Krishnamurti Subtitles home


BR75DSS1.02 - Authority and influence
Brockwood Park, UK - 9 May 1975
Discussion with Staff and Students 1.02



0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s second discussion with teachers and students at Brockwood Park, 1975.
0:11 Krishnamurti: What shall we talk about this morning? (Pause) Or shall we go on from where we left off the other day?
0:31 Questioner: Sir, I think for many of us we’d like to open up an area which we didn’t touch on the other day.
0:39 While we felt everything that was said was very true, there are some other things which are more deeply oppressing us, in a way, here.
0:48 I feel many people don’t feel quite happy, don’t feel that this place is conducive in the way you talked about the other day, or that we are free in the way you talked about the other day.
1:01 K: That you’re not free, that you’re not happy…
1:04 Q: All right, but let me go into it a little more so it doesn’t just seem like a blank statement like that. I think that the problem comes when authority takes on very subtle forms or very surreptitious forms, of which we’re not aware sometimes.
1:23 That is, each one of us has an authority internally inside us. We have the authority of our understanding, the authority of our experience, and we may not be aware that we are suddenly influencing others with that form of authority.
1:38 And it’s very difficult for us sometimes to pinpoint that in another; it’s very difficult to talk it over sometimes because perhaps another person doesn’t realise he has this form of authority, and so on.
1:50 I think that this question is somewhat pressing people.
1:56 K: Is that what you want to discuss? Yes? Many: Yes.
2:01 Q: Also, if you can bring it in, I would question whether there is the willingness to learn that we all agreed upon the other day, that there was.
2:13 I mean, if we could talk about willingness or...
2:17 K: All right, sir. (Pause) Some of you are going out into the world after this—most of you—and you probably know what the world is like, at least second-hand from newspapers, from television, but you have never come directly into contact with this horrible world.
2:57 I think it’s much worse than what you think it is, far worse: kidnapping, butchering, bombing, wars, corruption, immorality from the highest to the lowest—this is... and I can’t tell you, much more worse things are going on.
3:30 And you have got to face this because you are not going to live in Brockwood forever, for your own sake and for our sake—you’re going out to meet all this.
3:46 Probably you are very depressed facing this, that you have to face this.
3:58 And probably you also question what’s the point of it all. What’s the point of being educated? What’s the point of coming to Brockwood? What’s the point of anything? Probably this is also part of your questioning. I hope it is. And seeing all that, your relationship with the world and your relationship with each other, which is the world, what place has learning in all this?
4:51 What place has authority? Not only the external authority of law—the policeman, the lawyer, the judge and all the rest of it—and also the authority that each one wants to have over others.
5:19 I see, I’ve been aware that someone or group of people exercise authority over the rest of you.
5:29 It’s so obvious. Somebody is depressed, somebody is disgruntled, somebody thinks it’s a rotten place, and that person talks about it, enjoys talking about it and influences the others, and so on, so on, so on.
5:51 Now, do you really want to learn about authority?
5:59 Do you? Learn, not be told, not react to it, not express your opinions—‘Why should we have authority?’ or ‘Why shouldn’t we have authority?’—but do you want to actually learn about it?
6:29 That is, investigate it, go into it, examine it, find out for yourself.
6:44 If you are, then we can go very deeply into it in, all its subtle forms. But first you must be very clear that you want to learn about it—not from me, but together learn what is implied in all this business of authority.
7:20 Avanti, avanti.
7:28 Do you?
7:35 What does it mean to learn? Sorry, I must go into this otherwise you’ll skip and say, ‘Well, let’s get on with authority.’ What does it mean to learn?
7:48 Why do you want to learn about authority?
7:56 Come on, sirs.
8:03 Go on.
8:04 Q: It affects your life. It does have an effect on your life.
8:09 K: Does it really affect your life? Don’t just verbalise and get excited about words, but do you really want to learn so that you can understand the whole problem of existence?
8:26 Q: Well, we don’t know what learning is.
8:29 K: I’m going to... that’s what I am coming into.
8:33 Q: I mean, what’s usually... I mean, we usually… (inaudible) K: Look, sir, I’ll tell you what I mean by learning.
8:43 I really don’t know what authority means. I rebel against the external authority, or I am inclined to exercise my particular authority over another, or I want to assert myself.
9:07 Q: Or we want to learn because we think it will get us somewhere.
9:12 K: So, I want to learn about authority because the whole world—you understand?—the whole world is based on authority.
9:23 Which means tradition, knowledge, experience, and the hierarchical structure of a society—all that is implied in authority, not just petty little authority over little groups of people—that’s also included—but this whole question of authority.
9:54 The authority of the few as in communist Russia or China, the authority of the priest, the authority of a symbol—the cross is a tremendous traditional authority.
10:14 You’re following all this?
10:22 The authority of the prime minister, the authority of the policeman, the authority of the scientist, the physicist.
10:29 So if you want to learn about authority, you have to examine not only what is happening outside yourself but also inwardly.
10:48 Are you willing to do that? Go on, sir.
10:59 Q: Well, still there’s usually only the willingness, because we think it will get us somewhere.
11:15 K: No, no, either you learn for its own sake or use learning as a spade to dig a position for yourself.
11:29 Which is it? Do you want to learn about authority for itself, or you want to learn in order to acquire a knowledge which you will use in the world to acquire a position?
11:53 You understand? Oh Lord.
12:03 Come on, sirs.
12:13 I want to learn about knowledge, not because I’m going to utilise it, but the very understanding of it brings clarity.
12:29 You understand? The very understanding of authority. And I can... then I’m free in the world. So you go on. So there are two meanings to learning: either you learn for itself or you learn to acquire knowledge about authority and exercise that authority both inwardly and outwardly.
13:11 Personally, I think authority in any form is evil, whether it is the tyrannical authority of the communists or the... any authority.
13:37 I don’t want to exercise any authority over you and I don’t want you to exercise any authority on me.
13:46 So, do you want to learn about it?
13:54 I made it perfectly clear. If it isn’t clear, I’ll go into it much more.
14:05 Either you learn physics because you want to become a scientist and therefore well-known and money and position—if you can do it, if you’ve got the talent for it—or you learn physics because in itself it is the world, it’s the structure of the world.
14:29 You follow? So I must be very clear, you must be very clear whether you want to learn for itself, for its own beauty, for its own intelligence, for its own integrity, or you want to use it in order to get somewhere.
14:48 Q: What if it is just for intense interest? One can’t have equal interest in say art, business...
14:58 K: No, no, no, I am not saying equal interest—I am saying, do you want to learn about authority?
15:08 If you want to learn about authority, learning in order to acquire something out of that learning, or learning for its own beauty, for its own vitality, for its own strength, for its own integrity.
15:24 Q: But if you say you want to become a physicist not in order to be greater than someone else or make more money, but because physics is...
15:36 K: …part of life.
15:37 Q: (Inaudible) K: Yes.
15:39 Q: Now, is that also...
15:40 K: That’s not, that’s a different thing. I want to learn physics because it’s part of my life. As I want to know what kind of food I should eat, what kind of exercises I should do, similarly I want to know, I want to learn about physics.
15:57 That’s quite different from learning physics in order to be something.
16:06 I think this is clear, isn’t it?
16:08 Q: Yes.
16:09 K: Right?
16:10 Q: So what if in that case, in which I’m interested in learning about authority, but I look around me and I see there are very few people who are interested and therefore I just feel rather fed up and don’t really want to take part because these other people are entrenched in their own authorities?
16:35 K: What am I to do in that case? I’m entrenched in my authority, in the way I learn, exercise, and you want to learn about it.
16:49 What is our relationship between us two, who is too soon separate?
16:53 Q: We are separate.
16:54 K: Obviously. If I am exercising authority and you are against it, I play along with you for some time and at the end of a year I find that you are... that I am impossible.
17:10 Then you say, ‘Good morning, sir, I’m going somewhere else,’ if you can.
17:18 So let us begin. If you want to learn about authority, either you exercise... either you learn it as a part of existence, as part of our whole life, not something by itself, or you learn about authority in order to grow in authority.
17:46 You follow? Now, let’s proceed. What is authority? The meaning of that word, the dictionary meaning. Not what you think authority is or what I think authority is—the meaning of that word.
18:14 As we said the other day, it comes from the word ‘author’, one who originates something.
18:28 Have you got it? You originate a thesis, an idea, a structure, architectural structure or write something original.
18:45 And then I come along and imitate you because it’s profitable to me too.
18:53 You follow? All the implications of it. So authority means the one who originates and the one who imitates.
19:11 Am I all right, sir, so far? Good. Beethoven originated something, or Mozart, and then the rest of the musicians followed.
19:27 Bach. Bach didn’t follow, he originated something therefore he was the author.
19:43 That is the meaning, the dictionary meaning of ‘authority.’ Right?
19:51 Are we... It is not a matter of you and I agreeing; go and look in a dictionary, it is there.
20:03 Now, why does this sense of conformity to an authority of an idea—please listen—idea, ideals, a pattern, a tradition, why has it become so strong in the world?
20:25 You understand my question?
20:32 Take communist Russia as an example—I’m not against or for it; we’ll go into it—why has the authority of the few, oligarchy, become so strong?
20:54 You’re not allowed to vote, you’re not allowed to think for yourself, you’re not allowed to criticise the government, you’re not allowed to go from one town to another—if you want to live in Moscow you have to get permission.
21:19 You follow all this? Why has authority of that kind become important?
21:29 Why do people accept it? Go on, sir.
21:37 Q: Out of fear.
21:41 K: Out of fear. Go on, investigate it, sir, go on.
21:45 Q: Out of security.
21:47 K: Go on, go on, investigate it.
21:51 Q: Conditioning.
21:52 K: Would you—listen carefully—would you accept it?
21:55 Q: Perhaps they are too lazy to rebel against it.
22:02 They are too lazy, kind of in the mind to…
22:06 K: If you were in Russia under these circumstances, would you accept it?
22:12 Q: If the alternative was to be thrown in a prison camp, I...
22:18 K: Wait. No, you’d go to prison and all the rest of it… I’m asking you, would you accept it?
22:22 Q: No.
22:24 K: Why not? Listen. They give you food, clothes, shelter, marvellous holidays on the Black Sea, only you cannot criticise the government, only you cannot do this, that, ten different things.
22:45 Wouldn’t you accept it?
22:47 Q: No.
22:48 K: Ah! Of course you would, if you are guaranteed food, shelter, holidays, money.
23:00 That’s what you want.
23:03 Q: Yes, but those are all physical things.
23:09 K: Wait! I’m starting with that, old boy. I didn’t say... That’s what human beings want first and therefore they tolerate it.
23:27 Only a few people, like Solzhenitsyn, he gets out, he’s thrown out.
23:34 There are several Russians who are dissidents, who totally disagree with the system, they are either sent to prison, shot or expelled.
23:47 But the rest say, ‘Well, all right, you give me food, clothes and shelter, holidays, good food, work, and I’m quite satisfied.’ Right?
23:58 Aren’t you going to do the same, here in the so-called free world?
24:08 You conform.
24:09 Q: It’s easier to.
24:11 K: (Laughs) Don’t, don’t. You conform. (Pause) If society offered to you tomorrow all the things you want, you’d say, ‘All right, old boy, I’m perfectly satisfied.’ Q: I don’t think they would, Krishnaji.
24:34 I don’t think they would.
24:37 K: Wait, I’m questioning it. I’m not at all sure.
24:53 When you pass exams and enter into a college and university degree, then you are caught.
25:05 Aren’t you?
25:07 Q: Caught in what? What do you mean, you’re caught?
25:11 K: Caught in the pattern, which is the authority.
25:13 Q: But we’re in constant...
25:14 K: Wait, wait, that’s not the point!
25:16 Q: Why isn’t it? Are we psychologically caught necessarily if we...
25:26 K: You’re physically caught.
25:29 Q: Physically.
25:31 K: I am sticking to that one thing first and then we’ll move to the other level.
25:37 Q: As a matter of fact, right now we are living in a society that we are already caught physically.
25:46 In other words...
25:48 K: No, I’m trying to say, Tungki, most human beings want these things first: security, physical security, food, clothes and shelter.
26:01 If you guarantee that to me, I say, ‘That’s enough for me.
26:11 Look after the... Go to...’—you know—‘Do anything. Give me that first.’ Aren’t you all in that position?
26:19 Q: Otherwise, if one were in that position nobody would question anything because they are all sheltered, fed and clothed.
26:30 K: We’re all in that position, first. We want that thing first and therefore we accept authority. Don’t you? You look puzzled. Don’t you accept it?
26:50 Q: Caught by certain authorities, yes.
26:53 K: Wait, I am sticking... no, I’m sticking to that one thing, please. I am going to explore into various forms of authority. I am examining the physical desire, biological desire or urge to have food, clothes and shelter.
27:17 If the examinations offer me that, I say, ‘Right!’ Q: But you used ‘desire’ as if...
27:24 K: Authority... No, don’t go off on a word.
27:26 Q: But you used ‘desire’.
27:27 K: I did.
27:28 Q: You said the desire or the urge for the physical needs.
27:29 K: But I... that’s the only...
27:32 Q: Without it you couldn’t live.
27:34 K: That’s...
27:35 Q: You couldn’t talk about philosophy…
27:37 K: Therefore I wouldn’t. Therefore...
27:39 Q: It’s a need, isn’t it?
27:40 K: Therefore I say we all succumb to this sense of authority when this is granted.
27:49 Q: Yes.
27:50 Q: I don’t think it is granted, Krishnaji.
27:57 I think you select how you all come by it.
28:04 K: What do you mean? I don’t quite follow it.
28:09 Q: Well, you choose to do this or not do that.
28:10 K: But why don’t they all rebel against the politburo?
28:11 Q: Well, here…
28:12 K: No, please, you listen to what I said. You’re all going from... I said, why do we accept the authority of a few who guarantee this?
28:27 And then why do we accept, or have accepted, the authority of the priest for centuries, who guarantee you heaven or everlasting life?
28:38 Q: That’s...
28:39 K: Wait, wait, I’m showing you the same thing!
28:44 Q: Doesn’t that come back to fear?
28:49 K: It comes back. I don’t want to enter the motivation of it. I see the fact that we accept authority.
29:03 One case in Russia and the other case is the whole Christian attitude of the priest, exercising authority, representing Jesus.
29:19 Q: But that’s dead and finished.
29:21 K: Ah!
29:22 Q: There are five hundred and ninety million Roman Catholics.
29:25 K: It is not finished—they will move from that into something else.
29:32 Q: Yes, but in both those cases you promise something. You’re promised… the priest says, ‘If you accept what I say, you’ll go to heaven.’ K: ‘You’ll have everlasting life.’ Q: Right, and...
29:45 K: Right. And the other says, ‘Everlasting life here.’ (Laughs) That’s all.
29:50 Q: But isn’t it only accepting authority when you abandon your right to think for yourself?
29:56 K: But you have been conditioned that way. Do you know what has happened, sir, in the Christian world? When they thought for themselves they were burnt, they were heretics, they were crucified, they were tortured.
30:18 The same thing which is happening in Russia. I am asking why human beings—you—accept authority.
30:38 Because we want security.
30:49 If the democracy offers security I will go after democracy. If tyranny, dictatorship offers security, I’ll go after that.
31:08 So do you—please, follow this—do you want authority?
31:18 Authority as a means of survival, physical survival, a social system that offers you food, clothes and shelter, job, bank account, etc., etc.—do you accept that authority?
31:47 You do. You have. You may reject the authority of the priest.
31:55 Q: There’s no problem. You can earn a livelihood adequate to sustain you and put a roof over your head by simple work.
32:07 K: Where?
32:08 Q: Anywhere in England, anywhere in Europe or in...
32:09 K: Wait, please, my lady.
32:10 Q: And that’s where we are.
32:11 K: Wait. That’s where you are. I’m not at all sure you are there. The work, earning a livelihood, is becoming less and less and less...
32:20 Q: It is so at this moment. You still have the right of choice.
32:25 K: In England you have.
32:27 Q: (Inaudible) …the authority.
32:28 K: I said in England, in America, in India, in so-called democracies, with all their confusion and misery and all the rest of it, you have that.
32:38 I took Russia as an example of accepting authority which guarantees you these things.
32:45 Q: But you also said, Krishnaji, you’ll take exams, you’ll go to university and take a degree and then you’re caught.
32:54 In what?
32:55 K: Caught—you are back in authority.
32:57 Q: But we’ve got people right here that have done that, have taken exams and gone to university and taken degrees, and I wouldn’t have said they were caught.
33:05 K: You are not caught. Please, just…
33:08 Q: So you don’t have to be.
33:13 Q: If you would define what ‘caught’ is. Obviously the…
33:17 K: Oh, come on. Caught—I don’t have to define a single word. You know the meaning of the whole thing. Look, go to Russia. If I’m a Russian and if I am fairly aggressive and competitive and clever, at the age of 13 I can pass an exam.
33:34 Then I enter into a totally different world. If I am not, if I am dull, stupid, not good at examinations, I enter into a totally different world.
33:49 I am taking Russia as an example where tyranny guarantees me food, clothes and shelter. In the democracies, though it is becoming less and less possible—go to India, they advertised for a cook—please listen to this; listen, learn—they advertised for a cook, I think paying them about seven or eight, fifty—no, less than that—a footling sum, and you know who turned up?
34:28 PhDs, MAs, doctors, lawyers, because they couldn’t get jobs in their career, in their profession.
34:40 So, that’s one question.
34:47 Look at it from… how we, conditioned, given a certain environment, we accept authority easily.
35:01 Right?
35:02 Q: What else can we do?
35:06 K: Wait, wait, wait, wait—we’ll find out what to do. For two thousand years in the Christian world you have accepted authority, haven’t you?
35:21 Go into any church, you have there the authority, complete authority.
35:28 You are conditioned during these two thousand years to accept the assertions, the dogmatism, the superstition of the church.
35:40 No?
35:41 Q: No.
35:42 K: My lady, there were few… The vast majority...
35:46 Q: But it’s past.
35:47 K: Wait!
35:48 Q: Some people did, but what is that...
35:50 K: I am saying how we are conditioned to accept authority.
35:55 Q: But we’re not. Vast numbers are and some are not.
36:02 K: Some are not. Very few are not.
36:07 Q: There are always very few.
36:09 K: That’s all I’m saying. There are very few who will not accept authority.
36:14 Q: Can we start at a different point? Last night we talked about it. We looked at an infant. When he comes into the world he has to in a sense accept the authority of his parents.
36:32 K: Of the mother. Sir, how do we discuss this thing? To me, I can see for myself. Observing this, I say, ‘No authority for myself.’ You follow? To me authority is deadly, destructive.
36:52 Q: But, I mean, I do see you accepting authority though.
36:56 K: Wait, I’m going to go into it. I come to you as a physicist. You are my authority, but I’m not going to make my life conform to your pattern of what you think I should… etc., etc.
37:13 Q: Well, what if I’m your doctor though?
37:15 K: I accept the doctor. I go to the doctor. I say, ‘Look...’ Q: (Inaudible) K: Wait, wait, sir. Wait. I’m ill. I’m very careful. I hardly go to a doctor except once or twice a year to be examined. Otherwise I don’t go near a doctor. But suppose I go to a doctor—I’m ill—I’ll have to accept what he says.
37:36 Q: Then when you said, ‘I don’t accept authority in any form,’ what did you mean?
37:39 K: Wait. My God, it’s all so damn simple, why do you make it...
37:43 Q: But you use a big blanket statement that doesn’t…
37:48 K: I will show you. I refuse to accept authority because it is destructive of intelligence.
37:58 Q: Yes.
38:00 K: Wait. How do you agree with that? Why do you agree with that?
38:05 Q: I don’t agree at all. What authority are you talking about, sir?
38:07 K: I’m coming to that. So I say there is the authority of law, with policemen saying, ‘Keep to the right,’ or left.
38:17 I have to follow because of convenience for the rest of the people. The authority of a lawyer, the authority of a doctor, the authority of a scientist, the authority of a mathematician who is teaching me what mathematics is—I have to...
38:33 Q: All that has to be questioned too, otherwise that will go dead.
38:38 K: No, how the teacher who is teaching me exploits his knowledge and uses me, etc., etc.
38:48 But this is all... Look, I go to him to teach me physics.
38:54 Q: And make him into authority.
38:58 K: Wait, no. It depends on him.
39:02 Q: Exactly. It’s a relationship.
39:04 K: Wait, I am coming to that. It depends on him and depends on my attitude about learning, and his attitude about learning.
39:14 If both of us are learning there is no authority.
39:17 Q: But there’s a factual authority, if you want the word: he knows physics.
39:24 K: More than I do.
39:25 Q: This doesn’t give him authority in another field, but in physics he knows... (inaudible) K: Of course. I agree.
39:33 MZ: But only in that area.
39:36 K: Only in that limited area. If he says, ‘You mustn’t smoke, you must drink alcohol,’ etc., I say, ‘Please...’ I’ll discuss with him.
39:46 He’s my friend therefore I’ve a certain relationship as a student with him, therefore I’ll talk it over with him. But he can’t... I mean, he wouldn’t if he was a good teacher and who is also learning with me, he wouldn’t exercise his prejudice or his knowledge or his experience to convince me of something; he would talk it over with me.
40:07 Then in that case there is no authority. Are you following all this or are we having two conversations?
40:15 Q: I am confused, sir, when authority is positive and productive and when it’s negative.
40:24 K: No, there is no... Sir, don’t use these words ‘positive’ and ‘negative’—that means...
40:30 Q: But, sir, for instance, you quote the dictionary to us. Now that is… you’re setting that up as in a sense an authority.
40:38 K: No, because we all have agreed, the world, your English world has agreed by usage of, etc., etc., that the dictionary represents the meaning of certain words.
40:53 Q: Do you call that authority?
40:55 K: Yes, call it authority if you want to.
40:56 Q: So there is, as Scott just said, there is authority that is relevant and acceptable and there is authority that is in another area which we have to go into.
41:12 K: That’s… I’m pointing out something also, which is that we accept authority when... we accept authority because we want security.
41:26 That’s all. They accepted that ugly man, Mussolini, because he brought Italy some kind of order.
41:39 Q: Disorder too. Disorder also.
41:42 K: Wait, wait, some kind. My lady, I said some kind of order, which doesn’t mean complete order.
41:52 Q: Well, some did.
41:56 Q: They did accept him. They accepted him.
41:58 K: They accepted him because he made the trains punctual, there was security. Though at every corner there was a policeman, they accepted it. They accepted Hitler.
42:09 Q: But is there a point at which this becomes twisted? I mean, we’d all agree that if you watch a small animal in the wild, whenever he comes across a frightening situation he runs to his mother, the same with a child.
42:28 This seems to be the natural stage in development.
42:29 K: Wouldn’t you, madame, accept authority if you were guaranteed food and clothes and shelter?
42:35 Q: What else? I mean there’s... (inaudible) K: Go, go, just think about it for a minute.
42:44 Q: It’s not separated, it’s all interlinked.
42:47 Q: If it’s tyranny, that one cannot speak, think, do certain things, many of us would question that.
42:55 Those aren’t the only facts in the bargain.
42:59 Q: I don’t think so. I think if someone promised me that, and on the other hand was to go out on the streets and starve, I would most certainly run for that.
43:09 Q: Careful. But it’s not as simple.
43:11 K: Of course. That’s what is happening in the world.
43:13 Q: But it’s not like that.
43:14 Q: That’s because we’re not in that position here at the moment.
43:19 K: Who?
43:20 Q: It is more subtle actually, more subtle.
43:24 Q: Krishnaji, we all have that security already of food, clothes and shelter. If we didn’t, if we were starving, then...
43:31 K: I don’t say you haven’t got it. I am examining the whole problem of authority.
43:37 Q: But it’s so hypothetical to say, if you were in that situation.
43:40 K: No, no, it is not hypothetical.
43:41 Q: We’ll be in it soon, right? (Laughter) Q: You put a question to us: if we had that, would we accept it?
43:50 K: I said—please just listen—I said most people accept authority as a means of survival, both psychological and physiological.
44:06 That’s all.
44:14 And I’m afraid most of us, though we live in democracy and freedom, would do that.
44:23 You may be free while you are here or you may not... you may want more freedom.
44:30 I don’t know why you want more freedom, but you may want more freedom.
44:36 Q: But another way to put that would be to say that that’s one of the ways that an authority works, by threatening your security.
44:43 K: Yes, threatening and rewarding. Those are the two principles on which our society’s mentality and structure is based.
44:54 Reward and punishment.
44:56 Q: At what point does the authority of the doctor, say, become evil?
45:07 K: When he interferes with my way of thinking.
45:11 Q: But the way we’re discussing the word ‘authority’ now differs from the dictionary meaning.
45:20 K: Yes, sir. Now, yes, because we are expanding the meaning of that word. We said first, the meaning of that word is the originator and the man who conforms to that which was originated.
45:34 Q: There are always two ways of looking at it.
45:38 K: No. According to dictionary, sir. The dictionary has only one meaning, not you and I looking at it differently. It says authority means the author of something, the originator of something.
45:53 That’s all.
45:54 Q: But when we use the word ‘authority’ it doesn’t always have to be evil.
45:59 K: No. When we use the authority... You are a gardener, you are a top gardener. You know everything about gardening: what kind of manure, what kind of tree, what kind of plant, what kind of flower, and so on and so on. I don’t know anything about it. I come to you and I want to learn about gardening. And with that spirit I come to you. I don’t assume that you’re going to shape my life. I want to learn about gardening—a subject only. I do not want you to shape my life. Or I don’t want you to exercise your knowledge in exploiting me.
46:47 I say, ‘Please, I want to learn.’ That’s quite a different matter.
46:53 Q: But the wrong thing about our acceptance of food, clothing and shelter from a government, in return for which we accept authority—that is a phoney authority.
47:04 The authority is an authority on life.
47:08 K: Yes, that’s right. We have said that clearly, sir. The authority of knowledge in things of functional, of... in the field of knowledge—in that field there must be authority.
47:28 There must be somebody who knows, somebody who doesn’t know. It is like that, unfortunately. But the authority of the priest says, ‘Believe in this.’ The authority of the priest, the authority of the people who assume they know everything, they say, ‘Do this, don’t do that.
47:54 This will give you everlasting life. If you don’t do that, everlasting hell.’ Reward and punishment. Now, can we go on from there?
48:07 Q: Why then did people accept this kind of authority when there was no need?
48:15 K: Because, sir, they were trained, conditioned to the idea, to the belief that there was heaven and hell—which the priests cultivated very carefully.
48:32 Right? You understand what I’m saying? For two thousand years they have been doing this. And you are conditioned. And very few escape from that conditioning altogether.
48:54 Which means not to go back to Indian philosophy—you follow?—or the Indian method of church or all the rest of it.
49:05 When you discard the authority of the priest, you discard the authority of all the priests in the world.
49:17 So now we know more or less what we’re talking about—do we? —what we mean by authority. So there is external authority: law, police, keep to the left of the road or right of the road, as in Paris and so on, tax—all those are external.
49:40 Now there is the internal authority. Right? ‘I think this is so’—right?—and because I can express it clearly and strongly or in different ways, you say, ‘By Jove, he knows a great deal.
50:06 He’s the authority all right.’ I dominate you through my prejudice, or I dominate you because I have a personality.
50:17 I feel... You follow?
50:20 Q: You can dominate me if I let you dominate me.
50:27 K: Now, why do you allow yourself to be dominated?
50:31 Q: No, I don’t.
50:32 K: Don’t say you don’t—that’s one of the most difficult things, Nelson, not to be influenced by me, by her, or by your ideas about yourself.
50:52 You understand? Not to be influenced. That’s one of the most difficult things. You are influenced when you see a cinema, go to a film, see a film. You’re influenced when you read a book, the magazines. You’re influenced by your friends. You’re influenced by your wife, husband, girl, boy. You follow? Don’t say you are not.
51:19 Q: How are you influenced?
51:23 K: If I have a wife, she says to me, ‘Do this, darling, I love you.’ I’m influenced. No?
51:30 Q: Are you really influenced? If she tells you, ‘Do this,’ you know, and you see it has to be done...
51:45 K: Sir, if she tells me, ‘Do it,’ and I don’t like to do it… She asks me to go and sweep the yard. I’ve just come from the office and I am bored, I want to rest, and she says, ‘Please go and do it.’ And I would like to tell her, ‘Go to hell, I want rest,’ but I daren’t.
52:09 So I say, ‘All right, darling.’ I go and do it.
52:16 I have been influenced. Haven’t we been? What’s wrong with this?
52:19 Q: Isn’t this the basic trouble we have, and we don’t even see that we…
52:29 K: That’s all my point, sir—you don’t see these things. That means you don’t learn. (Pause) Q: But isn’t it a very complicated thing?
52:50 It isn’t a question of, ‘Darling, go and do it,’ it’s a question of a whole lot of other circumstances… (inaudible) K: Of course, it’s a tremendous thing. When Nelson says, ‘I’m not influenced,’ I say, good Lord, he doesn’t know what it means.’ He has stopped learning when he says, ‘I am not influenced.’ Sorry.
53:12 You have to learn about it.
53:19 So are you prepared—listen, Nelson—are you prepared to learn about influence?
53:27 Which persuades people, shapes your mind, the way you think, the way you act.
53:31 Q: And also to see the whole situation so that you can act. I mean, which doesn’t necessarily involve influence. Influence is there but you have to weave your way through it and around it.
53:49 You have to see the whole thing and act.
53:52 K: But first of all I see you influence me.
53:55 Q: You can’t get away from influence, in a way.
53:57 K: I’m not sure. Wait, please. I want to find out. You influence me. Why do you want to influence me? Because you want me to think in a certain way or do something in your way. You want to influence me. And I, being rather sensitive, weak or whatever it is, I accept your influence.
54:29 But if I want to learn about the whole problem of influence, I have to find out why you influence me and I accept your influence.
54:41 Why do I accept the influence of a dozen things? What is this necessity of being influenced and accepting influence?
54:54 That’s my point. You understand what I’m talking about?
55:01 Q: No.
55:02 Q: I don’t quite understand influence. The example that you used: ‘Darling, go and sweep the yard’—if I’m tired and I’ve just come from work or whatever, and I don’t want to sweep the yard, I mean...
55:17 K: Then what happens?
55:19 Q: There would be a way, I’ll find out a way of saying, ‘Well, let me just rest for a while and then I’ll sweep it.’ K: Yes, but there is no time because children are coming and...
55:29 Q: But I suppose you will do the right thing when... (inaudible) K: That means—wait—that means you have to watch not only yourself, her.
55:42 Are you? That means you and her are in a relationship where you are learning, both of you.
55:51 Q: I see, but why did you say...
55:57 K: Now look here, Nelson, she raised the question: we are subtly influencing each other.
56:09 Right? Can it ever stop? And why do you want to influence another? Please believe me, I don’t want to influence you in any direction.
56:27 Q: It may be unconscious.
56:29 K: No, even… Don’t attribute.
56:32 Q: You cannot…
56:34 K: I am telling you—listen to me (laughs)—I consciously or unconsciously, in no way I want to influence you.
56:47 Because if you are capable of being influenced by me you are capable of being influenced by somebody else.
56:56 Q: What is the difference between influence and sensibility?
57:01 K: I want to... because she raised that, used that word. And it is a very good word.
57:10 Q: But a stranger could come in here and listen to this last ten minutes of the conversation...
57:16 K: …and think we are quarrelling.
57:19 Q: …and will say, ‘Listen, I see this fellow’s trying to influence this young man over here.’ K: No, I’m not. I said... Because he doesn’t understand, he hasn’t listened long enough, he hasn’t found out what I want to convey, he just judges. Which is, he has been influenced in a certain direction and therefore he...—and so on, so on.
57:39 Q: We are using the word ‘influence’ to mean to change someone’s behaviour or ideas.
57:42 K: No, I influence her. What does that word mean, to influence somebody? To persuade, to direct, to...
57:55 Q: Convince.
57:58 K: …convince, to show him this is the right way to do… Influence. I think that’s a very good word.
58:12 Q: Well, I mean, if there’s no influence or anything, then there is nothing.
58:18 K: No, no. Are you aware? Tungki, are you aware that you are influencing and others are influencing you?
58:27 That’s all the point in this. As he pointed out, we are not, we don’t know even that this is taking place.
58:37 Q: When you just now said, ‘I don’t want to influence you,’ I mean, how can you not influence somebody?
58:47 Doesn’t it depend on the other person to see clearly?
58:51 K: Listen, I am stating what to me must be that way: I don’t want to influence you.
59:00 Then I become a propagandist. A propagandist is a liar.
59:04 Q: But if you are, say, pointing out something...
59:08 K: But I say... I am pointing, I doing it now.
59:13 Q: It has an influence.
59:15 K: No. I am asking you, don’t be influenced by me but look at it, examine it, go into it, learn about it.
59:24 That’s not influencing, that’s not trying to persuade him, that’s not trying to convince him, that’s not trying to push him in any direction; but say, ‘Do look.’ Q: But isn’t, ‘Do look’?
59:35 K: That is not influencing. Now, now. No, you can reduce everything to rubbish.
59:43 Q: I think we should be clear about the differentiation between influencing and learning, surely.
59:49 K: Yes, all right.
59:50 Q: I mean, change can come about through learning or it can...
59:54 K: I can persuade you, influence you, direct you to learn: reward, punishment, push and so on, or I can help you—not help you—I can say, ‘Look, let’s look at this, let’s learn about it.’ That’s not influence.
1:00:09 Q: Then I learn for myself.
1:00:11 K: That’s not influence.
1:00:13 Q: If you say to me, ‘This is a very interesting book about whales and dolphins,’ is that influence?
1:00:17 K: No. I say, read it. That’s not influence.
1:00:21 Q: But you say, ‘Read it.’ K: Read it. Really, my lady, you’re making it so absurd! Let’s come back. Are you aware, all of you, that you are being influenced? Or you are influencing by your moods, by your clothes, by your solitude, by your saying, ‘I must withdraw myself one day and explode another day.’ Do you know this, that you are being influenced and you are influencing us?
1:00:53 Are you aware of it? Newspapers, television, prime minister when he talks, and Mrs Thatcher when she... —you know, all that.
1:01:06 (Laughs) Q: Then everything influences you. Actually, then everything influences you.
1:01:11 K: So everything is—sun is influencing you, food, clothes, everything.
1:01:19 So, then you are the result of all influences.
1:01:26 Aren’t you? Nelson? (Laughs) Poor chap!
1:01:43 (Laughter) So, if you see that you are... everything is influencing you, pushing you in a certain direction, trying to convince you of something, trying to force you, offering a reward, punishment—all that is implied in that one word—then what do you do?
1:02:10 Q: Isn’t there influence without reward and punishment? That’s an added extra.
1:02:18 K: I added that word ‘influence’ in that word, reward and punishment. That’s what the church has done.
1:02:25 Q: Yes, but there’s influence apart from reward and punishment.
1:02:28 K: Oh, yes. I can influence you to do something because it gives me great pleasure, it helps me to dominate you.
1:02:36 Q: Even different from that though, there’s the influence of the sun, there’s the influence of the climate you live in, the food you eat.
1:02:46 K: Of course. I said that—sun, climate, food.
1:02:48 Q: Yes, but there’s no reward or punishment in that.
1:02:53 K: My lady, of course not. Come on, sirs, what shall I do? I am the result of the influences of India, of Europe, because I’ve lived in Europe for many years, I’ve lived in America for many years, I’m influenced by all the things around me, by people, by magazines, by cinemas, by the people I have met, their ideas, they are bombarding me all the time.
1:03:21 Right? No?
1:03:23 Q: I don’t think it’s clear yet what influence is, in its totality. There are ways that influence works that we haven’t yet talked about, and I think Dorothy was hinting at it.
1:03:43 There are other influences, like the influence of ideas or idea systems.
1:03:47 K: Same thing, sir—ideas, systems, philosophies.
1:03:48 Q: I have an example. Like, we’re walking in the woods and I see a mushroom and I immediately pick it up and I want to eat it later.
1:03:58 To me that’s what we do with the things we find in the woods. But your idea is that we leave them there and let these living things grow. Then we have a conflict K: No, no, no. I... Sir...
1:04:11 Q: Now who’s right, in other words?
1:04:14 K: Ah, not who is right and who is wrong.
1:04:18 Q: No, but I mean, I might say to you, ‘Now don’t pick that mushroom, it’s a living thing.’ K: No. So I leave it alone if I think I don’t need it.
1:04:24 Q: Yes, but you might...
1:04:25 K: If I’m hungry, if I’m slave to my tongue, then I say, ‘Let’s pick it up and go cook it and eat it.’ No, sir, look, I want to go into it in a deeper sense.
1:04:45 You are the result of all the influences in the world—right?—tradition, ideas, ideals, propaganda of Jesus Christ and in India all their circus stuff, all their carnival about religion and so on, so on, so on, so on.
1:05:06 I am the result of my parents, the society I live in. They have all contributed an influence which made me.
1:05:19 Right?
1:05:21 Q: Is that what you’re trying to bring our attention to, or to…
1:05:24 K: Of course. Go into it deeper. I am the result of all that.
1:05:27 Q: There is something that is the result of all that.
1:05:32 K: Of course. I’m an American, in language, in thought, in saying, ‘Vietnam, I wish we had defeated them,’ and so on, so on, so on, so on.
1:05:45 If I am... The other night, turning on the television the queen was in Japan and, you know, ‘Our queen, God save the queen,’ you know, all that.
1:05:59 Q: So it’s not so much the meaning of the word ‘influence’ but the thing that it’s affecting.
1:06:08 K: I want to go into it deeper, sir. That is, we are conditioned by these influences. Right, sir? You all agree to this? Many: Yes.
1:06:20 K: This is simple enough. And I object to one kind of influence and I accept the other kind of influence: pleasant, unpleasant; rewarding and punishing.
1:06:35 So I accept some influences which are agreeable, some which are not, according to my conditioning.
1:06:44 Right? So, influences of various kinds—climatic, sociological, economic, religious, and so on, so on—have influenced the mind which is now living.
1:07:04 Right? Right? You agree to it all? Not agree—see it? Nelson?
1:07:12 Q: Yes.
1:07:14 K: Now, what am I to do?
1:07:23 If I live in Russia, I’m conditioned that way: ‘There is no Jesus, there is no God, only state.
1:07:33 Lenin is my greatest guru.’ Q: So surely, isn’t the first question: am I satisfied with this?
1:07:42 Or am I dissatisfied with it?
1:07:44 K: Your dissatisfaction and satisfaction are based upon your conditioning, which is the result of your influence.
1:07:52 (Laughs) I mean, if I am dissatisfied by one influence and I say, ‘That’s bad,’ I am judging that influence according to my conditioning, according to my tradition, according to the social structure in which I have been brought up.
1:08:14 Q: If you suddenly were in an extremely tyrannical situation and you saw people being butchered, would that be a result of your conditioning?
1:08:24 K: No, that’s quite a different thing. You see, let me limit it for a while. For God’s sake, don’t expand it too much because otherwise we’ll get lost.
1:08:36 So what am I to do when she is influencing me by her moods? Sorry, I don’t know if you’re moody—that’s your affair.
1:08:52 When you are an artist and you’re trying to say, ‘Look at that beautiful tree, it should be painted this way.’ Q: But also we think that we can do something about it.
1:09:02 K: I want to find out, what am I to do?
1:09:05 Q: We think we can do something.
1:09:07 K: Can you?
1:09:08 Q: Yes, that’s what I’m asking.
1:09:09 K: I’m asking you. (Laughter) That’s what you’re all concerned with: to do something.
1:09:19 The social reformer, the politicians, the economists, making things worse and worse and worse.
1:09:34 Everything human beings touch goes to pieces, nearly. Otherwise they would jump on me, if I didn’t add that word ‘nearly.’ (Laughter) So what am I to do knowing she is influencing me?
1:10:01 By her cleverness, by her interest, in talking about inwardness, by her moods, by her look, she’s influencing me.
1:10:14 And you are influencing me. I pick up a newspaper, that’s influencing me. So mustn’t I read a newspaper?
1:10:28 Then I shut my eyes and withdraw into a little corner and die. Right? So what shall I do?
1:10:39 Q: I want to ask a question before this. Let’s say in Russia, the system as it is, and what will make somebody first of all see that he is influenced by the government and everything, what will make him say, ‘What am I to do?’ How is he going to change his attitude towards, you know...
1:11:14 I can’t…
1:11:16 K: Look, sir, you’ve heard of Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov? They are in revolt against the system. Sakharov is one of their biggest scientists, therefore they daren’t touch him.
1:11:33 Solzhenitsyn wrote against it all and they exiled him—he lives in Switzerland.
1:11:41 The rest, vast majority of people say, ‘Please, we’ll follow. Give us food, clothes and shelter, everything is all right. Leave us alone.’ You and I can’t change those people.
1:11:56 Right? So we are talking about you and me living in a world where we’re still somewhat free.
1:12:07 And we say, you are being influenced by everything around you: a cloudy day, a sunny day, by the food, clothes, by the people you live with, the propagandists, the television, the priests, the books, everything.
1:12:31 If I live with her, she influences me by her moods, by her exaltation the third day, and so on, so on, so on, so on.
1:12:40 What am I to do?
1:12:41 Q: Yes, but what makes you say, ‘What am I to do?’ K: I’m asking you because that was the question that was raised.
1:12:53 If I am always being influenced by everything around me—right?—there is no freedom.
1:13:03 Right? The communists say freedom is a bourgeois idea because they say conditioning is the only thing that’s real, the rest is all nonsense.
1:13:21 So if I am being influenced all the time my mind says, ‘What is going to happen?’ That means, I’ll never... the mind can never be free.
1:13:40 Right?
1:13:42 Q: Isn’t influence a condition of existence?
1:13:49 Is there any difference between influence and relationship?
1:13:53 K: A great deal. If in relationship… All right. What is relationship? Come on, sir, discuss with me. What is relationship? You like somebody, you don’t like somebody. Right? You are my girl or my boy. What is that relationship?
1:14:21 Q: There’s something happening between you and someone else.
1:14:26 K: What is happening?
1:14:28 Q: Either like or dislike.
1:14:30 K: Go on, sir, examine it, don’t just say that—more, much more is involved in it.
1:14:37 Q: Well, there’s an attachment there.
1:14:42 K: Attachment, pleasure, sex, companionship.
1:14:47 Q: Hurts, pain. Pain or hurts.
1:14:52 K: Yes, that’s it, the companionship, hurt, pain. Go on. Go on, examine it, learn about it, for God’s sake!
1:15:11 Q: It can also be sharing.
1:15:19 K: Sharing. And also there is irritation, there is hurt.
1:15:30 Q: Jealousy.
1:15:31 K: Loneliness.
1:15:32 Q: It seems to me that most of these things we’ve just mentioned are what we normally say is relationship, but I think they are not relationship at all.
1:15:40 K: So what is relationship? If these are not relationship, which we call relationship, in which we live—you influence me, I influence you, you hurt me, I hurt you, I’m attached to you, I am...—all the rest of it—sex, pleasure, pain, everything in that.
1:16:02 You said all that is not relationship. Then what is relationship? Gosh, you people don’t learn.
1:16:15 Q: It is relationship because all those things happen in relationship.
1:16:20 K: In relationship between you and me, all this takes place. And he says all this is not relationship.
1:16:27 Q: It’s what we call relationship.
1:16:29 K: Yes, what we call it. But that’s implied when you call it relationship. Then what is relationship?
1:16:34 Q: It’s the same thing as when you talk about or we talk about love—all these things are what most people associate with love, and we say it’s not love.
1:16:46 K: This is what we call love. Is that it?
1:16:49 Q: This is what the world associates with love.
1:16:50 K: No, no, this is what we call love.
1:16:52 Q: Okay.
1:16:53 K: My God, what...
1:16:54 Q: I think we’ve gone into this many times and we’ve said this is not love.
1:16:59 K: Of course, I’ve gone into it ten million times, but you won’t learn.
1:17:09 Q: A relationship comes from being related to somebody.
1:17:15 K: So, if I influence you and you influence me, and I like it and you also like it—I like to influence you and you like being influenced, and also you like to influence me and I like to be influenced by you, but not by others—that we call lovely relationship.
1:17:41 No?
1:17:42 Q: Yes, but we don’t see that.
1:17:49 K: Abdu? Oh, we are so happy together, waddling in the same… you know.
1:18:01 (Laughter) You scratch my back and I scratch yours.
1:18:08 Attachment and the despair when you run away from me; dependence, pain, all that’s implied in it.
1:18:23 Now, to come back—we’ll go into relationship much deeper if you want to learn about it—I am the result of this vast influence.
1:18:38 Right, Nelson? And I see if I live in this enclosure, if my whole life is spent in this terrible enclosure of being conditioned through influence, where is freedom, what is intelligence, what is anything?
1:19:03 You follow? God is invented by man. Right? No? And that invention has influenced me for two thousand years, which I have invented.
1:19:27 And if I discard that, I go to another God. Right? So what am I, what is my mind to do? Do you want to learn about it?
1:19:47 That means, you have to give time, energy, curiosity, attention, seriousness to find out.
1:19:55 Don’t say, ‘I am not influenced,’ that has no meaning. Or, ‘I am influenced only in one direction and not in others,’ which is equally silly.
1:20:07 I accept totally that I’m influenced all round. I am the result of this tremendous traditional influence of the parents, of the society, of the church, religion, economics.
1:20:27 Oh, good Lord.
1:20:30 Q: What would we be if we were totally uninfluenced?
1:20:41 K: Find out. Come over this side.
1:20:50 Take trouble. Find out if it is possible, if it is really possible.
1:21:00 You understand, sir? If it is possible for a mind to be never touched by the human mess.
1:21:13 Q: Can you go into that more, sir?
1:21:20 Q: But we are part of the human mess.
1:21:29 K: We are part of the human mess—quite right.
1:21:37 So what am I... what are you going to do? Just say, ‘I am part of it,’ and waddle in that mess for the rest of my life till I die?
1:21:48 What shall I do? And we are educated to play around in that mess.
1:21:58 Right, Nelson?
1:22:00 Q: I’ve got lost somewhere.
1:22:09 I was thinking, I asked this question but I don’t know if you’ve got the right meaning of it. What makes this...
1:22:16 K: What makes you put that question?
1:22:18 Q: Yes.
1:22:19 K: Yes, I thought so.
1:22:20 Q: Yes, what makes you put that? Why do you say that these two thousand years, and nobody made that question, of Christianity?
1:22:28 K: No, I don’t say nobody has. Probably many people have, I don’t know. I am saying… you are asking me, why do you put the question that in living in this state there is no freedom?
1:22:41 Q: Not why do you put that question but how is it possible that you can put that question to yourself?
1:22:50 K: I’m doing it. I’ve done it. I’ll show it to you. First of all, I see, I recognise, I have an insight, I examine this fact that I’m influenced—right?—that I am the result of influence.
1:23:10 That’s a fact, isn’t it? No, now you just don’t agree—it’s a real fact as that microphone.
1:23:29 Do you see that? If I’m born in America, I have certain conditioning. If I’m born in Russia, in India, it is much worse because it is so old and so… oh, all the rest of it.
1:23:47 And I’m... every influence has made me what I am today.
1:23:58 And I say to myself, as long as I live in that, I must have... there must be suffering, there must be pain, there must be grief, there must be anxiety, there can be never love.
1:24:15 You follow? So I see that.
1:24:23 And then I say, is it possible to have a mind which has not been influenced at all?
1:24:36 Go on, sir, this is...
1:24:38 Q: Or do you mean that will be no longer be influenced?
1:24:43 K: Which has no influence, which has never been touched by influence.
1:24:46 Q: Well, my mind has been touched in the past.
1:24:50 K: No, no, don’t ever say ‘has’ or ‘is’—your mind is influenced, is the result of influence, as it is now.
1:24:59 Q: Yes, okay.
1:25:02 K: Not ‘okay’ – it is so. Sorry.
1:25:04 Q: No, I understand what you are meaning.
1:25:05 K: Yes, right. Then the next question is, can there be such a mind which is not influenced, which is not the result of influence?
1:25:20 Q: But you’re influenced when you’re younger even by your mother and there’s not all that much you can do about it when you’re younger.
1:25:30 K: So—wait—is that possible? I’m influenced by my mother, by my parents, by the way they dress, their speech, they tell me, ‘Do this, don’t do that; get up, don’t get up; don’t talk that way; good manners, bad manners’—you follow?—‘walk straight, don’t...’—they are telling me this from morning till night.
1:25:54 Not only the parents: the priests, the economists, the socialists, the communists.
1:26:02 Q: The educationalists.
1:26:04 K: Everybody is pouring this into me. And I rebel against it and join that group, who are also pouring in that.
1:26:14 Q: So we come again to the question, how do we deal with the influence?
1:26:27 I mean, is it possible to live without influence?
1:26:30 K: We’re going to find out.
1:26:33 Q: But also at the same time, when you ask that question are you asking it because you want to flee from that?
1:26:40 K: Yes, quite, quite.
1:26:41 Q: Or you want to learn once again?
1:26:44 K: Yes, that’s right. Have you learnt, are you learning, rather—are you learning that you are the result of all this influence?
1:26:56 So when you say, ‘I think this is so,’ or I say, ‘This is right,’ or, ‘I don’t want to be influenced,’ you are still part of that influence.
1:27:12 Right? So you pipe down with your opinions, with your judgements—right?—if you are learning.
1:27:27 You come down from the ladder and say, ‘Please, I’m sorry, I am the result of my influence.
1:27:34 Whatever I say, take it easy. Don’t get angry, don’t grouse, don’t complain.’ That’s part of learning, isn’t it?
1:27:46 Are you doing it? So, I want to find out if my mind, which has been influenced by thousand years—you understand, sir?
1:28:04 —ten thousand years—can that mind ever be free of all influence?
1:28:11 Or is that impossible?
1:28:16 Q: Is it possible to make oneself unavailable to influence?
1:28:30 K: Is it possible not to be influenced?
1:28:36 Q: He said unavailable.
1:28:39 K: Unavailable, the same thing. Unavailable to influence. But you are the result of all the influences.
1:28:52 You can’t say, ‘Well, I won’t be available to influence,’ because what is available has been filled in.
1:29:05 You understand?
1:29:06 Q: Yes, but I mean, you see politicians influence people.
1:29:12 K: Unfortunately, yes.
1:29:14 Q: So one doesn’t like to be involved with the politicians because they corrupt you.
1:29:22 K: Then you can’t be involved with politicians, you can’t be involved with priests, you can’t be involved with professors, you can’t be involved with your wife, you can’t be involved with your neighbour, so gradually you close in.
1:29:38 Q: So someone’s convinced him of saying that all politicians are corrupt and so I don’t want anything to do with them.
1:29:49 K: But then all priests are corrupt—you follow?—so gradually by your saying ‘I won’t’ you shut yourself in a little, small hole.
1:29:59 Right?
1:30:00 Q: Sir, it seems like you can’t close yourself off from them, so the change has to come from within.
1:30:10 K: No, that may also be an influence. So you say to you... I’m asking you, is there a mind which is untouched by man’s thought?
1:30:31 Q: That is no mind.
1:30:34 K: Wait, wait.
1:30:35 Q: I mean, because the mind is…
1:30:36 K: I am asking you, Tungki, if there is such a mind. Don’t say, ‘It is not a mind, it is something else.’ Your mind—Tungki, your mind is conditioned by thousand years of Japanese and Chinese and Mongolian and the Eastern influence, and all the rest of it.
1:30:57 And you have come to this country and it has influenced you—climate, food, etc. You are the result of all that.
1:31:09 And when you suddenly realise—not being told, but realise, have an insight, feel that you are totally conditioned by this influence, what is your response?
1:31:18 (Pause) What’s your response?
1:31:19 Q: The thing is, I don’t see it clearly.
1:31:21 K: No, come on, Tungki, after an hour’s explanation, God, don’t tell me you don’t see clearly.
1:31:39 Q: No, I might feel a part of it and also understand intellectually, but...
1:31:44 K: But I mean it is a fact. That plant over there is conditioned by the climate, by the… etc., etc. —as you are.
1:31:58 Q: Yes, but I think what he’s asking is: have I seen this deeply enough, or do I just think about it?
1:32:07 K: This is a fact. You don’t say deep or shallow or superficial—it is so.
1:32:09 Q: Well, one of the questions is, why is there no driving force?
1:32:21 In realising this, there is no driving force. I mean, something which one tends to feel that there is nothing you can do, and there is no driving force either to change or...
1:32:37 K: Quite. First of all, Tungki, do you see this or do you see the idea of this?
1:32:46 You see the difference? Do you see this actually or do you see this as an idea?
1:32:59 Microphone. This is very important, look at it, Tungki, take time. Please, all of you take time, look at it. Do you see this actually, without the word, or do you see it with the word?
1:33:17 Or the word makes you see it? You follow? Oh, for God’s sake, come on. (Pause) Nelson, what do you do?
1:33:34 Q: Yes, but you...
1:33:36 K: I am asking you a simple question, old boy, don’t rush off to something else.
1:33:39 Q: You are going ahead of me, I don’t know.
1:33:43 K: I am asking a very simple question, Tungki… I mean, Nelson. Do you see this thing or do you see it as an idea?
1:33:56 It is called a microphone. We have all agreed that’s called a microphone. We may all agree to say that it is a giraffe. Then it would be all right. But we have all agreed to call it ‘microphone’. Do you see that or do you see it as an idea, as a word ‘microphone’, and therefore the word is not the real but this is real.
1:34:25 The word is not the thing, this is real.
1:34:26 Q: How do you notice when you are looking with the word?
1:34:35 Because when you walked in I was watching, and I have my ideas. And then somehow I noticed that I was looking through what I think about you, and then only I looked.
1:34:50 K: That means?
1:34:51 Q: How does that step take place?
1:34:53 K: Of course. That means you are looking at the person who entered with the image that you have about him.
1:35:03 Therefore you are not watching him coming in, you are watching the image coming in.
1:35:08 Q: Yes, well...
1:35:10 K: Wait, wait. Wait, hold it, hold it. See the truth of that. Right? So, when you have an image you are not actually seeing. Right? Then can you put away the image and see?
1:35:33 Q: Yes. How does that happen?
1:35:35 K: Wait, I’m going to show it! First see the fact that you look at a person with the image, therefore you don’t see the person.
1:35:47 Right?
1:35:48 Q: You don’t even notice that when you are looking with the image though.
1:35:54 K: Of course. So why do you create an image? The next question.
1:35:58 Q: Yes, but...
1:36:00 K: How is the image formed? Why do you form it? Go on, this is all for you.
1:36:09 Q: Because otherwise you won’t be able to move.
1:36:18 K: Ah, no. Otherwise, he says, you won’t be able to live.
1:36:23 Q: Move.
1:36:26 K: Move. Otherwise you won’t be able to move.
1:36:30 Q: A good example of this is there’s a kind of painting called perceptual impressionism.
1:36:37 K: Yes, yes.
1:36:39 Q: And that is to see that thing—not the thing because if you are really looking at it there’s no thing—but anyway, to see the thing without the idea of it.
1:36:50 So if I look at that microphone without the idea of it, it merges into the light and shade of the background.
1:37:00 Parts of it are still there and parts of it just merge into the background.
1:37:10 K: And then what? Where does movement come into this?
1:37:13 Q: Well, there isn’t any individual thing, everything is one.
1:37:14 K: No, sir, no, sir, just a minute, just a minute. I am asking, why do you have an image?
1:37:27 You know the word ‘idea’—you know ‘idea’? Are you asleep or waiting for lunch? (It’s ten past one, we’ll have to stop.) The word ‘idea’ means in Greek—it came from Greek—which means to see.
1:37:48 You understand? He sees the man walking in. Right? You saw it with your eyes, then you drew a conclusion from that seeing—right?—an image from that seeing, therefore you made an abstraction of the fact.
1:38:17 Right? You understand this? Do you understand this? He is my brother. I see him, but I have made an abstraction of him and according to that abstraction I act, I move.
1:38:43 Are you getting this? Oh Lord—come on. So why do I do this? I see, draw an abstraction as a conclusion, as an image, and therefore I am living with a word and not with reality.
1:39:08 You follow? Why do I do this?
1:39:11 Q: Well, we want certain things from you or...
1:39:18 K: No, no, why do we—not me—why do we generally do this?
1:39:21 Q: So we can store it in our memory.
1:39:26 K: Yes, but why do we do this? Go on. Go into it, sir, learn.
1:39:33 Q: Well, in order to think we have to separate things up and you have to define them.
1:39:39 K: Yes, but I am looking at that man coming in. That’s a fact, he’s coming in. And I draw a conclusion from that. Why?
1:39:48 Q: Well, if you come in and I have no image with you, then I have to… then I don’t know what you are.
1:39:55 I have no idea what you are.
1:39:58 K: Why should you know about what I am?
1:40:00 Q: Well, then I might have some fear that I don’t know what you are going to do.
1:40:09 K: So you have a fear. Fear and what else? Move, sir, find out.
1:40:14 Q: The way I see it is that to insulate yourself from not knowing about what the world is like, what’s happening, we...
1:40:25 K: No, no. I know what the world is like.
1:40:29 Q: You think you do.
1:40:30 K: No, actually I see what’s... In Italy they are kidnapping people. That’s a fact. Vietnam.
1:40:38 Q: I’d sooner go back to the microphone.
1:40:42 K: No, I am taking that, I am taking Italy—they are kidnapping boys and girls of rich people.
1:40:52 Why should I have an abstraction about it? It’s a fact. I can deal with it. I can’t deal with a non-fact. I don’t know if you... I can deal with kidnapping but not with saying, ‘How terrible it is, how ugly it is, how brutal,’ and go off.
1:41:17 Then I will say, all right, what has produced, what has brought about this kidnapping craze? Is it man becoming worse and worse and worse?
1:41:31 You follow, sir? I can deal with that, not with abstractions.
1:41:40 I can’t deal with an abstraction of Jesus.
1:41:41 Q: Well, if we insist on sticking with that example, I might say that to call it kidnapping is already an abstraction.
1:41:46 K: No, no.
1:41:47 Q: No. I mean, I could say that all that has happened is that one person has taken another person and put them in an automobile and driven away with them.
1:41:56 K: No, he’s my son—wait a minute, wait a minute—he has driven away and wants money from me.
1:42:05 Q: Yes, but I mean you call it kidnapping.
1:42:07 K: No, no. No, I call it kidnapping, we have accepted that word ‘kidnap’, to take away somebody from…—all the rest of it.
1:42:16 He is taking my son away because he wants money from me.
1:42:22 Q: But that’s already an image.
1:42:23 K: No, no. Money. He wants...
1:42:26 Q: He may not want money from you. This person may want something else from you. He may want to influence your decision in government.
1:42:31 K: No, he doesn’t, he has…
1:42:32 Q: He may want you to release hostages.
1:42:33 K: He has taken my son away because he wants money, nothing else.
1:42:39 Q: Can’t we be much simpler? You come into the room, a person comes into the room. One looks at them and sees. Either you recognise the person and that whole association happens instantly: ‘It is someone I know; it’s so and so,’ or it’s a total stranger, in which case, also instantly you say, ‘Who is it?
1:43:04 Why is he here?’ Now, is that an illusion?
1:43:08 K: Look, I came here, walked through that room and sat down here and said, ‘What shall we talk about?’ Learning.
1:43:16 Wait. That’s all I was concerned [with]. I wasn’t concerned about who came in, who you are—nothing—I just want to find out. (Pause in recording) K: No, look, my lady...
1:43:25 Q: But when does it...
1:43:28 K: You must have a subtle mind otherwise you just... Of course, you must have a quick, subtle, sensitive mind, otherwise you just mess around. Now we’d better stop because it’s quarter past one.
1:43:48 First, let us see. Have you learnt anything this morning, after an hour, an hour and a quarter?
1:44:02 Nearly two hours—sorry. Have you learnt anything?
1:44:06 Q: Well, we seem to take something... (inaudible) K: No, Tungki, I am asking you—don’t—have you learnt anything this morning?
1:44:14 Have you found out anything?
1:44:16 Q: Yes.
1:44:17 K: Yes? What have you found?
1:44:19 Q: (Inaudible) …a process.
1:44:23 K: Be simple. What have you found?
1:44:28 Q: About myself, how...
1:44:30 K: No, in talking over together for nearly two hours, what have you discovered?
1:44:42 That also applies to you, not to her. Don’t look at her! I turned away from looking at her because...
1:44:50 Q: I have discovered I influence people and I am influenced.
1:44:55 K: So then what? Go on. You have not discovered; you are aware of it.
1:45:01 Q: Right. Therefore I look into it and see what I can find.
1:45:10 K: All right. I don’t want to complicate it. Now, you will think about it, go to your room, think about it, or do you see it immediately?
1:45:25 Q: I see it immediately.
1:45:28 K: No, the whole structure of it immediately.
1:45:34 Q: I see it. Now I am trying to see how I can cope with it.
1:45:38 K: Ah! The seeing is the doing. If you see a danger, you do, don’t you?
1:45:45 Q: Yes.
1:45:46 K: You don’t say, ‘Well, I see the danger, I’ll think about it.’ (Laughter) Right?
1:45:53 So do you see this?
1:46:00 And therefore the seeing is the acting. Action is going on because you have seen it. You understand? (Pause) Sorry, lunch is so late.
1:46:20 Do you like this kind of conversation?
1:46:33 Many: Yes.
1:46:37 K: You are sure? Many: Yes.
1:46:40 K: Why? (Laughter) Q: Because before I never was aware of it, that something like that exists.
1:46:44 K: So this really interests you?
1:46:47 Q: Yes.
1:46:48 K: Or are you just passing time because two hours, no class, and come here? (Laughter) If you are really interested in it, I’ll do it properly with you. You understand? Every – no, not every day—twice a week, go into it, everything. If you are really interested. But if you are not, don’t bother about it, because I am not exploiting you.
1:47:19 I don’t want to waste my time; I’d rather sit in my room or lie down in my room and listen to Beethoven or Mozart or whoever it is, or read or write.
1:47:28 But if you are really serious about this I will go into it deeply with you.
1:47:37 But if you play with it, I don’t want to play with you. You understand? Because I have spent fifty years on this.
1:47:52 You understand? This is my life and I don’t want to waste my life with people who are not interested in it.
1:48:03 I am not saying I am hurt or not hurt, depressed. If you are not interested, it’s all right. If you are interested, for God’s sake learn. Nobody is going to talk to you like this. Right? Finished? Come on then.