Krishnamurti Subtitles home


BR72DSS1.08 - Seeing a fact together
Brockwood Park, UK - 18 June 1972
Discussion with Staff and Students 1.08



0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s eigth discussion with teachers and students at Brockwood Park, 1972.
0:12 Krishnamurti: What shall we talk about this morning? (Pause) No, sir?
0:33 You have nothing? No suggestions? Questioner: Perhaps.
0:37 K: Then start it.
0:42 Q: I don’t know whether people want, but could we talk about death, not philosophically but perhaps just physically?
0:51 K: You want to talk about death? It’s a gloomy morning, is that it?
1:04 (Laughter) Do you really want to talk about death? Yes? Or about anything else? All right, sir, start it. What do you think is death? Physical dying?
1:21 Q: Yes.
1:23 K: Then why are people so frightened about it?
1:30 Q: Because they don’t know what’s going to happen afterwards.
1:36 K: They don’t know what’s going to happen afterwards. Do they know what is happening now? (Laughter) No, no, not... don’t laugh it off. Do you know what is happening in themselves and outside all the time? Or is it casually knowing oneself occasionally, and unrelated to what is happening outwardly?
2:08 Do you know what it means to live before we know what it means to die? (Laughs) Why do you ask that question, really? Seriously, why do you ask that question?
2:18 Q: It seems to me that death brings life into some kind of perspective. Because I think – I’m not sure, but it means that – I don’t know if I should say this – to most people that it’s taking away everything the person has lived for – all one’s attachments, and all one’s pleasures and all one’s joys are being ended.
2:48 K: So would you put the question differently? I’m not avoiding the issue. Would you put the question differently? Why do we separate living from dying? Right? Would you agree to that, that kind of question? Why is there this division between living and dying?
3:17 You know, the whole of Asia, including India and all that part of the world, believes in reincarnation.
3:29 You know what that means? That is, they believe that there is a permanent or semi-permanent entity which will reincarnate life after life till it becomes perfect, till it reaches Godhead, till it has reached, gained or acquired virtue, knowledge, enlightenment.
4:04 And they believe it because it gives them a great comfort, first of all, because they say, ‘Well, what’s the point of living if I don’t know what’s going to happen afterwards?’ And it gives them a sense of security.
4:26 Do you understand what I am saying?
4:30 Q: Yes.
4:31 K: And the Christian world believes in another kind of resurrection. You know all the Christian mythology and all that is involved in it.
4:42 And also that gives them a certain sense of assurance, gratification that they will after all meet each other in the next world, sitting next to God or whatever it is, sitting on a cloud with a harp or whatever they do – you know, all that.
5:03 And the whole world, historically in the past and perhaps in the future, believe, have believed that there is a certain kind of continuity.
5:20 You understand? Now, I’ve always asked myself why I divide life into death and living.
5:33 Perhaps if I could find that out then my question about death will have a quite a different meaning. Because then I would inquire what it is to live.
5:46 And then finding out what it is to live then I’ll find out what it is to die. I don’t know if you... But to merely state or ask what is death seems to me unrelated to living, unrelated to the daily factual relationship, action and all the things that are involved in living.
6:18 So would you put that question differently by saying: is death involved in living?
6:31 You follow? Not something separate, away at the end, but it is one constant movement: living-dying, living-dying.
6:46 I don’t know if you get what I’m talking about. Do you? Am I making myself clear? Would you be satisfied if I put that question that way?
6:55 Q: Yes.
6:56 K: Be sure. Don’t say yes just to agree with me, be quite clear for yourself why you put the question, ‘Death, I want to know something about death,’ without asking the question also, ‘I want to know something about living.’ Right.
7:20 Now why do we divide living and dying?
7:25 Q: Isn’t it because we have an impression of continuity which is broken at the end, and our life is something continuous?
7:34 K: So you think living has a continuity and dying is the ending of that continuity.
7:42 Is that it?
7:43 Q: Yes.
7:45 K: Go on, sir, discuss. We’re talking over together, don’t be shy. You say living has a series of incidents, memories, activities which have a continuous movement, a related movement, connected, and death is the ending of that connection.
8:21 Is that it?
8:24 Q: Is that not so for the body?
8:30 K: Is that not so for the body. I don’t know, we are just... Sir, look, the other day when we met here we said we would investigate.
8:45 Right? That is, inquire. And the word investigate means to trace out, to track – you follow? – go step by step. And you can only do that if you have no prejudice. Right? And we said intelligence is the state of mind in which any kind of prejudice, conclusion, belief is non-existent.
9:17 Right? Now, we are inquiring into this question, which man has inquired – you understand?
9:26 – from the ancient of days. He said: what is living and what is dying? But they have always emphasised what is death, as though they have understood living and having understood it then they can say, ‘Now what is death?’ Now I want to find out first what is living, and if living has any relationship with dying – not two separate states.
10:03 I think that seems to me reasonable, more sane, more harmonious than to say, ‘What is death?’ I don’t know if you...
10:17 Right? Now, we are investigating. Bear that in mind. I am not coming to any conclusion and you are not coming to any conclusion. I am not starting with a prejudice, with an opinion, nor you. We’re just inquiring, exploring. Now what is living? What do you call living?
10:49 Not what you think living is or what you think living should be, which are theoretical, therefore non-factual, an abstraction and therefore unintelligent.
11:03 Right? We are going together? Therefore what is living to you? To you, not to somebody else. What do you think is living? Brazil, come on. (Pause) No?
11:18 Q: I’d say that it is being conscious to a certain extent of what is happening.
11:53 K: What is happening.
11:55 Q: Being conscious of it.
11:56 K: Being conscious. Are you conscious of what you’re doing? Are you conscious of your living?
12:04 Q: Yes.
12:05 K: What do you mean by that?
12:11 Q: That I know I’m living.
12:12 K: Yes, sir, what do you... (Laughs) Of course you know that you’re living. What does it mean, living, to you?
12:21 Q: Isn’t it a process of constantly reacting to your environment?
12:32 K: A process of constantly reacting to your environment – is that living? I’m just asking... (inaudible) Please, careful, I am asking. Is that living? Reacting to everything around you. And if you react according to your conditioning, which we went into, therefore your reaction being inadequate – right? – then in that inadequacy there is conflict.
13:16 Right?
13:23 So would you say living, as it is now, of which we know, of which we take part in, is a constant conflict?
13:37 From childhood, going through school – you understand?
13:46 – growing into maturity, married, family, job.
13:55 You are agreeing with this? Would you call that living? This constant adjustment to environment according to your education, culture, constant disharmony, battle with each other, within oneself – you calling yourself a Christian and I a communist, you a Buddhist and I a Hindu, you a Muslim and I – you follow? – this division, this war, this competition, aggression.
14:38 You follow? That is what we call living, don’t we?
14:44 Q: Excuse me. It seems to me that in order that we can get somewhere nearer to a phrase, a total concept for living, it’s important for me that there’s also the converse.
14:59 That it’s the constant conflict, yes, very important, and also the constant harmony that comes from it.
15:15 It seems to be important that there’s a dialectic, an opposite that...
15:16 K: Yes, that is it, that is it. You are saying, sir, conflict has its opposite in harmony, and we know that harmony exists because we know we are in conflict.
15:35 Now, do you know definitely, factually, that there is harmony?
15:45 Or because we are in conflict we hope to be harmonious one day?
15:50 Q: No, for me harmony is a feeling that I might experience at any one instant in time.
16:00 I can feel in conflict or I can feel in harmony. It is to do with my perception and it is a feeling that I have at any one moment of time.
16:17 True it is an opposite – I mean, I have left and I have right... (inaudible) K: I see, I see. You are saying, because conflict is the opposite of harmony, therefore there is harmony.
16:33 Is that it? Now just a minute, sir. I am afraid, and the opposite of fear is courage, bravery.
16:46 Right? Now...
16:49 Q: The opposite of fear is not having the feeling of fear.
17:01 K: Which is freedom.
17:02 Q: Yes.
17:03 K: Which has nothing to do with an opposite.
17:17 I only know disharmony. My life is in disharmony.
17:32 And out of the understanding of that disharmony – understanding it means investigating, find out why there is disharmony and understanding the various factors that bring about disharmony – then in the putting away of those disharmonious things there is harmony.
17:59 I can’t have both at the same time.
18:10 I can’t be disharmonious with one hand, with the other hand have harmony.
18:18 So let’s come back to this factor.
18:28 When we say living, do you know as students, beginning to look around you in the world and look at yourself, do you know what living is actually, not theoretically?
18:49 I’m afraid I must ask for a handkerchief. Would you give me... or a Kleenex? I’m sorry. I forgot, I’ve got hay fever. Thank God it’s raining, that’s better. No, somebody’s gone to get it, sir. Kleenex is coming, sir.
19:20 (Pause) Do I know – I means you – do I know what living is?
19:44 Actually; not what I have been told living is. Isn’t it? You see the difference? Somebody tells me what living is and I say, ‘By Jove, he’s so much wiser than I am, he’s better educated and so on and so on, more experienced, so I’ll accept what he says.’ Right?
20:10 That’s not my understanding of my living. Right? So do I know what my living is, how I live?
20:27 Various hopes, despairs, from childhood – what is happening?
20:37 Go through it, sir, step by step, go through from childhood – you understand? – till you are now, here. What have you lived? What is your living? Go on, sir, investigate, go on. Put it into words. Come on, Mantely, you started it.
20:59 Q: It seems from my observation of also in animals, also in plants, that...
21:08 K: No, you. Tunki, don’t talk about animals, plants. You. You’re not a plant, you’re not an animal. What is your living?
21:29 Q: Growing. From childhood.
21:38 K: Growth. Physical growth?
21:46 Q: And mental.
21:50 K: And mental growth. Now, physical growth from childhood till you’re now 15, 13, 14 or 18, whatever it is, and mentally.
22:10 Right? Have you grown mentally?
22:13 Q: My knowledge has expanded.
22:17 K: So your knowledge has expanded. Knowledge about what?
22:29 The world? Geography, mathematics, learning a new language?
22:35 Q: No, experiencing things.
22:38 K: Experiencing. What have you experienced within the last fifteen years? And experiencing according to what?
22:53 When you use that word experience, what does that mean, that word? Go on, sir.
22:58 Q: Living. It means living through.
23:01 K: Does experience mean living?
23:10 If you had no experience would you be living?
23:18 Q: You’d be learning.
23:29 K: You see, I am learning through experience.
23:37 You have hurt me. That’s an experience, and I have learnt from that experience to protect myself against you – right? – because you have hurt me.
23:56 Right, Gregory? And I have learnt. What have I learnt? To protect myself against you who have hurt me.
24:12 Right? And through experience I’ve learnt being afraid that I must be attached to something: my mother, father – doesn’t matter – a belief, a conclusion.
24:31 Right? Are you following this? And I hold on to that. So what is happening? I’ve learnt how to protect myself against hurt – right? – and I have learnt that being afraid or being lonely I am attached to something and I must hold on to that thing which I’m attached to.
25:03 Right? And living in a world like this there must be competition, therefore I must study better, I must be more clever, I must have much more capacity to earn a better job, and so on.
25:26 So I am learning through experience to safeguard myself, to resist, to protect, to build a wall round myself.
25:44 No?
25:46 Q: Except in early childhood.
25:57 K: Except in childhood – is that so?
26:09 Q: I think it starts very young, I don’t think it’s...
26:14 K: No, what Gregory said was: I learn through experience, life is a series of experiences from which I learn, learn to expand intellectually, mentally.
26:32 Right? That’s what you said. Now are you expanding when you are protecting yourself, when you are building a wall round yourself?
26:52 When you are competitive, are you building, expanding? When you are aggressive or seeking power, position, prestige, which will give you great pleasure, is that expanding consciousness – you understand?
27:15 – expanding the mind? Or is it always within a certain sphere, with a certain limitation?
27:25 Q: Expanding compared to other people.
27:31 K: Expanding compared to other people. I live in a village and my knowledge of the world is very small. You live in a big town and your knowledge is much greater.
27:49 Right? Knowledge of what? Books? How to meet people? How to drive a car? How to get on in the world? Be more cunning, more subtle, more aggressive, you know, all the rest of it? Because I live in a village and my competition is very limited.
28:24 Come on, sir, discuss. We are trying to find out, aren’t we, what you call... what we call living. Living as we know it is pleasure and pain, isn’t it?
28:45 Q: Isn’t living a continuous sorrow?
28:50 K: Pain, which is part of sorrow. I lose my brother, I fail in my examination, I am not good at games, I’m not as clever as you are, not so nice-looking as you are, so I feel depressed, I feel anxious, I feel inferior.
29:13 Right? That’s part of my living, isn’t it?
29:23 Part of living is to enclose myself, to protect myself, my family, my house, my God, my belief.
29:31 Right? And also my fears, I must conquer them, I must go beyond them.
29:44 And I live in a world of my pleasure and fears, pain, sorrow – right? – and conflict.
29:53 This is what we call living, don’t we? Would you consider this living? Expressing, if you have a talent, either musically, in painting, writing or poems, play and so on.
30:12 So all that is what we call living, isn’t it?
30:21 No? No? What is then living? More? Love?
30:27 Q: I think it’s all those things, and beyond that, bewilderment as to what any of those may mean or signify.
30:39 K: Beyond that, beyond all this, beyond my sorrow, my sense of frustration, my sense of fears, anxiety, guilt, and beyond all that.
31:00 I can only find out what’s beyond all that when there is no fear, when there is no sorrow.
31:13 Isn’t that it? Then only I can find out if there is something more. Or because I am frightened, because I’m anxious, because I feel guilty, because I’m not fulfilled in sorrow, I hope there is something more. Now which is it?
31:24 Q: I think it’s the second. I think it’s just all I know is conflict and I just want something else. But all I know is the conflict I’m in.
31:39 K: Therefore, you are saying, all that I know is pleasure, pain, fear – that.
31:51 And if you knew how to go beyond it – you understand?
31:58 – free yourself from it, you might find something else. But to start with that there is something more seems to me seems to lead to illusion.
32:11 Right? What do you say, Gregory?
32:23 So, I want to find out what living is in order to understand or find out its relationship with death.
32:41 Right? So I must be very clear for myself what living is, whether I can go beyond this mess that I have created for myself.
32:57 Go on, sir.
32:58 Q: I think now that the question I first asked about death is irrelevant. It seems that anything – death, like the something beyond that I might find if I escape problems – has no relevance at all to the conflict I’m in now.
33:19 It doesn’t...
33:24 K: So, is – listen, listen carefully – is the ending of conflict death?
33:38 Death of the things I’ve known. I don’t know if you’re...
33:45 Q: Yes, life is only conflict.
33:49 K: Be clear on that point. Be very clear that life is only conflict. Don’t say something which you really don’t know, feel, experience, otherwise you’ll be repeating something unreal.
34:10 Is your life – Mantely’s life – conflict?
34:20 Study, playing guitar, wanting to do things, opposing – you follow? – all that you are doing or thinking – not doing (laughs) – wanting and holding back, wanting to be aggressive and knowing other people can be more aggressive.
34:45 You follow? So, is there this tension, this conflict in learning, in doing things, when you really want to do something totally different?
35:05 And you say you get frustrated, get angry, violent, aggressive, because you’re young, and you say, ‘Wait till I get a little older, then I’ll let it go.’ So if you are in conflict, you have to find out why you are in conflict and whether there is an ending to conflict.
35:40 And with the ending of conflict, does it mean the ending of life and therefore death?
35:50 You follow? Go on, find out, investigate together.
35:52 Q: Can I ask something? Are we trying to find out why we are living?
35:57 K: No, no. Why I’m living, I don’t know quite. My father and mother put me out and I am living.
36:09 Q: Then living is everything.
36:10 K: That’s it – living is everything.
36:17 Right? Therefore why do you separate living from dying? Why don’t you say living is also dying?
36:27 Q: Because it’s...
36:32 K: You understand my question?
36:35 Q: Yes.
36:36 K: Why do I say pleasure is much more beautiful than fear? They’re part of life. Right?
36:45 Q: Yes. And death is part of life.
36:50 K: So why do I divide this life as something marvellous, beautiful, ecstatic, lovely, etc., and death is something, abomination?
37:03 So if – I’m asking; we’re investigating, therefore I’m asking – my life is in conflict, misery, struggle, pain, fear, pleasure, joy, the whole of that, and disharmony – if there was harmony in me, complete harmony, would there be death?
37:42 Would I say, ‘Death is over there’ – you follow? – ‘and I’m afraid of it’?
37:52 Or death may mean the ending of disharmony.
38:00 Right? Are you following this?
38:17 What do you say? Would you say being young, ‘I really know nothing about life’? Right? That would be honest, wouldn’t it?
38:28 Q: Yes.
38:29 K: I know nothing about it. I only know my little sphere, my little ground on which I walk, think and sleep – examinations, study, study, examination, books, play, and a little bit of anger, a little bit of jealousy, a little bit of – you follow?
38:55 – aggression, violence, which expanded is the world. That’s my life, that’s your life. And you see death, somebody in the hearse, or somebody whom you know dies, and you say, ‘My lord, what does it all mean?’ Then you begin to inquire, don’t you?
39:25 Or do you say, ‘Well, I don’t want to inquire, I’m frightened’? You know, I was told a lovely story by a journalist in Los Angeles.
39:39 A rich lady died, and she loved cinemas, and she had a special hero in the cinema world, a great actor.
39:52 When she died one of her desires or expression or what she wanted in the will was that (laughs) she should... this particular – what do call it? – play, cinema, should be shown in the coffin.
40:15 (Laughter) No, no – you laugh.
40:23 She had fixed it so that when the screws or whatever they do around the coffin, then the screen began to work and the cinema was going on.
40:40 Right? We laugh at it. The Egyptians when they died, the pharaohs and all the big shots, had all their... they had duplicates or whatever it was collected and put in their tombs, carried with them to heaven, and sometimes they had their own slaves entombed with them.
41:13 You understand? And when you put a mausoleum, a cross and a thing over your grave, that’s part of the same idea.
41:26 You follow? You laugh at the cinema and you don’t laugh at the other.
41:39 So we want to carry everything that we have with us, including our money.
41:46 Unfortunately you can’t do that. Right? And that’s why we’re frightened of death.
41:57 You are following all this? In Asia they cremate people, burn them to cinders, and the ashes are scattered either over mountains or dumped in a river.
42:23 The more sacred the river the better it is.
42:30 So this phenomenon of dying has occupied man tremendously.
42:43 Not so much living, but dying has become extraordinarily important. Go to the war and you’re killed and you put up a cross for that man.
42:55 You follow? Educate him, bring him up, care for him, love him when he’s a little baby, and then send him off to wars, kill him and then put – you follow?
43:07 This is our living: conflict, injustice, social injustice – you know, all that is happening around us of which we are a part.
43:25 So when I ask myself, ‘What is death?’ I am asking that question as though it were something apart from my living.
43:44 I was told by an anthropologist who was digging in the Tells in Mesopotamia, which is Iraq and Syria now, where the Sumerians lived about 5 to 7,000 BC.
44:05 They weren’t, he was telling us, they weren’t concerned with death at all.
44:12 They said it was part of living. You follow? And later on they discovered that a man dying and the attachment to the man began the fear.
44:32 You follow? I won’t go into all that, anyhow.
44:40 So there have been civilisations where death was considered part of living.
44:47 And there are civilisations, have been, which say take everything with you to heaven, if you can.
45:00 The Egyptians did that. Then there have been people, civilisations, who say death is the ending of everything, therefore live sumptuously, happily, have everything you want because it’s the only life.
45:25 And there are the Asiatic civilisations who said death is only a beginning of a new life.
45:36 And the new life depended on the old life, what you did in the old life – you follow? – in the previous life. If you are good, if you are gentle, if you behave properly you’ll have a better life next life, therefore live better now.
45:51 You follow? Because the reward was there if you lived rightly now.
46:00 But they don’t do that, that’s just an idea. And then there is the whole Christian world with their resurrection and all that.
46:12 Now seeing all this, this strange phenomenon that’s going on throughout the ages and in our own lives, looking at it all, I say to myself: why is there this division?
46:32 Why do we divide everything? Harmony, disharmony, pleasure, fear, pain, suffering, God and not – this division, division, division.
46:47 Why? The opposites, you know, all that – why?
46:57 Is it natural division or unnatural division? Is it a rational, sane division or a division being brought about by thought which has not understood division, the whole structure and nature of division?
47:20 Come on, sir. I’m going on by myself – sorry.
47:32 There is a natural division: woman and man, boy and girl. There is a natural division between animals and ourselves. But animals are aggressive and we perhaps coming from the evolved apes, part of that aggression remains with us, and so on and on.
47:53 You follow? So I say to myself: to live, apparently as it is, is a series of experiences in conflict, in pleasure and in fear.
48:09 Right? Agree, Gregory? And is that living, this battle that goes on within me and outside of me?
48:27 Is that living? We call that living because we may be insane – you follow? – we may be irrational.
48:39 Because we are disharmonious, broken-up, we accept that as a normal status.
48:49 You follow? And you come along and say, ‘That’s insanity, the way you live.’ Therefore there may be – no, I won’t say may be – I will know only what death is and the meaning of it, the beauty of it, the fullness of it, the richness of it, when I understand what living is.
49:18 Understand in the sense, not accept this horrible mess in which I live.
49:30 And I ask myself then: can I go beyond it? Can my mind, which is so conditioned, so beaten, so full of other people’s ideas, opinions – you follow? – that mind, can that mind which is so contradictory, so disharmonious, so resisting everything, which isn’t pliable, quick, sane, healthy – can that mind live in complete harmony?
50:08 Then I will know what death is too – you follow? – because I won’t then separate death and living.
50:20 Does that make any sense to you? Are you sure? Or because you accept it because I sit on a platform? But not too high a platform, fortunately.
50:36 Q: So you’re saying that nobody can lead a harmonious life if they are scared of death.
50:50 K: Partly, yes. Nobody can live… Put it round the other way – nobody lives if he is not totally harmonious.
50:58 Q: He might live to himself though.
51:03 K: Wait, wait. He might live to himself. Can you live by yourself? Aren’t you related to people? You can’t live by yourself. You have to have food, clothes, shelter, milk – you follow? – you’re a social entity.
51:31 You can’t say, ‘Well, I will live by myself in a tower,’ which means you are dying. Right?
51:38 Q: I said he can live in himself.
51:46 K: In oneself – what does that mean? What? What? In oneself, live within oneself – can you?
52:04 Can you say, ‘I won’t look at anything, I won’t feel anything,’ or, ‘I will only live in myself’?
52:18 What does that mean?
52:30 We do live a great deal in ourselves, don’t we? I don’t want to know what you think. I don’t want to have any relationship with others, except only with one whom I like.
52:48 Right? I hold on to my belief because I’m frightened to let them go. I do live in myself, isolating myself. When I say I am British, I am isolating myself – you follow? – or when I say I’m a communist, socialist or a Muslim, I am isolating myself.
53:19 So, all right, where are we at the end of this discussion?
53:30 Where are we? What have we learnt? Not from me – what have you learnt in investigating this question of death?
53:45 What have you learnt? Not learnt as something, accumulated knowledge – you understand? – to which you are going to add more and more as you grow old, but what have you learnt?
54:04 What are you learning – you follow? – rather than have learnt? What are you learning now out of this? Go on, sir.
54:11 Q: I’m learning that I’m disharmonious now and that therefore I am dead now.
54:24 K: Yes. Are you dead now, (laughs) inwardly?
54:33 You’re very much alive. Please, look, we have talked for the last four or five, or more than that, three or four discussions.
54:48 We started out with: what is intelligence? Right? We started out before but begin there, doesn’t matter. What is intelligence? In investigating what is intelligence we said intelligence is a state of mind in which there is no prejudice – right? – in which there is no conclusion, saying, ‘This is right, this is wrong, this should be’ – right? – in which belief as a means of security, as a means of established order in oneself, we said, is not intelligence.
55:27 Right? Then we talked about meditation. And last time when we met we said – which it is quite extraordinarily important, I’d forgot, we’ll bring it again – we said if we both of us see the same thing at the same time with the same intensity there is no disagreement between you and me.
55:54 Right?
55:55 Q: That’s communication.
55:56 K: That is real communication, isn’t it? Seeing together the same thing.
56:02 Q: Sharing.
56:04 K: Sharing, at the same time, therefore acting together.
56:12 Right? Right? Is that clear? That is, you and I see that beam, that we took last time, and we see the same thing.
56:29 Do we see the same thing, or do we interpret it according to your fancy or according to my imagination?
56:41 If you see according to your imagination or fancy, and my accordingly, I don’t see the beam – I see it through my fancy.
56:53 Right? Therefore there is disagreement between you and me.
56:57 Q: But you can observe by taking the object for what it is.
57:04 K: That’s it. So if you see exactly what it is and I see exactly what it is, as you see and as I see together, then there is no conflict between you and me.
57:19 Right? Then we act together, don’t we? That is co-operation, isn’t it? That is acting together. I don’t know if you are following this. Right? Now, this is very important to understand this, because people co-operate together about an idea – right? – about a belief, about a conclusion, what should be done.
57:54 But if you and I see the same thing at the same time our action will be together.
58:01 I don’t know if you see this.
58:08 If you and I see that snake is dangerous, you and I act together.
58:17 If you see it is dangerous and I don’t see it is dangerous, you act in one way and I act in another way.
58:25 Right? So there is disagreement between you and me. Now if you and I see that nationalism – India, England, Germany – you follow?
58:39 – nationalism is destructive, if we see it together then we’ll act together. Then you are not British and I am not an Indian. You follow? Then our action will be something entirely different. Right? Now go further. If you and I see what it means to live then our action will be entirely different, won’t it?
59:12 You and I will live differently together. I don’t know... So if we see the same thing at the same time with the same intensity at the same level then our action is harmonious, not contradictory.
59:39 I don’t know... So do you see what it means to live, and do I also see what it means to live?
59:56 You follow?
1:00:07 Q: Yes, you mean it’s seeing the same facts, not sharing the same ideas but seeing the same facts.
1:00:14 K: Fact, only fact, of course. Sharing ideas, is not... because I can change my ideas tomorrow and you’ll be stuck with your old idea.
1:00:22 Q: So there’s only living when the me condition, whatever, is dead.
1:00:29 K: Yes, if you like to put it that way.
1:00:39 Gregory, do you see, and Mantely, do you see living, as we know it, living actually is a series of conflicts in relationship, series of resistances in action – right?
1:01:08 – a self-concern, my concern about myself and your concern about yourself?
1:01:19 This concern about myself and you with yourself creates a division, doesn’t it?
1:01:26 Now do we see this thing together? Or you are still thinking it as an idea – you follow? – a verbal statement, a description, and I see it as a fact.
1:01:46 Then my action is different from yours. But if you and I see the same thing our action is then...
1:01:54 Q: …harmonious.
1:01:55 K: ...harmonious, together. I don’t know if... You understand this? Now move to the next step, which is we are living in a community of fifty or so people, which means living together – co- you know, all that, means together.
1:02:21 Now can we live together in complete harmony?
1:02:28 Which doesn’t mean you do what I tell you, but you see the necessity of doing certain things as I see the necessity of doing that same thing, together.
1:02:45 You follow? I don’t know if you understand what I’m talking. Am I making myself clear?
1:02:52 Q: Yes.
1:02:53 K: You and I see the importance of having a supple body, because that helps to have a supple, clear mind.
1:03:08 If my body is dull, stupid, I’ve overeaten and you’re sluggish, my mind is not so active.
1:03:16 Right? Now do you and I see this fact together?
1:03:25 Right? If you see it, we will do things together to see that our body is supple. I don’t know if you follow this. You won’t resist and I won’t resist. You understand? We’ll find a way together of bringing about our bodies supple – you follow? – correcting each other, telling each other, ‘Look…’ – you know? You follow? There will be no criticism, antagonism, but accepting suggestions.
1:03:58 You understand what I am talking about? So can you do that, living in this community?
1:04:11 This community is a small part of the whole world, so if I don’t know how to live harmoniously in this small community I won’t know how to live outside it.
1:04:33 So, part of this education is to learn how to live.
1:04:44 Not to accept the pattern set by others how to live, which is conflict, and so on and so on.
1:04:53 Right? Are you as intense as I am?
1:05:02 (Laughs) Come on, what do you say?
1:05:11 Do you see competition... Let’s take an easier thing. Do you see imitation – you imitating me and I imitating somebody else, imitating, you know, conforming – leads to conflict?
1:05:37 Do you see that? Do you see that?
1:05:45 Q: By imitating?
1:05:47 K: Imitating, conforming.
1:05:49 Q: Conflict within oneself. Do you mean conflict within oneself?
1:05:56 K: No, you haven’t... Gregory, I took imitation, you know, imitating.
1:06:07 I said if you keep on imitating, which is conforming to a pattern, you will live in a world of conflict.
1:06:15 Right? Now let’s investigate that for the time being. Do you conform? Do you imitate? I imitate when I put on trousers, don’t I?
1:06:43 I conform to a pattern of civilisation in which trousers (laughs) – you put on trousers.
1:06:55 I conform when I keep to the left side of the road in England.
1:06:59 Q: But how can that produce conflict?
1:07:00 K: Wait, wait, listen to it carefully, you’ll find out in a minute.
1:07:03 Q: So there must be a line between necessary imitation and unnecessary imitation.
1:07:07 K: That’s it. You say necessary conformity and unnecessary conformity – is that it?
1:07:18 Q: Yes.
1:07:19 K: Now what is necessary conformity?
1:07:20 Q: Driving on the left-hand side of the road.
1:07:24 K: And in Europe on the right side of the road. Conformity to law, to when the policeman says move on, you move – you follow? – and all the rest of it.
1:07:36 Now do you psychologically conform?
1:07:38 Q: Conform with what?
1:07:46 K: Conform to the society, to the culture, to the environment.
1:07:57 If everybody shaved their head, a civilisation, a culture, and you shaved your head, what would you do?
1:08:11 Q: I’d be imitating.
1:08:14 K: You would conform, wouldn’t you? Now the fashion is to have long hair and you conform.
1:08:29 So inwardly do I conform?
1:08:37 What does conform mean?
1:08:45 Put aside my own feeling, suppress what I want and accept what you say or society says.
1:08:55 I have been brought up as a Catholic and I believe in that. That’s a conformity, isn’t it? Or I am a Muslim and I believe in something else. So I am being conditioned by the society in which I live – right?
1:09:19 – a culture which says do this, don’t do that. That’s a conformity, because if I don’t I may lose my job, and so on and so on.
1:09:30 So there is a sense of psychological conformity when there is fear, isn’t there?
1:09:41 Q: Yes.
1:09:42 K: Therefore there is conflict, isn’t there? If I’m not afraid, would I conform? Or only conform in things that are necessary. (Pause) Look, you and I we all agree that we go to bed at ten o’clock – I’m taking a very simple thing – and you really don’t agree to that but you conform to it.
1:10:31 You follow? You say, ‘Yes, but I really don’t like it, I want to go to bed at twelve.’ So there is a conflict in you, isn’t there?
1:10:46 You agree to go to bed at ten and you want really want to go to bed at twelve.
1:10:55 So you conform to a pattern which says go to bed at ten, suppressing your own feeling that you want to go to bed at twelve.
1:11:10 Now if you and I saw the necessity of going to bed at ten – you understand?
1:11:19 – see the fact, how important it is for your health, for your study, for your game, for all that – if you and I saw that factually, then you say, ‘Quite right, we’ll go to bed at ten.’ It’s not a conformity then.
1:11:37 You follow?
1:11:41 Q: Does that not assume that there is a fact such that to go to bed at ten is right?
1:12:06 K: No, sir. No, sir. Fact. There is the microphone – that’s a fact which you and I agree: microphone. If you and I agree to call it an elephant it’s all right. You understand? Because you and I give to that a name which we both have a reference to as the microphone – you understand? – then it is a fact.
1:12:30 But if you and I agree to call it an elephant it’s also a fact, but it wouldn’t be what ten other would people call it.
1:12:39 You follow?
1:12:40 Q: Yes, I was just going to try to lead from that by saying that it seems to be that my difficulty in life is not to say, ‘Well, let us agree that this is a fact’ – we need to try to sort out and say there are two types.
1:13:01 K: No, sir.
1:13:03 Q: That is a microscope… microphone – (laughs) I called it microscope – that is a microphone but maybe it isn’t a fact that to go to bed at ten is right.
1:13:11 I mean there are two types of situation.
1:13:12 K: No, sir, just a minute, sir. I think there can’t be two types over this. We all agree, after description etc., the utility of that, we all call that microphone.
1:13:21 We don’t call it microscope, (laughter) we call it a microphone. Right? There is no two ways about it. Now in the same way, when we see a snake, which is a cobra, dangerous, we both agree.
1:13:39 Right? A crocodile in the water is a dangerous animal, if it is hungry and we happen to be there.
1:13:53 Right? A gun in the hands of a child, loaded, a gun loaded in the hand is a dangerous instrument.
1:14:04 Right? Because that’s a fact – he might kill himself or might kill you. Now go a little further. We both agree – no, we see that division between people creates wars.
1:14:21 That’s a fact. As long as I am a Hindu and somebody else is a Muslim, the battle goes on.
1:14:33 He trying to convert me – and all that business. Now inwardly go a little further. The fact is I am frightened. I don’t want to escape from it. I don’t rationalise it. That’s a fact: I am frightened. There can’t be two views about it. There are two views about it, how to go beyond it – you follow? – whether it should be analysed or merely observe.
1:15:09 So when we both of us see the same thing clearly there is neither agreement nor disagreement – there is action.
1:15:23 I don’t know...
1:15:32 Q: If two people see something clearly, surely there is an agreement between them.
1:15:36 K: It’s not an agreement. That’s what we’re trying to make clear. It’s not an agreement. You don’t call that something else, we call it microphone. Right? It’s not agreement. We both say that it is not an elephant but a microphone.
1:16:00 We both of us have a picture, an image of an elephant, because we both of us have seen an elephant, therefore in that there is no agreement; it’s a fact.
1:16:17 You and I agree about something when we’re not clear. If you’re very clear, what is the need for agreement?
1:16:24 Q: I suppose some of these psychological facts are sometimes more difficult to see than the elephant or the microphone, and that’s the difficulty.
1:16:45 K: Yes, sir, that’s just it.
1:17:02 (Pause) You know, yesterday or the day before yesterday on television there was a row of cottages were going to be pulled down to make the road wider, and the poor people who were living in the cottages objected to it, are objecting.
1:17:39 And the television went on further stating that somebody owns nine hundred thousand acres, another owns two hundred and fifty thousand acres in this country, and there are people living in a little cottage, one room or two rooms or three rooms with half a dozen people in it.
1:18:06 You follow? Vast riches and great poverty.
1:18:16 And you are entering into this world.
1:18:32 What are you going to do? Do you know what is happening politically, religiously?
1:18:45 The sorrow of human beings, people who can never ride in a Rolls Royce – not that it is a great thing to ride in a Rolls Royce, I’m just stating – people that never have a full meal a day.
1:19:11 I’ve lived... I go to India and I see this happen – never a full meal a day.
1:19:24 Once I was walking on the river, along the bank of the river Ganges, the sacred river of India, and I passed a man who was cooking in a little pot about that size, rice and onion.
1:19:48 He had gathered a few bits of grass and branches and so on, built a little fire and he was cooking on it.
1:20:04 And I stopped and looked at it, and he began to talk to me.
1:20:12 And that was his whole meal for the day – you understand? – rice, in that little pot, rice and onion.
1:20:25 And you know what he did, the first thing he said? ‘Have some of this, sir.’ You understand? And there are millions living like that.
1:20:40 Go to Bombay, you’ll see thousands of people sleeping on the pavement.
1:20:56 And you are going to grow up and come into this kind of world, where there is dictatorship, conformity, fear, where the intellectuals are hounded by the tyrants, and so on and on and on, injustice.
1:21:25 And shouldn’t you be educated in all this, to know – to know – what is happening, and find out when you grow up how you will act towards all this?
1:21:41 Whether you will act as a nationalist – you follow? – as a property owner, or a man who says, ‘Well this is what I think must be done.’ So one has to find out or be educated intelligently so that your intelligence operates not your prejudices.
1:22:19 You understand? At least that’s what this place stands for.
1:22:28 And it is our responsibility – you understand? – the older people here, to see that you are intelligent, when you leave this place you’re really intelligent, not full of book knowledge only, so that when you meet this world you will act intelligently.
1:23:01 Is that enough sermon for this morning? Do you remember that story of a preacher or a teacher?
1:23:12 Every morning he talked to his disciples. He would get up on the rostrum and in front of the few disciples he would make a talk about beauty, goodness and all the rest of it.
1:23:30 So one day, just as he was about to get on the platform, a bird comes and sits on the windowsill and begins to sing.
1:23:41 And the teacher listens to it and they all listen to it, and when the bird flies away the teacher says, ‘This morning’s sermon is over.’ Right?
1:23:56 It’s over this morning. Right.