Krishnamurti - What is my relationship with the students?

Krishnamurti Subtitles

BR76DT1 - What is my relationship with the students?
Brockwood Park, UK - 9 September 1976
Discussion with Teachers 1

0:17	K: I don’t know quite how to begin this – we’ll start it.
0:27	There are three or four schools in India, one here, one in California, Ojai, and one in Canada, Vancouver.
0:42	That makes three, four, five, six, seven schools.
0:54	They are all... The intention of these schools is to...
1:08	Do you know what the intention is?
1:17	Is to put these teachings, some of you have heard or read, to the students through their subjects, through their academic learning.
1:36	I don’t know how far in India they have succeeded – I’m afraid very little, not at all, almost.
1:45	And here, you know what it is like, and in California, we’re just beginning and so in Canada.
1:53	What I’m trying to say is that in all these places, we’ve got a group of teachers who are sufficiently, I think, interested in the whole project, in the whole operation of these schools.
2:33	We have been trying for many years to make all these schools act as one unit, though they are legally, nationally, different.
2:53	We are trying to make all these schools, to bring about in all these schools a feeling, which doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world, that we’re all working together for the same thing.
3:12	And I think we’re going to start when I go back to India this winter a gathering of teachers from all over India, teachers’ seminar.
3:30	In Madras, there’s going to be one. And we’re going to see if it is possible to find out how to transmit or translate these teachings through their subjects to the students – whether it is possible. What do you say?
3:55	You understand my idea?
4:02	That is, if we could all have the same...
4:10	have the same kind of teaching here, India, Ojai and Canada, it would be a marvellous thing.
4:23	You understand what I’m trying to say?
4:32	The same kind of teaching, the same kind of education through these schools.
4:48	I wonder if I’m conveying anything at all. Questioner: Do you mean something more than the same intention?
4:59	K: We have to teach the ordinary subjects – right? That is essential for various reasons which we don’t have to go into. Can we, through the subjects which every student has to go through, convey these teachings to them?
5:22	I want to teach – say if I’m a teacher in one of these schools, I’m a teacher of history – suppose I am one – I would like to put these teachings, when I’m teaching the students...
5:43	You understand what I’m talking about? Joe Zorskie: I think, even amongst the teachers here, and as the space between us is larger, there’s no agreement on what the teaching is, really.
6:06	I shouldn’t say ‘no agreement,’ I’d say there is some disagreement as to what the teaching is and then, of course, there is personal image, it gets filtered through the personal image, and so, you know, we very seldom do it here.
6:25	K: Can we do this here? I’m going to be here until October 15th, and then I go to Rome, India.
6:34	I’ve got a guarantee, almost, from the Prime Minister of India that I can say what I want to say in India – otherwise I wouldn’t go.
6:45	Publicly, what I have been talking about in India for the last fifty years, I would still go on.
6:52	On that condition the Prime Minister has agreed, and I’m going. So I won’t be put in prison or… etc., etc.
7:06	How shall we do this?
7:14	How shall we transmit – if we all think these teachings are important – how shall we transmit all this to the student so that we have a different kind of humanity that leave the schools?
7:38	A different kind of human being. When he leaves the school he’s not just like everybody else. I’m not being snobbish or trying to be super-elite, but I think that’s the intention of all these schools.
7:54	Now, how shall we do it? As teachers here, as a staff, how shall we work together to bring this about?
8:12	Montague Simmons: If we are all clear on what the teachings are, it’s bound to come about without any plan.
8:19	From what you’ve got inside you, comes out your approach.
8:24	K: But Mr Joe says it’s not very clear what we’re talking of, what these teachings are. Stephen Smith: It may be clear but there’s not a consensus about it. It may be that one may feel that one is fairly clear, oneself.
8:40	K: All right, sir, let us take for example one thing: freedom.
8:48	What’s the meaning of that word, the nature? How shall we transmit to the student the implications of that word?
8:58	Which is, responsibility, no authority, a sense of capacity to investigate in oneself, and therefore investigate the world and so on, impersonally – all that we have been talking about, more or less.
9:22	Now, how shall we do this? Take the first thing: freedom. How shall we convey this to the student, in the subject that we are teaching them?
9:40	Through the subject, how shall we do it?
9:42	Q: What we actually do here... Is that those who have their area of responsibility – physics, chemistry, kitchen, office, garden – for the most part, I don’t really know what someone does in mechanical drawing or in math, I don’t really know.
10:04	K: So can’t we talk together over it?
10:08	Q: But we don’t actually do that. I mean, we never have done it. So it’s not clear to all of us what another teacher or person is doing with the students.
10:20	K: Can’t we do that, together? What each one of us is doing, how each one of us transmits this to the student, and interchange, see if we can’t improve it.
10:34	Shakuntala Narayan: But, this would happen not just in the classroom but outside the classroom, too.
10:39	K: I’m saying both – throughout the day. How shall we do this? As Mr Joe points out, each of us may do it in our own way.
10:57	And we’re not telling each other what we do. And so help each other and correct each other so that we are all working together.
11:13	Is that possible? Carol Smith: There seems to be one problem. If one truly has an understanding about freedom – not intellectual, not verbal – then there is no problem, one’s actions will be correct.
11:32	If we all get together and have a clear understanding and it’s verbal, it doesn’t go deep enough, sir. K: We will go deep enough, but how shall we do this?
11:59	Suppose I teach history, I may be interpreting the teachings in my own way and putting it through my study of history.
12:14	And if I discuss it with you all, you might correct me, say, ‘You’re doing it wrong, Old Boy, change it.’ We correct each other and therefore together we are building this thing.
12:33	Brian Jenkins: Krishnaji, do you mean doing this specifically with regard to the subjects, or in our everyday relationships?
12:40	K: Both, both, both. Mary Zimbalist: We’ve discussed in our everyday relationship now for seven years, exhaustively, but, it seems to me, there is an unknown area which is, what in the classroom when you have to teach physics or geography, how...?
13:05	The two things haven’t been brought together. If you go back to discussing what to do in relationship, living together – we’ve been through that, not that we understand it totally, perhaps, but could we be more specific in these?
13:16	Because not only the people in this room but those other teachers and would-be teachers all over the world, are asking you these questions in letters, constantly.
13:26	How do you bring it to the actual teaching?
13:30	K: I’m asking, how shall we do this together? Now, what shall we do? Let’s help each other in this.
13:43	SS: We could attend each other’s classes.
13:50	K: I don’t know. Sir, let’s find out.
13:57	SN: We could also meet and discuss what we are actually doing in our classes and learn from each other.
14:05	MZ: Can’t we do that now? K: I want to do that, now. Can we do that now?
14:16	CS: But are we saying that what we would like to accomplish in the classroom is having the student use his brain in a different capacity than he’s used to, so that he has a feeling for what it means to think creatively, not just mechanically receive knowledge?
14:38	That’s a tremendous task. Is that what you are hinting at, something in the actual teaching of the day-to-day maths, biology, etc., that our approach in these schools will be such that the student’s brain is exposed to a different way of operation?
15:04	K: You might do it in a most proficient way, I mightn’t. By talking over with you, together with all of us, as we’re doing now, you might help me to accelerate my own...
15:19	CS: I don’t want to just accelerate how efficiently I pass the knowledge – that’s not quite the thing.
15:33	Harsh Tanka: Are you suggesting that instead of worrying about the proficiency of our teaching, that right now we could say, ‘Well, this is what I’ve been doing in my class’?
15:47	K: Or, how should I...? Discuss it together. Because I’m going to face this problem when I go to India next month – in November – I’ll be there 26th of October.
16:02	I’ll be faced with these teachers – there’ll be many more than you – and other teachers belonging to other schools are coming – so I’ll be faced with this. Please help me to solve this.
16:20	HT: The best thing that I can think of is to say, ‘This is what I’ve been trying to do in my class, and maybe I haven’t been doing it right.’ I don’t know whether that’s of value, whether that’s the kind of thing...
16:35	MS: There’s a difficulty between subjects like science and mathematics and things like history and English literature.
16:43	History and English literature, and to a certain extent geography, are dealing with human behaviour so the direct approach is somewhat easier.
16:52	K: Let’s take human behaviour. How am I, in my class or outside the class, how am I going to convey this to them?
17:03	MS: You start where you are, with the students in front of you, who are human beings behaving in a certain way, and from there you go outwards to...
17:13	K: At the end of it, I want them to behave in super-excellence for the rest of their life.
17:23	Scott Forbes: In history it’s easy to show that stupid behaviour causes destruction.
17:30	Those lessons in history are very clear.
17:33	K: Don’t let’s discuss theoretically – what shall we do this? If I’m a teacher in one of these schools, how am I to convey to the student what is behaviour, through my subject, during the day, the whole thing.
17:53	You understand what I’m talking about, so help me, please. Let’s talk it over, together.
17:59	JZ: The first step, I think, obviously, is the way you structure your classroom.
18:06	If you are acting as an authority in the classroom, and you treat the student at a lower level...
18:16	K: That’s gone, finished.
18:19	MS: If you use the word ‘structure,’ you’ve killed it before you start.
18:29	JZ: What word would you use?
18:30	MS: I wouldn’t use any word like that at all – approach to it or the attitude or something like that, because structure is a plan you make beforehand and try to adhere to.
18:41	You don’t want any structure in your teaching.
18:46	JZ: Maybe a better word is the relationship that you have with your students.
18:52	K: Relationship with the student. You’re saying, if I start as a teacher putting myself on a pedestal and them below me then it’s finished, it’s over.
19:03	So that’s the first thing you’re saying, that relationship between the educator and the educatee should be non-authoritarian.
19:20	Now, how do you convey to the student that feeling, the real responsibility of that meaning – all that, how do you convey this during the day and in the class?
19:35	Q: Isn’t it all in our attitude and the way we speak, the way we present something?
19:42	K: I know, but have you got it?
19:50	Erich Schiffmann: The teacher does have a certain authority – he has the knowledge.
19:55	K: Yes, you’re a yoga teacher. You know more than I do – I hope you do – and if you exercise authority in the sense that as a human being you are much better than the student, or put yourself on a pedestal, we lose our relationship – right?
20:21	So what shall I do? How will you show to me – I come to the school conditioned, and all the rest of it, accepting authority, frightened of authority, and if you say, ‘There is no authority,’ the reaction to that, that I can do what I like.
20:42	I can say, ‘I won’t learn from you, you’re stupid,’ that reaction – so how shall we meet it?
20:53	MZ: We convey to the student the difference between the authority of simply knowing your subject, which is not a psychological or personal authority, you just happen to know algebra...
21:05	K: We say all these things. Now, please... Philip Brew: The first thing I do with new students is to talk exactly this kind of thing with them, what I understand by teaching and learning, and perhaps what they’ve understood in the past.
21:30	K: I go to India, I’ve talked in all these schools for months, about all this, with the students, with the teachers separately, individually, and nothing has been – you follow?
21:47	PB: Nothing? K: Nothing.
21:51	PB: Well, I can only speak about me.
21:53	K: I’m just saying, to prevent that nothing happening, you have got to do something.
22:05	PB: I have found that if teaching stems from anything, it is from relationship.
22:13	Without that, you are finished.
22:17	K: How do you establish relationship? Let’s stick to that one thing. The student comes absolutely conditioned – right? – – conditioned, having no relationship.
22:34	He’s frightened of his parents, he’s frightened of... etc., and so he’s conditioned. And you talk to him of relationship. He won’t even understand. P B: I wouldn’t use that word.
22:49	K: How will you convey this to him and establish it in him so that he lives that way?
22:58	ES: Why has nothing happened with all your talks with the teachers?
23:05	You say you’ve spent many months talking with the teachers and students, trying to set up a relationship.
23:11	K: Why it hasn’t happened? Probably, they’re not interested. They merely want to earn a livelihood and hell to everything else.
23:27	ES: We’re in the same predicament if we have the students and we’re trying to... How do we raise their interest then?
23:36	PB: But, Krishnaji, in any class that I’ve taught there’s a great mixture, some are very heavily conditioned, don’t know what you’re talking about, aren’t interested.
23:46	There are also those who are not like that, who are really interested in finding something out.
23:53	And there’s a great range in between. So there’s always somewhere to start. I make it very clear that I’m not interested in being a policeman or someone special, that we all have equal importance that we all must do this together.
24:14	And some of them respond to this very quickly and some don’t. But then it’s not just me, there’s a body of people interested in the same thing.
24:23	K: As a communal thing, how do we together act or teach, whatever we do, to establish in the student this feeling?
24:37	PB: When you said ‘how’...
24:39	K: I don’t mean ‘how’ – please, when I say ‘how’ I don’t mean a method, a system.
24:45	PB: But still, in the situation there may be no conflict in me, I have to handle things as they happen But if you ask me how do you do this, what happens, I find it very difficult to put into words.
24:59	Dorothy Simmons: Krishnaji, is it that we all come here – say we’re in this as a school – and it’s not a question of individual subjects and individual people doing this, but that we have seen that there is a wholeness, which we must work together, seeing the interconnection of all things, whether it’s teaching, whether it’s how you approach a person about misunderstanding something – that it’s the wholeness of not only this place but the world.
25:33	K: I understand. But how...?
25:38	DS: And that it’s the personal and separative emphasis that has been given to education in our lives that has created this conflict and poor behaviour to each other, and isolated individuals, separative teaching.
26:13	K: So, what?
26:16	DS: Here you have a small nucleus of people...
26:34	K: She’s not feeling well. Sorry, you’re in pain? DS: Yes.
26:44	K: Help her, press her neck... Go and see, Maria.
27:02	DS: It’s OK.
27:07	K: Just leave it alone. Don’t talk.
27:17	DS: It’s OK. But we’re doing this. We’ve come together saying, ‘This is necessary.’ K: Wait a minute, take time.
27:35	HT: Krishnaji, we come into the classrooms and we are conditioned ourselves by everything that’s gone before us.
27:44	We have ideas about even what the subject is.
27:51	And if you look at it more deeply it’s not very clear what mathematics or physics is.
27:59	In fact, it’s just as important to see what the student thinks their subject is, and you may be wrong...
28:09	SF: I turned it off, I thought it was bothering you.
28:13	K: Not me. SF: All right.
28:18	HT: One may be wrong thinking that one knows what physics or mathematics or history is as a subject.
28:28	In fact, one might have to learn just as much from the student about what the subject is that you are teaching them.
28:39	That’s not a thing that we tend to remember when we’re in a classroom.
28:50	Q: What are we going to learn from the student who comes here? Fourteen and completely conditioned, What is he or she going to tell me?
29:03	HT: Sometimes students who are fairly... To begin with, I come in here completely conditioned as well, so I don’t really see a great difference between that student and myself.
29:18	JZ: When you say ‘completely conditioned’ are you just using that as a phrase?
29:22	HT: No, I’m not using that as a phrase.
29:25	JZ: I mean, if you really saw your complete conditioning, wouldn’t that change it?
29:32	HT: Would it change the fact that I was conditioned?
29:36	JZ: It would, wouldn’t it?
29:38	HT: I don’t know about that. Do you?
29:44	JZ: But wouldn’t it? H T: I don’t know.
29:46	MZ: Aren’t we tending to describe subjective states within ourselves, which obviously bear on all this, but aren’t we here to discuss what action we take with regard to teaching in the classroom?
30:03	Naturally, all the rest of it is connected with that, but it seems to me that if we just try to estimate our own understanding of the teaching or states within ourselves in relation to that we’re going away from what I think is the intention, which is, how do you teach?
30:25	K: Yes, how do you teach? Ted Cartee: Having worked with Harsh, I don’t think he was talking about states within himself, though we did get into conditioning, but more what is the sense of the subject matter, the material, the relationship of people to the material, relationship of the subject to life, to what it’s amounted to, or what they’ve seen in history or math that made any sense to them in their daily behaviour, the way that things happen to them, the way things might happen to them.
31:06	It becomes a kind of living communication about it, rather than something that’s so many numbers on the page.
31:19	They expose what it’s meant in a new thing that is old in maths but new in that it’s being covered now, becomes uncovered and discovered more or less for the first time that week or that day in class.
31:40	It’s subject to what people think about it, what’s happened to them, what it means, what’s going on in terms of that phenomenon to them, and they begin to see it not as something foreign or separate.
31:56	MZ: Does that examination in the classroom, of one’s own understanding in relationship with the subject, does that enhance the student’s knowledge of the subject, and the way that the teachings are involved in this?
32:14	It would seem to me that may make for greater confusion in the student.
32:22	HT: No, it seems like every subject arose by people looking at what is, and if right then and there you are looking at what is, or attempting to, and you understand where the elements of the subject come from with the student, then they see it, too, you see it with them.
32:47	And eventually you may go through the whole history of the subject and the way the subject developed in the human brain.
32:56	SN: I’m not sure that we’re missing Krishnaji’s point. I think we’re getting very involved in the subject. I don’t know whether Krishnaji is trying to explore something else.
33:11	K: What I am trying to convey? Would you tell me?
33:14	SN: I think you’re particularly trying to convey or ask how we are going to bring about the teaching in the classroom, and the subject itself isn’t...
33:31	It’s important but it’s not of prime importance, it’s the medium.
33:37	K: Look, I want to talk – I’m very interested in freedom – to me, that’s the greatest importance.
33:47	Now, I would like to teach the student this, with all the implications of behaviour, responsibility, relationship, all that’s involved in it.
34:00	I’d like to convey this to the student and I want him to live it as I’m trying to live it, so that we both are on the same level in discussing with each other, we understand each other, and so on.
34:15	I want to know how to do this. ‘How’ in the sense, not a method – how to do it. All right, I’ll call it a method. How shall I do it?
34:27	HT: What you’re describing now seems to me where you start, where you meet somebody. K: I’m doing it now, with you.
34:34	HT: And you talk to them...
34:37	K: I come new, I’m very interested as a teacher, as an educator in this idea.
34:44	It really thrills me, gives me a tremendous feeling that it’s of great importance, but I don’t know how to convey this to him.
34:56	Tell me what to do. This is our problem – I’m putting it to all of us – so please tell me, help me in my classroom and outside, how to convey this immense feeling about freedom, with all these things involved in it – not just freedom to climb a tree.
35:25	Freedom means discipline, no authority, a real relationship all that is involved in it.
35:35	Tell me how am I to teach him? At lunch, how am I to teach him? Or when I go out for a walk with the student, or when I’m teaching the subject and I’m interested in this.
35:55	In teaching a subject I want to convey this to him.
36:05	BJ: He’s got to feel thoroughly at home with me.
36:10	K: I don’t know how to do it. Tell me! John Porter: It can be done either subtly or overtly. You explain what you’re going to do, first of all.
36:26	K: You’re not telling me, you’re not teaching me. I want to learn from you.
36:37	CS: You can learn first of all what is not freedom.
36:40	K: Tell me! Tell me, please, don’t... I come here as a new teacher having heard this chap for many years, and I’m really, deeply interested in this idea of freedom, with all the things involved in it.
37:02	I want to convey this to the student, not only in the classroom but when he’s outside.
37:10	Show me how to do it. Have you got a book about it? No, please, listen. Have you got a book about what to do? Because we’re going to compile a book.
37:32	I want to do it with somebody who says, ‘Let’s sit down, and go through this thing step by step.’ JZ: You want to write a book on how to...?
37:47	K: Yes.
37:52	CS: You can’t write a book on...
37:56	K: Oh, yes I can. We are together going to write a book about it.
38:00	CS: On teaching, but not on the way to freedom.
38:05	K: Through the subject and outside the classroom and in the classroom, to teach this to the student – to the teacher as well – how to do this.
38:19	MZ: By ‘in the classroom,’ do you mean that because they’re all there, it’s 11 o’clock, time to study mathematics, that you talk about freedom?
38:28	Or are you saying through studying mathematics, you bring in...
38:33	K: Both, both. I talk to them before the class. Before I begin with the subject, I talk to them about freedom, for five minutes, ten minutes.
38:49	Then go into the subject and say, ‘Let’s work this out, the subject, what is involved in teaching, and how to teach through the subject this idea of freedom.’ Doesn’t it thrill you to do this?
39:13	Oh, come on.
39:19	PB: I’ll tell you one small part of this: students often come with a big hang-up about mathematics, as a particular example.
39:29	They feel they’re poor at it. They hate it. They’ve been very badly taught in the past. They don’t want to take it, or feel they should but won’t like it. There in their lives is an area of conflict, immediately, and they’re aware of it or can be made aware of it very quickly.
39:51	Mathematics is a subject of order, which is the beginning of freedom.
40:03	They can quite often understand, or imagine what a thing it would be to resolve this particular black cloud in them that they always feel they ought to know mathematics but it’s the most terrible thing.
40:20	K: So, before I talk mathematics, knowing that boy hates it, I would say, ‘Look, let’s see if you can’t get over this fear.
40:31	Forget about mathematics.’ I would tackle that, what to do with that boy who is frightened of mathematics.
40:42	So I say, ‘You must be free from it.’ I feel that he must be free from it otherwise life becomes a bore, a frightening thing.
40:52	I say, ‘I’m going to help that boy to be free of fear of mathematics.’ How? Tell me. Let’s discuss it.
41:03	PB: I get them to express to me what they feel about it and perhaps then go in a bit, how did this come about.
41:12	K: Yes, help me to write a book together.
41:20	Do you understand what I’m talking about?
41:23	JZ: I understand what you’re talking about, but I have some doubt.
41:29	K: What is the doubt? Out with it.
41:34	JZ: Physics, I know, to a certain extent. That is, I have no problem going into class day after day after day with the mechanical part of physics.
41:49	If I want to teach ‘O’ Level physics so people can get into university, the State provides me with a tremendous list of materials, – which I know quite thoroughly – and we can discuss them.
42:04	In a sense, it’s very rigid. But when we deviate from that – you can always stay right on that, and none of the teachers here have any trouble with that part – but then the question is what happens when we see a little area there, maybe this has something to do with freedom or authority, order.
42:32	There is, for me, some doubt as to whether this...
42:36	K: So, you have helped me to write a book. You’re showing how to do it.
42:49	That there is a doubt, there is a certain uncertainty, and we examine that. Let’s examine that.
43:03	Q: Sir, can you write a book on how to be intelligent?
43:06	K: That’s what we are trying to do. I believe there is a book called The History of Stupidity – Aldous Huxley used to talk about it – a whole volume of it, how human beings behave through stupidity.
43:29	Now we are trying to write a book: how to be intelligent – in the classroom and outside the classroom.
43:55	JZ: Many of us have been around Brockwood for two or three years, we’ve read your books and teachings for even longer.
44:04	I think none of us have any problem in understanding the words – none at all.
44:12	K: Yes, I understand. You’re all fairly intelligent.
44:16	JZ: We have that part of it pretty well down. So that if all you mean by teaching freedom in the classroom is to get a student to equally be able to repeat those words, there’s no problem. K: No. That is stupidity.
44:37	JZ: Right. I think what we’re all balking at, as a group, is that we recognise there is a difference between knowing what is said about freedom and having that freedom.
44:51	K: Yes, I understand now – proceed from there.
44:55	JZ: We have that doubt. At least, I have that doubt.
44:59	K: About what?
45:00	ES: If you say to spend five minutes at the beginning of class talking about freedom, what do I know about freedom?
45:10	K: Learn about it, for God’s sake! By talking, you learn from yourself as well as from the student.
45:18	I know nothing...
45:38	May I put the question differently? Does the educator want to learn, with the help of the student as well as with help of others, what freedom is, in the class and outside the class?
45:57	Learn, so that he himself boils with it.
46:11	JZ: I think that’s why we’re here. K: Let’s do it now.
46:28	Do you want to learn about it? From the student, in talking about it to the student I’m learning about it, therefore it’s affecting my life.
46:49	So, I come here as a new teacher and I want to learn about it.
46:56	Please, tell me. Help me.
47:15	HT: But this is hypothetical.
47:17	K: No, no, it’s not at all hypothetical, it’s actual. I want to learn about it as a teacher and for God’s sake, help me.
47:33	When I’ve read a few pages and I listen to the chap and I know what it means but I want to go into it much more – it thrills me, gives me an enormous sense of importance – – the thing itself, not me. So, help me.
47:48	And you keep quiet.
47:57	PB: I don’t know how to talk about it, Krishnaji.
48:01	K: Find out, learn, because you’re going to convey to the student.
48:08	PB: In no sense do I think that I’m a totally adequate teacher but I don’t have any conflict in the student situation.
48:23	K: I come to you all as a new teacher, I meet Mr Joe for the first time.
48:31	I say, ‘Look, Mr Joe, what the devil does he mean by freedom? Help me. As I’m a teacher I want to convey to the student. Show me how to do this.’ JZ: I could come to you as a...
48:57	K: We are now doing it. Do it now.
49:01	JZ: I come to you as a staff member of a school that bears your name and I ask you to teach me.
49:09	K: I’m willing. Don’t turn the tables on me, that’s not quite fair.
49:19	No, you have been here – my stated case – you have been here for four, three, seven years, and you know much more about it than I do.
49:30	I come here as a new teacher and I say to you, ‘Mr Joe, I’m really, very deeply interested in this.
49:39	Tell me what it means in your life, how do you convey this to the student in and outside the class? Tell me about it.
49:53	Teach me. I want to learn! You’ve been at this five years and I’ve just begun.’ SS: One thing is the distorted ideas that a student or teacher can have.
50:09	K: Give me ideas! Feed me with something. I want to learn.
50:19	SF: You start off with all things that are non-freedom, there’s examples of authority in the classroom, right in front of you.
50:29	And if you go into those you can see how they move away from any kind of freedom.
50:35	K: Sir, you learnt about videotape, didn’t you? You took time, went into it thoroughly, and you know now how to do it properly.
50:46	In the same way, can’t we do this thing? That’s mechanical, I know.
50:55	MZ: There’s a big difference. K: Wait, wait! I’m not sure, I am not at all sure.
51:04	TC: Isn’t the problem, in fact, a mechanical one?
51:08	K: No, there is a mechanical thing he has learnt. Perhaps, if we apply the same capacity to learn – learn, then we’ll help each other.
51:22	TC: But in looking at what isn’t right...
51:26	K: Ted, are you willing to learn from me who have lived here for seven years, heard the teachings, I’m a little more acquainted with them than you, who come here for the first time.
51:43	And you ask me, ‘What does he mean by it? How do you do this inside and outside the classroom? Tell me.’ TC: I’m looking at a specific point, you could correct me, but it seems like a real point that some of the issue in the actual problem of what isn’t freedom, is quite mechanical.
52:08	K: I agree. Therefore there is a great deal of... The intellect is greatly a mechanical part. We must utilise the great mechanical, reasoning part and go beyond it. But you won’t even do the reasoning part first. I’m asking you to teach me the reasoning part of it, which is mechanical.
52:39	JZ: But it seems that you can’t set up a mechanical situation to learn even mechanical things.
52:48	K: No, I am doing it now, sir.
52:51	JZ: It’s got to start with... To be interested in freedom you have to have some understanding of what freedom is.
52:58	K: Teach me.
53:00	JZ: You’ve got to have the freedom to ask and to reveal your point of view.
53:05	K: I’ll ask you, what do you mean by freedom? You have heard this man, thought it out, you have worked at it for the last three or four, five, seven years, I’m new to it, what does he mean? Tell me, teach me.
53:21	JZ: But if you wanted to learn physics from me...
53:23	K: I’m asking you!
53:26	JZ: But I’ve got to begin by asking you, though. I’d ask you, ‘What do you know?’ K: I will tell you.
53:32	JZ: And we’ll start from there.
53:33	K: I’ll tell you, but I want you to help.
53:38	PB: You as a student or the new teacher?
53:42	K: You are teachers, I am a student. I put myself in that position as a student. I say to you, ‘Please, you have been here for seven years or three years – please help me to understand this thing.’ PB: OK, if you as a new student, perhaps you’ve come to this place with an image of this wonderful, perfect place.
54:07	K: Teach me!
54:10	PB: And very soon after getting here the new students almost invariably come up against what they see as rules and regulations to inhibit freedom, so immediately...
54:22	K: So, all right, I come here and I see rules and regulations.
54:27	PB: You must get to bed at this time.
54:28	K: Yes, so you help me to understand that. Help me, teach me. I’m willing to learn why you have rules or why you don’t have rules – why?
54:50	PB: The rules that exist are there to create the basic order.
54:56	K: I say to you, ‘Why have basic order? When you talk about freedom, why should you have basic order?’ You help me. So what is order?
55:12	CS: We do that. You do it, all the time. You do it when you’re talking to the students, all the time – we go into order, we go into freedom. But it seems it has to hit a nerve, that goes beyond the verbal.
55:31	K: Please, we said just now, he learnt how to work the videotape machine, camera.
55:44	There is a great deal of mechanical process involved in it, but the essence... but he wanted to learn about it.
55:57	Wait, wait, wait. Do you want to learn? As he wanted to learn about the videotape camera, do you want to learn about freedom? Learn.
56:12	Reason, using your intellect, driving it, finding out all the things involved in it, which is a mechanical process.
56:22	Are you willing to do that? I would talk to the students that way. Do you want to learn about all this?
56:35	MZ: And if not, why not?
56:37	K: Then I begin to find out who wants to learn.
56:41	CS: Well, perhaps that’s more essential. If they are not interested in this question to find out...
56:49	K: Please, I want them to learn, whatever the subject is, but first I want them to learn about this, also.
57:01	So, I look around and say, ‘Why aren’t you interested in learning?
57:08	There’s something wrong with you if you don’t learn. What’s wrong?’ I would go into it.
57:18	So I come to you as a new teacher and I say to you ‘I want to learn. Teach me what you have learnt.’ JZ: Students always want to learn, but they don’t always want to learn what you want to teach them.
57:44	K: I come here – don’t pass the buck – I’ve come here as a teacher, wanting to learn from you all who have a little more experience than I have had, and please help me to learn what you have already gathered – tell me about it.
58:09	Q: Can you do more than verbalise it? K: I can. I will show you.
58:13	Q: Then if I’m not interested – I might feel it’s a theory, would I not learn more by example?
58:27	K: By an example?
58:29	Q: By being... if I see someone serious...
58:33	K: By an example – the same thing. I say, don’t learn from examples. Then you are caught.
58:42	Then you are merely imitating or being stimulated, which is fatal, it’s like taking a drug.
58:53	I would go into it.
58:59	MZ: Isn’t it also in the classroom, to start with where you may be, which is the non-interest, because if a student isn’t interested their very non-interest...
59:11	K: No, forget the student. Forget the student for the time. I am the new teacher – I’m going to stick to that – I’m the new teacher here. You have lived here for seven years, six years, four years, three years – please, help me to learn what you have learnt.
59:30	JZ: But in the face of everything that’s happening on the surface of this earth, all the conflicts, etc., are you so sure that teaching the traditional subjects – maths, physics, chemistry, art, literature... is that so important?
59:47	K: May not be.
59:49	JZ: Unless we as a group... K: That’s what I’m asking you.
59:59	As the social structure – to use that word, if I may – is as it is now, to get a job, to get a position, I need some kind of degree. J Z: But so what?
1:00:16	K: At the end of two years, I may say, ‘I don’t want to go through all that mill.’ JZ: Some don’t, right?
1:00:23	K: I want to abolish it. I don’t want to enter all that, therefore I’ll find... you help me to be intelligent to deal with life.
1:00:35	SN: One still has to learn how to use the brain.
1:00:41	K: Quite. Don’t... Shakuntala, please, listen to me.
1:00:48	What are you going to do with me as a teacher, here? You’ve been here five years, teach me. Help me to understand what you have learnt. Stick to it – not any other – don’t go off the subject. Because I am new, I’ve got to face tomorrow, at the end of September, a whole school.
1:01:14	In the meantime, I want to learn from you, quickly.
1:01:19	HT: But I have to start from what you know.
1:01:21	K: I don’t know a damn thing about it! I’ve come here because I’m very interested what you’re all trying to do. I don’t know what but I think you’re doing something here.
1:01:31	And I’m interested, I’ve read a few books, but that’s nothing, about all this, and I come here.
1:01:38	And I say, ‘Please, what have you learnt? Help me to learn what you have learnt.’ It’s a very simple question I’m asking you.
1:01:46	PB: Krishnaji, three years ago I came here in exactly that position, thinking people here with a great deal of understanding, much more than me, I want people to talk to me, to help me.
1:01:56	K: What happened? P B: Nothing.
1:01:58	K: Therefore, why? P B: Absolutely nothing. Until you began such talks and suddenly I felt this is what I’m here for, something’s happened. But out of that arose my understanding that really, probably nobody could tell me anything, essentially, nobody could teach me how to teach, and really I was completely on my own, essentially.
1:02:26	And that gave me a tremendous freedom, to begin from nothing.
1:02:30	K: You are saying you didn’t learn from anybody, from this group, when you first came. Why?
1:02:46	Why? P B: I felt then...
1:02:48	K: No, no, I want to know why.
1:02:52	PB: Because people didn’t feel adequate to help me.
1:02:57	JP: What about students?
1:03:00	PB: This was early on, before students had come.
1:03:02	JP: No, I meant the students would be in the same position.
1:03:04	PB: Oh, absolutely. J P: Yes, but you had to tell them.
1:03:09	PB: Once it began, I was on my own. I began and things worked.
1:03:15	K: No, you are a new teacher. I’m an old teacher here. When you come, it’s my responsibility to see that you understand something of what we’re doing. My responsibility.
1:03:26	PB: That’s what I thought.
1:03:32	K: If I don’t do it, I fail in my responsibility. I am putting myself in that position. Are you failing in your responsibility to teach me now?
1:03:41	SN: I wouldn’t say nothing was... K: No, Shakuntala – tell me.
1:03:48	You have been here for six years or five years, what have you learnt, and help me to learn!
1:03:55	And you keep quiet.
1:04:06	JZ: I don’t see what you’re getting at really. Ingrid Porter: Are you asking, as a new teacher: help me to face the class when the term starts?
1:04:17	K: Yes. Term starts – not only term in the class, but also outside the class.
1:04:28	And you have listened to this man about freedom, and I’m really interested in that freedom. So before I meet the class, tell me how am I to understand this freedom and help me how to teach this thing in the class.
1:04:47	I made this very clear.
1:04:50	BJ: If you’re really interested in the freedom then the whole thing is done.
1:04:55	MZ: But that’s no answer, Brian, if I may say so. We do tend to say, ‘If you understand, it will happen.’ It’s true, but it doesn’t help talking about it.
1:05:08	It’s a conversation-stopper, if I may say so. Jean Gordon: The only way I’ve learnt since I’ve been here...
1:05:15	K: I’m not interested what you have learnt – teach me. You are going off the point.
1:05:26	IP: I’d tell you that when the students...
1:05:29	K: I am the teacher. I P: I know.
1:05:32	K: Stick to that one thing.
1:05:33	IP: I’m talking to you as though you were a new teacher. When the new students confront you or you confront them, I’d tell you that you’d probably find that they are afraid of you.
1:05:45	K: So, how did you get over that fear between you and the student?
1:05:54	How did you establish the right relationship?
1:05:58	IP: By showing them that I’m just as conditioned as they are, that I’m not a person of authority and that I want to learn with them.
1:06:07	K: So you have taught me one thing, which is to come off my pedestal.
1:06:14	Which is a great thing that you have taught me, just now. And do I learn it, or just a verbal statement which I have accepted?
1:06:27	Therefore, help me!
1:06:33	Q: If I may say, I’m frightened of them, too.
1:06:36	K: Of course.
1:06:37	IP: Then, you have to show them. K: Same thing.
1:06:45	JG: Then in our relationship this way, we learn together. In our relationship with one another we establish something, relating.
1:06:59	K: What do you mean by relation? I don’t understand. I’ve come here, new. What do you mean by relationship? I’ve understood what she said. She said come off your pedestal when you’re teaching. You are no longer on the pedestal, whether in the class or outside. She has taught me something which I have learnt. I want to learn from you, so she’s taught me that. By Jove, I see how very important that is. Am I capable of doing it? You follow? Am I really interested in this relationship? What is that relationship when I am off the pedestal? I have been on the pedestal with other schools, in other places. Here they’re asking me to come off the pedestal. I must find out the implications of that which is, relationship with the class.
1:07:53	What does it mean? What do you mean by ‘relationship’?
1:07:57	JG: Is it admitting that we’re both learning?
1:08:00	K: No – what do you mean by ‘relationship’? You used that word. All of you have used that word very easily. I want to know, what do you really mean by that word? I know I’m related to my wife – we quarrel, I loathe her or I can’t stand her or I’m putting up with her – I know all that.
1:08:24	But you are using it in a different sense, apparently. So, please tell me what it means. I am writing... You follow, sir?
1:08:40	PB: Interaction and communication between people.
1:08:44	K: Now, communication. How do you communicate with me as a new teacher? How do you communicate with me? I don’t know you. I’ll meet you in the dining room or talk but actually I don’t know you. So how do you establish this relationship?
1:09:07	PB: If you were coming here... K: I’m learning.
1:09:09	PB:...as a staff member...
1:09:12	K: The basis of my coming here is I want to learn, and I’ll show you all that.
1:09:20	So help me to understand, when you use the word ‘relationship,’ what do you mean by it?
1:09:30	Not only verbally, logically, but also, as you talk about it, I’ll feel the depth of what you’re saying, or the superficiality of what you’re saying.
1:09:46	Saral Bohm: If I care enough, I’ll try to find out and get to know you.
1:09:52	K: I want to know what you mean by that word ‘relationship.’ I know what relationship generally means, because of my wife, my father, I understand that.
1:10:10	But you are using it in a totally different way, which is, after coming off the pedestal – I have come off the pedestal – and you say then you have a relationship.
1:10:26	What do you mean by that? What takes place? Convey it to me in words, when I’m off the pedestal.
1:10:39	SN: You will find that there’s a caring or a concern. That there’s a concern for the other person, caring.
1:10:47	K: Are you saying relationship means concern?
1:10:51	SN: Concern and caring. K: Stick...
1:10:57	K: You’re teaching me. I’m a new teacher here, so help me. So what do you mean by ‘concern’? I’m very concerned about my wife, when she’s ill, etc., – I’m very concerned – is that what you mean?
1:11:14	SN: I mean I’m concerned because you’re coming here to Brockwood and you’re going to be a part of all this and so I’m concerned that...
1:11:28	K: Shakuntala, please, you have used the word – I have come off the pedestal.
1:11:36	I know what it means to come off the pedestal, I’ve learnt it.
1:11:43	I’m off the pedestal. Then you’ve used the word ‘relationship’ – when you are off the pedestal you have a different relationship with the students, with people. Now, what does it mean?
1:11:58	Teach, help me to understand it.
1:12:08	IP: Doesn’t it mean that you’re able to learn together?
1:12:12	K: Learn together, yes – what about?
1:12:16	IP: About the subject, as well as...
1:12:20	K: No, I want to know, after coming off the pedestal, what the relationship means and how am I to translate in the class as well as outside the class, what that word implies.
1:12:37	MS: Having come off the pedestal, students wish to put you back again. They’ll try to put you back. What do you do when they try to put you back?
1:12:46	K: I won’t be put back. I understood, I’m fairly intelligent, I see the logic of it, I see the substance, the meaning of coming off the pedestal, I’ve smelt it, I’ve tasted it, I understand it.
1:13:01	You can’t budge me. I won’t go back on the pedestal, at any price. So I’m out of that. But you have used the word ‘responsibility,’ and I want to know what that means.
1:13:12	JG: Relationship, you mean?
1:13:14	K: Relationship to what?
1:13:18	JG: Responding.
1:13:20	K: I have responded to my wife, I know what that means. You are using the word differently, apparently. Are you are using the word in the accepted, traditional meaning, which is having a relationship with my wife – sexual, dislike, irritation – is that what you mean?
1:13:43	MZ: Friendliness and interest in the particular student.
1:13:50	K: Relationship. She said ‘concern.’ Concern – I’m concerned about my wife.
1:14:02	MZ: An interest in the wellbeing of that particular student.
1:14:05	K: Am I concerned with my wife that she should be well? Are you putting the same relationship as I have with my wife...?
1:14:15	MZ: Why bring the wife into it? These are students!
1:14:18	K: I’m asking you. I’m asking you how. Don’t say... No, I – please, listen! – I bring my wife into it because I only know that relationship.
1:14:35	MZ: All of us know all kinds of relationships.
1:14:39	K: You are introducing something else. I want to find out what is it you’re introducing? I only know one kind of relationship – with my wife and my family, with my children, or my father and mother – that narrow, limited relationship.
1:14:57	When I’m off the pedestal, you tell me you have a different relationship with the student. I say, ‘What do you mean by that word?’ SS: There is interest in the thing itself, in whatever it is you’re investigating, rather than in the use of the subject to gain success or...
1:15:19	K: Are you saying to me...? SS: The motive is taken out of it.
1:15:23	K: Wait, are you saying to me, in your relationship with your family there is a motive? Here, there is no motive.
1:15:31	Listen! You have taught me something! Here, you say, when I’m off the pedestal, there is a relationship between all of us and the student in which there is no motive. Right?
1:15:54	Is that what you mean? You have learnt that, have you? You are teaching me that. So I say, ‘My friend, are you without a motive?’ What do you mean by a motive?
1:16:17	CS: I’m using the word wanting to learn.
1:16:21	K: No, don’t go back to that. I want to know what do you mean by motive. I have a motive with my family – money, I have to support her. Here you have suddenly introduced a word: no motive. My God, it’s a tremendous thing you are talking about – to do something without a motive.
1:16:52	Are you here without a motive? I’m questioning you because I’m questioning myself.
1:17:08	If you are without motive, my God, that’s the greatest thing that you could teach me.
1:17:17	So I’ve learnt two things: off the pedestal, a relationship with my students, with others, in which there is no motive.
1:17:27	MS: But I have a motive. I want to learn and I want to teach.
1:17:30	K: That’s a different thing. I’m using ‘motive’ in the sense, a cause.
1:17:38	MZ: No ego-enhancement out of it.
1:17:42	MS: No self-interest.
1:17:45	K: Let’s use that instead of that word ‘motive’ – no self-interest. Wait, wait, we’ll come to that. I want to be clear, precise in this thing, because you’re teaching me something enormous.
1:18:01	Which is, I’ve lived as a teacher in other schools and I’ve also lived at other places, on a pedestal, and you have knocked that out of me, completely.
1:18:14	I won’t be put on a pedestal by anybody because I see it’s stupid.
1:18:22	That’s established. I’ll work at it so that I’m never on a pedestal, even though I’m sitting on a platform – never.
1:18:31	Then you have taught me, in that coming off the pedestal my relationship to students, to everybody else is different.
1:18:42	Now, you say in that relationship is implied no self-interest.
1:18:51	What does that mean? Teach me. What does it mean? I must have money for clothes, food and shelter – that’s a motive, self-interest.
1:19:09	PB: It’s not a motive for teaching here.
1:19:13	K: No, no, wait, wait, wait. I must find out what you mean by a motive, self-interest.
1:19:20	SN: There’s no status involved.
1:19:24	K: I’m off the pedestals, so I accept that right away.
1:19:31	Status means positions, platform, up, gone – I have no status. I’m coming to the point: self-interest.
1:19:40	BJ: Surely there is no self-interest in the requirements of food, shelter and clothes.
1:19:45	K: All right, you say that’s not self-interest, that’s a necessity. Now, where else is there self-interest? Teach me. I’m new here – you have been here some time.
1:20:02	MZ: The self in the psychological sense, is not being fed by this.
1:20:07	K: So you are saying in the psychological sense. What do you mean by that?
1:20:13	PB: As a teacher, it’s possible to get quite an egotistic kick...
1:20:18	K: You are teaching me, bear in mind. Tell me, what do you mean by ‘psychological self-interest’?
1:20:24	PB: Maybe I get a sense of pleasure out of the students liking me, K: So you are saying, be careful, not to be caught in this interest in the students liking me and therefore forming a group round myself.
1:20:53	Is that what you’re saying? So that’s one of the symptoms of self-interest. All right, I watch it, I’ve learnt that.
1:21:05	At last, I’ve got you down now, pinned. You are saying, ‘Be careful at Brockwood, in your class, outside, not to form a group – group in which you become the important entity.’ So you have taught me something.
1:21:33	PB: It’s another form of the pedestal and authority.
1:21:36	K: Therefore, I’m learning. It’s another form of status. By Jove, I thought I was free of status but you have taught me something else. So, I must be very watchful now. You have taught me that, to be watchful. Right, next thing is, what do we mean by ‘self-interest’? That’s only one of the symptoms – right? What else?
1:22:06	JZ: Well, there is a problem that may arise.
1:22:10	K: Give me it – teach me.
1:22:12	JZ: Say no one wants to teach chemistry, but yet they want to be at Brockwood for all that’s going on here. So they would have to perhaps teach chemistry, they themselves having no interest in it.
1:22:24	K: Yes.
1:22:26	JZ: Is that the teaching then...?
1:22:27	K: No, I’m interested in teaching whatever I’m interested in.
1:22:32	JZ: You may not be interested. K: No, I said I am interested in teaching physics or mathematics, whatever it is. Then I am asking you, what is self-interest apart from forming a group round myself and therefore putting myself on a different status?
1:22:47	I’ve understood that. Now tell me, further, what is self-interest?
1:22:59	PB: Self-interest may also be choosing a particular area that you feel you’re good at and you like doing, and rejecting other areas there may be more need for.
1:23:08	K: All right. Are you telling me, look, you are responsible, not for a particular job or a particular activity, you are responsible for the whole thing?
1:23:23	Is that what you mean, lacking self-interest? Wait, I’ve learnt something. Off the pedestal means group – you follow? – all that, and also it means don’t be caught in your own little capacity and therefore exaggerating that capacity and giving yourself self-importance.
1:23:50	Which means, you must be responsible for the whole thing. When you see a piece of paper in the garden, pick it up. When you see a toilet going wrong – you are responsible for the whole thing.
1:24:06	Right, I don’t quite capture it. I’ll get it. I don’t know quite what you mean by it – responsible for the whole thing. Cooking, if necessary, I’ll go and help there. If I can teach mathematics when you are ill or when you are absent, I’ll learn mathematics, I’ll teach that, and so on.
1:24:28	I feel responsible for the whole thing – like in a submarine, every sailor is responsible for the whole submarine.
1:24:40	Right? Is that what you’re telling me?
1:24:47	That’s the second thing. I’m going to ask you presently, are you doing it or are you telling me verbally?
1:24:59	Because I’m very keen, I’m fresh, I’m boiling with this thing.
1:25:06	Don’t dampen me, destroy me, say, ‘My dear chap, you’ll get used to all this, it’s a damn bore, we have lived here for seven years, you’ll pipe down.
1:25:18	The flames will go out of you...’ I don’t want you to destroy my flame. You won’t destroy it because I am boiling with this thing.
1:25:30	So, I understand what that means. The simile is right. In the submarine, I was told, the captain down to the lowest must know the whole works because if something happens to the captain, the lieutenant and down, they must know the workings – right?
1:25:50	I understand. Go on. I have captured the meaning of that. Now, what else, self-interest?
1:26:14	I’m very careful – I’ll show you – about my dress, clothes, how I look, how I behave. I’m very keen.
1:26:23	I’m not self-interested in that sense. I’m very orderly – you follow? – yoga at a certain... I am built that way.
1:26:35	My room, I keep every... Is that self-interest?
1:26:40	IP: No. K: Why?
1:26:43	IP: It’s necessary. For the whole place to function you need that order.
1:26:48	DS: I know people who are very tidy who are totally full of self-interest.
1:26:58	K: Ah, that’s what I’m asking you.
1:27:12	So what does self-interest mean?
1:27:22	JZ: It goes very deep. If we were to merely assume that we had no self-interest...
1:27:29	K: I come here to learn about this. Please, I don’t question you whether you are self-interested. I’ll come to that later after you have – you follow? I’m not going to leave you alone, say, ‘Yes, you learn that, Old Boy, and you go on,’ but I want to find out from you whether you are doing it or just telling me stories.
1:27:56	PB: Krishnaji, isn’t the same question, in another way: do you feel totally responsible for this place?
1:28:05	Isn’t it the same thing? K: Yes, that’s one of the things. You said, ‘Look, no pedestal.’ That implies don’t form a group round yourself, either here among the staff or with the students, so that gives you a pedestal, a position, a status.
1:28:25	I’ve understood that. I’ll go into it much more with you a little later. The next is self-interest. You say, what is further self-interest? No motive. Right? I see the implications, meaning and the significance of it. I’ve just caught it. I’m coming back to it later. And also when you have no motive you have no self-interest. I say that’s a tremendous thing you’re asking me – my God, it’s like giving me a tremendous kick.
1:29:01	Suddenly to say, ‘If you are going to... you have to learn to be without self-interest – learn.’ You have shown me self-interest means...
1:29:16	to have no self-interest means be concerned with the whole thing like in a submarine – that’s a very good simile – I’ll stick to that for the time being.
1:29:27	I don’t know if the submarine people... – I used to know an admiral at one time and he told me about it.
1:29:35	CS: Everyone in the submarine is taught every job? Or they are responsible for...? K: Responsible for the whole thing. If anything happens to anybody, he must take his place.
1:29:51	So I’ve understood that. Are you without any self-motive, self-interest? Are you palming this off on me? Because I’m gullible, new, fresh, and you say, ‘Old Boy,’ you mustn’t have any self-interest. We may have it but don’t you have it.’ So I want to find out what it means, learn from you.
1:30:28	It’s a tremendous thing you have taught me – no motive and therefore no self-interest.
1:30:46	All right, I’ll work at that. Then what else? What have you learnt?
1:31:00	Come on, sir.
1:31:10	You used the word ‘relationship.’ You haven’t conveyed that to me yet.
1:31:17	I haven’t learnt from you what it means.
1:31:27	Do you mean love? Do you mean I must care? All right, what do you mean by ‘caring’? Caring how he dresses, how he eats, sleeps, the room, what kind of taste he has – all that’s implied in that, isn’t it?
1:31:55	CS: It gets back to caring without self-interest, doesn’t it?
1:31:58	K: All that’s implied.
1:32:02	PB: It also implies what you used to speak of as the art of listening.
1:32:06	K: Yes, wait, you’re teaching me. Wait, that’s what I’m coming to. Care. Then you are telling me, when you are teaching, you have learnt how to care – care for his body, care for how he behaves, care for taste, good taste in clothes – right?
1:32:44	All right, that’s enough. When we meet on Saturday, I’m going to learn more, but I’ll return as a new teacher, and say, ‘Here are a group of you, are you without a pedestal?
1:33:07	Or are you telling me to behave without a pedestal, you, yourself, on a pedestal?
1:33:17	I’ve a right to ask. So, are you on a pedestal?
1:33:28	And no status – that means no group of students round you, etc. – you’re all acting as one body. Right? Are you?
1:33:47	And no motive. And responsibility, which means you care. Are you paying complete attention, care to the boy – how he behaves, what he does, how he washes his feet and puts on clean clothes, his taste in clothes, curtains and carpets?
1:34:16	Are you?
1:34:21	JZ: What do you mean by taste? K: You know what I mean by taste.
1:34:25	JZ: Not really. K: Yes, good taste.
1:34:28	JZ: What is good taste?
1:34:32	K: I am asking you to ask me. I’ll tell you.
1:34:43	So, I am asking, are you, after five, seven, six, four, two years here, telling me that you have learnt all this – or are learning – not have learnt – are you learning about all this?
1:35:09	SS: It’s more accurate to say we are learning than we have learnt.
1:35:16	K: So we are altogether learning. Would it be accurate? You are learning and, as a new teacher, I am learning. So I don’t criticise you or you criticise me, but we’re learning. But I point out to you, which is not criticism. I wonder – you follow? You are right to point out, ‘Old Boy, you are not caring.’ And I’m in a position because I want to learn, therefore, you have a right to criticise me.
1:36:02	And because you want to learn, I have a right to criticise you.
1:36:09	JZ: It doesn’t work that way, in practice.
1:36:11	K: That’s what I want to know. Which means, point out. I won’t be hurt if you point out to me, ‘Look, you’re not caring’ – whatever that may mean, we’ll go into that – ‘you’re not caring.’ When you point out to me, I won’t be hurt because I’m learning.
1:36:29	JZ: People do get hurt. K: Therefore, you’re not learning.
1:36:37	So don’t tell me to learn and not get hurt, and you get hurt.
1:36:48	So, we have written a book, sir, you understand? This is what I want to do together – right? – that we write a book together, the Brockwood Book.
1:37:05	No, I really seriously mean it. We’re going to do this in India, we’re going to do this all together, collect all the material, put it in a book.
1:37:19	Right, sir? Is it time to stop?
1:37:31	So we meet Saturday to pick up where we left off, which is, relationship means responsibility.
1:37:46	Responsibility to what? For whom? And you said no motive, no self-interest.
1:38:00	Therefore, you are teaching me as a new teacher that I must have no
1:38:13	desire for a position here, a status here, gathering my own group, self-interest, all that.
1:38:25	That’s a tremendous thing for me to learn. Right, sir? That means I am totally out of the world. Right?
1:38:43	SS: Out of the world?
1:38:45	K: Because the word is full of self-interest.
1:38:55	Are you asking me to be a monk?
1:39:06	TC: If you’ve been listening so far, that hasn’t been the implication. But it’s been more that, in a real relationship, that we’ve been talking about with you as a new teacher...
1:39:19	K: Yes, sir, I’m asking you: are you asking me to be a monk?
1:39:25	TC: No, we’re asking you to relate much more...
1:39:29	K: So, because I’m out of the world – all this implies I no longer belong to the world, which is full of self-interest, full of status, position, prestige, platforms and motives.
1:39:48	You’re asking me to be out of all that.
1:39:55	Not asking me – that will put me outside the world.
1:40:02	Right?
1:40:04	K: Are you out of the world? You say, ‘Of course.’ Are you also doing the same thing as me?
1:40:11	I’m not doing it, I’m learning it, I’m working at it.
1:40:18	DS: Why can’t that be done in the world?
1:40:20	K: I don’t say it can’t. I said that is what the world is.
1:40:27	I may leave this place and say, ‘These people are just talkers’ and I’ll go and fight the world because I see what you say is true – that’s the way to live for me.
1:40:48	I want to live that way – I see what you say is so highly intelligent, so true.
1:41:02	And I want to live intelligently. That’s why I’m here as a teacher.
1:41:20	Chapter One. I think we’d better stop, don’t you?
1:41:29	I hope I’m not pushing you too far, am I?
1:41:36	I’m pushing myself.
1:41:44	All right.
1:41:52	We’ll all write a book, sir, shall we, together? I think this is right.
1:42:00	DS: Aren’t we writing a book now? K: We are. I said we’re writing a book now, but not by me, we’re all doing it together. DS: Exactly.
1:42:09	K: Therefore, it is right.
1:42:25	It is an anonymous book. Right?
1:42:36	I tried several years ago, because I wanted to be anonymous – I hated my name, you know all that stuff, ambition – to speak to an audience behind a curtain.
1:42:49	It didn’t work at all!