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BR73DSG2 - The brain trying to find security creates the image
Brockwood Park, UK - 30 September 1973
Discussion with Small Group 2



0:00 This is the 2nd small group discussion with J. Krishnamurti at Brockwood Park, 1973.
0:12 Krishnamurti: Shall we go on with what we were discussing yesterday?
0:34 Yes or no? Audience: Yes Krishnamurti: I think we began by talking about authority and specially about inner authority and the dependence on another for our conduct, behaviour and whether another can teach us about ourselves.
1:14 I’ve forgotten it.
1:24 Yes. We can only learn – perhaps we could use a better word than learning – we can only learn about ourselves in the mirror of relationship.
1:51 And we have built images in our relationship and those images act as a separative, divisive factor in relationship.
2:20 We have not only those images but also we have many other images, about oneself, about others and so on.
2:30 And whether it is possible at all, in life, in relationship, ever to be free of all these images.
2:41 And Dr Bohm asked: could you demonstrate it yourself, in your life? We said, yes, and we went into that. And I think that’s more or less where we left off. Now if we can begin again: is it possible to be free of these images?
3:14 We are asking that question because images, beliefs, conclusions, the known factors in relationship, distort relationship.
3:42 And in that distortion there is conflict, and where there is conflict any action born of that conflict must lead to further distortions.
4:01 So it is important, I think, and we also agreed, that it is necessary to be free of these images, conclusions, conditionings.
4:18 And is it possible?
4:58 DP: Could it be that the brain cells are so deeply grooved by repetition of the image that they are actually damaged and irreparable?
5:06 K: If they are actually damaged, which I really question, then there is nothing more to be said.
5:20 Can an image damage the brain cells? I can’t answer that question because I am not a specialist on the brain cells.
5:31 But can any image, which is the product of thought, which has been put together by thought, and thought is the conditioned response, can any thought damage the brain?
5:53 I’m asking, I am not saying it can, or it cannot.
5:57 DP: It can certainly be added to and added to, and added to by memories, so it’s very, very strong.
6:06 K: Ah, that’s a different matter. But is it damaged in the sense broken down, not active?
6:18 MZ: Yesterday, if I understood correctly, you made a distinction between knowledge and image and it seemed to me that you said that image equals knowledge plus reaction.
6:38 In other words, knowledge and the person’s reaction to that knowledge forms the image, which is then retained almost between the knowledge.
6:50 K: Knowledge plus reaction of that knowledge is the image.
6:54 MZ: The personal reaction to the knowledge forms an image.
6:58 K: I am not quite clear of this thing.
7:01 MZ: Is that what you said yesterday?
7:02 K: Did I say that?
7:03 MZ: It was my understanding, but that may be wrong. My question was: what is the distinction, if there is one, between knowledge and image as you used the term.
7:18 K: Is there any distinction – is knowledge separate from the image? Is that it?
7:25 MZ: Yes. What is the relation, if any?
7:31 K: You have hurt me. I have an image of that hurt, the memory, the knowledge. That knowledge is the image, isn’t it? The two are not separate, are they?
7:46 MZ: We were, if you remember, we were talking about using the example of the bully, and after a certain amount of evidence of the person’s bullying, it becomes a fact that the person is a bully.
8:00 K: Yes, that’s a fact.
8:01 MZ: So we said well, if you meet that person you inevitably have the knowledge of what the person has done, that is in the mind.
8:12 But is there…
8:13 K: I question that. I want to question that, if you don’t mind.
8:16 MZ: It is there, surely, sir.
8:18 K: I am not sure.
8:19 MZ: One doesn’t have amnesia about it.
8:23 K: No. I am not quite sure. The knowledge of that person as a bully is there when you meet that person again.
8:34 MZ: What do you mean by there?
8:36 K: There, in the sense in the mind as knowledge, image, which that bully has created in me.
8:45 MZ: Well, surely it is in the brain cells somewhere.
8:50 K: I would like to – let’s go into this a little bit shall we? May we?
8:57 Q: You have to distinguish between a person who did some bullying act and a bully.
9:06 Because some person did some bullying act, it went on doing some bullying act. It doesn’t therefore automatically create the image of a bully, the distinction between the two.
9:16 K: I only know one bully, let’s say. I have lived with that person and the image of that person is the knowledge.
9:31 I don’t know what bullydom is, I only know the bully.
9:38 Now, I have gone into this very deeply and I have watched my reactions and all the rest of that, and as the image, the knowledge, of him as a bully remains when I meet him.
10:01 MZ: May I ask what you mean by ‘remains’?
10:08 There is no memory? Or that it is not operating, it has no influence on you at that moment?
10:15 K: I have even forgotten that he was a bully.
10:18 MZ: Surely not sub-consciously? Do you mean?
10:22 K: I have even forgotten the nature of his bullying – we’ll take a concrete thing.
10:31 That’s better. We won’t mention names. We went to see a certain person, Mrs Zimbalist and I, he was a bully. And when I met him I had no recollection, or the image, or the memory that he was a bully.
10:49 MZ: Do you mean at that moment?
10:51 K: At that moment.
10:53 MZ: So it wasn’t affecting the moment but surely…
10:55 K: No, obviously.
10:57 MZ: …but it was in your mind somewhere.
11:02 K: Obviously. You see this requires quite a great deal of investigation because when I talk to you about him the words convey the content of that image.
11:33 But that image is not in the mind.
11:42 Only when I talk about him it comes up. But otherwise it is non-existent, consciously or unconsciously.
11:55 SB: I don’t really understand that.
12:03 K: I don’t quite understand it myself. We are investigating this.
12:10 Q: Wouldn’t different people react differently to that bully so there would be different images according to their own...
12:20 K: Yes. But we are talking of the freedom from images, not the variety of images, not the different images that each of us create about a bully; but the content of a relationship with a bully, which is the image, the content is the image.
12:53 Right? Does it remain in the mind, in consciousness all the time?
13:05 DB: I wonder if we couldn’t question if this image of the bully is a fact.
13:12 If it were factual knowledge then that would be one question, but the image of the bully is not a fact.
13:23 K: The image of the bully is not a fact.
13:25 DB: He did certain things.
13:28 K: Yes, yes. That’s a fact.
13:31 DB: An image is a kind of explanation of why he did it, which is false.
13:40 K: Yes, sir.
13:41 DB: We don’t actually know why he did it.
13:42 MZ: Could we take a different example because the bully is so loaded. Just a person who has done X – something.
13:49 K: You have hurt me, let’s keep to that. You have hurt me. And the hurt remains. Can that hurt be removed? That is, totally be free from that hurt, even when I meet you?
14:16 Because if the mind is not free of that hurt then that hurt acts as a barrier between you and me, and therefore conflict and all the rest of it.
14:34 MZ: Therefore, am I correct in understanding that you are saying that being hurt means a reaction, one is hurt.
14:42 K: Obviously.
14:43 MZ: Therefore there is knowledge and there is reaction in that statement.
14:48 K: No. I have an image about myself and that image has been hurt by you.
14:57 Em? My image about myself has been hurt but if I have no image about myself I am not hurt.
15:06 MZ: We were looking at an image of somebody else, now we are discussing something that is done to one’s image of oneself.
15:22 K: After all, that is the central factor. I live with somebody and in that relationship that somebody has hurt me – me, the image.
15:37 DB: But how can the image be hurt? You see isn’t it an image of a hurt?
15:42 K: No. I think I am a gentle person, I have an image of myself of whatever it is.
15:53 And you come and bruise it. What are you bruising?
15:58 DB: That is the question.
16:01 K: What are you hurting? Apart from the physical hurt, what is the thing that is being hurt?
16:15 Q: Could I approach it from a slightly different angle?
16:22 K: Certainly, sir.
16:25 Q: In my particular experience, it would seem that emotional immaturity in the face of the world, that world poses a threat, and it is necessary therefore in some way to protect oneself against that threat.
16:55 That emotional immaturity means that it cannot protect itself and therefore one quite mechanically, automatically searches around for something else.
17:09 If I happen to be a strong man perhaps I use my physical strength to protect me.
17:18 If I happen to be intellectually inclined I perhaps develop a large intellectual brain to protect me.
17:28 And it seems that this, whether it be physical strength or the large brain I have developed, whenever there is a stimulus, whenever there is apparent threat to my emotional being, which I am unable to meet, up comes this…
17:49 K: Barrier.
17:51 Q: …barrier. And therefore the whole relationship is falsified and it is this which creates the disorder because it is something else trying to do the job of something else.
18:05 In other words, my feelings should meet the situation if it is a feeling stimulus, but that because of my situation, my immaturity, is impossible.
18:16 K: Are you saying, sir, the immature – intellectual, emotional, or whatever it is, immature – the immature people have images and maturity means non-image?
18:32 Q: Obviously one would respond in the right coin.
18:37 K: Yes. Is that what you are trying to say, sir?
18:41 Q: It boils down to this.
18:46 K: Then it arises: what is maturity and is it possible to be totally mature?
18:55 Q: This is the great difficulty.
18:59 K: No, we were also saying just now, weren’t we, what is the image that gets hurt?
19:13 What do we mean by the image?
19:15 Q: The first hurt is an actual physical actuality, objective.
19:27 K: Which one, sir?
19:30 Q: The bully starting his history of bullying has a first instance of bullying me. The first reaction is possibly without very much image in it, because it is a direct threat to oneself and the emotions arising from the body from it are probably direct physical sensations, the physical thing seen.
20:01 That physical thing seen forms an image in the mind and that image can recreate the physical state of pain or fear or abhorrence, and that starts to build arguments, internal arguments about why this should happen to me and so on and so on.
20:16 And the situation builds up so that one is constantly reproducing in oneself the physical sensation of objection, anger, frustration and so on.
20:28 It is this reproduced image of the original sensation built up through a series of internal reasoning and carrying on that builds the things up ad nausea.
20:50 How to stop that is the thing.
20:58 K: Sir, can we begin by trying to find out what is this thing that builds up and what is the thing that is built up, the image, what is the image?
21:15 I have an image about myself, and what is that image?
21:24 What is the content of that image? Is it a verbal content?
21:31 Q: Verbal and pictorial.
21:35 K: Yes, verbal means pictorial and all that.
21:42 Q: Mainly verbal.
21:45 K: Yes, verbal. Why does the mind build an image about itself through words, through pictures, through various incidents?
22:06 Is it to protect itself? Is it because it can’t meet completely, wholly another or the challenges of life, therefore as it cannot meet adequately a challenge it builds an image as a means of self protection.
22:41 Is that it?
22:44 Q: We don’t know ourselves, we don’t know what we are, it seems we must try to find out.
22:57 K: What we are may be the image. What we are may be the verbal structure of the image which the mind has created for itself in order to feel secure.
23:11 Q: Doesn’t it come also partly from expectations of others outside of us?
23:25 K: Yes, what they think we are, yes all that.
23:28 Q: There is always a conflict in this image.
23:36 There is the, for instance, supposing you have always been looked down on you have that memory, then you will build up a compensating image.
23:44 K: Yes, sir. I take shelter in feeling inferior.
23:53 Or I take shelter in feeling superior.
24:00 That gives me an image about myself, and that image is my security, in a world that is totally insecure, totally – whatever it is – I feel safe.
24:17 SB: Well it doesn’t really work with me because there are always…
24:23 K: Of course, of course. So I see I have built an image about myself in order to protect myself, and what is the image?
24:34 And is the image different from the image-maker?
24:50 And if the image-maker and the image are one then what is the image? Why all this activity going on all the time?
25:00 Q: Why do we feel threatened so much?
25:04 K: Because I have an image. If I have no image I am not threatened.
25:10 MZ: But you just said that we take shelter in an image.
25:16 K: Ah, wait, wait. Because I take shelter – the mind takes shelter in the image it has made for itself.
25:27 MZ: But why?
25:28 K: Why? Because I am threatened.
25:30 MZ: But you just said that one fears because one has an image.
25:36 K: No, no.
25:37 DB: We are going round in circles.
25:41 K: Yes. All right, let’s begin again. The mind builds an image. What is the nature of that image and the content of that image? And why does the mind build the various images? Why?
25:58 AR: There is a great fear that if we didn’t have an image we would find nothing.
26:11 K: All right. So fear is the basis of this image, is it?
26:22 The mind says, I don’t mind, I will be nothing.
26:25 AR: That’s not so easy.
26:29 Q: I feel this is more complicated because if I have an image originally born in me when I was a child, say, that whenever I am afraid people are going to laugh or something like this, the image I will project to make me feel secure is one that I am extremely courageous.
26:52 K: Sir, I would like to tackle it differently. That is, have you an image about yourself? Not you – don’t answer me! Have you an image about yourself? Most of us have. And why do you have that image? Let’s start factually. You follow, sir? Why do you have that image? Otherwise we got lost in theories.
27:26 Are you afraid that if you didn’t have the image you would be destroyed?
27:34 MZ: Don’t we all have what is a little bit of knowledge about other people, ourselves, the world, whatever it is, which forms a little pattern in the mind.
27:50 And when it is about ourself one is inclined to use it as a mirror and try and make it better.
28:05 K: No. What I am trying to say is: have you got an image about yourself? And if you have, why have you got it, what is the reason?
28:14 Q: Comparison.
28:16 K: No, no. Why? You have built it through comparison, through imitation, through conformity, through fear.
28:25 Q: That makes the builder active and I would suggest that he was passive, that he didn’t build the image, and the image was generated.
28:43 K: Who generates the image?
28:45 Q: The brain.
28:46 K: The brain is the actor then?
28:48 Q: Yes.
28:49 K: The brain is the builder of the images because it can survive only in security.
28:59 Q: Yes, I would say this goes right back to atavistic beginnings.
29:03 K: Yes we are coming – we have said that before. So in order to be secure we, the brain builds these images.
29:20 These images may be neurotic, may be healthy or unhealthy, destructive and all that, and whatever the image is the brain holds to that.
29:36 Right?
29:37 DB: It’s not very clear why it should do so.
29:47 K: They have all agreed, sir, that it is for security.
29:50 DB: That doesn’t give security.
29:52 K: It thinks it does.
29:54 DB: Then the trouble is why does it think falsely?
29:58 K: Because there is no other place where it can find security.
30:01 DB: It is still thinking falsely.
30:05 K: That’s all the whole circus, our life is thinking falsely.
30:12 Q: Partly. The brain produces probably half a dozen or more different answers to a specific situation, one of which might be right.
30:26 K: Yes, sir, yes. But sir, why does one’s brain have the images? I want to stick to that. What is the reason for this? Is it for self protection?
30:40 Q: Yes K: If it is, what is it protecting itself against?
30:49 You?
30:50 Q: The environment.
30:51 K: Against the environment, against incidents.
30:54 Q: Against the truth.
30:56 K: Against ‘what is’, the fact.
30:59 Q: It is protecting itself against the other images.
31:07 K: Yes.
31:09 Q: Why do we not feel secure in just being alive?
31:23 K: You see this security that the brain seeks may be false altogether.
31:33 And its security in an image may be totally false, and the brain sticks to that.
31:41 MZ: But you said the brain needs security.
31:44 K: Ah, wait, wait. I am coming to that. My brain seeking security because it can only function in security effectively, objectively, impersonally and so on, not finding it, it seeks in an image.
32:13 That image is false, but it doesn’t know it is false. It has been brought up to think falsely, educated and all the rest of it.
32:25 So it is incapable – no, not incapable – so it is seeking security in false things.
32:34 DB: Then it is inventing an image of security.
32:41 K: Inventing an image of security.
32:47 Q: Once that image is established it then has a life of its own, and goes out seeking food for itself, and builds up and this of course then becomes our life.
33:05 K: Yes, obviously. So my brain thinking wrongly, educated wrongly, the whole cultural environment is to give it security, and not finding it anywhere there, it either goes to church or this or that, or the guru, and creates an image for itself in which it feels secure.
33:41 That image has no reality. So in illusion it takes security. That’s all. It’s fairly simple. Now, can the brain see the illusion and say, yes, that’s over, finished.
34:01 When it sees that it is an illusion it has no attraction anymore.
34:05 DB: The brain is still wanting security.
34:08 K: Ah, wait, wait. So it may find security or something totally different.
34:19 But first it must be free of the illusory security.
34:24 DS: Isn’t that the beginning of its security?
34:28 K: I don’t know.
34:29 DS: To see that that is an illusion.
34:33 K: Can the mind, your mind, my mind or another mind see the thing it has created, the image, the conclusion, all that, is illusory security?
34:46 DB: As the brain has to stay with this without knowing what is security, this seems to be the delicate point.
34:55 K: Yes, sir.
34:58 DB: It demands real security, but for a moment it has to go through not knowing, not having any real security, and still giving up the illusion.
35:11 K: But if it seeks security it must find it in some illusion.
35:19 DB: So the search for security is wrong. Is that what you are saying?
35:21 K: What, sir?
35:22 DB: That the search for security is false.
35:26 K: Is false in the sense it wants it.
35:31 DB: If the brain wants it then it is already false.
35:34 K: No, sir, I would like to put it. No, no. My brain, this brain seeks security.
35:48 And it can’t find it in any of the things it is given as secure, it creates its own image in which it finds security.
36:01 That we more or less see. And that image, or those conclusions, ideas, all those are illusory.
36:17 The mind then says they are illusory and the moment it sees, they are finished. Right? They are over. Now what takes place?
36:34 When the mind, when the brain has given up that which is illusory, what has taken place?
36:42 DP: It goes on seeking security in other avenues.
36:50 K: Ah, no. Any search, any demand for security on its part must be illusory.
37:02 DP: It can’t know that.
37:06 K: I am showing. Please. I choose one image and I discover, the brain discovers that it is illusory.
37:15 Then it tries another and that is illusory. So by seeing one image as illusory it has discovered that all images are insecurity.
37:32 It hasn’t to go through a dozen images and ultimately at the end of your life say, ‘It’s all illusory’.
37:38 DB: Then could we say that the search for security through an image is an illusion, the brain has to stop making images.
37:47 K: That’s right. That’s all.
37:50 MZ: Is it still left with insecurity?
37:54 K: Wait, wait, wait. That is my point. Don’t push that point. Have I – has my brain – to me this is practical, I want to be clear.
38:06 Has my brain stopped seeking security in illusions?
38:15 Illusions being images, theories, conclusions, formulas, symbols, all that.
38:29 If it has not then it will create another image, which will equally be illusory.
38:45 And it cannot find what it wants which is real, total security in illusion.
39:01 So has my brain really put aside all illusions which it has created in its search for security?
39:15 Q: One would have to find out something of what one really was.
39:30 K: That’s what we are doing. That’s what is going on now. Here we are, sitting together, enquiring into this question.
39:40 And can this brain really disentangle itself from the things it has created, its gods, its, all that, the whole image-making?
40:00 Q: Can the brain do that?
40:07 K: I think it can, sir when it is challenged.
40:10 Q: Ah, then it doesn’t do it, the challenge does it.
40:15 K: No. What has taken place, sir. I am asking you, that’s a challenge. And you are responding, either you say, ‘Well, I am sorry I am not interested in this’ – or ‘I am interested in it, but the brain can’t get rid of the images’ – then the question is, how will it get rid of them – you follow?
40:32 There is an interaction going on.
40:33 DB: You say that the brain would normally put truth first, this challenge is really the question of being faced with the truth, and it would put the truth first before the question of security?
40:53 Q: But the truth is not an image.
40:54 K: I wouldn’t even put it that way, sir. I wouldn’t even put it that way. You’ll forgive me. I am not being dogmatic or anything. I would only say the brain has lived in illusions which it thought were security, and it sees they are not.
41:19 Is that so? Then if it sees that they are not then what takes place?
41:33 And how does it see that they are illusion?
41:39 Q: But that is the point I was trying to make.
41:53 That the brain generates only images, and the knowledge or understanding that its images are illusion is not an image.
41:55 K: Quite right, sir.
41:56 Q: Well, it is not the brain that sees this, it is something else.
41:57 K: What is it that sees, that’s what we are coming to. This brain, my mind has created illusions and in those illusions it has taken shelter.
42:13 And you are telling me, look, look very carefully at your illusions, which you think are real, and I am asking what is it, sir, that sees these illusions?
42:38 Because you tell me that they are illusions, do I accept them as illusions? Which implies you are the authority – we are back to the old thing – and I accept it.
42:52 That has no reality. Do I see that they are illusions?
43:02 And how do I see them? The mind, I, all that – if I use the ‘I’, I mean by that the brain, the mind, and all that.
43:11 How does the mind see that they are illusions? Who is the see-er?
43:16 Q: Illusion.
43:17 K: Ah! Is it? Go on, sir.
43:22 Q: You have to be able to see through it.
43:30 K: Who sees through it?
43:33 Q: Some other part of the mind.
43:38 K: Please, this is one of the greatest difficulties which few people have solved, because they have said a higher agency enters now – God, the Hindus call it by one name, the Islam people call it by another name, always an outside agency that sees and dispels.
44:09 If you don’t accept outside agency, because that’s just another theory, invented by some philosopher, if you don’t accept that, then what is it that sees?
44:24 Q: Intelligence.
44:26 K: Why do you say intelligence? What do you mean by intelligence?
44:35 Q: When you realise.
44:42 Q: Right here I find that the words other people have used, and myself also, like understanding, love, all of these things have the possibility of coming out, and they are answers.
45:04 But if the mind remains, and you might say refuses to go on illusion, if it remains with what it is, why is an outside agency necessary?
45:24 K: Because it hasn’t been able to answer the question. It hasn’t been able to resolve the illusions.
45:33 Q: OK. But if there is a movement to find something beyond what it is, then…
45:45 K: Look, don’t let’s talk theoretically.
45:52 The brain, as we’ve said, has sought security in illusion – the illusion being the images and so on and so on.
46:04 And when the brain sees that they are illusion then it stops. Now, can the brain see the illusion? Or the very idea that the brain can see the illusion is also an illusion?
46:23 I don’t know if I am…
46:28 AR: Are we caught in the idea that seeing must imply a see-er?
46:34 K: That’s just the point.
46:37 AR: We are conditioned to feel that because of our language. I see that and so on.
46:44 K: Yes, our language, our whole cultural education is that, the division, the observer and the observed.
46:54 So the mind, or the brain must be very clear when it says, ‘I see the illusion’.
47:04 Is the brain capable of seeing the illusion, or is the brain trying to seek illusion, trying to seek security inevitably it must create illusion?
47:24 I don’t know if I am…
47:32 DB: Then the whole of the brain is wrong.
47:34 K: That’s it. The movement of the brain trying to find security, that very movement must create the image, the illusion.
47:50 Q: Perhaps it is some emotional part of us that can see.
48:04 K: After all, the brain is part of the emotion.
48:10 Q: Is it?
48:13 K: The brain is the whole. Now, let’s go into this a little bit. Are you interested in this? I want to find out if the brain, in its movement, trying to find security, must always create illusion.
48:47 Which means only when the brain is completely still there is security.
48:53 AR: It seems to me that as long as I feel or think that there is anything here capable of seeing I’ll go on creating illusions.
49:17 K: Sir, yes but look.
49:18 AR: I am not prepared to face emptiness.
49:19 K: No I am not – sir. Do you see that – does your brain or your mind see that it lives in illusion?
49:40 The illusion which it feels is its security.
49:50 My mind has created the guru. Right? And the guru is going to help me to be secure. Obviously. Enlightenment is my security. Or his experience which I hope to have also, is my security.
50:14 Or the knowledge which I have gathered is my security. So can my mind realise that any movement in its search for security must inevitably create illusion?
50:37 MZ: Are you also saying that security is an illusion, or only the search for security?
50:54 K: We said the brain seeking security must create illusion.
51:00 MZ: But is the concept of security…
51:03 K: I don’t know. No, I don’t want to enter into concepts.
51:08 MZ: Well is security an illusory…
51:10 K: The fact is I am seeking security. Don’t complicate it.
51:15 MZ: Is that the illusion? The basic illusion.
51:18 K: That’s what we are saying. The basic reason for illusion is the desire to be secure.
51:31 I go to the guru, I go to church, I go to the priest, I do all kinds of things in order to be secure.
51:39 I hold on to my wife, to my parents, to whatever it is, I cling, I depend.
51:43 DB: Is there any other movement of the brain which is not caught in this?
51:53 K: That’s what I want to find out.
52:04 Can my mind stop that movement completely, otherwise I can’t enter the other.
52:25 That is, as we were talking the other day, sir, movement is time.
52:33 It has sought security in time.
52:36 DB: By projecting security into the future.
52:42 K: The future, the past.
52:45 DB: Thinking of the future being secure.
52:47 K: That’s right, that’s right. So movement, the movement of the brain is time.
52:55 And in time it is seeking security. We are putting it differently. And when the time is not it’s frightened. Death. I am frightened when the dependence on which I have relied on disappears, and so on and so on.
53:22 It’s a movement in time. And the movement in time is illusion. No? This is too much?
53:39 DB: As the movement in which the brain seeks its own security in time.
53:46 K: Yes. Of course. Don’t let’s – time and -yes, yes. Isn’t it, sir? All movement of the brain is time.
53:58 DB: Well, it’s not quite so clear. You see one can say one knows that cells are being nourished with blood and oxygen and so on, and that must continue.
54:11 K: Of course that goes on, otherwise it is complete security! (laughter) DB: That is a kind of movement, the blood moving through the brain cells.
54:17 K: Yes, yes.
54:18 DB: So it seems they have some special kind of movement.
54:26 K: The movement to create images, in which it hopes to find security, is time.
54:39 No other. There are other times but we are only regarding that. Now, can that movement come to an end?
54:58 Not because it wants to enter into another movement, then it’s a deception, a form of double hypocrisy and so on.
55:09 So it says can it stop for no other reason than seeing, becoming intelligent, that it cannot live in illusion.
55:29 Which means intelligence means a non-illusory activity.
55:39 (laughter) All right, sir?
55:48 So is my mind intelligent, in that sense?
56:00 And I am not – suppose one is not – intelligent in that sense, then what is one to do?
56:15 I have got my images and the movement of those images is my security, and any form of threatening those images and the movement in those images is fear.
56:37 So I build a wall round those images.
56:44 I resist. I build a wall so that nothing enters.
56:54 This goes on, this happens all the time among the traditionalists, among the great believers, among the Communists, among the Maoists – you follow? – this whole process goes on – the Capitalists, the rich people, including Mr Nixon and company limited, they are all involved in this.
57:14 Did you hear that lovely joke, sir?
57:25 Pompidou – no Pompigate and Waterdo!!!
57:32 Sorry. Now, can my mind see this fact?
57:55 And what is the seeing of a fact? I think this is the real crux of it.
58:06 Q: We were saying that the brain generated imagery, and the imagery was active and implied the self or subject is passive.
58:29 K: No, no. The brain has created the ‘me’ which is the greatest image it has, which offers security, subjectively in me, the ego.
58:45 Q: The ego is the essence of the image.
58:51 K: Obviously. It is the image.
58:54 DB: Why does the image of the self offer security?
59:00 K: Why does the self, the ‘me’ give the greatest security. Oh, it’s fairly obvious. Why? Why do you think it does, sirs?
59:12 Q: Without that image then I am not.
59:17 K: No, sir, look. You have got the ‘me’, haven’t you? Does that me give you the greatest security? ‘Me’ being your nationality, your beliefs, your attachments, your opinions, your sorrows, your fears, your anxieties, the future and the past and the present, all that is the ‘me’.
59:55 And that’s the greatest image we have.
1:00:00 Q: If we are all living in that world of illusions, one of the chief illusions is that seeking security, that is the chief illusion of all, that seeking security will find security.
1:00:20 K: Yes. So there I am. Now, can we put the question: can the brain or the mind see the illusion?
1:00:29 What do we mean by seeing? Who is seeing? Another image seeing?
1:00:42 Another image saying these are all illusions? And if that image says it’s all illusions, that image itself is an illusion.
1:00:58 So we must go into this question of seeing.
1:01:10 Can the mind see the whole movement non-fragmentarily, the image-making?
1:01:25 In which is included the movement of time, protection, security, resistance, all that, can the brain or the mind see the whole of that movement, not a fragment of it?
1:01:46 If it sees a fragment of it, it is not seeing the rest.
1:01:55 It is only seeing the whole of it is the ending of it.
1:02:03 Now, can I, can my mind see the whole of this movement?
1:02:13 Or is it only capable of seeing in fragments?
1:02:24 I don’t like that image, I’ll get rid of it.
1:02:32 I like this image, I’ll keep it. Or I’ll transform this image into another image. So it’s always functioning in fragments and therefore never seeing the whole, and therefore never really being free from the movement of time as illusion, and all that.
1:02:55 DP: But aren’t we intrinsically fragments with our sixty separate brains here?
1:03:08 K: No, no, no. You may have separate brains but we are all creating images whether you live in India or in Brockwood or wherever you are.
1:03:23 Q: There is something outside the imagery.
1:03:30 K: We’ll come to that, sir. Don’t state it, don’t state it. Then we are lost.
1:03:43 This is what has been – in India they have gone a great deal into this question. I haven’t read their philosophy or their books but I have talked to a great many of the so-called scholars and all that; this has been one of their central problems.
1:04:04 And they say there is something outside, the Brahman, the Supreme, and that operates only when the mind is free of illusion, or is endeavouring to free itself from illusion.
1:04:28 So illusion is the world – you follow? So you must renounce the world to find that.
1:04:39 Q: One can see in his daily life that there are moments when he will have an idea – or he will tell himself about something.
1:04:58 And then he has a seeing and he says, ‘Well, I was only pretending to myself, that is not true’ – now that is a fragmentary seeing?
1:05:05 K: Of course. But please when we are talking about – can my mind see non-fragmentarily the whole movement of the brain seeking security, this way, that way, the other way – you follow?
1:05:26 – see the movement, not the object of the movement going to, but the movement itself, the total movement.
1:05:37 Q: This would imply sensitivity of the whole mind.
1:05:44 K: Obviously, sir. My whole being, with my whole mind. Can that see this illusory way of thinking, acting, the inter-relationships of images and so on and so on?
1:06:11 The whole tree, not part of the tree.
1:06:14 DB: You mean there is movement in which we don’t put our attention on the content of the image, but you can see the image forming or something behind it?
1:06:32 K: What, sir?
1:06:33 DB: One can see the mind has no specific image but a sense of a movement which forms images.
1:06:38 K: I haven’t quite understood.
1:06:43 DB: Instead of seeing a definite image, one can see a movement that is creating the image…
1:06:59 K: Yes, yes.
1:07:02 Q: We have to ask what is the substance of the mind.
1:07:08 K: The substance of the mind is its content.
1:07:13 Q: Those would surely be the fragments built from the substance.
1:07:19 K: Put it any way you like, sir. We come to the basic thing which is, can the mind see this fragmentary movement of images?
1:07:30 Q: If you are using your whole mind to see the images, then surely there is no room for the images if you are using your whole mind?
1:07:39 There is no room left for images to be.
1:07:42 K: No, no. Be careful what you say. Are you saying the whole mind is free of images?
1:07:48 MZ: The whole mind is making images.
1:07:54 K: The whole mind is making images.
1:07:56 Q: You said that you must use your whole mind to see the images, every part of it. If you do that…
1:08:02 K: No, I said can you, your mind observe, see or feel, hear the movement of images?
1:08:18 The movement that creates the images, not separate images, but the movement, the activity, the energy, the machinery that creates images?
1:08:33 Q: Well, it can see the alternation between imagery and the real objective world.
1:08:42 K: Of course.
1:08:43 Q: So there is something which exists without images when the world is being seen.
1:08:48 K: Yes, sir. I mean I can see the trees, I can see the politician and so on, I don’t have to have an image about them.
1:08:57 Q: So who is seeing them when there is no image?
1:09:02 K: Who is seeing them?
1:09:03 Q: Who is seeing the objective world when there is no imagery?
1:09:08 K: Those are the facts. There is Mr Heath, etc., etc., they are facts.
1:09:18 Q: Let’s be more simple. Just a flower. One sees a flower, there is no imagery. If there is imagery the flower goes.
1:09:27 K: Of course.
1:09:29 Q: So this which contains both images and the flower is greater than either.
1:09:39 K: Wait a minute, sir. Are you saying, are you asking me can you look at a flower without the image?
1:09:48 Q: No, I am not asking you. I am saying you can.
1:09:50 K: You can. Wait, wait. I want to be quite sure. I want to be quite sure that I can look at a flower without an image.
1:09:59 Q: Well, by close observation it is clear that you cannot see a flower if there is an image.
1:10:10 K: That is clear.
1:10:12 Q: That’s quite clear. Therefore as everybody sees a flower there must be fragments, fragmentary moments in their minds when there is no image, K: Maybe, yes.
1:10:26 Maybe. I don’t know. I know only for myself.
1:10:29 Q: Well, yes, reducing it to oneself. So that one knows that there is some ground, something more original than either the imagery or the real flower seen.
1:10:45 It is not knowledge as imagery, it is knowledge as actual state.
1:10:52 K: Sir, I look at the flower with knowledge, or without knowledge.
1:10:56 Q: Without knowledge.
1:10:58 K: With image or without image. Are you saying, sir, that this seeing without the image is a totally different factor?
1:11:12 Q: Supervening factor.
1:11:13 K: Supervening – that is – why do you use that word, sir?
1:11:24 Q: I am trying to use a word which joins the two things under one common ground.
1:11:34 Q: Are you suggesting that there is one part that sees clearly, and one part that makes images?
1:11:48 Q: I am suggesting that one part does both, but it is in a different state when it is doing both.
1:11:52 K: But it is still the mind that sees.
1:11:53 Q: Yes.
1:11:55 K: The mind that sees without the image, and the same mind sees with the image.
1:12:01 Q: Yes.
1:12:03 K: The central factor there is the mind.
1:12:07 Q: The essential point there is that there is something which can see without images.
1:12:16 K: Yes. But can I see without images my relation with another who has hurt me, without the image?
1:12:28 That is the…
1:12:29 Q: Yes.
1:12:30 K: And can the mind see the movement that has created this image between you and me, and so on?
1:12:43 The movement, not you and me.
1:12:48 Q: No, the actual movement within one’s psyche.
1:12:55 K: Yes. That means can the mind observe without fragmentation, without fragments.
1:13:12 Can the mind – is our mind non-fragmented to look?
1:13:19 I think we can put it. Is intelligence non-fragmentation?
1:13:41 Have we come to an impasse?
1:13:46 MZ: When you use the word ‘intelligence’ are you speaking of a capability of the mind which is not involved in this image-making?
1:13:58 K: Yes, obviously.
1:13:59 MZ: Something the mind can do, an action.
1:14:00 K: Yes. Which means can the mind observe without the observer, who is the image-maker?
1:14:11 Can the mind observe the movement, the total movement, not the image, but the movement itself without the observer?
1:14:27 That means, can the mind be aware only of the movement?
1:14:37 Not as the observer and the observed, but only the movement.
1:14:43 DB: That means also the movement that is able to make images.
1:14:49 K: Yes, of course, of course.
1:14:58 Q: Is it something like looking in different directions?
1:15:08 K: No, madam. It’s much more complicated. Look, you see the whole problem is – put it differently – can the mind observe without any movement in itself?
1:15:31 Can I look at you, who have hurt me, without any movement?
1:15:36 Q: Do you mean thought?
1:15:40 K: Yes, thought – no, no. Thought, image, the remembrance of hurt, all that. All that is movement.
1:15:58 And we say that movement is time, going from here to there, physically, or psychologically, is movement, from this to that.
1:16:12 Now, can the mind see its own movement?
1:16:26 You know, this has been one of the factors in meditation – sorry to go to something else.
1:16:39 This is the fact which the Zen Buddhists have tried to do.
1:16:50 The word ‘Zen’ comes from the Sanskrit word Dhyanum, and as the Chinese couldn’t pronounce ‘Dhy’ they reduced it to Z, Zen it became in Japan.
1:17:04 Which is to make the mind through a certain series of shocks and disciplines completely stop the movement.
1:17:19 Right, sir, you know something about it. That’s one, they have tried to do that. In India they have tried to control it, control the movement of thought and its image and all that, and they have said the controller is the higher-self.
1:17:50 And therefore the higher-self is still part of the thinking, invented by thought, because that has not been able to stop the movement without control.
1:18:03 You follow, sir? So they had to invent an outside agency, the higher-self, to control the lower-self and all the rest of that.
1:18:17 And in the West it is – you will correct me please – in the West it has been measurement, all thought is measurement and you cannot exist without measurement.
1:18:39 Thought must function always, it can never be quiet.
1:18:48 Therefore identify yourself with Christ, with Saints – you follow? – that is the image.
1:19:00 So there it is, the whole picture. Now, we are asking something entirely different from all that.
1:19:12 We are asking, can the mind see the movement totally – all the effects, the changes, the image-making, the interaction between the images, the whole movement of image-making, not the images it has produced, but the movement of images, the machinery that makes.
1:19:42 That means the mind itself is the machinery. Right, sir? Can the mind see that?
1:19:58 See that in the sense without the observer, the observer being the past, which means again time.
1:20:12 You see the complications of it? Therefore can the mind see its movement?
1:20:24 DB: Would you say that the mind really tends to – the movement is the mind attempting to establish order of its own – security and order are the same thing?
1:20:48 K: Of course, of course.
1:20:49 DB: But the mind senses its own disorder and is trying to establish order, and if the mind does not move the question is, the mind tries to move to it to establish order and creates disorder.
1:21:05 K: Disorder. Quite.
1:21:07 DB: And now therefore the mind has to see all that.
1:21:08 K: Sir, see only disorder, nothing else.
1:21:12 DB: Only what?
1:21:13 K: Disorder.
1:21:14 DB: Only the disorder.
1:21:16 K: Nothing else.
1:21:17 DB: Only the fact of disorder.
1:21:20 K: And how you see it matters. Whether you see it as an observer seeing disorder, and therefore contradictory, duality, division, conflict, suppression, control, image, all that.
1:21:37 Or do you see only disorder? And when you see disorder without the observer, is there disorder? You follow, sir?
1:21:46 DB: The observer is the disorder.
1:21:58 K: That’s just it.
1:22:17 Can my mind look at disorder, look at this movement which creates disorder, images and all that?
1:22:32 Which means can my mind observe the movement, and the observation can only take place when there is total silence, otherwise it can’t see.
1:22:52 Can the mind be totally still without any compulsion, without reward, without the desire to be silent and so on, and so on – absolutely silent?
1:23:14 Not induced silence.
1:23:28 Q: It would seem that something, thing, things happen in the situation, or in the brain, even though you are silent.
1:23:56 But you don’t become involved, you don’t make something, or find anything with either image or – it is not producing either a need or a purpose.
1:24:23 K: There is no motive. Are you saying, sir, is this what you are saying: thought functions only for a purpose and with a motive?
1:24:39 Q: Yes, that thought – yes.
1:24:56 (laughter) K: You see the brain through a motive of security is trapped in illusion.
1:25:37 And without a motive it is lost. So can the mind be still without any motive?
1:25:58 Which means can the mind function, think, work, without a motive?
1:26:11 And therefore supremely efficient, you follow? You see, sirs, this has been one of the great problems, as far as I see among human beings, the desire to live in order, that order brought about by discipline, by moral control and so on, and one observes that has produced much more disorder.
1:27:15 So the mind says, what is order, where is order?
1:27:27 So there is no order in the world, therefore it rejects the world – you follow? – and seeks an order, in super world, in super consciousness and all the rest of it.
1:27:42 Because it can only function most efficiently, objectively, where there is complete order.
1:27:51 You can see that for oneself. So it invents an order which is the image.
1:28:06 Right? Whether it’s neurotic or whatever it is, and it gets caught in it and that becomes another problem and so on.
1:28:20 So seeing all this very, very – you know, looking at it without wanting to change it, without wanting to go beyond it, just seeing it.
1:28:40 The capacity to see it wholly is intelligence, obviously.
1:28:48 And that intelligence will function naturally in relationship where there is no image.
1:29:01 Q: Are you saying then that all, beside the physical, also the creation of the Masters etc., is an image?
1:29:25 K: The Masters?
1:29:27 Q: Besides the physical, the Masters, non-physical beings.
1:29:31 K: There he is, sir, ask the experts!
1:29:36 Q: Then those are all images?
1:29:41 K: Sir, we are now concerned only with one thing.
1:29:50 Can we live in relationship without conflict?
1:29:59 And that means without images.
1:30:09 And that is the only thing that can produce peace in the world. When you’re not an American, I am not an Indian, Catholic, Protestant, etc., etc., which are all images.
1:30:30 And to live in peace is the most practical thing, which is to live without images.
1:30:42 The other is total disorder. Look what has happened, for God’s sake! So can my mind observe the machinery?
1:30:57 And to observe that machinery the mind must be completely, wholly still.
1:31:14 That means non-fragmented.
1:31:15 Q: So we are hoping there is a still point in the twirling world of our brain.
1:31:26 K: What, sir?
1:31:29 Q: We are looking for a still point in the turning, whirling world of our mind.
1:31:37 A still point.
1:31:39 K: Ah, no. I understand what you are saying. Who is looking? We have come back to that awful question! When you say we look for the still point, or the image, who is it that is looking?
1:32:02 Unless you answer that there is no still point.
1:32:11 What is the time, sir?
1:32:13 Q: Seven minutes past.
1:32:15 K: Five past five. Yes, sir?
1:32:17 Q: This goes right back to the beginning actually. It is the whole business of discussion that worries me for this reason. I understand discussion is not a throwing around of ideas, that we are moving together, exploring together. And I also understand that there must be a central point – in this case, you. Now, we say what we have to say or our contribution to the discussion is towards you.
1:32:48 K: No.
1:32:51 Q: Well it appears this way.
1:32:59 K: Ah, no, sir. There is no me, sir, because, look, he started, forgive me for correcting you – he started with saying, asking the whole nature and the structure of power, authority.
1:33:17 That’s not me.
1:33:19 Q: No. But what I mean you are saying ‘We are coming to that later’ – which implies that…
1:33:30 K: What?
1:33:31 Q: You very often say, ‘Wait, don’t bring that up.’ K: Ah, because on that particular point Mr Hammond raised.
1:33:44 It doesn’t mean that I am the centre of this universe or this group – for God’s sake!
1:33:50 Q: But it seems as though you are leading us.
1:33:52 K: Not in the least. The ordinary logic of observing, reasoning has come to this point.
1:34:01 Not my reasoning, or your reasoning – reasoning together we have come to the point.
1:34:06 Q: You are assuming that Krishnaji comes into this room with his mind made up with a ready-made lecture and he is leading you all along until he gets to his point.
1:34:15 He is not. He is doing the same as we are all doing. He is trying to feel it – can’t you feel him feeling his way? He doesn’t sometimes know the answer, he says, ‘Stop, stop, think about this’, because he’s feeling his way the same as everybody else.
1:34:21 HT: I understand that. But why does the microphone then point to Krishnaji and why…
1:34:32 K: Oh no. Come on, sir. The microphone is pointing because they want to keep a record of this.
1:34:44 Q: But it could be…
1:34:45 K: It is there – it is up there too! (laughter) SB: This is all part of our image-making.
1:34:48 K: Absolutely.
1:34:49 HT: We go into a classroom and we teach, and it seems to me sometimes that we are conspiring to make an image in the classroom – there is the conspiracy, five or six of us are saying we will agree that this image...
1:35:21 K: No, sir, no indeed. When the speaker says all images are illusory – why are you making images?
1:35:31 Q: Sir, my question really was I cannot agree with Mrs S that I assume you are coming in here to give us a lecture.
1:35:50 This is not so, but the conflict appears to me to exist, an authority appears to be set up.
1:35:55 K: No, sir, I can’t accept that because…
1:35:56 Q: I am not saying you are, sir.
1:35:59 K: Nobody is saying that. On the contrary, we said look what has happened in India, look what has happened in China, Japan, looking at all that reasonably, sanely, we say look how human beings live in illusion.
1:36:18 That is not yours, or mine, it is so.
1:36:23 Q: We can’t prevent you from having an illusory image of Krishnaji.
1:36:27 DB: You could say this that if you say something you may be pointing out something that is a fact for anybody to see, but that doesn’t mean as authority but just simply will somebody see this fact.
1:36:42 K: Yes, of course, sir. Sir, I say look at this palm – it doesn’t make me the authority.
1:36:53 I am saying do look.
1:36:58 Q: I originally raised the question yesterday because I had circumstances in which I felt this barrier raised by authority, perhaps I can now say that through sitting here on a couple of occasions I have felt no sense of authority whatsoever, and thereby have gained in clarity.
1:37:35 K: We had better stop. It’s 5 o’clock. We meet next Saturday, some of us at least.