Krishnamurti - Knowledge does not change man

Krishnamurti Subtitles

BR75DSS1.15 - Knowledge does not change man
Brockwood Park, UK - 26 June 1975
Discussion with Staff and Students 1.15

0:00	This is J. Krishnamurti’s fifteenth discussion with teachers and students at Brockwood Park, 1975.
0:12	Krishnamurti: What shall we talk about? Questioner: Yes, if we could talk, not about what I suggested, maybe more about belief.
0:19	K: Belief.
0:20	Q: Yes, because maybe if you can answer that question, at least for me, then the other...
0:34	K: Belief in what, or belief in general, or belief in itself—there are several things—I believe in something or I don’t believe in something, or belief is good, to have a belief, otherwise one goes astray.
1:04	It’s like having a compass and the needle pointing always to that belief and walking, working according to that belief.
1:15	Or do you want to know why human beings have beliefs at all?
1:27	Do you understand? Now which do you want to discuss, talk over?
1:32	Q: (Inaudible) K: Do you want to talk about all that?
1:36	Q: Can we pursue the question of last time about the centre of our problem? I mean, or maybe we can pursue it in a different way.
1:39	K: I’ve forgotten what we talked about.
1:46	Q: What is the central issue? Didn’t you ask that?
1:51	Q: Yes, the centre of all the problems, or is there such a thing?
2:03	Q: The central issue.
2:05	K: The central issue or is there a central principle or issue or a fact from which we can work out all our problems.
2:25	Is that it?
2:27	Q: Yes. And we went into the consciousness.
2:37	K: Is that what you want to discuss?
2:42	Q: Yes.
2:43	K: Anything else? Anybody else? I wonder why Nelson raised this question of belief. We’ll come to that, Tungki. Go on, sir.
2:59	Q: Is it possible to believe in something which you don’t understand?
3:05	K: Is it possible to believe in something which you don’t understand. I don’t understand what the moon is. Why should I believe in what some people say it is? It may be or it may not be. I mean, why should I have... why should one or a human being have a belief about anything?
3:38	You tell me. Do you have beliefs? Yes? Belief in what? A belief that you’re going to be beautiful, belief that there is God, belief in the Queen, belief in democracy?
4:02	Q: Can we firmly establish what we mean by the definition of belief, so we’re all using the same grounding.
4:13	K: Yes. The word comes from, subject to correction by Mr Simmons, comes from ‘to hold dear’, to hold something dear.
4:27	It’s also in Sanskrit, it comes from (inaudible)—it doesn’t matter—it’s the origin of that.
4:37	So, something you hold dear: a person, an idea, a formula, a concept, or your own confidence which you have in yourself and you hold to that—all that is part of this belief.
5:05	Or you believe in God, believe in reincarnation. You know what that word means, to reincarnate? Do you, all of you? Right. In reincarnation, belief in clairvoyance, belief in healing and so on—there are dozens of beliefs.
5:36	Why should we have any belief at all, in anything? Either it may be or it may not be, or it is relevant or irrelevant.
5:54	Please, you tell me. You have beliefs. I personally have no belief. I don’t believe that the sun is rising in the east and setting in the west; it is so.
6:14	Q: (Inaudible) ...do you...
6:17	K: Go on, Nelson.
6:19	Q: I don’t know, it’s very broad. Do you believe in yourself, in what you have to say?
6:31	K: Do you believe in yourself and in what you are saying? I don’t.
6:37	Q: Then in which way...
6:40	K: Wait a minute, you haven’t understood. I don’t believe in what I am saying. What I am saying is ‘what is’. I don’t have to believe in what I am saying. Do you understand that?
7:01	I am saying that belief is unnecessary.
7:10	I don’t believe in that; I have no belief.
7:18	You see the difference? Do you?
7:21	Q: Not quite.
7:23	K: I can believe it is good to have no belief or bad not to have any belief, but a man who says, ‘I have no belief,’ he doesn’t believe in it; it is so.
7:41	I wonder if you see that. Right? Go on. Do you have beliefs? And why?
8:02	Do you believe that you’re going to be a marvellous human being?
8:09	Or because you’re not going to be a marvellous being and believe in that, and therefore get depressed?
8:17	So what... Come on, sirs.
8:29	Q: Is the notion of time a belief?
8:37	K: The notion of time, is that a belief? No. Time—do you believe in yesterday, today and tomorrow? It is so by the clock: the sun set yesterday at nine o’clock or whatever it was, yesterday, and today the sun rose, and so on.
9:02	Why should I believe in time by the chronological... by the watch.
9:09	It is so.
9:13	Q: Is belief created out of uncertainty and insecurity?
9:23	K: Yes, it’s created by lack of security, fear.
9:31	I believe I shall be born next life, which is reincarnation, because that gives me a great deal of comfort to think I shall be back again in this awful world (laughs), and also it gives me comfort, it gives me a sense of security, a sense of continuity, so I believe in that.
9:56	Whether it is factual or not factual, I believe in that.
10:00	Q: St Paul said faith is the substance of things hoped for—that’s what you hope for—and the evidence of things not seen.
10:11	K: Yes, quite.
10:12	Q: That you’ve got nothing else but your belief. There’s no proof at all about it. That’s what belief is: holding onto something which you’ve got no proof of. So don’t get confused with thinking... (inaudible) K: Even that, sir, even that’s rather difficult to have a proof.
10:37	Like Bertrand Russell—you have heard of Bertrand Russell, have you?—he was an English philosopher, he died recently, very well-known, he was a mathematician and I met him several times, discussed and so on.
10:55	He died, he’s dead. He went up to heaven and he met God—he didn’t believe in God and all...—he met him there and Bertrand Russell says to God, ‘Why didn’t you give me definite evidence of yourself, proof of yourself?’ (Laughs) You follow?
11:15	Do you see the joke of it? Do you? Proof is... evidence, proof is rather difficult, that.
11:31	And also would, if I proved to you that reincarnation existed—I prove it to you—then would you believe in that?
11:47	Q: It wouldn’t be a belief if you proved it.
11:51	K: No, no. No, no, you haven’t understood. I prove it to you.
12:00	Q: How?
12:01	K: I don’t know. (Laughs) Q: But then the proof will be believed. People believe that time is... The idea of proof becomes a belief.
12:12	K: You believe what I have proved, but it’s not a fact to you.
12:18	Q: It’s just an idea that one’s holding onto.
12:22	K: So go into it. This is a very complex question this matter of belief.
12:27	Q: So how does one investigate in order to see what it is?
12:32	K: So to investigate must you start with a belief? Just look.
12:37	Q: Krishnaji, you said earlier, talking of reincarnation, that one would return to this awful world—what do you mean by that?
12:46	K: Oh no, come on, sir (laughs).
12:55	If you believe in reincarnation, you die—not you, sir—one dies and one returns, one hopes, to a world that will be better.
13:08	But the world is never better; it’s getting worse and worse. Well, that is irrelevant. You tell me why you have beliefs.
13:31	Say for instance there is thought transference. Have you heard about that? (Laughs) That is, reading your thought, your thoughts—which is dangerous.
13:51	And Duke University in North Carolina proved this, proved by various tests and so on, showed that the thought can be transferred from one person to another.
14:08	Q: But the proof is not accepted by everybody, Krishnaji.
14:16	They proved that in a statistical degree...
14:17	K: To a certain degree.
14:18	Q: Yes.
14:19	K: Yes, that they call ESP—extrasensory perception. If you have that then reading other people’s thought is comparatively easy. Now...
14:28	Q: I’d like to reflect what Mary said. I read those original papers by the fellow who...
14:33	K: What’s his name? I’ve forgotten.
14:36	Q: Ryan.
14:37	K: Ryan, that’s right.
14:38	Q: I don’t accept that as proof at all; it proves nothing. It only proves that he’s a very clever fellow.
14:49	K: No, I think it has been more or less shown that thought can be... you can read other people’s thought.
14:58	Isn’t that shown by Ryan?
14:59	Q: Not by Ryan. (Inaudible) ...and I’ve looked at the proofs that people have offered. I’ve looked at them and they seem to be subject to great interpretation.
15:13	Frankly, it’s a case like Bertrand Russell being in front of God and God may ask him, ‘What proof would you accept?’—I don’t know what proof I’d accept.
15:27	K: That’s a joke, sir, because Bertrand Russell didn’t believe in God therefore when he meets God he says, ‘Why didn’t you give me definite evidence that you existed?’ Q: But there are many things that happen which we don’t understand.
15:46	K: There are many things that...—of course. But you believe in them? Why should I believe in them?
15:52	Q: What’s the point?
15:53	K: I don’t understand; why don’t you leave it there? Come on, sir, discuss this matter.
15:58	Q: You mean to take it for granted, it seems to me. You said you put it high up, or something, I mean, you value it very much.
16:10	K: I tell you something, a story, a fact which I... (Sound of workmen) No, don’t stop them, please, then they’ll go away. Do stop it then they won’t... And they’ll come the day after tomorrow.
16:43	(Laughter) (Pause) (Laughs) They’ve gone off to lunch, and goodbye!
17:17	They’ll go on working, won’t they? Don’t stop them, please.
17:24	Q: Not if they can do anything.
17:26	K: Oh, no.
17:27	Q: But maybe we should go on.
17:29	K: All right, it’s up to you.
17:37	I was in Benares—you know where Benares is? No? Do you know your geography? Do you know where Delhi is? It is southeast of Delhi, about four hundred miles.
18:00	I was staying at a house with a large garden and we were sitting on the veranda, several professors from the university, trained at Oxford and Cambridge—mathematics, physics and I think biology, I’m not quite sure—there were about eight of us.
18:31	We were sitting on a veranda and steps going down to the garden, and in front of the steps there was a carriageway and in the middle of the carriageway was a bed of roses, a large bed, as large as that, much larger perhaps.
18:58	So the carriage came round that way and went out, the car—in those days there were carriages or car, I’ve forgotten.
19:07	And we were sitting there. A man comes up—listen to the story—a man comes, and he was almost naked with a loin cloth round him, rather dirty, uneducated, and he showed me a book in which the Viceroy of India—you know what the Viceroy is?
19:32	Oh Lord!—a representative of the king in India—and his credentials.
19:44	And he said, ‘I would like to show you something.’ Remember there were eight of us, professors, laymen like me, and he said, ‘I would like to show you something, but because you are a religious man,’—that’s me—he said, ‘I won’t mesmerise you.’ You know what mesmerism is?
20:10	Oh. (Laughs) Q: Hypnotism.
20:13	K: Hypnotism—do you know what hypnotism is? That’s right. So he goes on the other side where Shakuntala is sitting, further away, and sits down.
20:28	He says, ‘Go and fetch a newspaper, the daily newspaper.’ One of the people who was there goes in and brings a newspaper.
20:41	He says, ‘Put it down in front of you, down the steps.’ And he was right over there.
20:51	And he said you just watch it. And as you watched it, it became smaller and smaller and smaller and disappeared.
21:07	And these professors, scientists, biologists, said, ‘We see it but we don’t believe it.’ (Laughter) They had to say that because, you know, they are scientists, and that was a proof—you follow?—there was actually something happened and yet they wouldn’t believe it.
21:37	Though they saw it, they said, ‘There must be some trick.’ How can a man, naked, almost naked, play a trick?
21:46	You follow? He was sitting on the other side, we were here. So it all depends what you call belief and what is proof and what is evidence, and so on.
22:02	Q: It was evidence of something but it is proof of what?
22:18	K: That’s what I mean, proof of what? I mean, millions believe in God. Oh, millions. What is the proof? So why should one believe in anything or disbelieve in anything?
22:44	You follow? Just look. You know...
22:50	Q: Sir, when you say you look, and it either is so or it isn’t so, you are looking, or anybody is looking, at something one might describe as evidence.
23:02	Well, what is evidence of something to one person may be evidence of something quite different for someone else.
23:04	K: Yes, of course.
23:05	Q: So where are we?
23:06	Q: Also if you’re walking in the garden, you might think some moving thing in the bushes...
23:07	K: ...is a fairy.
23:08	Q: Or a bird, for instance.
23:09	K: Yes, yes.
23:10	Q: And then when someone says, ‘Oh, you’ve made a mistake, it’s a squirrel.’ It was a squirrel.
23:31	But at that time, if someone had asked you, ‘Is it a bird?’—you believed it’s a bird—you’d say, ‘I don’t believe it’s a bird; it is a bird.’ K: That’s just it.
23:47	Q: It is a bird. But then you look again and you see that it is a squirrel. Now, what has happened there? Did the bird turn into a squirrel or did you just make a mistake?
23:53	K: You made a mistake.
24:00	Why should I believe? If it was actually a bird and I saw it, I’d say, ‘It’s a bird.’ If I am mistaken...
24:06	Q: But you might make a mistake. So what is it that makes you so sure on one occasion that it actually is a fact and on another occasion admit that you’ve made a mistake and what you thought was a fact was wrong.
24:20	K: Sir, you can’t make a mistake between a bird and a squirrel.
24:29	If you saw a squirrel, you saw it—that is a fact. And if you thought it was a bird then you say, ‘Sorry.’ Somebody points out, says, ‘Sorry, that was really a squirrel not a bird,’ then finished.
24:45	I don’t quite see all the difficulties.
24:48	Q: This has nothing to do with belief.
24:49	K: No.
24:50	Q: This is just scientific proof or not proof.
24:51	K: Yes.
24:52	Q: Belief is something that you hope for and hang on to.
24:54	K: Hang on to, quite—cling to.
24:56	Q: Because you want it, not because it’s in front of your eyes.
25:05	K: You know what a sannyasi is? No. In India there are monks who have renounced the world, and those people are called sannyasis.
25:21	I won’t go into all the rest of it. I was staying in Madras in a very large estate and there was a... with several of us there—Europeans, Dutch, German, French—you know, it was an international gathering and a few friends, we had gathered upstairs in my room, and somebody came along, a sannyasi, a monk, and because he knew me and so on, he said, ‘I’d like to show...’ he began to talk, on what he did in life and so on, meditation and so on.
26:08	And suddenly there he was floating in the air. Do you understand this? Levitation. Have you heard of levitation? Now, I saw it. There were half a dozen of them, more, saw it, actually saw it. And you might say, ‘Well my dear chap, if you are by yourself, you are mistaken, it was an hallucination, he hypnotised you.’ But there were eight of us or ten of us, serious people, and he was a man who was a very, very serious man.
26:50	He meditated, he did certain practices which helped him to levitate, to rise.
27:00	And you might say to me, ‘Well my dear chap, that was a nonsense; no human being can go against gravity.’ But the fact is there.
27:14	Q: But, sir, what do we do with that story? You’ve told it to us.
27:23	We say, ‘We believe you.’ K: No, no, you believe—I saw.
27:31	(Laughs) That’s all the difference.
27:33	Q: Surely we can hear you without saying we believe.
27:40	K: Yes.
27:41	Q: Yes, but isn’t your statement, that a man can go against gravity, is a fact, isn’t that an interpretation of a person, a theory?
27:53	K: I won’t call it... I won’t even use ‘go against gravity’—he rose in the air.
27:57	Q: Now, did he have... I’ve talked to people who say they have seen levitations, and the person generally is draped with a cloth.
28:05	K: No, no. Sir, no, no, there were no...
28:08	Q: He didn’t have a cloth draped around him?
28:11	K: You know, they sit cross-legged. You know how to? You know cross-legged? Have you seen? And you can’t... (laughs) You don’t know. A sannyasi, they don’t wear very much! He hadn’t a long cloth, robe, a sheet or anything, he just had a loin cloth and another cloth on his shoulder, a very small affair.
28:38	So...
28:40	Q: Did you pass anything underneath him? (Laughter) K: Sir, he moved, there was nothing under him. Several of us... You can question me—you might say, ‘You were deceived, you didn’t see, you were blind, you wanted to see therefore you saw, it was your wish,’ etc.
28:58	(Laughs) You can question me.
29:01	Q: Well, one more question: how high was he? (Laughter) K: I don’t remember—perhaps two feet. Sir, this is a very old affair. This happens. There was a photograph of this in one of the European magazines or English magazines where they showed a man actually levitating.
29:28	(Laughs) Of course, it goes against everything, so... Now let’s come back.
29:35	Q: But you’re not telling us this story to convince us that it’s possible.
29:40	K: No, I am telling you: I saw; you believe. (Laughs) I tell you something, which was, if you like to say it was not a fact, but eight of us saw it or ten of us saw it; what we saw was an actuality, a happening, and the people who didn’t see want to believe in the miracle or in something and they believe.
30:11	Q: Or disbelieve.
30:13	K: Disbelieve—that’s all. You know, was it St Paul, sir, who walked to Damascus and had a vision?
30:26	Many: Yes.
30:28	K: Yes. Was it St Paul? Yes, St Paul. The church, not... (laughs) In those days—I was told by a Greek scholar—to have a sunstroke, because he was walking in Mesopotamia, very hot, in those days it was considered when you had a sunstroke it was a great blessing because, you know—so there you are!
31:09	He had a stroke and he believed he saw, and we say, ‘Yes, we accept what he said.’ So if you don’t accept anything but actually are capable of observing without any fear, without any hypothesis, without any desire to convince or not to convince, then there is no necessity for any belief.
31:39	The mind is much freer then to... You know, it’s much freer full stop.
31:51	Q: But, sir, apart from the sannyasi levitating, if you say that you saw, say, a badger in the wood yesterday, I would believe that you saw a badger in the wood.
32:16	Now, there is a necessity there for me to believe what you say, what other people say—one gives a certain credence.
32:18	K: But a badger you would believe. But if I said I saw a lion there you would say, ‘What are you talking about?’ Q: But you said there’s no need to believe, and I’m raising this because we do in point of fact have to believe a lot of things every single day. Not in an ultimate sense about God, but just I believe the train will leave at a certain time.
32:42	Q: But those aren’t beliefs, are they?
32:43	Q: No.
32:44	Q: Those aren’t beliefs, are they? If you say you saw a badger I don’t have to believe that you are telling me the truth.
32:47	K: I hardly ever use that word ‘I believe’ because somehow it sticks in my gullet.
32:51	Q: But we would believe that that happened to you yesterday, because you tell us. I would believe that you saw the badger because you’ve told me. I wouldn’t disbelieve you. I wouldn’t think you were lying.
33:06	K: No, but I’m very careful because you have pointed... somebody pointed out to me a few days ago or a week ago what a badger looks like, and this place, Brockwood means ‘a place of badgers’, so I go there and see this animal and I see the badger and I come and tell you and you say, ‘Yes, I accept what you saw.’ Q: So I am put in the position, since I didn’t see the badger, of having to believe you.
33:37	K: No, wait a minute. I don’t... I’ve never been to Moscow. Why should I believe Moscow exists? Come on, please discuss it.
33:48	Q: I think you use the word ‘believe’ differently than Mrs Zimbalist uses it.
33:49	Q: But if we’re living together we have a certain trust, which is coming very near to belief.
33:53	K: Trust?
33:56	Q: We have to have a certain trust to do anything together.
34:09	K: That’s a different matter. No, that’s a different matter. Having trust, respect, affection, is quite a different matter from believing.
34:22	Q: It comes very near it, Krishnaji, don’t you think?
34:27	K: I trust you, that you won’t hurt me because you have talked to me and we have talked together, we have been together, we have driven together, and I have a certain relationship with you and you have a certain relationship with me, and there is certain affection and I trust you that you wouldn’t hurt me.
34:48	You might hurt me...
34:50	Q: But within Nelson’s question, somewhere that was happening. But to do... How do you account for your dedication to your living? You are a serious man, you are a religious man.
35:07	Somewhere around that comes either trust or hinting at belief.
35:09	Q: No, it’s not belief.
35:11	Q: Isn’t it our...
35:12	Q: A belief is a belief in an idea. Don’t let’s confuse it with scientific evidence or trust or anything like that. A belief is: ‘I believe this and I’ve got no evidence at all for it, but I believe it.’ That’s what belief is.
35:36	That’s what we’re really discussing.
35:40	K: I think, sir, if I understand, Mrs Simmons is trying to say: can you have trust without belief?
35:50	Is that it?
35:53	Q: Yes. Or, although I see and I understand your distaste for belief, I feel trust comes somewhere near.
36:06	K: I don’t believe that you’ll hurt me because I have a trust in you that you will not hurt me.
36:15	Finished. I trust you because... if I’m a student, I trust you because my parents have sent me knowing what you are, what this place is, what is being done here, and so on and so on, and after talking with you, if I am a student, I begin to have respect or trust and hope for...—you know, there is a different relationship.
36:43	But if you say, ‘Believe in me that I will protect you,’ that’s quite a different matter.
36:51	Q: You could say that belief is a solidified guess.
36:58	K: If you like, sir, yes—solidified death. (Laughs) Q: Well we do use that in that sense.
37:10	We say, ‘I believe so-and-so,’ when we’re just guessing.
37:17	We don’t know.
37:18	K: Yes. So...
37:20	Q: Is it different from having an opinion about...
37:21	K: Again, why should I have opinion or belief about anything?
37:26	Q: But to go back to this episode with the badger, I could say I have an opinion that you would not falsely describe something.
37:41	K: Don’t have an opinion. Why should I have an opinion?
37:43	Q: What else can I call it?
37:45	K: You have certain trust in me that I wouldn’t lie.
37:48	MZ: Yes, and that’s... if it isn’t a belief...
37:53	K: No, no, you trust. You have seen me living, you have been in contact with me or in touch with me, and we’ve driven together and we’ve looked at things together; I just say, ‘Well, if I say I saw a badger, you’d naturally accept it because you know I wouldn’t deliberately tell you a lie, which is...’—you follow?—it’s finished.
38:17	Why do you make so much fuss about this?
38:22	Q: I am trying to find out what belief is.
38:32	K: We are telling you. Belief implies (laughs) something you cling to as an idea, not factual, not actual, but a hope, something you desire which will give you great hope, you cling to.
38:56	Q: I heard on the television a few weeks ago a woman saying with great fervency, ‘I believe in America.’ What does that mean?
39:07	K: Oh, well, I believe... Well, then you can...
39:09	Q: That sounds like... (inaudible) K: That’s rather silly, a man who says, ‘I believe in America.’ Q: But she was saying it to show how important, how serious she was. She was using the word ‘belief’ as though it was true.
39:17	K: I know, I know—I believe in... whatever it is.
39:22	Q: And on American coins they say, ‘In God we trust.’ K: Yes—‘Keep your powder dry,’ isn’t it?
39:31	In God we trust, but keep your powder dry.
39:34	Q: We only have the first half on them. (Laughter) K: Now let’s move from there.
39:39	Q: Krishnaji, what is the state of mind when you tell us about these sannyasis who levitate? Do they have a belief that they can do it, or it’s...
39:51	K: No, sir, I don’t want to go... It is a great deal of... First of all... Do you want to... Are you interested in this? Oh, rather! (Laughs) You know, it is part of Indian life—it used to be—that there are four stages.
40:28	As a boy, you studied, acquired knowledge. Then you married and earned a livelihood, up to a certain age.
40:44	Then you renounced all that, left your family, your money, everything, and went out into the woods, became a sannyasi, to meditate, to think and so on.
41:04	Right? Now, such a man—this is a very rare thing; they don’t all of them do it.
41:13	Most of them are charlatans—you follow?—it is an easy life. Because in India the Brahmins, the ancient Brahmins, established a tradition that anyone who renounces the world and puts on a certain coloured robe, saffron-coloured robe, must be looked after by society.
41:40	You understand? You understand? So they can wander throughout India from village to village, and each village will look after him, feed him, clothe him.
41:57	Now, some of them go through a great deal of penance, a great deal of discipline, a great deal of practice of certain kinds.
42:16	And through certain forms of breath and control and all kinds of things, they say they can levitate.
42:26	You follow? I don’t see the point of it, but it can be done, according to them, and I’ve seen it done.
42:40	You may say, ‘Well, my dear chap, you’re deceived, you wanted to see.’ I say, ‘All right, say what you like, but I saw it.’ Q: Do they express any reason for doing this, any purpose for it?
42:56	K: No, no, they don’t—it was just shown to me as a sign of respect that they could do something, that’s all.
43:05	Q: Some of them do misuse it to get disciples.
43:08	K: Some of them do. Some of them try to get disciples. It’s such a waste of time—you follow?—just to levitate. What for?
43:19	Q: I mean, is it meant to show some higher form of consciousness?
43:25	K: Wait. They want to show that there is higher... there is a power which is not worldly power.
43:38	That’s all.
43:45	Do you remember that story of a disciple who goes to the master and for fifteen years he lives with him?
43:57	He came, he said, to find out what truth was. For fifteen years he lived with the master. And one day the disciple says to the master, ‘I’ve lived with you for fifteen years and I can do nothing.
44:14	I don’t know what truth is and I’d better go to some others guru where he will teach me something which I can do.’ So he goes off, and comes back after another fifteen years to the original teacher, master or guru, and he says, ‘I’ve learnt something.
44:33	I know. I can do something now.’ He said, ‘What can you do after these fifteen years?’ And they were sitting on the banks of the river and the disciple says, ‘You see on that river?
44:48	I can walk across it. I’ve practised it and I can walk across it. I have taken fifteen years to do it.’ And so the guru says, ‘My dear chap, there is a boat there where you can pay tuppence and cross it.’ (Laughter) You understand?
45:11	Right, let’s proceed. Now wait a minute.
45:25	I’d like to talk about something which might include your question, Tungki’s question.
45:39	Has knowledge changed human beings?
45:48	What do you say?
45:55	I’m asking you who are acquiring knowledge.
46:05	Knowledge being scientific knowledge—knowledge, you know—how the earth goes round, knowledge about the stars and the atom bomb and knowledge, biological, knowledge about medicine, health.
46:24	Man has accumulated tremendous knowledge, from the ancient days, from Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome, India, and so on and so on, China, India, immense knowledge.
46:49	Has that changed man?
46:51	Q: It may have given him a different structure of life but he still remains the same.
46:57	K: So I am asking you, has it basically changed man?
47:04	Q: No.
47:06	K: Why do you say no?
47:12	Q: Well, looking back on the history, they had a different way of living, but still I think basically...
47:24	K: It has given him more comfort, there is sanitation, there is—you know, all this—better housing, more food, there is a greater population and so on and so on.
47:39	But we are not talking of that. Has knowledge changed radically, deeply, man, human beings?
47:49	Q: No, it hasn’t.
47:53	K: Then what will change man? If knowledge, which can transform the environment—environment being better housing, better food, better clothing, better comfort—you follow?—environment...
48:17	Now, the people say—there are certain... like Marx and others—change society, the environment, and then that environment, changing the environment will change man.
48:38	You follow? You understand what I’m saying? And communists, the real communists say that is the Marxian principle and it is real: change the environment—better society, better housing, better laws, state ownership of all property, of all factories, control environment—and then man will change.
49:08	Right? Right? Now, apparently that hasn’t changed man. He’s still competitive, aggressive, cruel, violent and all the rest of it.
49:26	So seeing that knowledge will not change man, what will change man? Go on.
49:34	Q: We can think of knowledge as an outside force working, coming in.
49:51	It seems that anything that would really effect a change would have to be an inner change...
50:05	(inaudible) K: What will you... So you say the outward knowledge, knowledge as outward things, will not change you.
50:14	Then what will change you, me, a human being? Compulsion? They have tried that. They have tried to torture human beings to change them.
50:27	Q: To whom do you ask this question?
50:35	I mean, if I ask...
50:36	K: I’m asking you. I’m asking you as a problem. This is a problem which is facing mankind.
50:41	Q: Yes, but it seems to be contradictory because what is searching and operating is also my knowledge, so it is still within the known.
50:50	K: No, Tungki, don’t elaborate, we’ll just look at the question first.
50:57	Since knowledge has not changed man radically—radically means at the root—what will bring about this change in man?
51:15	What will make you change? If you’re violent, greedy, envious, competitive, violent, cruel, thinking about yourself, since outside environment hasn’t changed you, since knowledge hasn’t changed you...
51:40	You might be... the selfishness might take different patterns: instead of having God, you might have a state as your God or Lenin as your God, but as all that has not changed man, what will change him?
52:03	This is your problem—you understand? This is the central problem. If you can understand it and go into it, it might answer all your problems.
52:12	Q: Is it possible to be aware of it all?
52:18	K: I’m asking you.
52:27	As you are being educated here, and most probably many of you are leaving, you’re going to face this problem.
52:38	You can’t just dreamily walk through life. Probably you will, but then that’s your affair.
52:49	But if you’re serious, if you’re concerned with this enormous problem of living—not just get married and children and a little house and a bourgeois mentality, a mediocre mentality, then that’s all right—but if you are confronted with this problem, which every human being... must face it, what’s your answer?
53:23	This is what we discussed with the scientists.
53:26	Q: If I were to ask you, which I’m not...
53:34	K: (Laughs) What do you mean?
53:36	Q: If I didn’t know what you mean by change, I realise that it might be tremendously difficult to get that idea across to someone.
53:44	But now if actually we do know what that means—I mean, if that word ‘change’ has meaning to us—then, if we really know what it means without explaining it, then we must see that we are actually resisting that change.
54:04	K: Of course. Which means conditioning, which means habits. Say you are used to eating meat—some of you are used to eating meat—and it’s very difficult to change your... not to eat meat, because your taste, you want that particular taste, and you want it.
54:31	So what will make you—just as an example—what will make you give up something?
54:39	Go on, sirs, discuss.
54:40	Q: The intensity to perceive.
54:41	K: No, Tungki, I’m asking you.
54:47	Q: Say...
54:49	K: No, don’t. You like something tremendously. Somebody comes along and says, ‘Look, that’s not good for you,’ and gives you explanations and all the rest of it.
55:05	What will make you give up that thing easily, happily, without resistance? You say, ‘All right, it’s finished.’ What will make you do that?
55:17	Q: To see that it’s a danger.
55:23	K: All right, it’s a danger. Now wait a minute, they have published on every packet of cigarettes, health, dangerous, and yet smoking has increased.
55:44	Now, what will make a man say, ‘Right, give it up, finished, I won’t smoke.’ Come on, sir, answer it—you’ve got habits.
55:56	Q: I would say the basic understanding, the deep understanding of it.
56:03	K: Look, Nelson, I don’t know what your particular habit is. You’ve got a habit. Suppose you smoke or drink—I don’t know, whatever you do—suppose—and I come along and say, ‘Look, Nelson...’ as a friend, I explain to you how dangerous it is: it’ll affect your health, it’ll affect your heart, it’ll affect your lungs, it’ll affect your eyes and so on and so on, the reasons.
56:30	And will fear make you change?
56:38	Q: No.
56:40	K: Then what will make you say, ‘Yes, I’ve understood. It’s finished’?
56:45	Q: First of all the understanding of it and then the caring for your body.
56:51	K: Wait, wait. No. So you are saying: first I must understand the verbal communication.
57:01	Q: Yes.
57:02	K: So you say, first I must verbally understand what you’re saying. Then if I am convinced of that then I will act.
57:17	Is that it? Think carefully. Go into it carefully. First you want to be convinced through reason, logic, etc., etc., explanation; then you understand the explanation, the verbal explanation; then you accept the verbal explanation; then you say, ‘I will do it.’ You see what has happened?
57:49	It takes me an hour to explain, suppose. You listen for an hour and then you say, ‘Yes, I understand it.’ Right?
58:02	And you go away and say, ‘I’ll drop this.’ It’ll take you another couple of hours, or a day.
58:09	Q: To drop it?
58:10	K: To drop it. So you have taken time.
58:14	Q: No, it has taken you time to tell me, but if I understand it and I drop it...
58:19	K: Will you drop it?
58:22	Q: ...it doesn’t take any time.
58:26	K: Wait. When you say—no, you’re missing my point—when you say, ‘I understand verbally,’ and the action is distant then, isn’t it?
58:42	You explain to me why I shouldn’t smoke. You have taken infinite trouble: the reason, the logic, the health point of view, and so on and so on, the wastage of paper, tobacco—(laughs) you follow?—everything ending up in smoke.
59:03	You explain to me and I verbally understand it.
59:11	Right? But if I saw clearly what you’re saying, it’s finished. Right? There is no time interval. Now, I am telling you, I’m asking, if you have a certain habit and I go into it, explain to you the danger and so on, it’s finished, is it?
59:37	Q: Can an understanding like that overcome the habit?
59:41	K: I’m telling you: is it finished? Or will you take time?
59:47	Q: If you take time, it won’t be finished.
59:53	K: That’s just it. So what will make human beings, including all of you, change without time? Go on, sir.
1:00:00	Q: Krishnaji, in looking at what you are saying, it would seem that if a person is not cognisant or aware of the wanting that is involved with whatever the habit is—it could be smoking—and they are just looking at the mechanics that you are describing of the facts and information, and they don’t notice that they still want it...
1:00:33	K: Then if you want it, you keep on going in spite of a million explanations.
1:00:38	Q: Right. And then you can be trying to stop.
1:00:44	Q: The body has certain habits...
1:00:47	K: You’re going off my main question. If knowledge is not going to change man—right?—as it has been proved by communists, by the religious people, through fear and punishment, hell and heaven; everything has been tried to make man different.
1:01:15	You understand, Tungki?
1:01:22	What will make him change?
1:01:23	Q: Is it at least possible to block this knowledge of pleasure?
1:01:27	K: No, we said... No, no, if you see knowledge will not change you, you’ve finished; you don’t have to block it.
1:01:44	If I see through there there is no door, I then take the proper door. I don’t resist, I don’t block it.
1:01:56	Is this too difficult a question?
1:01:59	Q: How can I see, because my operation is mostly in the realm of knowledge?
1:02:09	K: Tungki, I am asking you—I understand your question—I am asking you: do you see knowledge has not changed man?
1:02:20	Wait a minute, I’ll give you one example.
1:02:28	As long as history existed, within the last five thousand years, there have been five thousand wars.
1:02:38	Right? That means, I believe, every year a war and a half, people killed.
1:02:48	They have had experience of that. The religions have said, ‘Don’t kill.’ And that knowledge which man has accumulated through five thousand years has only made him much more capable of killing now.
1:03:12	So knowledge as experience has not changed man in that way.
1:03:19	What will make him change, stop war?
1:03:27	Q: But, Krishnaji, the fact is that people who have gone to one war, I think they have understood its destruction.
1:03:36	K: Not all of them. Talk to the veterans and they say, ‘Let’s go!’ (Laughs) Q: Yes, but the majority have.
1:03:45	K: They are damn fools, I mean.
1:03:46	Q: Yes. But the majority have.
1:03:48	K: No, come on, I am asking you. You are not answering my question. You are going off. How will man change? What will make him change?
1:04:01	Q: It seems that clear observation is prevented by belief.
1:04:10	K: You have certain habits, physical habits, licking your fingers and touching food.
1:04:18	I’ve seen all of you. I’ve repeated this a dozen times and you still go on. What will make you stop it?
1:04:25	Q: It will go on until we see the necessity of it.
1:04:32	K: I don’t know. Tell me what’ll make you stop it. I’ve explained to you how unhealthy it is and I don’t want to touch the food which you have licked with your fingers and touched it—to me...—and so on, so on, so on—and you still go on.
1:04:49	What will make you stop it?
1:04:50	Q: Well, clearly people still don’t see that it’s necessary to change.
1:04:56	K: No, what will make you, if you do it, stop it?
1:05:00	Q: For me it will be seeing...
1:05:02	K: Do you do it?
1:05:05	Q: ...that change is necessary.
1:05:08	K: Has it stopped for you? You don’t do it anymore?
1:05:11	Q: As far as I am aware of it, I didn’t do it. So I don’t do it, no.
1:05:18	K: Come on, sir, answer this question.
1:05:23	Q: Interest and understanding?
1:05:30	Interest and understanding makes that stop.
1:05:32	K: But I have explained to you that it is not healthy, it’s not very nice, I don’t want to touch food when you have licked your fingers and pick it up—you follow?—it’s not... and so on.
1:05:48	I’ve explained to you, and you still go on.
1:05:52	Q: With that particular example, Krishnaji, I’m taken by surprise that people don’t actually know that they’re doing it. They just don’t know they’re licking their fingers because I saw a person doing it in front of me and I said, ‘You just licked your fingers,’ and they said, ‘No, I didn’t.’ K: I’ve seen older people here.
1:06:13	Q: Yes, but some don’t know they are doing it, so they have to be aware of it first.
1:06:16	K: I’ve seen older people lick their thumbs thoroughly, their fingers thoroughly, and then pick up something.
1:06:21	Q: But they’d still have to be aware of doing it.
1:06:23	K: I don’t know. What will make you change?
1:06:26	Q: How can you change something you don’t even know you’re doing?
1:06:36	K: Why don’t you know? I have talked about it ten times. Why don’t you find out? Is it... are human beings so dull?
1:06:49	Q: Apparently so.
1:06:52	K: That they don’t—no, please listen—that they don’t mind their sons being killed, their wives—you follow?—war, war, war, war.
1:07:03	They don’t seem to mind. Is that it? So suffering will not teach them, tears will not teach them.
1:07:17	They see wounded people going about with crutches and armless and so on and so on—nothing seems to change them.
1:07:28	Q: I just want to go back to smoking, which you were talking about before.
1:07:51	I’ve smoked since I was about 12 years old, but the only thing now which has stopped me, after everybody’s explanations, is the fact that every time now when I think of having a cigarette I get tremendous hay fever. And that’s the only thing which is going to stop me, I think.
1:07:55	K: Sir, look, please, you’re not answering my question. What will make a human being change? Fear has not done it, punishment has not done it, reward has not done it.
1:08:09	Q: But I thought you already said what would make man change: the instantaneous perception of the actual fact.
1:08:19	K: Now wait a minute. Do you, Nelson, if I explain to you, see it and finish with it?
1:08:24	Q: Yes. When you gave me the example of licking of fingers, yes, I was watching this and I saw—I didn’t do that, I didn’t...
1:08:36	(inaudible) That was it.
1:08:39	K: So then that means you are aware of your movement of your hands touching the mouth.
1:08:47	You are aware of it.
1:08:48	Q: Right.
1:08:49	K: Right. And being aware of it, you stop, you naturally stop it. Now I am not aware of it. I go on doing it. Though you have explained to me ten times, I go on doing it. What will make me stop it? You follow? Threat, fear, punishment, reward? Oh God. Somehow human beings don’t seem to change.
1:09:22	Q: With that example of the touching your mouth, some people have a different idea and give a different opinion, that it is a sign of brotherhood or something like that.
1:09:39	K: Oh, come off it—brotherhood? My life.
1:09:44	Q: I mean, it is one thing which you...
1:09:46	K: Wait a minute. Wait a minute, Tungki. You know, when you go to a dinner with the Muslims—you know what Muslims are?
1:09:56	Q: Yes.
1:09:58	K: I have been to one. And in my bringing up it is supposed to be terrible to touch your mouth with your fingers, absolutely it’s impossible.
1:10:10	So I was invited to a Muslim dinner. They generally eat meat, but because I was coming and being a vegetarian, they prepared food for me.
1:10:21	There were about twenty of us, or fifteen, I’ve forgotten, a great many. And there was this enormous pile of food, quite high, quite large—oh, I should think about that wide and high—and each person—listen carefully—each person took... he made a hole and only kept to that hole, and there was a wall of food between you and me.
1:10:52	You understand? You see? You don’t see—it doesn’t matter. My question is: what will make human beings change? Or it is not possible for the average human being to change, but only very few?
1:11:23	You understand my question?
1:11:24	Q: Yes. It seems that very few have the urgency to change.
1:11:28	K: That’s right. Very few want to change and see the necessity of change and work for it.
1:11:37	Right. Now listen...
1:11:39	Q: But that doesn’t mean it’s not possible for them to change.
1:11:44	K: I did not say... I said apparently the average human being is totally unaware of all this.
1:11:55	Q: Yes.
1:11:56	K: Only very few are aware of it and want to change.
1:12:04	Now follow the next step. The few change. How do they affect the majority?
1:12:15	Q: By their actions, and therefore...
1:12:22	K: They don’t care. If they cared they would do something. So you change. I’m the average man. I worship you, bring you into my area and hold you there—I haven’t changed.
1:12:48	You follow what has happened? So the few become the examples. Right? Are you following this? And I merely copy you, but I haven’t changed. You understand this? Change implies no imitation, no conformity, no authority, and so on, so on.
1:13:26	So, how will you affect the general mass of people?
1:13:41	Now, take Hitler. He was a madman, he did terrible things, but he has affected the consciousness of people, hasn’t he?
1:14:04	Right? Do you follow this? Stalin probably got rid of twenty or thirty million people. He has affected the people. Right? Lenin, Jesus, through the priests—you understand?
1:14:34	You understand what I am saying? Whether Jesus existed or not is irrelevant but the priests in the name of Jesus have affected the people’s consciousness.
1:14:46	Right? So, the few can affect the consciousness of many.
1:14:57	You are following this? If you change radically you will affect my consciousness—Lenin, Trotsky—you follow?
1:15:10	So it becomes very imperative, absolutely imminent that you change, and perhaps you’ll affect my consciousness.
1:15:27	You see the difference now? Oh, come on. You understand, Tungki? So, it is terribly important that you change.
1:15:48	That is the central issue from which you can solve your problems.
1:16:00	Q: What you said just before then, the other person will bring you in and make you a God.
1:16:13	K: But you have affected his consciousness.
1:16:17	Q: But that is conditioning.
1:16:20	K: I said, sir, the average human being is heavily conditioned, is dull, insensitive; he doesn’t mind his children being killed.
1:16:33	Q: But these priests and Hitler and, whatever, Stalin, have merely changed one conditioning for another.
1:16:40	K: Of course.
1:16:41	Q: They haven’t really changed.
1:16:43	K: No, I said they have affected the consciousness of humans. Affected it.
1:16:49	Q: But you wouldn’t say they have made a change.
1:16:55	K: Of course not. But you, having changed, affect me the average man.
1:17:06	That’s very important. I must twist it, I must condition it and so on, but you have affected me.
1:17:15	You have pointed a freedom which I have never known, a state of sanity which I can never know.
1:17:32	You have shown it to me. It has affected... somewhere in my consciousness the seed takes place.
1:17:41	You understand? Therefore it is my tremendous responsibility to change, not just go on in my old stupid, dull way.
1:18:03	Q: I am put in a certain hole and you’re describing something outside that hole, but I couldn’t climb out.
1:18:19	K: Outside the hole, no.
1:18:21	Q: I mean, I’m just making a metaphor because I couldn’t express how it is. But it is as if you’re describing something outside. I’m in a hole, in a cave, and you’re describing something outside the hole.
1:18:34	K: Yes, yes.
1:18:35	Q: But I couldn’t see it myself.
1:18:38	K: And I say, please, crawl out of it.
1:18:42	Q: I want to crawl out but I don’t know how.
1:18:46	K: Do it. When you’re actually in a hole, old boy, and know there is nobody to help you, you fight and struggle to get out.
1:18:53	Q: Krishnaji, I feel I am fighting and struggling but probably in the wrong way. Maybe I shouldn’t.
1:19:02	K: No, no, there is only one way when you’re in a hole to get out—there is no right way and wrong way.
1:19:13	Have you ever been in a hole? Once I was swimming in Madras and it was quite dangerous and I had to get out.
1:19:33	Nobody told me the right way or wrong way to swim, do this—the very danger forced me out.
1:19:41	So please look at it. Don’t want explanations by the million. The thing is very simple. If you see knowledge has not changed man then you look in another direction altogether.
1:20:06	Right? Are you looking in a different direction or in the same old direction?
1:20:18	Tradition, habit, your conditioning, the influence of society, the pressure—all that, that’s the old direction.
1:20:28	Q: It’s interesting to note then how science, particularly biology, is reaching a level where they are now approaching genetic engineering.
1:20:30	K: Yes.
1:20:31	Q: Which in essence may physically and mentally change man, but it’s not the sort of change we’re talking about.
1:20:36	K: No, not at all.
1:20:42	Q: But that’s how far knowledge changes.
1:20:50	K: I know that. Let’s take that knowledge.
1:20:55	Q: But to me that has tremendous responsibility as to who is going to...
1:21:02	Where will this lead, who will...
1:21:04	K: Some chemist in Cambridge or in Harvard is going to produce a new human being out of a tube, a test tube, and because of the environment he’ll be like us.
1:21:17	Or he might be something totally abnormal.
1:21:27	So we don’t have to wait for the scientist to produce a man out of a tube, but we are talking of ourselves as we are now.
1:21:46	(Pause) You see, Nelson, that in seeing you become very intelligent, don’t you?
1:22:01	You understand? Intelligent; not cunning, not clever, but intelligent.
1:22:09	You say, ‘By Jove, that is dangerous—finished.’ To be a nationalist or say, ‘I’m an Indian,’ or a Russian or a Chinese or Mao, that’s most dangerous, because it separates man and all the rest of it—you finish it.
1:22:31	And because you see the danger you are intelligent.
1:22:36	Q: You’re still talking about the people who do want to see.
1:22:43	K: Of course, but the rest, I told you, they don’t care. Why should... what am I to do with the people—there are millions of people—who don’t want to change? They say, ‘For God’s sake, don’t talk about change because there is enough change—give me food, clothes, shelter and some amusement.’ Q: But those are the people who do make wars.
1:23:04	K: Of course, those will go on.
1:23:09	Q: And we will suffer then, because of them.
1:23:12	K: Yes, we’ll be killed with them. But we say, ‘Sorry...’—we point out that’s wrong, don’t do it.
1:23:22	Q: You mentioned about seeing. It seems to me either it happens that you see it or...
1:23:42	K: Do you... Tungki, don’t say ‘it happens’—don’t make a theory of it.
1:23:46	Q: Can...
1:23:47	K: No, don’t make a theory of it—that’s what I’m preventing you—don’t go into details, don’t say, ‘Well, explain to me.’ Do you see nationalism is dangerous, therefore you’re no longer Indonesian or think in those terms?
1:24:14	If you see, it’s finished, isn’t it? And the seeing is the intelligent action. Right?
1:24:25	Q: The rest of us...
1:24:31	K: Ah! (Laughs) I’m going to stick you to that one.
1:24:45	If you see—what?—competition is dangerous—right?—you’ve finished. So change does not take time. (Pause) Q: There is something not quite...
1:25:13	I mean, what you say, it seems to me it doesn’t happen.
1:25:30	It doesn’t happen.
1:25:31	K: Because you don’t see or you don’t want to see. I mean, General Amin—I mean, you can talk till you’re blue; he won’t do what you...—you follow?—or any of the generals. They’ve been trained. To them war is part of life.
1:25:43	Q: Could I give an example, I mean... (inaudible) K: What?
1:25:58	Q: Well, I see many people’s life is chasing one pleasure; once you get that pleasure you drop it and you chase another.
1:26:03	K: Of course, of course.
1:26:04	Q: And to a certain extent I’m doing the same thing.
1:26:11	K: Yes.
1:26:13	Q: And I see at a point it is a dreadful life to lead.
1:26:22	But I...
1:26:23	K: So don’t be under... don’t do something under pressure.
1:26:32	Do something intelligent, without pressure.
1:26:39	Poor Tungki. Tungki, look, understand this basic principle—basic principle—that knowledge doesn’t change man, in the sense we are using the word ‘change’.
1:27:01	If you understand that very deeply then you will act in a different way, look at life differently.
1:27:13	(Pause) Right?
1:27:27	I think we’d better stop. Isn’t it time? Right?