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BR79CJLD1 - Thought and observation
Brockwood Park, UK - 28 September 1979
Conversation with J-L. Dewez D1



0:28 Jean-Louis Dewez: Mr Krishnamurti, I wish to ask you some questions on a topic which I feel is very urgent. That is, the central question of what is thought? This problem is crucially important where human beings are concerned, because all that human beings can know of reality, meaning that which is outside as well as inside themselves, goes through their perceptions, but is immediately dealt with thought. This is inevitable, or appears to be so. Yet, if everything is processed by thought, including what I believe I know about myself and others, then one has to go deeply, seriously, into that question of what is thought. Thought creates associations which can eventually impede understanding. If you do not mind, I’d wish to take an example which has a direct bearing on our discussion. This dialogue is being recorded and may be heard by other people. I have in mind especially those people, Western people, said to be rationalists, people who have never inquired into any spiritual questions. I wonder whether, now, the name ‘Krishnamurti’ creates in their mind certain associations which may have already impeded their listening? So, the first question, prior to going into this matter of thought with as much detail and seriousness as possible, the first question for those who are listening or will listen, is, can each of us look into himself or herself for those associations and prejudices which occur when meeting someone with a name like yours, or who is from India? And how to listen to what is going to be said without those blocks, without those prejudices?
3:15 Krishnamurti: It’s very difficult to listen to somebody, whether he is from the Orient or the Occident, because even in the Orient, tradition is so strong there, of what is spirituality. Various teachers and various ancient traditions hold them. Here in the Occident, so-called religious feeling, so-called spirituality, if we can use that word, is very, very rarely thought about, or gone into. You are asking, aren’t you, is there a perception – you understand? –

D: Yes, very well.
4:13 K:...is there a perception which is outside the process of thought? Is there an understanding, an insight, an immediate comprehension, without going through all the machinery of thought?
4:39 D: And presently, can I, can the listener, have an immediate perception of what is going on inside his head with regard to this discussion, or with regard to you, or with regard to anything? Can one have an immediate perception of the way thought actually filters the things that we hear?
5:08 K: I understand that question, sir. You are saying, is there a perception, an immediate one, of the reality, of something that is true, which isn’t circumscribed or associated with thought? The question is really, what is the process of thinking? Would you say that is the central question?
5:49 D: That question seems central to me. Can we go into this as rationally as we can, with as rational a discussion as is possible?
6:04 K: This is not an Oriental or Occidental question, it is a question of human beings, it is a question that affects all humanity, whether Orient or Occident, or catholic or protestant, conservative, liberal or totalitarian, it affects all human beings who are concerned with bringing about a different society, a society which is not merely somewhere in the future, idealistic, but a society which can take place now, a society which is essentially good. If you’re interested, we could go into that word ‘good’, but for the moment, we’ll leave that aside. But what is thinking? After all, thinking begins with knowledge.
7:25 D: Memory.

K: First, knowledge. That knowledge is the result of experience, whether scientific, biological, physical or imaginary, illusory. Knowledge. That knowledge is stored in the brain and so on, and there is the memory. The reaction of that memory is thought.
7:57 D: Certain people, and perhaps some scientists, would probably say that it’s not just memory, that there’s a soul, or something else. That the problem of thought can be seen in two ways. Either there’s a pilot somewhere behind the steering wheel, and what one thinks stems from this pilot who knows where he’s going, and then the rationalists would probably say, ‘Thought is a biological, mechanical process.
8:36 K: Yes, that’s right.

D: That’s right.
8:39 K: Isn’t it?

D: That’s right.
8:46 K: You know? Look. The brain is recording. Right? Like a... – what do you call it? – You know, the instrument that records?

D: A tape recorder.
9:11 K: Tape recorder, that’s it. There is an incident, pleasurable or painful, that’s recorded which becomes the memory. So, experience, knowledge is the pilot, who is guiding, all the time. Like driving a car, there’s someone who is driving it, and that person has had experience of driving, and that becomes mechanical, partially, and there is always the driver watching, which is, essentially, experience and knowledge.
10:11 D: That’s obvious in the case of mechanical knowledge.
10:17 K: But aren’t all of our habits almost mechanical? Our thinking is mechanical.
10:28 D: Let’s look at that word ‘mechanical’. It means that there are causes which produce effects which produce causes. So, if you accept that thought is a mechanical process, if that is seen, that means a series of causes and effects.
10:52 K: Also, repetition.

D: And repetition. Essentially, this means that thought stemming from causes, comes from the past, from previous causes.
11:06 K: It’s the past, yes. Thought is based on the past. Even scientific knowledge is based on the past – accumulated, learnt, held, and to that you add more and more and more. But it’s still the total accumulation of scientific knowledge, up to now.
11:41 D: Yet from the experience we have of ourselves, there seems to be an ‘I’, ‘me’, and that this ‘I’ does not seem to be dependent on the past, it seems free to act… If thought is mechanical, where does the ‘I’ come from? It appears to be a free, autonomous entity, doing what it will? Can you go into this process whereby, out of something mechanical, is created…?
12:19 K: Isn’t the ‘I’ also mechanical?
12:25 D: It doesn’t appear mechanical.

K: Wait. Let’s examine it. Let us explore, investigate, or whatever word you like to use, to find out whether the ‘me’, the ‘I’, is also the result of knowledge. The ‘me’ is not something suddenly born. The ‘me’ has a continual association, a series of memories, a series of projections, what should be, what has been, what is. The ‘me’, if you examine it very closely, is also very mechanical.
13:28 D: Is there but one single ‘me’? Is it the same person who says ‘I’, now, in this situation with you, who’ll say ‘I’ at another moment? One is under the impression that it is the same, the same…
13:46 K: The same ‘I’ which continues.

D: Which continues. We don’t see this where oneself is concerned. One can observe this with people who have problems, who seem to have different attitudes in different situations. You can perceive this in others but in our self, it’s much harder. One can perceive that people aren’t always the same and yet that they go on saying ‘I’, and go on trying to rationalise. When they are angry, ‘I was right’. While the next moment…
14:24 K: It’s not rational. The ‘I’, the ‘me’ has different aspects but essentially, it’s the same.
14:35 D: The process is the same.

K: Yes. Sir, this has been one of the problems both in the Orient and in the Occident, what is the ‘me’, the ‘I’? The christians call it ‘the soul’, or if you like to use the word ‘individual’. What is that, essentially?
15:13 D: This question is important because this ‘I’ transforms all that it sees and perceives.
15:20 K: And that ‘me’ is so conditioned.
15:26 D: If he is the past, he is conditioned.
15:29 K: He is the past. After all, one is born in India, or in – let’s say – China, they are conditioned.
15:44 D: There is culture, but it doesn’t seem to be the most important.
15:47 K: No, it’s not, you’re right.
15:52 D: But nevertheless, there is the process of desires, jealousy, all of these human frailties which are the same, regardless of culture. That’s what gives rise to the problem. That’s where the problem is.
16:12 K: But, sir, isn’t jealousy, ambition, greed, fear and pleasure, all different aspects of the same thing? You understand?

D: Yes, I understand very well.
16:30 K: They’re not different things, they’re all part of the ‘me’.
16:35 D: But when I feel angry or jealous, etc., I have the impression that I’m always right, and that the cause is from outside, not from something within me, but that I have been tricked, and that if I’m angry, my surroundings are to blame. Whoever feels angry, destructive – and anger eventually leads societies into war – will blame the other and explain it through external causes.
17:12 K: Is that so? You call me an idiot. I don’t like that word. You understand? I have a picture of myself...
17:38 D: I feel wounded.
17:39 K:...that I’m not an idiot, and I get angry. It isn’t you, though you’ve used the word ‘idiot’, but the picture in me has reacted to that word.
17:57 D: So, is the cause the fact that I said you were an idiot, or is the cause to be found within? If there is no image…

K: That’s it. That’s the main question. Can one exist in life, carry on with everyday activities without the image of the ‘me’? Have you understood? The ‘me’ is the house, the property, the furniture, the wife, the husband – the ‘me’ is all this. From childhood, when a baby is born, gradually, ‘My toy, my house, my mother’. Out of that grows attachment, and the whole problem begins. I think even the most rational, scientific mind – and we have met lots of them – would obviously see this. But they don’t want to end the image of the ‘me’, because their profession, their money, the whole thing holds them.
19:43 D: So, each time that I suffer from something, some unrest, psychologically, I ascribe it, in general, to some external cause.
20:00 K: C’est ça.
20:04 D: Yet, at the same time, for it to have an effect on me, it has to touch something within me. So, the question is, what is the thing it touched within me? Can I look at that?

K: Yes. Sir, the Greeks have said it, the ancient Hindus have talked a great deal about it, to know yourself. Self-knowledge. But nobody studies that.
20:45 D: Psychologists try to know the others…
20:49 K: Or they invent ‘what should be’.

D: Ideas, yes, Freud, all that.
20:56 K: But here I am, a human being. I want to know myself.
21:01 D: Obviously the question is how, because…
21:05 K: Let’s go into it, let’s find out. How can I know myself? Not according to Freud, or somebody else. You understand?

D: Yes.
21:17 K: To know myself. If I follow those psychologists, I won’t know myself.
21:28 D: One just has to look at them.

K: Yes, that’s it. I will know what they say about me. If I want to investigate what is me, one has to discard all authority. Even Marx. Probably, he was essentially a bourgeois, because he relegated all existence to a certain layer. So, the question is, sir, what is thinking? Is it mechanical, or can thinking ever be free?
22:33 D: Yes, because self-knowledge demands that I am free, so that I can inquire. Otherwise, I’ll be forced to use thought, which isn’t free, and I’ll be going round in circles.

K: That’s the question. So, first, to understand myself, I must reject authority.
22:57 D: That of others…

K: Of others, whether they are…

D: And then my own.
23:05 K: First, can I reject the authority of all the professors, psychologists, psychoanalysts, religious people who say, ‘I’m the soul’ or ‘I’m God’? I must put all that aside to know myself.
23:21 D: That’s already difficult because that puts you outside many groups and communities. You find yourself standing somewhat alone when you’ve done all this.
23:33 K: Sir, that’s agreed on.
23:39 D: I put aside the others’ approach and I try to inquire by myself.
23:44 K: That is, can thought investigate ‘me’? Have you understood? Thought which is based on memory, experience, knowledge, and knowledge being incomplete – knowledge can never be complete – therefore, knowledge goes with ignorance. Have you understood?

D: Not the last word.
24:20 K: Ignorance. Knowledge and ignorance are together.
24:26 D: Yes, two sides of a coin.
24:30 K: So, thought cannot study myself, because thought has created me. You understand?

D: Yes, I understand that. That’s where the main problem is. Because a scientist would say to study something, one must try to be objective, meaning looking onto the subject from the outside.
24:53 K: Therefore, there is observation. Not ‘I am observing myself’ but observation observing. You understand?
25:07 D: If I observe myself, then that’s done for, because I’m going in circles.

K: Yes, ‘I observe’. Is there an observation without ‘me’? Not objective/subjective, but just to observe without the ‘me’. Sir, this goes into a much deeper issue – do you want to go on with it? – we have divided the world there, and me separate. Right? The world and me. But is there such a difference? The ‘me’ has created the world. Not the world of nature and environment, all the skies and the beauty of the earth, but the ‘me’ with all the greeds, envies, anger, violence, brutality, superstition, has created that world. That is society.

D: Yes.
26:44 K: That is this modern society, and we human beings have created that.
26:56 D: But isn’t self-knowledge an altogether different problem?
27:02 K: That’s it, sir, that’s it. I’m saying the world which we human beings have created is not separate, the world is me and I am the world. Do you understand?
27:20 D: If I want to understand myself I am also in the world… I can understand myself in the world? Is that what you want to say? I see that society is organised in this way because of the struggles between us, because of the conflicts, the desires. It’s organised in this way because of all that.
27:42 K: Which is the ‘me’ and the ‘you’.
27:48 D: Marx, would have said that it’s organised because of economy, but we’re saying that it’s organised because of psychological problems beneath all that.
28:01 K: Marx and everyone say creation of society is economic. On the contrary, it is psychological.
28:17 D: But what I am looking for is to know myself. So, how…?
28:22 K: Wait sir, I’m coming to that. When I’m examining myself, I’m examining the whole mankind, not me. Do you understand? Look. Man suffers right through the world – suffering. Whether he’s Russian, Indian, Chinese, European, he’s suffering. Right? He’s angry, he’s violent, he’s brutal, he’s everything. So, you are integral part of the rest of mankind. You understand?

D: Yes. When you study yourself, know yourself, you are studying the whole of mankind.
29:36 D: It’s not just my own thing, not just ‘my’ self...
29:43 K: You are the world. When you study yourself, it is not selfish, you are studying mankind. So, the responsibility becomes much greater.
30:07 D: Yes, but the question is how to study it without the interference of thought which, by itself, is conditioned?

K: Yes, that’s right. That’s the real question. Can I… is there a possibility of looking at myself who is the world, in the mirror, without the interference of thought? Because thought is limited, thought is mechanical. The me is living.
30:48 D: And if I interfere with my inquiry, I’ll find what I wish, I won’t find anything new, I’ll find what I’m looking for.
30:56 K: That’s right.
30:59 D: But I may be able to find something new, maybe.
31:02 K: Yes. So, is it possible to look at myself without the interference of thought?
31:15 D: Yes, that’s the question.

K: We have come to that point. That is, can I observe the whole of my reactions, my pleasures, despairs, loneliness, anger, violence, sexual appetites, in the mirror in which there is no distortion? Distortion takes place when there is thinking, when thought observes.
31:46 D: Yes, because it’s mechanical.

K: That’s it. Right? Now, what is the mirror? Have you understood?
31:57 D: The world. Reality.

K: No, one moment. What is the mirror in which I can see myself without distortion, without illusion, and without the interference of thought? You understand?

D: Yes. I do see myself, as I am, when I suffer. For instance…
32:29 K: That’s right.
32:31 D: If something has happened, such as a rush of adrenalin in the heart, it means there’s an image, a resistance which has created a shock. I can see that. But as soon as thought…
32:52 K: Wait, we’re going to examine that. Let us be clear about the question. Is there an observation of myself, who is the world, an observation without the distortion of thought? That is the question. The mirror is relationship. You understand? In that mirror, I observe. I’m jealous, I’m angry, I’m dominant, I am ambitious. In the relationship between you and me, between a wife and husband, they can watch. That’s the mirror.
33:49 D: The mirror is the present, it’s the moment.
33:53 K: That’s it. In relationship.
33:58 D: Not the relationship that just took place, but in this moment.
34:04 K: A monk living in a monastery has already enclosed himself.
34:14 D: No relationship.
34:17 K: The communists have enclosed themselves.
34:19 D: Inside an idea, an ideal.

K: That’s it.
34:23 D: And what doesn’t fit into that ideal, they do not see. He’s not even dishonest, he doesn’t see it. But when a relationship takes place, thought takes hold of it right away to rationalise the sensation. If I have felt…
34:56 K: That’s right. So, to observe in the mirror of relationship – between us – what exactly is happening.
35:13 D: Thought has to be…

K: That’s it. I observe that insect crawling, I just observe. Not ‘I’ observe, there is only observation. Sir, look, the word ‘idea’, – from Greek – the real meaning is to observe, not observe and form an idea. You understand? You see, that’s what is happening, sir.
36:01 D: But what is the state of the mind which is observing? Because thought is from cause and effect, of the past, it’s mechanical. All my thinking is a mixture of things past.
36:21 K: Mixture of everything that has happened in the past.
36:27 D: There’s thought on one side but also, there’s something else we haven’t mentioned yet, which wraps itself around the problem. Would that be intelligence? I don’t quite know what to call it. Would that be intelligence? Maybe not intelligence in the usual sense…
36:49 K: That’s it. The moment you observe that the world is not separate from you, that’s intelligence. It’s not the intelligence of thought. It is intelligence that says, ‘To study myself, I must be free of all the authorities’. It is intelligence, not cunning thought, which says, ‘I can only understand myself in my relationship with another’. In the mirror of relationship, I see myself exactly as I am.
37:39 D: On the contrary, if I analyse my past, if I try to analyse what I did one or two years ago, I’m back using thought.
37:50 K: That’s the whole point. Analysis is merely… The analyst, psychoanalyst, what are they doing? They are analysing the cause of what you are, in the past. And the analyser is the movement of thought. Therefore, thought being limited, his analysis must be limited.
38:20 D: And I’ve observed that knowing the cause of a problem… Suppose I know the cause of my getting angry with my daughter, even if I know the cause, I can’t manage to suppress…
38:34 K: I can’t manage… to be free of this. So, that’s just it. To understand that discovering the cause won’t change the effect.
38:48 D: This is something everybody can experience.
38:58 K: Then we come to a rather important point, which is to observe, to see in the mirror – right? – exactly what is happening without the interference or the projection of thought trying to correct what is happening.
39:20 D: It all goes very quickly because in that there are things we don’t like, which thought hides, because we may discover things within us which we don’t like.
39:33 K: So, to observe that which is pleasant, or unpleasant, without any choice. Just to observe. Right? In that observation, is there an observer? You understand?

D: Yes, I do.
39:54 K: If there is an observer, that is still thought.
39:59 D: The past.

K: The past. You see, sir, nobody wants to go into this. Because they are too distracted by their ambitions, by their position. They say, ‘This requires tremendous investigation into oneself’. And nobody wants to do that, it’s much easier to go along as we are. So, without understanding oneself completely, one cannot create a good society. Right? The totalitarians try to create a so-called good society, they have produced monstrosities. There’s no freedom, there’s suppression, suffocation, torture. Now sir, look, it’s such a beautiful day. Can you observe the beauty of that land – the green, the trees, the shadows, the extraordinary light – without ‘me’? ‘Me’ the Frenchman, ‘me’ the Russian, ‘me’ the Hindu, the ‘me’. Can you observe all that?

D: Or ‘me’ the owner. That’s easier to do with nature.
42:16 K: Yes. If you can do that, why can’t you do the same here? Do you understand? Here you are frightened because you might lose something, your position.

D: Your job.
42:44 K: Your status, you might lose your nationality. So, you say, ‘Please…’
42:53 D: And so as not to lose all this, what happens is I accumulate things, or knowledge, or friends, or goods, in order to protect myself against loss.
43:11 K: Which is fear.
43:15 D: But let’s stick to the problem of self-knowledge. If thought is mechanical...
43:23 K: Not ‘if’.

D: It is mechanical. So, from where does the possibility of observation without thought come, if it exists? There has to be some other plane…
43:42 K: Yes, quite so, there is. Sir, look, when you looked at the beauty of that, there was no ‘me’. Right? Can I look at myself without the thought, which is the past and therefore limited, can I look at myself in the mirror of relationship? We have come to that point, don’t let’s go off to something else. How to observe the mirror? You understand? If I am observing as though I was an outsider looking in the mirror… Therefore, the image is me, which is in the mirror. That is, the observer is the observed.
44:50 D: That’s a difficult point.

K: No, it’s not difficult. On the contrary, it is very simple. Just look at it. The observer says, ‘I am different from the thing I see’.
45:15 D: And I want to modify it.

K: That’s right. Which is distortion.
45:30 D: One should observe without any wish to change.
45:35 K: Changing, suppressing – that’s it. Observe. You observe that flower. You can’t change it. You might like a rose better than that, but you can’t change that. It’s very interesting, sir, to know oneself means to observe without the observer. The observer is the past. The observer is all the memories, the associations, a mixture of that. When he looks in the mirror he says, ‘I am not that, I want to change it. I don’t like it, but I like that, so I’ll keep it’. So, can you look without the observer? Sir... this is real activity of the whole human mind, not just thought saying, ‘I like, I don’t like’, or, ‘This is right, this is wrong’. We are observing the totality of the human being.
47:25 D: I don’t know if I or something can observe without the observer…
47:33 K: Just observe. You did it when you looked at that green earth. You’re not the proprietor, or this or that, you just said, ‘How marvellous that earth is’.
48:03 D: Yet we feel the proprietor of the image we’re going to give to others. We are attached to it.
48:13 K: ‘I’ve got a large property’. That’s why, sir, religions, communism, Marxism, all of those, are really destructive.
48:40 D: Yes.

K: Because they’re all separative. We cannot have unity of mankind through religions, through organised religions – right? – through the United Nations, neither through totalitarianism spreading all over the world. You can only have unity of mankind, and therefore a good society, when nationalism is abolished completely – the French, the English, the German – all this silly division. The revolution is not physical, it’s psychological.
50:17 D: History proves it. The history of the world shows it.
50:23 K: Revolution out there, not here.

D: ‘Let’s change the others’.
50:32 K: Change the others, or make them conform to ‘me’, to my pattern.
50:42 D: But this sort of perception, this problem of the observer and the observed, this intelligence, since thought cannot help, there is a problem. What will give birth to this intelligence?
51:05 K: That’s very simple. You looked at that, and the very looking at that beauty, without the observer, without ‘me’, was intelligence, no?
51:23 D: In the end, what is simple about what you say, is that this intelligence, one could say, is life.
51:33 K: Don’t define it, yet.