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BR73DSG3 - Duality, envy and sorrow
Brockwood Park, UK - 6 October 1973
Discussion with Small Group 3



0:00 This is the 3rd small group discussion with J. Krishnamurti at Brockwood Park 1973.
0:10 What shall we talk over together?
0:37 Shall we go on with what we were talking about last weekend?
0:51 Questioner: Yes. Krishnamurti: Do you remember any of it? I don’t!
0:55 Q: You had reached a point in talking to us about watching the movement of mind and how that was taking place in time, and the mind must necessarily become quite still.
1:29 K: Let’s forget it, let’s begin something new, shall we?
1:37 What shall we talk about, or rather together?
1:41 Q: Could we talk about resistance, sir?
1:43 K: Resistance? Come on, suggest something.
1:53 Q: How dualistic thought is.
1:58 K: How dualistic thought is.
2:07 Q: Perhaps we have to tie in with resistance the thought that we are the world and the world is us.
2:29 K: Shall we talk about, as it was suggested, why we always seem to function and live in duality.
2:41 Isn’t that it, sir? Would that be of interest and so on?
2:58 What do we mean by duality? And does duality exist at all?
3:13 And what is duality? The opposing contradictory desires with their opposite pulls and drives, the physiological opposites, man, woman, darkness and light, tall and short – surely we don’t mean that.
3:55 But we mean, don’t we, the duality in us that is constantly in battle with each other?
4:06 Pride, position, denying humility and so on.
4:24 Isn’t that it, sir? The ‘want’, and ‘not-want’, ‘what is’ and ‘what should be’, the whole psychological area in which apparently duality exists.
4:46 The ‘me’ and the ‘not me’, we and they. Push it, sirs. How does this come about?
5:06 What is its nature? Why is there this contradictory desire?
5:18 Help me out somebody.
5:23 Q: Well, sir, such is our lack of attention that we are pulled by any event one way, or another.
5:34 That seems to me one of the things.
5:40 K: Why does it happen, sir? What is the reason for it? If you say lack of attention, then we go off into some other…
5:53 Why is there in one these contradictory drives, urges?
6:06 The ideological and the factual.
6:09 Q: Is it because we compare, sir?
6:14 K: No. Just let’s examine, sir, let’s find out.
6:27 Would there be this contradictory and opposing desire if one understood the first desire?
6:41 I don’t know if I am conveying it. I love and also I hate, jealous and so on.
7:06 Is there an opposite to love?
7:16 Or the hates one feels, if one understood it completely, would that bring about a duality – the conflict between hate and non-hate?
7:43 And is it because that one cannot go beyond ‘what is’, or one doesn’t know, or one has not the energy or the capacity to go beyond ‘what is’, the mind invents ‘what is not'?
8:04 And the battle, conflict is between ‘what is’ and ‘what is not’.
8:09 Q: ‘What is not’ is the ideal.
8:12 K: Ideal, whatever it is, the opposite, the ideal, the ‘what should be’, and the perfect, the principle, the one truth – you follow? – all that.
8:24 Q: What does happen and so forth.
8:26 K: Yes, so forth. Now if the mind could understand and go beyond and above ‘what is’, then would there be duality?
8:38 SB: I can’t see that there really are opposites because the ‘what is’ is only what is, and then…
8:59 K: No, madam, I’m asking if the mind knew how to transcend ‘what is’, go beyond ‘what is’, would there be duality?
9:12 SB: But that is already – to try to answer that question is already making the duality.
9:23 K: No, no. Not quite. Look: I am a coward and the opposite to that is courage.
9:39 And all my culture has taught me that – strive, become what you are not.
9:51 You are cowardly, you must conquer that and become courageous.
9:58 Courage is the opposite of cowardly – I mean as it is understood.
10:06 SB: Agreed.
10:08 K: But – not ‘but’.
10:17 Would there be the whole principle and the structure of courage if the mind understood completely what it is to be cowardly?
10:38 Would there be the opposite at all? For me, there is no opposite in that sense. I object to it.
10:48 DB: Cowardice is an image and so is courage.
10:52 K: Both are images.
10:54 DB: Therefore they are not ‘what is’.
10:58 K: Yes, not ‘what is’. I am cowardly and education, culture, and the religious structure and the circus, everything says to me, ‘Be courageous’.
11:20 So my mind works on courage, tries to overcome cowardice, cover it up, suppress it, run away from it, do everything to be courageous.
11:35 Right? And so there is duality.
11:48 If the mind could understand ‘what is’, which is coward, being cowardly, would there be duality at all?
11:59 MS: Well being cowardly is an idea, there is no such thing as being cowardly.
12:08 Cowardly is a mental image that you have got about behaviour. They are all inventions.
12:14 K: Agreed, sir. But the image is so strong, as well as the image of courage is so strong.
12:20 GD: But surely, that’s not the whole story. I mean, there is a feeling of fear, and the world today is a terrible place to live in.
12:35 K: Absolutely, agreed, sir.
12:36 GD: One does see that terrible things can happen. Now some people face life much more courageously than others. The words are only labels for something which is really there. You can’t just get out of it by saying that courage is an image, cowardice is an image.
12:51 K: No, no. I am not trying to get out of it. I am trying to find out how to live in this world, not be caught in either; neither being a coward, nor courageous.
13:11 I don’t now if I am conveying anything at all?
13:17 Q: Is it that feeling – you know – if you don’t even use the word coward, call it afraid or whatever it is, there it is, but you want to conquer it with this thing which is – that’s it, isn’t it?
13:29 K: Yes.
13:31 Q: So I have to live with that.
13:34 K: No. I don’t want to live with that. I question, sir, whether there is duality at all.
13:48 I know there is man, woman and all that, we are not talking – psychologically, at that level, we are talking at the psychological level.
13:58 Q: Thought is all right there, I can deal with it technically.
14:05 K: Technically.
14:06 Q: Suddenly this other thing comes in.
14:07 K: Yes, that’s right.
14:08 Q: That’s the trouble.
14:10 K: Yes. So if I understood or if I had the energy, if the mind had energy sufficient enough to transform ‘what is’, then would it strive after its opposite?
14:32 Q: It wouldn’t be clinging to the image or the form.
14:38 Q: If it saw ‘what was’ there wouldn’t be any opposite.
14:49 K: Just a minute. Sir, we are investigating, we are not laying down.
14:57 Q: So that energy then deals with ‘what is’…
15:01 K: Look, sir, I have not the energy to transcend ‘what is’.
15:13 I am cowardly, stupid or whatever it is, I haven’t the energy to break through it, the mind hasn’t the energy to break through it.
15:23 And how is it to have that energy to transcend it? I am putting the question differently. It is wasting its energy in the pursuit of the opposite.
15:47 And my whole education is that; the wastage of energy, hoping through that I will transcend or go beyond ‘what is’.
16:02 Q: That’s throwing away the energy.
16:04 K: This is what the mind is caught in. It is conditioned to accept the opposite as a means of transcending ‘what is’, and the whole world is based on this; Ireland, Catholic, Protestant.
16:28 Now, is it possible to have that energy which will transcend ‘what is’ and then the problem of duality is non-existent.
16:43 GD: I’m sorry I don’t really understand what you mean by transcending ‘what is’.
16:50 K: All right, I won’t even use the word transcending.
16:58 Going beyond it. Sir, I am selfish, one is selfish.
17:06 I don’t know how to put this. And we have been taught to be unselfish. There is duality immediately.
17:22 Can the mind push aside selfishness without using the ideology of unselfishness, will it have enough energy to dissolve the centre which is selfish, without invoking the opposite which is unselfishness, service, help others, forget yourself, and all that?
18:00 I don’t know if I am making the thing clear. At least it’s clear for me. It’s rather difficult to put it into words. I’ll try to put it into words. Because where there is opposite, selfish and unselfishness, there must be conflict, between the two there must be conflict.
18:30 And to me, personally, conflict psychologically is utterly stupid, waste of time, waste of energy.
18:39 And how is the mind to be free of selfishness without the least effort?
18:53 The moment I introduce effort into it, it is the effort of duality, to become something else.
19:10 The image I have of selfishness, which has been given to me from childhood, through education, through the culture I live in, through religions, through books, everything, that image I have created, that image is the ‘me’.
19:34 And the ‘me’ says, ‘I must not be this, I must be that image’.
19:42 That image is the ‘me’, essentially.
19:45 Q: Does one have to be quite content with what one is then?
19:53 K: No. We’ll go into it a little bit. So I am just saying to myself, how am I, how is the mind to be free of this centre as the ‘me’, the selfishness, without that lever with which generally the ‘me’ is pushed out?
20:27 Whether it is God, whether it is an idea, whether it is an image.
20:35 I – my mind refuses to be in conflict.
20:43 It says it is too stupid to be in conflict.
20:52 If I am in conflict in this house, with the people, I walk out. I don’t want to be in conflict. Now, can the mind be free of the self, the selfishness, all that is involved in it, without the conflict of an idea, the image, or introducing a new image, which is a new conditioning and so we further bring about conflict, can the mind be free of this egocentric activity without the least effort?
21:41 Q: But Krishnaji, that would really mean the mind must stop operating. Because the mind as we know it…
21:50 K: I don’t know what it means. We are going to find out. I don’t know what it will lead to but I am going to find out.
21:58 Q: There are three things there: there is me, the selfish, or whatever it is, there is two, I don’t want to be selfish, and the third one is can I not be this selfish person without all this effort.
22:12 K: No, no. I don’t have the image of not being selfish.
22:21 I have only one problem, not two problems.
22:28 The only problem that this person has is: is it possible to be free of that selfishness which creates such mischief?
22:43 That’s all. Not how to become unselfish, that becomes another problem.
22:51 Q: Yes, that’s different. In the origin of the act of putting aside the selfishness…
23:02 K: No, no. I see – I am sorry I took selfishness, it’s a very complex thing.
23:14 Q: Ambitions.
23:16 K: Greed, envy, ambition – envy, it is the same thing.
23:27 Envy. Can my mind be free of the desire which expresses itself in envy?
23:45 Not introducing another problem of changing envy into non-envy.
23:58 I see the changing of envy into a non-envy is a wastage of time because it involves conflict, it involves suppression of ‘what is’, and so on.
24:15 So the opposite doesn’t exist, at least for me, for the person who is speaking. So he says, ‘I have only one problem, which is can the mind free itself – whatever word one may use – to be free of envy?’ Have I made my question clear?
24:45 SB: Yes, but it seems still like a duality because I don’t understand what is envy and I want to be free of it.
25:00 K: No, no. I’ll show you what envy is. Envy: I envy the man who has a big car. I envy the man who has got better brains than I have. I envy the man who can talk, paint, a dozen things.
25:17 SB: That, yes…
25:18 K: That’s all I am talking of. I am envious of the man who has power. And I see what envy does in the world, objectively I see what is happening through envy.
25:42 The political envy, the politicians who prevent – you know, all that. And the envy of the religious organisations, the envy of the gurus – ‘I am a better guru than you are’ – and so on and so on and so on.
25:59 And the envy of the followers of their gurus, all that.
26:07 Now, can the mind be free of that? – not free in the sense become something else. I don’t know. Surely that’s clear.
26:18 GD: Sir, doesn’t this involve staying with it without losing courage?
26:26 K: That’s what we are going to find out, sir.
26:36 I am going – we must find out – here is the problem, given problem: I have this problem.
26:48 How does my mind deal with it without coming into conflict with it?
26:56 That’s the fundamental thing which I have to understand.
27:05 The mind doesn’t want to be in conflict with envy because it says if I am in conflict I am in conflict only because I have an idea that I should not be.
27:19 And becoming what I should not be is another form of conditioning.
27:26 Q: Another waste of energy.
27:30 K: Another form. So, now what am I to do? You discuss it. What am I to do? I know all the tricks. Envy is a word and I associate that word with that feeling which I have called envy, and the word is not the thing, the image is not the fact.
28:00 But there is the fact that I feel I would like to have a yacht or a marvellous car, or this or God knows whatever.
28:10 Q: May I ask, if it’s not going off the track about motivation.
28:21 K: Motive. Right, sir. What is my motive to go beyond envy? I have no motive.
28:32 Q: The reason why.
28:34 K: I see what is happening. I don’t have to have a motive. I see what is happening. I see what people are doing through envy.
28:48 You know, in different forms, in the most crudest forms, in the most subtlest forms, what are the activities, politically, economically, socially, religiously and in relationship, I see this map of envy.
29:12 Just observe it. And I say, ‘yes, I am that, I have got that. I have got all the potential ugliness of envy’.
29:25 Don’t use the word ‘ugly’, that’s an opposite. So my problem then is: can the mind resolve this envy without the least effort?
29:41 DB: The first question is if that is possible, in general one feels from one’s conditioning that that is impossible, we are conditioned to effort.
29:57 K: Ah! I refuse to use effort.
30:09 Observing logically, reasonably I see if I make an effort to be free, or to put aside envy, there is a motive, the motive is to be something other than ‘what is’, and the conflict involved in becoming different from ‘what is’, I see all that is useless.
30:39 DB: Well, that doesn’t immediately prove the possibility of the other.
30:46 K: I am going to find out. I know only one thing. I have been brought up from childhood to suppress envy and become something else.
31:04 And I see the futility of that, at the end of my life I am still envious, though I have suppressed it, disciplined myself, controlled, it comes out at moments when I see something lovely which I want, I am full of that envy.
31:25 So is it possible to be free of envy without the least effort?
31:35 Q: If I put this question to myself seriously, won’t there be something else that I will see?
31:46 K: Ah! The moment you say will there be something more…
31:52 Q: No, I meant that as I have always been trying to invoke the opposite and quite clearly it has never worked.
32:05 K: Therefore finished.
32:08 Q: Yes.
32:09 Q: I am becoming one with the envy.
32:12 K: I am becoming one with the envy. Is there a ‘me’ who is different from envy? To become or identify myself with envy. Envy is me. I am envy. I don’t have to identify myself with it, or accept it, it is so.
32:42 So I am stuck with this problem. Before I have exercised effort, which involves suppression, control, escaping from envy.
33:04 All that involved effort. I have been used to that. My tradition, culture says that’s the only way.
33:16 And I see it doesn’t resolve it, it doesn’t solve the problem. Therefore I won’t go in that direction at all, it’s finished.
33:30 But yet I am envious at the end of it. Now how is the mind to resolve this problem?
33:41 Q: Is it possible to withdraw the moral value, or moral judgement of these qualities you are discussing, envy, courage, bravery, and begin afresh?
33:55 K: That’s what we are trying to do.
34:01 Q: Without moral judgement.
34:03 K: That’s just it, sir. Moral judgement implies, doesn’t it, duality.
34:13 And I am – the mind is caught with this feeling. There is no moral judgement, there is no condemnatory attitude or explanatory or justification, but it says, look there is envy.
34:29 MZ: Then why would that be a problem if there were no moral attached to it?
34:36 You’d just be envious.
34:40 K: Wait. Because I see what it has done in the world. I see what it does in me without bringing morality into it.
34:53 MZ: It is painful.
34:55 K: No, not painful. I see it objectively what it is doing in the world.
35:00 Q: Destructive.
35:02 K: Destructive, from the Pope down, all the way up and down, what it’s doing in the world.
35:11 And so I am part of the world, the world is me, so I see the fact is this exists.
35:21 And tell me what to do. Let’s talk it over. Is it possible, first of all, for a mind that has been so trained, so disciplined, so educated in effort, for such a mind to see the futility of such effort?
35:54 When it sees that, then this problem we can tackle. Until we see the other we can’t come to this.
36:00 Q: The seeing is the ending of it.
36:07 K: I don’t know. Do we see the futility, not intellectually but actually see how dangerous, how futile is this effort to transform envy into something else?
36:26 SB: The difficulty seems not to be the envy but the effort.
36:35 K: I am leaving effort alone for the moment. Effort to transform ‘what is’ into something else.
36:44 Q: The problem seems to lie in what we call seeing.
36:53 What we call seeing is not really seeing in depth.
36:57 K: Not only in depth but seeing what is happening in the world. And all the politicians – you know what is happening, sir – the strikes. You follow? The destruction of all this that’s going on around us.
37:17 The tremendous land owners and there are those who have nothing and so on and so on.
37:29 Do I see that intellectually, or actually?
37:40 Do I have an insight into what is going on – we will use the term ‘envy’ for the moment – which divides people and all that, have I any insight into all that, and therefore that very insight dispels from my mind this effort to try not to be envious and all that?
38:16 So I have only this problem then: the feeling of envy.
38:22 SB: Because there is the ‘I’.
38:25 K: No, my lady, I understand that. That’s just a word when you say because there is the ‘I’, but that doesn’t solve the problem.
38:33 SB: No, but if one gets rid of the ‘I’.
38:38 K: Who is ‘I’ to get rid of the ‘I’? ‘I’ is the ‘I’. There is not – the observer is the observed, I mustn’t go into all that.
38:53 So I am left with this. What am I to do?
39:00 Q: Then surely we have got to see we haven’t got the insight.
39:05 K: Ah, no, sir. I mean to say you haven’t got insight when you see all that is going on round you? No?
39:13 Q: Not in depth.
39:14 K: Even superficially, or an inch deep, I mean you see what is happening, the murderous things that are going on.
39:24 Q: Some of us do see this. We feel that our envy, our nationalism, has produced this world. It’s us.
39:33 K: Yes, sir. Do we see the results of this envy – results, what is happening in the world?
39:44 And therefore I say envy is a really cruel thing, whether it’s the rich or the poor, it is a cruel thing.
39:55 And I am envious at the end of saying all this, seeing what the world is, I am envious, I still want the blasted something or other.
40:07 I want to be a perfect master, I want to be a perfect – God knows some stupid thing.
40:13 Q: I have seen it. I want to end it now.
40:16 K: I know. I am left with that. So I say to myself, what am I to do with the thing which I have, which is envy? I see what envy has done in the world and I see that envy exists in me, relatively.
40:33 Envy exists, whether it is little or much, it is still the same. So is it possible for the mind to be free of it without the least friction?
40:47 Without the least effort. Because I have seen around me the people who have made effort, and they are still at the end of it, when they are on their death bed they are envious.
41:01 DB: Maybe we have to see what the actual movement of envy is, that is, we’ve been discussing its results so far, which are already some distance down the thing.
41:40 K: Yes. What is?
41:45 DB: Some distance down the stream from the source.
41:46 K: Quite. What is envy?
41:48 Q: Envy is an action.
41:58 K: I see a beautiful thing and I want it.
42:03 Q: Envy is a thought.
42:07 K: Look at it, sir. I see you are much more intelligent, bright, clever, efficient, you have lovely eyes and so on.
42:19 I want all that. That’s envy. When I compare myself with somebody, it is envy. Comparison, imitation, conformity, is envy. And we are caught in that.
42:31 Q: Sir, if someone was digging ditches, shall we say, and they compared themselves to someone else who had a better job obviously.
42:49 That would be envy again.
42:52 K: No, sir, we went into that. If you are doing a better physical job, I copy it because it is more efficient.
43:02 There is no envy involved in it. You drive a car better than I do and I say I must learn.
43:14 In that learning there is no envy involved in it at all. But because you are efficient and you have a bigger house through your efficiency, I want to have the same kind of house.
43:29 So I want to become efficient, which is envy.
43:30 Q: Is it to do with the way we think of ourselves and think of other people?
43:39 K: Partly that isn’t it? Dr. Bohm asked what is the root of envy? Isn’t that it, sir? What is the movement of envy? How does it start? What is the foundation of it?
43:57 Q: We want to be at least equal to other people.
44:05 K: No. Envy, not equal only, but the feeling of it. What is the source of this feeling?
44:16 Q: Bliss.
44:22 K: Bliss? I am unhappy and I want bliss? Now what is the source of this envy?
44:40 Q: Well, one is my whole conditioning, I’ve been brought up like this.
44:46 K: No, no. Beyond. Sir, what is the source of it, from where does it arise?
44:51 SB: It arises in the mind.
44:55 K: Do look at it. You see you have got answers unfortunately, you don’t – please kindly investigate, look at it.
45:08 You have envies, haven’t you, of different kinds? How does it come? Is it because of your conditioning, education?
45:23 Maybe. Or is it – I don’t want to touch that yet, I am coming to it.
45:33 I want to go into it with you.
45:34 Q: I feel very shallow.
45:36 K: Not shallow, sir. I don’t want to condemn it – when you say shallow it is already… I want to find out what is the source of envy, how does it come about in my mind?
45:50 Q: If I have a strong sense of I, the sense that I must always be comparing and therefore having envy.
46:01 Isn’t it?
46:02 K: Not quite, sir. You are missing my point.
46:04 Q: You understand a deep inadequacy, a sense of insufficiency.
46:07 K: No, madam, you are missing my point. I just want to know how does it come?
46:14 Q: You see something and you want it.
46:19 K: Now stick to that, just hold a minute. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Please listen to what he said. He said, ‘I see something and I want it’. What is the process of that? I see that picture and I want it.
46:46 Q: Action.
46:49 Q: You form a qualitative image of it.
46:52 K: No. Ted, stick to something, investigate it, investigate it, don’t move away from it. They are all pushing. Just stick to one thing. He has asked a question, hold on a minute, sorry, I am not trying to stop you but just…
47:09 He said to me, he said to us, ‘I see something and I want it’.
47:17 How does that happen?
47:21 Q: I don’t know why I want it.
47:26 K: Wait, wait!
47:27 Q: If you see something and you want it, that means that you are not seeing what you are at that moment.
47:36 K: No, no, no, my dear chap. He said, ‘I see something and I want it’.
47:44 Q: Identification.
47:45 Q: I felt that I didn’t have it…
47:51 K: No, Ted, keep it much simpler, much more simple.
47:59 Q: I see something and it gives me pleasure.
48:03 SB: It seems as though…
48:04 K: I am not following you, so I’ll keep quiet. I want only one thing. Ted said, ‘I see something and I want it’. This is happening all the time. I see a carpet and I want it. I see a beautiful car, I want it. I see a man driving in a Rolls Royce – power, position, prestige – by Jove, I would like to be in his place.
48:33 Or I see a monk and I would like to be a monk. Now how does this desire arise?
48:46 Q: In thought.
48:47 K: Wait, sir! Wait, sir. Wait, please. How does it arise?
48:58 I see that man in that car driven by a chauffeur, you know, all that, grand or whatever it is, and I would like to be that.
49:17 Q: Because I do not have it.
49:18 K: Not yet, sir. Not because you do not have it. We are asking: how does that desire arise?
49:27 First I see the visual perception. Right, Ted? Visual perception, stimulation.
49:31 Q: And then it goes on.
49:35 K: Wait, wait, look at it.
49:44 Stimulation, the desire, the object of desire, the car, the man, the position.
49:56 Right? So there it is. Perception, contact, sensation, stimulation, desire. Now wait a minute. From then on it becomes envy. Right, sir? I see that man in a car; visual perception, and the sensation from that perception, all the thrill, you know, meeting people and dinners and everybody is saluting him, all that.
50:45 See what my mind has done. Perception, seeing, sensation and from that sensation the desire and the total imagination.
51:01 Wait! We are examining how it comes, not attention or inattention.
51:11 Right? Now, can the mind stop further than sensation?
51:23 I can’t help seeing the beauty of the autumnal leaves, or the beauty of a car, or the beauty of a mountain, the beauty of a picture, person, whatever it is.
51:37 But the desire arising and then all the flowering of that desire in fulfilment.
51:46 You understand? Now, can the mind stop at the moment of desire?
51:54 Q: What do you mean by sensation? You said, first you see, and then…
52:00 K: Sensation, sir. Don’t you have a sensation when you see that picture? ‘I wish I had it in my room.’ Q: That is emotion.
52:19 K: Sensation. Seeing, touching, the sensation, then desire, then wanting it in your room.
52:29 DB: Does the sensation follow the touching?
52:31 K: Or it may be the other way round. Seeing, touching, sensation and all the rest. Now, can the mind stop – can the mind not go any further than seeing, the sensation, the arising of desire and ending there?
52:56 Not all the business of it. I don’t know if I’m conveying it. Ted, do you see it, what I mean?
53:07 Q: You hold on to that sensation, that is what happens.
53:13 K: Ah! No, no. That is what I am saying, the moment you hold on then you are suppressing, conflict, duality.
53:23 Q: Just be able to observe.
53:32 Q: Sir, how does perception become envy?
53:36 K: How does perception become envy? I see that picture. Right? The picture is very pleasing and I want it in my room, it’s yours but I want to get it from you, I want it in my room.
53:57 There is envy. You have it and I haven’t got it. You have position and I have no position. You ride in a big car and I go by bus. I see this. See – you follow? Visually I see this. From that seeing, visual seeing, sensation arises, doesn’t it? I sit among dirty people and you sit in a comfortable car. And from there arises envy to have your car, a car like yours.
54:39 Q: But how does it arise?
54:44 K: How? What?
54:46 Q: There is a difference between seeing and...
54:48 K: Of course there is, that’s the whole point. There is a distance, or time lag, whatever you call it, between seeing and the fulfilment.
54:57 Yes, of course. But can the seeing, the sensation and the arising of desire, and not the flowering of desire, which is envy.
55:15 Q: The thought begins to work.
55:19 K: That’s right. That’s right. I didn’t want to put it that way because we enter into the whole area of thought, you follow, sir? I want to just stick to that one thing.
55:30 Q: What is the factor which says, stop and don’t go further?
55:38 K: Ah, what is the factor which says stop there, old boy, don’t go any further?
55:45 Q: Is it within the seeing? You see something and then the sensation, before desire flowers into something, there must be a factor which says, which puts that spontaneous natural break, as it were, if it does.
56:09 K: I’ll show it to you. We have understood the question – you have understood his question? What is the natural factor, or unnatural factor, which stops the flowering of desire?
56:21 What do you think?
56:22 Q: Because the past comes into this.
56:28 K: Ah! I won’t allow the past to come into it.
56:34 Q: No the past doesn’t come into this, then the seeing is different.
56:39 K: Look, I’ll show it to you, very simple, it is. Sorry, it may be complicated but it’s simple for me. I have seen what envy has done in the world – right? – the danger, the mischief, the confusion, the misery, the agony of all that, I have seen, seen visually, intellectually with my being, I have seen that.
57:12 And that factor of envy still remains in me because I am part of this blasted universe.
57:25 And I say to myself, ‘how does this envy arise?’ I have traced it.
57:33 Because I have seen, the mind has seen what envy has done in the world, the very intelligence of that perception is the operating factor which says, ‘that’s enough, old boy’.
57:47 It sees the futility of it. I don’t know if I am...?
57:55 Q: Intelligence is the factor that operates. Does it come into function when you are seeing? Or does it come to functioning when there is seeing and there is the sensation?
58:11 K: No, no, it’s always there. It’s there but you cannot help seeing the beauty of a picture or statue, or whatever it is, you can’t, it’s there.
58:25 And because intelligence is there also it doesn’t develop into anything more.
58:34 Q: The problem is not that simple because intelligence seems to function sometimes, and sometimes there is no intelligence at all.
58:43 K: Ah! That depends. That depends only when you haven’t seen the total mischief of envy.
58:50 DB: You say that necessarily awakens intelligence.
58:55 K: That’s the beginning of intelligence, of course, of course.
59:03 Q: There is another thing I want to ask, sir. You say…
59:08 K: It’s not me who is saying, we are discussing.
59:13 Q: I am envious, I can’t do anything about envy.
59:16 K: Ah, wait a minute, I don’t say that.
59:18 Q: No, no. When you say, ‘I am envy’, you are saying that if you do anything about it the dual process begins.
59:30 K: Yes. Wait, wait. You are missing my point. When you say I am envy, you must have seen the observer is the observed, there is no duality in saying, ‘I am envy’.
59:49 There is no duality there at all, only the understanding or the realisation the observer is the observed.
59:59 That’s an absolute fact.
1:00:00 Q: When you say it is an absolute fact, it is only so when intelligence is functioning.
1:00:11 K: No. You see, no. You see you are putting intelligence before perception.
1:00:20 Look, I see envy is not different from the person who thinks he is envious.
1:00:33 This is a fact. When I am angry I am not different from anger. I am anger. That perception is not total intelligence, it’s just perception.
1:00:50 Q: I feel in that there is an intensity.
1:00:52 K: Call it what you like. Perception takes place. Now I have – the mind has perceived looking at the world what envy has done.
1:01:09 The mind has an insight into this terrible world.
1:01:14 DB: This is a kind of intelligence but not the total intelligence.
1:01:21 K: That’s right, sir. I don’t know if the others heard it?
1:01:24 DB: It’s a kind of intelligence but not the total intelligence that can change things.
1:01:32 Q: Even in dualistic states there is a certain kind of perception. It is not entirely without perception.
1:01:38 K: Of course not. But that perception is distorted perception.
1:01:42 Q: Right, right. Again what is factor which helps a perception which is dualistic ending and the perception which is not dualistic functioning?
1:01:57 That is the crux of the problem in all these things.
1:02:01 K: No. I am sorry, forgive me. We went through this. Look, sir: I see the world as it is, I see what the world is through envy – please follow this a little bit, I want to be clear myself, that’s why.
1:02:26 And what the world is through envy, monstrous and all the rest of it. I am part of that world, the world is me, I don’t separate myself from the world, I am all that, not verbally but in my feeling, in my real depth – I am that.
1:02:58 And the problem: how is my mind which is that world, made up of envy, without bringing about duality, which is involved in effort, suppression, imitation and all the rest of it, how is that mind, which is constructed in envy, how is that to be free of that quality without effort being brought into it?
1:03:34 Where there is effort there is duality, the observer and observed.
1:03:41 I don’t bring in intelligence, nothing, only that.
1:03:48 And Dr Bohm asked: how does this envy arise, what are its roots?
1:03:56 We went into that. Seeing, perception, contact, sensation, desire, and allowing that desire to flower.
1:04:12 And my question was: can the mind come to that point of desire, looking is a form of desire, end there, naturally and not let it flower?
1:04:33 Am I asking something too stupid, something which is my peculiar kink?
1:04:42 Q: There is a great deal of subtlety and difficulty in this because when you say something which is natural to end, what brings about that ending again, is it a moral…
1:05:02 K: No, I refuse to enter morality into it.
1:05:06 Q: Is it an intuitive perception?
1:05:08 K: No, I refuse to enter into the morality of this ending. I see it. What is the morality involved?
1:05:17 Q: So it is a simple perception? I see it.
1:05:20 K: I see. I feel, I am that. There is no moral justification, or moral condemnation.
1:05:28 Q: No, not in that sense. Morality is not a condemnation or justification, it is something in which – it is part of your structure.
1:05:41 K: Narayan, you are making it too complicated for me. I just want to start, I just want to understand this one principal issue, which is: can ‘what is’ be changed or transformed, or gone beyond, above and all that, without a fraction of any effort, without any friction?
1:06:05 Q: It seems that the effort takes place after it gets into the motion of thought and…
1:06:15 K: All the rest follows.
1:06:17 Q: Krishnaji, could we look at this point where the desire comes onto the threshold but doesn’t flower?
1:06:29 Actually what happens, not intellectually, actually what happens in each one of us where at this point, there is one thing quite clear that does happen, we don’t want to do anything about it.
1:06:44 K: No, sir, not ‘we don’t want’.
1:06:46 Q: Where there is an actual desire.
1:06:48 K: Sir, let’s keep this very simple. I see that picture, the sensation, the stimulation, that picture has stimulated the desire to have it.
1:07:02 Q: I want the desire more than anything else.
1:07:06 K: Yes. But you see, if you want more than anything else there is no problem.
1:07:14 Q: It is only in retrospect.
1:07:17 K: It is only when you see what envy does and what it has done in the world. If you say, ‘Well, I want that picture, my God I am going to get it’. Then there is no problem. The problem arises only when you see what envy has done. If you don’t see it, well, let’s go and play golf and get on with it.
1:07:40 Q: The tycoons have no problem.
1:07:43 K: They have lots of them.
1:07:45 Q: But not this problem.
1:07:46 K: To keep what they have! No, don’t let’s go into all that. So.
1:07:54 SB: I don’t understand really what you mean by flowering of the desire because that doesn’t seem where the envy comes in.
1:08:09 K: Yes, my lady, look, I’ll show you. Desire. I see, seeing, sensation, with stimulation, sensation, then desire begins. Then it says, ‘I must have it’.
1:08:23 SB: Is that what you mean by flowering? I didn’t understand.
1:08:28 K: ‘I must have it, I must struggle for it, I must steal money to get it’.
1:08:31 SB: That doesn’t seem like flowering. It is a conclusion I draw from this.
1:08:37 K: It is. Enlargement of that. A flowering of anything. Flowering of my anger. So I am left only with that problem and nothing else.
1:08:55 MZ: You spoke of intelligence coming in after perception.
1:09:01 K: I didn’t want to bring that in because – unfortunately somebody forced me into it.
1:09:09 Then we’ll go off at a tangent. Now what am I to do? What has actually taken place? Let’s come to that. What has actually taken place is that the mind has seen the enormous danger of envy.
1:09:36 Right? Not as a verbal picture or as an idea but an actual fact.
1:09:50 And I am still at the end of it, seeing that in the world, being part of the world, and I am the world, that envy remains in me.
1:10:04 How is the mind to go beyond it? What has taken place in the mind? Let’s begin with that. What has taken place in the mind?
1:10:20 Q: Isn’t it always about another person that we are envious?
1:10:27 We see something beautiful, we are not envious of that so much as of the person who owns it. It always ends with another person.
1:10:32 K: Yes, yes. I am not envious of Tutankhamen’s – but who has it.
1:10:45 What has actually taken place in mind? I have seen the danger, the mischief, the utter cruelty of envy, and my mind has this disease of envy, and it sees also that conflict in any form is equally destructive, conflict in any form, with envy.
1:11:30 Conflict implies the one who is the observer and the observed, the controller and the controlled.
1:11:39 So it sees that is not true. So now what has happened to the mind? Before it wasted energy by saying, rationalising envy, before it said, ‘Envy is necessary for progress’ and so on and so on.
1:12:07 Which has all been a wastage of energy. Now the mind has not wasted that energy, and it has not wasted the energy in the division of conflict between the observer and the observed.
1:12:25 Right? It sees they are one, therefore it’s no longer wasting its energy in conflict. So now it has not wasted its energy in the traditional way.
1:12:44 It has got energy.
1:12:51 Now that energy is observing this envy – not ‘observing’ – that energy is there, and that energy can brush envy aside completely, there is no problem.
1:13:15 I don’t know if you meet this. If I have the energy to climb a mountain it’s not a problem, the problem comes in only when I am rather weak and unwilling and lazy, and all the rest of it.
1:13:37 Got it? So it is the lack of that quality of energy that turns to the opposite and therefore brings in a series of endless conflicts.
1:14:06 The sermon is ended!
1:14:10 GD: Sir, that really is our problem that it is not only envy but the more one looks at oneself one is absolutely overweighed by these things which one knows, if one lets one’s mind go into them, they are destructive.
1:14:27 Then one becomes very negative, there is a real danger of becoming overburdened.
1:14:38 K: Of course, of course, sir. But we start with wanting to change ‘what is’.
1:14:50 Q: (Inaudible) K: That is the highest form of – I don’t know what to call it.
1:15:00 Can the mind remain with ‘what is’ without any movement away from it?
1:15:06 GD: Can you give us any help on that, because it is the great difficulty – everybody whom one talks to and everything is helping one to move away.
1:15:25 K: Quite, quite.
1:15:30 GD: From this burden, from seeing what is happening in oneself.
1:15:34 K: You see, sir, look at another problem, it’s rather interesting. There is sorrow in the world, apart from envy there is tremendous sorrow in the world, the killing that’s going on, Jew, Arab, Muslim, Hindu, Catholic, Protestant, Black and White – you follow? – the throwing bombs – the tremendous agony that’s going on.
1:16:08 And we generally take sides.
1:16:17 And there is this sorrow in oneself.
1:16:24 Now, what is one to do? Go and change the politician system?
1:16:37 Throw more bombs? What is one to do?
1:16:55 Forget it and cultivate your own backyard? What is one to do with this sorrow?
1:17:09 Q: Change oneself.
1:17:17 K: I see people taking drugs, destroying themselves.
1:17:28 It is sorrow. I see people following gurus, and that is sorrow.
1:17:41 I see young people being destroyed by ideologies, that is sorrow and so on.
1:17:51 There is sorrow. How am I to deal with it, not only out there but in here?
1:18:02 Come on, sirs, discuss it.
1:18:11 This has been an age-old problem, this is not just a new invention of mine or yours. The Hindus, as far as I understand it, have said Karma.
1:18:24 They have said, it is their philosophy, that what you have sown you reap.
1:18:38 The meaning of that word means to act, and your actions are conditioned by past life, by previous acts.
1:18:52 You understand? The previous acts of yesterday, and also the previous acts of thousands of yesterdays, your past lives.
1:19:06 So there the cause of this sorrow is at the beginning.
1:19:14 You understand? And that’s their explanation and they are very happy with it. They say, ‘Yes, that is my lot, that is my Karma, that is my fate’.
1:19:34 And the Christians haven’t gone so deeply into the matter, they say, economic or political or national disaster, and superficial answers and they are satisfied with that.
1:19:52 And there is sorrow, what is one to do?
1:19:56 GD: But surely the traditional religious view is that if you can remain in this great emptiness and poverty of spirit but they all hint there is a great deal of…
1:20:12 K: I’ll show it to you in a minute. I don’t know what religions say. I have just come to that. What is my mind to do?
1:20:22 Q: First there is a tremendous feeling of despair in oneself. You have to deal with that.
1:20:32 K: No, no. The moment I bring in despair – why am I despairing? Because I don’t know what to do with it. Right? Wait, wait. I don’t know what to do with the thing, therefore I am in despair. If I knew what to do there is no despair. So despair is a factor of inefficiency. Sorry! Or of wanting – or not being able to solve the thing.
1:21:07 But if we know what to do there is neither hope nor despair. It’s finished.
1:21:13 Q: Are we talking about the same sorrow? And we are talking about – let’s assume I must get me right – whatever that means. But what about the rest of us?
1:21:22 K: No, no, no. I am talking of sorrow, sir. I have said that. They are killing each other. That is sorrow.
1:21:31 Q: Yes, exactly.
1:21:32 K: To me, that is sorrow.
1:21:33 Q: Yes, I see that.
1:21:34 K: I see young people going off and their minds being destroyed by these gurus.
1:21:42 I see young people taking drugs, and I see old people going to night-clubs. You follow? The whole phenomenon of existence is sorrow. And I said I am part of all that. So I say, how am I – how is my mind to go beyond it?
1:22:09 By creating heaven, by creating a hope, by saying, ‘next life you’ll be perfectly all right’, believe in this, your god will save you and you know – move away from it altogether and you won’t be sorrowful?
1:22:27 Of course you can take a tranquilliser!
1:22:31 Q: Sir, we did learn in our discussion about envy, and we learned how if we moved away from it, we escape from it or whatever, it still remained.
1:22:50 Now we are discussing now sorrow.
1:22:57 Now we are trying to learn about sorrow.
1:22:59 K: Yes, that’s right, that’s right. What to do with sorrow. My son dies, I am sorrowful.
1:23:03 Q: And we learn…
1:23:05 K: Look, sir, look, look, look, then you are learning. My son dies and I am sorrowful. And I see a man kill somebody else, that’s terrible. I see you taking drugs, I feel sorrowful.
1:23:23 I see how your parents have neglected, I see all that, it’s an ugly, sorrowful thing.
1:23:32 And I say now, how is the mind, if I can find the answer to this I can tell you then what to do.
1:23:42 You follow? It isn’t my answer therefore I keep it to myself and say, ‘I’ve found my heaven, go to blazes’.
1:23:50 The answer is to sorrow, not yours, or mine. I wonder if you get it?
1:23:56 Q: What about the concept of suffering?
1:24:01 K: Concept of suffering?
1:24:02 Q: A way of suffering. If you are able to suffer then in some way you are not worried by either despair or by…
1:24:10 K: Ah! I see. Salvation through suffering?
1:24:13 Q: I didn’t say salvation.
1:24:16 K: I am putting it a different way.
1:24:19 Q: Well, don’t.
1:24:20 K: All right. Then what do you mean by that, sir?
1:24:23 Q: If I know how to live through the things going on in me, I don’t feel despair, and I don’t feel ridden by hope either.
1:24:34 If I am able to live through the conflicts and difficulties, I don’t feel ridden or hounded by either despair or hope.
1:24:45 K: But can you live through this?
1:24:47 Q: Yes.
1:24:48 K: How?
1:24:49 Q: Just by doing it.
1:24:52 K: By doing what? I am surrounded by suffering, sir. Right?
1:24:59 Q: Bearing and paying attention.
1:25:02 K: How do I bear this suffering? It is destroying me. My son is dead. And I see what is happening in the world, the Catholic killing the Protestant, I know what is happening, sir, and that is suffering, the mothers are suffering.
1:25:29 And bear it? I bear it, why should I bear it, it is there.
1:25:32 Q: I didn’t mean bear it like that. I mean live through it.
1:25:37 K: How? How do I live through it?
1:25:39 DP: It never ends.
1:25:45 K: How do I live…
1:25:50 Q: You assume it is going to end if you say, ‘I’ll live through it’.
1:26:00 Q: No, I don’t assume.
1:26:01 K: No, he says put up with it.
1:26:02 Q: I didn’t say put up with it. You are loading me with words which have connotations, which is not what I am talking about.
1:26:06 K: Sir, I understand. I am trying to understand, sir. I am not trying to put you into a category, I am trying to understand when you say, ‘live through it’.
1:26:15 I live through a toothache. I live through a divorce, I live through poverty, and how do I live through sorrow?
1:26:34 Q: It’s a question of transformation.
1:26:45 K: Transformation of what?
1:26:47 Q: I don’t know.
1:26:51 K: Transformation of sorrow, isn’t it?
1:26:55 Q: I can’t give you a categorical answer.
1:27:01 K: No, sir. We are asking when you say ‘transformation’, transformation of what? I am not being clever, sir, I am just…
1:27:18 Q: I know, I know you are not.
1:27:21 Q: Would it be transmuting sorrow into love?
1:27:22 K: When you use ‘love’, ‘transmute’ – we’ll find out, madam. Just let’s have a little patience. I am asking, there is this suffering, personal and impersonal.
1:27:37 The world is in this state, you go where you will it is there, like death.
1:27:46 And how is that sorrow, which is me, and I am not different from sorrow, how is that to end?
1:27:57 Q: I don’t think about it.
1:27:58 Q: Can that end when there is continuous suffering going on in the world?
1:28:02 Q: I don’t think about it ending, I just cope with each moment as it comes.
1:28:08 K: Sir, there it is, in front of me, I don’t have to see each moment, there it is, everyday I meet it.
1:28:16 In them, in me, because my son is dead. I meet it all the time. I don’t want to think about death and I see hearses, people crying.
1:28:34 So what am I to do?
1:28:42 If I can find an answer to this…
1:28:46 Q: Isn’t there an analogy with the last question maybe, the first thing is not to escape, not because one is told not to escape, because one has seen that escape on this never works.
1:29:01 K: Oh, that is obvious, sir. I mean, going off to church, taking a drink or chasing women, or whatever it is, it doesn’t solve sorrow.
1:29:09 Q: The more subtle escapes we do at this point.
1:29:14 K: Therefore you say, ‘don’t escape’. And that’s part of our culture to escape.
1:29:20 Q: So, couldn’t…
1:29:21 K: No, wait, sir. Escape when you don’t know what to do, but if you can find out what to do then the escape is not necessary.
1:29:39 So can I – the mind find what to do with this terrible thing – terrible not in any condemnatory sense, but just what it is doing in the world – not doing, what is happening in the world.
1:30:13 Can my mind not escape from it, seek comfort? ‘My son is dead but he will live and we shall meet’, or I go to the medium, seance, and all that.
1:30:32 Or I dream and live with his picture for the rest of my life, either the picture in a frame or in my heart.
1:30:43 Any form of escape is obviously useless, however comforting.
1:30:51 So the mind sees the futility of escape, the truth of escape, therefore when you see the truth of it, it has no meaning.
1:31:06 So, stopped. Then what takes place? Do I investigate the reasons of sorrow?
1:31:19 The cause of it? My son is dead, my brother is dead, we were companions, we liked each other, he is gone, I am left alone.
1:31:38 Self-pity, loneliness, facing life by myself and essentially it’s a form or self-pity.
1:31:56 And that is part of sorrow. So I say, all right, I have seen that and I am still sorrowful.
1:32:09 What shall I do? The mind will not escape, absolutely won’t move in that direction because it is childish, futile, empty.
1:32:30 Nor will it examine endlessly the cause of sorrow, which is another – you know I go to Africa to study the animals in order to understand myself.
1:32:49 What is the point of examination endlessly what sorrow is. I know what sorrow is, how it arises, what is the root of it: loneliness, lack of friendship, lack of love, sense of isolation, lack of companionship.
1:33:15 In my brother, in my son I immortalised myself and he is gone, therefore I am lost and so on and so on.
1:33:25 I can find a dozen reasons, more, explained and unexplained and I say that’s enough, analysis to discover the cause of sorrow, I have done it and I say that is enough, old boy, now turn.
1:33:42 So since I won’t escape, since the mind won’t escape, won’t analyse more and more for the cause and the explanations of causes, I can stay – the mind can stay completely with that thing called sorrow.
1:34:09 Staying means non-movement. Non-movement implies no time. I wonder? Right, sirs? And I see time is sorrow because any movement from ‘what is’ is time, and time is one of the factors of sorrow, perhaps the major factor of sorrow; time to get over nationalities – you follow, sir?
1:35:01 – time to get over my loneliness, time to get over – to get more civilised to end wars.
1:35:12 So any movement away from this factor is time and time is the most dangerous factor which sustains sorrow.
1:35:39 DB: Are you saying it doesn’t produce sorrow but sustains it? Or is it both?
1:35:47 K: Both. Of course.
1:35:49 Q: You are dealing with time – we are not talking about chronological time.
1:35:58 K: Oh no. This is something much more complex than the mechanical movement of yesterday, today.
1:36:05 Q: Yes, you are speaking of the timeless.
1:36:08 K: No, here it is, we are doing it. Here it is. I see how I have wasted time in escape.
1:36:20 I see how I have wasted time in the analysis of the causes of sorrow.
1:36:29 I see how I have wasted my time looking for hope, for comfort, for illusions, for a doctrine that will be satisfactory.
1:36:49 I wasted – the mind has wasted time in illusions. So it says seeing what time has done, which is time as evolution from ‘what is’ to ‘what it should be’, which is movement from here to there, that total movement comes to an end.
1:37:21 I assure you – he wanted a demonstration – it does come to an end completely.
1:37:38 And one can tell another who is serious in this matter, but the 99.9% of humanity is not serious.
1:37:56 They would rather play with all kinds of illusions and keep on suffering rather than say, ‘Look, tell me’ – you know, going beyond it.
1:38:11 And it is only very, very serious people that say, ‘right, let’s work at it’.
1:38:29 Can the mind stay completely without any movement?
1:38:32 Q: I am saying to that simple question there are only three simple answers. One which is ‘no’, in which case you are not interested in trying.
1:38:49 The other one is ‘yes’, which implies that you have done it.
1:38:54 K: I can’t make out, sir, what you are saying.
1:38:57 Q: The answer to your question which began ‘can you’. If one says ‘no’, one is convinced that you can’t do anything. If one says ‘yes’, one has to have done it to know that it can be done. The only other answer is to say, ‘I don’t know’.
1:39:18 K: Yes. So when you say you don’t know, it means you are willing to investigate, aren’t you?
1:39:35 The man who says, ‘I know’, or says, ‘it is so, my brother exists’, he has stopped investigating.
1:39:47 And the man who says, ‘I don’t want to know’, he stops investigating, but the man who says, ‘I really don’t know’.
1:40:00 To say that you must have great humility, mustn’t you? To say, ‘really I don’t know’ and begin from there. That is the basis of investigation, otherwise you cannot investigate.
1:40:15 So here we are, saying envy and sorrow, we don’t know what to do with them, and we have been investigating these two things.
1:40:29 What time is it, sir?
1:40:35 Q: Ten past.
1:40:39 K: Ten past five? Shall we stop and continue tomorrow?