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BR78DSS1.5 - Why do we make sex into a problem?
Brockwood Park, UK - 19 June 1978
Discussion with Staff and Students 1.5



0:19 Krishnamurti: I didn't ask for this meeting. You asked me, so I am here. So what do you suggest that I talk over, or rather we talk over together?
0:51 Silence. So, may I begin then? May I?
1:04 I had a letter yesterday – I think it was yesterday or the day before – which was left at my door, asking about the various difficulties and problems that lie in the whole question of sex.
1:37 There were several pages of it, very well written, in excellent English. I thought it was written by a man but it was signed by a student.
1:50 And I thought, with your permission, that we would talk about it.
1:57 Is that all right? Do you want to talk about that?
2:06 Apart from the student who wrote it, do you all want to talk it over together, quite simply?
2:23 What do you say? Or have you some other thing to talk about?
2:32 Questioner: Also, in the last student meeting that we had, we finished up with something we might continue talking about later, and that was the confusion that we have had about the self.
2:52 K: I have forgottenabout it, what was it?
2:55 Q: The confusion about the self.
2:58 Q: The self, the me.

K: Oh, the self. You want to talk about that?
3:04 Q: I would like to talk about what is in the letter.
3:11 Q: About the letter.
3:14 Q: The letter.
3:18 K: The letter. You want to talk about the letter, do you? Do you all want to talk about the letter? You shrug your shoulders. What am I to do? Do you want to talk about it or not?
3:38 Q: Yes.

K: Good.
3:59 K: I would like to ask, if I may, why we separate sex from everything else, why we make a problem of it, or why we indulge in it or we try to avoid it, or we try to suppress it, or we try to invite it.
4:29 Why do we separate it from the whole question of living, which involves so many things, which we will talk about presently, why do we make this question more important or exclusive or different from all the others?
4:53 You understand my question?
5:02 I hope the writer is here.
5:17 So please, let's talk it over quietly, why we don't give equal importance to be totally free of fear.
5:35 Why we don't give equal importance to find out the nature of attachment and be free from it.
5:50 Or why we carry with us all through life certain memories, certain insults, hurts, pain?
6:04 Why don't we give to all those equal importance?
6:13 Why do we give importance to this one thing? Come on, sirs. Talk it over.
6:30 Is it that this letter, which inquires into the problem of sex, involves a great amount of pleasure, and so pleasure dominates everything else?
7:00 Pleasure becomes more important than fear, more important than attachment, more important than sorrow, more important than good relationship, and so on.
7:27 Come on, sirs, dig into it.
7:34 I am not using that American phrase 'dig it' but I am using the word 'dig' in the sense, let us explore it.
7:55 Is it that we cannot face all these problems while we are very young, and therefore we put those aside and stick to the one problem that seems to be imminent, that is very strong?
8:21 While we are very young, all the glandular business.
8:50 There are several problems involved, several questions involved in it. The modern generation invites sex – you see it in the cinemas, pictures, all that goes on.
9:12 Why is society encouraging all this? That is, the environment. Do you notice that? Why? In the Victorian, the Edwardian period, they did it all behind doors and kept it very quiet, as they do somewhat in India.
9:49 Is it a release, a reaction to the Victorian, protestant taboo about sex?
10:06 Is that reaction which makes us give such importance to it?
10:23 Or is it natural, at a certain age, to be so involved in it?
10:45 Please, don't be bored by this question.
11:01 Can we give sex its right place and include all the other issues of our life?
11:20 Is that possible? Not make any one issue as something tremendously important. They are all important, but we have a tendency, apparently, to make this thing or another issue as the most important, give it great exaggeration, exaggerate it beyond measure.
12:14 Do we, as girls or boys – girls especially – invite it?
12:26 We dress in a particular way to be attractive. Not that I am against being attractive. Do we do it consciously, purposely, or even unconsciously, to encourage, to be extraordinarily attractive?
12:48 We may be unconsciously or deliberately inviting attention.
13:06 Are you interested in all this?
13:11 Q: I know that my main problem regarding sex is trying to deny it.
13:19 I try to deny that I have any feelings of that sort.
13:26 K: You deny it?
13:28 Q: Deny it, suppress it, get rid of it, control it.
13:31 K: You deny it, suppress it, put it underground and tread on it?
13:39 And it comes out at the other end, like a toothpaste.
13:55 Does that solve the problem? They have tried that, the various monks and the various countries have taken a vow of celibacy and they must go through hell all their life.
14:19 I know a great a many monks who have talked to me, they are burning inside and hold on to their vow at any cost.
14:35 So my question is, after observing all this, some people denying, suppressing, go to extreme forms of self-denial and abstinence, they do most extraordinary things, torturing themselves.
15:05 We are speaking of facts – I know several of them who have gone to such extremes.
15:13 I won't go into details but it has been a torture to them.
15:22 And there are those others who indulge in it, they say that is the only thing that is important in life.
15:30 It gives you the greatest pleasure, greatest sense of self-importance, a fulfilment, and so on.
15:39 And that is encouraged by parents.
15:50 Some of the analysts in America have said to me that girls of 12, 13, when they have no boyfriends their mothers feel there is something wrong with them.
16:04 You understand all this?
16:12 Child marriage, at one time in India, was prohibited, but now apparently it is encouraged.
16:22 Not marriage but sexual relationship. There are those others who consider sex as a means of release to higher things.
16:42 I don't know if you know about that. Probably, you don't. Just as well. There are a whole group of sects in India and other parts of world where sex is regarded as a means to higher consciousness, whatever that may mean.
17:02 So, there is every type of sexual expression, sexual denial, and renunciation of every form of pleasure.
17:21 There are those sannyasis, monks, who will not eat a separate dish.
17:30 They mix it all up, so that they don't taste a particular dish because it might give you pleasure, and therefore, be careful.
17:48 Seeing all this, observing all this, as you must, if you are educated, if you are at all inquiring, if you have looked around, why do human beings behave this way?
18:14 Why do we go from one extreme of sexual permissiveness, to the other, total restraint?
18:31 So, when you see all this, what is your reaction to it, each one's reaction to this?
18:45 I wish you would discuss this thing with me, not let me talk to myself or to you.
18:56 Q: Aren't they both forms of violence, Krishnaji?
19:00 K: Yes, it is a subtle form of violence. You understand? That is a subtle form of violence. I must have that pleasure, under any circumstances.
19:19 Which is the same form as the terrorists who for an ideal will kill, or just for some idea of a revolution, destroy people.
19:37 So that is also a subtle form of violence, all this. So, let us look at it. What is your reaction? Please, you are all probably sufficiently grown up to find out for yourself.
19:54 When you observe all this, what is your reaction to it? To sex, to fear, to relationship, to hate, to sorrow, to this terrible world that is going on around us?
20:15 Q: I think it is interesting that almost no matter what it is, I either try to control it, push it away or indulge in it.
20:25 Almost in anything, I am either going for it or going against it.
20:32 K: Why do you suppress it?
20:35 Q: I think I shouldn't be that way.
20:37 K: Or why do you indulge in it? There are these two extremes. Why? I wish you would discuss with me.
20:52 And why have we given this one thing such tremendous importance?
21:00 Look at on every television, cinema, what is going on there – the cabarets, the Folies Bergere, etc. – in the whole gamut of human existence, this predominates over money, over war. Right, sir?
21:30 What is your reaction? Because you are going to face all this. Not immediately now perhaps, but when you leave here, go to college, or if you don't, you are going to face all this.
21:50 It is going to knock on your door.
22:09 Or you don't care now but say, I will wait till it happens.
22:31 See our difficulty. While you are young, nice looking and innocent, fresh, all your bodily organism is working to that.
22:50 Nature has made us to procreate, to have children. That is operating in our glands and everything is working as you grow.
23:04 You can't suddenly say, no! – put your foot down.
23:17 Even if you do, it is going on inside you.
23:24 It produces all kinds of neurotic attitudes.
23:35 Or if you don't do that, you go to the other extreme of indulgence with all its complications.
23:51 So, while we are young it is a great problem.
24:02 You are attractive, you look nice, you look clean, there are boys around you. The whole excitement, the whole society is built on this.
24:16 Apart from money, business, war, this seems to be the main current.
24:33 Wouldn't you try to find out – I am just suggesting – wouldn't you try to find out why you don't give importance to everything in life and not this one particular thing?
24:58 Why don't you give importance to your intellect? Intellect being, to reason, to be logical – not theoretically, logical in life, reasonable.
25:19 Why don't you give importance to affection, to love, to compassion?
25:29 We say, sex is part of compassion, sex is part of love. Is it?
25:48 Q: I think one of the reasons for the importance we place on sex – here, anyway – I think one of the difficulties is that when we talk about it, when you talk about it, we often dwell on the obvious problems, the conflict which is caused by indulgence in sex.
26:11 We don't speak very much about it being a natural part of a whole thing, which may not have any problems attached to it.
26:22 Obviouslly. Nature has built us organically to create children.
26:27 Q: Here, when we have talked about sex in the past...
26:30 K: No, I am talking of sex now, not about past, future sex.
26:34 Q: But you are asking why have these attitudes, why see it as a problem.
26:39 K: No, I am asking why each of us doesn't give equal importance to other things in life.
26:48 That is all my question. Why do we separate this and that become secondary?
27:07 Q: Krishnaji? I think it may be – I am not saying I am certain on this – but when I look around at the society in general, most people seem to have what you might call a kind of sorrow – that in their lives there is something missing.
27:30 K: Yes, sir.

Q: I think that they are trying it doesn't seem as though, money or power will fill that. But to some people there is the implication that love, there is something mysterious happening between people, maybe this is what will fill that gap.
27:50 K: One can't be rich, one can't be beautiful, one can't be be the minister of a country, one can't be a bank manager, one can't be this or that or the important things, so at least I have got this.
28:06 Is that your attitudes?
28:17 How am I to talk it over with you, if you are all so silent?
28:22 Q: It is hard to see how we might find out what its right place is.
28:29 K: No. Find out why you don't give importance to the intellect, why you don't give importance to affection – equal importance, not casual importance.
28:46 Why you don't feel that it is immensely important to be free – not to do what you like and all that nonsense – to be free of any problems, of any pressure, of any conflict.
29:16 Would it solve the problem of sex, if we could find out a way to deal with the other problems of life with equal intensity, with equal passion, with equal urgency?
30:05 I think it is because we don't give importance to those things, this becomes important.
30:22 What does Sartre say about it?
30:30 It is only a joke, sorry.
30:49 Q: But surely, Krishnaji, the importance that we give to sex is born out of reactions from the repression.
30:56 K: I don't think it is a reaction, it is a natural thing.
31:01 Q: But it is built up way past that.

K: Why? Why does practically every country in different forms, blow this up?
31:19 Is it a decline of humanity, decline of civilisation, decline of everything?
31:28 Q: It's probably part of the decline of religion, in the accepted sense.
31:35 K: Yes, quite right. I think it is decline of religion.
31:42 But religion says, don't do it.
31:58 You know all this, I don't have to go into it. So, would you kindly find out for yourself, if you can give equal importance to thinking clearly, logically, sanely, not emotionally, not projecting into your thought, Me first and my feelings, my desires, but to think clearly.
32:41 Will you give your energy to that a little bit?
32:51 Or give your energy, your intensity, your passion to find out what it means to love people.
33:04 Now, love is translated as sex, bed.
33:19 Would you do that, find out what love is?
33:29 Why, as we grow up, we suffer, we go through such agonies, uncertainty, confusion.
33:42 Why do we give attention to this one thing and not to the others? Is it our wrong kind of education?
34:05 Because each one of us wants to be awfully clever, fulfil ourselves, do this and do that, have a career, earn a lot of money, and give a great deal of attention to all that.
34:23 Me first and everybody else second.
34:29 Q: It is hard to see how there can be...
34:36 all through history, it is been either repression or indulgence.
34:40 K: Yes, we know that – tradition. Don't let's cover that ground.
34:45 Q: I know, but it is hard to see another way of meeting it.
34:49 K: I am asking you! Is there a different way of dealing with it.
35:02 There has been a period recently, do what you like – right?
35:09 Don't interfere with the children.
35:18 Let them do what they like, the permissiveness has grown out of that.
35:27 We know all that, don't let's go on describing all that.
35:31 Q: But are you suggesting that another way of dealing with it would simply be inbetween repression and indulgence?
35:40 K: No, not inbetween. If you gave equal importance to the intellect, to beauty, to love, to find out what it means to be free, if you give equal importance to all that, you are living harmoniously.
36:02 You don't make this one thing out of proportion.
36:13 Is this the fault of our education?
36:24 What do you say?
36:31 The fault of our parents?
36:38 Q: Krishnaji, what is it that we are doing at Brockwood? Because a lot of the students feel that sex is a very bad thing, and that it shouldn't happen here, I think that creates confusion.
36:54 K: All right, let's take that up.
37:01 We have been through all this umpteen times!
37:05 Q: But it doesn't seem to change.

K: I know all about it.
37:09 K: I mean, I know some of it. Here you are, boys and girls, full of vitality, attractive, and the glands are working.
37:31 And what will you do? If you all indulge in sex, the police would come down and stop the school.
37:47 They would say, sorry, in England we don't allow such things to happen in a school – you may do it somewhere else, but not in a school.
37:56 So, there is that problem. And also it is the responsibility of the older people to say, for God's sake, give sex its right place, don't give it tremendous importance.
38:16 But your own body, everything around you, your civilisation, your culture, your society, your parents encourage that.
38:36 So, what are you to do?
38:38 Q: What happens is, you are told until you find the right place, to kill it, suppress it.
38:47 K: Until you find a way of giving importance to all things, in the meantime, you suppress it. Is that it?
39:00 You don't suppress it, old boy. Don't tell me you suppress it. You find ways and means to get what you want.
39:09 Q: Yes.

K: Don't call it suppression.
39:16 Q: It seems there is either this or the other – you indulge in it.
39:23 K: I am asking, what are you going to do, Shankar? It is your problem. What are you going to do? Nobody wants to face the problem, they are going away from it. What will you do?
39:44 Have your girlfriend, have your boyfriend and carry on hoping they won't discover it?
40:00 But the staff and other people are responsible that you don't have babies. You say, no, we will take pills.
40:14 But that, also, has side effects.
40:25 You see, you don't face it.
40:29 Q: But Krishnaji, these aren't the real problems, the police and having babies are not the real problems.
40:36 K: They are not. I am bringing that as one of the issues involved in this.
40:50 What is the real issue, then? Desire? Pleasure?
41:00 Q: Yes.
41:04 Q: I think the real issue is what is the right place for it.
41:10 K: Unless you have the intelligence, you won't find the right place.
41:20 So, we must find out through education, now, whether we can have the intelligence to give things their right place.
41:52 Q: Could we say that unless we go into this question of desire, we won't know what the right place is?

K: Not only desire, pleasure is involved in it, fear is involved in it, uncertainty, and anxiety – so many things are involved in it.
42:18 Q: But I am involved in it.
42:24 K: That is, you are involved.

Q: I don't mean me, personally.
42:27 K: You are all that.

Q: There's confusion about the self.
42:33 K: So, facing this, what will you do?
42:40 That is the question and that is that.
42:50 How is one to meet this problem? If you don't like to use the word 'problem', this question.
43:01 And this is important while one is young. It is all right for an old person like me to say, I am not interested in it and brush it aside, but for young people it is tremendously important.
43:20 They are caught in it. Nobody seems to tell them, look, find out what to do.
43:31 Either they say, suppress it, get rid of it, etc.
43:46 Would it solve this problem if you gave your attention to something else?
44:02 They have tried this, they have said, play games. Play games all the time, be occupied all the time. I used to know very rich people in New York. Tremendously rich.
44:23 The husband was busy in his office – they were oldish people – the wife became a Catholic because she was fed up with Protestantism.
44:36 It is more fun, more circus, and more incense and beautiful regalia, etc., and she became a Catholic.
44:49 They said, be occupied. From morning till night, be occupied.
44:56 They told her what to do, hour after hour. She showed it to me. So that she was completely a prisoner.
45:11 And she had no problem because all day she was doing these things.
45:21 Q: That is just escaping it. It is not facing it.
45:28 K: Escaping, bored with the husband, bored with the social life she was leading, bored with being a chairman of this and chairwoman of that.
45:41 She said, rhis is something new. I will try it. She was caught up in it forever, till she died.
45:55 So you see, what I am trying to point out is, they have tried everything to control this beastly little thing.
46:12 Once I was walking in the hills in India. There were monks ahead of me, 10 or 20 feet ahead of me – a little distance away.
46:26 They were repeating mantras, repeating something all the time. They never looked at the clouds, never looked at the trees, never looked at the poor people, the dirt, the squalor, because that might disturb their concentration, or look at a woman because that would be terrible.
46:49 They have tried everything, thinking that it will help you to lead a religious life.
47:04 Because religion is very important in life – not going to church or following some belief and Jesus.
47:17 That is not religion at all, that is just romantic idealism.
47:24 But to be religious implies the total absence of me.
47:43 True religion brings a different kind of culture, different society, new civilisation and all that.
47:53 So, one must find that out. But you are not interested in that.
48:02 So, what shall we do?
48:13 How to lead a religious life and yet be married, or not married?
48:33 So, the speaker is pointing out, can you give importance to other things, too?
48:45 Not how you look, how you dress, how you show your body off, etc.
48:59 Isn't that part of our education?
49:06 Right? What do you say, Shankar? Isn't that part of our education?
49:14 Are you being properly educated here?
49:21 Q: Well, for one thing the staff is confused about all of this as well.
49:25 K: But I am asking now. We are all involved in this. The staff, you, everybody is involved in this. Don't put it on the staff.
49:36 Q: Sir, will some external body come and educate us? You can't expect some external body to come and educate us.
49:45 K: Why not? Not external. Like me, I am educating you now.
49:52 I am pointing out how to deal with this thing, sanely, rationally – not go head over heels about sex. Good God.
50:21 So, we come back to this thing, are you getting the right kind of education here – not to give importance to any one thing more than the others?
50:42 So that you have a very good mind that can observe, think clearly without any pressure, without any dogma, without any belief, that can see things clearly, and therefore, act clearly.
51:09 To have affection, love, that gives you much greater vitality, energy, an extraordinary sense than mere sex.
51:38 And to observe one's reactions.
51:49 Q: Can we go into what it means to give equal importance to everything?
51:53 K: I am showing it to you. First the mind, isn't it?
52:00 You understand? The mind, in which the thought exists.
52:07 I won't complicate it, I will keep it very simple. The mind is part of thought. Right?
52:19 If thinking is not clear, your actions will be unclear.
52:27 If thinking is not clear, the pressures from outside, society says, you must get married, You don't have to get married, You must show your body off.
52:44 Those are all various forms of pressure from the outside. Now, to think about that very clearly – not to be a slave to pressure, whether it is from your wife, your parents, from your society, from your educator – not to be under pressure.
53:10 Which doesn't mean you do exactly what you want to do – then that also becomes a pressure.
53:21 That is part of the mind, to think clearly. Which means not abstractly, not theoretically.
53:39 Am I making this clear? Not sitting on a balance and saying one day this and one day that, playing that kind of game. That is not thinking at all.
54:02 So, can you find out the whole nature of thinking?
54:11 Why you think certain things, what is the root of thinking?
54:18 I can go into it with you. So, if you gave importance to that and if you gave importance to affection, to generosity, to kindliness, to a sense of love, in which there is no jealousy, no me first and you second, and not to be hurt by anything or by any word or any gesture – not to be hurt at all.
55:09 Can you do all this, or must one point it out to you, every day?
55:22 You follow my question? Then I become the pressure.
55:32 But if you said, It is important for me to find out. I will spend time, energy, passion, to think clearly.
55:45 What does that mean, to think clearly? Not to be rooted or tied to a particular idea, particular experience, particular belief.
56:01 Like a donkey tied to a post, you can't travel far.
56:11 So, to find out whether you, whether you are young or old, find out whether you are tied to a particular thing, particular conclusion, particular belief, particular experience or attached to something.
56:40 Will you find that out?
56:48 To find out you have to watch your reactions, haven't you? Are you going to sleep? I have to stop at 4, haven't I? I have got three minutes more.
57:19 Now, you are all concerned about examinations and that is taking all of your time, but behind that examination, this thing flutters, all the time.
57:40 So, to find out whether you can live a life without any form of control.
57:51 That is real yoga.
58:01 Don't you want to find out how to live a life without a single control?
58:17 Poor chap! Shankar is already dreaming something else.
58:22 Q: No.

K: It is too difficult?
58:24 Q: It sounded like you were dangling a carrot in front of my face.
58:36 K: It is up to you. If it is casting pearls before swine, change yourself to a human being.
58:52 I am not saying – please. That is an insult. I was quoting from the Bible.
59:10 You see, I am concerned, because I am here, I am concerned that when you leave here you are going to be caught in this rotten world.
59:29 You will have no intelligence to deal with it, with all its crooked demands, you know, all that is happening.
59:46 So now, while you are here, for God's sake give equal energy, passion, concern over whether you can live without conflict, without control, always acting rightly, so that there is no conflict.
1:00:16 You might say at the end of this, Do you do all this? Don't you want to know? Or you might say, that is your affair.
1:00:35 I wouldn't talk if I didn't do it. I would be a hypocrite.
1:00:43 At least, dishonest to myself. I don't want to be that.
1:00:51 4 o'clock. Examinations, is it? Or what happens now?
1:01:02 Q: Games.

K: Games.
1:01:06 Q: Football, basketball.
1:01:09 K: Do you want to sit and go on with me or go out and play games? Please, I don't care. Do you want to go on or play games?
1:01:20 Q: Can we continue for a few minutes?
1:01:24 Q: I would like to play games, right now.
1:01:26 K: You would like to play games.

Q: Yes, we have had an hour. It is tiring.

Q: I would like to go on.
1:01:34 K: What are you saying?
1:01:36 Q: I am tired.

K: You're tired. Then stop.
1:01:40 K: Finished!
1:01:42 Q: Is it too much to ask to have another talk?
1:01:48 K: Mrs Simmons and we were talking about it – do you want it with the whole staff or students only?
1:02:04 Q: Can we have another student talk?
1:02:07 K: Whole staff or the students?

Q: Why not everyone?
1:02:15 Q: It is not the same.
1:02:20 K: Oh Lord, don't let that become another problem!
1:02:27 Q: It is a smaller group of people.
1:02:30 K: I have nothing to do with it, you decide.
1:02:46 Football is waiting. Right?