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BR74T2 - Is thought a slave to time?
Brockwood Park, UK - 1 September 1974
Public Talk 2



0:01 This is J. Krishnamurti’s second public talk at Brockwood Park, 1974.
0:08 Shall we continue with what we were talking about yesterday?
0:18 May we?
0:25 We were saying that human consciousness, with its content, makes our whole life and all its activity.
0:51 The transformation of this consciousness is our concern.
1:01 If we are at all serious and take life seriously we must be equally concerned with this question of: is it possible for the human mind with all its conditioning through centuries and centuries, with its superstitions, fears, pleasures, sorrows and all the brutality and the violence involved in modern life, as well as in the past – can that mind radically change itself?
1:53 That is the problem with which we are confronted. Any serious man must give thought to it. Not only thought but seeing what the world is, so utterly insane, one has to find sanity.
2:22 And this sanity, which means health, whole and also the word whole also implies holy, whether that mind can by itself, without any motive, undergo this radical transformation.
2:52 We think time is necessary – time as a means of evolution, as a process of gradually changing this content which makes up consciousness.
3:11 Now is there psychological time at all?
3:21 I know we have been conditioned, we have been educated, all our way of life, is to take time into consideration.
3:34 Time implies movement, movement in a direction, in a particular direction, and the covering of that distance to achieve an end involves time.
3:52 And we are educated, conditioned to that.
4:00 As we said yesterday, we are sharing this thing together.
4:08 It is our problem, not the speaker’s problem, but it’s our problem, our human problem, whether we are in India, or in America or in Russia or anywhere else.
4:29 And together we have to solve this problem, not as a group therapy, not through confession and all the rest of that business, but investigate it and sharing what we investigate together.
4:55 Therefore this is not an intellectual or romantic or fanciful discussion or talk.
5:09 This is something very, very serious. Unless you are prepared to be serious what is said becomes merely an abstract theory and therefore of no significance at all.
5:33 And if you are concerned with the transformation of the human mind we have to consider, as we were saying, who is the entity that is going to transform this content?
5:57 Is not the very content of human consciousness part of the entity which desires to change it?
6:09 Therefore we have a very difficult and rather subtle problem.
6:19 And in investigating, which is our consciousness – your human daily activity with all its problems – can that human mind change disregarding time totally?
6:49 As we said, time means movement, direction, going from here to there, physically as well as psychologically, inwardly.
7:08 Where there is direction there must be choice, and choice implies a confusion.
7:24 And we think we are free when we can choose, because we have the capacity to choose, and that freedom to choose, we translate it as freedom of action.
7:41 But choice is essentially the outcome of confusion. You don’t choose when you see very clearly. It is only when you are confused, rather disturbed, uncertain, then choice comes in.
8:01 So as we are educated, conditioned to the acceptance of time as a gradual process of changing the mind – I hope you are all sharing all this – we must question right from the beginning whether time does solve this problem, whether tomorrow, or next year will bring about a radical transformation of the mind.
8:43 Right? And we said, what is time? There is not only time by the watch, chronological, but also psychological time – the time to achieve something, to see that I am, or one is confused, uncertain, sorrowful and one thinks time is necessary to dissolve that; that is our conditioning.
9:24 That gradually, day after day, through practice, through awareness, through examination, through analysis, through investigation, we will come to that point when clarification will take place.
9:45 So time we think is necessary. The Christian religion, the Hindus, the Buddhists all admit time as a means of achieving this clarification.
10:07 That is the traditional approach. Now we are asking if there is psychological time at all.
10:27 That is, psychologically, inwardly, is there a tomorrow?
10:34 Or the tomorrow is the projection of our desire, of our uncertainty and tomorrow becomes necessary when we do not see very clearly today.
11:07 So what is perception, and what is action in perception. You are following all this?
11:26 Good luck to you!
11:34 (Laughter) You see I have spent my life in this. For years we have talked about it, not only verbally but we have lived it, gone through it, understood it, and to talk about it to people, like you all, you haven’t gone into it very deeply, probably you have not given serious thought to this, or serious consideration or investigation.
12:07 And to share what is being said you have to attend, you have to listen, you have to absorb, you have to give your life to this.
12:19 It isn’t just a plaything for a morning. It is your whole life, it is involved in it. And therefore it becomes rather difficult to communicate with those minds who are not totally involved in it, who only have superficial problems and are only concerned with the solution of their particular problems.
12:49 But to understand these superficial problems, whether economic, social, sexual or whatever problems they are, one must go much deeper.
13:05 And to investigate at depth requires a mind that is really dreadfully serious; not serious neurotically, as some people are, but serious in the sense dedicated to a life that demands clarification at all levels, dedicated to the understanding and to act in that clarification, which is essentially intelligence.
13:48 So we are saying, asking: is there time at all – in the psychological sense?
14:04 There is time to go from here to the next town, to cover that distance you need time.
14:16 And psychologically, inwardly we admit or accept it, we are conditioned or educated to accept time as a process of clarification, a process of freedom.
14:41 And when we question this time, which we must, because we are going to be involved in action – what is action – we have to understand clearly, is there tomorrow at all.
15:05 You know to realise that there is no tomorrow psychologically is a tremendous shock.
15:12 I do not know if you realise this, because we live either in the past or in the future.
15:25 The past is time, the past is knowledge, all the accumulated remembrances, experiences, memories; and tomorrow is much more fascinating, perhaps will offer greater hope, greater facility, greater capacities, greater freedom and so on: so we live between the two – the past and the future, which is, we live in time.
16:01 I hope you are following all this.
16:09 And we have projected from the past to the future a concept, an idea, an ideal.
16:29 The word ‘idea’, the root meaning of that word is ‘to see’.
16:38 Look what has happened. To see – idea means to see. To see clearly ‘what is’, not abstract from what you see an idea – you understand?
16:59 – and act according to that idea, which is time.
17:06 I wonder if you see this.
17:14 We always abstract an idea, a concept, a formula from what we see – right? – and act according to that formula, concept, ideal and so on.
17:42 The abstraction is the movement of time. I wonder if you get this!
17:54 Not the observation of the fact.
18:01 The observation of the fact needs no time, but when you abstract from the fact, from ‘what is’, a concept, an ideal, the movement away from the fact is time.
18:20 And to act according to that ideal involves further time.
18:27 Right? Are we meeting each other because it is rather important.
18:40 Because our action is based generally, probably always, on a concept, on an ideal.
18:58 The fact is one thing, the ideal is another. And that ideal is the abstraction from the fact and I act, or one acts according to that ideal.
19:17 The movement from that ideal to action involves time.
19:27 Now why does the mind always do this? You understand my question? That is, I see the fact, one sees the fact that there is sorrow – sorrow in different forms.
19:50 Every human being in the world carries this burden of sorrow, as he carries the burden of loneliness.
20:01 He carries this burden. That is a fact. Whatever the cause of that sorrow be, there is this sorrow in the human mind, not only personal sorrow but this whole collective sorrow of human beings.
20:22 We observe it, we know it, we are aware of it. And from that awareness, or from that observation we draw a conclusion – how to get over it, what to do about it, what are the causes of it, or we rationalise it or accept it, or try to run away from it.
20:49 Those are all abstractions from the fact.
20:56 Right? Now why does the mind do this? Whenever it is confronted with a psychological problem it instantly draws a conclusion, and according to that conclusion, acts.
21:18 Why does it do it? You understand my question? I am sure most of you have ideals – God knows why, but you have them.
21:38 Why? Is it part of our education, part of our culture, part of our religious upbringing? The Communists have it, the Maoists have it, every human being has more or less this kind of ideology – why?
22:05 Is it that he cannot understand, or go beyond ‘what is’, and therefore he thinks by having a conclusion about ‘what is’ will help him to get over ‘what is’.
22:22 You understand?
22:31 I have a problem – not I – the human being is violent and he projects the idea of non-violence, which is an abstraction from the fact of violence.
22:53 Why does the mind do it? Instantly it does it. Is it because – one of the reasons – it doesn’t know what to do, it hasn’t the capacity to deal with the fact, the fact of violence?
23:13 Therefore it escapes through an abstraction and says, ‘I must not be violent’.
23:24 So the ‘must not’ becomes the ideal, the non-fact, and according to that it tries to act – according to non-fact, which is insanity – I wonder if you see this.
23:47 So can we say idealists are insane? No, do watch it please, this is very, very serious, don’t laugh it away.
24:08 And is it because the mind is so conditioned, so accustomed to the idea of postponement, that something will happen to bring about a change in the fact?
24:37 So either it is the lack of energy which makes the mind postpone, hoping something will happen, or it has not the capacity to deal with ‘what is’ and therefore rushes off into an abstraction as an ideal, or is it the feeling that life is so short, why bother – put up with things.
25:25 You are following all this?
25:32 So we have all these things. So all that admits time. We have had, human beings historically, thousands of wars – I believe 5,000 wars.
25:57 During the 5,000 years, 5,000 wars, or something like that – and we accept wars as a natural way of life; we don’t see for ourselves the disaster, the appallingness, the brutality of it all – do you follow?
26:25 Again an idea. So action based on an idea, or an ideology, demands time.
26:39 Right? Whereas where there is perception and action there is no time.
26:53 Right? Now, I’ll show you.
27:02 As we said, there is suffering, in every form – physical, psychological, intellectual, moral, suffering through death of another, suffering caused by loneliness, frustration, lack of jobs and so on, so on.
27:31 Now without drawing an abstraction from sorrow, can the mind observe sorrow and remain with sorrow?
27:45 You follow? Not run away from it, not escape from it, not rationalise it, not bring in the whole process of thought into it, but remain completely motionless with that feeling which we call sorrow.
28:17 Now what is the action of a mind that does not move away from the fact in any direction?
28:31 I hope you are doing this as the speaker is talking about it, otherwise it is no fun at all.
28:48 I am sure you have certain sorrows.
28:58 Without rationalising it, without trying to escape from it, without an abstraction as an idea of not having sorrow and so on, can the mind remain with that sorrow absolutely immobile, without any movement?
29:24 Please understand the question first, don’t try tremendous effort, don’t make effort, there is no effort necessary in this, just watch it.
29:40 So then what is action in which there is no idea?
29:50 You follow? I wonder if you follow this. As we said, all our actions, human actions, psychological actions, are based on ideas.
30:10 Right? Surely? Now we are asking: is there an action which is not based on an idea?
30:27 Because we said idea and the action of idea involves time.
30:43 And when action is based on an idea there is always inadequacy, or lack of complete identification with that idea, and therefore conflict between the idea and action.
31:03 You know all this. So when we are concerned with the elimination of conflict altogether, then we must be concerned with what is action, and what is perception; what is seeing and the doing, without the formula, without the ideal.
31:34 Have you understood now? Can I go on?
31:42 Thank God! You understand my question? What is perception? And what is action in which there is no abstraction from the fact of what is seen?
32:08 So I must first investigate what is perception, what is seeing? Right? Is this all too difficult, or may I go on?
32:21 Right. What is seeing? When you say, ‘I perceive’, what is this process of perceiving?
32:31 Not only the visual perceiving with the eyes, with the ears and so on, but also the mind perceiving according to its conditioning, according to its desires, to its pleasures, to its fears.
32:55 Right? So it perceives through the image it has built about itself and about the fact.
33:07 Right? It has got two images. The image it has about itself and the image, the verbal image or the symbol about the fact.
33:23 Now such perception is not perception at all, it is like looking through dark glasses.
33:33 Now can the mind free itself from the image about itself and about the fact?
33:42 Which is the opinion, the idea, the concept, the formula. I wonder if you follow all this. You know this demands tremendous inward attention, great inward discipline.
34:00 Discipline in the sense, not suppression, imitation, conformity, but the very act of looking brings its own order.
34:14 So we are looking at the fact of sorrow – I am taking that as an example.
34:26 Can you look at that sorrow, whatever the cause be, look at that feeling without the image you have about yourself, which is, I must not suffer, why should I suffer, I am so good, I am this, you know all that stuff that goes on, without a single image about yourself and without any interpretation of the fact that there is sorrow.
34:57 You follow? This requires a tremendous enquiry, attention, concern.
35:10 This is real seriousness. So perception implies seeing things exactly as they are, not as I want them to be.
35:30 And the seeing then is the acting, in which there is no time.
35:37 I wonder if you see this. The moment there is time there is conflict.
35:49 I see, for example, organised religion with all the propaganda, with all the tradition, with all the nonsense that goes on within the organised religions throughout the world, I see the fallacy of it, not because I have reaction against it, I see the absurdity of it.
36:13 And seeing what human beings have put together, which they call religion, seeing the truth of it is instant action of denying the whole thing – you understand? – never going back to it again, in any form.
36:35 I wonder if you see this point. Therefore there is instant action, which is sanity.
36:47 Look, if I act according to a non-idea, according to non-fact, the fact is one thing, isn’t it, and the idea about the fact is another.
37:07 The idea about the fact is non-fact, and if I act according to an idea, an ideal, I am insane.
37:17 Of course I am! And we accept that as sanity. I wonder if you see this. And we are mesmerised by the idealists, by the propagandists.
37:37 So one sees very clearly, if you have gone into it very deeply as we are doing now, that action at any level of our life is not in the future, according to an idea, but seeing without the image of oneself, or of the fact, is action, instant action.
38:10 Have I made it clear? Now you have listened to this.
38:24 How have you listened to it? Are you listening to the fact, or are you listening according to the interpretation you give to the fact?
38:48 Don’t answer me, please. Look at it, you’ll and find out for oneself. You see this is one of our peculiarities that what we hear we translate immediately into an idea.
39:10 Right? And why do you do it? Why can’t the mind just listen and not draw a conclusion?
39:25 If you listen, that very act of listening itself is an entire action.
39:34 But if you say, ‘Well, I will listen and if it pleases me I will accept it, if it doesn’t conform to my idea, I will reject it’ and so on – all those are acts of not listening.
39:51 I wonder if you are following all this. So can the mind, which has been conditioned – religiously, socially, immorally – I don’t know if you realise how immorally we are conditioned: we accept war, that is an immoral acceptance, we accept violence, we accept social injustice, our whole moral structure is based on our pleasure and fear, which is immoral.
40:51 So we are conditioned immorally. We are conditioned by belief, by all the propaganda of the churches, religions all over the world.
41:04 Can that mind, which is so heavily conditioned – please listen to this – can that mind instantly put it away, put away its conditioning entirely?
41:21 Questioner: I didn’t realise it’s not words.
41:28 Krishnamurti: Wait. Let me go on sir, you can ask at the end of it sir, if you don’t mind.
41:42 If you say it cannot, you have blocked yourself, obviously.
41:49 If you say it is possible, you are just playing. But if you want to find out, you have then to say, ‘Is my thinking a slave to time?’ You understand?
42:12 Do please. If I say to myself, ‘I need time to free my conditioning’, then you are admitting a process of postponement, a denial of the fact and the denial of the fact is insanity.
42:43 The bus is coming towards you, rushing, and you say, ‘Well there is no bus’, that is an insane act!
42:56 So can you observe your conditioning and not be caught in the movement of time, remain with that conditioning completely without any movement?
43:14 You understand? That means you have to investigate also, who is it that is observing. I wonder if you get this. May I go on? If you don’t catch it, I am sorry, I can’t help it.
43:33 Who is the observer who is watching his conditioning? You understand? If one is born in India, among a certain class of people, you are conditioned there by tradition, a very ancient tradition, by certain beliefs, superstitions, and all the rest of it.
43:56 If you are born in a Christian culture you are conditioned equally. If you are born in China or in Russia you are conditioned according to their Maoism, or Communistic, Marxist, dialectic materialism and so on and so on and so on.
44:18 Now can the mind observe your conditioning?
44:27 And who is it that is observing? You are following? Is the observer different from the thing he is observing?
44:43 I am conditioned – suppose I am conditioned – and I observe my conditioning; am I, who is the observer, different from my conditioning?
44:59 Obviously not. Right? Just see the truth of it please. That is, the observer is part of the conditioning, therefore there is no conflict between the observer and the observed.
45:27 You see this point? As long as the observer is different from the observed, then there is conflict – conflict in the sense that he wants to suppress it, go beyond it, escape from it, rationalise it, accept it, deny and all that, that is conflict.
45:54 But when the observer is the observed, the conditioned entity who is observing the conditioning are both the same, then you eliminate all that altogether.
46:18 Right?
46:29 It is part of our conditioning to admit the division between the observer and the observed – right? – the thinker and the thought, the experiencer and the experienced, that is part of our conditioning.
46:52 But when you see that the observer is the observed, which is the truth, then that conditioning is broken down.
47:00 You understand all this? Instantly it is gone, therefore you have removed… the mind has freed itself from this eternal conflict between ‘what is’ and ‘what should be’, which is the duality between good and bad, eternal conflict between me and you.
47:31 I wonder if you see this. Therefore from that arises: can the mind, which has been conditioned heavily, through education, through culture, through religious doctrines and immoral attitudes, and all that, can all that be instantly wiped away?
48:03 We say it can. It can be done only when the observer realises he is not separate from the observed and therefore he has then eliminated conflict altogether and therefore he has energy to go beyond – got it?
48:26 So action is not an adjustment to an idea.
48:42 Action is not approximating itself to an ideal. I wonder if you see this.
48:54 Therefore action is always in the living present. Action then is the movement of the fact, not what you think the fact should be.
49:12 Now this is art, which is sanity. Art means, doesn’t it also, to fit. To fit everything in its right place. That is an art. Not merely painting a picture, or writing a poem, or doing a sculpture.
49:39 Putting everything in its right place – not right according to you, but right according to the facts.
49:53 The fact is always out of time.
50:06 I won’t go into this, I’ll leave it for the moment.
50:14 The fact one has to deal with all the time, not with the ideas. And to deal with the fact, the mind must be free of every form of image that you have built about yourself and the fact.
50:30 And from that comes complete action, in which there is no regret, no sorrow, no sense of not having done the thing wholly.
50:48 You see sir, there is a problem here, a question here: we are educated to pursue pleasure.
51:17 Right? We are educated to conform morally, ethically, religiously, to the pattern of personal, or collective pleasure.
51:37 I do not know if you have not noticed how our minds pursue this constant desire for pleasure.
51:49 Right? You don’t have to admit it, that is a fact.
51:59 The two principles in our life are fear and pleasure.
52:10 And again when one observes, the pursuit of pleasure tomorrow, is the movement of time.
52:23 That is, I have had pleasure yesterday, I must have it tomorrow – I am working for that pleasure for tomorrow, sexually, intellectually, in so many ways.
52:41 So pleasure implies the continuity of time. Not that there is not pleasure, that is not the point, but the demand, the pursuit of pleasure.
52:56 You follow? So can the mind – please investigate it with me – can the mind finish each day totally and enter the next day afresh?
53:15 You understand my question?
53:22 When we see the fallacy of time as a means of change, then every day must end and not psychologically carry over the next day.
53:44 If one has a problem in relationship – and most problems are in relationship – to carry that problem over the next day implies a continuity of the problem, which is becoming more and more complex, more and more difficult, and the mind then accepts the problem inevitably, and lives with the problem, and the mind becomes more and more dull.
54:23 When one understands the nature of time, as we tried to explain this morning, then that problem must be resolved today, not carried over the next day.
54:45 You have understood? That means can you, can the mind resolve the problem of relationship between human beings – as it arises end it.
55:03 You understand my question? Can this be done, not as a theory but as an actuality?
55:18 Because you see unless we lay the foundation for all this, meditation and the enquiry into reality, if there is a something beyond thought becomes utterly meaningless unless you have done all this.
55:39 You can go to Japan and sit for years meditating, a certain kind of Zen monastery, or go to India – I don’t know why people go to any of these countries to learn meditation – you can do it at home, you don’t have to go abroad, it is a waste of money but perhaps you like to play the tourists!
56:02 Now unless you lay the foundation for all this, and the mind is really totally free from conflict, and therefore no problem – psychological problem – unless you have done that you cannot possibly go beyond.
56:25 Then what you try to achieve then becomes an illusion, an unreality, it has no meaning.
56:33 So it is very important to understand this, that every human problem that arises, and human problems are involved in relationship between you and another, between you, your wife, husband, girl, boy and all the rest of it.
57:04 Unless in that relationship there is no conflict, and whenever any problem arises in that relationship, to end it instantly, is our question.
57:20 You have understood my question?
57:27 Can one who has relationship – you must have relationship – there is no entity who has not relationship, however much you may withdraw into isolation, become a monk, or whatever, you are always related, and in that relationship obviously, problems arise everyday, and not to resolve them as they arise, implies time and therefore conflict and so on.
58:10 So can the mind resolve the human relationship problem as it arises and dissolve it?
58:20 You have understood my question? So what is the problem in relationship? Go on sirs.
58:43 I love you, you don’t love me, that is a problem.
58:54 I love my wife and my wife looks at somebody else, that is a problem. I am jealous, anxious, fearful, angry, violent, hatred.
59:12 She bullies me, or I bully her, she dominates me, I dominate her, I possess, she possesses, I am attached, she is attached and we are attached to that attachment.
59:22 You follow? And so on and on and on and on.
59:35 So in relationship there are all these subtle, non-verbalised movements, fears, pleasures and so on.
59:54 We are asking, can these problems as they arise end, not carry over the next day?
1:00:07 Because the mind must be free to observe, and as long as you have a problem it is incapable of observation.
1:00:29 So what is the problem in relationship?
1:00:37 Attachment, detachment and so on.
1:00:47 Attachment to what? Do please go with me. Attachment to what? I am attached to you, my wife, my father, my mother, my sister, my wife, girlfriend, whatever it is.
1:01:03 God, I am glad I haven’t got any of them. (Laughter) Thank God!
1:01:15 (Laughs) Sorry! (Laughter) Don’t impose them on me please.
1:01:35 Attached to what? Dominating what? Jealous of what?
1:01:47 Attached to what? Attached to the image that I have built about her, and she has built about me out of her loneliness, out of her whatever it is.
1:02:02 You follow all this? Please watch it because we are showing that a problem that arises in human relations can be dissolved instantly, not carried over.
1:02:21 The carrying over is insanity.
1:02:28 What is the mind attached to when it says, ‘I am attached to my wife, my house, my…’ whatever it is – attached?
1:02:47 Attached to the image I have built about her? Am I attached to her? Please listen to this, to her, or to him, or to the image I have built about her or him?
1:03:14 Obviously to the image – because I can’t be attached to the person because the person is living, moving, has its own desires, its own ambitions, its own problems, its own pettiness, its own shallowness, its own emptiness.
1:03:34 But I am attached to the image that I have built about her.
1:03:42 And that image becomes much more important than her. Now can my mind be free of building images?
1:03:57 You understand the question? Then I have ended the problem. Are you moving with me?
1:04:08 Can the mind empty its images about her?
1:04:18 She has hurt me – by word, by gesture, by some act.
1:04:28 The hurt is to the image I have about myself; and I am attached to that image, and the image has been hurt, and I am attached to that image and to the hurt.
1:04:52 And that is non-relationship, which is insanity.
1:05:04 I am living according to the image I have built about her, about myself – an image, you understand? – which is an idea and therefore has nothing whatever to do with relationship.
1:05:26 So can the mind never build an image?
1:05:35 Which means be aware at the moment of hurt.
1:05:48 If you have no image you won’t be hurt. It is only when I have an image about myself that you can do something about it, kick it around, but I have no image about myself, you can’t kick it around.
1:06:08 So can the mind be free of image-building, which is the ideation – which is the same thing in other words – so that everything she does or the man or the woman does, is instantly perceived and dissolved so that there is no image at all.
1:06:40 Which means every incident is over so the next moment the mind is fresh, young and innocent.
1:06:49 Now would you like to ask questions about all this?
1:06:58 Q: May I ask a question on the talk yesterday?
1:07:01 K: Yes sir.
1:07:02 Q: You said that the consciousness, the consciousness of a human being is the consciousness of the whole world of humanity with some modifications.
1:07:17 (no subtitles for 30 second) Are you saying to me that if I understood what violence was it wouldn’t matter if I did work as a librarian or...
1:07:48 K: No sir, no sir, not at all. I don’t think… We were saying yesterday that human consciousness with its content is more or less the same throughout the world.
1:08:11 There are modifications, there are different kinds of coloration, different patterns, different movements of action and tendency but in the content of that consciousness there is a similarity.
1:08:34 You go to India, there human beings suffer; there is greater disorder there, perhaps there is less disorder here.
1:08:44 There is superstition, there is superstition here; there is a belief there about their gods and there is a belief here about your gods, and perhaps Christians have killed more human beings than anyone else, and so on, so on, so on.
1:09:08 Now, we said, a change in that consciousness affects the whole of consciousness.
1:09:20 That is what we were saying yesterday. That is, if your consciousness with its content undergoes a radical change – not superficial, casual, a peripheral change – but radical, deep transformation, that very mind that has changed itself affects the consciousness of the world.
1:09:50 That is what we were saying.
1:09:57 Q: (Inaudible) K: Thank god sir, of course!
1:10:08 Sir, if we are in China or in Russia this kind of meeting wouldn’t be allowed.
1:10:16 We would all be repeating Mao or Lenin or somebody else.
1:10:27 If you are in a… perhaps in a very Catholic country like Spain or South America – really very Catholic – they wouldn’t tolerate all this.
1:10:39 I know something about it. Sir, I think we are misunderstanding each other.
1:10:51 Look sir, have you observed the content of your own consciousness?
1:10:59 You know, your consciousness.
1:11:06 When are you aware of your consciousness? You understand? When are you aware of yourself – all right, let’s put it that way, it is simpler. When are you aware of yourself?
1:11:23 Only when you are in conflict, aren’t you?
1:11:30 Or only when you are pursuing something that delights you; only when there is great fear.
1:11:40 It is only in those moments of stress and strain that you are aware of yourself – aren’t you?
1:11:52 Please, sir. Now without stress and strain, can you be aware of yourself? Can you watch yourself, can you watch the content of your own mind – the beliefs, the national feeling, the pettiness, the shallowness, the desires, the anxieties, fears, you know all that is part of your consciousness, identification with a country, with a name, with a property and so on and so on and so on?
1:12:32 And the hurts, which one has received from childhood. Now are you aware of all this content?
1:12:46 And the content makes up consciousness. Without the content there is no so-called consciousness. Right? So meditation – just let me put it briefly – meditation is the emptying of the mind of its content as its consciousness and going beyond.
1:13:14 We will discuss it when we talk about meditation some other time.
1:13:34 Q: I have a son and I think that I have a responsibility for him – but is the responsibility to the image that I have?
1:14:17 K: I have a son. I have a responsibility to that son.
1:14:22 Q: (Inaudible) K: Wait. I’ll explain. I have understood your question, madame. I have a son. I have a responsibility to that son. Is my responsibility based on an image of what he should be? Let me explain your question, I’ve understood your question, madame.
1:14:46 I have a son, I feel responsible to that son, the responsibility implies image, and the image of what he should be, how he should behave, how he should grow up, what he should do when he grows up, what kind of woman he marries when he grows up.
1:15:09 I have got all these images about him and I feel responsible – to what?
1:15:17 Do I feel responsible to the images which I have about him?
1:15:25 Or do I feel responsible to him? I am pointing it out, madame. I have a son, I feel responsible.
1:15:48 My responsibility consists in having images of what he should do, how he should be, how he should grow up, and all the rest of it.
1:15:59 So I am responsible to the image that I have built about my son.
1:16:06 So I am responsible not to the son but to the images I have about him.
1:16:20 Now what is responsibility?
1:16:30 What does that word mean? To respond, to react, to act, to respond.
1:16:45 Do I respond according to the image I have about him?
1:16:55 Or do I respond to him, not to the image I have? I wonder if you see.
1:17:07 If I respond, which I call responsibility, to my image about him, I call that irresponsibility – no?
1:17:18 And that is what we have done in bringing up our children – we are responsible to the image that we have built about our children.
1:17:36 Please see the importance of this. That he must be British, he must be a Frenchman, he must be this, he must be that, he must become Catholic, I take him to church, baptise him, because it is my image of religious upbringing for him.
1:18:00 I call that totally irresponsible.
1:18:08 My responsibility is not to my image but to the son.
1:18:15 And to respond to the son I must have no image about him, obviously. That is insanity to have an image about you, how you should behave.
1:18:30 So can I respond adequately to the son, to see that he has the right kind of education, not what I think is the right kind of education.
1:18:43 I have to investigate what is education, why are we being educated at all.
1:18:50 You understand? Why are we being educated? To become engineers, politicians, businessmen?
1:19:08 Why should we go through all this torture of examinations and all the rest of it? To become what? A glorified clerk? So I have to question the whole culture.
1:19:25 We are doing it now. So if I want my son to be educated, I want to find out what is education, and why he is being educated.
1:19:52 To conform to the pattern? And what would he do if he doesn’t conform to the pattern? Will he be thrown to the wolves and be destroyed? So all that is implied in my responsibility to the son, not to the image I have about him.
1:20:11 Q: May I ask you a question? I am leaving today. You spoke of the religious mind. Now what is the religious mind? some laws are easy to follow. I drive on the left-hand side of the road.
1:20:46 Some laws are inevitable and clear. Now...
1:20:53 K: What is the relationship between the law of a country and law generally, between law and a religious mind?
1:21:10 That is the question, sir, isn’t it? I haven’t thought about it before. Let’s find out. First of all we must be very clear what we mean by a religious mind.
1:21:35 A religious mind – we mean – that is not burdened by belief, that does not accept spiritual authority of any kind, that is not caught in ritualism.
1:22:06 A religious mind that has order, not order imposed upon it but has understood what is disorder and in the observation of that disorder in oneself, out of that observation order comes.
1:22:33 And such a mind is capable of investigating further into reality.
1:22:41 It has no authority, no beliefs, no conceptual activity.
1:22:53 And what is law? As the gentleman pointed out, in this side, in England, you drive on the left side, and if you go to France, you drive on the right side, and if you happen to drive on the wrong side here or in France you have an accident.
1:23:14 So what is law? Law, which all of us accept, like paying tax – if you don’t pay a tax, whatever happens.
1:23:26 So what is the relationship between a mind that is really, deeply, in the sense we mean, religious, highly moral, not trained in immorality – which we can go into later – which means order, not conformity.
1:23:52 Order comes only when the mind understands what is disorder and out of the understanding of that disorder is order.
1:24:01 Now such a mind, what is its relationship to the everyday law of every country?
1:24:13 Right sir? Such a religious mind is an intelligent mind, is a sane mind.
1:24:31 And wherever that mind operates, whether it is in France, or wherever it is, it will act intelligently.
1:24:45 Intelligence is not personal or collective, it is intelligence and it will act according to that intelligence given the circumstances.
1:24:56 Right?