Krishnamurti - Fear of death

Krishnamurti Subtitles

BR72DSS2.5 - Fear of death
Brockwood Park, UK - 8 October 1972
Discussion with Staff and Students 2.5

0:00	This is J. Krishnamurti’s fifth discussion with teachers and students at Brockwood Park, 1972.
0:12	Krishnamurti: What shall we talk about this morning? Questioner: Could we continue about death? Last time...
0:21	K: Oh, yes. You want to go on with that? You don’t care?
0:30	Q: Could we also talk about suffering? And if it is necessary and when it’s not necessary.
0:39	K: All right – suffering, when it is necessary, when it is not necessary. And also we were talking, the last time we met here, we were talking about the problem of death.
0:55	You raised that question. I don’t know if you have completely understood it or gone into it or have forgotten it.
1:05	And we said we’d continue with it this time, this morning, didn’t we?
1:07	Q: Yes.
1:08	K: I wonder where we left off.
1:09	Q: You were saying…
1:10	Q: …where each contained the seed of each. I think we were up to that point.
1:24	K: That’s part of it. The opposite contains… May I go over it briefly?
1:32	Q: Yes.
1:33	K: Have you forgotten it? I wish you’d tell me, what we discussed - much more fun than my going over it.
1:42	Q: I was asking actually – you said there’s no difference between… you were discussing generally, not defining the physical death and the psychological death.
2:02	You said that death was...
2:06	K: No…
2:07	Q: I think we made it plain. We said to be able to define death we had first to know what was life, living.
2:10	K: That’s right. That’s right. I think we said, either we say it is part of living and therefore death is not separate from living – living includes death – or you said death is outside of living.
2:35	Death is something far away from living. When there is no living there is death. Do you remember, we talked of these two?
2:49	And we said, if it is part of living, we must find out, didn’t we, what is living.
3:07	Right? And we said that living, as it is, is a series of conflicts, disappointments, hurts, ambitions, frustrations, competitive, aggressive assertions, attachments and so on, so on.
3:34	Which is what the world is, of which we are. We are the world and the world is us. So what we call living, to put it in a few words, but we explained it, we went into it a great deal the other day, is a series of sufferings, a series of urges to fulfil, and frustrations, contradictions and conflict.
4:07	That’s what we said. And if death is something away from living, diametrically opposed to living – diametrically being totally different – and we said opposites contain its own opposite.
4:42	Right? We took courage and cowardice. When one cultivates courage it has the seed of fear, cowardice.
4:59	Right? Therefore all opposites have their own opposites, contain their own opposites.
5:11	We left it there. Right? You’ve got it? And what do we mean by living? And can death be included in that living? If it is not part of living then we are always afraid of death.
5:41	Right? We discussed this, remember? If I put away death from my everyday living, I know the inevitability of it, the ending of the physical, and to me this physical survival is one of the major important things in life, and this survival comes to an end with death, and therefore I’m afraid.
6:18	You remember, we went in to all that too. Right? No, I am not telling you but we are talking over together – right?
6:30	- so that it’s yours not mine. That’s what you understand and not understand what I am saying.
6:43	See the difference? Either you try to understand what the speaker is saying or you understand… we understand together the facts, and therefore you’re independent of the speaker.
7:02	Right? All right?
7:11	Q: We also mentioned that to work together, to understand it together, you also mentioned humility.
7:22	K: Humility - of course. Yes, that’s right. That is, in order to learn there must be humility.
7:32	Right?
7:33	Q: Yes.
7:34	K: Right. So that one can’t come with any conclusion, and therefore which prevents learning.
7:44	Right? Now, so, how does one – not ‘how’ – what is living with death?
7:54	You remember that’s what we talked about yesterday.
8:02	Is that possible at all?
8:09	I know death exists; it’s a fact. I can’t dodge it. Perhaps I can live a little longer with good medicine, good exercise, good food and all the rest of it - perhaps another ten or fifteen years more, or fifty years more, but it is there, always waiting.
8:33	So I must understand what it means.
8:45	As you said the other day, our chief concern is food, clothes and shelter – survival, physical survival.
8:57	Right? You began with that and you changed from that. You said that it is not only the principal thing in life, but much greater things are involved, politics, government, one’s own feelings, attitudes, disappointments and attachments.
9:21	Right? They also play a great part in life, perhaps a greater part in life, than mere food, clothes and shelter.
9:34	Now, when the physical organism comes to an end – you are following all this? - do the psychological factors which we have accumulated – right?
9:58	– psychological factors being fear, pleasure, hurts, attachments – I’m attached to this house, to my opinions, attached to my beliefs, attached to my wife, to my children, I’m a great bundle of attachments, fears, complex demands, urges.
10:25	Right? So the physical organism comes to an end, obviously.
10:36	Is that what I’m afraid of coming to an end, or am I afraid of the other thing coming to an end, the psychological accumulation, the knowledge, the experience, the pursuits, my ambitions, all that?
10:59	Which is it you’re afraid of?
11:06	I have a house. I’ve worked hard to buy a house and I’ve got a house, a wife and children, or several wives and children.
11:35	And I’m going to die. I’m very ill, I’ve got cancer, I’m dying. What am I afraid of?
11:53	Q: We are afraid of leaving our properties.
11:59	K: Yes. So, property – right? - that’s one of the great factors of life. Now look at it the other way round: when property is owned by the public, public ownership of property – you understand what that means? – that when the state owns property and you don’t own property – that’s what communist Russia is experimenting with and are bureaucratically caught in a complex situation of that kind.
12:43	You understand? You have no property – what are you afraid of then?
12:48	Q: Then of my country.
12:51	K: Your country.
12:53	Q: Yes.
12:54	K: What is your country?
12:56	Q: The idea.
12:57	K: The idea of a country.
12:58	Q: Yes.
13:00	K: You belong to Venezuela, I belong to England, and I’m afraid to let go, to forget the beauty of the trees, the clouds, the birds.
13:12	Right? And what else am I afraid of? Letting go - my children, my wife, to whom I’m terribly attached, if I am attached.
13:25	Right? And that I don’t want to lose them. Which is, I find myself when death is there, with great fearful loneliness – right? - because everything has gone.
13:51	Right? Are you following all this? Do you know what loneliness is?
14:05	Being completely alone. Right? Do you know what it means?
14:21	That is death, isn’t it? Your house is stripped from you, (laughs) your wife is being taken away from you, your children, your books, your knowledge – you are stripped of everything, aren’t you?
14:46	Right? When the body is being taken in a hearse to the grave or taken to be burnt, there’s nothing, he has nothing to take with him.
14:58	Right? Are you following all this? So, he’s afraid, isn’t he? That is, he’s afraid of being completely alone.
15:13	For the first time in life he can’t escape from it. Before, he escaped, he went off to the cinema or picked up a book or walked with his wife or friend, so as to avoid this sense of being alone.
15:35	Right? Right, Gregory, are you coming?
15:44	Q: Yes.
15:47	K: Good. Is that what you are afraid of when you die, when death is coming?
15:57	It means leaving your house, your children; you’re torn away from your attachments, all the knowledge you have accumulated is gone - at least you think it has gone.
16:26	Right?
16:27	Q: Then you are afraid, not of death, you are afraid of leaving what you have accumulated.
16:33	K: That’s right. That means what?
16:35	Q: You’re afraid of the unknown.
16:37	K: That’s right.
16:44	Aren’t you? Are you afraid of the unknown, or are you afraid of letting go the known?
16:56	Go on, exercise your brain.
17:04	Go on, don’t just go to sleep after making a statement.
17:20	And all my living life, all the days of my life, I’ve avoided being alone.
17:39	I have my God, my wife, my friend, my club, my football – you follow? - and I have every form of escape around me – the church, the books, the friend, the wife, the children.
18:18	And they are escapes from this enormous sense of being alone, which is very frightening.
18:25	Do you know anything about it, being alone? Have you ever been alone? Have you ever walked alone?
18:38	Q: Do you mean being alone or feeling lonely?
18:42	K: Being physically alone first, and we’ll go on into it deeper afterwards.
18:49	Have you walked by yourself in the woods?
18:52	Q: Yes.
18:53	Q: Yes, I quite enjoy it.
18:54	K: Yes. Wait, go step by step, we’ll go in to it. Have you ever stopped talking and therefore been silent?
19:06	Chattering with your friends, playing, talking, reading, incessantly moving, you know, fingers, or face, or talking.
19:19	Have you ever said, ‘No, I will not talk, I will not move, just be quiet, go alone by myself, see what happens’?
19:37	Once I was investigated by the FBI. Do you know what the FBI is? Many: Yes.
19:43	K: (Laughs) It was during the war, in California.
19:54	A man came to see me, he was an Italian, and I spoke a little Italian, so we became immediately friends.
20:04	(Laughs) And the first question he asked me was: I see that you are a great deal alone, you walk alone, you go up into those mountains by yourself – why?
20:18	You follow? (Laughs) I won’t go in to all that, that’s quite – he had a whole list of questions on the back of the envelope which he showed to me afterwards because we became friends.
20:39	When you’re alone, aren’t you frightened?
20:48	There is nobody to protect you, nobody to lean on, nobody to say, ‘Please don’t do this, do this,’ ‘How good you are, how ugly you are’ – nobody tells you anything, you have no communication with anybody.
21:10	Q: It’s the most enjoyable thing to walk on a mountain by yourself.
21:16	K: Yes, old boy, it’s most enjoyable, but can you maintain that sense of integral aloneness?
21:24	You understand ‘integral’, what that word means?
21:35	Whole.
21:36	Q: Not relying on the place or the time or anything of that nature.
21:43	In other words, I don’t have to go out to the mountain or...
21:56	K: No, of course not. That’s only… I’m just pointing out how, through our self-centred activity we are psychologically, inwardly creating separation, isolation.
22:09	You understand? Look, if I am concerned about myself from morning till night, which one generally is - about my good looks, my hair, my clothes, my work and whether I am getting… – you follow?
22:30	– thinking about myself, worrying about myself, pursuing my pleasures, my ambitions, I am actively isolating myself, am I not?
22:45	Right? By the mere fact of my self-concern is isolating.
22:53	Right? And I’m unconscious of this process. And that is death also. (Laughs) You are following this? When I am isolating myself from you, from all relationship in my daily life, thinking about myself, I’m cutting myself off from all of you, am I not?
23:21	Which is part of death. You are following this? All right, Venezuela? Nelson, aren’t you? That’s right – I won’t call you… Right. That’s right, isn’t it? So look what I’m doing. In everyday life I’m isolating myself – right?
23:52	- though I may be married, have children, sex and companionship, and go to the office and so on – but the mere fact of thinking about myself, my work, my job, my position, my attitude, my beliefs, I am isolating myself.
24:18	So, actually, physically, I may have companionship with you but I am cultivating isolation.
24:33	Are you following?
24:36	Q: Which can hinder the physical companionship also.
24:43	K: Obviously – I may be very friendly with you but…
24:52	So there is the actual physical companionship and at the same time I am isolating myself from you, though you may be my wife, friend, all the rest of it, by my self-centred concern.
25:16	So when death comes I am afraid of being alone, being totally isolated.
25:26	You are following this? I have all my life cultivated isolation and when death comes I’m really frightened.
25:44	I wonder if you get this. That is, I have, in isolating myself, I am living with that of which I am afraid.
26:06	You understand? Look what tricks I’m playing on myself.
26:13	Q: Yet it’s unconscious. Is it unconscious, this? I mean, one doesn’t actually realise it.
26:22	K: You don’t realise it, do you, when you are thinking about yourself and working for yourself, you know, all your beliefs and all that, you are isolating yourself.
26:33	Right? And when death comes that is the final isolation.
26:45	Right? So you are living with isolation all the time, cultivating it, living within the wall, and afraid really of breaking down that wall.
27:07	Are you following this?
27:10	Q: Just a moment. If you…
27:15	K: Tunki, have you understood what I said? I haven’t quite understood it myself.
27:21	Q: No.
27:22	K: No – quite right. (Laughs) Q: One thing, there’s a contradiction – if you live in isolation...
27:31	K: Aren’t you? Don’t ‘if’ – go step by step with facts only. If you Tunki, are thinking about yourself all day and all night and all your life, you’ve isolated yourself, haven’t you?
27:49	Even though you may be married, have children, friendship, go to all kinds of things.
27:56	Right?
27:57	Q: Yes.
27:58	K: That’s a fact, isn’t it? So you’re isolating yourself.
28:12	And what are you afraid of? Final isolation? Which is death.
28:20	Q: But there’s a strong...
28:24	K: When you yourself have been isolating all your life. Oh, do see this.
28:30	Q: Then there is no fear.
28:31	K: Wait.
28:32	Q: We use the everyday isolation as a kind of a shell of protection – we think it’s a security.
28:39	K: Of course – we think isolation, the self-centred activity is a form of security.
28:46	If I don’t think about myself, who will think about me?
28:53	(Laughs) Q: There’s also the biological urge towards self-preservation.
28:58	K: Of course. Of course. So the biological preservation and security plays an immense part in our life, doesn’t it?
29:09	Q: So then the difference between life and death is: throughout life you are isolating yourself, you are cutting yourself off from other people...
29:24	K: Is that a fact? Look at it as a fact.
29:26	Q: Yes, I can see it.
29:28	K: Right. Then proceed.
29:30	Q: And then when death comes, people are isolating you – you are being isolated against your will, you have no choice about it.
29:39	K: When death comes you’ve no choice about it.
29:42	Q: You have no choice about being isolated.
29:45	K: You have been isolating...
29:47	Q: Yes, you have been isolating yourself all your life...
29:50	K: …and the final isolation comes, with death. Is that what you’re saying?
29:56	Q: Yes, and you have no choice about it. This time, you’re not isolating yourself through always thinking about yourself and everything, it’s something that’s done to you rather than what you do to yourself.
30:12	K: Done to you? Is it done to you? Your physical organism which we have mistreated, drink and all kinds of things, you know, mistreated it, there is disease, accident - it happens, doesn’t it, and death is there.
30:35	Death doesn’t come to you uninvited, you have invited, you have been inviting it all your life.
30:43	I don’t know if you see this point.
30:46	Q: You’ve never gotten rid of the fear.
30:50	K: No, just see this point first. Is that so? When I am thinking about myself I am isolating myself, and all my life I am isolating myself.
31:09	In that isolation is death.
31:17	Right? Only death as the ending of physical organism is the ultimate blow.
31:33	You understand? The physical organism has been going on, which has not created isolation, but thought has created isolation, and thought is frightened of the physical ending.
31:56	Right? So I say to myself: this is a fact. Right? Now can I not isolate myself at all? You are following all this? Therefore I am not… there is no death to me.
32:17	I don’t know if you get it. I am getting a little… Do you see this? You understand? I am only afraid of death as the end of the physical, but psychologically, inwardly, inside the skin, I have been working all my life to isolate myself, which is also death.
32:59	Right? You see the point?
33:03	Q: Then why am I afraid when...
33:07	K: Because you are afraid of the physical ending, but you have never said isolation is death.
33:20	Q: Yes, but we don’t say it because we don’t see it.
33:30	K: I’m showing it to you now. So can I, living, never be in isolation?
33:45	A mind that is never in isolation doesn’t know what death is.
33:55	Oh, come on, sirs!
34:02	Q: Therefore it is learning.
34:07	K: Look, sir, look, let’s put it round, the whole thing, the other way.
34:18	When I separate myself from you I am a fragment – right?
34:29	- I am an individual.
34:41	When I separate myself in my thought, in my feeling, from you, I create the ‘me’ and the ‘you’, which are fragments of thought.
34:54	Thought has brought about this fragment as the ‘me’ and the ‘you’. No?
35:01	Q: It’s not as strong as that.
35:06	Q: Oh yes.
35:08	Q: I mean...
35:09	K: Go on, Tunki, stick to your point, but stick to the point which you want to understand, not me.
35:17	Right. What is your point?
35:19	Q: I mean, physically there are two things – me or you.
35:28	K: Of course, physically you are taller, shorter, browner, wider, pinker, bluer all the rest of it – quite.
35:34	Q: So if you stick on the (inaudible) properties then there is no such thing as: because we are two, we are separate.
35:47	K: No, Tunki, look, you are taller and I am shorter.
35:54	Obviously there is a separation in measurement. You are blacker or pinker than me, or whiter, whatever, yellower than me.
36:08	That’s a difference. You’re cleverer than me. But I am saying – that’s an obvious fact - man, woman, darkness, light and so on, so on - I am saying something else, which is, when thought separates itself as the ‘me’, psychologically – you understand?
36:40	- me, I am very important, I know much more that you do, I’m awfully clever, I am full of vanity, pride, I’m very proud of my position, I’m a famous idiot (laughter) – you follow?
37:02	– that is the product of thought. When thought separates itself as the ‘me’ and the you who are not such a famous idiot as I am, then there is separation, isn’t there?
37:23	Q: There’s a feeling of...
37:26	K: …superiority – I’m much better than you are.
37:34	I walk down the street and everybody says, ‘By Jove, there goes that idiot.’ Or they say, ‘Oh, the famous man,’ which is the same thing.
37:47	You understand? When the world recognises a man who is famous then that famous man is an idiot, otherwise they wouldn’t recognise him.
38:02	(Laughter) So, thought brings about fragmentation as the ‘me’ and the ‘you’.
38:13	Come on, sir, that’s simple.
38:14	Q: But the thing which creates the, as you say idiocy, is giving importance to something famous, or something...
38:22	K: That’s right, that’s right. That’s what I do. I must be famous, I want to be famous, I want my name to be on every billboard.
38:34	That’s my idiocy. And you want the same thing, only you want it in the world of science, I want it in the world of whatever it is.
38:46	So thought – I want to get on with this; I’m missing something if I… Don’t hold on to it, I’ll miss it. Thought has made this fragmentation, as you and the ‘me’. Thought has brought about this isolation – right?
39:08	– thinking about itself, wanting its own security. So thought creates this fragmentation.
39:20	Thought creates this fragmentation as the body, the psyche and death.
39:32	Right? It has created this fragmentation and is afraid of the ultimate isolation.
39:44	Q: I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand that.
39:56	Thought creating the division between body, psyche...
39:57	K: Of course it is.
39:58	Q: That is division.
39:59	K: Of course we are doing this. The soul, to the Christian, the atman, India, and so on, so on.
40:08	Q: But it’s not the...
40:11	K: Wait! Hold on a minute, I mustn’t miss this thing – I’ll miss it. I’ll go ahead a little bit - may I? – and then we’ll see… come back. So I have created… thought has created this fragmentation of living, with all its misery, conflict – living - thought has created this isolation, in which it wishes to find security, and it is an illusion because there is no security in isolation.
40:44	And thought has created the fragment as living and dying.
40:51	You follow? So, there is no dying different from living if there is no fragmentation.
41:11	You get this? Oh!
41:13	Q: Then living is dying.
41:18	K: That’s just it. When living is the total – you understand? - the complete, the whole, which is, death, the ending of my thinking about myself - when it is whole there is no fragmentation.
41:45	And therefore death is not, is part of living, therefore I am not afraid of it. There is no death to something that’s total. I wonder if you get it, all this. You get it?
41:59	Q: Yes.
42:00	K: Now wait a minute, Gregory – how did you get it? What do you mean by getting it, because it’s very important, I’m going to go with you in it, you’ll see it in a minute.
42:16	You say, ‘Yes, I’ve got it.’ What do you mean be that? Don’t be shy, don’t be nervous, I’ll help you, go step by step. What did you mean when you said, ‘Yes, I’ve got it’?
42:32	What do you mean by that?
42:37	Q: Well it’s obvious.
42:38	K: Why do you say it’s obvious?
42:40	Q: To me it’s obvious.
42:42	K: Why do you say it’s obvious? Millions of people say this is not obvious, death is a horror!
42:54	And you say, ‘It’s so obvious, what are you… It’s clear what you say.’ Why do you say that? Probably you can’t express it yet.
43:07	Is it obvious to somebody, to you?
43:09	Q: I’ll deal it with you if you would like.
43:11	K: Is it obvious to you?
43:15	Q: Yes, sir.
43:16	K: Now why? What makes you say it’s obvious? Go into it, don’t be… What makes you say it?
43:30	Q: There is a fact involved, sir. There is a statement being made…
43:38	K: …which is so clear, which is so obvious, and you say, ‘Yes, that is the truth.’ Now how did you come to it, to say, ‘Yes, so clear, so obvious, that is really the truth’?
43:52	What makes...
43:53	Q: Sir, there was only facts involved.
43:57	K: Now, look, may I examine you a little bit?
44:04	You don’t mind? No, because it’s very clear. Are you exercising your brain, your thought?
44:14	Are you consciously thinking about this?
44:17	Q: You see, there is a difference between thinking and thought.
44:23	K: No, keep to the same thing – thought and thinking. Were you logically pursuing this, verbally clear, each word, the meaning of each word, logically following it, factually, step by step, and therefore you say it’s obvious?
44:47	Or – listen to me – or you’re not really logically following but you are following it without the movement of thought, the order of thought.
45:15	I wonder if you get it. Were you following it consciously, or say, ‘Yes…’ or unconscious, you know, unconscious if we can use that word for the moment.
45:30	You understand what I am saying?
45:31	Q: May I say something? Just recently I have gone through a problem which has given me great anxiety and I saw that...
45:45	K: Madame, forgive me for interrupting – we can discuss that – this particular point I want to stick to.
45:53	Q: Well I felt it was related to death.
45:56	K: Oh. No, no. No, no. No, when Gregory said, ‘It’s obvious, I see it’ – was it a statement, a logical statement of verbal understanding, or was it a statement in which thought played a minor part and he was just open, listening, and he says, ‘Yes, that is so’?
46:33	I don’t know how to… Unconscious...
46:35	Q: You have to use words to understand it.
46:39	K: I want to know. I wish you would go into this with me, you will see something. I can tell you but I don’t want to tell you. I want you to find out. Look, Gregory, you are talking, you say to me isolation is the result of your life.
47:09	You have cultivated isolation. Isolation is the effort of thought to find, to bring about its own security.
47:21	Right? Wait, wait, wait, just listen. And you’ve told me that and I’m thinking about it: yes, it is so and I see what he means, it’s very clear verbally – you’re thinking about it, aren’t you?
47:41	Or, you’re not actually thinking but you are listening.
47:53	If you are listening, thought is in abeyance, isn’t it?
48:06	Q: Yes.
48:07	K: You get the point?
48:10	Q: Yes.
48:11	K: Thought is not interfering with your listening. You’re listening. Therefore listening without thinking makes you say, ‘Yes, it’s so obvious, what are all those people fussing about?’ You follow?
48:32	I’m sorry. Now let’s get back. Sorry. I hope you don’t mind. No. We are continuing one thing.
48:46	Q: Is that, that what you said, the same as when you see something, really see it.
48:56	K: That’s right, Tunki. When you see something there is not the interference of thought which creates division.
49:05	Q: It’s just seeing.
49:08	K: You get it? Seeing. So I see this very clearly in my life, that all my life I have worked at isolating myself, hoping thereby to find security.
49:33	Because thought is concerned with security, and therefore it is creating division, fragmentation – I must be secure, I don’t care what happens to you, though you’re my wife, my child.
49:56	You follow? I belong to the community but I’m still me. Therefore there is… thought creates fragmentation. That’s a fact. I see that. By Jove, I’ve understood it. Thought in its movement must inevitably create fragmentation.
50:18	Q: Thought in its movement, which is thinking.
50:25	K: Thinking – that’s right. Now wait, wait. But thought, thinking, is necessary technologically and all that – we went into that.
50:37	Q: Okay.
50:38	K: Right. So thought, wanting security, has isolated itself.
50:48	Thought has brought about this fragmentation, therefore there is the ‘me’, the physical, the psychological, and death.
51:01	Right? Death, the psychological accumulation of attachments and so on, so on, so on – there is the physical and there is the ‘me’ which dominates all this.
51:18	So all that is fragmentation, isolation.
51:26	And therefore this isolation, this fragmentation says death is a terrible thing because it is the end of something I don’t know, end of my fragments.
51:38	I wonder if you get all this. No, this is a little bit too much.
51:46	Q: Go on.
51:48	K: You have got it? So, I see that very clearly, not logically. Even logically I see, but much deeper than that I feel it, I smell it, I taste it, it’s part of reality to me, it is real to me.
52:15	So the next question I am asking is: I see why fragmentation exists, how it has come into being - through education, when I am compared with you as a boy, you were much cleverer than me, and I compete with you – that is the cultivation of isolation.
52:43	You are following this? Examination is a cultivation of the isolation, which the world accepts.
52:55	Now I’m asking, after seeing all this – nationality, division of religions, division of races, division of classes, linguistic divisions between people – you follow? – and death which is also part of this fragmentation, I ask myself: can the mind come to a point when it is whole, in which there is no fragmentation?
53:42	You are you following all this? Are you, Gregory?
53:48	Q: I’m following it, yes.
53:50	K: That is, sir, I now have to understand what it means to be whole, in which there is no fragmentation at all.
54:14	I don’t know what it means; we’re going to find out. I know what fragmentation is, how fragmentation has come into being, the source of it.
54:28	Thought. Thought which exercises such extraordinary influence on life, which part of it is necessary, and part, thought creates this fragmentation – I understand the whole structure of it.
54:45	So I’m asking myself: is there a mind in which there is no fragmentation at all?
54:56	Q: It’s a non-thinking mind.
54:59	K: Don’t say it yet. You see, that means you have concluded, you’ve stopped inquiring. So I’m asking it. I don’t know what it means, I’m going to find out.
55:20	Right? Which means: can fragmentation end? Otherwise I can’t find the other. You are following this? I can’t inquire into a mind that has no fragmentation - I can’t even understand it, feel it, look at it, have an image about it even, if I am still caught in fragmentation.
55:52	You’ve got it? You’re all asleep. Have you got it?
56:03	If I say to myself, ‘I am an artist, and being an artist is the greatest thing in life’ – fragmentation, which is – then I can’t understand a mind which says, ‘Look, there is no fragment, there is no artist, there is no businessman, there is no death, life is a total thing.’ You understand?
56:36	I cannot feel or see the beauty of it or the greatness of it, if I’m still clinging to a fragment.
56:43	That’s clear, isn’t it?
56:45	Q: Yes.
56:46	K: So my next question is: what am I to do?
56:49	Q: Die.
56:50	K: To what?
56:51	Q: To that, to fragmentation.
56:57	K: Now how am I to die to fragmentation? Go on. You have said something, stick to it till you understand it, don’t move away from it an inch, a millimetre.
57:13	Q: Die. Die to the fragments.
57:18	K: Wait. Go slow. Die to the fragment. How am I to die to the fragments?
57:25	Q: But the cause of the fragments is the mind.
57:29	K: Is the mind – what is the mind?
57:30	Q: Well the thinking, the thought.
57:31	K: Which is what?
57:33	Q: Words.
57:35	K: You people, you have a smell of it, you move away from it.
57:39	Q: To die I must live, but I don’t know what…
57:41	K: My darling chap, just listen to me. You said just now, ‘I must die to the fragments.’ Now - but you are the fragment.
57:57	Q: Yes.
57:58	K: Wait. You are part of the fragment. How can you die to it?
58:03	Q: I don’t know.
58:06	K: Don’t say you don’t know – you’ve got to find out.
58:12	Q: As a fragment you must die.
58:16	K: Look, you are saying, ‘I must die to the fragment.’ What are the fragments?
58:25	One of the fragments is the ‘me’ which says, ‘I must die.’ Q: Yes, okay.
58:31	K: Go slow, slow, don’t say okay till you’ve completely understood this.
58:40	When I say I must die to the fragments, the ‘I’ is one of the fragments which has been created by thought.
58:52	Q: Then you are just creating another fragment.
58:57	K: That’s right. So you have created another fragment which says, ‘I must die to the fragments.’ Right?
59:05	Q: But…
59:07	K: Go on, go on, go on.
59:12	Q: I don’t know…
59:18	K: You’ve understood what I’ve said just now?
59:31	As long as I live, as the mind lives in fragments, fear about death must be.
59:41	Right? Right? Naturally, we see that. And also I ask myself: life is not fragments - I see that - it must be something entirely different.
59:59	Living must be entirely different, at a different dimension, when the fragments are not.
1:00:10	Right? I mean it must be the whole, the earth. ‘Earth’ means the sky, the heavens, the birds, the water, the trees, the bushes, the flowers, the human beings, the minerals - everything is the earth.
1:00:29	But if you say earth is this little piece of England – you follow? - then it’s fragmentation.
1:00:38	Right? Right? Keep to that. Now, but my mind is attached to this spot called England - which has been my conditioning, through education, through waving flags, through history, all that – it has conditioned me to say, ‘This is the earth,’ not all the rest.
1:01:07	Now to understand all the rest of the earth, its vastness, its beauty, its mountains, its rivers, its valleys, its glory, its richness – you follow? - the whole of it, ‘my little England’ must come to an end.
1:01:24	Right? So to understand the whole, the part must disappear.
1:01:35	Right? Now keep to that. We’ll take a rest a minute. Stick to it. I’m working very hard – right?
1:01:52	Now, if I say I must die to that little part, the ‘I’ that says I must die to that little earth, is still a fragment asserting it must die.
1:02:09	That’s clear? Right, Gregory, are you following this? Are you following this? Liese, that’s right, I’ve got your name at last.
1:02:32	So there must be death to the part, the part being my country, my nationality, my conditioning, my god, my belief, my opinions – that is the part.
1:03:01	And that is the part; that part is afraid of death.
1:03:11	Because death is a fragment. Life, living in England, in my little country, whether Germany or whatever it is, that is a part and I have separated that part from death.
1:03:31	So I live in fragments. I go to the office, one fragment, come home, wife, children, sex – fragments. Right? I’m a national, I’m this, I believe God is… or Mao, I believe in Lenin - ‘What a pope!’ – all fragmentations.
1:03:56	Got it? Now can the mind empty itself of its fragments?
1:04:11	Then the mind is… You follow?
1:04:17	Q: Yes.
1:04:18	K: You’ve got it? You’ve understood my question?
1:04:21	Q: Yes.
1:04:22	Q: Do you mean all fragmentation at once, or just...
1:04:25	K: Now I’m going to go into it. Will you remove fragment by fragment? That’ll take time. Look at it. Right?
1:04:37	Q: Only a fragment can do that.
1:04:44	K: That’s right. So the fragment says, ‘I need time to remove the fragments.’ (Laughter) So time is a fragment of life.
1:05:02	You understand all this?
1:05:04	Q: It’s so hard because you have the fragments and you have the whole.
1:05:11	K: I don’t know about the whole.
1:05:12	Q: You don’t know – okay…
1:05:13	K: I’m putting that away from me.
1:05:14	Q: Okay, the whole that you were talking about.
1:05:17	K: I’m not talking about the whole.
1:05:19	Q: Okay, you don’t know the whole.
1:05:22	K: I’m sorry. I said to myself: I know I look at life through fragmentation.
1:05:30	My life is one of the fragments. My thought is another fragment. I’m made up of fragments. And I say to myself: I see as long as those fragments exist, death must inevitably breed fear in me.
1:05:53	We are talking about death still. And is it possible for the mind to be free of all fragments?
1:06:10	I don’t know, but I’m putting the question.
1:06:14	Q: But isn’t the mind a fragment?
1:06:19	K: Listen. Mind being the body - without the organism there is no mind. Right? Without the brain there is no mind. Right?
1:06:29	Q: Yes.
1:06:31	K: Brain being thought. So, the mind – we have separated the mind as thought, body, and all the rest of it.
1:06:46	So I am asking: can the mind itself free itself from all fragments, empty itself of all fragments, go beyond the fragments.
1:07:02	If it says, ‘I must die to the fragments,’ or, ‘I must conquer the fragments,’ or, ‘I must bring all the fragments together in order to make the whole,’ it is still the operation of thought, it is still in the order of thought.
1:07:23	Q: But if you see that you are fragmented, aren’t you out of the fragmentation?
1:07:26	K: That’s it. How do you see it?
1:07:29	Q: How do I see it?
1:07:36	K: What do you mean by seeing?
1:07:40	Q: If you see that by calling yourself English it is producing a fragment, that’s seeing, isn’t it?
1:07:58	K: So, seeing...
1:08:01	Q: Seeing is without thought.
1:08:04	K: You’ve said it. That is, are you seeing with thought or seeing without thought?
1:08:15	Q: Seeing without thought.
1:08:17	K: Which means what?
1:08:19	Q: You have no opinions.
1:08:21	K: No opinions – no. Look, look, seeing without thought means seeing without fragmentation.
1:08:30	Q: Yes. Yes, thought is a fragmentation.
1:08:35	K: Thought in its very nature, thought breeds fragmentation. So when you observe without thought there is no fragmentation.
1:08:51	That’s what you’re saying to me, are you? Right?
1:08:58	Q: Yes.
1:09:00	K: So let’s proceed from there. Gregory tells me – and I’m learning, I’m not saying, ‘He’s a little boy, what the hell does he know about all this?’ – I’m learning from him, you are learning, we are learning from each other, we are together in the act of learning.
1:09:21	He says, ‘When I see without thought I see the whole.’ It is the whole because thought breeds fragmentation – me, not me, thought, the order of thought, the process of thought, the movement of thought has come to an end and therefore perception, seeing, is without fragmentation.
1:10:00	Therefore, seeing this whole movement of thought, with its fragmentation, and seeing without the movement of thought, is the total comprehension, the total awareness of the whole.
1:10:25	In that there is no death. I wonder if you get this. You get it? You are getting it?
1:10:36	Q: Yes. I think when you talk about seeing, when you say, ‘I must get rid of the fragments...’ K: That is an assertion of thought.
1:10:47	Q: And then you see – I don’t know, it’s just something which happens which makes you see that, the ‘I’, and, I don’t know, you just...
1:10:58	K: That’s right. So what takes place? I’m only explaining to you what takes place. If it has taken place in you, which is – let me explain again – thought, demanding security, because thought can only function in the order of security – you understand? – for its own wellbeing it can only function in the movement of thought, thought which is in itself separative, which breeds fragmentation.
1:11:47	So thought says: living, with all its complexities, miseries, suffering, and death – fragmentation.
1:11:57	You follow? You follow? Now can the mind look at all of that without fragmentation?
1:12:08	And you say, ‘Yes, I’ve got it, I see it.’ And you say that only when thought is not dividing itself as the observer, saying, ‘That is the observed,’ therefore the observer must be got rid of.
1:12:30	You are following this? I am putting it only in different words. So you see the whole when thought is not.
1:12:43	Which is what Gregory said. He said, ‘I see it.’ In the moment of seeing, thought is not operating.
1:12:53	Q: No, it can’t be.
1:12:54	K: It can’t be. Why do you say it can’t be?
1:12:56	Q: If you just think about some things then you can’t see it – I mean, you just can’t operate.
1:13:06	K: That’s right. That’s right. When you think about something – listen to it carefully, what you have said – when you think about something, the thinking is ‘about’, therefore there is a fragment.
1:13:20	Q: (Inaudible) K: Get that point in your blood.
1:13:27	(Laughter) When you say, ‘I must not be angry,’ it is fragmentation.
1:13:35	You get it?
1:13:36	Q: Yes. Of course.
1:13:38	K: Of course. So you never say, ‘I must not be angry,’ but when you see the whole of it, you’ll never be angry.
1:13:48	Get it? Got it?
1:13:51	Q: Yes.
1:13:52	K: Good. Live with it, not just now. That’s your life, you’ve got to live with it.
1:14:04	So you see how far we have moved? That is, we started out inquiring about death. Death, something in twenty years or fifty years or ten years later.
1:14:21	Or it may happen when I go out in a car, tomorrow or this afternoon.
1:14:28	Time is the separating factor. You are following this? I am now here living, in this room, talking; tomorrow I might die.
1:14:43	Tomorrow is the lag between now and then, which is time.
1:14:49	Q: Which is thought.
1:14:51	K: Time – t-i-m-e. Time – you understand? - tomorrow is time. That time is created by thought, so thought is time.
1:15:06	So thought, time, is fragmentation. Got it? So thought – listen to this marvellous thing – thought is time, so thought says, ‘I must have time to understand, time to avoid death, I must have a few more days, for God’s sake, give me another day to live.’ Right?
1:15:43	So thought is time, thought is measure, and therefore thought breeds fragmentation.
1:15:59	Right? And to see the truth of it thought must be quiet.
1:16:10	Not ‘must be’ – thought is quiet. That’s right. To see the truth of a fact, thought must be quiet… is quiet.
1:16:24	Got it?
1:16:25	Q: It’s instantaneous then. Of course.
1:16:29	K: There is no time – that’s right. So, action from seeing is something entirely different from action of time.
1:16:44	You get it?
1:16:45	Q: Yes.
1:16:47	K: Now the whole of our culture is based on time.
1:16:55	‘I must analyse, I must understand, I must take time over it’ – you follow?
1:17:09	So where you allow thought as time to interfere in action, there is paralysis in action.
1:17:22	When you see without – seeing is without time, action is instantaneous.
1:17:30	Right? Look, I’m greedy, in different ways.
1:17:43	I’m greedy. And society says, or religion says, or books say I must not be greedy.
1:17:53	So I say, ‘How am I not to be greedy? I must investigate, I must analyse the cause of my greed.’ You follow?
1:18:06	In the meantime I’m greedy, but I’m going to take time to analyse, go in to it, all the rest of it, and eventually I hope to be free of greed.
1:18:18	Which means I’ll never be free of greed. You are following this? So thought which has cultivated greed, thought says, ‘I must get rid of greed,’ and therefore – you follow? – it’s still a fragment.
1:18:37	Whereas if you see without thought what the nature of greed is – greed – then it’s finished for ever.
1:18:50	So action is instantaneous, immediate, when thought as time doesn’t come in to it.
1:19:00	You get it?
1:19:01	Q: Yes.
1:19:02	K: Stick to it! That’s your life.
1:19:13	So if you see the whole way of living, the complexity, the sorrow, the division, the problems that thought creates, see the whole of it, including that thing which we call death – when you see all that, and you can only see all that when thought is not, then action, death, is not.
1:19:45	You follow? Have you got it? (Pause) Q: Sir, to bring in an example possibly in relation to the school as it is now, I notice that when we deal with the subject, or I deal with the subject, if I’m not following it as the teacher is dealing with it, immediately, then I go off into a tangent of thought, I’m not sticking to it, and then I try to relate back to it, I can’t do it – it serves to confuse all the facts that I’ve learnt up to this point.
1:20:48	K: So what is your question?
1:20:51	Q: It’s not a question, it’s an example of what I’ve experienced.
1:21:02	K: Quite. Sir, have you ever tried something? Before you go into the class, look at everything, look at all the trees very carefully.
1:21:24	Look, I don’t mean just - you know? – look at all the trees, the shape of it, the colour of it, the beauty of it, the light on it, the clouds, you know, look at everything around you, the people, the colours of their shirt, their jerseys, whatever they are, look.
1:21:46	And then when you come into the class, because you have given your attention to everything around you then you can pay attention to the book – you follow what I am saying? - to the fact of what is being said.
1:22:02	But if you have not looked all round you, you want to look. You have got what I am saying? You get it?
1:22:10	Q: Yes, it seems if...
1:22:12	K: Have you understood what I said?
1:22:16	Q: Yes. If you look at it then you have it, you know it.
1:22:21	K: That’s right. When you have looked, you can look again but...
1:22:23	Q: It’s there.
1:22:28	K: That’s right. So you see, when you make an effort in your class to study, it’s a fragmentation.
1:22:46	Effort indicates fragmentation.
1:22:48	Q: Yes, you’re pushing yourself.
1:22:51	K: And you say, ‘Well I want to do that but I must do this,’ (laughter) so there is conflict.
1:23:01	Which is, where there is division there must be conflict, where there are fragments there must be struggle.
1:23:11	So I say, before you come to the class, look at everything around you.
1:23:21	Then when you come in your mind is rested, is not distracted by that tree because you’ve looked at it.
1:23:30	And you can go back to look at it. You follow? So you then have attention without effort.
1:23:42	You get it?
1:23:48	Q: It’s a kind of a state of attention, isn’t it?
1:23:50	K: That’s it. That’s right.
1:23:52	Q: You’re just in it.
1:23:53	K: That’s right. All right, Nelson?
1:24:08	I think we’d better stop, don’t you? Is that enough?
1:24:25	(Pause) Right, sir.