Krishnamurti - Like and dislike

Krishnamurti Subtitles

BR75DSS1.05 - Like and dislike
Brockwood Park, UK - 18 May 1975
Discussion with Staff and Students 1.05

0:00	This is J. Krishnamurti’s fifth discussion with teachers and students at Brockwood Park, 1975.
0:11	Krishnamurti: What shall we talk about this morning? (Pause) Do you remember what we were talking about the other day?
0:30	I don’t know if it was this term or the last term that one should learn about the art of authority, of learning, and we talked about the other day the art of curiosity, what are the things implied in it.
1:01	The word ‘art’ means to put everything in its right place, where it belongs.
1:11	And we… or rather, should we go into this question of authority, where we should place authority, what is its right place?
1:27	Do you want to discuss that? Or do you want to talk about what we were saying the other day, about curiosity, ambition; what is necessary for curiosity and energy, attention, and a steady flow of perseverance.
2:00	We went into all that. So what do you think we should talk about this morning?
2:19	(Pause) Do you dislike anybody?
2:33	Let’s talk about it, shall we?
2:43	Are you jealous of people’s so-called authority?
2:53	Do you envy them?
3:00	Do you wish you were in their place? Or are you against all authority? Right, left, centre, middle centre, outside (laughs), are you against all authority, or are you envious of authority, or do you want to be in a position of authority?
3:25	(Sleepy?) Come on, sirs, discuss it, let’s have a conversation about it.
3:41	Nowadays everybody is against authority, on general principles.
3:53	If we could spend some time together in talking over what is the right place of authority, where does authority belong—and if we are not clear about all these matters, we’ll then become mere slaves to our sentiment, to our opinions, to our like and dislike; we don’t see things clearly.
4:30	I dislike you because you run the place. I wish I were in your place. Or I think you are not capable of it and therefore I want to push you out, put myself into that position.
4:47	We have so many likes and dislikes; I think we should go into this question, why we are envious, why we are against authority, why we stick to our own particular opinions, prejudices, tendencies and so on.
5:14	Should we talk about that? Does it interest you? Don’t just say, ‘Yes, you go on talking, I’ll go on thinking about something else.’ Does it really interest you to go into all this?
5:31	Come on, sir, does it?
5:39	Yes? (Laughs) Questioner: This question about like and dislike.
5:50	I wonder, is there a source of like and dislike?
5:57	K: Source of like and dislike. But you have prejudice: I don’t like you because you have curly hair, or I like you because you have lovely hair—you follow?—you smell nicely.
6:12	So I think, don’t let’s reduce it to a very limited meaning of like and dislike.
6:23	Let’s go into it, shall we?
6:30	First of all, to find out why we like and dislike people we must go into the question of, are we envious?
6:40	Envious of, say, I’m sitting here and you would like to sit here and talk, therefore you feel, ‘My God, I hate that man, I dislike that man.’ You know, jealousy, envy, is a very deep-rooted thing.
7:08	Until you go into that very deeply, understand it, not intellectually but actually see the truth of it, not what you think jealousy is—which is a reality, which we won’t go into now.
7:28	We made the distinction the other day—do you remember?—that there is a difference between reality and truth.
7:38	We said reality is something that you think about or you reflect upon or you imagine, conjecture.
7:47	It is all within the field of thought. It’s too difficult for you, I won’t go into all that. So, you must find the truth of it, not the idea of jealousy.
8:05	So, are you jealous of people?
8:15	Come on, be simple. If you are, say, ‘Yes, I am,’ and then we can examine it, we can go into it. I don’t say, ‘Well, how terrible it is to be jealous.’ I’m not that kind of person that condemns.
8:32	I want to find out why I am jealous, why I am envious of people, why I compare myself with somebody else.
8:48	Are you interested in this?
8:50	Q: I seem to be more inclined to go into, as you say, truth and reality.
8:58	It seems to be not very clear.
8:59	K: No, no, don’t go into it, Tungki, that’s very, very difficult. I’m sorry I started it because it’s… one has to go into that very differently. We’ll go at it sometime after we have… We’re going to have a talk or a discussion with Dr Bohm this afternoon—I don’t think you will all be able to be there—about this very question: reality and truth and the content of consciousness.
9:26	It will be—don’t, you… (laughs)—it will be too difficult for you, so don’t let’s go into that.
9:33	Q: Krishnaji, with this question of being, as you were saying, envious or putting oneself in the other person’s position, can we consider the factor of so often we separate ourselves from the envious and we see the other person’s position and our position.
10:07	So, if it were like about this room or the bricks out there, there is your position about them and my position about them, and then I become disconnected about a jealousy of your… because I’m just thinking about your point of view and my point of view.
10:27	K: You know, Ted, it is quite… a very difficult problem this, because we worship status—you understand?—a position, and this worship of status is a form of jealousy, transformed into a nice kind of, you know, respect and all the rest of it, but it is this desire for, and the acceptance and the worship of status.
11:05	Could we go into this simply? Would it… do you think it is worthwhile? Why we are envious; why we compare ourselves with somebody.
11:25	Always, of course, higher, nobler—not with the cook or with the gardener or with the bottle-washer—always something higher.
11:38	Which is status. You understand this? So, I’m asking you…
11:45	Q: I find it very difficult, sir, to see the envy and the jealousy in me.
11:51	K: You don’t?
11:53	Q: I don’t quite see where it is.
11:58	K: You don’t see. He says he doesn’t see I am jealous… that he’s not jealous or envious. Then do you like and dislike people?
12:07	Q: I am very clear about that, my like or dislike.
12:18	K: Why do you dislike people, or why do you… Why aren’t you clear about this? Sorry, no, I’m not attacking you, please. Why aren’t you clear? Is it that one has really not solved this problem, or understood or gone beyond the problem of comparison, envy, jealousy, and the worship of status?
12:50	Q: Perhaps dislike is not the proper word for this example but suppose…
12:59	I was reading in the newspaper and there was a picture of a man called Arafat, who is head of an Arab organisation, and I read his statement and I just felt anger welling up in me.
13:14	I mean, I could say I dislike that man, but when I look at his statement, I mean…
13:19	K: No, I read—say for instance if I was in America—I heard Buckley. You know who Buckley is? Extreme right, very clever, factual, has all the data in his fingertips and he’ll trot them out.
13:36	I don’t dislike him. Why should you dislike him? That’s his way of living, thinking. Why should I dislike him? It’s such a bore to live always in the like and dislike. That is his way of looking at life. Silly ass, it may be.
13:54	Q: But the implications of what his point of view is are quiet evil. Let’s say the implications of his point of view are quite evil. Evil in the sense that…
14:06	K: No, wait, I understand. So, say for instance—who?—Stalin, or Hitler or… See the opposite of it: Stalin, Hitler; Buddha or somebody else. Now, why do you dislike them? And respect the other and dislike this.
14:32	What is the root of this thing? Come on, Joe.
14:36	Q: I want to have more of one thing and…
14:41	K: No, no, just look at it, sir. Why am I always caught in this thing?
14:47	Q: Because my beliefs and opinions conflict with his.
14:51	Q: But isn’t there something deeper?
14:54	Q: I’m saying that with people like Stalin, let’s say, isn’t there—talking about truth and reality, his reality is distorted, he cannot see the truth for his reality.
15:09	K: His reality distorted because he thought distortedly, neurotically. He disposed of twenty million people.
15:21	Q: So for me to call him evil, that’s distorted.
15:25	K: Ah, I don’t call him evil; I want to see. And Hitler got rid of, I don’t know, another ten million or so. And Mao has got rid of, I don’t know, thirty million. These are people who get into a position of authority, surround themselves carefully, etc., etc., and become lunatics.
15:51	But why should I dislike them? It’s a fact. Why should I dislike a fact?
15:54	Q: We dislike it because we read newspapers and seen television that…
16:00	K: Ah, that’s just… You are conditioned by this. And we were talking about it the other day: do you know you are conditioned?
16:24	And on the other side, you have religious teachers whose disciples and priests have, you know, glorified them, made them into gods.
16:37	That you worship—if you do worship at all—and this you kick.
16:46	That is the opposite of this. Right?
16:50	Q: Well, you’re going into a lot of choices now, but is there a level beyond the choices? I mean, I’m looking to see if one’s action towards an individual who is very distorted…
17:04	K: Distortion takes place when I think wrongly. Let’s very simply put it. Don’t say, ‘How do you know what is wrong and what is right?’ When I act according to my conditioning then there is bound to be distortion.
17:21	That’s a good fact. (Laughs) Q: Would you say that the revulsion, that the actions of some of these people have brought about in many of us, is a factor of conditioning?
17:40	Is that a result only of conditioning?
17:43	K: No. But after all, Hitler and Mr Stalin have killed thirty, twenty million people.
17:52	It’s a horrible thing—right?—it’s a monstrous thing—use any adjective you like—but why should I bring my dislike about it?
18:06	Q: Well, is it possible to feel that it is monstrous, feel revulsion, feel horror if you want, and yet when does it become a dislike?
18:20	Is that…
18:21	K: That’s what I’m getting at. It has been done, he has destroyed millions of people, these fellows, and that is a fact. When I bring my dislike because they have done it, then I’m acting according to my conditioning.
18:35	Q: Could that even apply to saying… if I say to myself, ‘I dislike what you are doing’—I feel like I’m not saying it about you but I say it to myself, I feel myself, ‘I dislike what you’re doing?’ K: No, I wouldn’t use the word ‘dislike’.
18:58	What you’re doing, or what I’m doing which you dislike, when you use the word ‘dislike’, why do you dislike me?
19:09	Because I’m doing something wrong? Now, if I’m doing something wrong—because I’m thinking and acting according to my preconceived ideas, conclusions, my conditioning—if you could help me to uncondition myself, dislike doesn’t come into it at all.
19:31	After all, that is part of education. So, I’m asking: do you dislike people?
19:45	(Laughs) Are you envious of people? Are you… do you like status?
19:59	(Pause) I remember seeing once in California, a man drove up in a lovely Cadillac or Lincoln—I’ve forgotten the car—and he was met by somebody.
20:16	I was watching them. After shaking hands the man who was there, he said, ‘What a marvellous car.’ He made a bow to the car.
20:30	(Laughs) He was joking but it was part of this whole structure. You understand? So, go into yourself and find out, look at yourself, why you dislike people.
20:52	Is it they have long hair, short hair, short nose, blue eyes, dark skin or they smell bad, they are ugly, they are this, they are that?
21:04	You follow? Why do you dislike people? Especially in a community of this kind when we are all learning together, how can you dislike people?
21:22	You understand? Is it our conditioning? Is it our sense of righteousness?
21:37	Q: There seems to be at least two kinds of dislike.
21:45	There’s a dislike… you dislike someone if you are afraid of them and there’s also…
21:51	K: Yes. No. Ah, no, if you are afraid of them, do you dislike them?
22:03	Go into it, sir, think it out. I’m afraid of you for various reasons. Do I dislike you? Or I am antagonistic to you, I’m frightened of you, I withdraw, I resist, I build a wall between you and me, I don’t want to see you, I find excuses for not seeing you.
22:28	That’s not dislike, is it?
22:31	Q: Isn’t that what we usually call dislike?
22:38	K: Ah, no. Is that dislike? If I am frightened of you and I withdraw from that, withdraw from you, is that dislike?
22:56	Like and dislike—you understand? I flatter you. I say, ‘What lovely hair you’ve got, nice person, you look nice, you look so clean, you’re so bright and so intelligent,’ and I’m attracted to you, I like you.
23:17	And if anybody insults me I don’t like him. If I don’t greet you with enthusiasm, you say, ‘Well, he’s rather…’ You know? So, go into it, find out whether you, living here in a small community where we are learning to live together—learning to live together because that is very important, because the world in which we live is this world.
23:51	If we don’t know how to live here we shan’t know when we go out.
23:58	So we have to find out.
23:59	Q: Also dislike seems to be there’s… if you dislike something that is recognised…
24:10	that you recognise is bad and there is a feeling of goodness inside yourself and also which would be superiority…
24:18	K: No, we’ve said all this. Now, just stop a minute and find out, find out for yourself whether you dislike people; and the opposite, like people, which is totally different from loving people, isn’t it?
24:38	I wonder if you understand what I’m talking about.
24:45	Do you?
24:47	Q: I thought that like and dislike were just the things you said they were not.
24:58	That is, attraction and repulsion.
25:01	K: Yes. Do I like and dislike people? I want to start from there, not theoretically.
25:11	You are giving explanations, you are giving descriptions. We can explain, describe, but I want to go deeper than that.
25:23	I want to find out if I like and dislike people, and why?
25:31	And my whole life is going to be based on that, if I don’t understand it, and then it becomes an awful mess, always restricting myself to the people I like and avoiding the people I don’t like.
25:47	Life is too confusing; it becomes too shoddy and petty. So I must find out.
25:54	Q: Then how do I find out?
26:02	K: Wait. Now, I’ll show you. Do you want to find out?
26:05	Q: Yes.
26:06	K: If you want to find out then… Now, wait a minute. How do you… I’m asking, how will you do it? Tell me. Instead of asking me, I am asking you. Tell me how to find out. Exercise your brain, find out. I don’t know if I dislike or like. We’ll limit it to those two words, with all their meaning. And how am I to find out?
26:40	Q: You follow your feelings or your thoughts.
26:46	K: No, I want to find out—no, Nelson, I want to find out if I like and dislike people.
26:54	I want to find out. The fact, not ‘I don’t like, I like,’ but the fact that I like and dislike.
27:02	Now, how shall I find out?
27:05	Q: But people or particular persons?
27:09	K: People, a particular person.
27:11	Q: I will find out when I come in contact.
27:13	K: Now, you are in contact (laughs). Not ‘when I come into contact’—you are in contact.
27:20	Q: But still I cannot see any form of dislike.
27:28	K: You know, dislike can become venomous.
27:31	Q: Can become what?
27:34	K: Venomous, cruel, say things against people, talk behind them—oh, it takes so many forms.
27:49	A cruel gesture, a look, a slight shrug of the shoulder—you know, there are various forms of expression of dislike.
28:01	Q: I think first I am afraid of them and then I dislike them because I’m afraid of them.
28:11	K: Is it because you’re afraid? Is that what you were saying, madame? I am afraid. If I am afraid, what actually takes place? I’m afraid of you. What do I do? I avoid you, I have no relationship with you. The moment I see you across the road I turn quickly the opposite direction. That is not dislike, it is a feeling of being hurt and I don’t want to be hurt and therefore I want to avoid you.
28:59	I have to live in this community. God knows why, but I am here. I have to live in this community and I must find out why this feeling exists in me.
29:13	If it exists, if I don’t understand it now, it will go on throughout my life.
29:23	Then it becomes more and more confusing—avoiding, distrusting, all kind of things come from it.
29:33	Q: Sir, would you say that when I feel awkward or shy in another’s presence that that was fear?
29:40	K: Ah, that’s not dislike. No, no. I’m shy of you, but that is a different matter. Sir, don’t…
29:48	Q: I can understand it when you say I dislike and like, but I cannot see it happening.
30:00	K: Nelson, you live here, don’t you? You have lived here for several years. Is there a feeling of dislike and like in you?
30:09	Q: Not that I can see at first hand.
30:13	K: No, come on. Therefore you haven’t got it. You don’t dislike me, do you?
30:19	Q: No.
30:20	K: You don’t dislike him, do you?
30:23	Q: Who’s that?
30:25	K: I don’t know whom I’m pointing (laughs). So, are you free of this reaction of like and dislike?
30:33	Q: How do I know I… (inaudible) K: Ah, wait. Are there particular friends of yours, and others are not?
30:44	Q: I treat everybody the same. With some people more communication than with others.
30:50	K: So, you don’t base your companionship or your friendship on like and dislike.
31:01	You know, I’m asking something very, very serious, I don’t know if you realise it. And how very difficult it is.
31:09	Q: Can one base one’s companionship on like without bringing dislike in?
31:16	K: I like people. If that is so, why should I dislike people? I like people.
31:24	Q: But one may like certain friends more than other people you know, without disliking the other people.
31:33	K: No, but is there this conflict of the opposites?
31:41	I want to move a little bit further away from it.
31:44	Q: Can one exist without the other?
31:48	K: Yes, that is what Mrs Zimbalist was saying. So I go a little further and I say, are you aware, know, conscious, that there is this conflict between the opposites?
32:02	You understand? Black and white, darkness and light, like and dislike, ideal and fact, and so on—the opposites.
32:15	Are you aware of these conflicts and the conflict between them? I like, I don’t like; I am greedy, I must not be greedy; or I’m violent, I’m trying to get over that violence—you follow?—this battle of the opposites.
32:32	Are you aware of that?
32:37	Q: I think if we were really honest, we’d have to admit we do have likes and dislikes of people and things.
32:55	K: Then what do you do with it? I like and dislike people. I like you, I don’t like you. What do I do with it? Just go on like that all the rest of my life? You’re not… I wish you could talk over this.
33:19	Q: Well, when I dislike people, what I’m doing is I am comparing them with the idea that I have of myself, and when they aren’t like me then I don’t like them.
33:40	K: Of course, yes. Therefore you have preconceived ideas or opinions, judgements, evaluations; according to that you are judging people.
33:45	Q: It seems that my dislikes for people sometimes stem from a frustration at my inability to deal with them appropriately.
33:57	K: But that doesn’t mean I dislike you, because if you can’t do it, I say—I’m sorry, not you—‘How stupid you are, let’s go at it, let’s learn about it.’ It doesn’t mean I dislike you.
34:09	Q: (Inaudible) K: Look, let’s put it this way: let us learn, let’s find out why human beings right throughout the world live in this position of always having conflict between this and that.
34:37	You understand my question? Do you? Like and dislike; violence, non-violence; beauty, ugly, you know, all these factors of opposites—or is there only fact, and no opposite to the fact?
35:09	You understand my question? Oh, Lord. Only darkness when I see darkness. Not say, ‘Oh, I wish it were light.’ The fact is it is raining.
35:31	(Laughs) Good old England! And I accept that fact. I don’t say, ‘Oh, I wish it were sunny’—then there is a conflict.
35:45	So I must find out if duality exists at all.
35:54	Of course there is duality—man, woman; gold and silver; light and darkness—but is there an opposite of violence?
36:14	You understand? Or only violence? Now, see this. I accept the fact of only violence. The reality is—all right, sir, may I go on?—the reality is the structure which thought has created as ‘non-violence’.
36:48	That is a reflection of delusion, illusion, non-factual, though I made it a reality.
37:01	But the fact is there is only violence. I am violent, and I introduce a non-fact or a reality which thought has built opposite to ‘what is’, which I call real.
37:24	So it is distorted thinking and I get lost in this.
37:35	I am violent and I have created the idea of non-violence, which is a reality, and I am in constant battle.
37:47	But if there is no opposite, only the fact, then I can deal with it.
37:57	I wonder if you’re getting all this. Is this too difficult?
38:01	Q: No.
38:02	K: Are you going to sleep, some of you?
38:14	So, I dislike. That is a fact. If I say, ‘I mustn’t dislike people,’ that is the distortion created by… reflected by thought and I pursue that, instead of facing the fact that I dislike.
38:31	I wonder if you get what I’m talking about.
38:37	Q: Doesn’t that mean I’ve separated myself from the dislike?
38:40	K: Yes, from the dislike, and all the rest of it follows. But the distorting factor is the opposite.
38:55	I am attached to you, I am attached to this house, I am attached to ideas, I am attached to my belief, I am attached to my books—God knows what—my profession, my intelligence—you follow?—I am attached, cling to.
39:17	And you come along and say, ‘Look, be detached from it, because then you will be much happier, you’re then more free, you won’t be bothered by these petty little things.’ That has been the tradition right through the world.
39:39	And so I say, ‘By Jove, that’s quite right. I see if I’m attached to this house I become the house.
39:47	If I am attached to this furniture I am the furniture.’ You understand? So I say, ‘Quite right, this is too silly, I must detach myself from it, and be detached from the whole thing.’ The detachment is an distortion created by thought, but the fact is I am attached.
40:12	I am attached to my Catholicism, my Buddhism, my Hinduism, oh, God knows what else.
40:19	That is a fact. I must deal with it. I wonder if you’re getting what I’m talking about.
40:27	Q: Sir, how can a mind who has been brought up in this way to believe in Catholicism, if you tell this person, ‘Look at it,’ how is he to look at it when the mind has been…
40:44	K: I’ll show you. I’ve met many Catholics, many communists, many Protestants, many Buddhists, many… (laughs) dozens of them, all over the world. Most of them don’t want to look. Right? They say politely, ‘Go to hell,’ but they mean that.
41:07	But those who want to look, they look rather afraid; they’re attached so… deeply ingrained this belief, and the fear that if you take that away they are lost.
41:21	Right? And there are very few who say, ‘All right, let me look.’ You understand the category? The one who says politely, ‘Go away,’ the other says, ‘I’m afraid to look.
41:34	I know I am a little superstitious. I like it,’—you know, cuddling himself, but, ‘Leave me alone.’ The other says, ‘All right, let’s look, let’s find out’—the fact, not opinions, not the judgements, the fact that I’m attached to an idea, to a symbol, to a guru.
42:04	Very few. And those few, they say, ‘Look,’ they say, ‘tell me how to look.’ Right?
42:17	Now, they want me to tell them. I say, ‘Please, sit down, let’s talk about it, let’s look into it.’ ‘No, no, please, I haven’t time, I’ve got…’—all the rest of it.
42:34	So, you have to have time, patience, energy, you know, curiosity to find out.
42:43	And that means attention. (Pause) So, are you caught in this dualistic process?
43:10	Come on, sirs.
43:17	You know, right throughout the world, especially in the religious world—and that religious world has been very, very strong, much stronger than any other culture, scientific or any other culture; religious culture has been a tremendously conditioning factor—they have said to reach God—whatever that may mean—you must be a celibate.
43:57	You understand?
43:58	Q: (Inaudible) K: Oh, no, come on, sir, don’t you know, all the priests, what they are talking about?
44:05	‘Don’t marry, don’t have sex, look, that’s all worldly, think of God, serve God, don’t think of anything else.’ Don’t you know all this?
44:18	Q: I don’t know the last word you used, ‘celibate’.
44:23	K: Celibacy. That means don’t get married, be a celibate.
44:31	You understand? This has been the conditioning factor. I mean, go to India and you will see the tremendous importance they give to this.
44:45	If you touch a woman, God, you’re finished.
44:54	Several monks—there is a certain group of monks in India called the Jains—these monks don’t travel by air, by train, by cart, but walk.
45:11	These—I think there were about half a dozen monks—they walked eight-hundred miles to see me.
45:21	You understand all this? Are you interested in this? Ah, you would be (laughs).
45:29	Q: Are you sure they didn’t take a magic carpet?
45:36	K: Yes, yes. There were eight monks, I think. Eight hundred miles. They take four months or more. Just imagine. They walked. They came to see me because their guru told them that they should listen and learn the meditation which I was talking about.
45:55	So they came. We were sitting on a mat—you know, a mat, bamboo… I’ve forgotten, some kind of mat—and there were ladies sitting. And they realised suddenly ladies were sitting on the same mats—you know?—so they got up and said, ‘Please, you go away and sit somewhere else because…’—you follow?
46:23	The thread might….(laughs) You’ve got it?
46:30	(Laughter) And think of the battle they go through.
46:37	You know nothing about all these things.
46:42	Q: But, Krishnaji, you haven’t continued. You left before: how is this mind when you tell them to look?
46:49	K: I’m going show you. Now, they came to see me—I’m continuing, I haven’t let off—and I said, ‘Sirs, let us look what we are doing.’ I pointed this out—you follow?—the mat and the…
47:06	They said… you know, they absolutely froze. They didn’t want to discuss. They wanted to discuss meditation, not this.
47:21	And they had come all that way to discuss meditation. So I said, ‘Look. Find out. Look at this thing. You have taken all this trouble, walking miles, four months to walk and come, and you won’t even look.’ You understand?
47:40	So they said, ‘What do you mean by ‘look’?’ ‘Are you aware of this fact that you are against a woman sitting next to you, on the same mat?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘yes, of course we are aware.
47:59	It is our… it is right,’ and began to defend their belief, all the rest of it, though they stopped looking.
48:07	You follow? So, will you—you, Nelson—look?
48:16	Look if you have this feeling of violence.
48:20	Q: But what I was trying to say is when I look I might be looking through this…
48:31	K: We’ll find out. Just look first. Go step by step, you’ll find out. First look. Are you violent? Right? You are, aren’t you? Don’t be shy, for God’s sake.
48:49	Q: (Inaudible) K: Oh, now, what do I mean by violence. (Laughs) All right. Disliking people, hating people, wanting a position which others have had, comparing yourself with another—all these are forms of violence—copying somebody, imitating somebody, wanting to become somebody; not only in this area but also inwardly, to be somebody.
49:25	All those are forms of violence: imitation, conformity, comparison, the conflict between the two opposites.
49:37	All that is a form of violence. And also a form of violence is to hit somebody, verbally, with a gesture, with a look, or physically slap someone.
49:52	All that is violence. Are you? Of course you are, don’t…
49:57	Q: Yes.
49:59	K: Now, can you look at it? Do you imitate?
50:18	Do you compare yourself with somebody?
50:27	I want, in karate, the black belt, because he is very good.
50:34	The professor who taught me is jolly good and I want to have the same belt, a black belt.
50:42	That is one form of…
50:44	Q: But I’m not comparing with him. I see he is good.
50:49	K: Ah, wait a minute, that’s what I’m… He is good. You want to be good.
50:53	Q: I want to do the best that I can.
50:56	K: Nelson, therefore in that there is no comparison, is there? You want to be good at this. Not ‘as good as him’. When you say, ‘I want to be as good as that professor’ or that—whatever he is called; black belt gentleman—in that comparison, the good is gone, the excellence is gone.
51:31	Right? So, you don’t compare that way but do you compare in another way?
51:38	Q: Which way?
51:40	K: Compare intellectually.
51:41	Q: Well, I might say, ‘Joe knows physics.’ K: Ah, again the same thing.
51:49	A man who knows karate, Joe knows mathematics. That’s a different thing…
51:51	Q: I don’t say I want to be like him.
51:54	K: No, but I’m asking you, do you want to be like somebody?
52:01	Q: I don’t think I have the drive for it, to be like somebody.
52:12	K: Do you compare yourself? Or in schools we are educated, given marks—all that is a comparative way of living.
52:26	Oh, come on, sirs. Isn’t that a form of violence?
52:40	And can you live totally without comparison, at all levels—intellectually, emotionally, psychologically, physically?
52:54	You follow? Have you ever tried?
52:56	Q: But you said already, sir, that we are violent.
53:05	I mean, I see I am violent. So, where is the movement from seeing one is violent to living without comparison?
53:12	K: No, find out, sir. Violence implies comparison. Right? Do you see that? The truth of it, not the reality, which thought says, ‘Yes, I agree with you.’ I don’t know if you see the difference.
53:33	Q: Well, presumably you are actually aware of being violent.
53:37	K: And we said violence implies also comparison.
53:45	Do you compare yourself with another? And what happens if you don’t compare yourself with anybody?
54:09	(Pause) Do you compare yourself with a clever man and say, ‘By Jove, I’m not as clever as him.
54:30	I’m rather dull’? You follow? I compare myself with you because you are very clever, bright, awake and I say, ‘By Jove, I’m not.
54:43	I’m dull.’ Through comparison I have reduced myself to a state of dullness. I wonder if you follow this. Right? But am I dull if I don’t compare at all? I don’t compare—what happens?
55:01	Q: I have no conflict. I don’t compare, I have no conflict.
55:11	K: No. No, no. No, much more than that. What happens if you don’t compare? Not only conflict, that’s only a wave, a reaction, but what takes place deeply when you don’t compare with anything?
55:25	Q: If you don’t compare with anything you might be able to do what you can… (inaudible) K: Go… not ‘you might’—do it.
55:43	You understand? Religious people compare themselves with their ideals. And non-religious people also. The communists compare themselves with the ideals which Marx or Engels or Stalin, Lenin have established, and say, ‘We must live up to that.’ The living up to something is in the field of conflict and violence.
56:14	Right? Can you find out if you are living up to something, or you are not comparing at all?
56:32	And see what happens. Then are you dull? Then are you clever? Then are you frightened to be nothing? Because before you compared and made yourself into something, and in non-comparing you say, ‘By Jove, I don’t know where I am, I’m lost,’ therefore you get frightened and compare and be caught in it.
57:14	You understand? This is part of your education. For God’s sake learn about all this.
57:19	Q: Making a thing out of the person you are comparing with, is making a thing out of yourself too.
57:30	So you are both things. So, is what you are saying that in the process of comparing everything becomes material and a thing, and thus…
57:38	K: No, in the process of comparing you are making yourself into something which you are not, and then you begin to inquire ‘what am I?’ Which I won’t go into because it’s too complex a thing.
57:59	Q: The people that live on the earth engage in many activities, and if you observing them are attracted to one of those activities, that is you pattern… for some reason a certain set of activities, whether it is playing karate or investigating physics, or whatever activity, if you then somehow are attracted to that then you put yourself in a position of being able to compare.
58:33	I mean, I can’t compare myself with someone who…
58:35	K: With the Queen of England, no.
58:37	Q: No, if I’m not doing that activity then I don’t compare myself with Nureyev as a dancer since I don’t dance.
58:45	There is no comparison.
58:48	K: No, quite, quite.
58:51	Q: So when I’m attracted to that activity then I… when I…
58:56	K: Are you attracted, because—you understand, sir, this is a difficult… you are entering into a difficult field altogether. Are you attracted because of money? Because of position? Because it is profitable, psychologically as well as monetarily?
59:15	You follow? I mean, you don’t just use the word ‘attract, therefore I follow,’ you must go… this is… Life is a tremendously living thing. You have to understand it.
59:23	Q: Well, I mean, I’d like to come back to this illustration you brought up with golf.
59:34	You went into the activity of golf and you had somehow become excellent at it.
59:41	Now, why golf? Why? I mean, there were many activities. That’s a human-constructed activity, it’s not a natural phenomenon.
59:47	K: Sir, yes—because I dropped it very quickly, because I had much wider things of interest.
59:54	No…
59:55	Q: What makes one thing attractive in a sense that you do it for a while, you investigate it and you pick up something else and you go into another… you go into something else.
1:00:07	Why do we go into one thing rather than another thing?
1:00:09	K: That’s why I asked the other day, sir, what is it, the most essential thing in life?
1:00:18	Do you remember, we asked the other day? Is it career? Is it relationship? Is it the movement of thought? Or is it love? What is it? And the reply to all that: they are all interrelated. If they are all interrelated where do you begin to look?
1:00:48	If I am attracted in this—you understand?—I’m attracted to love—right?—and I want to say, ‘What do I mean by love?’ I would go into it very deeply.
1:01:03	I’m attracted to it. I don’t know, it may be fascinating, but I want to find out, I want to learn all about it.
1:01:12	Not experiment…
1:01:13	Q: Can we define attraction? I feel perhaps something implicit in the word, is meaning there is a motivation behind it or…
1:01:22	K: Yes, and also there is distraction. There is attraction and distraction.
1:01:26	Q: Opposites.
1:01:27	K: Again I’m caught in that.
1:01:29	Q: So maybe there is something, another word we could…
1:01:33	K: So there is no such thing as attraction and distraction. Oh, you don’t meet all this.
1:01:41	Q: What do you mean by distraction, sir?
1:01:45	K: I’m attracted to you and anything that takes me away from you is a distraction.
1:01:58	Oh, I don’t think you see all this.
1:02:05	I am attracted to love, and I say, ‘Yes, love is this’—sex, or whatever it is, and I am caught in that.
1:02:20	I haven’t learnt, I haven’t found out, I haven’t gone into it.
1:02:30	Not experimentally but actually. I wonder if you understand what I’m talking about. I don’t have to go through drunkenness—go to pubs and crawl along the various pubs—to find out what it is to be sober.
1:02:53	Must I? Come on, sir, answer this question. This is what you are going to face. ‘Oh, I must experiment with sex, I must experiment with this, I must experiment with that.’ You follow?
1:03:13	That’s what you’re doing. So I’m asking you, must I experiment with drunkenness, crawl from pub to pub, and learn at the end of it what it means to be sober?
1:03:36	Or I don’t have to enter into any pub to find out what it means to be sober.
1:03:44	You understand? Oh, for God’s sake.
1:03:46	Q: Well, maybe not in that field but there are some fields that you do need experience.
1:03:56	K: Of course. I need experience. Experience, that word again. Oh, for the love of Pete. (Laughs) Sorry! I need experience in driving a car. Right? Which means I drive, learn from a professional how to drive, how to hold the wheel, when to brake—you know, all the rest of it.
1:04:24	That becomes a memory and the memory responds on each occasion as I’m driving—I’m cautious, I see three hundred feet ahead and watch… when I look in the distance I also take in side roads.
1:04:39	I wonder, you understand what I’m talking about? If I keep my eyes on the mudguard, then I don’t see the other cars coming.
1:04:48	Therefore I must learn to look three hundred yards ahead and in that very look I observe everything that is happening within that area.
1:04:57	You understand? And that becomes a memory, doesn’t it?
1:05:08	I’m trained how to drive a car, how to drive an aeroplane, ride a bicycle, or to function technologically, how to use a computer, and so on.
1:05:18	Now, I’m asking you: do you have to be trained psychologically, inwardly, trained not to like and dislike?
1:05:35	My God. You understand? Trained not to hate people; trained not to have animosity; trained not to be greedy—you understand, sir?—you become a perfect monkey.
1:05:52	Q: But you are trained to have these things. You are conditioned to have these things.
1:06:01	K: That’s just it.
1:06:02	Q: So if the training…
1:06:03	K: Therefore, is it possible to be free of your conditioning?
1:06:10	You don’t ask the basic question but we’re always trimming around in the periphery. I am asking you a basic question, which is: can the mind, which has been so heavily conditioned for millions of years, free itself?
1:06:27	And all education is a form of conditioning.
1:06:39	I spoke at Harvard one year, and there were lots of students, and half a dozen turned up afterwards and said, ‘Sir, you are perfectly right, we are being conditioned to accept the present society.
1:06:56	We are becoming monkeys.’ And I said, ‘What are you going to do?’ They said, ‘I suppose we have to be monkeys otherwise we will be destroyed.’ (Laughs) You follow?
1:07:07	That’s the end of it.
1:07:12	Q: Our mind seems to work such… in a continuous channel, but we question when there is a disturbance, so…
1:07:31	K: No, wait a minute, Tungki. Tungki, listen to what you are saying. You are saying, ‘I wake up only when I’m kicked, otherwise I’m asleep all the time.
1:07:45	Therefore challenge is necessary otherwise I’m asleep.’ Right? Of course, that’s what you are saying, Tungki. So you want somebody to kick you or push you or do something to make you awake.
1:08:04	Then follow what happens: then you depend on that person to kick you all the time. (Laughs) That’s your guru. There are, you know, beastly gurus—don’t talk about it.
1:08:30	(Pause) Is your education here at Brockwood conditioning you?
1:08:44	Do you understand my question?
1:08:51	Come on, sir, let’s talk about it.
1:09:03	You understand the difficulty? You come here already conditioned—right?
1:09:14	Right?—and you react according to your conditioning.
1:09:26	Right? I am conditioned at home. My father and… my parents tell me, ‘Do this, don’t do this, get up, don’t get up, you’re late’—you follow?—and my mind is conditioned.
1:09:42	By the parents, by my friends. And I come here and what happens? Here they say, ‘You are free, learn.’ And you break out. You say, ‘I’m conditioned, I’m going to be free.
1:10:00	I’m going to do exactly what I want to do, get up when I like, attend the class when I like, I walk when I like.’ You follow?
1:10:16	So you are reacting according to your conditioning, the opposite. Right? Now, how will you learn—not ‘how will you’—will you spend time, energy, curiosity, attention, to find out how to live without being conditioned at all?
1:10:42	Not the opposite—you understand? Are you being conditioned here? Come on, sir. How can I answer for you?
1:11:04	I mean by conditioning, strengthening your former conditioning—you follow?—or strengthening a conditioning which they want you to be conditioned in.
1:11:22	You follow all this?
1:11:24	Q: Isn’t it obvious, because both sides are conditioned, so it… (inaudible) K: No, no, Tungki, you’re not…
1:11:34	Look, Tungki, you come conditioned—right? Either Brockwood strengthens that conditioning, saying, ‘You’re quite right, go on that way,’ or break you from that conditioning and condition you in a different way.
1:11:54	Or they say, ‘Don’t be conditioned at all. We’ll help you not to be conditioned at all.’ You understand what I’m talking about?
1:12:12	Which is it? What is happening? Strengthening your old conditioning which is from your home, from your… etc., or breaking that conditioning and forming a new conditioning?
1:12:29	Or no conditioning at all? You understand this? What is taking place? (Sighs) Q: Certainly there is some conditioning taking place.
1:12:49	K: What kind of conditioning?
1:12:51	Q: Well, we come here with an idea, say, a conditioning to be vegetarian because we have read all… (inaudible) K: Ah, wait, wait, wait, wait.
1:13:06	Is that conditioning? Let’s take that. Is that conditioning?
1:13:12	Q: It may be conditioning.
1:13:15	K: Go into it, sir.
1:13:19	Q: If we just read books and papers and advertisements and people telling us that we should be vegetarian and that’s why we are vegetarian.
1:13:27	K: Is that the reason you are vegetarian?
1:13:28	Q: But isn’t that influence? Aren’t you being influenced? Aren’t you influenced by the books you’ve read?
1:13:31	K: So, you are being influenced by people who ate meat and then you read books etc., and there they say, ‘Don’t eat meat,’ so you are influenced one way or the other.
1:13:45	Therefore you are conditioned to be a meat-eater, conditioned not to be a meat-eater.
1:13:53	Q: But these books also have facts that it’s uneconomical to eat meat.
1:14:05	These books also have facts.
1:14:07	K: It is not an attraction… Many: Facts.
1:14:09	K: Oh, fact.
1:14:10	Q: He said the books have facts in them.
1:14:11	K: So, you are guided by books?
1:14:12	Q: By the facts.
1:14:14	K: By facts. All right, by facts, because they say if you kill animals, they are much more expensive, vegetables… etc.—I can give you all the reasons, dozens of them.
1:14:28	Scientists are beginning to say this is right—you follow?—it’s becoming popular, it’s becoming fashionable, it’s cheaper—all the rest.
1:14:39	Is that why you are vegetarian?
1:14:42	Q: There is a much deeper reason for it.
1:14:51	K: I don’t know, I’m asking you. Before you killed, now you don’t kill. And not to kill is a new form of conditioning.
1:15:04	Q: It’s again the opposites.
1:15:07	K: The opposite. Is that why you are vegetarians here?
1:15:11	Q: I have never said that I am one, at all. I’ve never said that I am a vegetarian.
1:15:20	K: I am asking you, is that why you are a vegetarian, here, for the time being?
1:15:30	And therefore you go back, because circumstances forced you not to eat meat, and when the circumstances change you go flop back to eating meat?
1:15:41	(Laughs) Go on, sir.
1:15:50	So, you are moving from one conditioning to another conditioning.
1:16:00	Right? And I say, look, is it possible to be free from conditioning? Otherwise you are just a monkey—you follow?—living in a cage. One cage after another cage. One is more decorated, more smelly, or brighter, and so on and so on and so on.
1:16:28	Or is this place helping you to be unconditioned altogether?
1:16:37	Please see this, it’s very important if you want to go into it.
1:16:45	We said a thought—no, we said reality is the response of thought which is conditioned.
1:16:59	Therefore if one year or four years you are vegetarian and then the rest of your life you are a meat-eater, you are just reacting from one conditioning to another conditioning.
1:17:21	That’s all. Now I’m asking you, is it possible not to be conditioned at all?
1:17:31	Which means, are you a vegetarian because of conditioning or because of a totally different reason?
1:17:40	Come on, sirs, answer. It’s your life, you are going to face this. You’re going to go out of this community in a few days and you are going to go back to eating meat, are you?
1:17:59	Are you?
1:18:00	Q: Well, I don’t know.
1:18:01	K: Ah, what do you mean you don’t know?
1:18:02	Q: Well, quite honestly, every time I come to have a meal I have to ask the same question.
1:18:11	K: I’m asking you now, sir, old boy. Just listen. Here you’ve been vegetarian for four years, whether you like it or not, because it happens to be.
1:18:22	You say, ‘My God, how awful. I’ll accept it because I get some certain conveniences, and education, this and that, therefore I’ll be… for four years, though I dislike it, I’ll bear up with it.’ And go back to your old conditioning.
1:18:41	Right? You can’t be uncertain.
1:18:52	That means you accept the old form of conditioning. And we are talking of something entirely different. Which is, can the mind, your mind, which is a human mind, which is like the rest of the human minds, can that mind be totally unconditioned?
1:19:22	And that is part of our education, that’s part of this place. If they say, ‘Well, we’ll condition you to be vegetarian,’ I say for God’s sake, this is not meant for that.
1:19:37	This place is meant to help you to uncondition yourself.
1:19:45	Not from this or from that—entirely. That means to understand, uncondition yourself with regard to authority, which means, learn all about authority.
1:20:12	Learning means find out the right place, the art of authority, the art about authority, to put it in the right place, where it belongs and where it doesn’t belong.
1:20:50	Have you learnt that here? Please, am I… I can’t cry about it. I would like to, if you haven’t learnt it.
1:21:03	Have you learnt about that? Do please answer, yes or no.
1:21:09	Q: No.
1:21:11	K: No? You haven’t learnt? Why? Do you want to find out?
1:21:28	Therefore you must… Which means, curious, you want to learn about it. Does the impetus come from you or you are forced to learn? Which is your conditioning. You understand? Do you want to learn about authority, or you say, ‘No, sorry, I’m against all authority’?
1:21:59	Because you have been conditioned in authority, now you are rejecting authority. But if you say, ‘I want to learn, I want to find out the art of learning’...
1:22:17	Do you want to? No, don’t be weak about it. (Laughs) Q: But, sir, what’s happening around us, the analogy of… it’s continuing in a straight line unless there is something…
1:22:30	K: No, Tungki. No, Tungki, please.
1:22:34	Q: It’s a question I’m asking.
1:22:38	K: Please, just listen, Tungki. I understand what you’re saying, but just listen. Do you want to learn about authority? All of it, not just one little dislike of somebody who is in authority. All of it: what are the implications, what is the structure, what is the nature, what are the hidden meanings of it, the subtleness of it?
1:23:09	That means you have to give time to it. As you give time to mathematics, physics or whatever you do, you give time to it. Are you willing to give time to learn about it? And this is one of your major things in life, as love, as sex, as how to think or not to think, what is relationship, what is love—everything.
1:23:50	If you are willing to learn, this is the place. We’ll help you to learn. It is a beautiful place, you can be quiet, give patience, we’ll set time apart to learn about all this. But if you say, ‘Well, sorry, I’m bored with the damn thing!’ then you go back to your old ugly conditioning.
1:24:24	You know, one of the most difficult professions in life is that of a teacher.
1:24:35	Not that I’m your teacher; because people are unwilling to learn.
1:24:44	(Pause) Q: I question if you are willing to learn, whether you need a teacher.
1:25:03	If you really want to learn, whether you need a teacher.
1:25:08	K: If you didn’t want to learn…
1:25:09	Q: If you really want to learn, whether you need a teacher.
1:25:13	K: I want to learn mathematics. I go to him, he is my teacher.
1:25:24	I go to him to learn physics or mathematics, he is my teacher. In that teaching I have respect for him. I don’t say, ‘Well, just teach me.’ I have respect for him. ‘Please, I’m learning from you,’ therefore I have respect for people who teach.
1:25:48	I don’t kick them, I don’t say, ‘Oh, awful profession.’ Q: But there’s many learning situations which don’t involve a teacher, it’s just your own observation, or with watching birds, let’s say, or whatever, where you… in that relationship with what’s going on you are learning.
1:26:00	So, in that respect, Tungki…
1:26:01	Q: Yes, that’s what I mean. It may be you’re given lots of squares or triangles and from there you figure out, you find out things.
1:26:18	I mean, there is a guided learning and there is a learning…
1:26:20	K: Look, Tungki. Tungki, I’m asking you, do you want to learn about the whole business of authority?
1:26:28	Q: Yes.
1:26:31	K: (Laughs) Will you spend time at it, as you spend time in building an aeroplane?
1:26:44	Q: Yes.
1:26:46	K: Then, we have done it this morning. We’ve spent an hour and half. Have you learnt? Or are you saying, ‘Well, this place, authority is right there, I don’t like authority over there, this is right…’—you follow?
1:27:04	Are you willing to learn—not from me, in discussion, talking over, in a good relationship, in a quiet place—are you willing to learn about the whole business of authority?
1:27:18	Where the policeman has his place, where the priest has no place—you follow?—and so on, so on, so on.
1:27:37	That means you must have the spirit of learning, the urge to learn about life.
1:27:46	Q: Well, I’m more inclined to learn more about… which, when you mentioned about reality and truth, then…
1:27:56	K: Ah, I said to you…
1:27:59	Q: But…
1:28:00	K: Wait, Tungki. I said to you, to learn about that, even about that, you have to spend time, see what it means.
1:28:14	Is truth something that thought thinks out, or it has nothing to do with thought?
1:28:26	And if you want to learn about beauty, learn what it means.
1:28:42	Not out there, not the beautiful tree, beautiful hall, this lovely roof, and so on.
1:28:50	Beauty, the feeling of beauty. You may not be interested in it. You say, ‘Well, what has that to do with my mathematics, with relationship, with this or with that?’ If you have no beauty then everything is monstrous.
1:29:20	(Pause) We spend an hour and half every Thursday and Sunday, at least with me, and I hope you don’t mind, and are you learning anything?
1:29:44	(Pause) I’ve got a bad cold.
1:30:01	(Pause) This morning we’ve talked about comparison, violence.
1:30:13	Do you see the interrelationship between violence, conformity, imitation, comparison, the opposites?
1:30:24	Have you learnt, not the verb, words, but the inward meaning of it?
1:30:32	Because this is what you are going to face in life when you leave this place.
1:30:40	There is no examination in violence or in non-violence—then you would learn all about it, verbally; then it will give you a position, a status, which is the very essence of violence.
1:31:19	(Pause) Look, sirs and ladies, I was the head—I will talk about myself very briefly—I was the head of a tremendous organisation, all over the world, thousands of members, with lots of property, money, power, position, prestige, worship, candles, everything.
1:31:48	You understand? Power. I said, ‘This is rot, nonsense,’ and I walked out of it.
1:31:59	You understand what I’m talking about? Have you got that feeling for this?
1:32:16	Otherwise you will be just like the thousand million people treading the same old mill and getting nowhere.
1:32:29	You understand what I’m talking? (Pause) There was a lovely castle in Holland with five thousand acres—Miss Pratt was there—beautiful place.
1:32:59	Five thousand—you understand?—five thousand acres, not forty acres.
1:33:08	And all that pomp and money, position. I said, ‘This is all wrong.’ To be authority and to allow anybody to follow you is totally wrong.
1:33:28	So we dissolved the whole circus, because one saw the truth of the meaning of authority.
1:33:47	Nobody described, nobody pushed me, nobody said, ‘Oh, this is the right thing to do, this is the wrong thing to do’—you saw the truth and did it.
1:34:00	That’s why reality has nothing to do with truth. Everybody said, ‘Keep it, use it, people will come here, etc.’ You follow?
1:34:13	(Pause) One must have this urge, this sense of deep dissatisfaction with everything, and then out of that comes something totally different.
1:34:42	Is that enough for this morning? Right?