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BR74D1 - The place of pleasure
Brockwood Park, UK - 3 September 1974
Public Discussion 1



0:01 This is J. Krishnamurti’s first public discussion at Brockwood Park, 1974.
0:11 I’m sorry about that foul weather – there it is.
0:23 This is supposed to be a discussion.
0:30 The word ‘discussion’ isn’t really the right word. Discussion implies argument, opposing ideas, opposing beliefs, opinions and so on.
0:53 Whereas a dialogue is something we talk over together; talk over together the many problems that one has, with friendship, with a sense of care, attention, and perhaps with the feeling of camaraderie, a sense of affection, all that is implied in a conversation between two friends.
1:40 And if we could, this morning and on Thursday morning, talk over together a problem which may be most demanding and insistent, if we could put all our questions into one question, if that is possible, and then discuss that one question – not discuss – talk over that one question completely and thoroughly so that we are quite familiar with the problem, with the solution, and leave the tent as though it has been solved – not just carry on the next day.
2:44 Could we do that? Questioner: Could we discuss pleasure and fear?
3:03 Pleasure seems to predominate over fear.
3:16 Krishnamurti: Could we talk over together this morning the question of pleasure.
3:34 Pleasure and fear seem to, the questioner says, asks rather, these two prominent things in our life, but pleasure seems to predominate over fear?
3:50 Could we talk over that.
3:53 Q: (Inaudible) K: (Repeating) Could we talk over what is the relationship between health and sanity.
4:12 Q: If we cannot reach out to truth then what is one to do?
4:53 K: The questioner asks, if we cannot reach out to truth then what is one to do.
5:22 One is confused, uncertain, suffering, but one can’t just remain there, one must go beyond it.
5:36 And it seems so hypothetical, verbal, not to be able to reach out.
6:55 Now which of these shall we talk over together?
7:08 Could we go into this question of pleasure and fear, and perhaps the other questions can be included in that one principal question?
7:20 Shall we do that? Can we do that? The question is, why the mind, though it is aware of its pleasures and fears, leans more heavily on pleasure.
7:44 Why is the mind pursuing pleasure all the time?
8:01 How do we approach this question?
8:16 The whole religious, orthodox, traditional mind says, pleasure must be avoided.
8:37 If you go to India, there you see certain people who totally deny pleasure, and to them any form of beauty, any form of relationship between oneself and nature, is totally denied.
9:04 They never consider anything outside which must be pleasurable, which might distract from their central pursuit of what they call truth, or enlightenment, or Brahman, or whatever word they use.
9:28 And also throughout the world the monks have maintained: don’t look at a woman, don’t look at anything that is sensational, that might distract your mind from the central issue of the worship of god.
9:50 You all know that.
9:58 And it is there in spite of their determination, in spite of their torture, in spite of their will, this principle of pleasure continues, it is burning in them.
10:24 They may deny it, they may squash it, they may get up in the morning and pray and do all that kind of thing from two o’clock in the morning till the evening, but it is there, burning – sexually and every form of, subtle form of pleasure – that is a fact.
10:56 Why do people deny pleasure? We must also look at that side. Why does the whole religious concept deny the pursuit of pleasure?
11:19 And being caught in that culture, as most of us are, conditioned by that, we all subtly or unconsciously resist pleasure.
11:37 Though we want pleasure there is always a restraining influence that dominates, controls, or objects, or feels guilty with regard to pleasure.
11:55 First of all are we aware of this?
13:23 And what do we mean by being aware? I am sorry to include so many things we have to go into.
13:33 Am I, are you, aware of the dual instinct, the opposing, contradictory urges, the demand, and the pursuit of pleasure, and also the resistance, the feeling of guilt, the feeling it is not quite right to indulge in pleasure?
14:07 Are we aware of this? And there have been writers who extol or praise pleasure – sexually, in every form of pleasure – prominent writers and that became the fashion and the permissiveness of society, and all the rest of it.
14:34 Now is one aware of all this?
14:41 Aware in the sense, not verbally aware of the fact, but actually aware of the fact?
14:54 I wonder if I am making myself clear. To be aware verbally is one thing, but to be actually aware of the fact of this pursuit and at the same time the resistance, which brings about guilt and all the rest of it.
15:24 Now is one aware of this?
15:32 And when you are aware, what does it imply?
15:40 Are you interested in all this? Shall we go on or…
15:55 Right. I am aware of this fact: the opposing, contradictory, dualistic conflict.
16:12 That is part of the culture in which one has been brought up.
16:19 Before I enquire into that I want to be quite clear whether it is a verbal stimulation, or an observation of the fact of what actually is going on.
16:49 I can be verbally stimulated by you to be aware of this, which would be a verbal stimulation.
17:00 Whereas through the words I can see the fact.
17:09 So the word doesn’t become important, but the fact is.
17:19 So I am aware of the fact, and not of the entanglement of words.
17:29 Clear? Right? Now what is wrong with pleasure? Why have people denied pleasure?
17:52 If you deny pleasure you must deny all beauty, whether in the form of a woman or a man, sculpture, painting, the beauty of a tree, the delight of a sunset, a poem and so on and so on.
18:24 And if you deny this pleasure, what is the factor that makes you deny?
18:37 Are we moving together? Please, this is not my problem, you understand?
18:53 Desire as pleasure – all right, let’s begin that way.
19:06 What is desire? How does desire arise which turns into pleasure?
19:18 Right? What is desire?
19:24 Q: (Inaudible) K: Yes, sir, we are asking what is desire, what is the source of desire, how does desire arise?
19:47 Not how it expresses, what is the content of desire, or the object of desire, but what is desire, how does it happen?
20:01 Q: Hunger is a desire.
20:06 K: Hunger is a desire. Now take hunger – now, you see, don’t, please: what is desire?
20:27 Not for something. You see a nice dress in the window, you see a nice dress in a shop.
20:41 You look at it. You observe it with your eyes, then you touch it, you feel it, the material.
20:59 And so there is the seeing, the contact, the sensation, then the desire.
21:11 Right? Let’s be very simple about this. So there is visual perception, seeing, then there is contact, sensation, and the desire to possess, or not to possess, or something better, and so on.
21:39 So desire begins there. No, madame, look: I see a beautiful tree, a beautiful car, a beautiful something or other, and the very sensation of seeing, the contact arouses the desire – doesn’t it?
22:46 This is so… No?
22:49 Q: (Inaudible) K: No, sir. We are not condemning desire, or pleasure, we are just looking at it first.
23:02 The whole religious area denies pleasure, denies desire, suppresses desire, controls desire, and part of our culture is that.
23:19 The more religious you are, in the orthodox sense, the more you are restrained, more confined, more determined to suppress desire.
25:47 And there is a battle going on all the time.
26:20 The desire is tremendously strong the more you suppress it, and the more you yield to it the more it demands.
27:17 So we have to go into this question.
27:28 Q: (Inaudible) K: No, sir.
27:35 We are just asking what is the source of desire.
27:48 How does desire come? Why can’t we be simple about this?
27:58 I see a nice person, and he has a nice face, and I say, ‘By Jove, I would like to be with that person’ – it is so simple!
31:14 Q: I want to have it.
31:28 K: Yes, sir, I want to have it.
31:38 I want to sleep with somebody and so on and on and on. But this is simple enough. Now I am asking myself: why have various cultures denied the pursuit of pleasure, encouraged the pursuit of pleasure, thereby cultivate or bring about a feeling that there is guilt about it – don’t you know about all this?
32:16 So where does one begin to free oneself from all this – neither caught in pleasures, nor denying pleasures?
32:37 You follow? That is the real question. How am I, who have pursued pleasure, in my blood it is, in my thoughts, in my activities, in the office, at home, when I play golf, when I do everything there is this pursuit of pleasure.
33:04 And also there is the other side to it, that it is not thoroughly educated – let’s put it that way.
33:14 It is not complete, it is not whole, and therefore I want to find the whole, therefore I deny it.
33:28 You understand this feeling? So what shall I do? I am aware of all this, not just my little pleasure and the pursuit of my pleasure – that pleasure may be a political ambition, a religious ambition, or a business ambition.
33:47 You follow? It is all involved in that. So what shall I do? I am aware of the whole implication of pleasure, not just one incident of pleasure.
34:06 The desire and the pleasure to look beautiful.
34:14 The desire to be famous and the pleasure in becoming famous or notorious, in having a good house, good taste, good possession, good status, all that.
34:29 Being good is also a great pleasure. And there is great pleasure in controlling your body completely, and so on and on.
34:45 Now given all this, being aware of all this, not just little bits of pleasure, the entirety of pleasure, what am I to do?
35:53 So I ask myself, first of all, what is wrong with pleasure?
36:22 What is pleasure? Look, sir, we have reduced the world, the earth, everything because of our pursuit of pleasure, we are destroying the earth – over-population, one country sells armaments to another country, knowing it is going to create war, because there is pleasure involved in having money of a particular group.
36:56 You know all this. And when one is confronted with all this what is one to do?
37:08 Q: Look at it.
37:17 K: I know, I am seeing it, sir. I see it. What is my… the seeing, what takes place after that?
37:40 I see a sunset, there is great delight in it.
38:08 It is registered in the brain, as memory – please follow this – as memory, the repetition of the memory, the demand for the repetition according to that memory, is the continuance of pleasure.
39:24 Isn’t it? I see that beautiful thing, the brain has registered it, and the memory of it remains.
39:39 The memory then says, ‘Repeat, have more of it’.
39:47 So pleasure begins at the very root of memory. Right? Please I am not trying to lay down the law, you look at it for yourself.
40:03 So can I look at that sunset and end it?
40:13 Let me finish, please, just a minute.
40:24 I’m trying to investigate – could have missed it.
40:32 I see that sunset. There is great delight in it.
40:42 And the brain retains that, has recorded that delight, and it has become a memory.
40:53 The fact is one thing, and memory is another. Right? The memory is not the sunset. Right? May I go on? The memory is not the sunset, so I am pursuing a thing that is over.
41:27 Of course! It is a remembrance of a sunset, and the remembrance is the demand of the thing that is over.
41:45 Right? Now can the mind, can I look at that sunset with all the beauty, the colour, you know, the quality of a sunset, and end it, not carry it over?
42:07 I don’t know if you have ever done this kind of thing with yourself.
42:16 Q: What do you mean by end it?
42:19 K: What do I mean by end it.
42:28 I will show it to you. I look at that sunset and I know the trick of memory and I realise the memory is not the sunset – of course – memory is something which is over and I am taking delight in something that is dead, and I am pursuing something which is dead which will give me, I hope, more pleasure.
43:04 I see this. I see this fact – the delight, the memory, the memory pursuing that which is gone, and that which has gone has given me pleasure, and I must have more of it.
43:30 At the moment of delight of that extraordinary sunset there is no desire; there is only the observation of that great colour.
43:46 Right? I see this, the whole phenomenon, or the whole process of it.
43:57 You follow? If I pursue pleasure as a memory it is a dead thing I am pursuing.
44:08 Right? Wait, look at it, sir, do look. Do look. Is this so? Don’t accept what the speaker is saying.
44:50 Is this so?
45:14 Q: (Inaudible) K: Look sir, this is a very serious subject.
46:18 Do go into this, because you will see for yourself what takes place.
46:25 That it is not recorded as a sunset, it is recorded as the pleasure that you have derived from the sunset.
46:41 Q: Why?
46:42 K: Because sir, look: why does the mind demand repetition?
46:53 Why do you think it does? Be simple. Look at yourself and you will answer this so clearly.
47:07 Q: (Inaudible) K: No, sir, we will go into that presently.
47:26 But first see, sir, what our mind does to itself.
47:35 It has delighted in something, remembers it, and wants it repeated.
47:51 Q: (Inaudible) K: (Repeating) Why does the faculty of memory exist.
48:19 If you had no memory you couldn’t go home, you couldn’t speak the language, you couldn’t recognise your friend.
48:33 No, please, you see, all this implies that we live in the past.
48:51 Right? To us memory, remembrance, is far more important than the direct observation at the moment.
49:04 Our culture is that – live in the past.
49:17 Q: (Inaudible) K: Look, sir, I have just pointed out: sunset, delight, the remembrance of it, and the remembrance encourages the continuity of that delight which is over.
49:44 Q: There is no need for it.
49:46 K: It is not a question of ‘no need’, it takes place.
49:48 Q: It doesn’t always take place.
49:51 K: Not necessarily always, of course not, but ninety nine per cent of the time it takes place.
50:03 So I see the mind lives more and more in the past.
50:11 Aren’t you living in the past? Your remembrances, your images, your ideas, your concepts, your knowledge – all that is past.
50:25 Q: (Inaudible) K: (Repeating) Now is reality, and the past is the confirmation of that reality.
50:53 Q: (Inaudible) K: Why do we want to repossess?
51:24 The thing is over and we want to repossess it.
51:35 Q: We can’t do anything else.
51:47 K: We can’t do anything else, we can’t find something new, therefore we live in the past – is that it?
51:58 You know, one has to go very deeply into this question of memory.
52:08 And most of us have cultivated through culture, through education, through tradition, through custom, through ritual, through everyday happenings, this enormous field of memory.
52:24 Right? That is a fact.
52:32 And without memory we cannot operate.
52:39 Memory is always in the past – right?
52:46 Obviously. Like knowledge is in the past – scientists can only tell you what they know, they cannot tell you what they don’t know.
52:59 So knowledge, experience, memory, is the essence of the past.
53:10 No? Now from that background we operate, whether in the factory, business, in education, learning facts, and so on and so on, always from that background and with that background.
53:32 I want to go into it a little more, please. So the seeing of that sunset, the remembrance of that sunset, seeing that sunset, enjoying it, then it becomes memory, and that memory then says, ‘I must have more of that delight’ – whether it is sex, whether it is clothes, whatever it is.
54:07 So the mind operates from the past.
54:15 No?
54:20 Q: (Inaudible) K: Of course, that’s just it.
54:43 I understand, sir.
55:00 So I am asking myself if the mind is the result of the past, through evolution, through time, through all that, then what place has pleasure, what place has enjoyment, what place has joy, what place has love, with regard to memory?
55:34 You understand? I wonder if you understand. Is love a memory?
55:43 Q: (Inaudible) K: (Repeating)It is a phenomenon.
55:51 What do you mean by that word phenomenon?
55:58 I love you. Is that feeling of love a memory, because you have given me pleasure, you have give me encouragement, you have been my companion, a memory of all that makes me love you?
56:29 The image of all that, held in memory, says, ‘By Jove, I love that person’.
56:43 Is love a memory? Apparently for most people it is.
56:52 And is joy the result of a memory?
57:00 Or is joy something totally independent of memory?
57:07 You cannot invite joy. You can invite pleasure, you cannot invite joy. So one begins to see where memory plays its role, and where it does not, where it should not.
57:45 Q: It should be here and now.
57:48 K: No, madame, I am not saying it should be now, or here, we are just examining the whole picture. You will see it for yourself, the whole picture, not one part of the picture.
58:02 Q: (Inaudible) K: I am not categorising – physical pleasure, or psychological joy, joy – you know sir, what joy is don’t you?
58:21 It suddenly happens to you. You are walking along, it doesn’t matter, in a wood or in a street and you suddenly feel such a delight about everything.
58:30 You have never invited it, you have never even thought about it – it happens. And as it has happened, there is a memory of it and then you say, ‘By Jove, I must have more of it’.
58:45 Q: (Inaudible) K: That’s what I’m trying to say.
59:01 I am trying to point out, sir, between perception and memory it is so instantaneous.
59:09 Now be aware of that instant and see whether that instant can be prolonged.
59:17 Oh, you don’t know all this.
59:30 So I am asking: look sir, we started out to discuss what is pleasure.
59:44 Why various sects and groups and religious bodies have denied pleasure and with it desire.
59:52 They say you get lost in the world of pleasure, therefore you are not capable of worshipping god, giving your devotion, your service to god.
1:00:04 So god demands that you be tortured. You must have a tortured mind to see god.
1:00:20 And that is idiocy. That is utter foolishness. But yet one is caught in this, this pleasure, the pain of it, the anxiety of it, and the demand for it, and the guilt for it.
1:00:37 And to take one side or the other is absurd, but to look at the whole picture, to look at this whole map of pleasure, not where it will lead, or where it will go, but to look.
1:00:59 And to look at the whole is to be aware of this whole content of pleasure, with its memory.
1:01:10 So one goes back and says, look, is it possible to observe that sunset and not register it as a memory which demands more?
1:01:31 You understand? Can I look at that car (laughs) – I like cars! – can I look at that car, the colour, the shape of it, the line, the power, and so on, and not immediately the thought arise, ‘I must have it’?
1:02:04 Then I look at it and pass by. You follow? Enjoy looking at it, the enjoyment of looking at it; and not the cultivation of that memory which says, ‘I must…’ You understand?
1:02:25 So one has to go into this question, if you are willing to, of the whole problem of memory – memory as pleasure, memory of the things one has done of which one is anxious and frightened and about which one lies, memory of the things that have caused hurts, deep wounds, the memory of a future, of a future delight, of a future position, of a future goodness and so on and so on.
1:03:11 Do you want to go into all this? Or is it… So memory is in the brain cells.
1:03:32 Memory is thought.
1:03:43 Thought is the response of memory, obviously. Right, may I go on? Memory is experience and knowledge. That is in the brain cells, contained there.
1:04:07 Right? You can observe it, you can see it in oneself if you are aware, sensitive, watching.
1:04:19 And thought is matter, obviously.
1:04:31 Isn’t that so?
1:04:39 Thought is matter and all our existence, all our activity, all our culture is based on thought – your gods, your saviours, your churches, everything is based on thought.
1:05:02 Q: And feeling.
1:05:08 K: Obviously. I feel and then memory, thought, of course. I am including thought, feeling, everything, in thought, please go along with it.
1:05:28 So our culture, our civilisation, and religion, is based on thought, which is matter.
1:05:39 Right? And when thought tries to go beyond itself by saying, ‘There is god, there is mystery, there are visions of god’, it is still the operation of thought, and therefore the operation of matter.
1:05:57 I wonder if you see this.
1:06:01 Q: (Inaudible) K: (Repeating) What do you mean by saying thought is matter.
1:06:11 Q: (Inaudible) Q: Are you saying that we live a very materialistic life?
1:06:24 K: Absolutely. The gentleman says, are you saying that we live a very materialistic life, though we have gods, churches, rituals, saviours, it is all a materialistic life.
1:06:57 I said thought is the response of memory, memory is experience, knowledge, contained in the tissues of the brain.
1:07:11 Damage those tissues, you have no memory, or you have memory distorted.
1:07:21 So thought is matter. And look what we have done: thought creates an ideal, the super, perfect form, and tries to live according to that ideal, which is still within the area of thought, which is still within the area of matter.
1:07:53 We invent our gods. Right? Our thoughts have formed gods. God hasn’t made us. We have made gods! So one lives in this field.
1:08:17 Right? If you are really ruthlessly clear about it, not pretend we are something spiritual, noble, this is a fact.
1:08:32 Then from there we can ask: is there any area which thought cannot possible enter.
1:08:43 You follow? Is there any field where thought has no place at all?
1:08:56 Don’t say, ‘Yes’. Sir this is the most...
1:09:02 Q: (Inaudible) K: Sir, sir, that is not… we are not… now sir, you’re becoming… no, I don’t talk about that.
1:09:19 No, you are still limiting, there in a very small field.
1:09:36 Sir this has been one of the problems of human beings: they have gone so far, people have demanded this, and really people who have gone very, very deeply into meditation, into the whole question of it, they say, look, thought has its limitation, and is there something beyond?
1:10:13 You can’t answer that question, say yes or no. Therefore one must understand completely the whole area of thought – the thought that has created the ‘me’ – the psychological me – the thought that has created the divisions between the Jew, the Arab, the British, the French, the German, the Communist, the Socialist, the Mao, and the thought which prevents co-operation – you follow? – which wants co-operation but yet it does everything to prevent the co-operation of nations to solve all our problems.
1:11:00 So thought, from the ancient of days, from the Greeks with their idea that thought is measure, thought is time, and you need measure.
1:11:19 And all our technological development is based on measure, on thought.
1:11:29 And one sees this entirely. And then one sees that as long as one lives there, in that area, no problems will be solved.
1:11:45 Right? I don’t know if you feel that. I am going to show it to you. We are going to investigate that, sir, we’re investigating it now.
1:12:00 As long as the mind lives within that area we shall not solve the problems of human beings.
1:12:12 We will have more inflation, more wars, more division – the British, the Communist, the French – you follow? – and there will be no co-operation between nations.
1:12:28 And you need co-operation to solve this problem of human existence because we are destroying the earth.
1:12:36 You understand, sir, all this?
1:12:43 So if you are serious, then one says, as long as the mind, or thought, which has created all this, which has created the most extraordinary things in the technological world, which has created great illusions about gods, rituals, saviours, and all that, as long as the mind lives in that area there is no freedom.
1:13:14 It can invent freedom. It can speculate about freedom.
1:13:24 There is no freedom – right? Therefore one asks: is there an area of the brain, or an area where thought cannot possibly enter?
1:13:39 And if there is an area, who is aware of that area? You are following all this?
1:13:57 If thought is aware of that area – please listen to this – if thought is aware of that area then thought can recognise that area and therefore it is still part of thought.
1:14:16 You understand?
1:14:23 So confronted with this problem that human beings have created a culture, a culture in which religion, art, architecture, painting, all the wars, the brutality, the violence, the ugliness – all that is culture.
1:14:48 In that culture we have been brought up, educated, where the operation of thought is of the highest importance.
1:14:59 Right? And that area is the known area, which the scientist can investigate, and dissect and analyse, and all the rest of it, it is still within the area of the known.
1:15:18 Right? Please let’s proceed. And can the mind be free of the known, and yet operate in the field of the known?
1:15:39 You understand my question?
1:15:55 Can the mind, your mind, your consciousness – your consciousness which has always operated within the field of the known, and when thought tries to go beyond the field of the known it is still thought.
1:16:25 Its ideas of perfect prototype, the perfect Aristotelian and all the rest of it, it is still part of thought.
1:16:40 So the problem then arises: can thought be controlled and not allowed to enter.
1:16:54 You understand? And they have gone into this: that you must control your thought completely so that the other thing can enter – if there is another thing.
1:17:18 And the whole question of meditation is control – right? – in different ways.
1:17:27 I wonder if you are following all this. Does it interest you, all this?
1:17:38 I mean by interest, live it! Not just speculate about it. You see in controlling thought there is involved the controller, and who is the controller?
1:18:03 Is the controller different from the controlled? You understand this? The controller says, ‘I must control thought’, because, he says, ‘I don’t like this area, I must have the other area’, so he controls thought.
1:18:28 Is the controller different from the thing he controls? Obviously not, because he is still part of thought. You follow? So can there be a living, existing, living everyday life, without any control?
1:18:53 Oh, you don’t know anything about all this.
1:19:00 No control whatsoever, therefore no conflict whatsoever.
1:19:11 Now we are educated to control, that is part of our culture, part of our tradition.
1:19:28 ‘Don’t be angry, control yourself’.
1:19:41 So we live in a world which has been built by thought, and thought now says, ‘Somehow we must solve this problem’, which thought has created, and so thought says, ‘There must be an outside agency of god which will solve our problem’, and that outside agency is invented by thought – you follow all this?
1:20:19 So thought still is in operation.
1:20:26 So is the mind aware of this whole content of what we have said, all this morning from pleasure, fear, memory, joy, attachment, all that?
1:20:47 And thought has created this confused, miserable, mad world.
1:20:53 Q: Why has thought done that?
1:20:58 K: Why has thought done this?
1:21:06 You understand the question? Why has thought done this – divided nations, groups, ideas: your belief, my belief, my country is better than your country, my guru is better than your blasted guru and so on and so on, so on, so on – why?
1:21:27 Q: (Inaudible) K: No, sir, look at it a little more closely, why?
1:21:40 Please, don’t answer, just look. Look before you answer.
1:21:54 That is, what is thought?
1:22:01 Not, why has thought done this, but what is thought?
1:22:11 Watch it please! Thought, being memory, is of time, isn’t it?
1:22:25 Yesterday, today and tomorrow. Thought in itself is divisive. Right? You understand? Thought in itself makes fragments. Thought is never whole. Thought itself is a fragment.
1:22:49 Q: It is the result of fragmentation.
1:22:55 K: Fragments, of course sir, all that is the result of that. But thought per se, in itself, is the maker of fragments.
1:23:13 You are British, I am a stupid Hindu. You are a German and he is a Frenchman. Thought has done this. Therefore thought in itself is the factor of fragmentation.
1:23:41 Q: (Inaudible) K: That is what I said, sir. Listen. Don’t think but listen to what I am saying.
1:23:53 Q: (Inaudible) I will show you.
1:24:11 The question is this: the gentleman asks, I hear what you are saying, my sensory perception verbally accepts what you are saying.
1:24:31 And the verbal communication is not sufficient, the deeper communication, where does it take place?
1:24:45 I see verbal communication is a limitation, it doesn’t completely communicate very, very deeply, so where is the deep communication?
1:25:11 You understand the question? I listen to what you are saying, I agree or disagree. There is no disagreement, or agreement, just observation, here what we are talking, observing what is going on.
1:25:31 So verbal communication is necessary, otherwise if I talk in French, or in German, or Italian, you wouldn’t understand, so.
1:25:47 Where does deep communication take place? And what is the area at which this communication can take place?
1:26:05 We will have to investigate it together.
1:26:12 First of all, sir, we are not agreeing or disagreeing.
1:26:19 That must be very clear because it is stupid to say, ‘I agree with you’, or disagree with you, because we are looking.
1:26:30 So one factor remains, which is, in observation there is neither agreement nor disagreement.
1:26:39 You are not opposing my opinion, or I am opposing your opinion because there is no opinion, just observation.
1:26:48 Right? In observation then there is neither agreement nor disagreement, opposing opinions, but seeing.
1:27:00 Right?
1:27:01 Q: (Inaudible) K: Wait, wait, I am coming to that sir, wait.
1:27:14 Verbally – I am going to show you in a minute.
1:27:21 You’re too… First of all as I said, as the speaker said, there is no agreement or disagreement.
1:27:39 I point out that pole to you, that pole is a fact, you don’t say that is a giraffe, that is a pole, both of us see it as a pole, neither agreeing or disagreeing.
1:27:52 That is a fact. Right? So there is no opinion, no agreement, no judgement, just observation. Right? This is important. So both of us now are capable of looking.
1:28:12 Right? Not translating what you look at but looking.
1:28:23 Right? Now when you look are you looking through the description of the word, or you are looking without the word?
1:28:46 Are we going along? You understand sir? This is difficult, go a little slowly. I say, look at that pole. The word ‘pole’, you have an image of what a pole is, of course.
1:29:10 So you are looking through the image which that word pole has created.
1:29:18 Now can you look at that thing without the image the word has created?
1:29:29 You understand?
1:29:36 So it means you can look without the verbal image.
1:29:44 So you are no longer caught in the network of words.
1:29:51 Right? You are no longer caught in the network of words, opinions, judgements, translation, but you are only looking.
1:30:07 Now in that looking, both of us, there is communication which is non-verbal, then there is real co-operation, real togetherness, then we are both seeing, doing the exact thing which the fact demands, not what you think the fact demands.
1:30:40 Right, have you got it? Phew! Right. So I am asking – we come back to this – if the whole field of human activity is based on pleasure, fear, memory, knowledge, experience, and thought has created this world of relationship, technological world, the relationship between nature and myself, between god and myself and yourself, thought has created all this, and thought says, ‘My god, what a mess it is!’ It is an appalling mess, which denies co-operation – you understand?
1:31:44 – between each other – between each group, each religion, each nationality, which is so destructive.
1:31:51 And thought says, ‘I can’t solve this problem, I know they are playing tricks with the problems’ – the politicians, the businessmen, they cannot solve it, so it says, ‘Now I must go beyond and find something which will solve this problem’.
1:32:09 You understand, sir? God, super-guru, super-ideology, super-that, super-something else, super-consciousness.
1:32:18 It is still within the field of thought. Thought having created the mess, thought says, ‘I must clear it’, and invents new systems, new philosophies, and I see the whole of that, all the intricacies, all the responsibilities, all the involvements involved in that.
1:32:45 Then the mind says, is there something which thought cannot touch?
1:32:56 Human beings have always operated on this side of the shore. You understand, sir? On this bank. I am trying to change the simile.
1:33:08 Q: (Inaudible) K: Sir, look at it, look at it. We have operated on this side of the river, always. On this bank, with the gods, with the churches, with the businessmen, with new ideas, new philosophies, new Maoists, new Communists, and all that.
1:33:34 And we never realise there is no answer here.
1:33:42 Thought cannot find an answer to this because thought in itself brings fragmentation.
1:33:51 You understand, sir?
1:34:00 So is thought love?
1:34:07 Is love memory?
1:34:14 Is the perception of this whole phenomenon which thought has created, is thought still trying to find an answer within that area?
1:34:45 You follow sir? The politicians are, the economists are, the socialists are, the communists – you follow? – everybody is trying to find an answer within this area – the priests, the gods, all that.
1:35:07 And one must be absolutely clear that there is no answer through thought – which doesn’t mean there is an answer through romantic sentimentality, all that nonsense.
1:35:27 Right? So can the mind, realising this, being totally aware of this, totally, I mean not fragmentarily – you understand, sir?
1:35:55 – completely aware of all this – what the politicians are doing, what the economists are doing, what the scientists are doing, what the priests are doing, what all the gurus with their traditions, with their rituals, all within the field of thought.
1:36:18 And do you seriously from the bottom of your heart realise thought cannot answer it?
1:36:28 Therefore no politician, no businessman, no philosopher, no scientist, nobody; you understand, sir, how serious this is?
1:36:51 I am doing all the work!
1:36:55 Q: I don’t know.
1:36:59 K: The gentleman says, I don’t know.
1:37:06 Is that a mere verbal statement, or an actuality?
1:37:14 When you say, ‘I don’t know’, you are expecting an answer from the speaker?
1:37:22 Or you say, ‘I really don’t know what to do’.
1:37:30 That means you are shedding blood – you understand, sir? – and tears, not just say, ‘Well, I don’t know’.
1:37:40 Q: (Inaudible) K: No, sir, there is no desire.
1:37:50 Sir, we went through that. There is no desire involved in it. There is only this fact of this terrible mess which man has created.
1:38:12 When you say, I must find a way out of it, then desire comes in, then thought says, ‘Yes, we will invent a new philosophy, a new Communism, new Maoism, new this or that’, and we all fall for that.
1:38:39 Sir, when you say, ‘I don’t know’, that is a tremendous statement to make from your heart, not from your mind, not intellectually.
1:38:56 When you say, ‘I don’t know’, then you are neither in despair, nor in hope, you don’t know what to do, faced with this.
1:39:10 If you really feel it then you will have the answer.
1:39:17 Then your mind becomes extraordinarily sharp, aware.
1:39:26 Q: It is free of the past.
1:39:34 K: No, no, don’t be free of the past – it cannot be free of the past. I have been telling you: I have to go home, I have to speak a language, I have got to recognise you.
1:39:52 Knowledge has its place, knowledge is the past. I have to drive a car to go home – if I have a car – and if I say, ‘Well, I don’t know, knowledge has no place’, then you can’t drive a car.
1:40:14 So knowledge has its place and the more we are clear knowledge has its place then we become objective, unselfish, not concerned with my country and your country.
1:40:33 Q: (Inaudible) K: (Repeating) You say the world is in a terrible mess – we say, is this your conditioning.
1:40:48 No, I don’t think so. You can just see what they are doing in Cyprus, Northern Ireland.
1:40:56 Q: That is a moralistic approach.
1:40:59 K: It is not moralistic. No, no, sir, I have been through all this before, if you don’t mind, we have been through all this.
1:41:12 It is not a moralistic approach at all, it is just seeing what is going on.
1:41:22 So – I’ll have to stop – so, we have come to this point – perhaps we can continue this on Thursday morning – that the mind, which is thought, has created this world, and thought says, ‘I must find an answer to all these problems’, which thought has created.
1:41:56 So it is going round and round in circles. And thought cannot find an answer. It can complicate the problem much more, as they are doing.
1:42:14 So there must be a totally different approach and that approach is only possible when we understand the movement of thought as time, as matter, and as action.
1:42:34 If we understand that we can begin to investigate if there is another possibility. We will do that on Thursday.