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BR77DSS2.2 - Are you aware that you are conditioned?
Brockwood Park, UK - 2 October 1977
Discussion with Staff and Students 2.2



0:21 Krishnamurti: What shall we talk about?
0:32 Questioner: I would like to talk about detachment.
0:40 K: You would like to talk about detachment.
0:56 Anything else?

Q: Could we talk about conditioning?
0:59 K: Conditioning. All right. Let's start with that.
1:18 Do you want to talk about it superficially or go into it very deeply?
1:26 We can do both. If we talk superficially we won't get very far but if we go into it rather deeply we can go very, very far.
1:39 So, it is up to you. Which would you like to do?
1:53 So I will begin superficially and then work our way through it.
2:11 Physically, we are conditioned – man, woman.
2:22 Biologically, we have different statures – short, tall.
2:32 And depending on the climate, food and so on, environment, our body is conditioned by all that, also.
2:44 If you live in the Asiatic countries where it is pretty warm, and scarcity of food, then the body is short, not very fat and so on.
2:58 From there you can observe outwardly, from outward investigation, briefly, we can go into the whole inner structure of ourselves.
3:14 Why is it we are conditioned? Who conditions us? Condition being: shaped according to a certain pattern, tradition, culture, climate, food and society – all that.
3:34 What makes for conditioning? Why are human beings conditioned? Are you, if I may ask most politely, are you aware that you are conditioned?
3:53 Just aware, just to know that you are an American, with all the background of America – the vulgarity, the noise, the violence, what is happening in that country.
4:07 And also, if you are European, are you aware of your conditioning?
4:17 The hard struggle after the war, the division of various countries, which is really tribalism continued, and are you aware that you respond, act, and react according to your conditioning?
4:41 Are you aware of all this?
4:52 Don't correct it yet, don't say it is a wrong reaction or right reaction, just be aware of it.
5:01 Why is the brain conditioned that way?
5:16 First of all, the brain can only function efficiently when it is secure, when it is safe, when it feels completely protected.
5:33 When it is not protected, when it is not safe, when there is no security, then there is always neurotic action, all that follows.
5:52 So, the brain demands, needs to be completely secure.
6:00 Obviously. It can be secure in a tradition, in nationality, saying I am British, I am an American, or Arab and so on.
6:18 There, by identifying with a group of people, it feels secure.
6:26 Being a Catholic in a Catholic country or a communist in a communist country, totalitarian countries, and so on.
6:37 Or it can feel very safe in a belief.
6:44 I believe in God or I don't believe in God – which is equally the same – or in some ideal.
6:59 Right? Are you following all this? Or it can be completely safe in some kind of illusion.
7:17 God is an illusion, but it is so respectable, it is so accepted, it has become almost normal.
7:24 But it is still illusory. Or it can feel completely secure in a small community, protected, safe, everybody agreeing not to do this or to do that.
7:47 So, all the brain demands, asks and needs, that it should be completely secure.
7:58 Right? Are you aware of this, that you may have or have certain ideals, certain beliefs, certain identification with nationalities and so on.
8:16 Coming from India, the tradition, the beliefs, the thousands of gods and their particular family, or coming from the world of the Arabs, they have a certain tremendous bigoted conditioning.
8:38 They only believe in certain things and so on. If you are a fundamentalist in the Christian world, it is the same thing. So you have all this phenomena going on in front of you, which is yourself: you have certain beliefs, certain traditions, certain concepts, conclusions – they give safety to the brain.
9:08 Are you aware of this? I believe. I must. My opinion is this. I need that. All these are the demands of the brain which says, please, give me security.
9:35 It is seeking security.
9:45 Q: In another sense, it is very insecure to belong to a nationality, for instance – people fighting.
9:54 K: In that, there is also security.
9:59 Q: When people kill each other, there is no security.
10:01 K: Of course. What the terrorists are doing: they have certain concepts, they want to produce chaos in the world and then from that chaos, there might be action from the right, and then the reaction from the left.
10:19 Then when the left gets in, they hold – etc., we don't want to bother about the terrorists – all that follows.
10:29 So are you, as a human being, aware that you are conditioned? Conditioned because the brain, your brain demands and needs and must have security.
10:52 You can have security if you are in a career – a professor, a scientist, an engineer, a doctor, a pianist or whatever it is.
11:03 There, you have got a certain profession, certain skill, and the brain says, I will improve in that direction but I am safe there.
11:15 If I pass examinations, I will get a job, etc.
11:22 And there it is safe, too. And if you don't want a job, if you don't want a career, then the brain says, what am I going to do?
11:33 You see the problem? What am I going to do? I must live, I must have money, I must have a house. I may live with a girl or a boy but I may not necessarily marry and so on – the brain that is uncertain becomes more and more confused.
11:57 You are following all this?
12:06 So, is one conscious, aware, know that you are conditioned and being conditioned, you are attached to that.
12:19 You want to discuss detachment. You are attached to your conditioning.
12:30 Living in the world of the Arabs, if you are not an Arab it becomes very, very difficult.
12:43 So, being conditioned, becoming aware of that conditioning, you say, if I break up that conditioning, what is going to happen?
12:54 Being uncertain of what is going to happen or might happen, then the brain says, I am attached to what I have.
13:07 Right? Do you see this? I am attached to my conditioning because there, at least I am safe.
13:23 Q: But the safety or the security which the conditioning gives, the security which you get from your conditioning, it is possible to get that security only because you are insecure.
13:34 K: We are going to find out. First, see what is, and from there move.
13:44 If you don't see what is and then try to move, then you become totally lost, and in being lost you may find some kind of security, which must be illusory, deceptive, hypocritical, and all the rest of it.
14:08 I am insisting in asking whether you are aware of your conditioning.
14:16 It doesn't matter, even partially, that is good enough.
14:24 If you are aware, that is the fact, that is what is.
14:32 From there you can move. Now, what happens when you are conditioned?
14:40 Q: You act in a certain way. You behave in a certain way.
14:44 K: Yes, but what actually takes place in the outer world and what takes place from the outer to the inner?
14:53 What takes place? If I am conditioned as a Hindu or some tribal, collective conclusion, tradition – what happens?
15:09 I separate myself from others. You have your nationality and your conditioning, your tribalism, and I belong to my tribalism, and we are at war with each other.
15:25 This is actually what is going on. The Jew and the Arab, the Hindu, etc. So, where there is an attachment to your conditioning there must be division, and from that division there must be conflict.
15:51 And very few are willing to give up this conditioning because they don't know what to do if there is no conditioning.
16:04 See how the mind works, how the brain works? I am conditioned, I know I am conditioned, I realise logically, reasonably that from this conditioning arises various factors of division.
16:22 And the brain says, if I let that go, what will happen? So it says, give me assurance that there is another kind of protection, then I will give this up.
16:41 You are following all this?
16:50 So, before it gives up its own petty little conditioning, it wants to be assured that there is another form of conditioning which will not be conflicting, which will not bring about division.
17:08 And so they invent the idea or the ideal of brotherhood.
17:16 You understand? There are societies, there are groups of people working for international brotherhood, for unification – all that is going on.
17:30 But that is, you are conditioned this way, you are being conditioned another way.
17:38 Do you see this? I realise, by my conditioning, I bring about conflict. I realise that.
17:53 You have pointed out to me the reason, logic, the nature of it.
18:02 So somebody comes along and says, work for brotherhood, work for the unity of man.
18:09 So that becomes the ideal and in that ideal, I am secure.
18:17 You are following all this? So I give up one form of conditioning and take on another form of conditioning.
18:30 Now, to see this, to be aware of this: I am conditioned, I see what the results of this conditioning are, I see the logic of it, and I am willing to give that up if you can assure me there is another form of safety.
18:56 Which is in some ideal, some utopia, some future state where I will have security.
19:03 I will give this up and take on that, which is equally conditioning. You follow this? Now, to see that, to observe it and to have an insight into it is intelligence, isn't it?
19:29 Here you are silent.
19:47 Q: So, you are saying that any sort of idea at all is still conditioning, is still creating division?
19:53 K: You begin to realise any form of ideal, idea, conclusion, whether right, left, centre, political, religious, is a form of conditioning.
20:09 But much more important is to find out are you giving up this form of conditioning and accepting another form of conditioning?
20:22 If you are aware of that, if you have an insight into that, if you see it, then that very perception is intelligence, isn't it?
20:37 Look, as long as I think I am British – Britain, Britain, Britain – and I like that idea, it gives me safety, I have identified with a particular geographic land and I say, that is my country, my people, I know my tradition, from Shakespeare and so on, cultural, and I am very proud of it.
21:09 I am British. And that isolates me, doesn't it? I may join the Common Market but I am still damned good British.
21:28 So, what happens? That gives me pleasure, that gives me a sense of security, I am attached to the green land and the beautiful country, the lanes and the hedges and the beauty, and so on, and I would rather have that than enter into something which is vast, which I don't know.
21:54 You come along and say, look, if you are so identified with a country, with a tradition, with some conclusion, that in itself is the cause of war, cause of division, conflict and so on.
22:12 And you come along and tell me, look, if you give that up, there is a better world.
22:19 One world – a concept. And I say, that is a marvellous idea, I give this up and take on that. Which is another form of conditioning. Do you see this? Do you? To see it is intelligence. But not to see it and keep on being British is the essence of ignorance, stupidity, whatever you like to call it.
22:53 So, what is it you are doing? What is it – whether you are from America, from England, from India, from the Far East or Australia, 15 nationalities I believe you are here – what are you doing?
23:13 Attached to your particular country? Attached to your particular ideas or demanding certain pleasures and building up a romantic concept of pleasure and holding to that.
23:37 That is another form of conditioning.
23:47 You are all very silent, aren't you? This is a discussion, dialogue.
23:51 Q: There is something that confuses me on this. We have talked about it sometimes before, and you have said that intelligence is security.
24:05 But that might just be an idea that our brains will seek security in, to drop conditioning, which you say would be intelligent.
24:17 K: Look, if you and I see the nature of conditioning, the results of that conditioning, see the dangers of that conditioning seeing the danger is intelligence, isn't it?
24:40 Will that intelligence be complete security?
24:54 That intelligence is not yours or mine. We can all see a danger – danger of a bus coming, danger of a snake, danger of a precipice, danger of falling down from the 18th floor.
25:12 So, we are all intelligent about that. We all say, no, that is most dangerous, don't do it. So this intelligence is common, it is not yours or mine.
25:30 So when there is that intelligence, there is total security.
25:37 That is a little difficult to see. We will go into it. But do you first see the dangers of being conditioned?
25:49 Not because I say so – that is totally irrelevant – but the fact.
26:06 You wanted to investigate conditioning. We are doing it. Do you see it? Not only nationalities, not only tradition, not only a particular form of culture, but one conditioning is the search for pleasure.
26:33 Do you see that? Do you see all the implications of it? Not yet, no. So, shall we go into it?
26:43 Q: Yes.
26:48 K: You know, the other day, when we were talking with the students, without the staff, we went partly into it.
27:00 That is, pleasure is always in the past.
27:08 You saw that, did you? And pleasure is also a deep factor of isolation.
27:25 Do you see that? Don't say 'yes' and get on with it, but find out for yourself.
27:34 If I may say so, it is part of your education here at Brockwood, to find out, not to accept, not to deny, but to explore, understand.
27:51 Yesterday, Dr Bohm and I were talking at lunch – science is pure observation without authority.
28:02 Pure observation, and from that very observation is action.
28:14 Do you observe, in yourself, that pleasure in any form, whether it is sexual pleasure, pleasure of power, pleasure of money, pleasure of saying I will do what I want to do, pleasure of possession, domination, etc., even the pleasure of knowledge, pleasure of a certain career, a gift, a capacity – all that is pleasure, the expression of it.
28:54 Do you see that pleasure is always in the past, not at the actual moment?
29:09 Now, we are going further into it, which is, pleasure, like great sorrow, is always separate, cut off from everybody else.
29:28 Do you see this, that pleasure is a factor of isolation.
29:38 Not because the speaker is saying so, but it is a fact.
29:50 When you are taking pleasure in something, don't you find you don't want to be disturbed, you want to push everybody away?
30:00 Haven't you noticed it? And also when you are frightened, really frightened, it is also a factor of isolation.
30:14 But you are still very young, thank God, and therefore don't know sorrow, grief, great pain, psychological pain.
30:28 That pain, that grief, that sorrow is an isolating factor.
30:37 These isolating factors, like sorrow, fear, pleasure, are the very structure, the nature of the self, the 'me'.
30:49 The 'me' is always separate. No?
30:58 Q: You were asking the question the other day, what is pleasure, per se.
31:02 K: Yes, we will come to that. First, see what pleasure, fear or pain does.
31:15 Q: There seems a certain amount of difference between sorrow and pleasure in that somehow the brain seems to obliterate a certain amount of sorrow.
31:32 K: Look, do you know sorrow? You know a little pain, a little disappointment, a little uncomfortable, but that is not sorrow, sorrow is something very profound.
31:47 It is the summation of all your energy that says, I have lost something. I have lost my son, my wife – it is a tremendous challenge.
32:00 You follow? I don't know if you do. You are too young, don't bother about it, yet.
32:11 What we are trying to say is, pleasure is always the past.
32:25 After discussing a great deal the other day, we all saw that. Now, we are examining further, the same thing, which is, pleasure is always isolating.
32:45 I take pleasure in drugs, I take pleasure in sex, I take pleasure in different forms.
32:57 And when I observe it very closely, it is a factor separating me from the others.
33:05 No? What do you say?
33:12 Q: Yes.

K: You say yes, K: but do we all see the importance of this?
33:25 Because I am attached to that pleasure, a particular form of pleasure, sex, power, money, position – all that.
33:36 I am attached to that. So, where there is attachment, there is isolation.
33:50 Do you see this? I am attached to this country or to this house, so immediately then I am separated, psychologically.
34:05 Q: There may be a certain sort of security in isolation as well. There seems to be a certain security in isolation.
34:12 K: Of course, that is the essence of security. There, I feel completely safe. When I identify myself with Brockwood, the house, the people and so on, I am completely – you follow?
34:30 There is no disturbance. But you come along and say, 'It is not your house.' 'I am not your wife.' And then I begin to be disturbed.
34:42 Q: But that attachment does not have to be exclusive, does it?
34:55 Q: The attachment doesn't have to be exclusive.
35:01 Q: It doesn't have to be exclusive.
35:03 K: It doesn't have to be exclusive. Is that so? That is an idea, isn't it? 'It hasn't got to be exclusive.' But the fact is you are exclusive and you are attached. It is my wife. I am attached to her. Don't say it hasn't got to be that way.
35:39 You are saying that, aren't you?
35:43 Q: Yes, but I know, for example, I like to drive a car.
35:51 K: You like to drive a car. But I don't think that makes me attached to the car.
35:56 K: Go into it. Are you driving the car for a purpose, for a need? Or enjoying yourself, just driving down the lane, looking at the trees, dreaming?
36:09 Be careful, don't dream too much. You know what I mean?
36:16 What is wrong with that? I have often done that – a nice drive, miles by myself, absolutely lost, but keeping an eye on the road.
36:34 What is wrong with it?
36:41 But if I am attached to that and say, I have got to do it every day, it gives me so much pleasure, etc., then that factor of attachment begins to bring about isolation.
36:58 It is so obvious.
37:05 So, pleasure is not only in the past, pleasure is the past.
37:15 Pleasure also is one of the great factors of isolation – as fear, sorrow and so on.
37:25 And when there is an attachment, that is also a form of pleasure, which is isolating.
37:33 I am attached to my wife – watch it – or to my girlfriend or boyfriend. I am attached.
37:42 And what takes place? It is all right for a while. The person to whom I am attached likes it, that person may like being possessed.
38:04 'How nice, he is attached to me.' You follow all this? I wonder if you do. All this brings about, doesn't it, concern about yourself.
38:19 No? So that is what we are saying. If you see that actually in action in your daily life, see that factor, how it is isolating, therefore bringing about division, anxiety, fear, etc., the very perception of that is intelligence, and that intelligence will tell you, enjoy yourself going out for a walk and looking at the trees, etc.
38:57 I wonder if you see all this.
39:10 Most people are concerned about themselves. About their beauty, how they look, how they dress. They are also concerned that they must properly exercise, properly breathe, etc.
39:31 Tremendous concern about themselves which is an isolating factor, obviously. No? If I am concerned about myself all the time, you don't exist. I may use you, I may exploit you. You will help me to be concerned about myself.
40:04 So, is there an action – find out – is there an action, a way of living without this tremendous concern about myself?
40:21 I must do what I want, etc. Is there a way of living without that self-concern? If you can find out then intelligence is in operation, then everything becomes very simple.
40:53 Let's begin again. Are you actually aware that you are conditioned?
41:07 If you are aware of it, if you know it, is it possible to break it down and not enter into another conditioning?
41:21 Go on, inquire, find out. Is it possible, knowing I am a Hindu, born there, with the culture, the superstition – all that tommyrot that goes on in every civilisation – becoming aware of that and say, I must get out of this, and in the very process of getting out of it, I am conditioned in another way.
41:47 I become a Catholic, instead of a Hindu. I say, 'Marvellous! How lovely.' I become a Catholic.
41:59 Out of the frying pan, into the fire. So, are you doing this?
42:12 If I am very concerned about my food, I must have everything. And you come along and say, that is not the right way to live, so concerned. I say, all right, but I become concerned in a different way about a different kind of eating, a different kind of food.
42:33 I wonder if you follow all this.
42:40 So, I am asking, is it possible to live without any kind of conditioning?
42:50 Which is acting or reacting according to some kind of conclusion, some kind of belief, some kind of opinion, some kind of fixation.
43:12 If you go into this, it makes you extraordinarily alive, intelligent.
43:22 You don't grow old – physically, you may be old but your brain is active.
43:41 So, what do you do – to bring it down to daily activity – what do you do when there is pleasure?
44:00 You are young – when there is sexual pleasure, sensory attraction?
44:08 You understand? Go into it, it is your problem. What will you do? Yield, give in, or resist? Or try to escape from it, 'It is all wrong.' Deceive yourself and live in a kind of woozy world. What will you do?
44:44 Absolute, breathless silence.
44:53 Q: We can think about it.

K: We are thinking about it now, don't say, we will think about it.
44:59 Q: No, that is what one can do. That is one thing.
45:02 K: What?

Q: Think about it.

K: Think about it, now.
45:10 What are you thinking about it? In what way are you thinking about it, if I may ask? You don't have to tell me, but being quite impersonal, talk about it.
45:24 How will you deal with that fact? Biologically, there is all that demand. How will you deal with it?
45:39 Q: In thinking about it, it seems wrong to try and repress it.
45:45 K: Wait, stop there. Why do you say it is wrong? Go into it. Most people suppress it. That is part of their culture, part of their conditioning to say, suppress. Or if you are living in a permissive society, blow it.
46:11 So, what will you do?
46:18 How do you react to it?
46:34 This is a common factor for all human beings. So, when we are talking about it, we are talking about something which is common to every human being.
46:47 So it is not me and my pleasure. You are a human, and being a human you are the rest of humanity.
47:00 See that – you are the rest of the humanity. When you are talking about it, talk in a global sense, including yourself. I wonder if you understand this.
47:19 Go on, sir. Because it is one of our major problems in a small community of this kind, and also this is a problem in the world.
47:34 Extended, it is the same thing.
47:43 Q: One could try to observe it, say, as sexual urges come out.
47:50 To observe the background.
47:52 K: Do you see the whole consequence of it?
48:00 Go into it step by step and you will see how it all ends up.
48:12 Q: On this particular subject, the human conditioning is so bigoted. There is so much fear and guilt about it.
48:20 K: Of course. There is fear, guilt. Those are reactions from our conditioning. If you are born in India, there is tremendous suppression there, and from that arises guilt, fear, and great curiosity, wanting to express, and get married early and begin all that.
49:10 This is a major subject, isn't it, for all of you, and you have become silent.
49:19 Is it because you don't know how to deal with it, and you want to be told?
49:28 And if you are told, you either accept it, then make what you accept into an authority, then that becomes a suppression, and the rest follows.
49:40 Or do you say, I won't listen to anybody, I am going to do what I like – which is the same thing, the other way.
49:53 Let's talk it over together. We will do it anyhow on Tuesday when we all meet together. The students and I meet together. But part of this is it is good to express oneself openly in front of other people. It is good to put it into words. It will help you to communicate.
50:17 You know, there is skill in communication.
50:30 To hold your hand skilfully, to hold your hand skilfully, happily, is very nice.
50:50 So, find out, what is your reaction to pleasure.
51:01 You see how difficult it is?
51:09 May I go into it with you? You want me to do all the work and then you listen. Is that it? Once in India, I was staying in a house by myself in the hills, in the mountains, Kashmir, and they were digging a hole, 6 foot, and there were literally 14 people trying to dig that hole.
51:44 12 sat around and 2 people were working at that hole. And they took 3 days to do it. And this is the same thing – you want me to dig that hole, and you all sit around and look. Is that what you are doing?
52:05 Or, together, let's find out. Shall we? Together – right? Which means together, not you listen to me, and I do all the work and you look. Right?
52:25 Q: It is good to go into it together but one thing is that just a few will talk and...
52:32 K: It doesn't matter – don't talk. It is not necessary to talk if you are really serious, saying, look, I want to find out. Together, we are digging the hole. Together, we are entering this enormous problem of humanity.
52:56 First of all, why have human beings, right throughout the world, made this into an enormous thing?
53:06 Blew it up, an enormous thing. Why?
53:13 The old, the young, the middle aged, everybody – why?
53:26 First, put that question to yourself – why? Human beings have made such a colossal thing of sex.
53:41 And from that, being colossal, they have said, monks throughout the world, they say, if you come to serve God, that must be put aside.
54:00 See the reaction? I will go into it with you, presently. So, why has man made this into such an important thing?
54:17 Why have you made it such an important thing?
54:29 If you have not, are you going to make it? And if you are not going to, why don't you? All these questions, you must answer. To answer it, to find out is a form of intelligence.
54:49 You may not be able to read or write, if you don't read or write then it is a form of ignorance.
54:57 You can't find out what is happening unless you travel all over the world. That is a different matter. There are exceptions. So, why?
55:12 Q: It is very pleasurable.
55:15 K: Yes, go on. Is that the only factor?
55:18 Q: No. It also involves a lot of insecurity.
55:22 K: Slowly, don't jump to conclusions. Go step by step into it. We are examining quite impersonally. Nothing to do with you. It has to do with you because you are part of the rest of the human world, human beings.
55:41 So, in understanding it, in going into it, finding out, you are investigating the problem which man has created – why?
55:55 Q: In this culture, television and everything...
56:00 K: Of course, all that – books, etc.
56:08 Laying such enormous emphasis on this central factor.
56:12 Q: Is it because it brings profit?
56:15 K: Brings profit to the writer?

Q: No, to the commercial business.
56:19 K: Of course, commercial people, yes. I used to know a famous writer, and he said, if I don't put sex into the book I am writing, it won't sell.
56:46 Please ask yourself – we are asking ourselves together – why have human beings done this?
56:58 The more civilised we apparently become, the more that thing becomes important.
57:07 The more civilised, the more sophisticated, the more technology – everything outer, outer – the greater importance given to this.
57:26 Q: How is that so?

K: Watch it, sir.
57:29 Q: How is that so? I just have to take it for granted.
57:34 K: I was told by an anthropologist that the real savages just carry on, it is not a problem.
57:43 They don't make such an immense thing out of it.
57:50 I am asking myself – you should be asking yourself – is it that the more we get so-called cultured – more knowledge, able to talk about various facts, talk intelligently about it, showing the importance of knowledge – that is driving you more and more inwardly?
58:24 You understand my question? Listen to it, first. I may be wrong. But we are investigating, therefore, I am willing to throw that aside, completely. I may be wrong.
58:42 So I am saying, is it because we get more and more information outwardly – or even about ourselves from others – the more I am enquiring in a totally different direction for an activity which is my personal, exclusive, secret pleasure.
59:18 You follow what I am saying? Mr Joe? I thought you agreed.
59:31 You understand this question? I wonder if I am making myself clear – I am not quite clear on it yet. I will communicate it carefully. Religions have become very, very superficial.
59:50 Their ceremonies, their verbal nonsense and so on is meaningless, but yet that plays an immense part in our lives.
1:00:06 Then people write books about so many things and we read some of them – and again, outer.
1:00:15 Or we acquire knowledge, biological, scientific, archaeological and so on, again – knowledge, outer.
1:00:25 Information. So, we have got so much information, which is education, which is our culture, which is our being sophisticated, there must be a movement which is contrary to that, inwardly.
1:00:52 Because I am fed up. Who cares who goes to the moon and puts his flag up there?
1:01:02 Who cares when somebody climbs the Himalayas? What? So, I am being driven from the outer to go to the inner.
1:01:18 And one of the inner escapes may be sex.
1:01:31 I say maybe – I am asking, I am digging, brick after brick.
1:01:45 And so the escape through sex, which is pleasurable – because outwardly I am a prisoner, inwardly, I escape from this prison through that way, through entertainment, etc.
1:02:13 You follow? I wonder if you get all this. I think I am right. I am going to stick to this for a while.
1:02:23 Q: Is it that in a slightly more civilised society...
1:02:32 K: Of course, slightly more exciting, it is personal.
1:02:37 Q: But it is essentially something very emotional and not intellectual.
1:02:42 K: Wait. We will come to the emotional part. Look at the fact. Is this so? The more sophisticated, the more we become prisoners to this rat race – career, jobs, 50 years working, working, working, working in an office, factory, doing the same routine, routine, routine – this may be an escape from all this.
1:03:22 Yes, it is.
1:03:30 So, I say to myself, I am escaping. Is that a fact? I want to find out. Or am I escaping in other directions, from this over-cultured, over-civilised, over-sophisticated world, where there is more and more insecurity, more and more violence and all the disturbances?
1:03:57 To escape from all that – not only sexually, I may be escaping in ten different directions.
1:04:08 I may be escaping through taking drugs, or saying, I will do what I want to do, I am not depending on anybody.
1:04:27 But you are like the rest of the world so you are doing exactly what the world wants you to do, which is do what you think you ought to do, which everybody does anyhow.
1:04:48 So, is sex an escape?
1:04:57 Is the pursuit of any kind of pleasure – inward psychological pleasure – an escape from the world?
1:05:14 Please, I am not saying it is or it is not.
1:05:21 Together we are digging, so you have to find out.
1:05:31 And what am I escaping from?
1:05:39 I can see very well I don't want to be involved in violence or in this monstrous, ugly, immoral society, which has no meaning, all this circus that is going on around me.
1:05:54 That is not an escape. I see the absurdity of it and I take as little part in it as possible. But I must take part in it because I am part of that. So, that is not an escape.
1:06:12 Q: But it is possible to make it an escape, isn't it? One can very easily make it an escape and say, I don't want to take part.
1:06:19 K: Of course. It is possible to delude yourself in a million ways. But here, I don't want to escape into some delusion or some form of imaginative illusion, or hypnotise myself into some state.
1:06:38 I want to look. As we said, the highest form of science is observation, in which there is no authority.
1:06:56 So we are looking together, we are scientists, in the deep sense of the word. You may not have a Ph.D, etc., but in the deeper sense of the word, we are all scientists who are observing.
1:07:22 It is already past one? Quelle heure?
1:07:26 Q: No, it is 22 minutes.
1:07:33 K: I say I am escaping – I will be hesitant for the time being.
1:07:44 Is sex an escape? An escape from what? From myself? – wait, watch it carefully – from myself?
1:08:03 Not society, because society is what I want it to be.
1:08:12 The past generations of my parents, my grandmothers, grandfathers of 1,000 years have created this society and I am part of that society.
1:08:26 So, am I escaping from myself through sex? With my worries, with my ambitions, with my cruelty, my hurts, my lack of integrity, lack of honesty, lack of intelligence, at least here I can escape from all this rot, which is myself.
1:08:51 Is that it?
1:08:58 Go on.
1:09:06 Q: Maybe escaping from those activities that I do that I don't feel secure in, and pursuing the pleasure of sex then I can feel secure in that, because maybe I am in control.
1:09:20 K: No, I am sticking to one thing. Am I escaping from myself through sex?
1:09:31 Q: But it strikes me that probably I am still involved in the sex.
1:09:38 K: No.
1:09:41 Q: I don't follow.

K: You don't follow me – quite.
1:09:50 Aren't you in confusion? Aren't you uncertain what to do?
1:10:02 You say, no, I won't do what my father, mother, generations, tradition – I won't do all that, I won't follow any guru, any system.
1:10:11 Life has become tremendously uncertain, hasn't it? Your future. No? Aren't you? These three agree – the rest of you? Hasn't it become very uncertain?
1:10:37 You may be escaping through sex from that uncertainty.
1:10:50 Or, if you are very sure that your future is well ordered, you know about it, you are going to work for it, even then there is always a suspicion, always uncertainty that it may not come out as you want it – it never does.
1:11:09 So, again, that may be an escape from that.
1:11:18 And our whole psychological background is to escape.
1:11:27 Escape through suppression, escape through permissiveness, escape through control.
1:11:40 You follow all this? So, our culture, our tradition, our background says, for God's sake, escape.
1:11:52 If you are married to that woman and she bores you, divorce her, go to somebody else – escape.
1:12:10 For me, it is. Let's move from there. I am very clear on this matter. Don't accept me, I am digging with you. Don't go to sleep. Do you also see that this is a form of escape from your confusion, from your uncertainty, from your uncertainty of the future, what you are going to do, whether you are going to marry or not marry, whether you are going to live with a girl or a boy for the rest of your life, and the children, etc., it is so terribly uncertain.
1:12:47 The future for young people is appalling. You may not realise it – it is appalling.
1:13:01 That is why – for God's sake – while you are here, learn how to look, how to be intelligent.
1:13:19 So, if that is an escape, and you are escaping from yourself, then that escape becomes tremendously important.
1:13:34 A Catholic or a totalitarian mind says, don't disturb me.
1:13:42 For God's sake, leave me alone, there. Any form of dissent is sent to a concentration camp or excommunicated – get rid of the bird.
1:14:01 I told you once, I was speaking in India, a large crowd, about tradition, etc.
1:14:10 A man comes to me afterwards, he says, 'May I tell you something?' I say, delighted. 'You ought to be burned.' You see his reaction? I was telling him something which was actual. He saw it and he couldn't leave it, but turned that anger against me and wanted me to be burned.
1:14:38 So, find out if this is an escape from yourself. Then you will not escape if you clear up yourself.
1:14:54 I see something. I am escaping from my own confusion, from my own uncertainty, from my own lack of intelligence, etc.
1:15:08 – I am escaping, and therefore sex becomes very important. But if I can clear up the whole structure of myself – when there is clarity in myself, no confusion, no uncertainty, no fear of the future, etc. – that won't be an escape.
1:15:28 You are following all this? So it becomes very important for me to investigate myself, not caught in sex and make that important.
1:15:44 I wonder if you understand something. You understand it?
1:15:56 Do you understand this? A little. All right. Either we all walk together or not. We are all walking together, so I have got to explain this to you if you don't understand it.
1:16:15 Aren't you confused for the future? Aren't you uncertain what might happen to you? How you are going to earn a livelihood when there are 10,000 people after the same job, when there is overcrowding, overpopulation, everything is against each one.
1:16:44 And seeing that, consciously or unconsciously, you say, for God's sake, I must escape from this horror.
1:16:53 And that may be sex. But if you work very clear, unconfused, not uncertain, this won't be an escape, will it?
1:17:15 We give importance to something which gives us an avenue of escape.
1:17:25 God has given man tremendous escape.
1:17:32 You can say, God created the world, God put me where I am, whether I am poor or rich, God is going to look after me, he is my father, he will bless me, it doesn't matter if I suffer – marvellous escape.
1:17:48 So God becomes tremendously important. If you take God away, where am I? In the same way, sex becomes tremendously important. If you take that away you say, what else have I to do, except cry in this misery?
1:18:11 Are you getting this? So, I have to clear my own mind.
1:18:24 Q: Then wanting to understand yourself can also become a self-concerned, isolating pursuit.
1:18:32 K: No. When you are investigating yourself, you don't become self-centred.
1:18:43 Because you are the rest of humanity. Do you understand that? Is that clear? That is, you are like the rest of humanity, with their sorrow, with their misery, with their sexual problems, with their jobs, with their wives, with their husbands, with their girls.
1:19:05 You are like the rest of the world, so you represent the rest of humanity.
1:19:13 So when you are investigating as the representative of the rest of humanity you are not self-centred.
1:19:21 You may make it into self-centredness, but actually you are not. I wonder if you see that.
1:19:43 So, then my concern is, I will watch sex but I see if it is an escape then it becomes a tremendous danger.
1:19:57 Tremendous danger. Then that is the only important thing in my life.
1:20:06 That is the only thing I cling to. Everything I am a slave to – when I go to the office I am a slave there.
1:20:19 Or a factory, I am a slave there. When I go to church, I am a slave to Jesus or to somebody else. Here, in sex, there is a certain freedom, etc., so I cling to that desperately.
1:20:39 It becomes enormously important. So I have discovered from that, anything from which I escape or anything from which I am escaping to, that becomes important.
1:20:56 If I am escaping through yoga, forgive me, then that becomes all my life – you follow?
1:21:13 So, I must find out from what I am escaping. I say, I am escaping from myself, from my confusion, from my uncertainty, from my lack of companion, isolation, from my loneliness – all that.
1:21:33 Now, can I clear all that up? Then there would be no escape from anything. Or escaping from, to something. Therefore, I am very clear, there is no need to escape. I wonder if you see this. At least, logically, reasonably see this.
1:22:03 Intellectually, even.
1:22:18 The world of bureaucrats is a marvellous world, enclave, in a cave by themselves.
1:22:31 Professors in a college, university, they are completely safe there. Except Dr Bohm.
1:22:58 Cramp. I am escaping from the cramp.
1:23:12 So can I, who is the representative of the rest of mankind, can there be clarity and therefore no escapes at all?
1:23:28 You understand my question now?
1:23:38 I won't escape through drugs, I won't escape through any profession, through sex, through anything, because there is nothing from which I am escaping.
1:23:52 Right? So, is this the reason why human beings have given such tremendous importance to sex?
1:24:11 A woman that has no children, to her, having a child is something tremendous and then she makes that into a tremendous problem.
1:24:31 And that is the only problem, everything else doesn't matter – I must have a child first.
1:24:39 So our life is dedicated to escape.
1:24:50 So are you doing that? We are digging together in this. So are you escaping, from your parents, etc.
1:25:17 If all this doesn't interest you, you are bored with it – some of you might be bored with all this beastly kind of stuff.
1:25:27 Why are you bored? – if you are bored. Why? Is it that you don't want to face this? Therefore, you say, for goodness sake, I am fed up with this. Talk about something else.
1:25:53 Are you? Is any of you bored with all this? Or are you so concerned that you are watching your hair curling?
1:26:19 To keep sex in its right place, is the art of living.
1:26:30 We said art means to put everything in its right place.
1:26:39 If you put everything in its right place, there is no escape. Even to put escape in its right place.
1:26:55 Of course, I am escaping from the noise of London.
1:27:04 Not escape. I won't use that word escape. It is obvious. Because, personally, I put everything in its right place, there is no problem.
1:27:30 So, then to give sex its right place, with all the emotion, tenderness, care, affection, if all that is involved in sex, then it has a right place.
1:27:48 But if it is an escape, it becomes colossally important.
1:27:56 Do you see this, at the end of an hour and a half?
1:28:04 Nationalism is an escape, obviously. God is the tremendous escape for mankind.
1:28:26 So, can we find out reasonably, logically, sanely and healthily, to put everything in its right place?
1:28:41 And you can do that only if you are able to observe without any distortion.
1:28:48 To observe your sex, your demand for pleasure, everything, to look at it without any bias, without any prejudice, without any direction, like a good scientist that observes.
1:29:11 So, we are going to observe ourselves, which, because we are so confused, because we are so uncertain, because we are in great conflict or misery, whatever it is we are – and from that we are escaping through that one channel – in order not to give it tremendous importance, I must understand the whole nature of my confusion.
1:29:44 That is clear, isn't it, now? We had better stop, it is one o'clock. So shall we, next time we meet, go into that?
1:30:03 Bene? We had better stop, don't you think? Are you all hungry? All right.