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BR72DSS2.6 - What is your responsibility in a sick society?
Brockwood Park, UK - 10 October 1972
Discussion with Staff and Students 2.6



0:01 This is J. Krishnamurti’s sixth discussion with teachers and students at Brockwood Park, 1972.
0:13 Krishnamurti: What shall we talk about? Questioner: I wanted to know really what’s the meaning of ‘to give the utmost’.
0:27 K: When you’re working in the garden you give your utmost, energy, attention.
0:33 Q: But all that is involved in this work.
0:38 K: Utmost of your energy, utmost of your attention, utmost of your care – the whole of that is involved in it.
0:54 What shall we talk about, apart from that one?
0:59 Q: Sir, can we consider the question of suffering in understanding?
1:07 If suffering’s necessary.
1:12 K: Is suffering necessary.
1:19 Do you want to talk about it?
1:30 Don’t be half-hearted about it – if you don’t want to discuss that, don’t discuss it, discuss something else.
1:37 Q: Or could we talk about attention, what it means to give attention?
1:41 K: That’s what he means – give your mind, your heart, your nerves, whole-heartedly to a thing.
1:53 Q: But I mean in the sense, is it true that the human mind can only be aware of one thing at one time?
2:01 K: Obviously. But, now, sir, wait a minute, let’s go slowly at this – what would you like to discuss?
2:14 Probably we have two more discussions. I leave on Sunday evening, so perhaps not Sunday morning, because it will be too much. So today and Friday we’ll discuss. Is that all right? So what shall we discuss?
2:26 Q: I’d like to talk about seriousness and how to be serious.
2:34 K: How to be serious.
2:38 Q: And how it would relate to joy and happiness – you know?
2:39 K: How to be serious, what is its relation to joy, and suffering, and attention.
2:48 Right? Oh, my lord! (Laughter) First, shall we talk about what is a good mind, a good brain?
3:09 Shall we? And then come to this. What is a good brain, with an excellent quality, a brain that is not damaged, a brain that is whole, healthy, and efficient, strong?
3:36 From that, we’ll discuss the rest, shall we? Is that all right?
3:41 Q: Yes.
3:43 K: What do you think is a good brain?
3:52 When you say, ‘Oh, he’s got a very good brain,’ what does that mean?
4:04 Haven’t you heard that phrase, ‘He’s got a good brain, that man, or that woman, very clever’? What do you think is a good brain?
4:22 Q: A not fragmented brain.
4:30 K: Yes, not fragmented. No, you work it out, sir, you think it out together – let’s think it out together, whether… what is a good brain, and whether each one of us could have that good brain.
4:55 Not define it and then conform to the definition. You follow? I wonder if you... We define what’s a good brain and then try to reach that good brain, or try to attempt to have that brain.
5:13 We’re not doing that. What we’re trying to find out is: what is a good brain and whether you can have such a good brain.
5:29 A brain that is damaged is not a good brain.
5:38 Right? What do you mean by that word ‘damaged’?
5:45 Q: Conditioned.
5:48 K: Conditioned. A damaged brain – how does a brain get damaged?
6:00 Through disease. Haven’t you known children, poor unfortunate children whose brain is damaged, half developed, and they have all kinds of trouble?
6:13 That’s not a good brain. Right? A brain that’s constantly in conflict is not a good brain.
6:34 You see that? Is your brain in conflict?
6:48 Conflict may sharpen the brain – you understand? – like a knife, very sharp, but it’s not a good brain - it has developed along a certain, particular line.
7:05 So a good brain is an undamaged brain, which means a brain that is not in conflict at any time.
7:16 Because the moment there is a conflict it’s like friction in a gearbox, like putting sand in a gearbox, the gears wear out.
7:33 So conflict is one of the factors that prevents having a good brain.
7:42 Shall we go on from there?
7:50 Are you in conflict? This is not a talk and you just listen, pass by – you have to find out whether you’ve got a good brain, or a brain that’s merely clever, efficient, cunning, but in conflict.
8:17 Right? So is your brain in conflict? We’ll come back to that. And a brain that’s always comparing itself with what it thinks is a better brain – such a brain is always either conforming, imitating or in revolt.
8:43 Are you following this or not? Am I going too quickly? Well, Nelson, do you see it?
8:58 Q: No.
8:59 K: When I measure my… when my brain measures itself against your brain, the motive in that comparison is to become like you or go beyond you.
9:18 Right? You follow? When I compare myself with you, the factor is that I am imitating you, or that I want to go beyond you, or I want to conform to my image of a good brain.
9:49 Are you following this? Oh come on, sir. So a brain that is physically damaged is not a good brain. Though it’s unfortunate, more and more cases are happening of children being born, through wrong use of drugs - oh, all kinds of things.
10:15 So that is not a good brain. A brain in conflict is not a good brain. Right? A brain that’s comparing itself with another brain is not a good brain. Because in that comparison, in that measurement, there is fear, there is conformity, imitation, and conflict to be something, to achieve a greater capacity, a greater conformity to a projection of itself.
11:02 I wonder if you get all this. Am I going too fast? No? Right. Is your brain comparing itself with another brain?
11:22 When you read a good author, when you read a beautiful poem, or in your class when you’re studying mathematics and you might have the desire to have a brain, a first-class brain of a mathematician.
11:54 Which is, you have an image of a first-class mathematician, you project that image and try to conform or imitate or become like that.
12:14 So, conformity, measurement, comparison doesn’t make for a good brain.
12:33 Are you doing it? Apply it. Apply it to yourself and find out if you are doing that.
12:48 Right? A good brain has no conflict, a good brain doesn’t compare.
13:04 Do you know what it means? Never to compare yourself with another, either in your looks, in your dress, in your opinions, in your values.
13:20 Do you know what it does to the brain, when you do that? Come on. Come on, Nelson, discuss with me.
13:30 Q: It makes it inferior if you are comparing yourself.
13:41 K: With somebody, it makes it inferior, or superior.
13:44 Q: Or superior.
13:46 K: So comparison implies conformity, inferiority or superiority.
13:56 That’s not a good brain, is it? Right? Are you doing it – either in your dress or in your manner of speech or in your behaviour?
14:38 When you do not compare, your brain can only function… your brain then has to deal with actually ‘what is’.
15:00 You understand? Are you getting what I’m... Look, sir, if I don’t compare myself with you who are clever - in comparison with you who are clever, I say to myself, ‘I am dull.’ Right?
15:30 Because I have compared myself with you who are cleverer, then I say I am dull.
15:39 Right? Do you follow this? Is it rather a dull morning this morning? Are you all here? Right. So I only know my dullness through comparison.
16:02 If I don’t compare, am I dull?
16:11 Then the brain can deal with itself, what it is, the quality of itself.
16:22 I wonder if you get this.
16:32 I have never compared myself with anybody. With nobody. And I really mean this. Either in my dress, in my behaviour, in my thought, and so on – never compared.
16:58 So what happens to such a brain? Sir, I wish you could discuss this with me.
17:02 Q: Well, it’s obviously become very free from the other minds, very independent, you know, it’s just not a dull brain or a clever brain, but it just can go on.
17:13 K: No, what has taken place to such a brain? You understand what I’m asking you? If I don’t compare, if I have no conflict, which are factors of deterioration, the brain then is not only free from these factors but it can deal with its movement as it is.
17:51 Oh lord! It’s a little too much for you – all right. Many: No.
17:58 Q: I can see what you mean.
18:09 Q: I see it the other way round, so I can see very easily if I compare.
18:21 Right now, if I compare myself with somebody it makes me stupid, it really makes me dull.
18:23 K: Therefore the factor of stupidity is comparison. If you don’t compare, what has happened to the brain?
18:35 Go on!
18:38 Q: It has more energy to look at itself, it’s not wasting the energy.
18:45 K: It’s not wasting energy, through comparison, through conflict. So – I wish...
18:50 Q: It can develop to its own capacity and not be hindered by comparison.
18:57 K: Isn’t it? That’s right. So it becomes very sensitive, it can develop to its highest capacity, which is prevented when it is comparing.
19:19 You follow? So, a good brain is a brain which is not in conflict, not comparing, therefore it is not either superior or inferior, or stupid, it becomes extraordinarily alive, sensitive.
19:46 Right? Now is your brain like that?
20:06 And being young, can you have such a brain?
20:18 And it’s our responsibility to see that you have such a brain. You understand?
20:28 Q: I think it’s more of our own responsibility .
20:31 K: Ah, no. No, no. You see, then you’re off. I’ll show you. If you say, ‘It’s my responsibility that I have such a good brain,’ then you are isolating yourself, aren’t you?
20:44 Q: Yes, but…
20:47 K: But you are... your brain is the result of time, of evolution, of the environmental conditioning – you are the result of your environment, and you can’t say, ‘Well, I will develop it according to my own responsibility.’ It has no meaning.
21:09 Sorry, I’m not trying to browbeat you. You understand. So it is our responsibility, yours and mine.
21:20 Q: But the brain which is… (inaudible) …so it comes from the world outside… (inaudible) K: We said that, Tunki.
21:36 Q: So how are we going to… because each of us...
21:38 K: No, Tunki, she said, ‘It’s my responsibility.’ I said don’t say, ‘It’s my responsibility’ – if you say that, you’re isolating yourself.
21:50 Your brain is the result of your culture – American, English, whatever it is – your culture, the family, the environment, the education.
22:08 And it is yours and ours responsibility to see that you have such a good brain.
22:15 Q: Well it boils down to the same thing because ‘the ours’ is the skin, it’s ours.
22:25 K: No, ours in the sense – Tunki, you stick at words – what I mean ‘ours’ is, you can’t say, ‘I will develop my brain.’ In relationship with each other, it is possible to develop such a brain – that’s all.
22:51 Q: How? Because when you are relating to somebody, or compare yourself, and get your brain to be dull and so on, or you can just not compare.
23:07 I mean, just – I don’t know how you say that – but you can develop it if you’re not comparing and not judging anything.
23:25 K: We said that - isn’t it?
23:32 Q: Yes, but he’s... (inaudible) K: Look, sir, look, sir, as I said, I feel it’s my responsibility that when you leave this place you have such a good brain.
23:51 And I’m concerned with it. And I watch you, we talk about it, we talk about it every day.
24:06 I watch you, how you behave, how you eat, how you walk, I ask whether you’re comparing, whether you’re in conflict, so that we establish a relationship between each other.
24:22 You follow? No?
24:26 Q: But most of the time you’re not here.
24:33 K: Most of the time I’m not here – I’m sorry, I’m going on Sunday, I know. I shan’t be back till May. What shall I do? But you, that’s why you have to have this understanding of what a good brain is, and demand the highest of that brain, not the easiest way out of things.
25:01 You follow what I am saying? You see, if you use the brain rightly, if the brain uses itself rightly, it’ll never wear out.
25:25 It may die with old age. You follow what I mean? It will never wear out its capacity to observe, to think clearly.
25:40 Oh lord! Therefore – I’ll come back to it – suffering takes place – you know what suffering is?
25:57 Mr Jenkins put it - he said: what is suffering? Do you know what suffering is? There is physical suffering. When you hit me, it hurts.
26:21 So there is physical suffering, there is psychological suffering, there is a suffering which is going on in the world apart from me, isn’t there?
26:37 There is my suffering and there is the suffering of the world - all those people that are getting killed in Vietnam; all those people who are in prison – whether it’s right or wrong, that’s irrelevant – the suffering – the suffering of a mother who loses her son, dies; the suffering of a mother whose son becomes violent, cruel, vulgar – you know, all the rest of it.
27:10 So there is suffering, personal and non-personal.
27:17 Are you following this?
27:27 What is suffering?
27:35 Discuss with me please, I can’t... What do you think is suffering? My son, whom I like very much, takes to drugs, because every other idiot is also taking drugs.
28:01 And I see how this drug is affecting his brain, his behaviour, he’s getting worse and worse.
28:08 You follow? And I go through tortures, because I can’t prevent it. I’d like to but I can’t. If I forcefully prevent him, he’ll run away. So I suffer for him. Right? Are you following this? Why do I suffer?
28:44 Q: Because of my attachment to him.
28:47 K: Is it my attachment that makes me suffer?
28:50 Q: It’s losing that attachment.
28:55 K: Losing that attachment, is it, that makes me suffer?
29:03 He’s my son, I am attached to him. And I want him to be healthy, alive, keen, sensitive, good brain and all the rest of it, and he goes to school and there he learns all the ugliness of it – you know? – and destroyed.
29:24 And I suffer. Why? Is it because I’m attached to him?
29:30 Q: Is it partly a failure in yourself?
29:39 K: Partly a failure in my love for him? I’ve failed, and therefore I suffer.
29:52 Attachment? I have failed, though I’ve done my very best – you follow? – from childhood I’ve seen to it, but yet he does this, and I have failed.
30:11 And the failure hurts me. Is that the reason I suffer?
30:26 Is it because I have an image of what he should be?
30:34 Go on, you think it out. Why don’t you think it out, all of you?
30:40 Q: Because you’ve built up an image in comparison to yourself.
30:44 K: I have built an image about him, that’s right. See what happens.
30:48 Q: And you want him to compare equally to yourself.
30:51 K: That’s right. Yes. That is, I have built an image about him, that image is my projection of what I want him to be, and when he doesn’t, I am hurt.
31:07 I don’t realise the image I have made, so I feel a failure, I am hurt, I shed a tear, I suffer.
31:26 Attachment, image and the desire to make him conform – though I say I love him.
31:44 So I say to myself: then what is love? He’s my son, my daughter.
31:53 Q: Attachment.
31:55 K: So is love attachment?
31:58 Q: But it doesn’t have to be.
32:02 K: Don’t say it hasn’t got to be - that’s just an idea. The fact is I have. (Laughs) You see? Now wait a bit. A good brain doesn’t deal with ‘what should be’, it deals only with ‘what is’.
32:30 You get it? You will misuse your brain if you say, ‘Well, it should be that way,’ ‘If he was that,’ ‘The ideal is that, and you should.’ You follow?
32:49 Which all indicates a brain that is incapable of facing itself as it is. Right. So I suffer, through attachment, through the desire for him to conform to an image which I have projected, and I feel desperately that I have failed altogether.
33:29 So, is it self-pity that I suffer for my son?
33:41 You know what self-pity is? I am pitying myself. Is it?
33:54 Q: If it’s because of the image, it is.
34:00 K: All these things are involved in it, aren’t they? Attachment, the image I have built for him, the desire that he should be something, and my self-pity for myself – all these are involved, aren’t they?
34:20 Q: Yes.
34:21 Q: Excuse me, sir, can I just go back a bit? You said that a brain, a good brain is a brain that sees what it is. Isn’t a brain that sees what it a brain that sees... (inaudible) K: No, ‘what is’, not ‘what it is’.
34:41 A good brain doesn’t move away from ‘what is’.
34:44 Q: But ‘what is’, doesn’t that include its own conditioning and its own... (inaudible) K: Therefore it goes into that.
34:50 Q: So then a good brain will suffer.
34:53 K: I’m asking you: why should it suffer? I’m asking what is suffering?
35:06 Suffering comes when there is self-pity, when I have an image about my son, that he should be, when I am attached.
35:18 Self-pity, attachment, the image I have built about him.
35:22 Q: Is it an image if you want your son to be one, alive, and two, healthy? Is that an image too?
35:33 K: No, I want him to be healthy. That’s not an image.
35:36 Q: Well when does it become an image?
35:38 K: Image, when I want him to be psychologically something which he’s not.
35:44 Q: Well, then, if we could go… Say the son is either sick or hurt or takes drugs or something that is not within the image, does one suffer differently, or with that does one not suffer?
35:59 Where does that... (inaudible) K: No, my question was: what is suffering - first. When my son becomes ill, physically, and the doctor says, ‘Well my dear chap, he won’t live,’ then I suffer, because I’m attached to him.
36:21 He is my immortality. I don’t know if you understand this. I have invested in him my mortality. You understand? He will continue me. He’s my property, he’ll inherit my property - you follow?
36:46 – my books, my house, all the rest of it, painting, whatever I have. He will continue what I am.
36:57 And if he dies, I suffer. Right?
36:59 Q: Is there a suffering though that is not with all that egotism? Is there the suffering of seeing another person... (inaudible) K: I’m coming to that.
37:12 I’m coming to that. I see what is happening in Vietnam. I see all those burnt children. I see all those maimed people, Americans and South Vietnamese and the communists. What do you do? Do you suffer?
37:31 Q: Yes.
37:32 K: Do you suffer? Be careful!
37:36 Q: No.
37:37 K: Do use that word rightly. Do you suffer? That is, when you say yes, what do you mean by that?
37:49 Q: Physically I don’t suffer but emotionally, psychologically I do.
37:56 K: You do, sir. Psychologically, you suffer. Why?
38:00 Q: Sir, it seems that one suffers when one identifies with it, when I see the harm that is going on there in myself.
38:16 K: Look, I go to India, which I shall on the 6th of October…
38:23 November – I’ll be there in New Delhi. And I see poverty, of which you have no idea. People sleeping on pavements. There is all that extraordinary physical suffering – you understand? – by human beings – dirt, squalor, filth, everything round me.
38:56 Do I suffer? I see people killing - that pheasant, that rabbit – it’s a sport called hunting.
39:11 I see all this round me – Vietnam, the dull brain, the children who are born with – you follow?
39:21 – every kind of horrible... little children are being born, and I see poverty in the East End, the vulgarity, the crudeness, the horror that’s going on – do you suffer?
39:39 Come on, sir.
39:46 Q: It makes me sad, but I can’t say I suffer.
39:50 K: It makes you sad, it makes you – what do you mean by that? Why? Why does it make you sad?
40:01 Q: Because you feel responsible in some way.
40:04 K: Is it because you feel that you are responsible and you can’t do anything, except march and demonstration?
40:15 Go on, investigate it, look into it. When you see all this, what is your feeling? Sadness? And you want to prevent it?
40:25 Q: Guiltiness. I feel guilty.
40:30 K: You feel guilty? Why? That you feel you are responsible for it?
40:36 Q: Because you have also, like with the son, built up an ideal of what... (inaudible) K: No, my dear, go into it, go into it much more.
40:44 A much deeper issue is involved. I feel guilty. You know? I’ll go to Rishi Valley, that school in the south of India, and there is a village nearby, and I see that woman with one sari – you know what a sari is, the dress they have? – and one shirt, day after day, wearing the same filthy shirt and sari, never washed.
41:21 I look at her, she passes me by every day, we smile at each other.
41:28 I’ve talked to her. I don’t know the language but we sit down. I’ve sat with her and talked to her. She doesn’t understand me and I don’t think I understand her, but we sit down.
41:50 And I’m guilty because I’ve clean clothes and she has not.
41:57 What am I to do? Pursue it. What am I to do? I give her my shirt, whatever it is, I give her a little money, if I have it.
42:17 What shall I do? She will remain poor – you follow? – one sari, or two saris now, but she’s poor, uneducated, miserable, terrible state – what shall I do?
42:42 If I can’t do anything, do I become callous?
42:53 I can’t give her a new house. You follow? I can’t give her a healthy body. I can’t. So I may perhaps give her more food, more clothes, more shelter, but beyond that I can’t do anything. Are you following all this? What shall I do?
43:14 Q: Be aware of these things.
43:16 K: Ah, no, no! Don’t, don’t, don’t jump to that. What shall I do?
43:21 Q: I was going to say, it goes back to not comparing yourself.
43:31 K: No, wait, wait. What shall I do?
43:38 Q: Investigate why you feel guilty.
43:43 K: You’re not... What is my responsibility? I give her clothes, I give her this, I give her that – if I have.
43:54 But it’s much deeper. I have a deeper responsibility, haven’t I?
43:59 Q: Sir, she’s a product of a sick society.
44:04 K: It is a damned sick society, insane society!
44:07 Q: And I’m also the product of a sick society.
44:10 K: So what is my responsibility?
44:12 Q: Not to be sick. To be sane.
44:15 K: Which is, what shall I do?
44:17 Q: To drop all that insanity.
44:21 K: I drop it, I’m not insane, I’m very healthy, I’ve got a good brain, I see all this – what shall I do, beyond giving her, or giving people this and that and join political organisations?
44:42 Q: Shouldn’t you respond to it, every minute of the day?
44:45 K: Look, look, what shall I do? Tell me. Join a political group?
44:53 Q: That would just perpetuate it.
44:58 K: So I am asking: what shall I do? Join a political organisation that says wipe out poverty, therefore elect me?
45:09 You follow? He is ambitious, he is going to become the prime minister. By that time the poor woman is dead. So what is my responsibility?
45:22 Q: Not to identify yourself with the society that created the situation.
45:28 K: I don’t identify myself with that society, I’m not insane, I repudiate the culture, the whole thing out of my blood.
45:39 What shall I do? I must do something!
45:43 Q: Well you’ve done all you can.
45:44 K: What? Have I?
45:46 Q: Well, except maybe to – if she wants to...
45:50 K: No, you’re missing my – I’m going to lead you into it. You are telling me what I should do, you are not applying it to yourself. Apply it to yourself. You see poverty, you see what is happening in Vietnam, you see the black and the white fighting, fighting – you follow? – all the ugliness that’s going on in the world – what’s your responsibility?
46:12 Q: Well, to get them to see the same point as you. Get them to get out of society, get them to...
46:22 K: It’s not so easy, is it? But you have to act in the meantime. So will you become a... join a political party?
46:32 Q: No.
46:33 K: No. Watch it. Step by step go into it. You will not join a political party, because you know what that racket is. Then will you join all the social good work?
46:48 You follow?
46:51 Q: No.
46:53 K: No. Then what will you do? Go on, old boy, what will you do?
47:07 No, you won’t join any organisation, you won’t become a social worker, you won’t become a Salvation Army, Jesus, Saviour: ‘Have faith in Jesus, everything will be all right.’ What will you do?
47:24 Q: You can’t go around giving everyone shirts or clothes because… (inaudible) K: So what will you do?
47:32 Therefore what will you do?
47:33 Q: You have to… seems like education, so everyone’ll get...
47:39 K: So what is your responsibility?
47:41 Q: Well, to educate the people you may meet. To try to...
47:48 K: Go on, go on, go on.
47:51 Q: See that you’re capable of giving education.
47:53 K: Therefore, what... Look, sir, you won’t join any organisation – right?
48:01 Q: So your responsibility is to yourself?
48:04 K: Wait. First deny what is not, and then you’ll come to the real thing. Don’t imagine it. You follow? You won’t join any organisation which will improve society. You won’t become a social worker, you know, going round doing a little bit of good here and there.
48:28 You won’t join any political, communist party. Therefore what will you do? Negate – you follow? – negate everything and you’ll come to the positive. Which is, you won’t be a nationalist, because that divides people.
48:48 You won’t belong to any religion - that divides people. Right? So then when you have negated every crazy thing which society has invented – right?
49:10 – when you deny everything that society has created, you’re intelligent, aren’t you?
49:20 Do you know what that word means? Come on, dear. Do you know what that word means, the meaning of that word?
49:30 Q: You have a good brain?
49:34 K: No, no, the meaning of that word, the dictionary meaning of that word. It means to have an alert mind. And also it means ‘inter legere’ - to read between the lines.
49:50 You get it? Gregory? Read between the lines. And to read between the lines your mind has to be pretty sharp, awake.
50:06 So intelligence means to keep awake, have an alert brain, which can read between lines.
50:13 Q: What do you mean by reading between the lines? (Laughter) K: (Laughs) What does it mean? You know, there are two... in a page there is a gap, isn’t there, between two lines?
50:27 There’s nothing to read there. But between the line means that thing which is not printed but has a more subtle meaning.
50:42 And you can only see the subtle meaning in that space which is blank, which means that your mind is also blank to look in that space.
50:55 (Laughs) Got it? You get it? So, your brain, your mind, by repudiating, actually not theoretically, wiping it out of your system, the insanity of the world, your brain becomes extraordinarily intelligent.
51:20 Then it will act in a responsible way. You’ve got it?
51:28 Q: So the thing to do...
51:32 K: Not the thing to do – are you doing it?
51:37 Q: Right.
51:38 K: Do you belong? Are you... have any of this world’s poison in you?
51:50 And so on, so on, so on. So suffering implies attachment, the image that you have established for yourself or for another, self-pity.
52:16 And will there be suffering if you love?
52:24 If I love my son, must I suffer?
52:33 So I ask: is love attachment?
52:40 Does love create an image about me, about my wife, my child, my neighbour? So when there is love there is no suffering.
52:53 Oh, this is... you don’t…
52:55 Q: There is no son, either, is there? There is no ‘my son’ either, is there?
53:04 K: I have a son. What do you mean ‘my son?’ – I have a son, I have a brother, I have you, sitting next to me.
53:22 It’s not ‘my’ son, ‘my’ wife – I have a wife.
53:34 Do you see it? So, a good brain implies a brain that is very awake, a brain that reads between the lines.
54:02 You might tell me, ‘Oh, I didn’t mean that,’ when you hurt me, when you say something which is not true and then come up and say, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.’ I read between the lines to see you really mean it but you just want me to believe, you slur over it.
54:22 You follow what I’m saying? I read between the lines. I can read between the lines crookedly or straight.
54:39 A brain that has no self-pity at all. You understand this? It doesn’t say, ‘Oh, I’m suffering, how terrible!’ – you follow?
54:54 – ‘I am lonely.’ So a brain that has no self-pity.
55:03 Which doesn’t mean it is ruthless.
55:08 Q: Does it mean there is no self-preservation too? Does it mean that one doesn’t have the feeling of self-preservation, self-survival?
55:20 K: I haven’t caught it, Tunki, what do you mean?
55:23 Q: Does it mean that – you said the brain that hasn’t got self-pity – does it mean that it hasn’t got self-survival?
55:32 K: Ah, survival. Of course it must survive, of course it must have security, but you know what self-pity is, don’t you?
55:45 Don’t you, Tunki? Self-pity, pitying itself: ‘Oh, I wish I were different,’ ‘Oh, I wish I was as beautiful as you.’ Q: But it relates together.
56:03 Many people because they feel insecure or something, they want to take as much as possible.
56:08 K: Of course, of course.
56:10 Q: So it relates to this.
56:14 K: Tunki, I think we’re not understanding each other. I am saying a good brain is a brain that has no self-pity whatsoever, without being ruthless.
56:32 A good brain doesn’t compare. A good brain is never in conflict.
56:46 And a good brain has also this extraordinary quality of sensitivity, and therefore love, affection.
56:57 Now, if you are aware of that, is there suffering?
57:07 I see all those people in Vietnam, I see the people in India, I walk down the street in the East End where there is a slum, the ghetto and all the things that are going on in the world – am I callous because I’m not attached?
57:29 Am I callous because I’ve no self-pity? Am I callous or indifferent because I have no image?
57:41 On the contrary. Because I have no image, no attachment, no self-pity, there is love, there is affection, which is intelligence – that will operate.
57:55 Right? Now, have you got such a good brain? That’s my concern. Right? Have you got it? And if you have not, what are you going to do about it? Just say, ‘Well, I haven’t got a good brain like that. My God, that’s too difficult, it’s too impossible,’ and just rot?
58:23 What will you do? Come on, sirs, discuss.
58:26 Q: Well, we... I mean, I think myself I haven’t got such a good brain, because I keep comparing.
58:35 K: Therefore, if you see how destructive comparison is, why do you go on with it?
58:44 Which is what the world does. It says, ‘I know it’s very wrong but I like alcohol,’ and, ‘It’s very wrong to smoke, because it affects my lungs,’ but I go on smoking.
58:56 I know it’s very wrong to be nationalist, but I love my country, I love my flag, don’t insult my flag.
59:05 You follow?
59:06 Q: (Inaudible) K: So why, when you see the false, why don’t you drop it?
59:13 Q: Because you’re attached to it.
59:15 K: No, no, no. Why don’t you? If you see you’re attached to it, break the attachment – why don’t you?
59:24 Q: We can’t see it.
59:27 Q: Maybe we just don’t want to, we refuse to.
59:32 K: Why don’t you? You want to... Sir, those are all excuses.
59:38 Q: Yes, of course.
59:40 K: Then why? When you are young, can you have excuses for your… You follow? As an old man, perhaps I can have excuses, but why do you have excuses?
59:57 Q: The thing which sees is attached, and like it tries to separate, you know, says, ‘This is attachment,’ but it still has that in it.
1:00:10 It doesn’t want to break off.
1:00:11 K: Yes, I went into it. I am attached. Why am I attached to my son? Or to my sister, mother, whatever it is, wife – why am I attached? I am attached because it gives me pleasure, I am lonely without the companion – right?
1:00:31 – I feel lost without having my wife around me. So through my fear and pleasure, through my loneliness and ache, I am attached.
1:00:51 If I see that, I can drop it, can’t I? Which means, do I see the nature of attachment, what it does?
1:01:09 Q: But there used to be advertisements of Indian children that were in a famine and starving, and you saw huge eyes and a huge head, and an emaciated body.
1:01:27 Are you saying that your feeling then, your reaction, is one of self-pity or attachment?
1:01:35 K: No. No, I’m not saying that. I see those children with a large head, bloated tummy, thin hands, arms and legs – what’s my reaction?
1:01:52 What’s your reaction? Sadness? Do you suffer? Or do you say, ‘Thank God he’s not my son’?
1:02:13 What’s your reaction? What’s your responsibility when you see something like that? If you say, ‘How terrible, I’m suffering from that’ – and then what?
1:02:28 Q: If you say, ‘How terrible, I am suffering,’ then the emphasis is on my suffering… (inaudible) K: Of course, of course, of course.
1:02:35 Q: If you say, ‘How terrible, that child is suffering…’ K: ‘How terrible’ – I say that, but what is my responsibility, what am I to do about it?
1:02:45 Shed tears and go without meals?
1:02:51 Q: I’m sad because I don’t see clearly my relationship to it.
1:02:58 K: No, you don’t see clearly what your responsibility is to that thing, to Vietnam, to black and white fighting – you know, all the things that are going on, the insanities.
1:03:13 What is your relationship to this insane, mad world?
1:03:26 You have a relationship with it when you are part of it, when the world, which is insane – and as you are also the world, if you are also insane, your relationship is either violence, shedding a tear, or saying, ‘My God, I’m going to join this group or that group,’ and fighting to produce a better world through killing people.
1:03:58 But if you are not insane, which means do not belong to the world at all, you are a total outsider, then you have a totally different responsibility.
1:04:16 Right?
1:04:17 Q: That’s why I’m here.
1:04:21 K: That’s why you’re here. So what is your responsibility to the students, to me, or to another of your age, or younger or older – what’s your responsibility?
1:04:45 Avanti.
1:04:46 Q: (In Spanish) K: You understood what he said?
1:04:57 Q: No.
1:04:59 K: Why not?
1:05:02 Q: I can’t speak Spanish.
1:05:07 K: He said there is only one action, which is immediate.
1:05:21 And what is that action?
1:05:22 Q: It’s seeing, understanding, seeing in the right way.
1:05:30 I mean, if the response to it in the right way, which is seeing, is immediate...
1:05:44 K: Sir, there is an immediate action, isn’t there, when I see all this going on? Either if I have money I give it – right? – but I won’t join this, that – I’m out – but I act totally in a different way.
1:06:06 The world is insane, and its actions will always be insane.
1:06:13 If I am an outsider, that is out of this insanity, my action towards the world, which is insane, will be entirely different.
1:06:27 Right? So what is my... Am I sane – you understand? – or am I still insane?
1:06:40 Is there still in me some of the poison of the world?
1:06:51 So all this implies, this morning’s discussion, talking over together, implies that as long as one is in the world with its insanity, your responses to all the misery, all the conflict, will be insane.
1:07:29 Right? And that’s what they are doing. Did you see the other night, the Catholic priest performing in a Protestant cathedral?
1:07:45 They are bringing unity in the church.
1:07:52 You understand? You know what that means? Both are insane and yet trying to bring unity. You follow? It’s all so... Look at the United Nations, what it is, in which there are people, governments which are tyrannical, dictatorial, military, democratic, and trying to bring unity.
1:08:27 (Laughs) So one has to begin with oneself, because oneself is the world.
1:08:41 Right? You can’t do anything if you’re insane; you will do insane things.
1:08:56 So one must be outside, outside the world asylum.
1:09:03 Therefore you’ll have to see if you are sane, if your mind is really healthy, which means your body is healthy.
1:09:21 Have you got a healthy body?
1:09:28 Gregory? That means to have a good, supple body, sit rightly, walk, highly sensitive body.
1:09:51 And you’ve got a good brain, mind, a brain that is not in conflict at any time, a brain that is not comparing, a brain that is not self-pitying, a brain that doesn’t create images and conform to that image – you follow? – and therefore a highly intelligent brain, alert, can read between lines.
1:10:32 (Laughs) If you have not, why haven’t you got it?
1:10:48 Right? And what you are going to do about it?
1:10:56 What you will do about it can be seen whether you are… if you undertake something, to do it thoroughly.
1:11:06 Right? If I want to play a guitar I’m going to learn guitar and be as good, if I can, as Segovia – not comparing, that capacity, that feeling for music.
1:11:22 If I do gardening I’m going to do - you follow? If I take maths, I demand the highest capacity from myself. No?
1:11:34 Q: Even though it’s a mechanical task? If it’s a mechanical, if it’s a routine job?
1:11:41 K: Even that. I do a lot of routine jobs. I know it’s routine, but that routine job doesn’t make my mind routine.
1:11:58 You are following all this? Will you do it? So one has to watch one’s behaviour, how you behave.
1:12:23 You know, when I was a... in the old... about a hundred years ago and more, for centuries, children were brought up in a very rigorous, brutal manner.
1:12:52 We had to prostrate to the father and mother every morning and evening, touch their feet. You know what that means? Go flat on the ground and touch their feet, to show respect due to them.
1:13:09 They might be the most stupid parents but you had to show respect.
1:13:21 When they were in the room you never talked, you only talked when they asked you something, otherwise you never talked.
1:13:31 You got up when they came into the room, instantly. You follow all this? And when they told you to sit quiet you sat quiet, never moved your hands.
1:13:48 You know? Till I was about 8 or 9 I was brought up like that.
1:13:56 You are following all this? And if I followed that, imitated that, that is not behaviour, is it?
1:14:10 Behaviour comes when there is a consideration for another, when there is a respect for another.
1:14:22 Right? If I sat in the room with my feet on the desk and Mrs Simmons came in and I talked to her that way, would it be right?
1:14:37 Q: Well, it depends. (Laughter) If everybody does that, then it is the custom then.
1:14:46 K: I’m not talking of everybody. I’m asking you, Tunki. You’re sitting at the table with your feet on... sitting on a chair with your feet on the table, and Mrs Simmons came in, and you didn’t get up, would it be right behaviour?
1:15:01 Q: It depends whether you...
1:15:02 Q: Considering...
1:15:04 K: Would it be right behaviour?
1:15:09 Q: Considering...
1:15:10 K: Don’t ‘considering’ – my aunt!
1:15:13 Q: No, no, no, you said to take consideration, so I consider the other person, whether they mind or not. If they mind, it’s...
1:15:19 K: Ah no, no! She may not mind. She might say, ‘Well, you’re a perfect ass, you have no sense of behaviour,’ but if you...
1:15:29 Q: (Inaudible) K: No, but what is your action? Forget who it is – what is your action?
1:15:37 Q: Isn’t it within you to decide?
1:15:42 K: I’m asking you, what is your action?
1:15:44 Q: You mean what would I do? I would get up.
1:15:49 K: Why?
1:15:50 Q: Because I would feel that it would be disrespectful not to.
1:15:55 K: That’s all. Which means you have consideration for another, you have respect for another – it doesn’t matter who it is.
1:16:08 Right? That’s all. So behaviour implies that in your action there is respect for another. When I used to go by bus in London, the underground, when it was crowded I used to get up, give a place to a lady.
1:16:26 One lady, when I got up, she looked at me, ‘Getting up for me? What for?’ she said. I said, ‘Please sit down.’ She said, ‘That’s the first time somebody offered me the chair’ – you follow? – when it’s crowded. I said, ‘Take it.’ You know? It’s gone, all that’s gone in the world - behaviour, respect, consideration.
1:16:45 Q: But there is a different, a consideration, a real feeling of consideration than custom.
1:16:56 K: No. Custom, I’m not talking of habit and custom. Custom is when you – the moment a lady comes into the room you get up.
1:17:06 Q: Yes.
1:17:07 K: That’s a custom, because you don’t... that’s a habit. You follow? I’m not talking of that.
1:17:13 Q: No, but now we come to a point where somebody who is used to this custom will get hurt if you don’t do that.
1:17:24 K: I am not talking about that other person, I’m talking about you, what you do.
1:17:34 If you have respect for another you can never… you can’t hurt, if you get up out of respect.
1:17:41 Q: And if you don’t get up out of respect...
1:17:46 K: Why don’t you get up?
1:17:48 Q: Just because, say, you have your feet on the desk – right? – and Mrs Simmons walks in and you take your feet off the desk.
1:17:58 Now you consider that to be polite.
1:17:59 K: I wouldn’t consider that polite.
1:18:01 Q: And if I do it...
1:18:02 K: Ah, wait, wait – I wouldn’t consider that polite. I would consider it polite to take my feet quickly off the desk, get up, because I have respect - not for Mrs Simmons only but for anybody that comes into the room.
1:18:19 Q: But isn’t that conditioned respect?
1:18:25 K: No! You see, how… Is that conditioning? Examine it.
1:18:30 Q: To me it is.
1:18:32 K: Don’t assert it. Don’t say ‘to me it is’ – find out. Is it conditioning?
1:18:35 Q: I’ve been told that it is right.
1:18:39 K: Nobody has told me to get up. I don’t act out of habit because every person gets up, I do it because I have respect, I feel for people.
1:18:55 You follow? I feel for people - whether it is the cook, whether it is anybody, I feel for them.
1:19:05 And I feel if I don’t offer my hand or salute them or get up or show my respect – you follow? – it makes me uncomfortable.
1:19:17 That’s all.
1:19:19 Q: But other people might show it differently. I mean...
1:19:26 K: I’m not concerned (laughs) – they’re insane! (Laughter) Q: Isn’t there a sort of language of manner? By one’s action one is doing a non-verbal communication, which is this case is respect.
1:19:43 When you go to India, you don’t shake hands, you give the Indian...
1:19:51 K: Look, when I go to India I sit on the floor, I eat on the floor. They put a banana leaf or a plate, sitting on the floor. I put on Indian dress, I salute, no shaking hands.
1:20:07 And when anybody comes into the room I get up. They’re horrified, because a guru, a religious teacher of my stature (laughter) – they don’t get up.
1:20:19 They’re all, you know, they’re treated like dirt, and I get up, they’re surprised. And I say, ‘Forget it.’ So I show respect, I feel respect for another.
1:20:37 And out of that respect, behaviour becomes natural, it isn’t forced, it isn’t a habit, it isn’t a custom.
1:20:53 I can get up when Mrs Simmons comes into the room because she’s the boss of the place or authority, and I want something from her.
1:21:04 Right? You follow? All that. I won’t do all those things. I like people.
1:21:19 So behaviour means a mind, a brain, that is sensitive to other people, not to itself.
1:21:30 You follow? Therefore it matters very much how I eat, the way I hold the fork or a knife.
1:21:53 If I have my elbows out, I’m pushing everybody out - and all the rest of it. So to me, behaviour comes out of deep respect for another.
1:22:10 If you have no respect for another, why haven’t you?
1:22:20 That means you’re thinking about yourself.
1:22:29 So a good brain implies all this. You understand, sir? And it has got beauty in it. You understand?
1:22:51 We’d better stop, isn’t it? It’s eight minutes to.