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BR75DSS1.08 - The untidy mind
Brockwood Park, UK - 29 May 1975
Discussion with Staff and Students 1.08



0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s eigth discussion with teachers and students at Brockwood Park, 1975.
0:07 Krishnamurti: What shall we talk about this morning? (Pause) Questioner: I have something. I’m interested in the mechanism of experiencing and how through that, self-consciousness comes into being, the idea of self-consciousness.
0:50 K: You would like to talk about the process of experience and how consciousness comes into being—is that it?
1:16 Q: Self-consciousness.
1:18 K: Self-consciousness—is there any other consciousness? We’ll discuss it. Do you want to talk about that? No. Somebody says no. Anything else?
1:32 Q: Can we go into how do we listen if you speak, or anybody speaks?
1:41 K: How do we listen, what is the art of listening? Is that it, Tungki? Yes? Any other?
1:54 Q: Just before, a few of us were talking about interest and how most people stem their actions out of what they consider they’re interested in.
2:02 And perhaps we could go into where does the basis of this interest arise, I mean, how does one decide they are interested in this and not interested in that?
2:17 K: How does one decide or distinguish or choose from various interests—is that it?
2:28 Which is the principal interest one has among so many interests.
2:33 Q: Where is this choice? What is this choice?
2:37 K: Yes. Is that what you want to discuss?
2:40 Q: And also I’d like to talk about action.
2:52 K: Action.
2:55 Q: You say that when you really see it, it’s finished for you, but...
2:57 K: Yes. What is action? How does self-consciousness arise, and what is the process of experience that gives rise to this self-consciousness?
3:20 The art of listening. Right, Tungki? And when we have so many interests and we have to choose amongst those interests, the principal interest which dominates, what is this element of choice?
3:46 Right? And what is action? (Laughs) Now, can we begin with what is listening?
4:01 Can we start with that? Are you interested in that? What does it mean to listen? You’re sure you want to talk about it?
4:18 Yes?
4:19 Q: Yes.
4:22 K: Casually or seriously? All right. What do you think it means to listen to somebody?
4:38 There you are. Now you’re listening to the speaker. What does it mean?
4:44 Q: It means your senses are functioning. Your sense of…
4:51 K: Your sensory organism is functioning, the vibrations of the sound, and you hear it.
4:58 Now go beyond that. What does it mean to listen? That’s obvious. Not that I’m saying that… Let’s take that for granted and let’s go further. That when you listen, what is implied?
5:22 You listen to the words, don’t you? Tungki? Listen to the words, the meaning of words. Because we both speak English, at the moment, for the present, we must understand the meaning of the words which we are using, otherwise we shan’t understand or communicate with each other.
5:49 Then what does it mean to listen? Do you listen to that woodpigeon? (Sound of woodpigeon) Now, how do you listen to it?
6:09 Apart from the sound, apart from the recognition that it is a wood pigeon, how do you listen?
6:21 What is the art of listening?
6:23 Q: Giving attention to it, paying attention.
6:31 K: Are you paying… do you pay attention to that when you listen?
6:35 Q: Sure.
6:36 K: No, find out, don’t say ‘sure’—find out if you are really paying attention to that woodpigeon, which is cooing.
6:47 Listen to it.
6:51 Q: Isn’t it a question of concentrating on one particular thing?
7:01 (Inaudible) K: Is it concentration? Is it that you’re interested in listening to the sound of that pigeon?
7:11 Which is first? I’m interested in listening to that wood pigeon, so I listen.
7:21 In that listening, because of my interest, I have that quality of attention that makes me listen completely.
7:35 Are you doing that? Are you doing that, Tungki? Just listen. Or are you off to something else? Are you listening because you’re interested, and therefore you are attentive, and so you are completely listening to the whole sound of that pigeon?
8:01 Q: How does interest come into it?
8:05 K: Wait, wait. Listen.
8:07 Q: I mean, you haven’t any choice except to hear it.
8:11 K: No, my dear chap. I asked you if you would kindly listen to that pigeon. If you are not interested in it, you say, ‘I’m not interested in listening to that pigeon,’ and you listen to something else or look at something else.
8:29 But I’m asking you as politely as possible, requesting you, if you would kindly listen to that pigeon.
8:40 And are you interested in listening to that pigeon? Or you tell me, ‘Go and take a biscuit’?
8:54 Are you interested in it? If you are interested in it, aren’t you paying attention to it?
9:08 Q: When you say that…
9:21 K: Only one thing at a time. One thing at a time. Are you paying attention to it?
9:34 Are you listening?
9:35 Q: Yes.
9:37 K: So you’re giving attention.
9:40 Q: Yes.
9:41 K: So that attention is complete. It isn’t you’re listening to another sound—you’re listening to that sound completely.
9:46 Q: But if you are also aware of yourself listening… If you are also aware that you are listening, and you think… you’re aware that you think you are listening completely, but that’s not meaning you are listening absolutely, because you are aware of yourself listening.
10:10 K: You’re aware of it, aren’t you?
10:11 Q: Yes.
10:12 K: Yes. That implies you are interested in it. You look, you listen. If I asked you, ‘Would you listen to something I’m going to tell you?’ Listen—the art of listening implies that you are interested, that you are paying attention, that you are giving your whole awareness, attention to this.
10:44 If I may ask you, as I pass several rooms every day, I see very untidy, rather dirty rooms.
10:53 Right? Will you listen to that? Unkempt, unmade beds—will you listen to it, or you’re not interested in it?
11:14 Come on, sir, come on.
11:15 Q: If it is a fact that my room is untidy, I will listen to you.
11:27 K: Jean-Francois, I’m asking you, are you listening to what is being said?
11:42 Listening to that pigeon, and I say, ‘Are you listening to what I’m about to tell you’—you—not to you but all of us—‘that as I pass your rooms I see they are untidy, dirty, beds unmade, things all over the place.’ Now, will you listen to that?
12:06 Or you tell me, ‘Oh, go and climb a tree.’ Are you interested in listening to that?
12:19 Please tell me. The woodpigeon is something quite different.
12:28 Q: It means change if I listen. If I listen to that, it means change.
12:37 K: No, are you listening, first? Does it interest you to listen to something which may be contrary to you, which you may not like to listen to?
12:48 Q: Because it means change, I don’t listen.
12:51 K: Change follows later, I will come to that presently. Will you listen, or you say, ‘Well, I’m sorry, that’s too close, I’m not interested in it, I won’t listen’?
13:07 Do you say you won’t listen, or you say you will listen. Come on, discuss it, have a dialogue with me.
13:17 Q: Why do you think I will or I won’t listen in to it?
13:21 K: Because it doesn’t interest me.
13:23 Q: (Inaudible) …I will listen, I won’t listen, as though, you know, bringing in a choice there.
13:38 I mean, if someone’s talking to you, you listen to them, that’s all there is to it.
13:39 K: No, no. I said—please just listen—no, I said if you listen to that woodpigeon, either you are interested in it to learn the art of listening, which Tungki raised, and if you’re interested in the art of listening, I say, are you interested, first?
13:58 Does it interest you? If it interests you, you naturally then pay attention, easily, you are aware, you listen with your heart, with your mind, you say, ‘By Jove, that’s very interesting.’ Q: But still, while listening to that pigeon I still hear you are talking.
14:21 I mean, it doesn’t...
14:24 K: It doesn’t exclude my saying something.
14:28 Q: Yes.
14:29 K: No, but I said, look, ‘Do you listen to that pigeon?’—I kept quiet. I didn’t talk at that moment. My point is, I’m trying to convey, if I can put into words, that when you… you asked the question: what does it mean to listen?
15:01 I said there is an art in listening, the art being that you must be interested in it, otherwise you won’t listen.
15:14 The interest may be superficial or deep or casual, and if you’re really interested then you give your attention to it.
15:32 If I tell you I love you, you listen then, don’t you?
15:41 No? Oh, come on, Tungki! Not you, you are...
15:46 Q: It depends if there is a feeling of embarrassment in front of other people, then you might shut up… (inaudible) K: No, no, I tell you quietly in your room.
16:00 For God’s sake, Tungki! ‘I love you,’ and then you listen, don’t you? Because it pleases you. And I say, ‘Tungki, your room is very dirty, bed unmade, sloppy,’ you don’t care to listen.
16:16 Q: If I’m really listening to the pigeon and I’m choosing to listen to the pigeon, I miss the whole field of sound all around.
16:36 K: Please, there are lots of things involved in it; I am just beginning. We’re learning the art of listening. He asked me, what does it mean to listen?
16:53 First, interest, awareness, attention—and if it is pleasant you give a great deal of attention, if it is not pleasant, you don’t give attention.
17:03 I’m sure people have told you that your rooms are untidy, a dozen times, and you don’t listen.
17:14 But if you say, ‘Look, Tungki, let’s go for a ride, let’s have some fun,’ you’re all there.
17:24 So, the art, if you are interested in learning, this art of listening, it means first that you must have a certain affectionate relationship with the speaker, with the other person, otherwise you won’t listen, will you?
17:54 If I don’t like you or I’m prejudiced against you and I say something which is not pleasant to you, you won’t listen.
18:06 Right? So the art of listening implies, learning implies, that there must be a certain relationship of affection between you and another, otherwise you won’t listen.
18:30 Then there must be interest in it. You must be interested if you want to listen. If you want to listen to something unpleasant, that you don’t keep your rooms tidy, it is a bore to repeat the thing over and over again, ‘Make the bed every day,’ it’s an awful business, and so you won’t listen.
18:59 And you begin to tell me, ‘Do something else, go away from here, don’t tell me,’ you get bored.
19:13 Just listen, follow all this. Then you give attention. In that state of attention you naturally do, act, whether you like it or not, because it has got to be done.
19:39 That’s action, isn’t it? You don’t… You raised the question of action. You raised it. Are you interested to find out what action means? Will you listen to it? Though you may not like what is being said, will you listen to it, try to learn what it means to act?
20:18 All right, may I go on?
20:34 So listening implies not only all the things that we have said just now about it, but also not translating what he says to suit your like and dislike.
20:57 Right? I don’t like you to tell me I must do something. I don’t like you to tell me that I must keep my room tidy.
21:17 So I won’t listen to you. You may reason with me, you may point out how necessary it is to keep the room tidy, because you show me that an untidy room indicates partially an untidy mind.
21:39 Right? Are you listening to all this or are you asleep, gone off somewhere?
21:50 Doesn’t it indicate when you have an untidy room that your mind is untidy?
22:01 So, do you want to have a mind, untidy mind?
22:13 Not everything in order, that becomes neurotic, but to have a tidy mind, you know, everything in its proper place, which is art.
22:27 Art means to put everything in its right place or everything where it belongs. That is art, the meaning of that word. Do you want to learn about it?
22:42 If you want to learn, you pay attention, you’re interested, whether it’s mathematics or anything, it interests you, therefore you give attention.
22:56 So an untidy mind is naturally untidy in rooms, in action, in the way you sit and behave; it expresses itself.
23:16 And most people go through life untidily, sloppily. If that’s what you want to do, go ahead.
23:31 And probably you will end up that way. But if you want to have a very good mind—mind, I mean by that, a mind that’s capable of thinking clearly, objectively, not personally.
23:56 And from such a mind, action has a different meaning.
24:05 And if one listens to the question ‘what is the process of experience’—he asked me that question—what does it mean?
24:26 What is the process of experience? It’s all related to listening—you understand?
24:37 Why do we human beings crave for experience?
24:50 Sexual experience, oh, dozens of experiences—go out in the air in a glider, an aeroplane, or mountains, whatever it is—why do we want experience, what does it mean?
25:05 Q: Is it the beginning of, not knowledge but something new in yourself?
25:21 K: Something new. Now, first of all, before you go into the word ‘new’, do you know the word ‘experience’, what it means?
25:31 Please correct me, sir, if I’m wrong. It means to go through, ex, propel, go, go through.
25:42 Q: If you are being so interested in something that you want to do something more than merely look or listen to it... (inaudible) K: No, we’re going from listening—we’re coming back to that presently.
26:03 He asked: what is the process of experience, what does it mean?
26:12 And we are investigating, we are asking the meaning of the word itself, not what we would like the experience to be, but we are examining the root meaning of that word ‘experience’.
26:27 Now, most people have dozens of experiences, don’t they?
26:36 No? That is registered in the mind, in the brain, and so it becomes a memory.
26:45 It’s never finished. Experience means to go through, finished with it, not carry endless memory of an experience.
26:59 So, when you carry experiences, sensations in your mind, your mind becomes very burdened, but when you’ve finished with an experience, finish with it, go through with it.
27:20 I wonder if you understand all this.
27:26 Q: Can we go into what exactly it means to finish with it.
27:34 K: Yesterday someone flattered me. That’s an experience. And after he did some kind of… some bilge he talked about, and I said yes—finished, ended.
27:54 I didn’t carry it in my mind, ‘Oh, by Jove, how exciting that was, how pleasant it was, he’s a great friend of mine, I must cultivate him, I must look after… ask him to lunch and he everlastingly praise me’—it’s stupid.
28:08 I’ve finished with it the moment he flattered. He said something which… he wanted me to be flattered, I listened to it and end it, I didn’t carry it.
28:27 So, the mind that carries experiences, pleasurable or painful, is the seat of self-consciousness.
28:42 Right? Are you getting it? (Laughs) No, this is too… No? No. Yesterday, somebody insulted me. They didn’t, but I’m just saying it. Somebody insulted me, they said, ‘You’re a fool.’ I listened to it, I don’t like it because I think I’m not a fool.
29:13 I’ve got an image of myself which says, ‘By Jove, I’m frightfully intelligent, how can he call me a fool?’ That’s an experience, isn’t it?
29:23 Now, that is recorded in the brain, isn’t it, as memory. Now, if I keep that memory, if the brain keeps that memory—you’re following this?—then from that is the beginning of self-consciousness: me and my consciousness.
29:51 Right? Got it? No, learn it, learn it. Learn the thing about it, that when we do not finish an experience, go through with it, whether it’s pleasant, unpleasant, through with it, if we don’t do that, it becomes…
30:17 It is a memory in the brain. The brain is a registering machine that remembers, and the remembrance of things pleasant and unpleasant is the beginning of the self, ‘the me’, with its consciousness.
30:37 Right? Have you learnt this?
30:39 Q: Sir, could you elaborate a little bit more on… obviously the brain and memory registers, whatever it is, good, bad or something we don’t know about...
30:54 K: I understand.
30:55 Q: But what keeps it active, coming up in the consciousness?
30:58 K: You’ve understood the question? The brain is a computer, it is registering all the time.
31:14 Yesterday I was insulted or flattered, and it has registered it, which was an experience.
31:23 Now, Mrs Zimbalist asks, what is it that keeps the machinery going?
31:30 Right? You’ve understood the question? Answer it.
31:36 Q: New experiences, to keep us alive. New experiences.
31:44 K: No, no, not new… She said, she asked, what is the mechanism, what is the energy, what is the process that keeps this memory of yesterday’s incident active?
32:06 Come on, sirs, answer it.
32:15 Exercise your grey cells, as Agatha Christie says.
32:20 Q: It’s concerned with our preoccupation with pleasure and pain.
32:29 K: No, find out. Sir, just a minute. I asked you a question. Either it must be a truthful answer, not a supposition answer, a vague answer—because then, if it is not a truthful answer then you’ll be influenced by me or by somebody else.
32:53 You follow? If it is truthful it’s truthful under all circumstances. So find out why this memory of yesterday is kept going.
33:12 What is it? Because memory is dead – right?—it’s something past. Are you following this?
33:22 Q: We want more of it.
33:24 K: Wait a minute, sir, let me explain this, so that you understand it. And you’ve got to answer it, otherwise you’ll fail in your exam!
33:39 Yesterday flattery or insult took place. It was an experience. That experience is registered in the brain as memory.
33:54 Mrs Zimbalist asks: how is that memory kept active, what gives energy to it?
34:02 Q: The pleasurable ones seem to be much easier to see. The memory of a pleasurable incident in some sense gives you a re-experience.
34:15 K: Yes, but what keeps it active? Mr Joe, what keeps it active?
34:21 Q: I don’t know what you mean by ‘what’, but I see pleasure in remembering a pleasurable incident, so it’s the same energy of going towards pleasure that’s working.
34:33 K: Yes, sir. Yesterday I was insulted.
34:37 Q: Those are harder to see. I don’t quite see that.
34:42 K: Wait. Yesterday I was insulted. That is a memory, as experience, knowledge and so on. That memory is active. What makes it active?
34:58 Q: The memory as experience that doesn’t want to be insulted.
35:04 K: Memory—what?
35:05 Q: Well, before that will come the image through experience of something...
35:09 K: Don’t complicate it, keep it very simple. Keep it very simple, you’ll see it.
35:15 Q: It seems that your memory of the incident in that case is conflicting with your image of yourself.
35:22 K: Yes, that image of myself—just a minute—because I’ve had an image of myself of not being a fool, and you calling me a fool, has hurt the image.
35:34 Right? That’s a memory. What keeps that memory active?
35:39 Q: The existence of that conflict.
35:42 K: No, sir.
35:44 Q: That I haven’t resolved the conflict.
35:48 K: Find out.
35:49 Q: Sir, isn’t it that that insult makes you aware of yourself, makes you self-conscious, and so because you’re still self-conscious you are aware of memory?
36:06 K: No, you’re not giving a complete… I’m sorry. I want to find out. Go on, you’re all… you’ve all got brains, come on, exercise, find out. I don’t know. I’m going to find out because I’m interested in it.
36:19 Now wait a minute, listen.
36:26 Because I’m interested in finding the right answer, the true answer, and it must be true right through, all my life, not just for a moment, I must listen.
36:43 Right? I must listen to you, what you have said, listen to her, and so on. And it doesn’t answer me. Right? So I have to find out, what is the source of energy that keeps this memory active?
37:03 Ted, avanti, senore.
37:06 Q: Well, the thought that is absorbed in the experience feels either the pleasure or the pain of the experience.
37:29 K: Look, Ted, don’t complicate it, sir.
37:37 Don’t… you’re all too intellectual, explaining, you don’t look at the fact, the fact that this memory is active—right?—is kept going.
37:54 Why? What is that? Why does it take place?
37:58 Q: You are in a continuum.
38:02 K: Ah, do look at it. Look at the fact. I insult you. I say, ‘Ted, you’re not very intelligent’—sorry, I don’t mean it!—and you don’t like it.
38:17 It becomes a memory and that memory is kept active.
38:23 Q: Isn’t it the thinking mechanism that keeps it active?
38:32 The whole thought process, the thinking mechanism.
38:37 Q: You don’t finish it.
38:38 K: You say thinking, the whole mechanism of thought.
38:40 Q: What happens when you just… what you have just described is unfinished? You said you insulted me.
38:58 Q: The strength of the feeling is aroused in you at the time.
39:10 It’s the strength of the emotions aroused in you at the time that keeps it going. A lot of things happened yesterday, but only some of them remain active with you, and those are the things which arouse our feeling at the time.
39:18 K: Is that the right answer, true answer? Or you’re just giving me an explanation, a theory, a hypothesis.
39:34 Have you answered it?
39:45 Can you answer me? It’s my problem. I come to you and say, ‘Please help me.’ You don’t say, ‘Go and climb a tree!’ I want your help.
39:54 Q: What keeps it going is this wish to understand it. If I know I have an untidy mind, what do I do?
40:10 I don’t go and tidy my room. I mean, that’s…
40:15 K: I understand that.
40:17 Q: (Inaudible) My mind is untidy because I’m much more…
40:22 K: Yes. Have you noticed something, that if you’re not finished with something it keeps on repeating?
40:29 Q: Yes.
40:30 K: Why?
40:32 Q: Because I haven’t whole-heartedly received it.
40:38 K: Do answer. Think, examine it.
40:41 Q: It doesn’t feel satisfied.
40:44 K: No, Tungki, don’t go off into some spinning—just look at the fact.
40:53 A something emotional or emotive or a thing, an action that you’ve not finished, keeps on going, you have to go back to it, haven’t you?
41:07 Haven’t you noticed it?
41:08 Q: Why?
41:09 K: Wait, wait, wait—have you noticed it, first?
41:15 Q: Yes.
41:19 K: Why? I tell you every day, ‘Please keep the room tidy.’ Every day I tell you.
41:38 You listen to it casually and you don’t pay attention—right?—and I keep on repeating.
41:46 It becomes a bore. But it is in your mind all the time that you have to keep it tidy, because I’m reminding you of it.
41:57 Right? Are you getting what I’m talking? So, a thing that is not finished needs repetition—right?—demands repetition; that you go over, over and over and over again.
42:18 Are you following this?
42:20 Q: Isn’t that just another way of saying the same thing though?
42:27 K: No, no. Listen, listen. Listen, I haven’t finished yet.
42:33 Q: But it isn’t a way of saying the same thing, if you...
42:39 K: It is not, but I’m going to show you in a minute. Watch it. And if you listen and say, ‘Yes, perfectly right, I’ll keep my room tidy,’ it’s over—right?—it’s finished, but if I keep on reminding you and you resist me, the battle is going on.
43:02 Are you following all this? So when something is finished it is never repetitive.
43:15 Are you following all this?
43:20 Q: If I keep my tidy just mechanically so you won’t bug me… (inaudible) K: That’s mechanical. No. How can you say it’s mechanical?
43:28 Q: Well, if I don’t keep my room tidy, someone will tell me every day, ‘Keep it tidy,’ so I’ll keep it tidy then they won’t tell me.
43:36 But… (inaudible) K: No, no, I explain to you very carefully why you must keep the room tidy.
43:45 Q: Suppose someone explains to me equally... well…
43:46 K: No, I talking about the room, tidy. I say a tidy room implies a tidy mind, a mind that’s clear, objective, effective, active.
43:59 An untidy mind is a sloppy mind, a confused mind, a mind that is dithering all over the place.
44:09 Q: But if they’re doing it because… (inaudible) Yes, if they are doing it because they understand.
44:15 K: No, I’ve explained. I’ve explained, I say, ‘Please do listen to what I have to say, pay attention, I have affection for you, I won’t beat you up—I’d like to, because I’ve repeated it a hundred times but you won’t do it…’ and so on and so on and so on and so on—I’ve explained the whole thing.
44:36 And I say, look, because you have not finished the action, it has got to be repeated. If you finish the action it’s over. I wonder if you get the… Now, look, listen to it. Yesterday a man insulted me. And I listened. The next second it was over. But if I carried it on—you follow?—‘he’s my friend, he’s my enemy, I don’t like him, I should have done this, why should he say this to me, he’s an ass, he’s really a stupid man,’ you know, work myself up, I keep the machinery going.
45:19 I wonder if you understand this. But if at the moment when he’s insulted me I listen—finished. I don’t carry it.
45:30 Q: But some people are wounded by that and therefore they cannot end it.
45:38 K: That means… Wait, you are wounded. Follow this. You’re wounded. Why are you wounded, why are you hurt?
45:50 Q: Because of your image.
45:52 K: No, have you got an image, Philip, about yourself?
45:58 Q: Yes.
46:02 K: Why? If you didn’t have an image would you say, ‘My God, how horrible’?
46:19 (Pause) So you’ve got an image.
46:31 Everybody has got an image about themselves, unfortunately, it’s part of our social, moral, ethical education, and religious education, which says be somebody, be a god, you know, you’ve got ten arms or two teeth or whatever it is.
46:51 So you’ve got an image, and I say to you, ‘You’re an ass,’ and that image gets hurt.
47:01 If you are aware you have an image, and that image gets hurt, and therefore you listen, it’s over, you won’t get hurt.
47:12 Therefore there is no going back. Like the dog goes back to its vomit, you don’t go back to it, it’s finished.
47:18 Q: I don’t know if I see how it is finished, how you see it. Like, I think I see something.
47:36 I know I’ve got an untidy mind, so I... (inaudible) K: Wait.
47:45 All right. You’ve got an untidy… I’m glad you acknowledge it. The others are very silent, you see? They’ve got it too, but they’re very quiet. You’ve got an untidy mind. Why have you got an untidy mind? You want to learn about it, don’t you? It interests you, therefore you pay attention, therefore you want to learn, you want to find out, go into it.
48:10 Why is it that you have an untidy mind? Is it your parents are untidy, your society is untidy, your friends are untidy?
48:25 Find out, don’t say no. They help you to be untidy. Right? Society, parents, other children, other students, environment, everything makes you untidy.
48:49 Did you see that man who was doing the road yesterday leave that roller right in front of that garage so that Mrs Zimbalist couldn’t get out?
49:01 That’s an untidy action, isn’t it?
49:08 So your mind is untidy. From that follows: are you aware of your untidy actions?
49:17 Q: Yes, I’m aware if I’ve been really untidy and all the rest of it, but isn’t that… because I’ve so much more urgency for other things that clutter up things.
49:30 K: So it doesn’t interest you.
49:33 Q: Not really.
49:35 K: Why not?
49:36 Q: Because I’m so...
49:37 K: No, do listen to it. You are interested in other things, and not interested in the untidy mind. It’s the untidy mind that makes you interested in many other things. If your mind is tidy, it’s interested all the time, not in this and that and the other thing.
49:58 I wonder if you see this.
50:00 Q: If you’re interested what, Krishnaji? Because there is an infinity of things that we all have coming at us. How can one be fully interested in all these things?
50:13 K: I’m interested, as I’m going to Paris at the end of the month, I’m going to be interviewed by a lot of cuckoos, and I must speak French.
50:22 I know French. I must polish it up. So I’m playing the record all the time. I’m interested. I want to listen, I want to see exactly… I would like to speak like the Frenchman does.
50:34 Q: You see, you’re not studying Chinese.
50:37 K: No, because I’m… If I had to go to China…
50:42 Q: Well, then is it… what is the factor that makes certain things relevant in their interest and other things not?
50:52 K: What is relevant, that makes me, that will… No, what is relevant action in a mind, to a mind that is untidy?
51:05 Q: Or any mind.
51:08 K: I’m taking the untidy mind. She said, ‘My mind is untidy,’ and I said an untidy mind can never have a deep interest in anything.
51:25 Right? It may have various superficial interests.
51:36 Would you accept that? Would you see the reason of it, that an untidy mind can never be deeply committed to something that is whole, complete, healthy?
51:59 Would you say that? Would you agree? Do you see the reason of it?
52:04 Q: (Inaudible) K: An untidy mind is driven by circumstances.
52:17 Right? I’ll do what my parents want, I will do what society wants, I will do what…
52:27 I like that man therefore I will do what he wants me to do, or I have my own image—you follow?—I’m so confused, so uncertain, so untidy, unorderly, disorderly.
52:44 Therefore in that disorder there is nothing vital. Right?
52:54 Q: If I have an interest to try and change that…
53:05 I’m interested in the untidy mind but I’m not interested in the untidy room at all, because that’s just a symptom of my untidy mind.
53:12 K: No. Your interest is now… I don’t know what you’re interested in. How can your mind, untidy mind, be interested? It’s untidy. Interest means attention. Right? How can an untidy mind give attention? Attention, we said… to attend means to give complete, total awareness and attention to something.
53:41 Q: Krishnaji, how can an untidy mind get tidy?
53:50 Because attention to something and... I mean…
53:56 K: Quite. So, do you see that? I don’t know, I’ve forgotten your name—sorry. Do you see it? Do you understand it? Have you listened to it, or you say, ‘What are you talking about? Because my mind is untidy. I want a tidy mind therefore I’m not listening, I’m only concerned how to make my mind tidy.’ That is wrong.
54:32 If you say, ‘I must make my mind tidy,’ it is your mind that has created untidiness.
54:40 So your thought cannot make it tidy, but learning about untidiness makes the mind tidy.
54:51 Come on, you understand this.
54:54 Q: So you have to pay attention to untidiness.
55:01 K: Therefore which means, pay attention to your untidiness. Pay attention when you go into your room, to put everything in its proper place. Not because somebody else tells you to put it in a proper place. Shoes have their place, socks have their place, shirts have their place, skirts or no skirts, or whatever you put, they have their place.
55:32 I once went to see a very well-known homeopath in New York.
55:39 One of the major questions he asked me, he said, ‘Are you very tidy?’ I said, ‘I never thought about it.’ He said, ‘I’ll help you.
55:52 I’ll ask you. Do you put your socks away? Do you drop them somewhere, your shoes over there, trousers over there, your shirt somewhere else?’ I said, ‘In the old days somebody looked after it, but now I do it myself and I put it all away because nobody is going to do it for me, therefore I do it.’ He said, ‘That’s all.
56:14 I just wanted to know if your mind acts tidily, happily, harmoniously, without contradiction.’ You follow?
56:26 Because that indicated to him—he explained to me—why, if it was not a tidy mind, the homeopathic medicine would be different.
56:37 If it was a tidy mind the medicine would be different. You follow?
56:42 Q: But since my mind is the result of all the influences, how can it be tidy?
56:54 I mean, because they all contradict each other.
57:01 K: Tungki, you didn’t listen. I said, are you aware that your mind is untidy?
57:11 Aware. Do you know your mind is untidy? Not because I tell you. Do you know it, do you see it? You know, Tungki, when you are hungry, is your hunger because I tell you you’re hungry, or you are hungry?
57:45 Which is it? You understand my question? Oh Lord.
57:49 Q: (Inaudible) …because I’m hungry.
57:52 K: You’re hungry. Now, in the same way, do you know that your mind is untidy?
58:03 Q: Not fully, in the sense...
58:08 K: I’m asking you—not truly, not vitally, not deeply, not superficially—I’m asking you a very simple question.
58:15 Are you aware that your mind is untidy? Then we can discuss—if you say yes—at what level is that awareness, superficial or deep?
58:28 Or is it casual, just for the moment you are aware that your mind is untidy?
58:36 For the moment, because I’m pushing you into a corner. Later on, when you get out of that corner, you say, ‘Well, I don’t care, I don’t mind if I’m untidy—heck, who cares?’ Q: There is always a vague feeling of why it acts in a scattered way.
59:08 K: Tungki, you are not answering my question. Are you aware that your mind is untidy?
59:20 You are aware.
59:27 Now, may I ask, what do you mean by being aware?
59:39 You are aware when you look in your glass of the colour of your hair, aren’t you?
59:47 And in the same way, are you aware when you’re observing that your mind is untidy, equally clearly, equally factually?
1:00:11 Are you aware that your rooms are untidy? I’m sorry to come back to the rooms, because I pass it every day and I see it every day.
1:00:27 I would like to go in some of them because I like tidy rooms—so as it is somebody else’s room I don’t want to go in there.
1:00:36 But are you aware that your rooms are untidy? (Pause) No answer. Many: Yes.
1:00:45 K: What are you going to do about it?
1:00:56 Untidy room, untidy mind, untidy action, untidy way of doing things, sloppy, never clear.
1:01:07 You say, why should it be clear?
1:01:17 Right? If you don’t learn it at this stage, while young, you are going to find it awfully difficult later on to think clearly.
1:01:37 And it’s part of your education. So, come back. Listening implies not only verbally but also interest, affection, care, which means awareness, which means attention.
1:02:03 Otherwise you can’t learn. Right? Therefore that means freedom to learn.
1:02:19 Then experience, which means literally ending, going through, finishing, completing, walking away from it—but if you collect lots of experiences, as you do, sex, you know, dozens and dozens of experiences, and store them up in your brain, what happens?
1:03:04 That becomes mechanical; you act mechanically.
1:03:11 Right? And that storehouse of unfinished memories, unfinished actions, is the self, ‘the me’, which creates its consciousness, with its content.
1:03:20 Q: If you go through your life never completing actions… no, if you go through your life completing actions, you have no…
1:03:32 If you complete actions, go through experiences all your life, then you have no memory, then you have no...
1:03:58 K: No, no, no. No, this is a very complex problem, don’t… It’s not so simple as that. I mean, after all, memory is necessary to drive a car, to ride a bicycle, memory is necessary to find out where you live, memory is necessary to do any function.
1:04:25 But we’re talking about an experience which is stored up as unfinished action.
1:04:40 And because it’s unfinished, that very quality of its incompleteness is the demand for its finishing it.
1:04:53 We never finish it, therefore it keeps on repeating.
1:04:56 Q: Then it must be experience.
1:05:00 K: Of course it’s an experience. You hit me—that’s an experience.
1:05:08 Q: But you said an experience meant going through with something.
1:05:15 K: No, you hit me, psychologically not physically, I hope.
1:05:23 Psychologically you hit me. I don’t like it. I think I’m a splendid man and you say something derogatory which I don’t like.
1:05:39 You’ve hurt me. Now, that moment of hurt remains as memory, but when that moment of your saying something harmful or not pleasant, I listen completely, then it doesn’t… it’s finished.
1:06:03 It’s not recorded as a psychological memory.
1:06:10 Do it. Do this. Please do it, some of you do it, and you will see what a free, clear mind you have.
1:06:32 (Pause) Have I smothered you?
1:06:41 (Pause) So there is the art of listening.
1:06:56 Right, Tungki? The art of listening. And then there is the art of seeing.
1:07:09 Are you interested in this? Seeing. Now, what do you mean by seeing? Apart from the visual reactions and so on—I see light and the light enters into the eyes, and translating what it sees in terms of what is known, and all that.
1:07:32 So what is seeing? Do you see me?
1:07:40 Q: Yes.
1:07:43 K: Yes. Physically, you see the trousers, you see the shirt, grey or green, you see the face—you see.
1:07:55 There is the physical appearance, the form, the name.
1:08:04 Is the name—listen carefully—is the name, the form, the trousers, the shirt, the—what do you call this?—cardigan, is that K?
1:08:13 Come on, sir, come on. Are you interested in this?
1:08:42 (Laughs) Are you the trouser, the green, the hair, the ribbon, the sweater you’re putting on, the face, the name—are you that?
1:08:59 Go on, Tungki, answer.
1:09:07 Somebody answer. Are you that?
1:09:09 Q: No.
1:09:10 Q: Doesn’t that…
1:09:11 K: Answer, don’t go off to something. Answer, stick to one thing. I’ve ask you… you’ve got the blue windbreaker—are you that windbreaker?
1:09:18 Q: No.
1:09:19 K: Why?
1:09:21 Q: It’s the thing which I’m wearing.
1:09:27 K: But you are wearing dark hair, black hair—are you? (Laughs) Q: So, actually, that’s not all...
1:09:39 K: Wait, answer one question. You see, Tungki? (Laughs) It becomes very complex, go into it. Are you the name ‘Tungki’?
1:09:52 Q: No.
1:09:55 K: Are you the form—tall, short, Indonesian—are you that?
1:10:02 Be careful. (Laughs) Q: We use the name to describe the form.
1:10:16 K: Wait, sir. You said, ‘I’m not the form, I’m not the blazer.’ Q: You are the form.
1:10:23 K: I’m asking, sir. She says, ‘No, I’m not.’ Q: No, he didn’t say that.
1:10:26 K: Didn’t he?
1:10:27 Q: No.
1:10:28 Q: I said I am not...
1:10:29 Q: Oh, I didn’t see his head.
1:10:36 K: Are you translating for him? He can tell me what he thinks.
1:10:47 (Laughter) Are you the shoes?
1:10:49 Q: He says he’s not the form.
1:10:50 K: Wait. I want to ask you. (Laughs) It’s rather interesting this. Are you the form, the name, the sweater, the room, the furniture, the thing that you belong to?
1:11:03 Come on. The Englishman, the Frenchman, the German, the Indonesian, the Hindu?
1:11:14 Q: You say, ‘Of course not, I’m something deeper than that.’ K: I’m asking you. If you say all that’s not...
1:11:22 Q: I’m not saying that. It’s pointless to answer it and say, ‘No, no, there’s something deeper that’s the real me.’ K: Wait. If that is not, what is the deeper? The furniture with which you identify yourself? My furniture, my house, my prejudice, my knowledge?
1:11:39 Q: No, I’m...
1:11:41 K: I am asking you. I am asking you. Don’t get… You’re all too clever at slipping by.
1:11:52 Q: We can’t go too fast through this one point because we have already talked about untidiness, so that if the room is untidy, if your room is untidy you have to see that it is your untidiness.
1:12:08 K: Therefore you are that.
1:12:10 Q: You are that.
1:12:12 K: Tungki, I’m asking you, are you the untidy, the form, the name, the colour of your hair?
1:12:23 Are you all that? The American, the Russian, the German, the Jew—you follow?—are you all that?
1:12:34 The thing you have identified yourself with—my wife, my husband, my house, my prejudice, ‘I cannot change, I am like that’?
1:12:44 Go on.
1:12:45 Q: Yes.
1:12:46 Q: That’s what we are.
1:12:49 K: You’re all that.
1:12:51 Q: Yes.
1:12:52 Q: Yes, we are.
1:12:53 K: All right. So you are the furniture.
1:12:58 Q: If you are attached to the furniture.
1:13:03 K: Of course. Don’t say ‘if’. You are the furniture.
1:13:07 Q: Yes. (Laughter) Q: If I travel to a foreign land and I lose all my luggage...
1:13:24 K: Then that’s a different matter, madame.
1:13:27 Q: And I still...
1:13:29 K: Of course, I produce my passport for the police and say, ‘For God’s sake, help me, I’ve lost…’ That’s a different matter.
1:13:36 But I’m...
1:13:37 Q: (Inaudible) …it’s my body.
1:13:38 K: So your body is you, the colour is you, the furniture is you, the knowledge which you have acquired is you, the prejudices, the idiosyncrasies, the neurotic... this—everything is you. Is that it?
1:13:43 Q: Yes.
1:13:44 Q: No. What’s the difference between that and an image? I mean, that’s just the image that I have of myself.
1:13:47 K: Of course, that is the image.
1:13:48 Q: I put on these clothes because that’s how I want to look, because I want to portray this image to others.
1:14:00 K: Of course, of course, that’s the image. So you are the image which you have built around yourself, or others have given you.
1:14:13 And what is that image?
1:14:15 Q: All that I have acquired.
1:14:20 K: What is the image you have about yourself? Who has put it there?
1:14:26 Q: Yourself.
1:14:27 K: Yourself, your society, your education, your insurance, your… (laughs) Right?
1:14:30 Q: Life put it there.
1:14:31 K: Yes, it’s you, that.
1:14:32 Q: I mean, like you grow toes, you grow a self.
1:14:33 K: You grow cells. I understand, sir. I’m asking you.
1:14:37 Q: An image.
1:14:38 K: Yes. So you are that.
1:14:41 Q: If you find yourself in a hospital bed with no possessions...
1:14:47 K: But, madame, we’re not in a hospital bed now.
1:14:51 Q: No, but I’m…
1:14:52 K: We’re not in a…
1:14:53 Q: Sometimes if you experience that you find…
1:14:55 K: No, I’m sorry, you are not in a hospital bed.
1:15:10 We are here, looking at ourselves. If I am run over by a car then I meet that thing, but here I am. I want to see what I am. You say I am this, I am all that, my attachment to my wife, attachment to my house, attachment to a piece of furniture, attachment to a piece of wood, attachment to the piece of land, attachment to my name, attachment to my form, attachment to my ideas—all that is me.
1:15:44 Right?
1:15:45 Q: Yes.
1:15:46 K: Yes. Wait, wait, let it soak in. Don’t say yes, and get on—let it soak in. You are the furniture. To reduce it all for a minute, you are the piece of wood, because you’ve said, ‘That is me.’ Take away the furniture, you get upset.
1:16:13 (Laughs) Take away your name, take away your property, take away your quality, you say, ‘My God…’—you begin to fight me.
1:16:24 Right? So you’re all that. And what is that? Go on, sir. What is that?
1:16:30 Q: It’s a projection of your loves and ideas.
1:16:31 K: What is that? We have been through all that. We have been through all that.
1:16:44 When you say, ‘I am all that, I am the furniture...’ (laughs) Q: That is one’s past conditioning.
1:16:52 K: I am the long hair, I am the short hair. (Laughs) Go on, see the fun of it. (Laughter) I am the clever man. What is all that? Are they words, a reality, or something which thought has put together?
1:17:25 Q: They are words and reality and they are something which thought has put together.
1:17:37 K: Therefore what? So, they are words—right?—a reality which thought has created, and thought can uncreate that reality.
1:17:52 Q: How?
1:17:55 K: I can say, ‘I’m not all that.’ Q: I see, but that’s a new thought.
1:18:02 K: That’s also real. You say, ‘No I’m not all that, I’m God,’ or Napoleon or Jupiter or whatever it is.
1:18:11 Q: Which is just a different reality.
1:18:13 K: Please, I said words, a reality which thought has put together, and thought can put what it has made, can undo it and make it into something else.
1:18:28 So it’s all the result of words—words which are the expression of thought: ‘my furniture’.
1:18:43 That is, the tree is truth; the furniture is a reality which thought has made out of wood.
1:18:52 I won’t go into all the complexity. So, I am words. Are you? Please listen to this. Right? Are you listening to this? Does it interest you? Your words—words awaken your emotions, your everything—and a reality—I am very real when you hurt me—a reality which thought has put together.
1:19:30 And thought is memory—we went into that—the response of memory.
1:19:37 So I am what? Come on, sir—what am I?
1:19:43 Q: A bag of memories. (Inaudible) K: A bag of memories. Which are unfinished experiences, therefore they have to be repeated over and over and over. Which means what? (Laughs) Q: (Inaudible) K: Monkeys.
1:20:01 Q: So what happens if you get rid of all that? What happens when you get rid of all that?
1:20:08 K: Get rid of it and see what happens.
1:20:21 Which means when you’re hurt, when somebody says something which hurts you, finish it. Don’t take it home and cuddle with it and say, ‘Yes, awful, that man…’—you follow? Drop it. May I repeat that story of the monks, or have you heard me?
1:20:37 Would you like to hear that story?
1:20:39 Q: By the river?
1:20:40 K: Yes. (Laughter) Q: No.
1:20:44 Q: It’s a nice story. It’s a very nice story.
1:20:50 K: A good story?
1:20:53 Q: Yes, please tell it.
1:20:56 K: May I tell it, repeat it?
1:21:00 Q: Yes.
1:21:02 K: You don’t mind being bored with repetition?
1:21:04 Q: Some people haven’t heard it before.
1:21:08 K: Some people haven’t. Two monks were going from village to village, begging, preaching, and washing by the river every day, and wandering from village to village.
1:21:23 So one morning, after a nice bath, clean clothes which they had washed, and having eaten, because they were going from one village to another, they come to a river and there is a girl, a rather nice-looking woman, and she’s crying.
1:21:47 And one of the monks goes up to her and says, ‘Sister, why are you crying? What’s happened?’ She said, ‘This morning I walked, I forded the river, it was shallow.
1:22:00 I had to do something on this side and the river has risen and I can’t swim and I can’t get over the other side, because my children are there, my family is there and I don’t know how to cross it.’ So the monk says, ‘That’s nothing.’ He picks her up, crosses over, leaves her, and the two monks go on, walk on.
1:22:25 After two hours the other monk says, ‘Brother, we have taken a vow never to touch a woman.
1:22:33 What did it feel like? Weren’t you excited? Didn’t you get rather starred, excited about the whole thing?’ And the other says, ‘Brother, I left her two hours ago, and you are still carrying her.’ Right?
1:22:50 That’s what you’re doing. Right?
1:22:52 Q: If something in your behaviour has brought forth that insult, don’t you think there is any value in recording the fact so that you don’t repeat that same behaviour, so that you don’t have to receive another insult.
1:23:19 K: Why not?
1:23:20 Q: You don’t think there’s any point in that?
1:23:21 K: I mean, why shouldn’t you be insulted often? If you are once insulted and you have finished with it, if anybody says you’re a blasted idiot, it’s… (inaudible) Q: I think she’s looking at the—there may be something that you’ve just done. Say your inattention makes you do something, that someone says, ‘Oh, you’re a blasted idiot.’ But maybe you should also notice what you’ve done that causes them to say that.
1:24:01 K: Of course, of course. Right. It’s nearly time, I must stop. Did you learn anything this morning?
1:24:05 Q: Yes.
1:24:08 K: A lot? Right? Did you learn a lot?
1:24:22 Therefore you have learnt about untidiness. (Laughs) Have you? Don’t shut the door when I pass by.
1:24:43 (Laughter) Will you keep the rooms tidy?
1:24:53 Not reminded—‘Oh for God’s sake, do keep your rooms tidy’—but have you learnt it?
1:25:00 Have you learnt, are you learning that your mind must be extraordinarily tidy? There is beauty in that. Nature is tidy. Have you learnt that?
1:25:23 Therefore if you have learnt it, then it’s complete action, you do it naturally every morning, tidy, make the bed—naturally, without—you follow, sir?
1:25:33 Philip, have you learnt it?
1:25:40 Will you see to it? Will you do it? Right. I don’t know where your room is. (Laughter) Q: That would be the workshop.
1:26:00 (Laughter) K: You know—I’d like to talk about this some other time—it’s very important, I think, to be silent, sit quietly, be inwardly without a single movement.
1:26:24 Will you try it sometime? We’ll talk about it next time.