Krishnamurti Subtitles home


BR75DSS1.07 - Thinking
Brockwood Park, UK - 25 May 1975
Discussion with Staff and Students 1.07



0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s seventh discussion with teachers and students at Brockwood Park, 1975.
0:12 Krishnamurti: What shall we talk about this morning? (Pause) No suggestions?
0:33 Questioner: Sir, I was wondering whether we could discuss about thought.
0:46 K: Do you want to discuss that? You’d like to? You’re all very silent. You generally talk a great deal by yourselves, don’t you? I see you talk an awful lot in the corridors, in the rooms and everywhere, but you don’t seem to talk here.
1:08 All right, let’s talk about thought, thinking, and the whole business of how we think about and what we reflect upon, all that, shall we?
1:32 Do you want to talk? You’re quite sure? It interests you?
1:45 First of all, words have great significance in themselves.
2:01 Words convey what one is thinking about.
2:13 Words can be interpreted in different ways, have different meanings, but the dictionary, which is the common, accepted form of a particular word and the meaning of that word, the dictionary says clearly what each word means, from the root of each word, from Latin, Greek or from Sanskrit.
2:51 And we are used to… look at the world through words.
3:01 You understand? Please stop me if you don’t understand it. This is a discussion—you understand?—this is a dialogue between you and me, if you want it. If you don’t want it, let’s stop talking and we can go and do something else.
3:22 Words must be used to communicate, to tell you something about what I think or feel, or what I imagine, what I have experienced, what I know.
3:44 Words, in communication, if we don’t use the same word with the same meaning that we both have, then there is confusion out of that.
4:01 Right? And we are used to linear thinking.
4:10 You know what linear thinking is? We pick up a book and read from left to right. That is, follow each sentence from left to right; if you are in the Arabic world, from right to left; if you are in the Chinese or Japanese world, from top to bottom; but they are all linear, in line.
4:46 And I think it has great significance: all our thinking is linear.
4:54 Would Dr Bohm agree to that? I’m glad.
5:07 So our verbal usage has made us more and more superficial, that’s linear.
5:20 Right? Understand this; it is very important for you; when you’re reading books, when you’re talking, it’s always in a straight line.
5:30 You pick up an English book, French or German or Italian, it’s all printed in that line, and our thinking is also that way, superficial.
5:45 Right?
5:46 Q: Yes, but it also branches off, doesn’t it?
5:51 K: But it’s all… whether you branch off in any… it’s always linear, line.
6:01 So our thinking is generally along a straight line.
6:12 It may be distorted but the distortion has its own peculiar straight line.
6:19 I think it is very important to get this meaning of this, because as long as we are reading and thinking in lines, we cannot go beyond the words.
6:39 Right, sir? I am getting on. Dr Bohm approves, so I’m all right!
6:42 Q: Why are you using the word ‘straight’ or ‘linear’ to assume that it’s very superficial? I mean, Dr Bohm talked about straight, staying on a straight course of reality, not illusion.
7:06 K: We’ll come to it. We’ll come to it. I haven’t begun yet, just hold on a minute (laughs).
7:16 So our thinking and the usage of words has made us rather superficial.
7:30 And our communication, which means thinking together, sharing together, creating together, observing together, listening together, all those things are contained in that word: listening, thinking together, observing together, sharing the same thing together, is the meaning of that word ‘communication’.
8:15 And our communication is verbal, and therefore that communication is always superficial.
8:28 I may tell you ‘think deeply’ but thinking deeply implies that thought wants to penetrate something deep.
8:44 Right? I wonder if I am conveying something. Do you understand what I’m talking about? Am I making myself clear? Come on, sir, there you are.
9:05 So words cannot go deeply.
9:13 They can convey the depth, but the word itself cannot go deeply. You understand? No?
9:20 Q: I don’t think it’s quite clear why you say that.
9:23 K: Wait, wait, I haven’t finished. Just go slowly. This is rather difficult, forgive me. I say the well is deep.
9:40 The word ‘deep’ is not the depth, it is the description of depth.
9:54 And the description is not the described. So, to find a word that will convey both the meaning and the depth is very difficult.
10:17 You understand? I want to tell you I love you. Don’t be shy! I want to say, ‘I love you’. Behind that word there is a lot of feeling, there is a lot of emotion, a great deal of other than the word ‘love’ implies.
10:48 Now, if I say ‘love’, ‘love me’, you are then talking, using words that do not convey the depth of it.
11:04 So I realize or you realize that words have a very definite dictionary meaning, and if you want to speak correct, good, communicable words, you must both understand the meaning of each word.
11:28 Not every word but the difficult words. Like ‘school’ means a place—please listen carefully, don’t jump on it—a place where you have leisure to learn.
11:44 You understand? A school means a place where there is leisure and it also implies learning.
12:00 So you must have leisure to learn. Right? That is the meaning of that word. Now, you want to talk about thinking.
12:18 Do you think—please observe yourself, as you’re there, sitting—do you think in words?
12:32 And if there were no words, what would your thinking be? You are following what I am asking?
12:42 Q: Images.
12:43 K: Go on, investigate it together. Let’s go into it together—not let me talk and you just listen, let’s go together into it.
12:56 Q: In images.
13:00 K: Wait, wait. Images, all the rest of it. Look at it. Words, images, symbols, if those three things did not exist, what would thinking be?
13:28 I say to you, ‘I love you.’ I use the words.
13:42 And if I didn’t use the words, how would I convey that feeling to you?
13:51 Take your hand, kiss you, embrace you?
14:00 Would that convey the feeling, the depth, the significance, the great feeling, the compassion, everything involved in that word?
14:14 You are following? Do you understand what I am saying? Oh, come on. So, if you had no use of words, would there be thinking as we know thinking now?
14:35 This is very interesting, go into it, sir.
14:44 So thinking implies the usage of words, and the usage of words to communicate, either in a poem or in a painting or in marble, it’s all that same thing, thinking.
14:59 Right? Find out, as you’re here now, experiment with this.
15:09 Don’t use any word and see if there is any thinking going on.
15:18 (Pause) Word, symbol, image, a remembrance, all those are words.
15:35 Q: Your mind is clear.
15:38 K: No, experiment, don’t say ‘clear’ yet; go into it.
15:49 What would happen if you didn’t use a word and you wanted to communicate what you feel without the word?
16:01 You understand? How would you communicate without the word?
16:08 Q: You aren’t communicating. I mean, if you were living that, you wouldn’t be communicating.
16:15 K: No, I’m asking you now. Do it as we are talking, as we are discussing, having a dialogue.
16:24 How would you communicate with me if you had no words?
16:29 Q: With action.
16:33 K: Communicate, not what to do. What would you do to me? You want to tell me, ‘Look out of the window.’ How would you say it?
16:47 You can’t use words. You would point it out. You say, ‘That tree, not that one there.’ You follow? So through gesture you would convey to me what you want. Gesture, a look, all the rest of it.
17:06 Q: But gesture is also a form of thought, isn’t it? It’s still thought.
17:10 K: It is a form of thought, of course, but only I say, what would you… is there a thinking without the word?
17:27 The word being symbol, image, picture, all the rest of it.
17:28 Q: Do you include the image of the feeling which you have, the experience?
17:38 K: Tungki, you asked: let’s talk about thought. We are doing that. We say thinking is a part of this verbal usage.
18:01 Right? Verbal usage. And without the verbal, without the word or the verb, which is much more important than the word—the verb—what is thinking?
18:28 Let me put it this way: when you are familiar with something, your response is immediate, isn’t it?
18:41 Right? I ask you where you live. You don’t… in that there is immediate response because you know very well where you live.
18:52 I ask you your name—immediately there is a response. Right? In that, is there thinking?
19:01 Q: Yes.
19:02 K: Yes?
19:03 Q: It’s memory.
19:04 Q: It’s not the searching of memory. Thinking may be the searching of memory, searching so that we just...
19:18 K: Tungki, I ask you, ‘What’s your name?’ You reply very quickly, don’t you?
19:27 Why? Is there a thinking in that?
19:30 Q: No, I wouldn’t call that thinking.
19:42 K: What would you call it?
19:45 Q: It’s an immediate response of the memory.
19:51 K: That is what?
19:54 Q: Yes…
19:55 K: Isn’t that thinking too?
19:58 Q: Yes.
20:00 K: So you are telling me, response to memory, which is stored up as experience, knowledge and so on, that is part of thinking.
20:17 Right? I ask you, what is the distance between here and Birkenhead, or some other place, Leeds or London or Manchester?
20:34 Now listen carefully. I ask you what is the distance in mileage or kilometres, the distance from here to whatever it is.
20:46 Why don’t you answer me quickly?
20:57 Q: You may have to work it out.
21:08 K: No. Why?
21:11 Q: But there are people who would answer you immediately.
21:18 I can’t because I might have to look on a map and…
21:19 K: Wait a minute. See. Look. You answer something to a question immediately, because you know it, you’re familiar with it.
21:30 Q: (Inaudible) K: You know what is the distance from here to Winchester because you’ve been there dozens of times. So you say ten miles or eleven miles. There the response to that question, in that response there is no time interval; a split second.
21:57 But if I ask you, ‘What is the distance from here to Newhaven, Dover?’ You’d take some time, wouldn’t you?
22:08 In that time interval, what is happening?
22:12 Q: You’re using your memory.
22:16 K: You don’t know. You see? If you knew the distance you’d respond immediately.
22:24 Q: No, but you’re using that time to figure out the distance.
22:26 K: Which means what?
22:28 Q: Which would say… I’m figuring out the scale on the map, or... (inaudible) K: So in that time interval you would begin to enquire.
22:37 Q: Yes.
22:38 K: And then respond, answer at the end of ten minutes. After you have gone to the library and look at a book or the guide and so on, you would reply. Now I ask you a question to which there is no answer.
22:57 What would you do? Go on, investigate, sir. I ask you—all right, I ask you, as everybody believes in that kind of thing, if there is God.
23:16 Right? What’s your answer? Don’t be shy. I ask you, ‘Do you… is there God?’ What’s your answer?
23:35 Q: I don’t know.
23:39 K: You say, ‘I don’t know.’ Wouldn’t you? That is the right answer: I don’t know.
23:45 Q: But some people do have...
23:48 K: Ah, no, that’s a belief. I’m not talking of belief.
23:51 Q: But they would immediately try to guess.
23:54 K: Wait. Then I would say, ‘On what basis do you know there is God?’ And so on—that’s irrelevant.
24:05 When you say, ‘I don’t know,’ what takes place?
24:15 I ask you a question, ‘Is there God?’ and you say, ‘I don’t know.’ What is the state of your thinking?
24:28 You understand? We said thinking is the response of memory, with which you are familiar—right?—what’s your name, what’s your house, where do you live, and so on.
24:43 What is the distance between here and—what do you call that place?—Winchester? You say it’s eleven miles or ten miles. Again very familiar. I say to you, what is the distance between here and Dover? It will take a little time. Right? I ask you something like, ‘Is there God?’ and you say, ‘I don’t know.’ Right?
25:10 Unless you believed in it; then you would say, ‘I know there is God,’—you follow?—then we would go into that.
25:21 So what is thinking in these three questions? Familiar question, a question which you have to think out, examine, find out, and a question to which you say, ‘I really don’t know.’ What is the process of thinking there?
25:46 Come on, sir.
25:49 Q: In all three instances… Well, I don’t know about the first one, but in the second one...
25:59 K: No, Tungki answered it.
26:02 Q: Well, I don’t quite agree with it.
26:06 K: Oh, you don’t quite agree. All right, let’s go into it (laughs). What’s your name? You immediately say Nelson. Right?
26:11 Q: Right.
26:12 K: If you want to answer it. If you don’t want to, you’ll turn your back to me or ask me go to hell. But if you want to answer me, you say… there is immediate answer. Why? Why is there this instant response to your question?
26:29 Q: Because you know it already.
26:32 K: What does that mean, ‘I know it’? What does that mean?
26:36 Q: It is spontaneous.
26:37 K: No, it is not spontaneity. You know your name. You’ve been asked ten times, a hundred times, you’ve written about it, you’ve written your name down. So you’re very familiar, but the memory responds instantly.
26:56 Right? In that responding instantly, there is a second activity of thought.
27:09 Of course.
27:12 Q: A second?
27:14 K: It doesn’t matter. A fraction of a second. There is time. It may be a fraction of a second or ten minutes or a whole year, but it’s still time.
27:33 Time is the movement of thought. Is this… Right?
27:41 Q: Yes, I understand.
27:45 K: You’ve got it?
27:49 Q: I see, but I can’t see quite clearly on the first instance, when you say…
27:56 Is there time, really?
27:58 K: Look…
27:59 Q: There is time between your question and my answer.
28:01 K: No, no, no. I ask you your name. If you are listening to me, listening to my question, you are listening, there is no time involved in that, very little time, even space, you know.
28:21 Then I ask your name. You respond to it. You respond to it because you have memorized your name.
28:33 Right? You’re quite sure?
28:38 Q: Yes.
28:39 K: From childhood you have been called Nelson; that name has soaked into your brain.
28:48 And when I ask you what’s your name, there is a split second in response—right?—because you have memorized it.
29:01 What is two plus two? You would say instantly, wouldn’t you, four? Why?
29:09 Q: It’s memory.
29:11 K: That’s all. And the response to that. Right? Clear?
29:18 Q: Yes.
29:20 K: Now… So, thinking—please correct me, somebody, if I’m wrong—thinking is a movement in time, as we have seen just now.
29:40 It may be a split second or it may take ten minutes or a year; it is a movement in time and time itself is a movement.
29:56 Q: Right. But just in the instant you’re going to cross a road and a car comes, isn’t there a split of a second when you see it and jump back?
30:16 K: And get back—which is what?
30:18 Q: Is there a thought in this?
30:19 K: Of course there is.
30:20 Q: So I was just trying to see, is there an instance where...
30:21 K: That’s right, the body responds instantly because the intelligence of the body says: get out of danger.
30:26 Q: Is the intelligence of the body the same as memory?
30:33 K: No. My Lord. No, there is… Yes, partly. Yes. Wait. So we’ve found one thing. Thinking is a process or a movement or a motion in time—right?—and time itself is a movement—time being from here to there.
31:09 So the whole movement… Thought is a movement in time, which is also moving.
31:21 So thought is a process of movement: verbal movement, a movement in image, in recollection.
31:35 I wonder if you get all this. I’m very excited about it—you don’t mind? I’m finding something for myself. So, then I say to myself: what is thinking without a word?
32:02 Is there a movement of thought without the word? (Pause) Q: There can’t be.
32:13 K: Find out, examine it.
32:16 Q: You just said that thought takes time.
32:20 K: Thought is time. And is thought the word? Without the word, what is thought?
32:29 Q: (Inaudible) K: Go on.
32:36 Image, symbol—what takes place? Does the movement stop?
32:50 You understand? We said thought is a movement in time. Thought is a verbal movement in time. Thought is a memory of the past, remembrance of the past.
33:07 Through the present, to the future, is a movement in time. Are you following? Does this interest you, all this, or do you want to talk about football?
33:32 And if there is no movement, verbal movement as thought, what happens to thought?
33:52 Does the word create the thought? Go into it, sir. Does the word create the thought, or thought creates the word, or are they simultaneous, instant together?
34:15 Q: It seems, when I think of the word, like if I look and say ‘tree’, there is an image in my mind of the tree.
34:33 If I don’t say the word, I’m still looking at the same thing.
34:37 K: Yes, yes, you look, but what’s happened? If there is no word between you and the tree, what happens to thinking?
34:50 Q: The image does not appear. You are looking at…
34:55 K: What happens? What happens? There is no image, no symbol, no word—what happens when you look?
35:01 Q: You don’t even recognize it as a tree.
35:05 K: You can’t mistake it as an elephant—it is there. Or a giraffe or whatever you like. It is there.
35:13 Q: It seems that when thought is quiet for a moment...
35:18 K: Wait, go slowly, quietly into it, you will see for yourself something extraordinary, you will find out.
35:29 So we are used to verbal… we use words to express thought.
35:41 And we’re asking: does the word create thought or thought create the word, or it is instantaneous, together, simultaneous?
35:49 Q: Sir, I don’t quite understand that question, because for me, words and thought are synonymous.
35:59 K: So, if they are synonymous, what happens if you don’t use words?
36:15 What’s happened to the whole movement of thought in words and so on and so on?
36:25 What happens to that?
36:27 Q: Does it stop thought?
36:31 K: I don’t know—find out.
36:33 Q: Are you asking in that that you also do not use images?
36:38 K: I said so: no image, no symbol, no word, which are all involved in thinking.
36:53 Linear or perpendicular or horizontal or vertical, all that is involved in thinking.
37:14 So the religious people say, if you want to go into it, that the word itself is God.
37:24 You understand? Follow this. The Hindus would say the word itself is Brahman, the form, and that the word is God, and God made the world, and if there is no word what happens?
37:59 Oh, come on.
38:02 Q: There is no God.
38:06 K: Ah! (Laughs) Yes, partly, but find out. Tungki, what do you do? How do you think? Verbally? And do you think non-verbally?
38:23 Q: Yes, through images.
38:29 K: I said to you, Tungki…
38:31 Q: You consider verbal as images?
38:34 K: Word, image, a symbol, a picture, all those are all words.
38:45 And if there are no words, what is the movement of thought?
38:52 Is there a movement of thought?
38:54 Q: There is no movement then.
39:02 K: Then what has happened to thought? So this is what I consider meditation.
39:21 You follow? We talked about it the other day—when was it?—Thursday. We won’t go into that now. We are now examining, try to grasp or comprehend—you know what that word ‘comprehend’ means?
39:37 To hold together. Hold. Now, can we hold together now the operation of thought, how it works?
40:00 We said thought is the response of memory.
40:08 Right? Memory is accumulated through experience, which is knowledge.
40:22 So memory is experience, is knowledge.
40:29 Right? And when you see a snake, you respond instantly because your tradition, your memory, your grandmother’s books and everything has said that’s a danger.
40:47 So you recorded that as memory and respond. Right? So what is then the function of thought and the function of non-verbal thought?
41:02 Sorry! You understand? This is too difficult. Go on, Mr Joe. Somebody help me out.
41:14 Q: When you say non-verbal thought, are you just giving us the opportunity to see that so many things are thought—the dart, the word, spelt out in letters?
41:36 In other words, what do you want us to look at when you say non-verbal thought?
41:48 K: Not what I want you to look at.
41:51 Q: Yes.
41:53 K: We’ve said verbal movement is thought in time.
42:04 Right? That’s clear. Now, a verbal movement in time—if there was no verbal movement, what happens to thought?
42:19 Q: I don’t want to say anything about what you’ve just said, but just before that you said: what is non-verbal… you said non-verbal thought.
42:33 K: That’s right.
42:34 Q: I’m trying to put that with what we...
42:37 K: Ted, it’s very simple. Is thought word? Word, symbol, all the rest of it.
42:52 Is thought word?
42:54 Q: Yes.
42:56 K: Right. If the word is not there, the symbol, the picture, what is thinking then?
43:04 Q: So then the thought isn’t there.
43:13 K: Are you sure? Go into it. Go into it a little bit.
43:17 Q: For me, that’s a hypothetical question, sir, because I don’t know what...
43:23 K: To you it’s a hypothetical question. Therefore to a hypothetical question there is no truthful answer. Is that it?
43:32 Q: No, I mean there’s no such thing...
43:36 K: Wait, don’t say no. See that. There is no truthful answer to a hypothetical question. Full stop.
43:46 Q: But I’m...
43:50 K: Ah! (Laughter) Therefore you’re caught. Right? Therefore you have got to express the same thing differently, not hypothetically but in actuality, as a fact.
44:06 And we said fact being that which is being done, (laughs) which is being made and so on.
44:14 That is fact. Therefore it has no hypothesis behind it.
44:16 Q: No, what I mean is I see that thought is a movement in time, but...
44:21 K: Now wait a minute. How do you see it?
44:34 Do you see it verbally, the description of it, or do you see the fact, the ‘what is’, which is the truth?
44:59 You understand?
45:08 I said to you just now: thought is a movement in time.
45:17 And you say yes. Right? And you say, ‘I see that.’ What do you mean by that word ‘see’?
45:27 Q: I understand the meaning.
45:34 K: Wait a minute. Understand—you know, we were discussing with Dr Bohm yesterday afternoon what that word ‘understand’ means: to stand under, to uphold—all the rest of it; I won’t go into it.
45:47 Now, you understand it. The verbal understanding, which is intellectual, thought says, ‘Yes, I’ve understood verbally what you have said.’ Right?
46:00 But you are still… but you don’t see the fact that thought is a movement in time, the fact that your thinking is a movement in time.
46:19 When you see that, you don’t say, ‘I understand’—it is so.
46:25 Q: But is it ever possible to go beyond the word?
46:30 K: We’re doing it now.
46:38 Q: But isn’t every movement in time?
46:43 K: Wait a minute, Tungki. You know what time is? By the watch, you know it. And also time is… it takes time to go from here to Winchester—a movement.
47:06 Right? It takes longer to go to London, and so on. But it’s a movement in a direction. Right? Yes, Tungki, that’s not difficult. So, time is a movement. Time is movement, outwardly and inwardly.
47:26 Q: What do you mean by outward and inward?
47:33 K: To go from here to Winchester outwardly it takes time.
47:40 Q: Yes.
47:42 K: Inwardly, I say I must become that. Which you all want.
47:56 You understand? I want to become—what?—a lawyer, I want to become a saint, I want to become enlightened, I want to become God.
48:08 Psychologically, the wanting to become involves movement in time.
48:16 And—listen to this carefully—movement in time, psychologically, which means becoming something, in that there is absolutely no security—right?—and therefore fear.
48:34 Do you… It doesn’t matter, leave that for the moment.
48:49 Psychologically or physically, trying to become something, in that there is a great deal of uncertainty.
49:02 Right? I want to become a marvellous painter. It’s a tremendous uncertainty. I may not. But I’ve set my goal, my ambition, my energy in that direction, and therefore in that becoming there is tremendous insecurity.
49:29 Right? So in trying to become something there is no security.
49:40 Leave that for the moment.
49:42 Q: There’s no insecurity in saying, ‘I want to learn to paint.’ K: That’s different. No, you don’t… I said ‘become’, please.
49:49 Q: Yes, I understand the difference… (inaudible) K: There is a difference between wanting to learn a language and wanting to become something.
50:05 In wanting to become something, there is no security at all.
50:11 Q: It’s a common belief that that is where a greater security is, in becoming something.
50:21 K: So, there is only security in not becoming anything.
50:28 Any thing. There is only security in nothing. I won’t go into all that, that’s…
50:38 Q: (Inaudible) K: I see something. Come on, sirs, you’re all so slow.
50:44 Q: What you’ve just said, isn’t it the basic key of everything? It seems everything in our life is rests on this.
50:55 K: Yes, Tungki, that’s right. Now I must get back to the thing. We’ll come back to it a little later. When Suseela says—Shakuntala, sorry—Shakuntala says, ‘I see, I understand that thought is a movement in time,’ I asked her what she meant by that word ‘see’, ‘understand’.
51:32 Does she see the words, linear words—please listen—see it in a line, as printed on a page: ‘time [thought] is movement in time’, and having read that line, says, ‘Yes, I understand the words’?
51:57 And she says, ‘I understand,’ when I pushed her—‘What do you mean by seeing?’—‘I understand,’ she said. Understand the words in that line? The meaning of the words, which are descriptions and not truth?
52:13 So I’ve discovered something. Description, the word, is not the truth.
52:23 The truth is ‘what is’, which is the door. The word is not the door. Right? Oh, come on.
52:41 So, this is important to penetrate. When you use the word ‘see’ or ‘understand’, you’re still operating in the area of words.
53:00 Now, how do you see the truth of that statement?
53:09 The truth, not the verbal description of it.
53:22 Do you see when you have pain?
53:29 I understand pain, I see pain. Is there a gap between the pain and your seeing the pain?
53:48 Go on, investigate it. Or there is only pain, which is the truth.
53:59 Where there is a gap—I won’t go into reality—when there is a gap, you’re caught in uncertainty, aren’t you?
54:15 So, do you actually feel, taste, smell the truth of this statement: thought is a movement in time?
54:34 The truth of it, as the door is the truth—not the description of the door, the word; the word is not the door.
54:46 So when the word becomes the screen or the description of the door, and you’re caught in the description, then you don’t see the door.
54:57 You’ve got it?
55:02 Q: So, when we think without words, are we in the realm of emotion and feeling?
55:23 K: Now, emotion and feeling? Is there an emotion and a feeling if there is no thinking?
55:28 Q: Yes.
55:34 K: You put a pin into me.
55:41 The pain, which is a form of sensation—sensation (inaudible) the brain, and all the rest of it—is that sensation of the pin in my leg different from the sensation when you call me a fool?
56:13 Go on, sir.
56:20 Q: Completely different.
56:23 K: Completely different—why?
56:24 Q: Because for one there’s just the pain, you don’t have to say it’s a thing.
56:27 K: Yes. Go on, go on, investigate it. All right.
56:30 Q: The other one, a lot of words come up to... they are associated with that…
56:37 K: But that’s also painful.
56:39 Q: When I don’t think I...
56:41 K: Wait, Tungki, wait. When you call me a fool, that’s also painful.
56:43 Q: But only because of all the words I associate with.
56:45 K: Wait, go into it.
56:49 Q: But only…
56:51 K: Tungki, you have heard, when you put a pin in my leg that’s one kind of pain, isn’t it?
57:01 That is sensation, nerves and all the rest of it. And when you call me a fool, that’s also painful to me. What’s the difference between the two?
57:16 Q: The pin is physical and being called a fool is felt mentally.
57:22 Q: They are both painful though.
57:25 Q: But the other is a movement of...
57:31 K: Look, Tungki, wait and listen, don’t go off to something else, stick to this one thing.
57:43 What is the difference between the physical pain, biological and all the rest of it, and psychological pain?
57:52 You call me a fool.
57:53 Q: They don’t seem to be very different to me, sir.
57:57 K: They are not?
57:59 Q: I don’t think so. I mean, in both cases there is pain.
58:04 K: No, but isn’t there a difference between the two?
58:07 Q: Yes.
58:08 Q: In one of them there is time involved because you think you’re not a fool, and so you start to think, and then you feel the pain because you call me a fool and I say, ‘No I’m not,’ so I get hurt.
58:18 K: No, no, don’t say, ‘I’m not.’ I’m hurt.
58:22 Q: Yes, but why are you hurt? If I am a fool then you wouldn’t be hurt.
58:27 K: Wait. I’ve got an image about myself.
58:29 Q: That I’m not a fool.
58:30 K: Wait, wait, wait. Go into it. I have an image about myself—right?—which says, ‘I’m not a fool.’ I have built that image to protect myself, and that image you are hurting by calling me a fool.
58:53 But here there is no image, there is a physical, actual pain.
59:03 So, why do I have an image at all? If I have no image, which is a verbal structure, an imaginative structure as myself, you call me a fool and I say, ‘Yes, all right.’ You have not hurt me.
59:22 Or you say, ‘What a wonderful man you are’—that’s an image.
59:30 So if you have no image at all you cannot hurt. But physically you can hurt. I don’t know if you... So…
59:44 Q: But even with the physical pain, I mean like with a pin, your hand is up off that pin an instant before your brain says, ‘Good Lord, I’ve stuck my hand with a pin.’ K: Of course.
1:00:02 Q: So it’s a material thing; there is still time involved in the whole process.
1:00:03 K: We’re not talking of…—we’re talking of pain, because we said, have you understood, do you see the fact, as two and two is a fact—put two pencils and join them, they are four pencils—that’s a fact.
1:00:28 That’s an actuality, not a description of four pencils.
1:00:37 Now, here, thought is a movement in time.
1:00:44 That’s a verbal description of a fact. Right? The verbal description is a reality because it’s described, but it is not the truth.
1:00:59 I mustn’t go into it—sorry, it’s too complicated. So do you see the truth of that, as you see the door?
1:01:11 Do you see the truth of it, the reality, the actuality of it, or do you say, ‘Yes, I’ve understood verbally, it’s all right, let’s get on with the beastly stuff’?
1:01:29 When you see a snake, it’s an actuality, it is the truth, and that says, ‘Move, run.’ Or your response to it makes you run.
1:01:52 The snake is a reality, is truth—you see the fact and you run away.
1:02:02 And similarly do you see this fact, that thought is a movement in time?
1:02:12 Then you say now: what then is the state of mind which is non-verbal, non-linear, non-descriptive, which isn’t living in words?
1:02:37 I wonder if you understand all this.
1:02:50 Right?
1:02:52 Q: I’m trying to think whether I have to go off on a tangent here, to get back.
1:03:12 Something is happening, there are thoughts involved. I’m looking at this idea of not being hurt and reacting, yet it’s obvious to me that I do see myself reacting and getting hurt. And I do get hurt, and I think we all do.
1:03:21 K: That’s a different question, sir.
1:03:22 Q: Okay. But now in a sense we do see the hurt, we do see it, so we’re not denying that we are making a reaction, but then we hear you say, or hear someone say: can you live without a hurt?
1:03:31 K: I didn’t say...
1:03:32 Q: We make a comparison of ourselves with an image of someone who’d been living without hurt.
1:03:34 K: Of course, of course, of course.
1:03:35 Q: And then that gets thoughts working again.
1:03:38 K: Of course.
1:03:39 Q: And I find myself in attempting to answer a question, what is it to be like without a thought?
1:03:48 K: I don’t know, that is still a verbal description.
1:03:56 Q: Exactly. I wouldn’t know how to go... I mean, I’m trying to see, is that a right question or is that a wrong question?
1:04:05 K: No, no, still indulging in verbal movement.
1:04:08 Q: With that question.
1:04:10 K: With that question. But I am asking something entirely different, which is, do you see as an actuality the four pencils?
1:04:22 Not the description of the two and two make four, but the actuality of the truth, the ‘what is’ of two plus two makes four—the fact of it.
1:04:39 Or is it all verbal, descriptive, which is—that’s why—which is totally different from the physical pain?
1:04:53 There, there is no word, there is no description: pain is there.
1:05:04 Do you see as an actuality of that pain when you are hurt physically, the truth of this statement?
1:05:15 That’s all I’m trying to say. If you see the truth of it, not caught in the description of it, verbal, then what is the next thing?
1:05:29 You follow?
1:05:30 Q: I’m sorry but I’m a little lost. You’re talking about seeing the truth of this statement, the expression. Which is the statement?
1:05:41 K: Do you see that door? Look, do you see that door? The door, the word, is not the door.
1:05:53 Q: Right.
1:05:55 K: Now, the words ‘thought is a movement in time’—the words—are not the fact.
1:06:07 Q: Right.
1:06:10 K: Do you see the fact, as you see the fact of a snake, the fact of a door?
1:06:20 That’s all I’m asking.
1:06:27 Now to go back: is thought, upon which all our social, moral, intellectual, everything, religious, is based on that—thought.
1:06:49 You follow? Thought has created wars, thought has created nationalities, thought has created gods, thought has created the prestige of ministers and priests and archbishops and the Pope and the generals—thought has created all that.
1:07:15 And thought, because thought has created all the problems involved in division—that’s a fact, thought has created them—there is the general, there is the bishop, there is the minister, there is the lawyer.
1:07:42 Right? And this division has created tremendous mischief in the world, ideologically and physically.
1:07:52 That’s obvious, sir, we don’t have to discuss this. If you have read history a little bit, if you see the television or go around looking and you see this very clearly.
1:08:05 So thought is responsible for the technological advancement as well as the misery of division—the Hindu, the Muslim, the Brahmin, etc., etc.—the Jew, the Arab, the communist.
1:08:22 So what is the place of thought?
1:08:25 Q: It seems that thought is extremely useful, and even necessary when we deal with the material world.
1:08:34 K: Right. We grant that, obviously.
1:08:40 Q: But as soon as we start using it to go and investigate...
1:08:50 K: No, as thought… when thought says, ‘I will become something,’ either through division or through unity, then mischief is created.
1:09:10 Look, thought says it’s quite right, technologically there’s been tremendous advancement for the benefit of mankind, for the benefit also for the few who hold the purse, and so on, so on.
1:09:39 So thought has its right place. Right? But when thought says, I am British and that is far superior than the French, or thought says, my guru is better than your guru, or when thought says, I will become God, then the becoming of thought into something is deadly poisonous.
1:10:20 Sorry! I don’t know if you…
1:10:32 Right? So, are you psychologically, which is the movement of thought in time, trying to become something?
1:10:47 Aren’t you all trying to become something psychologically, inwardly, which is non-verbally but expressed verbally?
1:11:02 Go on, sirs, aren’t you all trying to become something?
1:11:12 You’re all very silent.
1:11:27 The becoming something is a fact to you.
1:11:36 Right? You want to be somebody.
1:11:44 And the desire to be somebody is the movement of thought in time.
1:11:57 Right? And we said, in that movement of becoming something, there is tremendous uncertainty, and therefore great fear.
1:12:19 And in becoming something there is no security, there is no stability.
1:12:26 Now, do you see the truth of that, or do you see the description of it? My God. Then you will ask: if I don’t become something, what…
1:12:41 Q: Can I answer that question something like this: that I don’t want to become something, and I see that, but I also see in my daily life that there are instances that do arise in which for at least that period of time I see the process of wanting to become something.
1:13:14 K: Then, if you saw, or if you see the snake as poisonous, would you during the day hesitate about that snake?
1:13:24 Q: No, you drop it. You drop it.
1:13:32 K: You drop it—why? Because you see the truth of it. Right? Here you don’t see the truth of it, you see the verbal statement.
1:13:47 That’s all.
1:13:49 Q: But what I’m thinking of, you asked a question to us in the audience and you said: do you see that you’re trying to become something?
1:14:00 Now if we say to ourselves, ‘Yes, I’m trying to become something,’ then we create the idea that I should become something that is not trying to become something.
1:14:11 (Laughter) K: Quite. (Laughs) Q: So by thinking that question as seriously as we’d like to, we can put ourselves in a position in which we can’t answer.
1:14:23 K: No, no, I would put myself in the position: first of all, do I want to become something?
1:14:32 That’s a fact, or non-fact. Is it a fact? Most people do want to become something. Right, that’s a fact. And also it’s a fact, that is, the truth, that in becoming there is tremendous uncertainty.
1:14:57 Right? In that there is no security. Right? Now, when you agree, is it a verbal agreement or seeing the truth in that becoming there is no stability, no security, no certainty?
1:15:26 And therefore knowing it, consciously or unconsciously, that there is no certainty, we create certainties in ideas, in hopes.
1:15:37 You follow? I wonder if you follow all this.
1:15:39 Q: Are you saying that to see something, really see something is true, is an action that is outside of thought?
1:15:52 K: Yes, it is an action that is not shaped by thought.
1:16:05 (Pause) You have a problem: most of you want to be something.
1:16:29 Physically you may want to be taller, more beautiful, longer hair, shorter hair, or physically have more money, this, that and the other.
1:16:48 And psychologically, inwardly, inside yourself, inside the skin, say, ‘I want to be free of fear, I want to experience that state when thought is not a movement in time.’ You want to become something.
1:17:11 And do you see what is involved in becoming something psychologically?
1:17:23 Do you? Not as an idea, as a verbal description, but an actuality. ‘I want to become a bright, intelligent, vital human being. I want to change myself into something.’ Do you? Oh, come on. Do let’s be a little honest, shall we, about it.
1:17:51 Don’t be shy about it. You all do, don’t you? At last. Why? Why do you want to be something?
1:18:17 I’m not saying you should or should not—why do you want to be something?
1:18:24 All right. I’m greedy, envious, greedy, I want lots of things, full of them, etc.
1:18:44 I want. That’s a fact, it’s not something illusory, not something…
1:18:53 It is I want to be terribly creative, terribly intelligent, I want to become that because I’m not that.
1:19:06 And what shall I do?
1:19:17 Copy somebody who is very intelligent? Go on, sir. Read books, sharpen my mind, fight for intelligence: ‘Oh my God, how am I to get intelligence?’—day after day work at it, fight for it, push everybody else.
1:19:40 You follow? Will that give me intelligence? Will comparing myself with another give me intelligence? Come on, sir, that’s what you’re doing.
1:20:06 Answer it. I see the guru. I’ve seen lots of them unfortunately. They sit there on a platform, or garlanded. I’ve been garlanded, worshipped and all the rest of it—I’m not envious of these birds, of these people.
1:20:26 There they are, sitting very solemn, soaked in their tradition and all the rest of it.
1:20:33 And the poor disciple is down there, and he says, ‘By Jove, I’d like to be like him. He’s got a lot of following, a Rolls Royce or a Cadillac or a big house or lots of money, flattery, candles, garlands, everybody prostrates,’ all that dirty business that goes on.
1:20:58 I want to be like him. Can I be like him? Why do I want to be like him? Because flattery, I like flattery, I like being put on a platform and respected, worshipped.
1:21:16 I like that. And I like a lot of followers. I’d like a lovely Rolls Royce if I can get it—so on and so on. So what is it I want? Go on, sir, investigate it. What is it I want?
1:21:46 The pleasures of all that guru has, or gets?
1:21:53 Q: Could it be the security?
1:22:01 K: Security. But he’s competing with the other guru who has a larger group, who is more enlightened.
1:22:03 Q: You’re talking about the fellow who looks at this guru and says he has a good job here.
1:22:07 K: Yes, a jolly good job!
1:22:09 Q: But then there will be thousands of people who are looking at the guru, not for the Rolls Royce necessarily, but for some security that they feel that...
1:22:25 K: I’m coming to that. So I want the physical security that chap has and I also want all the pleasures that he derives from that position, from that status.
1:22:40 So what is it I want? (Pause) Q: Well, you have an image of what you...
1:22:51 (inaudible) K: Not only the image. I want that thing.
1:22:58 Q: That security.
1:23:00 K: That security, that pleasure, that enjoyment, that sense of authority, that sense of being superior to every other bird, all the rest of it.
1:23:10 Now, in… What, sir? Go ahead, go ahead.
1:23:16 Q: Do you want that guru… do you want to be that guru, or do you want to maintain him above you so that you can act as a son to him…
1:23:33 (inaudible) K: There is the father image, there is the desire to be like him, there is the envy, jealousy, to be…—all that’s involved in this thing.
1:23:43 And I say that the desire to become something, psychologically or physically is… tremendous uncertainty in it, there is great fear.
1:24:00 Isn’t that so? Oh Lord, come on, sir.
1:24:09 And is it worth it? And what would happen if I don’t become like that man? I’ll be nobody. Right? That’s what I’m afraid of: I am nobody.
1:24:30 Are you anybody anyhow? Go on. So, the movement of thought in time gives you insecurity, fear, uncertainty, instability.
1:24:57 And out of that instability, you act neurotically: beliefs, gurus, I believe in this, I am following this principle—you follow?—all neurotic attitudes and action.
1:25:17 And if you are absolutely nothing, not a thing, then in that there is complete security, because you…
1:25:31 You understand? And out of that you are really creative.
1:25:45 Now, we began this morning trying to find out what is thinking.
1:25:54 Right? You raised that question. Have you understood it now? No, I withdraw that word. Have you seen through the description, the reality of it?
1:26:14 Q: The truth or the reality?
1:26:17 K: The truth of it. Forgive me, I’m always mixing those! (Laughter) Q: Excuse me. Have you see the truth that... (inaudible) K: Listen, Tungki. I said to you, I asked you, we have talked an hour and a half, and do you see the truth, do you see the truth behind the description, or you are still fiddling, correcting, adjusting the description, the verbal description?
1:27:01 Or do you see the truth of that thing he has said, as you see the snake?
1:27:09 Q: There doesn’t seem to be any answer for me.
1:27:16 I mean, I couldn’t quite answer that question.
1:27:21 K: Why not?
1:27:23 Q: I get...
1:27:25 K: After an hour and a half, what do you mean, you can’t answer? Either you have not been...
1:27:31 Q: Because what you said has happened in part of my life, but...
1:27:36 K: No, no, no. No, Tungki, you’re off to something else. I asked you a very simple thing. You’ve listened for an hour and a half, and do you see, through the description, the truth of it?
1:28:01 If you don’t, what the dickens have you been doing for an hour and a half?
1:28:13 I mean, Mr Joe comes along and teaches you physics.
1:28:21 He spends an hour and a half, and you say, ‘Look, would you mind beginning all over again, telling me about it?’ He’d say, ‘Look, have you been asleep for an hour and a half?
1:28:33 Or are you here or are you in Indonesia or in Winchester or somewhere else?’ So it means giving attention to this, which means learning.
1:28:54 Have you learnt, are learning, about the whole movement of thought?
1:29:11 And therefore learning implies leisure. Leisure means emptiness. Leisure means nothingness. In that state you can learn.
1:29:32 And in that learning there is tremendous beauty, and therefore great affection, love and everything is involved in that.
1:29:44 Right? Good morning! (Laughs)