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BR78DSS2.3 - Desire
Brockwood Park, UK - 22 October 1978
Discussion with Staff and Students 2.3



0:19 Krishnamurti: Don't any of you want to take my place?
0:27 Would you like to?
0:46 What shall we talk about? Questioner: Desire.
0:59 K: Anything else?
1:02 Q: Fear.
1:08 K: Fear.
1:17 Anything else?
1:21 Q: Excellence?
1:25 K: Excellence. Excellence, desire, fear. Anything more?
1:36 Q: Perhaps, as it is still somewhat the beginning of a new year, we could talk about cooperation and self-centredness.
1:49 K: Cooperation and self-centredness, fear, desire.
2:01 I wonder if we could talk about desire. We could introduce all the other questions in that. Could we? May we?
2:30 It is a dialogue between us, I am not just talking for the fun of talking.
2:37 And you are not a captive audience. You can get up and go when you want to. If you are bored, just walk out. But don't feel that you have to be here.
2:58 Why are our desires so very strong?
3:08 When I ask that question do put it to yourself: why we have such extraordinarily strong emotions, both personal and perhaps occasionally non-personal.
3:34 We are carried away by our emotions, by our very strong feelings – why?
3:52 Is that the only energy that we have, which becomes desire?
4:09 You understand my question? We have plenty of energy to do what we want to do. If you want to do something, in spite of everything, you do it.
4:28 And that requires energy. Is that energy translated into desire?
4:42 No?
4:49 The action of desire demands energy. I don't just sit down and say, I desire a nice car or a nice frock or whatever you want, but you act, you do something about it, which demands energy.
5:10 I am asking, does this energy become desire?
5:27 You understand my question? And so, it becomes extraordinarily strong.
5:44 And if it is a one-pointed direction, in a particular direction, there are other desires in contradiction with that.
6:01 Right? Have you noticed it?
6:09 I want something, but there are also other desires battling with what I want.
6:18 So there is always contradiction in desire, isn't there? Opposition to each other. One desire opposed to another desire. Haven't you noticed all this? Yes? Right? Bien.
6:47 Have you also noticed that the objects of desire change?
7:01 When I am young, I want to be an engineer, or something or other. As I grow older the desire goes on, so the objects, the things I want change, but desire is always the same.
7:18 Are you following this?
7:28 So, does that desire tend to make self-centredness?
7:38 Is this is too complicated?
7:46 I desire many, many things and there is always a certain desire which dominates others.
7:58 Haven't you noticed? You are all so silent. No? Yes? And this domination may be the self-centred activity.
8:23 I desire to get something, so I work for it.
8:30 I want to be a rich man or a painter or something or other – I work for it. The very working of that desire may become the centre, the selfishness from which I act.
8:46 Are you following this? Right? Is self-centredness the centre of all desire?
9:17 You understand what self-centredness is, what it implies – I am always thinking about myself, what I want, what I am concerned with.
9:32 I am having a quiet, secret dialogue with myself all the time. Right? Have you noticed that? And this constant occupation with oneself, with one's desires, with one's fears, with one's pleasures, and wanting success, is that desire – wanting, the craving, the demanding – is that the source of self-centredness?
10:17 Is that so? Look, please don't accept anything the speaker says – anything – and I really mean it.
10:30 You have to investigate, find out if what he is saying is accurate, true, or just imaginative, some idea he is expounding, which he thinks is good.
10:46 Therefore you are out of touch with what he wants to say.
10:54 So let's find out, question, use your mind to find out – not just emotional thinking but your acute observation of your desires.
11:18 Right? Will you do that as we talk, as we have a conversation, as we discuss? We are not discussing verbal clarity.
11:35 Have you understood? We are not trying to convince each other of anything. We are not saying: think in this particular direction.
11:53 We are trying to find out why human beings right throughout the world have this enormous self-centred activity going on all the time.
12:08 Right? Though it creates havoc in the world, and therefore no cooperation is possible.
12:23 When I am working for myself, I can pretend that I am working for an idea, for an ideal, for the country, but it is all me identified with the country, with the ideal, with the end in view.
12:38 You are following all this? So we are trying to find out why – though human beings have realised, they have written a great deal about it both religiously, philosophically, and the analysts also, the psychologists have said this self-centredness is the root of all our trouble because it separates people – and I am asking you as a challenge: find out whether that centre is whole summation of desire.
13:42 Don't say, can I live without it, that is not the problem. We will find out whether it is possible to work, to live a life without the conflicts of desire, without being self-centred, though we have desires.
14:16 So we have to find out why desire has become so disproportionately controlling all our life.
14:38 You are following all this? I am asking you, don't agree with me. I am asking you to find out. We will talk it over together.
14:55 That is, you have to look at your own desires first, be aware of them.
15:04 You may want a boyfriend, you may want a house, you may want to depend on somebody, or you are so self-centred you can't even think about anything else except you.
15:20 So find out, look at yourself very closely.
15:27 I am asking, the question is: is this self-centred activity the result of desire, which is energy directed in a particular direction?
15:57 I wonder if you understand all this.
16:04 We will put it differently as we go along. What makes desire so strong?
16:21 It gives you tremendous vitality. Look at all the politicians. Look at all the generals, how they are actively preparing, and going to the moon and so on, it demands tremendous concentration, great deal of expending of energy.
16:51 What makes desire so continuous, sustained and nourished?
17:02 It never says, I have no desires, and just flops. What gives it this tremendous vitality?
17:14 Q: It is the feeling that you are doing something. It gives the people a feeling you are doing something: I am not wasting my time because I want to build the rocket.
17:28 K: Tura – may I call you Tura? Are you aware that you are self-centred?
17:34 Q: Yes.
17:35 K: Don't be shy, because all of us are.
17:42 Now, what is the reason for this self-centredness? Why? Don't say it is natural, it is unnatural – we are just examining it. I am asking, why are you self-centred? What makes you self-centred?
18:12 Is it our culture?
18:20 Our society, our religion?
18:30 Is it our nation? One identifies through fear with something greater.
18:49 I am afraid of loneliness, I have nobody to like me, I have nobody I can depend upon, or I am not treated so as a human being, and so on.
19:07 So all this activity is going on in us all the time.
19:15 So I am asking, what gives this enormous vitality to desire?
19:24 Go on, sir.
19:32 Say, for instance, in a small community like this, where there are older people and students, younger people, we have to cooperate with each other.
19:49 We must, life is that way, cooperation. But generally, we cooperate around a person, around an idea or an ideal, or people come together with a certain series of conclusions with which they all agree.
20:19 The ideal, the person with whom you cooperate and not with anybody else, and so on, is that actually cooperation?
20:44 Cooperation implies working together, doesn't it? The moment you have an authority, either of an ideal, of a nation or a state, or a person, he becomes the authority around which we cooperate.
21:05 You are following all this? And I am asking, is that cooperation? Or the self-centredness – listen to this, let's find out – the self-centredness has identified itself with the ideal, for which it is working, but it is still self-centredness.
21:35 Do you follow this? I may be working for – whom? Mrs Thatcher?
21:50 Or for Brezhnev and so on, or some ideal or some person, some guru.
22:00 What actually is taking place is, I am afraid to be by myself, I cannot stand by myself and I have this quivering anxiety in me, and I am thinking about all that and I see it is unconsciously or instinctively to escape from myself, I identify myself with that – with the nation, with the guru, with what he says, the ideal, etc. – but this identification with something is still the self in operation.
22:43 Do you get this?
22:50 Right? Do you see this? Not because I am telling you, but do you actually see it for yourself that when I say I am British or Indian – I won't call names, adjectives – what have I done?
23:15 I have identified with a larger group and that gives me tremendous strength.
23:24 Right? But the identification is the process of my desire, which makes me think about myself, my wants, and that still goes on.
23:42 You have watched all this?
23:50 I depend on my wife or my girlfriend or somebody.
23:57 I depend because I am frightened to be lonely. I am frightened to be left alone. So, I cling to you.
24:15 So you become all-important. Which is, I have identified myself with you and so I hold on to you.
24:27 Like the Christians do about their Jesus, or the Hindus do about their gods.
24:36 Sorry to bring this in. Do you see this? So I am asking you, what gives this enormous strength to desire?
25:01 Human beings kill each other for their so-called utopias, for their ideals, for their so-called freedom, wars.
25:15 So I am asking, what is this tremendous energy expressing itself through desire?
25:24 You understand my question now? Do you? Bien?
25:35 Q: Is it like a sort of fight for life?
25:42 Would it be in the roots of the human beings? Because it is all over the world.
25:47 K: All over the world, it is the same. So I am asking, what gives this tremendous vitality to desire, this extraordinary strength of self-centred activity?
26:04 You have understood my question? What gives it?
26:10 Q: I think fear is involved with it. Fear pushes us.
26:14 K: Fear. Is fear self-centredness?
26:24 I am afraid I cannot be without some support – intellectual, moral, physical, and so on, psychologically, inwardly – so I cling to something and I am afraid to lose it.
26:47 Is fear – just think it out carefully – is fear part of this self-centredness?
27:01 Q: It is still thinking about yourself.
27:03 K: Isn't it? Of course.
27:10 Have you found out what gives this enormous vitality, strength, drive to desire?
27:34 Q: I think it masks as necessity.
27:37 K: Yes, necessity, and also I must protect, the whole thing is involved in this.
27:47 Now, I put that question to you: what gives the vitality and energy, the drive to desire?
27:54 Now, who is going to answer it?
28:04 Come on. Who is going to answer it?
28:08 Q: Is it the thing called 'I'?
28:16 K: Self-centeredness is the I, is the ego, thinking about myself endlessly, how I look, how I walk, how I drink, how I depend, you know, the chattering that goes on.
28:36 All that is the self-centred activity of the 'me', the self.
28:43 You haven't answered my question. What gives this vitality to desire and what makes it so terribly strong?
29:01 I will kill people because I have identified with my group and I will kill another group.
29:11 This is happening in the world.
29:19 And I also ask, who is going to tell you about it?
29:28 Are you waiting for me to tell you? Come on. Are you? Which means what? If you are waiting for me to tell you, then what happens?
29:53 You are not examining it, you are not saying, I have this desire, which is very, very potent.
30:03 What keeps it alive? That is, you are not applying it to yourself, you are waiting for somebody to tell you about it.
30:19 So then you create me into an authority.
30:27 But whereas if you can find out for yourself. Now, how do you find out? That is important. How will you find out?
30:49 Probably no book, nobody has talked or inquired into this.
30:59 It may be the first time that you are inquiring, and how do you inquire into something that you really want to find out?
31:12 First of all, do you really want to find out?
31:19 Or it is merely an idea with which you are playing, but you carry on with your desires?
31:30 Q: It is not a very simple question to answer, actually.
31:38 K: No question is simple, nor the answer.
31:45 Q: And the discovery might bring in a lot of other matters into the question.
31:55 K: There are. But first I am asking, are you directly looking at your own desire?
32:07 Q: Then the desire that comes, how does one find out? Then you have a desire to find out.
32:15 K: Yes, all right. Desire to find out. Are you aware of the actual desire that wants to find out or is it an idea that you are aware that you have the desire to find out?
32:33 Q: No, I have a desire to find out.
32:35 K: Desire. Right? So you have a desire to find out. Now, how will you find out?
32:47 Is desire the guide? I have desire to find out. I wonder if you see this.
33:03 I have a desire to find out. Is the instrument of discovery desire?
33:20 Are you getting bored with this? No, but there is always the door.
33:34 So what is necessary, or the instrument that will find out?
33:45 If desire is the instrument to find out, you are still caught in desire, you are not looking at the source of this energy.
33:59 So then you have to look – can you look, observe without any desire?
34:18 I want to find out why desire is very strong.
34:27 I just want to find out, I don't want to alter desire, I don't want to suppress it, I don't want to control it, I just want to see why this thing exists so strongly in my life.
34:44 Apparently all animals have this, and apparently all human beings have this, extraordinarily strong desires.
34:58 Or they are feeble-minded, weak, and they say, please, I don't mind what you do.
35:09 So, can you look at desire without the motive to find out?
35:25 Because if you have a motive, that is the desire. Phew! Can you look at yourself, at your desire, just to observe it?
35:49 Can you?
35:56 You may look at me because I don't interfere with your life, I may disappear – you just look.
36:05 You look at the moon and say, how lovely it is, or I am sorry, I am rather bored tonight, I am tired – but I look.
36:19 Observe. Can you do it?
36:35 Q: Where does the energy for observation come from?
36:44 K: What is the urge?
36:45 Q: No. Where does the energy for observation come from?
36:54 K: Are you asking, what is the source of observation, why should one observe?
37:07 Why? You answer me – why?
37:19 You observe yourself in the mirror and you say, no sorry, my face is this – you follow?
37:31 Can you observe your face in the mirror without any directing process taking place?
37:40 Just to look. Not say, my hair is not curly, my hair is too long – just to look at yourself in the mirror without any judgment.
37:55 Can you?
38:04 Will you try it? Will you do it?
38:12 Now, in the same way can you observe yourself, which is the momentum of desire, without trying to say, it should be, it should not be, the very idea of looking is desire – just to look.
38:35 Probably, you have never done it. Can you look at a flower without naming it, without going into ecstasies about it, and say, how lovely, how beautiful and so on, let me smell it – just to look at it.
39:01 Do you know how difficult it is when you look at your own desire?
39:14 Q: You can look at your desire, like it happens, but if you want to know why it is so tremendous, as you say, you have to try to find the origin.
39:27 K: I am going to go into it in a minute. I am not going to leave you stranded. We are going to find out. But first, the intention of my question is to make you look.
39:49 Right? I am not driving you, not pressurising you, not bullying you, but I say, look at your face in the mirror without any judgment, evaluation.
40:07 So in the same way, can there be an observation of desire, without any evaluation that it should be, should not be, what is the reason – just to observe?
40:30 Q: There is a difference: when you look at a flower, you use a certain tool which is your eyes, but when you look at your desire, what is the tool?
40:41 K: Wait, I am coming to that. First, I am pointing out how important it is to observe non-personally.
40:58 Q: Aren't you saying the instrument of discovery is perception?
41:03 K: Yes, I understand that, but I am asking... You are moving away from what I am saying. Forgive me.
41:21 Can you look at anything, impersonally?
41:28 Can you look at your boyfriend, girlfriend or husband, wife, or your prime minister or your guru, and including me, can you look at me impersonally?
41:46 The moment you look at another personally, you have already distorted observation.
41:58 Right? So, I am going to go into it now. I am asking you – I am challenging you, I am not just asking you and you say, well, ask and I will go to sleep – I am challenging, I am pushing you, for you to find out, I am making you look.
42:24 We said, why is there such enormous vitality in desire?
42:31 Right? Apparently you can't answer it. Apparently you haven't thought about it. You have thought about mathematics, you have thought about the various subjects you are taught, but not this.
42:59 But this is part of one's life, part of our daily conflicting, confusing, miserable existence.
43:17 So first of all, I must find out what is desire.
43:27 Then we can ask the question, why has this such vitality? Right? Now, what is desire?
43:41 Q: A means of survival.
43:45 K: No.
43:52 How does desire come into being? How does desire exist?
44:09 Q: First you see something beautiful and then you want to possess it and there is desire.
44:13 K: Which means what, Tungki? Observe it. I don't want you to tell me a thing. Look at it, find out. Put your guts into it.
44:34 Would you say desire is sensation?
44:45 Q: It is a kind of sensation.

K: Go slow, Tungki.
44:54 Sensation is the beginning of desire – would you say that?
45:02 I feel this cloth, it is very nice. There is sensation. So, would you say desire is the outcome of sensation?
45:22 Or desire is sensation?
45:31 I see a beautiful girl or a boy or a woman, optically, eyes first – sensation.
45:45 Or a beautiful house, lovely garden, there is the optical nerves and so on – sensation – and then what takes place?
46:02 Think it out carefully, watch it carefully.
46:11 Q: Is there not something before that?
46:15 K: I said that. I touch this, there is seeing, contact, then from that, sensation.
46:29 Q: But for instance, I see a house, and then perhaps I don't like it. I see it and I don't even notice it.
46:37 K: Yes, you don't like, but you see another house which you like.
46:46 The like and dislike are still part of sensation.
46:53 I like this house, but you don't like it. You say, this is not big enough. But the very look, the very touch of the walls, the proportion, etc., you say, how beautiful it is.
47:09 Which is still sensation. Right? Now, watch it, go into very, very carefully, step by step.
47:22 Q: The naming of it, saying how beautiful it is, how bad it is...
47:26 K: He introduced it, I didn't.
47:28 Q: But I don't think it is part of sensation itself, I think it is applying that to ourself.
47:35 K: We are only discussing how desire arises, not for what.
47:43 You understand? Not for a house, not for a garden, not for a boy, and so on – just how does desire come into being?
47:54 Not good desire or bad desire, but the movement.
48:01 Right? I see this cloth on the tailor's table, touch it, it feels nice – sensation – and I want it or I don't want it.
48:20 So, go into it very carefully, slowly.
48:27 Seeing, perceiving first, seeing the cloth, then touching it, from the touching of it, sensation.
48:41 Right? Are you following this? Then, I like it, I don't like it.
48:50 Right?
48:58 So we are asking, still asking, does desire go with sensation?
49:15 That is, if I have no sensations at all, I have no desire.
49:26 If I am totally paralysed, totally blind, totally deaf – you follow?
49:37 Wait, careful, I am talking about physical matter, physical reaction, not psychological existence.
49:47 I may inwardly desire to be God, though I am paralysed, but it is still desire.
49:58 Because I have created the image, thought has created the image, though I am paralysed – can't move, can't see, can't hear, totally paralysed – but I have a tremendous desire to find God.
50:20 But it is still desire in operation. God is the object, which thought has created, as thought has created this cloth.
50:37 Right? What is wrong with that?
50:50 But thought has also created the idea that there is an extraordinary entity outside of me.
51:05 And though I am paralysed, blind, I want that comfort, to have a god, which is desire operating.
51:17 So there is physical desire, psychological desire, sexual desire, and with it, the psychological pictures of it.
51:29 You follow all this?
51:38 Now, I am asking, why does desire, which is the outcome of sensation, why does it have such enormous power?
51:57 You have understood the question?
52:05 Q: Is it possible to answer such a question?
52:07 K: It is. I am going to show it to you in a minute.
52:17 Q: Apparently, most of the time we are living in an area of desire.
52:21 K: Yes, that is right. Most of us are living in that area, but why does that area become so extraordinarily vital?
52:37 Careful now, watch it. You are missing the point. You are not watching your own sensations, your own desire.
52:54 You have a desire, don't you? How does it arise? You want to be better than somebody else. You want to pass exams very quickly, or wait two years, but you want it.
53:14 Now, why? What is that desire? You think you are better than somebody else, and so on – it is a desire.
53:28 Q: It is a sort of security to keep the self going that way.
53:32 K: No, my darling, we are not talking about security – that comes much later.
53:40 I am just asking you to look at your desire. Not whether it will give you security or not, whether it will be happy or not, just how does desire begin?
53:56 Q: I see it has to do with sensation.
54:03 But sensations are vital.
54:06 K: I didn't say they are not vital. You see how you are already evaluating, you are not examining. You have already said they are vital.
54:21 Q: But it is a fact.

K: Of course, they are vital.
54:27 K: If I had no senses – we said that – I am paralysed, there is no feeling, I can't see, I can't hear, but I have got a desire to find something psychologically.
54:44 It is the same process going on right through, both physiologically, as well as psychologically.
54:53 Do you see this? What is the hesitancy about this?
54:59 Q: Can there be a sensation without desire?
55:06 K: We are going to find out. You see, you are already afraid to look. You already have a picture of saying, my God, if I have no desire what will I be?
55:27 So you are not examining the source of desire.
55:36 Unless you do this, it just becomes verbal play.
55:43 Q: It is obvious that thought is in there as a sustaining factor.
55:56 K: That is what I am saying. I am coming to it, slowly.
56:01 Q: Krishnaji, what seems to happen is we see something, we want to possess that, and then that becomes tremendously important, we give it more importance than we give to other things, and that seems to give it the energy.
56:21 K: Shankar, I am not talking about wanting that, making that more important than the other desires.
56:29 I am asking you, if I may, what is the origin of desire?
56:38 How does desire begin? What is its inception? What is the source from which it arises?
56:48 Q: To satisfy the self.
56:53 K: No, madame. Sorry, forgive me. You are not examining desire itself.
57:15 All right? Are you doing it?
57:22 Are you doing it? The next step: there is the seeing of the cloth in the window, going inside the shop, touching it, the feel of it is the sensation, and desire says, I don't like it or I like it.
57:57 Just stop there.
58:01 Q: But that is already a very big jump.
58:06 K: It is.
58:08 Q: Why do we immediately think, I want it?
58:12 K: I will go into it. First see what is happening to yourself. Gosh, you people.
58:23 Q: What is happening here now, that to me is very important. There are so many people who are speaking to you about desire, but what is happening inside me, here, now, on desiring to know something?
58:41 Just watch yourself and just listen.
58:44 K: Yes, that is why you are not inquiring into desire.
58:50 Q: This is just being in front of the mirror – you explaining to us – can you observe yourself without any judgment?
59:00 Can you observe yourself right now without any judgment?
59:04 K: Yes, sir, that is what I have been talking about.
59:15 You see, a friction is arising. You can feel it in the air?
59:25 Which means we are not scientifically looking through a microscope at our desire.
59:44 Wait. All right. Sensation arises by perception – seeing, contact, sensation.
59:59 Now, stop there for a minute. Just stop there. That is all right, isn't it? That is normal. Seeing, touching, then the sensation.
1:00:21 Where does desire come in?
1:00:24 Q: After thought. Pushing to prolong the sensation.
1:00:35 K: You understand my question? Please, first listen to my question.
1:00:42 Seeing the cloth, touching it, the sensation, but where does desire come in?
1:00:58 You understand my question? It is very simple. I don't know why you are blocking. It is so simple: there is a touch, seeing, touching, sensation.
1:01:18 Then where does desire arise?
1:01:25 Q: The next step is I make an image of myself wearing the cloth.
1:01:30 K: No, madame, I am not discussing about yourself.
1:01:37 Q: Wanting more sensation.
1:01:43 K: Sensation I have come to. And I say, where does desire arise?
1:01:51 Q: When a thought comes in, that I want it.
1:01:55 K: That is right. Stick to that one thing. When thought comes in. What does thought do with that sensation?
1:02:06 Q: It recognises.
1:02:09 K: Watch it. Wait! Take a minute, take 10 seconds before you answer.
1:02:28 Seeing, touching, sensation. I say, where does desire come into this? It comes only – just listen carefully – it comes only when thought says, that will make a lovely pair of trousers.
1:02:50 Which is, thought has created an image out of the sensation, and having created the image, desire begins.
1:03:05 Have you got this? Not have you got it – is it so?
1:03:18 Q: Why should that be so powerful?
1:03:35 K: I see a guru. I have seen lots of them. I see a guru. They come to see me. I don't why, but they come. I have seen lots of them. Suppose I am an ordinary seeker after whatever it is. I see a guru. I like him. He has got a nice personality, he smells fairly nice, and he has got garlands and all the circus around him, and I like that.
1:04:13 And so I have committed myself already. I don't say, let me examine, very carefully why I choose that one and not the rest of the gang.
1:04:27 See all this operating. I chose him because it pleases me, what he is saying.
1:04:39 Right? He may be talking nonsense, but it pleases me. He gives me a degree, he gives me this, I put on some extraordinary clothes, it gives me some pleasure.
1:04:57 Which is both psychological as well as physical. You understand? So, I am asking you, when there is sensation, thought creates the image of a nice pair of trousers and desire says, I must have it.
1:05:25 Have you followed this? Is this a fact to you, not my telling you and you accepting it, but is this so?
1:05:48 So you see, there is physical sensation, then thought makes a nice image about what it has seen, and desires begins.
1:06:12 So, seeing, contact, sensation, thought creating the image out of that sensation, which is desire.
1:06:24 Right?
1:06:32 If this is so – and it is so, it is so obvious – what gives it vitality?
1:06:47 Q: If it is a very strong desire there are transformations in your body, like your heart will beat faster.
1:06:55 K: Madame, we said that. That is not desire. If you are hungry you eat, but thought says, I had that marvellous food yesterday, it tasted so nice, I must have it again.
1:07:14 Once you understand the principle of it, it is very simple.
1:07:24 See the sensation, seeing, contact, sensation, thought comes in, makes an image of it, and desire comes.
1:07:39 Now, wait a minute. We asked, what gives this extraordinary vitality to desire?
1:07:52 It is very interesting. Go on.
1:08:01 Q: Thought. Thinking.
1:08:06 K: Thought?

Q: Yes, thought.
1:08:11 K: We said that. Does thought give extraordinary vitality to desire?
1:08:22 Q: The concern for ourselves. We are so concerned with ourselves that you just have this energy.
1:08:30 K: But I am asking you something else. I am asking you, what gives desire such extraordinary vitality?
1:08:52 Think it out a little bit, take time. It is a very interesting question, this.
1:09:06 Do you understand? I go to a guru – it is a very good example, gurus, because they are a pest, but they are good examples – I go to a guru.
1:09:23 There is both physical satisfaction as well as psychological satisfaction, which is desire.
1:09:32 I go to him and what he says, I like.
1:09:40 I don't examine. I don't say, let me see whether you are speaking truth or not. I am just caught up with my desire to find what he says to be true. So I accept his discipline, I accept his words, I worship him, I do all kinds of things – still desire, both physical as well as psychological.
1:10:13 He gives me comfort. The tricks thought is playing. You understand what I am saying? Now, I am asking what gives this enormous vitality to desire?
1:10:32 Go on.
1:10:42 You are all very clever people – go at it, find out.
1:10:47 Q: Craving for pleasure?
1:10:52 K: Pleasure is desire.
1:10:54 Q: Yes.
1:10:57 K: You are not watching yourself, that is what my trouble is.
1:11:06 We said, seeing, contact, sensation, thought making an image about that and desire arising, and pursuing.
1:11:22 I say this is a fact. Not mine or yours – this is so.
1:11:29 Then the next question is, what gives it vitality?
1:11:33 Q: Remembrance.
1:11:37 K: Remembrance of what?
1:11:39 Q: Of that sensation.
1:11:42 K: Which is what? Go on, pursue that. Don't drop it, yet. Go into it.
1:11:54 Q: You can call it knowledge. It is what is stored in my mind.
1:12:02 K: Which means what?

Q: Memory?
1:12:04 K: No, watch it in yourself. The moment you watch it in yourself, it is clear as mud. I am sorry.
1:12:16 Q: The past. Past experience.
1:12:25 K: Not the past, madame. May I point out something? Will you examine it? Don't accept what I am saying. We are asking, what gives this enormous vitality to desire?
1:12:46 I am supposed to stop at one o'clock. It is now nearly quarter past one. May I go on for two minutes?
1:13:01 Q: Isn't it the memory of the image, the image you have made?
1:13:05 K: That is right, sir. You got on to something. Don't drop it, go into it.
1:13:11 Q: Like when we see or feel something and we like it...
1:13:16 K: That is what?
1:13:18 Q: That is a sensation.

K: No. The image that you have made out of the sensation, by thought, that image is the most potent thing we have.
1:13:36 So, image that thought has created gives you the tremendous vitality.
1:13:43 I must be first. I must have a great reputation. I am the great guru and so on. Which is what?
1:13:58 The image thought has made about myself which is the outcome of seeing, sensation, thought creating the image – being a prime minister – and I pursue it.
1:14:22 So, the much more complex question is this – if you are going to go into it, I will stop – is: can thought not create image at all, but observe?
1:14:37 The moment you create an image, desire then begins, and there will be all the conflicts of desires – suppression, control, discipline.
1:14:49 Or no discipline but do whatever you want, permissiveness, dance naked – all those silly things come.
1:14:59 Do you get it? You have got some of it?
1:15:12 So you have discovered something extraordinary – if you have discovered it, not been told – which is, when thought interferes it must create an image, and that image becomes all-potent.
1:15:41 Whereas, can you – listen to it carefully – observe, contact, sensation – no more.
1:15:58 Do it, you will see what an extraordinary thing it is. See a car – I am taking that as a stupid example – see a beautiful car, touch it, sensation – finish there.
1:16:15 But the moment thought comes and creates an image of you driving it, then the whole circus begins. Got it?
1:16:25 Bene. That is enough.