Krishnamurti - The difference between duty and responsibility

Krishnamurti Subtitles

BR77DSS2.6 - The difference between duty and responsibility
Brockwood Park, UK - 16 October 1977
Discussion with Staff and Students 2.6

0:20	Krishnamurti: What shall we talk about?
0:32	Questioner: Responsibility?
0:37	Q: Passion?
0:40	K: You want to discuss responsibility and passion.
0:47	Anything else?
0:51	Q: Love. K: Love?
0:54	Q: Can we talk about insight and thought?
0:59	K: I can't hear. Q: Insight and thought.
1:03	K: Insight and thought. I am sorry, I can't hear. You have to speak a little slowly and clearly because the acoustics are not very good here.
1:21	So, responsibility, passion, love, thought and insight.
1:44	Which shall we begin with, responsibility?
1:51	We talked the other day about being responsible.
2:02	One is responsible for something. Responsible to look after a dog or if you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a husband or wife, or you are responsible for cooking a proper meal or responsible for looking after the garden and so on.
2:30	You are responsible for something, for a person, for a thing or for an idea, an ideal for which you are responsible, and to see that you carry it out.
2:47	So, always responsible for something. Is there, in itself, the feeling of responsibility – not for something?
3:02	Responsible. Which includes, I think, responsible for everything – not only my children, my parents, my garden, my dog, my house, but responsible for the whole of humanity, for all human beings, for all living things, for all nature.
3:36	Do you feel anything of that kind? Responsible, not for something but responsibility, that feeling of it, that quality of inward...
4:05	– we will use the word 'feeling' for the time being – feeling you are responsible.
4:17	Do you have such a feeling?
4:29	You may feel responsible while you are here, for your room, responsible to see that you are punctual at meals, and so on.
4:46	And when you are at home do you feel responsible? Or do you leave it to your parents.
4:56	Responsible implies responding, reacting correctly to any challenge, to any happening.
5:08	To act correctly, which means truly, accurately.
5:19	I think that is the full meaning of that word 'responsible'.
5:29	I feel I am responsible while I am here, for everything that is happening here – how you are educated, what you eat, what you feel.
5:42	Not try to correct, not try to persuade – responsible. When I go to India, I feel the same thing – the various schools, when I talk, and so on.
5:54	Being responsible not for something but the quality of total feeling of doing the right thing at all times.
6:28	Not dependent on environment, not dependent on persuasion, etc.
6:38	– the feeling of total responsibility for all human beings.
6:49	Do you feel that? That can only come, I think, when one realises – sorry, are you getting bored with this?
7:00	You are sure? – I think that can only arise, naturally, when one realises that you are not a separate individual from the rest of the world because the world is you.
7:21	I wonder if you see that. Because you have your feelings, your hurts, your fears, your pleasures, your griefs, your sorrows, your affections, attachments – it is the same in every human being right throughout the world.
7:39	They are attached to their wives, to their property, to their little bank account, or attached to an idea, to a belief, to a God and so on.
7:50	Also, if you go to India or anywhere else, they have their griefs, their anxieties, their uncertainties, their confusion, and when you come here it is the same.
8:04	So you are the world, not you are an individual separate from everything else.
8:11	So when you have that feeling, that clarity of perception, from that arises a total responsibility.
8:32	Do you see this? At least, even verbally, do you understand this?
8:45	Or intellectually, or as an idea, a concept?
8:54	Do you see it? You can see the reason of it, you can see the logic of it, but the reason and logic are very, very limited.
9:12	But if you were beyond logic and reason and feel or come into contact with this reality, with this truth that you are the world.
9:32	Whatever you do affects the world because you are part of that stream.
9:40	Then when you come to feel that, from that naturally arises the strength of responsibility.
9:58	Which is, what we are really talking about is love or passion.
10:09	You want to go on with this?
10:12	Q: I think it is not clear that whatever I do affects the world.
10:23	K: If you think and act as a Frenchman, isolated, geographically within the boundaries of frontiers, both physically as well as psychologically, it does affect the world, doesn't it?
10:46	Q: Yes. But I am thinking of some action that I might do in private.
10:57	K: So are you dividing a private sector and public sector?
11:07	As the Labour Party and the Socialists talk about?
11:13	Q: In a sense, if I don't look after my dog properly, you see what I am trying to say? K: I understand, but are we dividing the private activities and public activities?
11:27	Or is it a total sense of activity in which there is no private and public or mine and yours – the feeling that you are the whole of human beings, the entire humanity, and you are the representative of that humanity?
11:53	Which is logically so, psychologically. When that is really perceived deeply, action is always, though it may be personal, is related to the whole.
12:14	I wonder if I am conveying anything at all.
12:18	Q: You are talking about it as a feeling, which makes it a concept or an abstraction.
12:23	K: Not a feeling – we will find the right word. What word would you use?
12:30	Q: I don't know.
12:35	K: I know I said for the time being we will use the word 'feeling'. So what word would you use? If you have that clarity how would you convey it to me verbally?
12:55	Go on.
13:04	You are an English teacher, come on.
13:13	Complete silence. But whatever word we use – feeling, insight, thought – you get the feeling of it.
13:29	Don't you see it? Don't you perceive the truth of this?
13:39	All right. If we say perceive, what do you mean by that word 'perceive'? Do you perceive it intellectually, verbally? Do you perceive it visually, optically?
13:55	All those are included, aren't they? You perceive by reading optically, you see France, England, British, French, insistent that I am British and you are French.
14:14	And that action is narrow, limited.
14:24	And when there is the perception of this truth that you are the entire humanity, psychologically, then from that flowers the feeling of total responsibility.
14:39	I can't put it any other way. Choose your own words to express it, but have we conveyed this to each other?
14:48	Have we? Right. Now, from that arises: what is love?
15:01	You asked that question, let's go into it: what is love?
15:10	Don't be shy of expressing it. Put it in your own words.
15:16	Q: Love is responsibility for someone else.
15:20	K: Responsibility for someone else. Is that love? I feel responsible for Whisper. I look after him, brush him, take him for a walk, feed him, etc.
15:43	Is that duty or responsibility?
15:46	Q: Responsibility.
15:48	K: Do you see the difference between duty and responsibility?
16:01	I must help my mother and father. I may turn that into a duty.
16:08	Q: As a debt. K: In that duty is there love? Find out, inquire, go into it with me.
16:24	It is your duty to the country to become a soldier in order to fight and kill.
16:32	Duty, for the crown, all the blah. Sorry.
16:39	All that is said about war, it is your duty to your country, to your God, to your king or whatever it is.
16:49	Is there love in that?
16:56	Q: Love for your country? K: No. I say no. When you use the word 'duty', as they do, it is your duty to become a soldier, all the implications of becoming a soldier, it is your duty when there is war, to kill.
17:22	In that duty, is their love?
17:29	I may be over simplifying it, but go into it. You can expand it, elaborate the whole thing. But where there is duty, and the implicit understanding in that duty is obedience, is there love?
18:01	Or love has its own responsibility and will act according to that love and responsibility?
18:09	If duty has no love, then it has no place in human communication.
18:22	Q: It seems that duty comes out because of a pressure you have. But when you are responsible you don't have any pressure.
18:30	K: That is right. All right. When there is duty there is the pressure of the environment, pressure of opinion, pressure of the recruiting officer, and so on.
18:48	Where there is responsibility, there is no pressure. So what does that mean? Go into it. When there is no pressure but yet there is responsibility, what is implied in that?
19:11	Q: It means that you are not acting out of fear, you are acting out of something else.
19:17	K: What does that mean? You are not acting out of fear, you are not acting out of duty, you are not acting from a personal prejudice personal conclusions, opinions.
19:39	So, what is that state of being which says, there is no pressure but only responsibility.
19:49	What is that state?
20:00	Q: It sounded like you were implying there that if a person is acting according to his personal wishes and personal likes and dislikes then they are not being responsible.
20:15	K: We said that the other day when we discussed this question of like and dislike, where it leads to.
20:22	We went into that very carefully. If you eliminate all that: like and dislike, duty, no pressure, and because there is no pressure there is responsibility – what is that state, what is that quality?
20:51	Q: You could say freedom. You are not caught in ideas.
20:56	K: All right. Freedom. Freedom from duty, freedom from like and dislike, freedom from pressure, persuasion, direction.
21:14	Persuasion means direction, doesn't it? I persuade you to do something because I have certain ideas, opinions, judgements, a direction, and I persuade you.
21:28	When there is persuasion, a direction, it becomes authority.
21:39	So put away all that: authority, like and dislike, persuasion, pressure, duty, then there is freedom – you say this – there is freedom.
21:54	And what is that state where there is no pressure of any kind, external or inward pressure.
22:11	You understand that state? Where there is no pressure from anybody – from society, from the priests, from religious gurus, all the rest of that circus that goes on, and you are completely free of pressure – are you?
22:36	Or are you discussing, theoretically?
22:39	Q: There is academic pressure, at least.
22:43	K: I include all that. All pressure means pressure of every kind.
22:50	Are we discussing, talking over together theoretically or factually?
23:00	Q: Could we talk about inward pressure?
23:03	K: Include that. Are you talking over together theoretically?
23:13	Yes. Shankar says, 'Yes'. Are you? Be clear. I won't even use the word 'honest'. Be clear. You are, aren't you? Q: Yes.
23:28	K: Then what is the point of talking over theoretically, hypothetically? What is the point of it? Q: I don't know.
23:36	K: Just for intellectual amusement?
23:43	Go on. Can't we talk over together factually? Are you under any pressure, outwardly or inwardly?
24:00	Q: I think we think that the pressure is necessary.
24:03	K: Is it? Who says pressure is necessary? Society may say that. Pressure being, you must pass certain examinations, A level, O level, and get a job – pressure.
24:18	Or there is a pressure from your parents. If your parent is an electronic expert he says, my son is going to... etc.
24:31	The whole propaganda business is pressure – buy this, don't buy that.
24:40	So, inwardly and outwardly are you under pressure?
24:48	If you are – I don't know if you are – do you see the consequences of being put under pressure?
25:07	Q: For that, wouldn't you have to understand what it is like to be without pressure?
25:11	K: No, that is a theory.
25:19	What is it like to be without pressure? You may not know, so don't speculate about it. What we do know is that we are under pressure. And do you see the consequences of pressure, the result of it, what happens to a human being who is constantly under pressure?
25:48	Pressure from his wife, from his girl, from her husband, boy, etc.
25:56	Q: You become more and more disorderly.
25:59	K: No, are you under pressure? Don't theorise.
26:02	Q: I am not theorising.
26:05	K: Are you under pressure? Q: Yes.
26:07	K: Do you see the consequences of it? Q: Yes.
26:12	Q: Getting more and more disordered with your thinking and actions.
26:18	K: In pressure, isn't there conflict?
26:21	Q: Yes.
26:22	K: The greater the pressure the greater the conflict, the greater the struggle to compete, etc.
26:29	The extreme form of pressure leads to neuroticism. Right? Q: Yes.
26:36	K: Are you under mild pressure therefore you are mildly neurotic?
26:43	Go on, investigate.
26:50	Q: Moderately neurotic?
26:54	K: Do you know you are moderately neurotic or it is just a theory?
27:01	Q: Up to a point, I think I see it.
27:07	K: Up to a point you see that you are under pressure and slightly neurotic.
27:14	Is that so? No. Don't use words and then slip out of it. First, find out.
27:23	Q: I don't understand what you mean by neurotic.
27:27	K: I mean by neurotic, doing things that you really don't want to do or doing things that you really want to do – both.
27:51	If you are under pressure and you see the consequences of being under pressure which is conflict, continuous conflict, trying to adjust yourself to a pattern, adjust yourself to your wife, to your husband, to your girl, to your boyfriend and so on – adjusting, adjusting all the time, which is constant strain.
28:22	Right? Do you see that? Do you see what happens to a mind that is under constant strain?
28:36	That you must do this, not do that, this is right, this is wrong, adjust yourself, don't be selfish, do be selfish – pressure, pressure, pressure.
28:48	You are in constant conflict. What happens to the mind that is in constant battle?
28:58	You have not been in the war. During the war, which lasted six years. Everybody was under constant pressure.
29:12	Which is what? What happens?
29:20	Go on, find out what happens if you are under constant pressure. Apparently, you are. At least, you say you are.
29:38	Don't you find yourself adjusting to something? To circumstances? Which means what? Why should you adjust yourself?
29:56	If one lives in a society that is very traditional or very patriotic, very exclusive, what happens?
30:09	You are adjusting yourself. What goes on in the state of your mind? Discover it for yourself, I don't have to tell you. What happens? Ultimately, you have heart failure, don't you? No? Right? That is the ultimate expression of it.
30:44	So, can you be free of pressure? Is it possible? Pressure from outside or pressure from inside, that you must be like somebody or that you must be this, that you must be that.
31:06	Which means to have no conflict and no strain.
31:17	You know, you are doing yoga, some of you are doing it.
31:27	When you do yoga, the various forms of breathing exercise, the real yogi doesn't make effort at all, of any kind.
31:41	He does the movements very, very slowly. It may take a week, it may take a month, but no effort.
31:53	Right? In spite of Ms Diana. I have been told by a top guru of these people that yoga implies a state of mind in which all effort, in breathing, exercise, is avoided, totally.
32:24	Because when you strain, you develop muscles. Yoga is not muscular cultivation, on the contrary.
32:38	So, that is one direction, and the other is, in our relationships we are making constant effort, we adjust to each other.
32:48	If you are girl, I am adjusting because I don't want to hurt you, you don't want to hurt me, so we are very polite to each other – adjusting, adjusting.
33:01	So, when there is constant strain and effort and pressure, is there love?
33:17	Go on. I like you, that is my pressure, therefore, I am adjusting myself to you.
33:29	Come on, you know all this. Don't you? Good. Is there love under pressure?
33:47	So, if there is no pressure and you feel a total responsibility, not duty, then what is that state?
34:02	Don't theorise, that is the worst thing to do.
34:09	All the philosophers, all the pundits, they all do this. That destroys truth if you theorise, you will never find truth.
34:22	If you take factually that you are the world and the world is you, and the realisation of that brings responsibility.
34:37	In responsibility, there is no pressure. What is that? Isn't that love?
34:50	I am using the word temporarily to convey that state of mind that is under no pressure, under no feeling of duty, the activity of must, must not, and so on and so on.
35:13	Would you call that love? In which there is total responsibility – not, I love you and therefore I am responsible to you, and I don't care for the rest.
35:38	Q: But following logically through that, you are the world and the world is you, then the world is under pressure.
35:48	K: No. The world is you. So you are under pressure.
35:57	K: You are the world and the world is you. Right? The world is under pressure, therefore you are under pressure. Of course. So can you be free of pressure?
36:24	You wanted to know what love is, rather, you wanted to talk about love. Talk about it. Don't be silent and after ask the question, find out. Don't let me investigate, go into it, and you just listen and go to sleep.
36:46	You wanted to know, or you wanted to talk about love. So I say, is love duty? When there is duty, the very word denies love.
37:06	Right? You are my mother, therefore it is my duty to look after you.
37:18	That word is a dreadful word.
37:26	So, would you call that state love?
37:36	Or is love only limited to sex, to pleasure?
37:43	Go on.
37:51	As the world accepts it now, it is pleasure. Right? Which is desire. I desire sex, therefore I love, etc. So you have to question, is love desire, pleasure?
38:26	Go on.
38:29	Q: No. K: Ah, theory?
38:33	K: No, is it theory?
38:36	Q: Well, I am thinking about it, so I guess it is theory.
38:40	K: Stick to it. Don't ever think speculatively. Deal with things actually as it is with you.
38:53	If my love is based on sex and pleasure and the remembrance of incidents, etc., is that love?
39:02	Question it. Don't say it is or it is not. Question it, explore it, find out.
39:11	Q: It is pressure.
39:17	K: Pressure. All right. Are you under pressure?
39:22	Q: Yes. K: Then you see the consequences of it?
39:25	K: What happens when you are under pressure, conflict? Trying to adjust yourself, trying to conform, trying to obey.
39:41	In all that there is a duality, isn't there? The fact and what you must be. So there is conflict, isn't there? If you live in that state of continuous conflict for the rest of your life, what is going to happen to you?
40:04	Q: Misery.
40:07	K: So, if you see the whole consequence of being under pressure, if you see it – not only visually, optically, but observe it, feel it, sense it, taste it – then won't you be out of it?
40:31	Say, no, I will not live under any pressure, including my own pressures.
40:41	Can you do it? You may not, because you are young, therefore you don't understand the whole complexity of this problem.
40:50	Q: One point is: I might think that without pressure I don't know what to do.
40:55	K: First be free of pressure and then you will find out. You are already entering into the field of theory – I don't know what to do. If I have no pressure, I don't know what to do. But you are not. So find out what is the action in which there is no pressure.
41:18	Which means, be free of pressure and then you will find out.
41:24	Q: Could we go more into what is pressure, what is the origin of pressure?
41:28	K: We have been into it. Pressure from parents, pressure from society, pressure of every kind.
41:36	Q: But then you say there is a possibility of feeling this pressure and also not feeling it. How is that?
41:41	K: See it, first. Do you see you are under pressure? Q: Yes.
41:47	K: Do you find out why? This applies to all of us.
41:54	Q: I have various ideas about what should be.
41:58	K: Yes. How does it come about that you have concepts, ideas, etc., – why does it happen?
42:12	Have they been imposed on you or have you cultivated them to escape from the actual?
42:30	Q: When you are dissatisfied with what is.
42:35	K: Why are you dissatisfied with what is? No, go into it, don't stop there, find out why you are dissatisfied or discontent with what is.
42:49	You can only be dissatisfied or discontent when you are comparing what is with something else.
42:58	Are you? Aren't you? Now, take that. What is the consequence of comparison?
43:10	You are always comparing. Try to become a better politician than the present politicians or become a politician like Gladstone or Disraeli or one of the greats.
43:25	If you want to be a politician. I hope you don't. Or you want to be a first class engineer. Again, what is the consequence of comparison?
43:40	Isn't there imitation in it?
43:47	Isn't there an example that you are following?
43:54	So you are competing with yourself to be like that, so there is a battle going on, isn't there?
44:04	You see the consequence of strife, struggle, conflict in yourself, don't you? What happens?
44:11	God, you must be exhausted at the age of twelve!
44:25	So, can you live without pressure, can you live without comparison? Which means no conflict, no struggle, compete, example, copy, imitation.
44:40	Can you? You will if you see the total consequences of pressure or comparison.
44:58	It is natural – when you see something very dangerous, you don't touch it. When you see a bottle marked 'Poisonous', you don't go and drink it, unless you have something wrong with you.
45:14	Unless you want to commit suicide. But none of us want to commit suicide, therefore when you see a bottle marked 'Poison', you don't drink it. You don't have to be told.
45:29	You don't experiment with it. You would be gone. So in the same way, can you see the immense danger of pressure and conflict and comparison?
45:47	Don't get bored with it yet.
45:51	Q: Frode asked about the origin of pressure.
45:58	K: The beginning of pressure?
46:00	Q: Yes. You mentioned that external circumstances is a part of it.
46:05	K: Begin from the outer and then work from the outer to the inner.
46:10	Q: Yes, I was thinking of an example. Say with examinations, if you take an examination, it puts a pressure on you.
46:24	K: I may want to pass A level and O level because I want to get a job. To me that matters very much. I accept it. I will work for it. I will struggle for it. And you may say, how absurd. I can read books and so on, I don't have to pass exams.
46:48	You may be under a different kind of pressure, and I may be under another kind of pressure.
46:56	We are talking of pressure altogether, not exams or belief and so on.
47:04	Pressure – you understand? Is this difficult? So, proceed from there. Don't let's go back again.
47:21	If you say, I really don't understand, for goodness sake explain, we will go into it.
47:29	So can you live without any kind of pressure, without any kind of struggle, comparison, pressure, duty, all that?
47:45	Find out. Don't accept it – that is all. Don't accept that you must live under pressure.
47:57	Then your life becomes an appalling struggle, an ugly thing.
48:05	Find out. Also, if you are under no pressure and you see that you are the world and world is you and therefore total responsibility, then invariably from that you ask, what is love, then?
48:27	They talk a great deal about it in books and the cinema, – everybody is talking about it.
48:38	Then find out what is love. Is love duty?
48:48	Is love pressure? Is love comparing? 'I love you more than that person.'
49:01	Q: We already established that when there is duty and pressure there is no love.
49:10	K: So find out. Then don't use the word, 'love'. Right? Don't convey to me a totally wrong impression that you love me, when you are under pressure.
49:35	And if you are seeking pleasure sexually or otherwise, is that love?
49:50	So, when you find out for yourself, not theoretically but actually, in daily life, with facts not with suppositions, with hypotheses and speculations, then out of that comes tremendous passion – which you wanted to know about.
50:14	How can I have passion if I am under pressure? Sounds so ridiculous.
50:30	Is there passion when I follow duty?
50:40	Is there passion when I am really remembering the pleasure and then pursuing it?
50:48	Is that passion?
51:01	You see, what is important in this is not to accept anything from the speaker, from me, or from anybody, but to investigate it, go into it, examine, explore for yourself and live a life in which there is no pressure.
51:31	If you say, tell me a method which will help me to be free of pressure, the method becomes the pressure, doesn't it?
51:44	No? What do you say? Q: Yes.
51:53	K: So, what will you do? If you abandon systems, methods, if you put that aside, you are free of one pressure, aren't you?
52:05	Begin, go into it that way. If you follow somebody and you feel very comfortable and he encourages you, says, my dear chap you are doing very well, you will reach nirvana or heaven or illumination in about two years, that is also a pressure.
52:27	And the priest comes along and tells you, you must have faith in God because you are suffering, etc.
52:34	If you have faith in God everything will be all right. That is a form of pressure. No? And your mother or father says, darling, do this for my sake. Become an artist, when I haven't. I wanted to be an artist, I failed in it, but you become an artist, darling, you have got the capacity – that is a pressure.
53:05	So can you move away from the whole field of pressure. Find out. Not say, please tell me how to get out of it. If I tell you – you get it? – then I become the pressure.
53:32	So can you, seeing all this, seeing what it means to be responsible – not for my country, for my dog, for my husband – the quality of responsibility.
53:55	Obviously, when there is such responsibility, there is no duty.
54:05	I am not responsible because you tell me or because you are my mother or my husband or my wife or my girlfriend and I have to look after you, it is a duty.
54:19	– how can I leave you, It is my responsibility. You follow?
54:27	I leave you and take on another girl, and I feel responsible. In fact, I don't feel responsible. I am pursuing my own particular pleasure. No?
54:46	Q: It seems that responsibility is something much wider, because when you say, I have a duty, it is very limited to one thing.
54:56	So for example, if it is your duty to go to war, but you don't have this feeling of duty, but responsibility, then you say, it is my responsibility to humanity not to do it.
55:11	So it is much more ranging over the whole.
55:14	K: Now, do you feel that? Do you realise it? Not just words.
55:39	Most of us, because we are under great strain, conflict, struggle, pressure, we lose passion.
55:53	We may have lust. Lust is different from passion.
56:05	I lust after a woman. Lusting – don't you know what it means?
56:13	Q: No.
56:24	K: I want something. I may want sex, and I seek it, I pursue it, I twist everything for me to get what I want – generally, sexual.
56:49	That is called lust. I think that also, probably that word may include lusting after becoming a president of this country, or the ambition, the drive, the feeling, the state which says, I must fulfil my sexual desires, or any form of desire.
57:25	What do you say, Mr Joe?
57:36	So, what shall we do now? We have talked really very, very seriously. There is another point I would like to discuss. Are you serious?
57:55	You know what that word means? In that word is included being humorous, having laughter, enjoying everything, but basically, inwardly, very, very serious.
58:16	Not serious about something. I am very serious, I want to pass an exam and get a job.
58:28	I may be very serious. That is one kind of seriousness. Or I may think I am God, I am dreadfully serious about it, I am loony.
58:40	I may think I am Napoleon and – you follow?
58:49	So are you serious? Not trying to become something but just being serious.
59:04	Are you? You are not?
59:08	Q: There is the implication of becoming something very strongly.
59:12	K: I said that may be serious. You might want to become a governor of something or other, or the minister, or a businessman, and be serious about it.
59:25	Haven't you noticed some lunatics, demented people, they are dreadfully serious.
59:33	They insist, insist, insist to have their desire fulfilled.
59:44	They are too serious. A man in illusion saying there is God or there is Jesus, there is this, there is that – that is a form of illusion – and believing it most profoundly and seriously.
59:55	All Christendom is based on that.
59:59	Q: But is that being serious?
1:00:02	K: That is a part of seriousness. There are also people who are very, very caught in a certain concept, like the communists and so on, the totalitarian people, they are dreadfully serious.
1:00:21	They are serious enough to send you to a concentration camp.
1:00:29	So are you like that? We pointed out the seriousness of a demented person – slightly, not slightly, completely gone, mentally – but he feels that he is Napoleon or he feels that he is God, he feels that he has a great message, a conclusion to give to humanity and he is very, very serious about it.
1:00:59	He gives up everything, goes around the world and knocks on every door and everybody says, for God's sake, get out.
1:01:07	So he is very serious. And the man who is deeply committed to Catholicism, communism or some kind of -ism, he is dreadfully serious.
1:01:19	They have burned people, they have sent people away because they believe in this.
1:01:28	It may be wrong, it may be crooked, it may be cruel, it may be obnoxious, it may be terrible, everything, but they are serious.
1:01:36	Right? Are you serious in all these directions?
1:01:46	Or are you merely serious? You understand my question?
1:01:57	Because if you are serious then it becomes great fun to go into everything, but if you are slightly serious, superficial, then there is no point in it.
1:02:16	So, you have to find out if you are serious about something.
1:02:24	Like a man who is demented, he is serious. Like a man or a woman who has got certain ideas, certain concepts, certain beliefs, and he is serious about those beliefs.
1:02:37	A man who wants to become the president of a company, he works his way up the ladder and is very, very, very serious.
1:02:49	Right? Are you serious like that? In that manner?
1:03:11	Because if you are serious in that manner it is a very superficial affair.
1:03:22	But if you are serious in a different sense, you can dig very, very, very deeply, if you want to.
1:03:36	So you have to find out for yourself if you want to live a superficial life, a worldly life, etc., or you want to live a serious life which would also mean that you are occupied with the world but not entirely of it.
1:03:57	You understand what I mean? Oh, for goodness sake! Come on, Shankar.
1:04:03	Q: But it is something hypothetical to me.
1:04:05	K: No. Find out, I said. In that, there is no hypothesis. I said, find out – am I serious? I have included in that seriousness laughter, amusement, enjoyment.
1:04:24	Q: What about energy? K: You have plenty of energy K: if you are not expending it on becoming something.
1:04:32	You have got tremendous energy. More than the man who says, I am going to become a scientist, a bishop or the pope.
1:04:51	So I am asking you, find out for yourself if you are serious.
1:05:07	Don't tell me that you are or you are not. I am not asking. I am saying find out, explore, see the consequences of not being serious.
1:05:23	If you want to play guitar, play it seriously.
1:05:31	Q: But you just pointed out the danger of being serious toward something.
1:05:35	K: Be that, find out.
1:05:43	K: Find out. You may not want to be serious about any of these things. You may not, or you may be serious about one of these things.
1:05:56	Q: But isn't that a dangerous thing, if nothing else, for other people, K: I said, find out.
1:06:07	Find out if you become a serious communist, what is implied in it.
1:06:18	Or if you want to be serious about something, what is implied in it? Say you play guitar and you become very serious about it, what is the state of your mind that is occupied entirely with one thing?
1:06:35	Or with one set of beliefs, like the communists, they have belief in certain things, a set of things.
1:06:48	He is committed, he is totally serious – what happens to such a man?
1:06:58	And because he is so dreadfully serious – and if you are not, he is going to do something to you, send you to a concentration camp, destroy, liquidate you – because he believes in it so strongly.
1:07:14	The Roman Church, you know all the history of it, which is, they burned people, because they were serious.
1:07:30	They tortured people in the name of Jesus, etc.
1:07:37	So find out for yourself if you are serious about all these things – serious about getting married, having a house, children.
1:08:00	Find out, don't say it is wrong, right, it is good or bad – inquire. And that inquiry makes you more profoundly serious.
1:08:14	But if you accept everybody marries, so I must marry. Or the latest fashion is nobody marries, everybody lives with each other – find out.
1:08:35	You see, out of all this – what comes out of all this?
1:08:46	We have discussed responsibility, we have talked about love, except the state of insight and thought – you raised the question – what is thought, what is insight? We haven't dealt with it.
1:09:07	We will presently. We have got 20 minutes more. What comes out of this? You understand my question? We have talked about responsibility, discussed it, went into it. We talked about passion, we talked about love, pressure, conformity, duty.
1:09:37	When you see all this clearly, when you see this objectively and also inwardly, what comes out of that?
1:09:59	And then we talked a little bit about seriousness. You have dug the soil, when you dig deeply in the earth it has got certain smell, a certain scent.
1:10:19	So what is the scent you have after digging?
1:10:38	Aren't you more intelligent? Aren't you? More clear? Are you? Don't theorise, either you are or you are not. Don't pretend.
1:11:04	And also, you asked that question: what is insight and what is thought. Didn't you, sir? Shall we go into that? Would you like to go into it?
1:11:20	You know what thought is, don't you? We said the origin of thought, the beginning of thought is when the brain, like a tape recorder, registers.
1:11:40	Right? The brain registers an incident, a happening, and from that happening there are certain thoughts arising.
1:12:01	Do you see that? You have registered as a Hindu, as a Brahmin, and from that registration there are certain reactions, certain thoughts.
1:12:18	So, the beginning of thought is the fact of registration.
1:12:30	Like a computer which has being programmed because it has been informed, told, etc., therefore it always responds, gives you the answer according to its registration.
1:12:47	Right? That is simple, isn't it? Right, let's proceed. So, the beginning of thought is registration, which is memory, which is the accumulated knowledge of thousands of years of humanity, as inherited, all the rest of it.
1:13:11	So, all that is registration and from that, the movement of thought.
1:13:21	I don't think anybody can deny this, even the most clever brain specialist.
1:13:30	This is a fact. Let's proceed from there. Thought arising from the past, registration is the past.
1:13:50	Just go with me, understand verbally even, then we will come to it later. Registration means remembering what has happened, stored in the brain, and that registration when challenged responds as thought.
1:14:18	You can observe it in yourself. There has been an incident, a car accident, or some kind of happy or unhappy incident which is immediately registered.
1:14:36	Then thought arises, and thinking about it.
1:14:43	Then thought says, there is a 'me' which is different from the thought.
1:14:57	Have you noticed that? I am different from the registration.
1:15:10	Haven't you noticed it? No? Come on, Shankar. You must be tired today.
1:15:31	So, division takes place when I am different from thought.
1:15:39	That is why you try to control your thought, you try to control your anger, or you try to suppress jealousy, thinking that you are different from jealousy.
1:15:59	But you are that, aren't you? You are jealousy. When you are angry is your anger different from you?
1:16:12	Go on. You are that, aren't you? But thought, you see, has done a clever and illusory thing – it says, thought is fragmented, moving, changing, but as thought is constantly in momentum, flux, there must be something that is permanent.
1:16:41	So, thought says 'me' – which is the product of thought – is different from that.
1:16:49	You get it? Do you understand this? So thought has built the 'me' – the name, the form, the qualities, the nationality, blah, blah, blah – and that says, this is permanent but anger is impermanent, is not 'me'.
1:17:14	So, it does something about anger – suppresses it, rationalises it, escapes from it and so on.
1:17:24	So there is a division created by thought. Because thought itself is limited, it is the outcome of registration, it is the outcome of the past.
1:17:41	Do you follow this? So it is limited. And this limited thought says, I will explore the universe, I will explore the eternal, I will explore the nameless, God.
1:17:57	Because it says, I have created God. I will explore what I have created.
1:18:10	Thought is fragmentary, thought is limited, thought is time-binding, thought is the outcome of registration, which is the past.
1:18:22	Now, can thought have an insight?
1:18:30	You follow all this? Insight being – I will go into it with you if you will follow it carefully – insight being what the word implies: to have a sight in something.
1:18:57	To have a sight, an understanding, an observation, without conclusion into, say for instance, the danger of a precipice.
1:19:12	You have an insight, there.
1:19:18	Q: But when you are doing something that is slightly less obvious, then you have this self-deception that this danger does not apply to you, it applies to everyone else.
1:19:27	K: Of course, that is part of the trick of thought. He asked me, what is insight and what is thought.
1:19:41	We said, thought is all this – registration, all that – but thought is limited, isn't it?
1:19:53	It is fragmentary. You see why it is fragmentary? Because it is based on a past memory, past registration, therefore it is limited.
1:20:09	Insight is not limited, because it has nothing to do with thought.
1:20:17	I have an insight into the whole organisation of the Church, of Catholicism, with all its beliefs, with all its dogmas, with all its absurdities, with the rituals, with its worship of personality – which Jesus may have existed or not – you have an insight into the whole structure of authority.
1:20:44	Which is not the rationalisation of thought, the reasoning of thought.
1:20:55	I wonder, am I making this more confusing?
1:21:03	I have an insight into the whole structure of authority. What does that mean? I see instantly what authority is, what is the result of authority.
1:21:18	See it completely, which is not possible if I merely rationalise, examine, investigate thoughtfully, reasonably, logically into the whole nature of authority.
1:21:38	That will lead me to a conclusion which is again partial, limited, because it is the result of thought.
1:21:47	Whereas insight is not limited because it is not the product of thought.
1:21:54	There is insight only when the thought is in abeyance, is not functioning, for the moment.
1:22:01	From insight, you can reason, then it will be logical, sane, rational.
1:22:08	But if you reason, logically, it may lead you quite wrongly, because it is partial.
1:22:17	Oh, come on. Have you understood this somewhat?
1:22:24	Q: You are making it too black and white. Surely, registration has a place in this insight, like when you say you have an insight into the Catholic Church, you have registered certain things about the Church.
1:22:36	K: No. Say, for instance – I won't go into personal history – there was an insight into the whole organisation of a religion.
1:22:48	Separate. Therefore you abandoned that. If you logically followed it, I can logically say: well, this is very comfortable, I will be the head of it, I will have plenty of money, I will have a position, people will worship me – that will logically lead to.
1:23:07	But when there is an insight, you abandon all that.
1:23:15	Q: I think Shankar was suggesting that you obviously can't have an insight into organised religion, let's say, unless you have... K: Thought about it.
1:23:25	K: No, I didn't think about it. You have got it wrong.
1:23:29	Q: Or heard people talk about it.
1:23:31	Q: I didn't say think about it, I said register certain facts around religion.
1:23:38	You see that people go to church on Sundays.
1:23:43	K: That is deduction, isn't it? Deducing from facts, deducing from knowledge, deducing from talking over, seeing.
1:23:57	Those are all deductions, aren't they? Deduction has nothing to do with insight.
1:24:04	Q: No, but I am not suggesting that the insight is deductive, or through deduction...
1:24:20	A baby doesn't have insight into the structure of organised religion.
1:24:23	K: No, you. You are not a baby. Mary Zimbalist: Isn't it some prior knowledge of the subject? Are you implying that there has to be some prior knowledge of the subject before you can consider.
1:24:40	K: You must have knowledge about the thing before you have an insight? I say no.
1:24:52	K: The sequence of deduction leads to certain conclusions.
1:25:02	I conclude after examination, talking over, observing, reading, that any organised religion is a factor of division.
1:25:15	Right? I have concluded, I have examined, I have observed, I have talked, I have read, I have talked to the priests.
1:25:26	That is, after careful examination, logically, sanely I hope, I have come to a conclusion that all Churches are divisive processes.
1:25:42	Divide people. Now, is there perception without going through this process?
1:25:57	Without examining, analysing, deducting, etc.
1:26:02	Q: I am not suggesting analysing or any of that sort of thing. Say, technical knowledge. You know when you see a building that it is called a church. Not that you analyse and string together a series of arguments based on those facts. But you know that there are those facts there and then maybe you see something about that.
1:26:26	K: No, sorry, this has to be gone into very carefully.
1:26:31	MZ: I think there is a misunderstanding.
1:26:38	One has to have certain factual knowledge about the thing, whatever it is, organised religion or something else. One has to know what one is talking about.
1:26:47	K: There are two things involved. Either I can lead my life logically, sanely, reasonably, after observing, examining, exploring, tracing, come to a conclusion and live according to that conclusion.
1:27:10	Just look at it. There is the other way, which is, no conclusion at all but direct insight.
1:27:22	For that you say you must have technical knowledge of outer things.
1:27:29	Of course, for outer things you have to, but for a life in which there is no conflict, blah, all that stuff, it is possible only when there is insight into the whole structure.
1:27:44	Q: But is that insight into having observed a certain set of facts?
1:27:49	K: No. I know what are trying to say. Don't say I am not understanding, I understand. You observe facts. Right? Anger, that is a fact. Jealousy, fact. Fear, fact. You observe that and through observation you have an insight.
1:28:15	You are saying that, aren't you? I say no. I may be cuckoo, but find out. I may be talking nonsense but find out. Let me put it this way. There are two types of learning. One, through action. I act, and from that acting, I learn.
1:28:54	And there is the other: I learn without acting and then from learning, act.
1:29:03	Do you see this clearly?
1:29:11	I learn from books, from technical books or arithmetic, etc., and from that knowledge, from that background, I act.
1:29:26	There is the other, which is, I act, and through action learn.
1:29:36	I don't know anything electronics and as I play with it, I learn.
1:29:44	There are these two types, so-called different types, but they are not. Just listen to me quietly for two minutes. One says, learn first and then act.
1:29:59	The other says, like Mao and others, go out, in acting, learn.
1:30:08	You see this clearly? Aren't they both the same? Listen carefully, I am asking you a serious question. Aren't they both the same? Because they are both, at the end, acting from knowledge.
1:30:31	Right? Do you see this? Do see it, first. Don't question it. I am telling you a story, first listen to it. There is a whole group of people who say learn first and then act.
1:30:54	Learn all about engineering, mathematics, various pressures in mathematics, then act.
1:31:02	Then you will act because you have become an engineer, because you have learned. The other says go out and act and then learn from action.
1:31:19	Both of them depend on knowledge. Right? Is this clear? Oh, come on. Now, what makes you see that they are both the same?
1:31:38	Q: Thinking about it. K: Wait. You didn't reason.
1:31:42	Q: What? K: Don't argue, listen first.
1:31:48	K: You are ready to argue. Don't argue. Wait. Gee Willikins! Just listen first.
1:31:58	How difficult for all of you to listen first. You are going on with your own thoughts, don't. First, listen to what the poor chap has to say. One says learn, act. The other says, act, from action learn.
1:32:20	Then the two result in having knowledge and acting from knowledge.
1:32:27	Though they think they are separate, they are acting from knowledge. That is all I am saying. Listen quietly. You see this, acting from knowledge, they are acting, then knowledge, so they are both – I am going to ask you a question, carefully listen – they are both functioning from knowledge.
1:32:52	You see that, don't you?
1:32:59	The seeing of it is insight, isn't it? We haven't discussed it, we haven't explored it, we haven't rationalised it.
1:33:10	Q: Yes. K: Wait, just listen first.
1:33:13	Q: Yes, I see the bridge now between the two. The technical knowledge that I was saying, that insight into it would not be possible if I did not know the English language.
1:33:30	K: All right, I see what you mean. You and I have English knowledge. Both of us speak English. So, I am using English words to communicate what I want to tell you. Of course.
1:33:46	Q: Yes, there is some technical knowledge.
1:33:48	K: That is understood. Q: OK, it was a misunderstanding.
1:33:53	K: If I spoke Greek, you would say, what the devil are you talking about?
1:34:00	But since I am speaking English, and you and I both understand English, because both of us know what the words mean and so on, we take that for granted.
1:34:13	Right? You understand what I am saying. It is time for lunch – you understand that. If I said it in French or Latin, you wouldn't understand it. We both of us understand English, that is understood. So, I am telling you in English, not in French, in English, that there are these two supposed systems.
1:34:38	One says learn first and then act, the other says act, and through action learn.
1:34:49	I have conveyed a meaning in English. Now I say, these two imply acting ultimately, from knowledge.
1:35:04	That is all I have said. Do you have an insight? Seeing that is insight. Therefore, you say there must be different way of acting which is not from learning acting, or acting and learning.
1:35:27	Have you understood this? Do you get this? That is insight. To capture that is insight. Not what will happen if you don't do these two, but to see that both of them ultimately come to the same thing, which is functioning from knowledge.
1:35:53	I am taking that as an example.
1:36:01	Phew!
1:36:11	So insight implies you look at the problem without any conclusion, without any opinion, without any judgement.
1:36:22	Then you can see the fullness of that problem. But if you come to it with an opinion, you have already decided. So, insight demands great freedom to look.
1:36:40	You are not free when you have conclusions, knowledge, etc. Right? That is enough for this morning. Lunch time.