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BR72DT1.1 - The fountain of sanity
Brockwood Park, UK - 26 May 1972
Discussion with Teachers 1.1



0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s first discussion with teachers at Brockwood Park, 1972.
0:12 Krishnamurti: What shall we do? Shall we hold hands? (Laughter) (Pause) Come on, sir.
0:43 Shall I start? Questioner: Yes.
0:45 K: Oh my lord!
1:06 I’ve been to several staff meetings, in America, in India, in the north, in the south, many of them, and we used to discuss the relationship between the teacher and the student, why he is a teacher, has he anything more than mere transferring information to a student, and in the course of teaching is the teacher not only helping the student but also clarifying his own mind, his own heart, so that in the very act of teaching the teacher is also learning – not more information but rather the quality of his own mind and heart.
2:23 Now shall we discuss along those lines?
2:59 (Pause) First, what is our relationship with the student? Are we so – may I go on talking and then we’ll see what comes out? – are we so self-absorbed, self-concerned, that it’s a trial to teach, trial to be in contact with the student, and so teaching becomes rather a tiresome affair, and neither the student nor the teacher, the educator, establish a right relationship?
4:00 If I am frightened of the student – and we all want to be popular – then my relationship with the student is on a very superficial level.
4:14 Can we discuss that? Oh lord, am I going to talk to myself?
4:28 If I am nervous in my relationship with the student, because I want to be popular with the student or students, then my teaching or being with the student becomes – may I put it bluntly?
4:54 – hypocritical. All right? May I go on? You don’t throw me out after that?
5:11 So I think it is important, if you are really creating a new generation of students, a new generation of people – and I think Brockwood is for that; at least I think it is like that, because I feel, and I’ve been talking in California and in New York, India and all the other places – we have to create a different kind of mind and heart, a different kind of human being.
5:47 Not merely a vegetarian, which is nothing. Hitler was a vegetarian (laughs), and so was poor old Mussolini and dozens of others, but that’s nothing.
5:59 But to create quite a different human being who is capable of fitting or not fitting into society, or creating a new society, because he’s so honest, integrated, so vital.
6:25 And if Brockwood is to be that kind of place I think it is very important – I don’t know if you agree with this – that we establish the right kind of relationship between the educator, ourselves, and the student.
6:49 Is it that we merely are established here to inform what you know?
7:05 Or not only to inform, but in giving the information or various forms of information, you’re educating his mind, his heart, his whole physical nature.
7:21 Is this what we’re doing?
7:32 Somebody must discuss with me – what am I to do? Dorothy Simmons: Krishnaji, some of the difficulties you have, when you put forward your views, what are the difficulties that you meet?
7:48 K: What is the difficulty? What is my difficulty if I am a teacher here? What would be my difficulty?
7:54 Q: How do we know when we’re getting this extra relationship, beyond just the giving of the facts?
8:01 K: Wait, sir. What is my trouble? If I am a teacher here, what are my difficulties? Montague Simmons: I think some teachers find that they can’t arouse any interest in their students, in some subjects.
8:19 K: Is that it?
8:21 MS: Some would find that, I think.
8:22 K: Some interest in the subject. You see, sir, I don’t think that… that is a secondary issue for me. We’ll come to that. What is my difficulty, if I’m here? I know. Here is a small community of people, living very close together, almost treading on each other’s toes, almost isolated, as it were, and we feel not only uncertain about ourselves, and also uncertain what we should do here, and therefore our relationship with the student is quite tenuous, rather delicate.
9:18 Is that the problem? Doris Pratt: I’m not a teacher but I think basically one is afraid of oneself, afraid of one’s uncertainty in relation to the student.
9:38 K: Yes. May I put it the other way. Are you – I don’t like you and me – are we trying to conform to an ideal which Brockwood stands for?
9:55 Q: I think we get caught in that, if we’re not aware.
10:03 K: You know what I mean? That is, we have an idea what Brockwood should be, or somebody says Brockwood should be this.
10:19 K comes along and says this. And I am unclear, I don’t quite know what it’s all about, and I try to conform to the idea which K thinks this should be.
10:41 So, I am not convinced, I am not sure, so I take on what K has said.
10:52 Right? And therefore I’m not being very honest with myself. You follow what I mean? So if we could all get together and say what is it we want this place to be, first.
11:11 Let’s begin with that. All together, not you think differently and I think differently – what is it we all want this place to be?
11:20 This place, not only the land, the trees and the environment, but also in our relationship, what is it we want this place to be?
11:31 Brian Jenkins: We want honesty between people.
11:38 K: Is that what you want? Sir, honesty is – you know? – that’s a secondary… it will come out. I mean, if I went out to be honest, I wouldn’t know what it means to be honest. What is it to be honest? Isn’t it dishonest if I follow somebody’s idea? It is dishonest. And I do follow somebody’s idea. I mean, when I follow Jesus it is dishonest. Sorry! (Laughs) DP: I would say we want ourselves and the students to grow in freedom. But then you say: what is freedom?
12:24 K: Let’s find out together. Not you think one thing, I think something else, but together what is it?
12:34 Then we can cooperate, we can build, we can create the thing.
12:41 EP: Well, I think I’m here to learn.
12:55 K: Learn what? Please, let’s talk about what is it we want this place to be. Not only myself, but the students and each other – what is it we’re trying to do?
13:17 (Pause) I can tell you what I want, but that is no good.
13:26 (Laughs) Q: We want to integrate.
13:30 K: No, Mr Calder, I...
13:33 MS: We’re trying to find out, explore.
13:38 K: Yes, sir. What is it… There is this place. We’ve bought it, we’ve spent a lot of money on it, and we’re going to build cloisters – and a lot more money – and it is established physically, as far as possible.
13:57 Now there will be thirty five to forty students, and there’ll be a little more… a few more teachers and all of us – what is it we want to create out of this?
14:10 George Carnes: Surely, we see insanity in our own lives and in the world, and the only alternative seems to be to go… to look for some sanity.
14:22 K: So you are saying, sir, there is insanity in the world – which there is – and let us see if we cannot create sanity in ourselves and in the student – is that it?
14:36 GC: Well, perhaps discover it.
14:39 K: Bring it about. Bring about sanity, in ourselves and in the student. Is that what you want to do?
14:46 Q: Yes, through a living relationship.
14:49 K: Wait. Sanity. Now let us understand what sanity means. You follow? Because unless we do it together, it’s no point, there is no fun in this. I can be sane by myself under a tree (laughs), or not be here, but as we are here – and to be sane together is an extraordinary thing.
15:15 I don’t know... Because it doesn’t exist, this kind of sanity in the world.
15:24 You know what I mean? There are… I won’t go into all that. (Laughs) So, how do we bring about sanity in ourselves and in the student?
15:38 Let’s start with that. Right? Right, sir? Now how do we do it? First of all I would start, the way I work at it, I don’t know what sanity is.
15:54 Right? I don’t say, ‘This is sanity.’ I know what the dictionary says, what sanity is.
16:04 Sane – which means a great many things – healthy, wise, clear. Right, sir? I’m inventing, I haven’t looked at the dictionary.
16:17 MS: It’s quite right! (Laughs) K: And to act sanely, wisely, rationally, not contradictorily, a sense of honesty, integrity – all that is implied in that word sane.
16:43 Right? Now, can I bring that about in myself, not isolated but in relationship with each other and with the student?
16:54 Right, sir? That’s my question, that’s my problem here.
17:04 I don’t know what sanity is. I know what the meaning of that word means. The meaning is not the actual. Right? Now what shall I do? How shall I bring about this creative sanity?
17:24 Living in Brockwood, in relation with forty, fifty people, what shall I do?
17:34 Q: First we have to observe the insanity in ourselves and others that we come in contact with.
17:43 K: How do you set about it?
17:53 And I want to help the student. It is my responsibility. It isn’t just with each other. You follow? It is my responsibility that they are here and to see that they become sane.
18:07 Not the sanity of an idea which I think is sane.
18:15 I don’t know… Not a conclusion of sanity and force the children and myself to conform to that conclusion – which is insanity.
18:32 Right? (Laughs) So, how shall we do this?
18:41 Come on, sir, let’s… How do we set about it daily?
18:55 They come, somewhat insane.
19:09 Right? And I also come here somewhat insane. We are not… if I was completely insane I’d be in an asylum.
19:22 But I am somewhat sane and they are somewhat sane. They have taken drugs, they have – oh, you know all the things that are going on with these people.
19:35 So how shall we purgate, wash out this insanity in myself and in the other?
19:48 Is this what we want to do, first? Many: Yes.
19:53 K: You’re sure? You know what that implies? (Laughs) Hard work! I don’t know if you want to work hard.
20:13 So if we really want that – you know, please, don’t let’s play with words – if that is the real thing that we want here, great creative, healthy, rational, wise, active sanity, surrounded by a world which is totally insane.
20:44 I saw the other day – I don’t know where, in a restaurant in New York or wherever it was – a lady, beautifully dressed, terribly delicate, terribly refined, you know, beautifully dressed and all that, tucking away chunks of meat.
21:17 You follow? She considered herself terribly refined, eating meat. You follow? The grossness of it. I don’t know if you feel that way. I do. It doesn’t matter. So is this what we want and how do we bring this about? Not the tucking away of meat. (Laughs) How do we get this sanity? Do we meet at least on the verbal explanation of what is sanity?
21:57 A non-contradictory mind.
22:08 An action of a mind and a heart that is consistent – and not consistent when it sees the truth – you follow? – and says, ‘I must be consistent to a pattern,’ and establishes that pattern – you follow?
22:25 – that’s not consistency. I don’t know if you are following all this.
22:42 A mind that thinks very rationally, sanely, objectively, non-personally.
22:58 Is this what we want? Verbally at least.
23:02 Q: Yes.
23:03 K: Do we? Is this what we want? You’re quite clear? Oh, come on, sirs! Where is Laborde, is he ill?
23:18 DS: No, he’s not ill, his parents arrived from France today, Krishnaji.
23:30 K: Oh. So, if we agree – apparently you agree – on the verbal explanation of it, then to make it an actuality, not a theory…
23:44 You know what the word theory means? Insight. Right, sir?
23:55 MS: What the God gives you.
23:59 K: Yes, that’s right – what gods gives you. Insight. Which the gods give you. No, you can’t get this through any other way – it’s a gift by the gods, from the Greek and all the rest of it.
24:20 Now, to make an actuality of it, what shall we do?
24:24 AR: I think we have to be very clear about the preoccupations that we do have.
24:32 K: Sir, all that will take time. I don’t want to waste time. You follow, sir? I have – I don’t know – three months to live. Right? I want to be sane in those three months, and not wait for ten years to be sane. I haven’t the time or the patience or the energy to waste ten years becoming sane.
25:04 I don’t know if you…
25:05 AR: But why three months, because...
25:06 K: Ah! I don’t want to say… When you say, ‘I will inquire into it, I will study it, explore it, I will,’ as you said, ‘observe my insanity,’ all that will take time.
25:21 I don’t know if you see my point.
25:23 AR: Well, in one way it will take time.
25:25 K: I don’t want to waste time on it. I want to be sane tomorrow. (Laughs) Or at the end of the day.
25:38 Otherwise I’ll make those children equally insane. You follow? They’ll be out of my environment within ten, five – you follow?
25:52 – gone, finished.
25:53 Q: This sort of thing doesn’t seem to happen, does it?
25:56 K: Wait. Why doesn’t it happen?
25:59 EP: Because I’m not clear that the process that I’m using is insane.
26:06 K: No. Why? Is it that we’re not clear? Knowing what we mean by sanity.
26:16 AR: But when you observe them as they happen.
26:23 As they happen.
26:26 K: That all will take time, won’t it?
26:28 AR: No, I think it’s different. As they happen.
26:30 K: Look, sir, what do you mean by that? Perhaps we may mean the same thing or we’re talking parallel. So what do we mean by observe as I…
26:48 Observe each insanity, each action which is contradictory, each action which is irresponsible, irrational?
27:02 AR: Yes, but only as it happens, as each comes up.
27:10 K: As it happens. That means I have a bag full of irrationalities.
27:16 AR: No, not that. No, as it happens. It’s different.
27:21 K: I mean that, sir. As it happens – just listen to what I have to say – as it happens, I’m pulling out one irrationality after the other, as it happens.
27:34 I want to empty the bag of irrationality.
27:36 AR: Well, I think the bag is a sort of assumption.
27:37 K: No, wait. Is it? I want to go into it. That is the inquiry.
27:41 Q: Yes.
27:42 K: You follow?
27:43 AR: Yes. I think that’s what’s so wrong about analysis, that you think there is a bag there and you do assume it and you start from that idea.
27:57 K: Yes. Therefore what shall I do?
28:13 From what I have noticed there are a great many irrationalities, illogical activities in myself.
28:20 Right? I’ve noticed this. You must have noticed it yourself, in yourself – I’m frightened, I want to please, I say one thing, I don’t quite mean it, you know, exaggerate, say things out of vanity, and so on, so on – which are all insane activities.
28:41 Right? Now, shall I peel them off one by one, as they happen, or is there a way of emptying the whole thing?
28:54 EP: There is no end to the peeling.
28:58 K: Therefore what shall I do? If there is no end to the peeling, what am I to do?
29:09 Q: Stop peeling.
29:11 K: Then what… Sir, how do I stop peeling? How do I become instantly sane?
29:22 Q: Well, sanity...
29:24 K: You follow, sir? See the… That’s what I want. I’m not going to waste a single day trying to be sane. Trying to be. You follow? Be sane, rather than becoming sane.
29:38 AR: I think when you think of peeling, if one starts to talk in those terms, it begins to sound as though you were assuming a centre to the onion.
29:54 K: Yes. I know all the implications of that, therefore what shall I do, sir?
29:58 Q: Maybe we are sane and we don’t know it. Just by being sane, there’s a period, there’s nothing to do; you are sane.
30:15 K: Why don’t I act sanely, if I am sane?
30:17 Q: Well, once you start making assumptions and talking about it...
30:18 K: Then we’re back again. I am full of assumptions, full of conclusions, full of dislike, like, contradictions, all that, and inside I’m very sane.
30:29 That has no meaning. You see my difficulty? I want to find a way of being sane without analysis, without peeling – you know? – be sane.
31:00 Is that at all possible? If that is not quite possible then what shall I do?
31:13 Then how shall I, in my relationship with you and with each other, and with the student, act sanely?
31:28 I start out – now I’ve understood what sanity is verbally – and I go out to lunch now, in half an hour or so, and am I going to apply the verbal understanding in action?
31:50 Or I see the truth of the verbal action, verbal explanation, the truth of it, therefore it is beyond the verbal explanation and therefore when I go out and sit at the table the truth is acting.
32:09 I don’t know if you…
32:21 Q: This must be the one intention in one’s very being.
32:29 K: Therefore I have translated the verbal explanation, in action, and that translation in action can only take place when I see the truth of it.
32:45 When I see the danger of something there is action. I don’t have to analyse, discuss, peel. You follow?
32:54 Q: Puedo hablar de sanidad? [May I speak about sanity?] K: Si, si, si. Lentamente, lentamente, per favor.
32:59 Q: Puede hablar de sanidad, puede hablar de sensibilidad, puede hablar de receptividad, una mente que no ha realizado, que el problema es ella?
33:10 [Can a mind which has not realised, that itself is the problem, speak about sanity, sensitivity, receptivity?] K: No.
33:26 He’s saying: can the mind which is not etc., etc., see the sanity?
33:44 Of course not. That’s obvious. Listen, sir. You tell me, at this meeting, a few of us meeting, you say what is sanity.
33:58 You explain to me verbally the meaning of that word, the Greek, the Latin, the daily application of that word, doctors use it, neurologists use it, psychoanalysts use it, religious…
34:16 I know; you have explained to me very clearly what the meaning of that word is, and I have understood the meaning, the verbal meaning of that word.
34:29 But I haven’t seen clearly the truth of it. The verbal meaning is one thing and the perception of the truth of that is another. Right? Right?
34:42 Q: Yes.
34:45 K: Now, do I see the truth of that statement, as I see a poisonous snake?
34:56 You know, then there is no question about it.
35:27 If I don’t see it, not the verbal meaning, the truth of it, why don’t I see it?
35:35 You follow? That’s my problem. You say something, you explain very clearly verbally the meaning of that word sane, and we all agree that this place is for that, and I understand the verbal explanation and I stop here.
35:59 You follow? And then I say: how am I to translate what I have understood in action?’ Which is insanity.
36:16 I don’t know… A verbal statement is not a fact, and I am trying to put into action a verbal statement which has no reality.
36:32 I don’t know if… It has reality in the dictionary meaning, but a reality in action, it has no meaning.
36:43 So, how am I to see the verbal explanation is one thing and the action, born out of the truth of that statement, is another.
37:01 Now how is that? Come on, sir. I know what I do. For me, personally, the word sane is the truth, not the word.
37:27 I don’t know… Have I made… When I hear that word sane, I see the truth of it, I feel it, I see the meaning of it.
37:50 It is… it has…
37:57 I’m boiled in it. (Laughs) I don’t say I must be sane. There is sanity. I don’t know if I am making…
38:23 So, let’s come back. Do I, do you see the truth of it, or there is only verbal explanation and the understanding of the words?
38:35 If you saw the truth of it, it’s finished – you follow? – you are sane.
38:54 Now how am I to translate this to the student, to see that he has this quality of instant sanity?
39:11 Sorry! Mary Zimbalist: That is something that happens instantly, apparently in you, Krishnaji, but I wonder about the rest of us, whether one instantly sees what sanity is, and therefore how can you convey to a student?
39:35 K: Therefore what’s wrong with me that I don’t see it?
39:37 Q: I see it but then I need to see it again.
39:42 K: Ah! You can’t say that. If you see a dangerous snake, it is a dangerous snake always. No?
39:48 Q: I need to see it tomorrow as dangerous. Tomorrow’s different.
39:53 K: No. Madame, sanity is not different tomorrow.
39:58 Q: Do we perhaps see too much through our own investments what is really at the heart of our own minds?
40:16 K: Yes, sir. So what shall I do? We say together, thinking it over, in our relationship with ourselves, with each other, and with the student, we must bring about a state of sanity, a quality of sanity, a movement of sanity, a living thing, not just a dead word, because round us the world is totally insane.
40:49 I don’t know how strongly you feel it; it is really diabolically insane.
41:03 And I have no time. You understand, sir? That is the thing. I have no time, because the pressure in much too strong. You follow?
41:26 And is it possible for me, who is not quite sane, to become sane and not say, ‘Well, I will become sane.’ You follow?
41:49 The moment we say, ‘I will become sane,’ then I’m lost, and I may just go and drown myself. (Laughs) Sorry!
41:56 Q: The problem seems to be accumulation.
42:01 K: Yes, sir, but all that is I will be.
42:13 Q: Yes, I’m trying to…
42:15 K: I won’t admit the will be in myself.
42:20 Q: But how does this urgency come about?
42:24 K: It is urgent. I’m feeling terribly urgent. When I talk about instant realisation of the danger of insanity, I am terribly urgent, because they’re burning, they’re shooting, they’re killing, they’re murdering each other.
42:52 Not only in Northern Ireland but everywhere.
42:55 Q: Could it be that they don’t feel that way?
43:00 K: Ah, I don’t care about the others. Here I am. I feel it’s… The others, I can’t correct. At least you sit here and listen. The others won’t even listen.
43:11 Q: Maybe we don’t feel it’s urgent enough. What I mean is, we don’t look at it enough to feel the urgency all the time.
43:25 I think that’s what John’s saying, are you?
43:26 Q: Yes.
43:27 K: Why don’t you feel the urgency of it?
43:28 Q: Because it’s not there all the time.
43:29 K: What do you mean?
43:30 Q: We don’t look at it all the time. You’re doing things, you don’t...
43:34 K: Take time to feel it, to see it.
43:36 Q: Yes.
43:37 K: You’re sitting here, you’re taking time – why don’t you see it?
43:39 Q: I see it now. I do see it, but I think this is what happens to me.
43:47 K: The perception is not momentary perception, it is perception.
43:57 You see the snake, the lion, the danger, you see a certain danger, and that danger is always danger.
44:08 It isn’t less dangerous tomorrow or the next instant, it’s always dangerous.
44:14 MZ: Are you speaking of seeing sanity in relation to a particular situation or incident or person?
44:22 K: No, no – sanity. Sanity means not only in relation to action, to people – to everything, it is total sanity.
44:30 MZ: Yes, but when you see the danger of the snake you see the danger of the snake, you don’t see the enormity of danger, you see a particular piece of it.
44:37 K: No, you see the danger of the snake because it’s going to kill you.
44:43 MZ: Yes, but that’s…
44:44 K: Kill you, means the whole entity of your being.
44:47 MZ: But you don’t see everything that’s going to kill you, you see in reference to the snake.
44:52 K: No, but that’s only a simile, don’t go...
44:54 MZ: No, but I think it’s important, Krishnaji, because I think we see things in little pieces, we don’t see them as one.
44:58 K: No, no, I explained that. Sanity means sanity in action, clarity in thinking – I’ve gone into it, what it means to be sane – the totality of it, physically, neurologically, sexually, in your heart, in your mind, in the total being, to be sane.
45:19 Q: I think this is too overbearing. We can’t tolerate it. It’s too much for us, Krishnaji.
45:27 K: Then what shall you do? Then you belong to the insane world.
45:32 Q: Yes. Well I think we belong to the insane world, simply because we can’t look at it, it’s too painful.
45:41 K: Therefore, here we are, sir. No, no, you have got to do something, you can’t just say, ‘Well, it’s too painful, I’m sorry, I still belong to the rotten world, please excuse me’ – you know, all that kind of stuff, wishy-washy stuff.
45:52 There is no point in all that.
45:54 AR: Yes, but the urgency can be felt in each small encounter, all the time.
46:08 Doris Pratt: Yes, but I wonder what sees it. If you’re looking at it from the centre of consciousness…
46:17 K: Wait. No. He’s saying something different: small encounter, every encounter you see…
46:23 AR: It’s making a tremendous… its implications are so great, each encounter.
46:34 The urgency can be felt there.
46:37 K: No, sir, put it round the other way: if your mind is sane and your heart is sane and the body is sane, encounter is unimportant.
46:50 I don’t know…
46:55 DS: Or it reveals it.
46:58 K: Ah, no. I haven’t got time to reveal.
47:02 DS: In your encounters you are it or you’re not.
47:04 MZ: How can you separate the instants from the sanity?
47:11 Either you are sane...
47:12 K: You’re all too intellectual, that’s what’s happened to you.
47:16 Q: Yes.
47:17 K: You’re all too verbally clear; you don’t see the total feeling of sanity.
47:37 EP: As long as we think there’s encounter, then we’re insane.
47:48 K: I wouldn’t call you that – you are saying it. (Laughs) AR: I mean, I meant by that, you haven’t got – I mean, we’re aware of the horrors of the outside world, but one hasn’t got to be dwelling on them all the time…
47:56 K: Oh no, that’s finished, sir. It’s a lovely day, for God’s sake, you don’t have to...
48:01 AR: Yes, but it’s seen in its beginnings in each encounter, is what I meant to…
48:07 K: No, I’m still objecting to this encounter.
48:10 DS: Well as you meet the… (inaudible) …you meet any circumstance.
48:14 K: I don’t want to meet any circumstances.
48:16 DS: But you have to.
48:17 K: I will. If there is sanity I will know what to do.
48:21 DS: That’s what he’s saying.
48:22 K: Are you saying that?
48:23 AR: Yes.
48:24 K: Therefore the encounter is not important.
48:27 AR: Well it’s just a word to describe what I mean.
48:28 DS: It comes along.
48:29 K: I don’t even want to touch it.
48:31 DS: But you have to.
48:33 EP: No, because you’re from some other centre. You’re from the centre of clarity.
48:37 K: I want to be sane. Be sane. And then the encounter, I’ll meet it.
48:46 DS: That’s what he is saying.
48:47 K: I will do the right thing, but that’s unimportant. Don’t bring in the encounter, the action of a challenge, what shall I do, how shall I be aware of my sanity?
48:59 Being sane, my action will be sane.
49:08 The oak tree. The acorn will be the oak tree. It doesn’t talk about encounter, the weather, the sunshine, the rich soil, it’s…
49:22 I’m getting too agitated – go on, sirs.
49:29 No, that is really the crux of the whole matter.
49:43 (Pause) I’m afraid the problem is that we are trained or educated to accept the verbal description and translate that description in action.
50:08 That’s our education. You can see this right through: to put a conclusion into action.
50:29 And that is the very essence of insanity. Sorry! (Laughs) Now, I have lived with a conclusion and I have carried that conclusion… trying to carry that conclusion in action.
50:51 And you come along and explain the irrationality of it, the contradictory nature of it, how it brings conflict in one’s life.
51:02 Do I see the truth of that statement, or merely the statement abstractly?
51:14 You follow? Do I see the truth of that statement?
51:22 The truth of a statement, that I am frightened of the student. I want to be popular, I’m nervous of them.
51:35 See the truth of it and it’s finished.
51:59 To live with facts is much simpler and much more beautiful, much more, you know, easy, than living with a conclusion, which is non-factual, which is an abstraction, and my action an approximation of an abstraction, and therefore it’s not an action.
52:23 Now, do I see that?
52:36 (Pause) And if you say, ‘I don’t see it’ – why?
52:50 Why don’t I see it? We don’t want to see it? Either we don’t want to see it or we are frightened of seeing it or our mind refuses because it’s so lazy; to break that pattern.
53:12 EC: Surely partly isn’t this because there’s a feeling that one must let go for this to happen, immediately?
53:29 And this is what we try and hold on to, this sort of intellectual...
53:34 K: That means you’re just verbally caught.
53:36 EC: Quite.
53:37 K: When I have pain, verbally saying… You know, verbal – it has no meaning. Is it that our mind is so appallingly lazy?
54:04 Mind being the whole – you know? Lazy, that it can’t see something till a bomb is put under it?
54:21 (Pause) Q: The fact is, Krishnaji, that it doesn’t happen to us, and we are, if it’s laziness or...
54:55 K: Why not, sir?
54:56 Q: Well…
54:57 K: Ah, that’s not… I won’t accept it doesn’t happen. Why doesn’t it happen? What is wrong with it? What is wrong with me, when you say, ‘Look, that is a danger, the greatest danger,’ and I go on playing with it?
55:13 You follow what I mean? Why don’t I see that?
55:16 Q: Perhaps we get pleasure out of it.
55:20 K: I can give you a dozen explanations. The explanations won’t matter. But why? And the explanations which I have I give to the student, and the student is satisfied with the explanation.
55:41 You follow? And I think I’ve done some marvellous thing.
56:08 (Pause) I wonder what it is, sir, why the mind refuses to see something.
56:18 Q: Sir, the moment I feel I’m on the verge of seeing, there is fear coming, and I’m kind of paralysed.
56:29 K: Ah, then you don’t see it. You don’t see it. Those are all intellectual arguments for not seeing.
56:35 Q: I feel it’s a fact.
56:38 K: No, sir, it is not a fact. Look at it, it’s not a fact.
56:48 Look, sir, you refuse to see a conclusion as a danger.
57:03 A conclusion is a danger, and an action born out of that danger is insanity.
57:12 Right? Now, you understand it verbally, don’t you?
57:16 Q: Yes.
57:17 K: Then where does the fear come in?
57:20 Q: The moment I start...
57:22 K: Wait. Where does the fear come in? Look at it. When you translate what it might lead to, then fear arises.
57:34 Q: That’s right.
57:35 K: Which prevents you from seeing. Therefore see.
57:46 I don’t know if I have made myself clear. Sir, look – I’m sorry to be personal but it doesn’t matter – K was the head of an organisation, with a lot of property, money and a great deal of devotion following, etc., etc.
58:15 He saw the danger of organisations, you know, spiritual. So he said, ‘That is dangerous. Finished. Let’s dissolve it.’ But if he began to say, ‘My goodness, what will happen to all the people, what’ll happen to me, where shall I get my next meal, nobody will follow me, nobody will listen to me,’ I’d be shaking with fear.
58:44 So, seeing is the doing. But if you don’t do, then the other things happen.
58:51 Q: We don’t see, Krishnaji.
58:53 K: No, why don’t you see it?
58:56 Q: Well they say in your case you had this… when your brother died you had this shock.
59:02 K: Ah, no, no, no.
59:04 Q: No?
59:05 K: That was nothing to do with it.
59:06 Q: But obviously we don’t see. Now why don’t we see?
59:09 Q: Why do we keep saying we don’t see?
59:11 Q: Do we need a shock?
59:12 K: No, I refuse to accept you don’t see it.
59:15 Q: That’s what I feel.
59:17 K: I refuse to accept your idea of not seeing, or that you must have a shock to see.
59:24 I’m afraid when you say my brother’s death gave me a shock which made me… I’m afraid that’s not actual facts. That’s irrelevant. I won’t go into that now. I’m asking myself: why don’t I, when you tell me something which is true, not insane, irrational, something logical, objective, sane, why don’t I see it?
59:58 See it – you understand, sir? – with my heart, with my mind, with my whole being, why don’t I see it?
1:00:23 I never asked that question of myself. You follow, sir? You tell me something and I see it instantly, and it is in me – you follow? – it’s not outside of me which I transplant, which I put in, it is there.
1:00:39 I don’t know if I am making myself some…
1:00:46 Q: If it’s there, there is no need then to ask the question.
1:00:52 K: That’s why I’m saying it. I never say, ‘Am I sane? Let me look if I’m sane.’ I say, ‘I am sane,’ because I don’t contradict – you follow?
1:01:05 – I watch it. I’m sane. I’m not seeking power, position, wanting somebody’s praise, all that bilge, which is all forms of insanity – I don’t want it.
1:01:21 No, you see, sir, I wonder what it is.
1:01:30 I can give you a dozen explanations, which is perhaps the true… I mean, our minds are so crowded, our minds have no space to receive something new – you follow?
1:01:46 – therefore our minds are closed, tight.
1:01:53 I can give a dozen explanations, but at the end of it I am what I am.
1:02:07 So my feeling is, here we are, twenty or thirty of us, and not to see this thing clearly.
1:02:20 And how am I, if I don’t see clearly, going to convey to the student?
1:02:27 Q: I suspect some of the students see more clearly than we do, because...
1:02:40 K: The students may see clearly.
1:02:42 Q: Yes.
1:02:43 K: They probably do. They probably think quietly in their hearts, ‘My God, you’re an insane chap, what are you teaching me?’ (Laughs) He may, but I doubt it.
1:02:55 (Pause) GC: Yet we’re in this dilemma.
1:03:22 We have to go forward, the children have to be looked after and educated, and we’re in the position we are in.
1:03:30 K: What will you do, sir? Just a minute. What will you do now? We have stated this – right? – what will you do from now?
1:03:46 From today, what will you do?
1:03:55 You can’t go back, say, ‘Well, I’ll become insane now, I’ll go back to my insanity.’ You can’t do it.
1:04:10 Or can you? If you tell me I’m a liar and I see the fact that you are right, I’m a liar, and I see it – you follow? – the next time I lie, I know why I’m lying.
1:04:27 You follow? And I say, ‘All right, I know the logic, the reason, it’s stupid,’ and finished – you follow?
1:04:36 But I can’t go back and say, ‘Well, I’m going to lie forever, it’s very profitable to lie.’ I mean that’s…
1:04:44 I don’t know. Once you have shown me what insanity is, I cannot go back to insanity.
1:04:53 Finished, I can’t do it.
1:05:07 And if I do, I catch myself, I am at it. You follow, sir? And I go into it – why am I insane? Why was I at that moment insane? You follow? Not… I begin the other way round, which is, I see the truth of sanity, it has taken seed in me, in my mind, in my heart, in my nerves, everything, and perhaps I’ll do something which is insane, and the mind picks it up instantly.
1:05:45 Not the other way round.
1:05:52 Because the seed is there, the mind is sensitive. I don’t know if I…
1:06:01 MZ: Are you saying that we can know what sanity is by seeing instantly insanity in ourselves?
1:06:07 K: No, no, don’t go back to that. I am saying, if I see the truth of insanity, the falseness of insanity, the truth of insanity, it has taken seed, it is in me.
1:06:31 MZ: But what you have seen there is insanity.
1:06:34 K: No, no.
1:06:35 MZ: In other words, you said earlier…
1:06:37 K: No, no.
1:06:38 MZ: But you said, you see that it’s insane to be selfish, cruel, all these things.
1:06:41 K: No, no, no, no, no. No, please, you have misunderstood. I must go back then. You’re not following what I said. Excuse me. I say, when you give the explanation of what sanity is – logic, reasonable, non-contradictory, wise, healthy, clear, all that, the explanation reveals the truth of it.
1:07:17 The truth of it has taken seed in me. It is there. And the day after tomorrow I do something insane.
1:07:31 The mind being so sensitive, alive to sanity, being sane, it picks it up and washes it out instantly.
1:07:42 Not the other way round. What were you trying to say?
1:07:47 MZ: Well, it seems to me that in part you are saying in that, that one has seen a definition of either sanity or insanity, looking at it either way, and therefore one instantly...
1:07:59 K: No.
1:08:00 MZ: ...sees oneself…
1:08:01 K: No.
1:08:02 MZ: …and one goes apart from it.
1:08:03 K: Forgive me. The definition is not the thing.
1:08:07 MZ: Quite. But...
1:08:09 K: The description is not the real, but the description has shown me the truth of it.
1:08:18 No? What’s the difficulty in this? You tell me that tree is very beautiful. I look at it and say, ‘My God, how beautiful it is.’ Your description, your pointing to that tree, and the verbal statement that it is beautiful, I immediately see the beauty of it.
1:08:42 So, the beauty of that tree – the beauty – beauty of something, beauty is established in me.
1:08:50 Through a statement – you follow? – trough a verbal statement I see the reality of it.
1:09:02 Then it’s finished. Whereas what we generally do is: explanation, accepting the explanation, seeing the logical structure of it, then coming to a conclusion that I must be sane, and acting according to that – is insanity to me.
1:09:35 Therefore I say, ‘I won’t conclude.’ Q: I guess there’s nothing for us to do then, Krishnaji, just leave here and carry on and let it have its own action.
1:09:49 K: Ah, ah. No, Mr (Inaudible), look at it. If you see now what sanity is, see it – you follow – it’s over.
1:10:06 Next minute, you know, your eyes are clear.
1:10:11 MZ: If one could stick with the analogy of seeing the beauty of the tree. Are you saying that having, by the statement, ‘What a beautiful tree,’ you see beauty?
1:10:20 K: Yes.
1:10:22 MZ: That having seen that...
1:10:23 K: …it is in me.
1:10:25 MZ: ...the quality will be...
1:10:26 K: No, it is in me, in my eyes, in my tongue.
1:10:28 MZ: Yes, and therefore that quality will somehow...
1:10:32 K: Not somehow.
1:10:33 MZ: Well, I’m trying to… What happens next time? I don’t mean that you see the same…
1:10:38 K: There is no next time.
1:10:39 MZ: …but the ability to see beauty.
1:10:41 K: There is no next time. I have taken… I have drunk at the fountain of sanity. That water has filled me.
1:10:57 There is no space for anything else. Full stop. But I have been led to that fountain through the description, through the explanation, through a verbal statement, which is not interpreted by me but by the dictionary.
1:11:28 So, the dictionary said this, and that says, ‘By Jove, how true that is,’ and the truth of that is in me.
1:11:39 I don’t… You follow? It’s like conceiving a baby.
1:11:48 DP: Do you mean to say the full understanding of the word induces the state?
1:12:00 K: No. (Laughs) The understanding of the word means I’m listening. I’m listening, I’m sensitive to the word.
1:12:14 And you explain what sanity is. The explanation is beating on my sensitive mind, the truth of it, and it’s there.
1:12:28 Because I’m listening, I want to find…
1:12:43 I am burning with this thing. It’s nearly twenty past. What about lunch? They’re all waiting. They’ll be cursing us. (Laughter) Q: Supongamos… [Let’s suppose…] K: Ah, no supongamos.
1:12:57 Q: No, one second, please.
1:13:00 K: Si, si. I don’t want to suppose anything, sir.
1:13:04 Q: No, no.
1:13:05 K: Avanti, avanti, avanti.
1:13:06 Q: I understand.
1:13:07 K: Prego, prego.
1:13:08 Q: Supongamos que uno ve con gran claridad, pero no hay amor en el corazón – hay claridad? [Let’s suppose that one sees with great clarity, but there is no love in the heart – then is there clarity?] K: (Inaudible) Sorry.
1:13:25 Then if you are clear up here and there is no clarity here, you are not clear.
1:13:30 Q: Yes.
1:13:30 K: Ecco. One hand is very sensitive, the other is dead. That means you’re not healthy.
1:13:48 DS: How do we move from here?
1:13:50 K: I have moved. I have drunk at the fountain of sanity. God! Arethusa.
1:14:01 DS: Why haven’t we?
1:14:05 K: Sit, meditate, fight to find out! Don’t spend another day!
1:14:19 There it is.
1:14:26 And the fountain says come, drink. And you say, ‘Where is it?’ (Laughs) You’ve a dozen explanations and walk away from it.
1:14:41 We had better stop.