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BR72DSS1.07 - Fragmentation
Brockwood Park, UK - 15 June 1972
Discussion with Staff and Students 1.07



0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s seventh discussion with teachers and students at Brockwood Park, 1972.
0:11 Krishnamurti: Any suggestion? What shall we talk about?
0:26 (Pause) Nothing doing?
0:43 You know, we were talking about intelligence – what is the nature of intelligence, not the definition of intelligence but rather in investigating what is intelligence we found, not theoretically or abstractly but actually, that any kind of prejudice, any kind of conclusion, any kind of belief is the assertion of lack of intelligence.
1:33 You remember? We talked about this. Right? And also the last time we met we talked about meditation. I don’t know if you have tried it for fun and found how your mind worked, what you were thinking about, whether you are really investigating into the nature of meditation.
2:10 I don’t know if you have tried it, and if you have you must have come upon something which may strike you as rather peculiar and complicated.
2:39 I was once in Kashmir, right away in the north of India, by myself in a little hut, and five monks came to see me.
3:07 They are called in India sanyasis. They put on yellow robes, or rather saffron-coloured robes, and they wander all over India from village to village.
3:20 And it is the tradition established by the Brahmins that any monk who goes from village to village preaching and is really a decent man, not just a crook – and there are lots of crooks in sanyasi robes, monk’s robes – it is the tradition there that you must feed them, you must clothe them, you must look after them, and not take them to jail as vagrants.
3:55 And these five monks came to see me – I don’t know whether there were five or ten of them, doesn’t matter – and they said, ‘We’ve just come from the deep interior of the Himalayas where there is another great monk full of knowledge, great experience, and we have been with him for a month learning from him.’ I hesitatingly asked, ‘What did you learn?’ What do you think they replied?
4:43 You tell me. It’s rather good. What do you think he replied, they replied? All of them, not just one of them. Questioner: To meditate.
4:59 K: Come on, sir. If five monks came to you – they should because you learn an awful lot from young people, you know, don’t fool yourself – if they came to you, serious people, and said, ‘Gregory the Great...’ (laughter) – you know who Gregory was?
5:36 He was the Pope. Gregorian chants and all the rest of it. What would you say to him? That they have been to a greater monk and they have studied with him, and they have said, ‘We have learnt a great deal.’ What would you answer?
6:05 No? I asked them what they had learnt.
6:13 Q: I should have thought they’d learnt about God.
6:19 K: No, they didn’t say that. I asked them what they had learnt. They said, ‘We have acquired a great deal of knowledge.’ I said, ‘Knowledge about what?
6:36 Science, mathematics – naturally not – and how to run a submarine or man-of-war, (laughs) or fly a plane?’ He said, ‘No, we have learnt a great deal, we have acquired a great deal of knowledge from this great man who is full of knowledge.’ I said, ‘What about?’ He said, ‘About all the scriptures in the world.’ You understand?
7:12 Especially – the Indian scriptures are about three thousand years old, Vedas and all that – I won’t go into all that.
7:22 I said, ‘He learnt it from books,’ – right? – ‘and from books he acquired a great deal of knowledge and used that knowledge to experience.’ You understand?
7:38 ‘And is that knowledge?’ You understand?
7:48 I read a great many books – the Bible, the Talmud, the Koran, the various Indian sacred scriptures – and I have learnt, studied a great deal, and I have acquired great knowledge about all what other people have said – you follow? – about God, about meditation, about how to think, how to sit still, you know, what you must do, control, suppress, don’t look at anything beautiful because that might distract you, and keep tight.
8:33 So I said to them, ‘That’s just second-hand knowledge. You know nothing about it.’ They were very upset with me, because they consider when I am in India I’m a great...
8:50 a religious leader – you know, I’m putting it mildly – and they come to see me, quantities of them come to see me.
9:01 And they have all got the same thing going, repeating what other people have said.
9:10 And they call that knowledge.
9:17 So in meditating, if you have gone into it, you’ll find out what is the place of knowledge.
9:31 What do you think is the place of knowledge, to know? Come on, sirs, what do you think is the place of knowledge?
9:44 I must know mathematics, geography, history, or anthropology or some technical knowledge which will help me to live, get a job and so on.
10:05 It is the accumulated knowledge of the scientists and the explorers for the last two or three hundred years, or perhaps five hundred years, brought down traditionally from Aristotle, Plato and all the rest of it.
10:22 Right? There is that vast scientific knowledge.
10:30 Right? Now is there any other kind of knowledge?
10:34 Q: Knowledge of experience.
10:38 K: All right – knowledge of experience. What does that mean? I experience something and I retain the knowledge of that experience.
10:56 Right? Are we thinking together? You know, it has been said that thought is the children of barren women.
11:18 You’ve got it?
11:25 Now, you say knowledge of experience. I experience something and from that experience I gather knowledge, which is memory, isn’t it?
11:44 I experience a dog biting me and I have a memory of that recorded.
12:05 And the next time I meet a dog I’m very careful because I use that knowledge of the past experience in order not to be bitten again.
12:22 Right? I meet you, and you insult me or praise me.
12:32 That’s an experience, isn’t it? I remember your insult or your praise, and if you have insulted me I say you are an enemy; if you have praised me you’re my friend.
12:48 Right? So I have the experiences of insult and flattery and they are recorded as memory, and I use that memory the next time I meet you.
13:07 Right? And I have an experience of being... psychologically being hurt.
13:22 Right? You have hurt me and I record that. That is my memory. And so when I meet you next time I’m very careful. Right? So I’ve accumulated knowledge, which is memory, and I use that to protect myself in the future.
13:48 Are you following all this? That’s simple, isn’t it? Now what happens? You have hurt me. I have a memory of that and next time I meet you, you know, I push you away – right?
14:08 – I go away from you.
14:19 So I have no relationship with you because you have hurt me and the memory of that remains.
14:29 Right? So knowledge in the relationship prevents relationship.
14:39 You have understood? Knowledge in relationship acts as a barrier.
14:52 Right? So I have found that knowledge is necessary, scientific knowledge. I mean, you can’t throw it away – it is there, accumulating all the time.
15:09 I can use part of it, and so on. But in relationship, if I use my past experience to protect myself I have no relationship with you.
15:27 Right? Have you discovered this or are you merely repeating what I am telling you?
15:39 Which is what those monks did and therefore it’s not a direct understanding.
15:53 You get what I’m saying? Have you discovered that in your meditation? And also I have...
16:08 Which means that in investigating intelligence you discover the significance of knowledge.
16:34 And also you’ll discover if you go into it – we’ll do it now – is to be very simple.
16:43 Do you understand? To be simple. You know, right throughout the world the monks, the people who are really very serious both intellectually and otherwise serious people, want to lead a very simple life.
17:14 And they reduce that simplicity to one meal a day, sleeping on hard floors, few clothes, rigorous discipline.
17:30 Do you know any monks at all?
17:38 Too bad! What do you mean, you don’t know them?
17:51 They call that a simple life: they change their name, they have one or two clothes, sandals, one meal a day or, you know, very light meals, get up at night at two o’clock to pray.
18:14 Outwardly they have the symbols of simplicity. Right? But inwardly they are tortured human beings – you understand? – because they believe tremendously.
18:35 In India they believe in this or that, in the Christian world they believe Jesus is the Saviour, Son of God and only through him you can find God – you follow? – they believe tremendously.
18:51 And they suppress, naturally. You follow all this? So outwardly they have the symbols of simplicity and inwardly they are boiling.
19:10 Would you call that simplicity and honesty? I don’t know. Don’t be quick. (Laughs) So one has to find out what is simplicity.
19:34 I don’t know, are you interested in all this?
19:44 Many: Yes.
19:46 K: What do you think is simplicity?
19:53 Knowing the world pattern: outwardly the symbolic assertion of one cloth, one meal, hard floor, suppress, don’t have sex, don’t look at anything beautiful – you follow? – and inwardly believe, suppress, committed to one pattern of thought, one series of activities.
20:36 You follow? Would you consider such a life a simple life? What do you say?
20:49 Q: No.
20:52 K: Why?
20:55 Q: Because…
20:59 K: Don’t say no or yes until you yourself think it out.
21:08 You know, first of all, if I may ask you, don’t say anything that you don’t know for yourself.
21:19 You understand what I am saying?
21:27 Don’t quote anybody. And that makes you very intelligent – you know? – to say something which you yourself have discovered.
21:41 You understand? You understand, Gregory, what I’m saying?
21:53 So that you’re always honest. So would you call that simplicity?
22:06 If not, what is simplicity? You must understand this because the world is concerned with it.
22:18 You follow? The world in the sense the people who lead a very, very serious life, what they consider an intelligent life, a religious life, a life of deep thought, inquiry.
22:42 This is their pattern right through the world.
22:52 And I’m asking: is that simplicity?
23:03 Have you heard of Gandhi? Yes. He led a very simple life outwardly but inwardly he was a traditionalist, a very complex human being.
23:28 So what is simplicity? Come on, sirs, discuss with me. What do you think is a simple life? Come on.
23:36 Q: It must be a life which is psychologically simple as well as possibly physically simple.
23:50 K: You’re saying both inwardly and outwardly it must be simple – psychologically as well as outwardly.
24:00 Not just the outward symbol of simplicity or the actual simplicity outwardly, but inwardly there must be simplicity, psychologically.
24:16 Right? Now what does that mean, inwardly to be simple?
24:27 Don’t begin with the outward symbols of simplicity – you understand? – but begin with what it means psychologically to be simple.
24:39 Then that will express outwardly. I don’t know if you are following this.
24:47 Q: Not to have conflict.
24:50 K: Find out, sir. What does it mean to lead a very simple life inwardly?
24:55 Q: It means, surely, to be intelligent, and the definition you gave at the very beginning: to have no opinion or judgement.
25:17 K: Yes, but, sir, I’m trying to find out what does it mean to live a simple life.
25:25 Because the world is getting more and more and more complex outwardly: terror, explosions, terrorism of every kind, violence.
25:47 And what is your and my relationship to the world, and what is my relationship to the idea or the feeling that one must be very simple in life?
26:07 You understand what I’m saying? What do you say? Come on, sirs. Can you be simple if you’re dishonest?
26:26 Say one thing, think another, do something entirely different – that would be dishonest, wouldn’t it?
26:44 So simplicity is honesty. Right? Right? Come on, sir. Now what do you mean by being honest?
26:57 Q: Being vulnerable, I should say.
27:06 K: Vulnerable?
27:15 What do you mean by that word, to be vulnerable? To be in a state... to be sensitive?
27:27 Vulnerable means to be wounded. Now, go on, sir. I want to find out what it means to live a very simple life inwardly, from which the outward expression can take place.
27:49 You understand? If inwardly I’m complex, inwardly I’m in conflict, inwardly I want to avoid, escape, then…
28:01 I may be outwardly very simple but I am a dishonest person.
28:09 Right? Would you see that? So any contradiction inwardly indicates lack of honesty.
28:37 What do you say?
28:48 Is that so?
28:52 Q: Yes.
28:53 K: Yes? Why do you say yes?
29:02 I say one thing and do something else, inwardly. I say, ‘I love you,’ but I hate you. I say we are friends, but I’m trying to get something from you. Right? I want your companionship because I’m lonely. You follow? I’m using you because I can’t stand by myself.
29:34 So I find in investigating what it means to be simple that any contradiction in myself is an act of dishonesty.
29:53 Right? Are you dishonest?
30:08 Sorry! (Laughs) See what it means?
30:21 It means that we are not being educated in the deep sense of that word, but we are being educated outwardly – you understand?
30:42 – getting mathematics, science, biology, this and that, but inwardly we are absolutely confused human beings, and therefore we live a life of total dishonesty, hypocrisy.
31:09 So I say to myself in meditating and in inquiring into what is intelligence, I see what simplicity means: a life that is unified – you understand?
31:28 – that’s not broken up. Say one thing, think another, do something entirely different.
31:47 Believe in brotherhood and kick my neighbour. You follow? Talk about peace and join the army. I mean, those are crude examples but there are subtle forms of it.
32:10 So I’ve discovered that. Have you discovered it? You know what it means to discover: find, come upon it in yourself.
32:34 Which means a life in which there is no conflict inwardly, and a life in which there is no illusion.
33:01 You understand that word illusion? I have illusions, you know, that I’m a great man, that I am a wonderful poet, you know, that I am the greatest something or other, or that I believe in God.
33:28 I believe in God. I don’t know why but I believe in God – God who is love, God is – what is it? – omnipresent and omniscient – you know, all that – immense belief.
33:45 Why should I believe? And the world is that – you follow? – they believe.
33:59 The other day a friend came to lunch in New York – he’s high up in the bureaucratic world, knows hundreds of important people – and he was saying, ‘You know, we all meet at all these big conferences for international peace and not one of them believes in peace.’ (Laughs) Everlastingly talking about international unity and each of them maintaining, you know, what they are doing – army, my country opposed to your country and all the rest of it.
34:59 So you find out for yourself what it means to live a simple life.
35:10 Because it’s really a great thing, you know, because – I don’t know what... – if one is simple in the deep sense of that, really simple, which means no conflict, no hypocrisy, no dishonesty, no illusion, only facts, then you have tremendous integrity, and that is honesty.
36:12 So, see where it is important to use thought.
36:36 It is thought that has explained. You understand? Isn’t it? Because thought has created the word.
36:51 Right? The word door has given it a name, isn’t it, and you and I speak English and therefore we understand each other when we say, ‘The door.’ So thought has created the word as a means of communication.
37:11 Right? Are you following all this?
37:23 Now, is there apart from the word a means of communication?
37:32 There was a great German philosopher who said anything that can’t be put into words doesn’t exist.
37:53 You understand? If you can’t put your feeling, your thought into words, what you think has no reality – and he wrote tremendous philosophies about it, books.
38:13 So one day he was travelling with a friend in a train and the friend said, ‘I know your philosophy. You want everything that you think, say, must be put into words.’ He said, ‘Of course, otherwise it doesn’t exist.’ ‘Then put this into words,’ he said.
38:32 (Laughter) You understand? (Laughs) So from that moment he saw and therefore he changed his philosophy.
38:47 You follow? (Laughter) Now, find out where words are necessary as a means of communication and where words are not necessary as a means of communication.
39:14 Are you meeting? Are we communicating with each other? Find out. This is part of our education, you understand?
39:39 Must you express everything in words in order to tell you something, or is there a means of communication non-verbally?
40:00 Of course there is. A look. I look at you angrily.
40:05 Q: Supposing I receive this look and translate it into words? That’s just the same, isn’t it?
40:12 K: Of course. I look at you angrily, there is a non-verbal communication. Right? I look at you with a smile – that’s a non-verbal communication.
40:29 Now proceed to find out if there is a non-verbal communication which you will understand instantly without the word.
40:44 Come on, sir, do go into it. You know, all this is going to make you terribly intelligent human beings.
40:54 Q: How can you understand it if it’s never happened before?
41:02 K: You’re going to find out. You are going to find out whether the word is the only means of communication.
41:16 And if it is, we are slaves to words, aren’t we? If that is the only road, it’s a terrible idea.
41:32 So I want to find out that thought which has invented the word as a means of communication – when I say, ‘I love you,’ or when I say, ‘Oh, I don’t like that, he hurt me,’ and I tell you about it – those are a verbal communication, which is what I’m doing now.
42:04 Now, I want to tell you something which is non-verbal. I smile at you and you recognise it, you say, ‘By Jove, how nice, he’s a friend.’ I look at you with anger and you say, ‘By Jove!’ You follow?
42:24 So there is also a non-verbal communication, which is the expression of face, gesture and so on.
42:37 Now go further still. Is there a non-verbal communication, non-gesture expression communication?
42:49 Is there something much more?
42:51 Q: What if I had something broken over here and I just point to it? What if I had something broken, you see, and someone was over here who should know about it and I just point to it?
43:05 K: Yes, that’s it, that’s a gesture.
43:15 Q: I direct his attention.
43:18 K: Yes, that’s a gesture. I point. Without a word I point to that and he says... You see it, but it’s a gesture. So word, gesture, and is there something more than the word and the gesture?
43:33 Q: There is certainly stillness.
43:36 K: Wait, sir, don’t jump to stillness. If you are still and I am still, is there a communication between us?
43:45 Q: Not necessarily, but I can see there might be.
43:47 K: There might. No, I want to find out if there is a communication without the word, without the gesture.
43:55 Q: Sir, what do you mean by communication? Do you mean like giving something to each other?
44:01 K: No, communication – I say to you, ‘It’s raining,’ – that’s a communication, isn’t it? Because we both see it’s raining. Because we both see out of the window that it’s raining. And if you look the other way and I say, ‘It’s raining,’ you say, ‘I don’t know.’ Right?
44:21 So we are both looking out of the window and saying that it’s raining, and we both agree. That is communication, where both of us are sharing.
44:36 Communication means sharing, creating, thinking together and so on. Now, gesture is simple, isn’t it? I point out to you the tree without a word and you look.
44:53 And I say to you, ‘You’ve broken that thing, look,’ without a word.
45:04 And I want to find out if there is… beyond the gesture and the word, is there another means of communication?
45:14 Q: There is something when you are with another person, you both know something without speaking.
45:28 K: Yes. How do you know?
45:30 Q: You feel it. It’s like, I don’t know...
45:32 K: Yes. Don’t say anything that you yourself haven’t experienced, you yourself haven’t thought out, otherwise you’re lost.
45:40 Otherwise you merely become a second-hand human being.
45:49 And all the professors, all the learned people are second-hand human beings.
45:56 So I want to find out.
46:07 Q: When you love you don’t need any gestures or words.
46:11 K: When you love, he says, you don’t need any form of gesture or word.
46:19 Q: Sometimes the silence in nature communicates.
46:28 K: In silence you communicate – which is what he said.
46:42 Q: I was talking about the silence in nature more than between two people.
46:45 K: Silence of nature. Silence. Go on, sirs, investigate. Are you getting tired? So we are asking: is there a means of communication without the expression of thought?
47:10 You understand my question? Thought says, ‘Do look out of the window.’ You use words and you look out.
47:24 Thought says, ‘Look what you have done’ – gesture, facial, any other kind of gesture.
47:35 Right. Which are all expression of thought, aren’t they? Now is there a communication without the movement of thought?
47:46 Q: Not in my experience.
47:57 K: What do you say? You haven’t thought about this, have you? No, be simple – you haven’t thought about it.
48:09 Q: Well, would you call it communication… there is communication that you were talking about something when someone has something and he directs it or gives it to another person?
48:22 K: Look here, the word communication means sharing.
48:25 Q: So, a person doesn’t have to...
48:30 K: Look, make it... keep it simple. I point to that and I say, ‘Look at that beam.’ You look at that beam and we both have given a name to that wooden piece as beam – right?
48:50 – so we both are communicating about that. We both see the same thing and name it beam. Right? And we say… a gesture – when I’m angry I say, ‘Oh!’ without a word, and we’ve both, you and I, have communicated.
49:14 I give you something without a word and you accept it without a word – we have understood.
49:21 But those are all activities of thought, aren’t they?
49:25 Q: Well I was just going to ask the question if you can call it communication if looking at something I see something without that thing actually wanting me to see it or...
49:43 K: Look, you see a picture, a painting, and it communicates something to you.
49:51 I look at that same picture and it may not communicate the same thing to me.
49:59 I may see something which you don’t see or you see something which I don’t see.
50:06 And you tell me there is that which you don’t see.
50:14 Until I see it there is no communication, is there?
50:22 So communication means – do listen carefully – that we are sharing together verbally, through gesture, and I’m asking: is there a communication in which gesture and the word doesn’t come in at all?
50:50 I’ll show it to you; it does come in.
50:57 Q: When we both understand something in the same moment.
51:03 K: Yes, that’s what I’m coming to. Look at it carefully. If you and I see – please listen – see, understand the nature of the word, which is necessary, the nature of the gesture, facial and otherwise – if we both understand that very carefully because we’re both attentive – right? – we are both attending to what it means to communicate verbally and in gesture – what is that state of mind that listens to the word, to the gesture?
51:55 What is the state of the mind?
52:02 Look, keep it simple. I say to you, ‘Look at that beam.’ You look at it, don’t you?
52:20 And I’ve communicated it. Now what is the state of your mind when I say, ‘Do look at that beam’?
52:32 Do look at it. Look at it. Don’t be afraid; look at it. I say, ‘Look at that beam,’ and you look. And I say: what is the state of your mind that is looking?
52:54 Is it looking at it casually – you follow? – is it looking at it with care, or is it looking at it indifferently, or with attention?
53:13 You follow? Now which is it you’re doing when I say, ‘Look at that beam’?
53:18 Q: Attention.
53:20 K: Attention, don’t you? Now, what is the state of the mind that is attentive?
53:26 Q: It’s quiet?
53:29 K: No, don’t use words that you don’t know.
53:38 What is the state of mind that is attentive when it says, ‘Look at that beam’?
53:44 Q: Inquiring?
53:48 K: No, darling, just look at it.
53:55 Look at it. Look at it.
54:05 Which means you’re looking at that beam – aren’t you? – attentively, seeing the holes, all the cracks and all that. Which is, you have no other thought. Right? There is no thinking even. You’re just observing, aren’t you? Right? You get it? So when you are observing without saying, ‘That’s a hole, that’s a crack,’ using the word – you follow? – when you are observing without using the word, you’re completely attentive, aren’t you?
54:47 That means you and I at the same moment, at the same intensity are looking at that beam.
54:54 That is communication, isn’t it? Non-verbally. Got it?
54:58 Q: Surely it would be coincidence if two people looked at an object at the same time.
55:17 K: Yes, that’s it. We both non-verbally, without a gesture, look at that.
55:30 We know it is a microphone but we don’t use that word. I don’t point it out to you, but we both look at it. If we both look at it with the same attention, with the same intensity, we are in communication.
55:52 (Pause) So there is a state of mind, or a state, in which thought is no longer operative, but attention.
56:19 Right? When we are both attentive we don’t have to be verbally communicating with each other.
56:32 I won’t go into all this, it’s really...
56:39 So I have learnt this morning – sorry! – that the world with their priests, with their monks, with their leaders and all the rest of it, all that social, religious structure, is a contradiction – outwardly, tremendous simplicity, or this extraordinary show of, you know, kings, queens and all that circus that goes on.
57:19 And I’ve discovered that a life in which there is no contradiction is really a simple life.
57:29 And there must be a simple life in order to live peacefully, in order to live ecstatically.
57:40 You understand? Which means a life of great honesty. If I say, ‘I have lied,’ I have lied; I don’t pretend about it. You follow? I don’t find excuses, rationalise it, afraid to acknowledge it. I say, ‘Yes.’ I have been angry, yes.
58:12 You follow? There is no pretension. If you say I am a fool, I look at it, I don’t say, ‘Well...’ – you follow?
58:25 – I don’t recoil or I don’t call you another; I just look, find out.
58:34 So, to look is a non-verbal, non-gesture attention.
58:51 You follow? You’ve followed all this? Now look at yourself when you are sitting in that shed or alone, in that way – attentively, non-verbally.
59:17 You know, you learn an awful lot, much more than the books tell you.
59:24 What’s the time, sir?
59:27 Q: Half-past five. (Pause) Q: Sir, excuse me, in this state of attention there is a special quality of feeling.
59:58 Can’t you name it, or there is no name for this feeling?
1:00:07 K: In this state of attention there is a special feeling – obviously, must be.
1:00:16 Which means what? You know, oh this... Are you tired? Shall I go on? Many: Yes.
1:00:27 K: Are you sure?
1:00:30 Q: Yes.
1:00:35 K: Have you noticed in yourself and perhaps in others how broken-up they are in themselves?
1:00:46 They say, ‘I must not smoke,’ and go on smoking.
1:00:55 Or they say, ‘Terrible to drink too much,’ but put it away.
1:01:02 They say, ‘Oh, this is terrible to have a divided world and yet I cling to my nationality.’ You follow?
1:01:13 This goes on all the time. This is broken-up in ourselves, which is fragmentation in ourselves.
1:01:23 Right? Have you noticed this in yourself?
1:01:32 Now, how do you put an end to fragmentation? Go on, work at it, sirs, let’s go on to it.
1:01:54 I notice that I am fragmented, broken-up, contradictory.
1:02:07 Now how am I not to be broken-up, to be whole, which means, healthy, which means sanity?
1:02:19 Q: Be honest.
1:02:22 K: How will you propose? What shall I do? Tell me what I am to do. I come to you as a friend, I say, ‘Look, old chap, I’m really greatly broken-up in myself.’ (Laughs) I never say that to anybody but I come to you and I say, ‘Look, help me – what am I to do so that I am really a complete human being, not broken-up?’ What shall I do?
1:03:01 Go on, old boy, tell me.
1:03:12 (Pause) You’re not a help to me?
1:03:19 Q: Sir, first, I must inquire whether I’m really serious here.
1:03:23 K: I’ve come to you, I’ve travelled miles to come and find out. I’ve come to you and I say, ‘Look, please, help me. For God’s sake, I am fragmented, I am broken-up in myself. I don’t know, I’m contradictory, I say one thing, do another, think another – you know, all that – I am broken-up. What am I to do to be a whole person, not broken-up, a complete piece?’ Do you know you’re broken-up?
1:04:00 You do, do you? Then what do you do about it? Just stay that way?
1:04:09 Q: The first thing you do about anything is ascertain if it is a fact.
1:04:18 K: It is a fact. I am broken-up. I say I mustn’t smoke; I smoke. I say I mustn’t – whatever it is, you know – this I will do and the next day I do something contradictory.
1:04:34 I’m doing this all the time, all my life.
1:04:41 I must stand alone, and oh, my family is the most important. (Laughs) You follow?
1:04:45 Q: Well then it is a question of understanding yourself.
1:04:48 K: Now what am I to do? Tell me.
1:04:57 Q: Look at it.
1:04:59 K: Tell me, please. You tell me, because you are doing it, not theory. I don’t want theories. I can get theories from books, from other people. Theories are ashes. I don’t want it. I want bread, I don’t want ashes. I say, ‘Please, help me.’ Q: We must act.
1:05:21 K: No, what am I to do?
1:05:23 Q: Walk out of it.
1:05:24 K: How am I to walk out?
1:05:27 Q: If you see it’s a poison.
1:05:31 K: My darling! (Laughs) You see? Now, you see what you’re telling me? ‘If you see it as poison you will…’ I say, ‘I don’t know, I don’t see it.
1:05:49 What?’ You are broken-up, aren’t you?
1:05:56 Be simple about it, truthful, say, ‘Yes, I am.’ Then what will you do?
1:06:12 You know, people like to be... there is a feeling of, ‘It’s all right, I enjoy being broken-up inside myself.’ You understand?
1:06:26 Lots of people, like one person came to me, he said, ‘I really enjoy being miserable.’ (Laughs) You understand?
1:06:39 Well, if you enjoy it, keep it, but I am...
1:06:47 Do you enjoy being broken-up? Now, so you’ve discovered something. Wait. Go step by step into it. You have discovered that it’s a most uncomfortable feeling. Right? So you say, ‘As I feel uncomfortable, unhappy, miserable about this beastly thing, what am I to do?’ So you have already discovered that you are serious in wanting to be made whole.
1:07:25 Right? Nobody has to tell you, ‘Be serious’ – that’s my point. You have discovered for yourself that you are serious because it makes you uncomfortable, it makes you dishonest, it makes you feel wretched.
1:07:42 So you say, ‘By Jove, I want to get out of that.’ So you have discovered that you yourself want to get out of it.
1:07:53 Right? Nobody has persuaded you. Bene? So if that is so then what next?
1:08:10 Q: Find out why you are fragmented.
1:08:20 K: Yes. Why? Good. I was just going to... Why are you fragmented? Is it the culture in which you have been brought up? Your father’s, your mother’s, your society, you’re French, that’s your – you follow?
1:08:40 – everybody is in that position so you say, ‘Why not?’ Is that the reason?
1:08:56 Or you haven’t really thought about it. It may be this is the first time you’re thinking about it. Right? So it’s the first time you say, ‘By Jove, I’ve realised something.’ For the first time you saw that beam.
1:09:17 You understand? For the first time you say, ‘I’m paying attention to that beam. I see the cracks, the holes, how it is broken there, how it’s not polished properly, there is a nail there, there is a hole there, there is...’ You follow?
1:09:31 So for the first time you discover that you are broken-up, not because of society.
1:09:40 We’ll come to that – I’m sorry – you come to that, whether it’s society. For the first time you say, ‘I am broken-up.’ And it may be I haven’t really thought about it at all, I haven’t looked at it, I’ve accepted this state of fragmentation.
1:10:02 Right? Now I’m looking at it.
1:10:06 Q: Which means you are starting to be honest with yourself.
1:10:09 K: That’s all. That’s the beginning of it. Right? Say, ‘Yes, I am fragmented. I have never thought about it. Now I’m going to think about it.’ Now I begin to say: is it the fault of the society in which I live?
1:10:33 Is it the fault of my education, my family, my neighbours, etc.?
1:10:41 You follow? And they never point it out to me – my mother, my father, my nurse, my grandmother said, ‘Look, don’t be fragmented, think about it.’ Right?
1:11:05 So I can’t put the blame on society or on my grandmother or my parents, but I say, ‘The fact is I’m broken-up.’ So what shall I do?
1:11:13 I am broken-up. I’m awfully serious because I see what a wretched state it is.
1:11:21 Now what am I to do? Listen carefully. What am I to do? Can you do anything?
1:11:44 If you do something, who is it that is doing something?
1:11:54 Q: Yourself.
1:11:57 K: Which means what? Another fragment, isn’t it?
1:12:00 Q: Yes.
1:12:01 K: So you have discovered something. Right? If you say, ‘I’m fragmented,’ and I say, ‘I must not,’ and, ‘I must do something,’ who is the must?
1:12:15 Who says, ‘I must’? Another fragment, isn’t it?
1:12:20 Q: Yes.
1:12:21 K: So what have you discovered? One fragment operating on another fragment is still fragmentation.
1:12:36 Right? You have discovered that, not me. You’ve found that? Right, Gregory? One fragmentation operating on another fragmentation is still fragmentation.
1:13:00 So what do you discover next?
1:13:09 Q: That you’re even more fragmented.
1:13:17 K: Yes, that’s right. So when one fragment acts upon other fragments it is the action of will over other fragments.
1:13:27 Right? Action of will, as: this must not be, I will control, I will bring them together.
1:13:39 Which is one fragment dominating other fragments.
1:13:42 Q: Isn’t the fragmentation just one? It’s the same. Isn’t that just the same?
1:13:52 K: Of course it is the same. Therefore I am saying it is still a fragmentation.
1:14:01 Right? Is that clear? So, what shall I do? Nothing! Look, look, Gregory, when you looked at that beam, can you do anything?
1:14:25 Q: Observe.
1:14:29 K: You can, because you can get up on a ladder and polish it off or do something.
1:14:38 That is an object, solid – you can act upon it. Here there are many fragments, of which one fragment takes dominance and says, ‘I will control them all,’ which is still fragmentation.
1:14:56 I see that. That’s a fact. What will you do about a fact?
1:15:01 Q: Nothing.
1:15:02 K: There you are. Then what takes place?
1:15:05 Q: Honesty.
1:15:06 K: No, wait! Do listen carefully, don’t jump to conclusions.
1:15:12 Q: Intelligence.
1:15:13 Q: Integrity.
1:15:15 K: No, watch it, my darling, do watch it, don’t express it yet in words.
1:15:23 Q: You just see it.
1:15:25 K: You just see. What takes place when you see?
1:15:27 Q: You’re being attentive to the fact.
1:15:29 K: What takes place when you see? Unless you see it, don’t say anything that you don’t experience yourself.
1:15:39 That’s honesty – you follow?
1:15:41 Q: Yes, it is the first time you feel degraded.
1:15:50 K: Please, look at it. For the first time I see I am fragmented. Then I say I must control it – right? – and I realise one fragment takes dominance over the others – right? – which is still playing with fragments.
1:16:14 Therefore I’ll do nothing. How can I do anything? If I do, it’s still fragmentation, isn’t it? So what takes place if I do nothing? If there is no action in fragmentation is there a fragmentation at all?
1:16:45 Listen, Gregory, listen to it, it’s so simple.
1:16:55 Boys, get hold of it. Before I said, ‘I am fragmented,’ and one fragment says, ‘I will control the rest, I will change this fragment to that fragment, I’ll try to bring a unity, I’ll integrate.’ It’s still fragmentation.
1:17:17 I see that very clearly. Right? Do you? Then I say, ‘I can’t do anything, can I?’ So I’m quiet. Right?
1:17:27 Q: But I’m...
1:17:29 K: Wait, wait. Wait, wait. Go slowly. I’m quiet. Mind refuses to act. Right? If it refuses to act is there a fragmentation?
1:17:45 Q: No.
1:17:47 Q: How can there be?
1:17:52 K: You see? Go into this very carefully, you’ll see it.
1:18:02 Till you see it, don’t agree. (Pause) Q: Sir? It seems that even if I realise that I can do nothing...
1:18:29 K: Ah, not realise – you can do nothing.
1:18:32 Q: Right, I can do nothing, but this process continues.
1:18:37 K: Ah, no, it can’t. I can’t do anything about the breeze, the winds. Right? I can’t do anything so I let it blow. It’s only when I say, ‘I must do something about the wind,’ that I put a barrier, there is a division, there is the – you follow?
1:19:02 – fragmentation. But if I say, ‘Let the wind go,’ what am I to do?
1:19:11 In the same way, I see I am fragmented. That’s a fact. And also I see one fragment taking dominance over other factors, other pieces, is still fragmentation.
1:19:27 That’s a fact. Right? I’ve seen two facts. And also I see the third fact that to do anything about it is another fragmentation.
1:19:40 Right? So the fact is I can do absolutely nothing.
1:19:51 Right? That’s a fact. I can’t do anything. Therefore is there a fragmentation? Because I’ve always looked at fragmentation with eyes that are fragmented.
1:20:10 If my eyes are not fragmented there is no fragmentation.
1:20:17 Look, I see India, Pakistan divided.
1:20:25 I see Russia, Germany divided, geographically, historically, religiously, politically.
1:20:37 Those are facts. And if I still remain an Indian and say, ‘I’m an Indian,’ I maintain a fragmentation, don’t I?
1:20:52 Fragmentation, wars, hatred – you follow? – antagonism, commercial competition, all that. And I see... And if I’m not a Hindu, not an Indian, there is no fragmentation.
1:21:09 Right? In the same way, look at it. But I’ve always looked at the world through the eyes of an Indian, which is the eyes of fragmentation.
1:21:21 Right? Now I don’t look at the world with eyes which are Indian, which are fragmented.
1:21:29 Therefore I look. Therefore there is no fragmentation. You understand? So can I look at the world, which is me – I am the world – without fragments... with eyes that have never been fragmented?
1:22:01 Look. Of course I can.
1:22:14 Now, can you look at yourself non-fragmentarily?
1:22:24 Of course you can.
1:22:34 Come on, sir. It’s a very complex question this, you know? This is real meditation, so that your mind can look at a tree, at a cloud, at a bird, at anything, at another human being, non-fragmentarily.
1:23:00 Human beings have tried this, therefore they say, ‘It can’t be done, God can only do it, therefore love God.’ You follow?
1:23:08 ‘Identify yourself with God and then you’ll be...’ That’s all nonsense.
1:23:19 One can do it now, and if you know how to... if there is that state then you’re non-fragmented, therefore your mind is something – oh!
1:23:36 I think that’s enough, isn’t it? Bene.