26:16 (Laughs) And I used to see every evening a man come along on a bicycle, put his bicycle against the tree, sit down cross-legged, and close his eyes and keep perfectly still.
26:31 He was meditating. And I sat near him once and listened.
26:44 He was repeating certain words, and the repetition of those words made him very quiet.
26:57 You follow? Probably he led rather a dull – he was a poor man – dull, stupid family life with quarrels – you follow? – all the misery of going to the office every morning and being insulted – you know what happens – and here he was coming every evening to this place, sitting under a tree and meditating.
27:22 That is an escape. You understand? Now, if you have a healthy, quiet body – and it’s necessary – then we’ll pursue how is it possible to have a mind that’s very clear, a mind that is capable of logical thinking, objective, not personal – you understand?
28:02 – ‘This is what I think, this is what I feel, this must be’ – those are all personal – a mind that is capable of looking at facts only without any distortion of facts.
28:17 We went into that the other day. Right? Can you do this?
28:33 So that your mind is clear, quiet and alive, not gone to sleep.
28:56 Which means you must know yourself very well. Right? You must learn about yourself. Can you do that?
29:11 Learn. We said the other day you cannot learn if you are prejudiced.
29:25 If you say, ‘What I think is perfectly right,’ then your judgement is based on your prejudice, on your conditioning.
29:40 Right? So you must understand your conditioning, otherwise your mind distorts.
29:50 Right? You are following all this? So can you look at yourself as you look at a mirror, look at yourself without any distortion – saying, ‘Well, this is good, this is bad, I mustn’t do this, I must do that’ – you follow?
30:11 – always correcting, justifying, condemning? Without any of that, just to look at yourself in a mirror... as you look at yourself in a mirror.
30:24 Then you begin to learn. You follow this? Otherwise meditation becomes an escape and it will become a means of enjoyment of an illusion.
30:44 You understand? Say for instance, I being born in India, brought up along certain lines as a Brahmin and following certain traditions, which are my conditioning, and I sit quiet and meditate.
31:03 Then what I will see are my projections of my conditioning. You understand? If I am a Christian, I’ve been brought up with the idea of saviour, Jesus, God, son of God, and all the rest of it.
31:22 Naturally that’s my conditioning. I will project that. You understand? And I will have visions. And I love those visions. (Laughs) Whereas it is merely a projection of my conditioning which has been brought about by the culture in which I live.
31:54 Right? So my mind must be free of my culture, of my conditioning, so that it observes clearly.
32:10 Right? So I have to know, understand, learn about my background, about my conditioning, and be free of it.
32:26 Otherwise I can’t see clearly. Now this is meditation.
32:37 That is, the body must be alert, healthy, sane, and the mind must understand all its movement.
33:03 I won’t go into all the details of it because there’s a terrific lot if you want to learn about it.
33:13 Q: Can we take of those?
33:21 K: One?
33:24 Q: Well, you have to learn about yourself, but can we go into one of the details?
33:30 K: I see, learn about yourself. Have you ever considered what is yourself? What is yourself? Brazil, come on, old girl. What is yourself? Come on, Mantely, you’re pretty good at expression outside.
33:51 (Laughs) Express. What is yourself?
33:53 Q: My memories.
33:55 K: No, no, don’t be so... Go step by step. What is yourself?
34:00 Q: Your action.
34:04 K: Your action. Who is the actor?
34:09 Q: You.
34:10 K: Who is you?
34:12 Q: Your conditioning.
34:19 K: You say you are your conditioning. Is that so? Inquire – you follow? We said the other day, inquiry means to trace, to go through, trace right through – don’t stop at the middle of it, go right through.
34:38 Now we’re trying to find out when you say ‘you’, what do you mean you?
34:46 Who are you? (Pause) Go on.
35:01 (Laughs) (Pause) Now to find out who are you is part of meditation, isn’t it?
35:18 I said I want to find out what I am. What am I? Am I my name? Go on.
35:29 Q: No.
35:30 K: Why do you say no?
35:35 Q: It’s just a very small part.
35:40 K: That means I am part of that. You follow? – inquire, don’t say yes or no – inquire. So I am my name. Am I the body?
36:03 The body being the organism.
36:14 Or is organism, the body, only a part of that? Because if the organism doesn’t exist, there is no me. Right? So I’m part of that. Go on, step by step, you’ll find out. Am I the word, the name?
36:39 I said, ‘Am I the name?’ Yes, partly I am. I’m certainly not the passport which I carry.
36:53 Part of me is the body. Right? Is the word which I employ, which I use, which I use to communicate – is the word me?
37:07 Be careful now, go slowly, it gets a little more complex.
37:12 Q: Aren’t you the action that comes from… (inaudible) K: Wait a minute, old boy, I’m going step by step – don’t jump.
37:19 You may be right. You’re right, probably, so go step by step. Are you the word?
37:25 Q: The word is an expression of yourself.
37:32 K: Which means what?
37:35 Q: Authority.
37:36 Q: What is the word which expresses? Who expresses the word?
37:39 Q: You.
37:40 K: Who is the you?
37:43 Q: All the baggage.
37:46 K: No, no, go into it, sir, go slowly into it.
37:54 You are learning. You understand? We are learning together. Right? Now we use the word to communicate, don’t we?
38:06 The word which we use must have a reference which is the same to you as to me.
38:16 Right? The door must mean the same to you, the meaning of that word, as to me, otherwise the door, if I use a Sanskrit word, you wouldn’t understand it.
38:31 Q: But when it comes to feelings it’s not precise.
38:41 It might mean slightly different to you if it’s a word which conveys a feeling.
38:46 K: Yes. So I’m going to find out if the word is me. The word is not me because the word is a means of communication, a means of communication to you or a communication to myself.
39:04 The thought uses the word to communicate.
39:11 Right? I say, ‘It is raining.’ It is raining, by Jove. We have permanent weather here of which we are certain – it rains!
39:25 Now I say to you, ‘It rains,’ because I’ve observed, the eyes have seen, there has been a certain communication – you follow? – and then I say to you, ‘It’s raining.’ So, behind that word is the thought, the feeling.
39:49 Right? Now is the thought me?
40:07 Is it?
40:08 Q: It’s a fact.
40:09 Q: It’s again the… (inaudible) K: No, I don’t know.
40:11 Q: It is you, it is the me, but there is no feeling...
40:18 K: Just be careful, go slowly, old boys. Look. Carefully look.
40:21 Q: Do you mean, are you the rain?
40:25 K: Carefully look before you say a word. When I say, ‘Is the thought me?’ I’m asking you.
40:42 I say… thought says, ‘This is my house.’ Right?
40:51 The me, when I say ‘my house’, the me has identified itself with the house; the house is me.
41:05 Right? This is my furniture; the furniture is me. I don’t know if you follow all this. Right? So, thought identifying itself with the country, with an idea, with an object – house, property, bicycle, motorcar, furniture – identifying itself says, ‘That is mine,’ and I have lot of feeling around that.
41:50 The property is mine, you mustn’t touch it. It’s my wife, you mustn’t look. It is mine. So thought identifying itself with an object creates the sense of the me.
42:10 No? And thought says, identifying itself with a country, with a larger abstraction, says, ‘It’s my God, my country, my family.’ Right?
42:31 So all these are part of me – the idea, the opinion, the judgement, the gods which I have invented or people have given to me – all that is me, which is my background, which is my conditioning.
43:04 If the mind is free of that conditioning, what am I? I am not my furniture, I am not the idea, I am not the God which I have invented.
43:21 You follow? So what am I then?
43:24 Q: Then you’re completely silent.
43:27 K: Which means what?
43:29 Q: You’re meditating.
43:32 K: Wait, wait, wait. No, don’t jump to words. You understand? There is no identification with the house, there is no identification with property, with money, with country, with God, with ideas, with opinions, with beliefs, values.
43:55 You follow? Then there is no me is there? Then what takes place? Then if there is no me then what is action? Oh, this is too complicated for you.
44:12 Q: I don’t quite understand if you say something belongs to me that you are identifying with that object.
44:23 K: Look, you have a car, haven’t you?
44:27 Q: Yes.
44:29 K: Don’t you identify yourself with it? ‘That’s my car.’ Q: No. Well, I mean...
44:37 K: No, be simple about it. Don’t complicate, be simple. It’s your car.
44:44 Q: Well, it belongs to me.
44:46 K: Yes, that’s what I mean, it belongs to you. This house belongs to you, that shirt belongs to you. Which is, you have identified yourself by saying, ‘That belongs to me.’ That’s simple enough, Tunki.
45:06 Q: Do you mean you are identified by the object?
45:14 K: When you say, ‘It is my car,’ you have identified yourself with the car.
45:21 You are the car. When I say ‘my country’ – right? – which is England, India, Japan or whatever it is – my country – thought has identified itself with that country, and then says, ‘my country’.
45:41 Q: Sir, may I suggest a way in which this perhaps could be made clear?
45:47 K: Do it, sir, do it, do it – delighted.
45:55 Q: Because I feel that one is identified with something when this takes place.
46:07 If that thing is attacked or damaged or stolen and if I feel annoyed, that is identification.
46:13 K: Of course, of course.
46:14 Q: Well, but… yes.
46:15 K: But you won’t get hurt if you haven’t identified yourself previously.
46:17 Q: Yes, sir.
46:18 K: This whole process of identification is the me – that’s all I’m trying to tell you.
46:24 Q: That’s what I’m saying. You can have something, a certain property belongs to you, but when it is damaged, it is there, you cannot do anything.
46:31 K: Therefore, you’ve not identified yourself with it. Look, Tunki, I come here, spend three months; I go to California, spend three months; go to Switzerland, spend two months; go to India – different houses all the time.
46:46 I can’t say, ‘This is my house, this is my furniture, don’t touch it, don’t bang it about, for God’s sake, it’s expensive, don’t kick it.’ (Laughter) So there is no sense of being identified which makes me say that’s mine, and when that is stolen, as he said, I get hurt, I must...
47:13 You follow? So can – follow all this – can... Thought is identifying itself with a country, with an idea, with a person, with God, and so on.
47:33 Now can you cease to identify yourself? Which means unattached. (Laughs) This is impossible for kids to understand.
47:51 Right? Say for instance, in England, in this country, class division is extraordinarily strong.
48:08 Haven’t you noticed it?
48:12 Q: Yes.
48:15 K: Snobbism. It’s something incredible. Now, if I am brought up in a class which says, you know, property, a castle, a name, a title, and I identify myself with that, that is me.
48:41 My castle is the me, my title is the me.
48:48 And I like the title because I feel terribly superior.
49:00 So I begin to find out where there is identification there must be pleasure.
49:08 You understand? I don’t identify myself with the poor people. You understand? I don’t identify myself with the savage in Africa. Excuse me calling the word savage, African, but you know what I mean. I only identify myself with something that is respectable, that gives me pleasure, that gives me satisfaction.
49:44 Q: Doesn’t identify mean like I identify with myself so if someone insults me I’m hurt?
49:55 K: That’s it, you’re hurt, that’s right.
50:00 Q: Which means I’ve got an image of myself.
50:06 K: That’s right. Now I’m learning about myself. You follow? I have learnt about myself, which is, I have learnt that any form of identity, which is attachment, which is dependency through fear and pleasure, is the me.
50:43 And the me distorts. You follow? If I say this is my country, and I’m against every other country, naturally.
50:56 I don’t want the hordes of Indians coming into this country – you know, all the rest of it.
51:04 And I separate myself from Europe though there is the Common Market, but I’m still a British.
51:12 You follow? (Laughs) So there is... where there is – follow, I’m learning – where there is identification there is division.
51:25 Oh, come on. You see it? And where there is division there is conflict. You the German, I the Russian, my house, my property.
51:45 Where there is division there must be conflict. So meditation is to understand this conflict – right?
51:59 – not just to sit still and close your eyes – that’s part of it – but to understand the whole movement of this.
52:11 And that gives you... where there is no conflict gives you tremendous energy.
52:22 Not to do mischief! (Laughs) Now, we’ll start again.
52:35 Can you keep your body completely still?
52:43 Because if your body’s completely still, without any strain, without any compulsion, then the blood flows easier.
52:58 And if you sit straight, the blood flows easier to the head. That is the whole idea of sitting straight.
53:11 Or you can lie down.
53:21 You know, as we’ve got that shack now, it’s nearly ready, we’ll go and sit there one day, a few of us because it doesn’t hold all of us, and see if we can keep the body completely relaxed and still.
53:43 Then you will not only hear the sound of the birds, the song of the birds, the least movement of the leaf, and also you will listen to your own mind, how it’s ticking over, what is happening.
54:05 Let’s do it one day, shall we?
54:12 Q: Yes.
54:13 Q: Sir, may I ask…
54:18 K: This is meditation, and not experiencing something.
54:26 You understand this? This is really tremendous if you understand this. Because most people want experience – sexual experience, having experience of having a great deal of money, experience of feeling, experience when you fast, what it feels like, experience when you have a lot of money – you follow? – we want experiences.
55:08 And we accumulate experiences. And when we have accumulated experience naturally we have all the burden of all the memories of those experiences.
55:27 Then that burden prevents you from being clear, seeing things as they are.
55:36 I don’t know... After all, when you take drugs – and I have discussed this problem with some of the people who have originated it, beastly thing, in the Western world – they want to experience what it means to take a drug and take a trip and experience what takes place in there.
56:15 Because they’ve experienced everything on earth – you understand?
56:22 – sex, good food, wine, flattery, insults, boredom, fear, pleasure, and say, ‘Oh, for God’s sake, this is so silly, I must experience something much more.’ And they take that drug and they have an experience and they think that gives them a sense of greater perception.
56:57 Now what we are saying is a mind that is completely still has no experience whatsoever.
57:07 Ah, you don’t see it. Because the me is no longer identifying itself with any experience therefore there is no me to receive the experience.
57:27 Q: Sir, if it’s not too much, before you were saying you were going to talk about action.
57:39 K: Action. Now what is the action of a mind? Let’s discuss this, which you raised. What is the action of a mind that is not identified with a country, with a dogma, with a belief?
57:54 What is the action? Come on, sirs. I’m not a Hindu, I’m not a British, I’m not a Christian, I’m not a Brahmin, I’m not any of these things – what’s my action?
58:20 Q: No conflict. When there’s identification there’s conflict, so...
58:27 K: Look, Vishwas, are you saying this theoretically or actually? Don’t theorise – then you’ll belong to the older generation. (Laughs) Then you’re dead. Don’t ever theorise. Move only from fact to fact. Now I say to myself: what is my action? I don’t identify myself with any country, with any theology, with any belief – listen to all this carefully – with any house, property, bank account – I don’t identify myself.
59:14 I really don’t identify. You understand? I’m not a Hindu, nor I’m a Christian or a communist, a socialist, or a believer in this or non-believer. You follow? Then what’s my action?
59:27 Q: It doesn’t come any more from that centre of ideas.
59:37 K: You’re saying action doesn’t come from the centre of ideas.
59:45 Right? Which means your action springs from the centre of ideas. Right? So you are the idea and your action springs from your concept of yourself.
1:00:07 So your action is self-centred. I don’t know if you’re following all this. And hence conflict. Because you say it is my idea, my country, and I say it’s my country, my idea, so there is a division between us and there is conflict.
1:00:35 So what is the action in which there is no conflict at all?
1:00:56 This is part of meditation, isn’t it, to find out. And discovering it, live in it, not just theorise about it.
1:01:12 (Pause) So I have to find out, if I really want to go into the question of meditation – not theorise about it, not speculate about it, really meditate – I must find out if my body is sensitive.
1:01:48 You understand? Right food, right exercise, whether there is enough sleep, whether my body is fidgeting all the time, whether I’m making faces – you follow? – when I talk, or is it...
1:02:05 I want to find out, I want to learn, so I’m watching. When I move, when I run, when I talk, when I gesture, when I eat, I’m watching, watching.
1:02:17 You follow? Without any strain because there is no correction. You understand? There is correction only when I say... I’ve identified with my prejudice and say, ‘This must be.’ So I’m watching, I’m learning how my body is functioning, whether I’m biting my nails, whether – you follow?
1:02:51 – watching, learning. Then I want to find out how my mind works. Does it function from the centre of an idea or ideas, beliefs, prejudices, concepts, formulas?
1:03:10 I just want to find out, I want to learn.
1:03:17 And the moment I begin to learn, it’s like a map that opens up – you follow? – and I discover so many things; I can drop them all very quickly.
1:03:32 So that as I observe I learn, act. They are all three – observe, learn, act – one movement – you understand?
1:03:44 – not separate movements. You’ve got it? Observe. In the observing there is learning, in the learning there is the doing – all one movement.
1:04:00 Q: Sir, you said one could meditate lying down. Isn’t it likely that one would drift off?
1:04:11 K: Fall asleep. Go to sleep. You follow? The body may need it. The body has its own intelligence. Give it a chance. You see, sir, if your intention is to learn – learn, not say this is right, this is wrong, the body will go to sleep or it will not go to sleep, the body must keep awake.
1:04:50 You know, there is a school, I was told, in Japan, a Zen group.
1:04:58 The master has his pupils round him, twenty or thirty, and they’re all learning awareness.
1:05:07 And, poor fellows, some of them might get tired and go to sleep, and he comes along with a stick and beats them up, beats them on the back.
1:05:18 I mean, this is appalling. And they love it! (Laughter) I know several people who go to Japan to learn this, being beaten up. (Laughs) It sounds so silly!
1:05:40 So, I mean, when you want to learn, learn. If you want to learn mathematics, apply – you follow? – so that there is no conflict.
1:05:59 And then as you begin to learn you’ll see you have an astonishing energy.
1:06:08 Unless you understand this whole business that energy you will use mischievously.
1:06:16 You understand? I mean, the soldiers who are fighting in Vietnam or the Middle East, wherever it is, they must have tremendous energy, and all these politicians, tremendous energy, and they do equal amount of tremendous mischief.
1:06:51 (Laughs) Now, you have listened for nearly an hour.
1:07:00 What time is it?
1:07:02 Q: Twenty to.
1:07:04 K: Oh, over an hour. Where are you? What have you learnt? You’re not passing an exam, but what have you learnt?
1:07:21 Have you learnt about yourself? Have you? A great deal? Because, you see… This is so... I don’t know if...
1:07:47 You know, have you ever seen an iceberg?
1:07:54 I once saw it. Crossing the Atlantic, I saw it. Only one-ninth of it is showing on top – you understand?
1:08:09 – above the water, the rest is below the water.
1:08:16 Only a little bit and the vast mass of it is down below. In the same way, superficially, there is very little of us on the surface.
1:08:32 Deep down there is all this weight of us. You understand? Have you got the picture? Now, the psychologists say that is the unconscious, the nine-tenths of it, only one-tenth shows on the surface.
1:08:57 I’m saying this to convey to you. They don’t precisely: nine-tenths and one-tenth. So all that hidden part is the unconscious. Right? That’s also you, isn’t it?
1:09:10 Q: How are we going to uncover that?
1:09:17 K: Wait, that’s the question.
1:09:24 How are you going to uncover it, Tunki?
1:09:26 Q: Can one learn about that without going through the process of analysis?
1:09:37 K: Can one learn about that without going through the process of analysis.
1:09:46 Go on, find out.
1:09:54 Must I go to an analyst to be analysed, or must I analyse myself – which is the same, going to an analyst – must I?
1:10:08 And that’ll take time, won’t it? Take years perhaps. I’m ready to die by then.
1:10:17 Q: What we are doing now, isn’t it analysing?
1:10:24 K: Is it analysing or only observing facts?
1:10:30 Q: Even the facts...
1:10:34 K: Wait, watch it, listen to what the question was. Listen. Listen carefully, old boy. Learn. He said, he asked, Tunki asked: aren’t you analysing, haven’t we been analysing? I said no, we have been only observing facts.
1:10:52 Q: Isn’t that what analysis is about?
1:10:57 K: Wait, wait. You’re saying, is that not analysis?
1:11:12 Is it?
1:11:13 Q: Well it’s factual analysis.
1:11:14 K: It’s factual analysis. You see how clever? (Laughter) He’s from India where I know the type.
1:11:35 (Laughter) They’re very good at verbal exchange.
1:11:38 Q: No, but analysis must be something factual.
1:11:41 K: Listen, old boy, what do you mean? What do you mean by analysis? No, watch it. The word, to analyse. Mr Simmons will tell me what the word analysis means, the root meaning of it.
1:12:01 Analisare.
1:12:02 Q: It’s to break up.
1:12:08 K: To break up. To analyse. Wait, Tunki, we are examining that word. Find out what it means.
1:12:13 Q: Dr Bohm said once it was to separate from above.
1:12:25 K: Separate from above.
1:12:26 Q: As though there were something separate looking down on all the pieces.
1:12:32 K: Yes, that’s right, that’s right. It means really, observe the fragmentation. Right? Observe the various separated fragments and look at each fragment separately.
1:12:53 Is that what it means? That’s right. You see, we get the meaning of the word. We’ll find it.
1:13:02 Q: But what people generally mean by analysis is not that.
1:13:05 K: I know that’s not that. What generally people mean when they talk about analysis: a professional analysing a patient, the victim.
1:13:25 (Laughter) Now, which means he the specialist, the professional, the doctor, is trained according to Freud, Jung or the latest – what’s his name?
1:13:45 Q: (Inaudible) K: Who?
1:13:48 Q: Skinner?
1:13:50 K: Skinner, or somebody else. And they analyse you according to what they have learnt. And they say all that you have learnt, been conditioned when you are a baby – how your mother treats you, whether you’re put on the right pot, (laughter) whether you are…
1:14:15 and so on, so on, so on. Sorry, I’m making a joke of it – it’s not. Because when you are a very young baby the conditioning goes on.
1:14:30 You understand? Have you heard of a statement of the Jesuits? You know what the Jesuits are?
1:14:40 Q: No.
1:14:41 K: They are members of the Society of Jesus, founded by Loyola. It’s very interesting; you don’t know about this. And the communist principle is based on the same system as Loyola invented about the cells.
1:14:58 You didn’t know that, did you?
1:15:00 Q: (Inaudible) K: Oh, I don’t want to go into it – sorry.
1:15:08 You see... Mustn’t go into that. Wait. Now, analysis implies looking from above, looking at the various fragments.
1:15:27 Right? We agree to that meaning of that word, do we?
1:15:35 Now, do you analyse yourself? Do you say, ‘Well, I’m watching why I’m angry,’ seeing the cause of your anger from above?
1:15:56 Which means separating the observer and looking.
1:16:03 The observer is looking from high or from below or from the side – it doesn’t matter.
1:16:10 The observer looking, dissecting, separating, tearing it to pieces.
1:16:19 Do you do that? Well? Do you? What do you do? Come on, learn about it, don’t be ashamed about it.
1:16:39 Q: But also joining, the relationship between...
1:16:42 K: Yes, that’s all part – joining, correlating, adjusting – all that’s part of the analysis. Do you do that? Peeling off like, the onion – you know? – layer after layer, looking at it. Is that what you do?
1:16:57 Q: Surely, sir, that is watching. Isn’t that watching?
1:17:04 K: I don’t know.
1:17:07 Q: That’s what I do when I watch.
1:17:13 K: That’s peeling off, which is analysis.
1:17:17 Q: But who is watching? Isn’t it coming from the same fragmented...
1:17:19 K: That’s just it, old girl. They don’t ask that question. Who is it that is analysing? Right? Who is the entity that’s on top, or side, and says, ‘I’m going to peel off, examine’? Right, Tunki? Are you following this?
1:17:36 Q: I don’t quite get this that way. I mean, I’m not very sure of it.
1:17:47 K: What are you not sure of?
1:17:50 Q: That it is the same action as the peeling layer by layer.
1:17:56 K: Oh, no, that’s only a simile – scrap the onion. (Laughs) How do you... Look, you’re angry, jealous – how do you analyse that?
1:18:13 Do you analyse it? Most people do.
1:18:15 Q: What makes you, and… seeing the reason and seeing how ridiculous it is.
1:18:35 K: All that’s analysis. I get angry...
1:18:41 Q: And the...
1:18:42 K: Look, I get angry because you said something, you know, I get angry and I analyse, I say, ‘Why am I angry?
1:18:49 I shouldn’t have been angry. What was the cause of it?’ Q: Wait, wait, not necessarily do you say you shouldn’t be angry.
1:18:58 You can say it is anger there, but by looking at it there is something useless in it.
1:19:24 K: No, not the end result. We’re not talking of the result, we are talking, we are asking what is analysis, first of all.
1:19:34 What is the meaning of that word? We said the meaning of that word is to look from above, is to separate, is to examine each separate reaction from above, or observe it as an outsider, and undo it like a knot, which you carefully undo.
1:20:07 We said that is analysis. Not what you arrive at or get or achieve through analysis, but the meaning of that word.
1:20:19 Now, is this what you do, when you’re angry, when you something or another, analyse?
1:20:36 The question arose, remember, there is the hidden part in the cave, as it were, and Tunki said, ‘How am I to analyse that?’ Right?
1:20:57 Q: And to uncover it.
1:20:59 K: Uncover it. And we said: do you uncover it through analysis? And so we have examined that word, what that word means.
1:21:12 Now can you do that? Bring out, expose, unravel all the content of that which is hidden through careful step by step analysis?
1:21:36 You can’t, can you? You can, but it would take you endless time.
1:21:44 And who is the entity that’s analysing?
1:21:47 Q: Sir, isn’t just the naming analysis? If you say, ‘I’m jealous,’ that is...
1:21:53 K: Of course, sir, but I’m only using that for a quick communication. No, this is a tremendous problem, you understand?
1:22:09 I never analyse myself.
1:22:16 You listen to it without questioning?
1:22:24 Come on, sir. You analyse, don’t you? So you are an observer from the outside analysing that which must be examined.
1:22:42 So there is a division. Now isn’t it time to stop or do you want to go on with this?
1:22:57 This is really a tremendous problem. You can’t just understand it after ten minutes.
1:23:03 Q: Couldn’t you talk about how time comes into it?
1:23:10 K: Yes, that is time. You see, I’m...
1:23:13 Q: Time, you are looking back.
1:23:17 K: You see, sir, first of all I want to learn about myself.
1:23:25 Myself is the whole of this – the part that shows on the surface and the part that’s totally hidden.
1:23:36 All that is myself. Myself is the content of everything that I have gathered, or given to me – the culture, the experience, all that is me.
1:23:53 Now how am I going to analyse all that?
1:23:58 Q: Well you cannot analyse it.
1:24:02 K: Therefore there must be a different way of doing it, exposing the whole thing.
1:24:10 You understand? Have you got it? You understand my question? I see through analysis it cannot be exposed, the whole of it. And if I don’t expose it completely there is always the hidden factor which begins to distort.
1:24:34 So there must be a – not a way – there must be an action – that’s better – an action which reveals the totality of the me.
1:24:50 You’ve got it? Not little by little, step by step – that’s too old-fashioned, too traditional, too time-consuming.
1:24:57 Q: Do I accept somebody saying that there is nine-tenths of...
1:25:01 K: No, you don’t have to accept it, it’s a fact.
1:25:11 You go down and look at an iceberg, they’ll tell you.
1:25:15 Q: Yes, I know, but...
1:25:18 K: In the same way, look. I look at you and you’ve all kinds of ideas hidden down below, haven’t you? You think I’m an ass or you think I’m rather good, or you think this or that. You’ve ten different things hidden in you – haven’t you? – which you don’t expose to anybody and perhaps you don’t even know it for yourself.
1:25:54 Q: Is it important to expose this?
1:25:57 K: Of course it’s important to expose it, otherwise I’ll remain as so superficial.
1:26:12 I said, Tunki, there must be an understanding of myself totally, not just understanding one part of it, otherwise I don’t know myself.
1:26:32 If I don’t know myself I have no basis for any action. I’m just a machine, machine of a particular culture that turns me out.
1:26:46 (Laughs) Q: First, I don’t know what’s hidden in me, I am not sure that nine-tenths of me is hidden, so I don’t know what is hidden.
1:27:10 K: I must find... Look, I said at the beginning, the psychologists, the specialists, the analysts and all those people, including Freud and all of them, say there is, part of you is hidden.
1:27:23 I don’t know; I’m not going to take their word for it.
1:27:31 So I examine, I look, and I say, ‘By Jove, there is hidden parts of me.’ Q: May I say suggest perhaps, sir, a different analogy to the iceberg?
1:27:50 K: Say it, sir.
1:27:52 Q: Because when you look at the iceberg you cannot see the hidden nine-tenths.
1:27:56 K: That’s right.
1:27:57 Q: And we cannot see the unconscious. But an interesting analogy would be the field of visual awareness, because one is always looking at something, but there are always things which are less clear around it and at the periphery.
1:28:03 K: At the linear look.
1:28:04 Q: But one is aware that they are there.
1:28:05 K: Yes, quite, quite, quite, quite.
1:28:06 Q: I don’t quite understand.
1:28:11 K: You don’t quite understand what he said? When you are looking there, you don’t see all the rest of it, do you?
1:28:18 Q: No. Yes.
1:28:20 K: That’s all he’s saying.
1:28:21 Q: You partly see it and you can direct attention to it in an instant, if you wish.
1:28:30 K: If you’re looking at that microphone, you can’t see the whole audience. That’s all.
1:28:32 Q: No. No, but what has that to do...
1:28:35 K: What that has to do? If you are only concentrated on that little part, surface, you don’t see the rest.
1:28:48 And to see the rest, is it possible? And must it be done through analysis? That’s the whole problem. And I say you can’t observe the totality of the me through analysis.
1:29:08 Full stop. And you say, ‘Who are you to tell me that?
1:29:17 What right... Why do you assume that you can’t do it that way?’ And I say, ‘I’ll show it to you.’ First of all, you’re looking from the outside, and who is the outsider who is looking in, and it will take time – you follow? – years, and I’ve no time, my house is burning, I want… (laughs) – you follow?
1:29:44 – there is no time. Therefore perhaps, I say to myself, there is a different way of looking at this thing entirely, a way which is not analysis, a way which is not consuming time, a way which may be something totally unconnected with the traditional observation.
1:30:20 You follow? Therefore I must find out, I must learn. I’m not going to accept the analyst’s point of view.
1:30:36 All the professors, all the analysts, all the psychologists and so on, with plenty of reputation and thousands of people doing it.
1:30:47 I say they may be wrong, I don’t know.
1:30:57 So I won’t analyse – you follow? – I won’t waste my time through observing from the outside. I say that’s out. I won’t do it. Because that’s wrong, that’s false, that’s not factual. You follow? So once I discard the things which I will not do then I begin to find out.
1:31:32 Everybody has – I must stop – everybody has told me this path leads to the north.
1:31:43 I’ve been walking along it and I suddenly wake up and say, ‘By Jove, it may not be north at all.’ And so I turn.
1:32:00 But first I must turn – you follow? – not just say, ‘Well, I’ll play with analysis and I will do this and I will do that and I’ll go and see my grandmother.’ That’s...
1:32:16 You know, there is a lot more to learn about meditation. We have just touched the outer edges of it. It really means totally emptying the mind of the known.
1:32:37 We’ll discuss it. We must stop now.