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BR79DSS2.2 - What does it mean to live an intelligent life?
Brockwood Park, UK - 7 October 1979
Discussion with Staff and Students 2.2



0:20 Krishnamurti: What shall we talk about? Have you any suggestions?
0:40 Why do you want to listen to me? That’s a good question.
0:55 Would you kindly answer me, if you can? Why do you all gather here this morning to listen to the speaker?
1:09 Are you interested in what he is talking about, or is it an awful bore?
1:31 Since you don’t answer a thing, so I will go on.
1:42 Do we ever demand of ourselves the very best, the very excellence of us, or we always play a rather low key?
2:06 You understand my question? Do we ask of ourselves something more than the average, more than the usual mediocre life – job, house, wife, children, or husband, and the rest of it – usual routine, the rat trap?
2:46 Do we ask of ourselves what it is that we really want, desire, crave for?
3:18 I think it is a good question to be put and to be answered.
3:26 Do I, as a human being living in this insane world, in this really very cruel, thoughtless world, do I want to belong to all that?
4:00 Do I want to settle down into an easy, comfortable life?
4:11 Which doesn’t mean I don’t want comfort or easy life, but is this what I want, to satisfy my own desires, my own pleasures, my own sexual appetites?
4:38 Do I want to live a rather narrow, limited, self-centred life?
4:59 If I put that question to yourself and to myself, what would you answer?
5:08 You may not want it. I may not want that kind of life but I am caught in an environment, in a trap, a society that is so ugly, and I am ready to be swallowed up.
5:47 If I am not, if I don’t allow myself to live a narrow, limited, self-centred life, can I face a life of solitude, can I face a life which makes me go against the whole current of existence, of modern life?
6:34 Sir, it is really a good question to put to oneself, these questions.
6:46 Or shall I become… join some kind of sect and get lost in it?
7:05 Like the Catholic Church is a sect, in a large sense of that word. And I can become a monk, join a group of monks and feel completely safe there, or be in a small community accepting all their rules and all that.
7:33 So, what kind of life does one want to lead?
7:40 Is this too serious a question?
7:48 Would you tell me? By Jove you are all serious; you won’t even answer. Is this too serious of question for us to understand and face, or we are too young?
8:14 I don’t think it is a matter of youth or old age, I think one has to face this question very seriously, because one must learn from now on, if you are interested, if you are serious, from now on learn how to live the life which is not merely self-centred and therefore in a strange way very destructive.
9:14 I think we ought to begin now, however young we are, to learn a way of life that is highly intelligent, highly responsible, and yet free.
9:49 Not dedicated to some cause or some ideal but to live a life that requires all your attention, all your highest moral, ethical, intellectual excellence.
10:14 I wonder if you follow all this. Do you?
10:36 If I was your age – 14, 15, 20 – if somebody asked me that question, if somebody says to me at that age: do you want to live a life of great intelligence, a life that is clear, that has an extraordinary sense of vitality?
11:16 – I really wouldn’t know how to answer him. I would say ask: what do you mean by being intelligent?
11:27 What do you mean by that word? Because the most conservative people use that word.
11:41 The most intellectual also use that word. Those who are dedicated to an ideal, to a principle, to Marxism or this or that, use also that word.
12:02 And also at home we say, ‘Do be intelligent, for god’s sake’, they tell us. So, I think we ought to find out what that word means to each one of us: to be intelligent.
12:26 I think the essence of that word, the real depth of meaning of that word, is to live totally, a harmonious life, without any contradiction in oneself.
12:48 Is that at all possible?
12:55 To live a life where your thought, your intellect isn’t in opposition to your feelings, to your senses, to your affection.
13:14 Are you following all this?
13:22 Give me a little bit of encouragement, won’t you?
13:35 Or am I talking nonsense?
13:42 I would like to know what it is to be intelligent. After all, that is part of education. That is why you are all here. Not merely learn lot of facts about various subjects but also to have that quality of intelligence that will meet life correctly, truly, accurately, not just be dominated by our emotions or by the intellectual, cunning thought.
14:48 To be intelligent implies not only to have a very good mind that thinks clearly, objectively, not personally – me first, all my feelings, my emotions, my anger, problems – but to think objectively about my problems, about my desires, my anxieties, my fears, to observe them, to observe them correctly, not distorted by saying to oneself, ‘Oh, I want this and I don’t want that’, and so on, always denying or accepting, but to look at it, to look at our feelings, at our thoughts, at our reactions, as they are.
15:58 Can we do that? Or at the moment of reaction, at the moment of strong feelings, we are carried away and are caught.
16:19 We do things and say things which we don’t mean. So, gradually one develops a sense of contradiction in oneself, which obviously is not intelligence.
16:51 The word ‘intelligence’ means to be able to interpret what you hear correctly, not according to your desires, to your want or your inclination or your prejudice – to hear what is said correctly.
17:20 That means to listen to what is being said and not interpret it to suit you. To listen.
17:40 It also means to observe your own thinking.
17:54 Can you? Observe your thinking – why you think this and why you think that; why you deny this form of thinking and accept another way of thought.
18:20 Can one listen and learn, not only what is happening within oneself but also what is happening around the world?
18:38 So that, you know, your mind is extraordinarily alive.
18:46 That is part of intelligence, isn’t it?
18:53 And also intelligence implies to act – this becomes little more difficult – to act according to the dictates of the fact.
19:21 You understand what I am saying? Is this too difficult? To act according to what is the fact.
19:37 Not what you think about the fact and then act, but see what is the fact.
19:47 Is this is becoming too difficult? Would you tell me?
19:55 Fact. What is a fact? Fact is, say, you are greedy. That is a fact.
20:12 Greedy for clothes, greedy for more food, greedy for power, greedy for various forms of pleasure, and so on – greedy. That is a fact.
20:28 Every other… say, being greedy – to deny it is a non-fact, isn’t it?
20:36 Right? Right? You see that? So, to watch, to observe greed, understand what is implied in greed, what are the consequences of greed, and act with the full understanding of the implications of what is involved in that greed.
21:05 You understand what I am saying or is that too much? I am jealous. Suppose I am jealous.
21:19 That is a fact. Right? Why am I jealous? As we went into it the other day, jealousy comes into being through various forms of comparison. Right?
21:41 I compare myself with you who are more clever, more bright, more intelligent, nicer looking, all the rest of it. So, in comparing myself with you who are something… what I want to be, I am denying the fact of what I am. Right?
22:02 Do you see that? Oh, lordy! Poor chap!
22:24 If I see I am greedy, if I am aware of it at all, then what shall I do?
22:36 What is my action?
22:47 To pursue that greed and fulfil that greed?
22:56 Wait, I will follow, I will explain. I am greedy for power. Suppose I am greedy for power. Which means position, domination over others; also it involves cruelty; and greedy for power in different forms.
23:24 Right? You have understood? Political power, economic power, religious power, power over my family, my wife, my husband.
23:33 It is the desire to dominate. Right? That is simple isn’t it? No... Right? So, I am greedy for power, and I never examine the whole complex process of greed but I want to fulfil, I want to pursue that greed. Right?
24:06 I don’t examine why I am greedy, what is involved in greedy, what are the responsibilities in being greedy, where it is going to lead.
24:19 Because the whole world, as you observe, is driven by greed. Right?
24:27 The politicians, the priests, the whole social network is the movement of greed in different forms.
24:42 And I also am greedy. I say: what is the intelligent action? What shall I do which is intelligent? You understand my question? Are you following this?
25:04 Do I examine the consequences of greed? Which means I won’t immediately participate in the activities of greed. Right?
25:17 I take time to examine why I am greedy.
25:26 Is it my conditioning? Is it I have observed others in power, with their cars, with their entourage, with their, you know, patronage, all the rest of it, and I would like to be like that.
25:48 Is that why I am greedy? Or I am greedy because I am very lonely.
26:10 I feel I can’t… there is something empty in me and I try to cover that up, run away from it, in the form of greed.
26:25 So, what shall I do? You understand my question? I am greedy and I see the whole world in a different waves of…
26:37 and their activities are based on greed.
26:44 And apparently that is the current of the world.
26:51 Shall I join them? Should I become part of them, part of this vast river of greed?
27:02 So I am examining, before I plunge into greed, the whole nature of greed. Will you do that?
27:18 Because in greed there is a great deal of conflict.
27:27 Isn’t it? I am always exercising great effort in trying to become something. Right?
27:44 I am not accepting the fact, but trying to change the fact to something else, and therefore there is constant conflict. Right?
27:55 Are you following all this? So can I, before I plunge into the activities of greed, examine why a human being like myself, like yourself, are greedy.
28:13 Why?
28:21 Is it that one is dissatisfied with oneself?
28:39 Is it that by accumulating a lot of things, not only things materially but other qualities, psychological qualities, you will be somebody? You are following all this?
29:05 Isn’t it... Any form of urge to become something is a form of greed, isn’t it?
29:13 I wonder if you understand all this.
29:24 Surely. I want to learn, say, for example, Spanish, because I would like to be able to understand the language, speak in it or write in it. That is not greedy, is it?
29:44 But when I want to become something, psychologically, inwardly, I want to become better than I am, I want to become less or more of something, I want to become – what? – the governor of a state or executive somebody or the chief foreman in a factory – the psychologically becoming is a form of greed.
30:21 Isn’t it? Golly!
30:30 So I see the whole nature of greed and I say, ‘What shall I do?’ Is it greedy when you need things?
30:45 Clothes, food, shelter, which implies money – is that greed when your activities are based on need?
31:04 Would you kindly go… Is that greed? I need a house or a room.
31:18 I like to be in a nice room, nicely proportioned, perhaps a little garden if I can afford it.
31:27 That’s not greed, is it? That’s shelter. What do you say? Come on, sirs, discuss with me.
31:45 But when I have my house or the room and I say I must have a better room or better house than that man or that woman – you understand? – then I am beginning to have the beginnings of greed.
32:11 So, does it mean that I must be satisfied with what I have?
32:19 Are you following all this carefully? I have a room.
32:30 I like that room, it is all right but my needs are satisfied in that room.
32:44 And when I want a bigger room, bigger house, bigger this or that, I am exceeding my needs. You are following all this?
33:00 And then that becomes greed, doesn’t it? You are following this? Questioner: Sir, how do we draw the line on what our needs are?
33:12 K: Therefore I will have to find out what my needs are. Are you prepared to go into all this? I want to find out what my needs are. ‘Each man according to his need’. That is one of the Marxist sayings.
33:34 You know who is Karl Marx, don’t you? Oh, no. All right. What are my needs? Who will decide my needs? Will you decide my needs? Or will I decide your needs?
33:55 Would you like me to decide your needs? Would you? You wouldn’t. Either me or your parents or your State or your priest – you wouldn’t like them to decide what you need.
34:16 So you have to find out what your needs are. Go on, sir. Go into it.
34:29 As nobody is going to decide for you what your needs are, you will have then the responsibility of choosing what your needs are.
34:44 How will you decide that?
34:51 Come on, sirs, that’s your problem, isn’t it? Some of your problems.
35:02 Or you don’t decide.
35:15 Go slowly, I am going to… You don’t decide what your needs are, because needs may be changing from year to year. Right?
35:26 Needs. That is, I may need this year a winter coat, if I stay in England.
35:36 If I go to India, I don’t need a winter coat, if I am going to the south.
35:43 So, how do I decide or find out what my needs are?
35:51 All the time, not just while I am at school or when I am… All my life – how shall I find out?
36:04 You are following all this? It is a rather interesting question if you go into it carefully.
36:19 If I decide my needs are these and find later on my decision was not correct, then why did I base my first decision, saying this is what I need? You are following all this?
36:49 I may decide to have few clothes – two trousers or a couple of suits, or whatever it is – but as I move, as I live, I may need more.
37:06 So why should I decide what my needs are? I won’t allow you to decide what my needs are, or the State, or the priest, or somebody else, but I am trying to find out if there is a way which is not based on need.
37:31 You understand? What do you say, sir?
37:43 If I restrict myself to what I need, it becomes a very small affair, doesn’t it?
37:53 I need a couple of this, a couple of that – I become a petty little mind.
38:03 But if I say, ‘I won’t act upon what I need’, I put those aside, I am not concerned with what I need, I won’t decide what I need.
38:21 Which means what? I already have the inkling of intelligence operating.
38:30 You understand what I am talking? Do you understand? If I say I need ten pairs of trousers and this and that and that, I am restricting my life to a very small quantity, isn’t it, or to a very large quantity.
38:56 But I want to look at it, what my needs are, from a totally different point of view, which is to have the intelligence that is never a slave to needs.
39:33 I don’t know how to put this.
39:36 Q: What is wrong with being in accord with needs? Why is it bad to restrict yourself to needs? What is wrong with taking need into consideration?
39:52 K: What is wrong with the consideration of needs.
40:03 There is something wrong in it, isn’t there? I don’t know, you tell me. I feel it is wrong. I will tell you. What do you think?
40:11 Q: One can reduce one’s needs to very little, really.
40:24 K: What do you say, sirs? You are grown up people, what do you say?
40:28 Q: Are you saying, sir, that there is some calculating about needs?
40:33 K: Not only calculating, but much more subtle. Go on, inquire into it.
40:41 Q: Are you saying there are other factors other than just basic need, which are in some way essential?
40:50 K: I need food. Why do I decide about food? I need food.
41:02 I need a certain amount of vitamins and all the rest of it. That’s finished. There is no decision about it.
41:09 Q: There are many decisions on what we eat. There’s an infinity of decisions.

K: Which is what? I have exercised my intelligence to investigate what the body needs – certain amount of vitamins, all the rest of that business.
41:27 So, it is not based on need. It is based on the investigation of what the body requires.
41:36 Q: Isn’t that a need?

K: No.
41:39 Q: You said ‘requires’.
41:40 K: I wouldn’t call that a need, would you?
41:45 Q: There is a difference between need and want.
41:50 K: Yes, sir, we made that difference. Need and want. I need a certain amount of… the body needs – ‘needs’, quotes; or don’t use that word – the body requires certain vitamins, certain proteins, certain quantities of this and that.
42:09 It wants it. It is necessary for its existence.
42:16 Q: Sir, I am trying to say that whenever our minds interfere with what the body needs, then it starts the…
42:23 K: But the mind has inquired into it. The scientists have inquired – biologists and so on have inquired what the body needs, requires.
42:35 They have studied and I have also somewhat inquired into it, and we said the body requires this.
42:43 I have exercised my mind. But I am objecting to the restriction of that word.
42:53 Q: Sir, you are saying that there is something limiting about needs. I am not quite sure what you mean by something limiting.
43:02 K: Isn’t it very limiting? When you say, I need this and I am not going to do anything else. I need so many things. Isn’t there a different approach to this question? You see, you are not inquiring. What do you say, sirs?
43:21 Q: Sir, but in this case aren’t we talking on a purely physical level? I mean, I need so many clothes.
43:26 K: Look, on the physical level it is fairly simple, but it is much more difficult when you go into a psychological area where you say, ‘I need’.
43:42 I need companions. I need sex. I need to be loved.
44:03 And I am saying: is there a way of looking at all this not in terms of need, but with a much wider look?
44:29 Sir, help me out, will you, some of you?
44:37 Q: Is it that it is necessary to think a little about our need but not to finalise into a decision?
44:46 K: No, no, I am objecting to the word ‘need’ altogether.
44:55 Q: Is it more that a demand of excellence should be the approach rather than needs?
45:02 K: Is that it? I may have wanted the excellent pair of trousers.
45:14 Q: I mean psychologically.

K: No, even then. You see…
45:21 Q: A need is something that I want for myself, but is excellence something that I want for myself?
45:30 K: Partly, sir. Go into it. Let’s go into it, you and I for a moment, if you are willing to discuss and have a dialogue.
45:42 I am objecting to the restrictive meaning of that word, first.
45:50 I am also objecting because it implies a calculated limitation.
46:00 Q: It seems that there is something that needs, that in the need there is a…
46:08 K: Wait, sir. I feel lonely. Then I say I need companionship.
46:23 Then that word implies an escape from the fact.
46:30 Q: The situation, yes.
46:34 Q: That’s not really a need but that is a want.
46:38 K: So, again – want. I want.
46:41 Q: It becomes a desire.

K: Yes, same thing. So one has to be awfully careful here.
46:52 Q: But a plant needs water.

K: Yes.
46:56 Q: But it doesn’t concern itself with getting water or…
47:00 K: No. Fortunately, in this country it rains. But in Asiatic countries or in parts of the Asiatic countries, or in Arabia, there is no…
47:15 it doesn’t rain very often then the plant needs a gardener or somebody to water it.
47:25 Q: Let’s not get into plants. One can argue about plants. Plants do seek water and do seek things, but let’s leave plants out of it.
47:35 Are you saying that if there is a psychological benefit involved in the need that this is incorrect?
47:48 There is an enhancement psychologically.
47:53 K: Yes, partly.
47:57 Q: But surely the body needs water, the body needs food. That is straight forward enough.
48:02 Q: Sir, the problem really starts when we bring in physical needs into psychological needs.
48:14 Q: Sir, are you trying to say that when you say, ‘I need something’, you shut yourself off from… you don’t inquire into that anymore – you think it is something which is almost a fact.
48:23 K: Yes. Go on, sir, explore it more. Help me out.
48:29 Q: How do we define need?
48:33 K: That’s why – I don’t want to define need – that’s why I said the State, in communist, totalitarian States, says, ‘You need that and no more’.
48:51 And here you say, I don’t want to be told by anybody what my needs are. Right?
49:00 Because you think you are free to choose your needs.
49:09 Right?
49:18 So, the choice gives you the impression, the feeling that you are free to do what you want.
49:29 I am objecting to choosing, because you choose when you are uncertain.
49:42 If you are certain there is no choice. Are you following what I am saying? So when we say I need, or I require, it is my urge, is that a form of choice? This is too abstract.
50:14 Q: Are you saying instead of sitting down and saying, ‘What is it I need in my life?’ – that that will take you in the wrong direction altogether?
50:21 K: I feel that way, yes. You see, if we start not with needs but with freedom.
50:34 I am getting into it slowly. Freedom.
50:46 Freedom implies non-attachment to anything.
50:53 Would you agree? Even theoretically, please.
51:02 Would you agree to that, intellectually, though you may be attached? I am not attacking you about your attachments, but would you say that there is no freedom when there is attachment?
51:23 Would you agree to that?
51:31 So, is freedom denied when I restrict myself to a particular form of need?
51:48 All right, let me put it the other way. Freedom is necessary, because otherwise you can’t think properly, you can’t observe, you can’t…
51:59 you know, if you are not free you are a slave.
52:10 Now, is attachment a need? To be attached to an idea, to a prejudice, to a conclusion, to a person, to a house.
52:31 Go on, sir, answer me.
52:38 Q: It is felt as a need. It is felt, it is perceived as a need.
52:45 K: I am asking you, Maria, is attachment a need?
52:52 Q: I am saying that we think of it as a need.
52:55 K: I know – but is it? I may think that attachment is necessary, but is it?
53:06 Because we have said freedom denies attachment. Right?
53:15 But thought says, Old chap, forget freedom because being attached is much more important, it is satisfying, and so on – so I get attached and therefore deny freedom. Right?
53:32 Then I say to myself, ‘Attachment is a necessity’.
53:42 I don’t know if you are following all this. Right? So, the whole…
53:55 the emphasis is on freedom, and anything that restricts that, I put aside.
54:15 If attachment is the denial of freedom, I won’t have it.
54:24 Because I have inquired into the implications of attachment, the consequences of it, the dangers of it, and see that any form of attachment denies freedom, therefore intelligence says, ‘You cannot have both’.
54:48 Right? Are you following this?
55:00 And so, when I restrict my needs – which doesn’t mean I must have everything – when I restrict my needs or I say to myself, ‘I only need this’.
55:15 am I not also in a subtle way denying freedom? What do you say, sir?
55:25 Q: But are you saying that by saying, ‘I need this’, you are implying that I can’t function without this, or in any other way? So in that way it’s restricting.
55:36 K: Yes, part. So. I wish you would answer my question.
55:45 Am I denying freedom when I say, ‘My needs are these’?
55:58 Q: We attach ourselves to the idea of our needs.
56:01 K: No. I may not be… That’s partly it.
56:06 Q: We are attached to fulfilling the needs. If we say that we need this, then we are attached to fulfilling the needs.
56:17 K: Go on, sir. Go into it.
56:19 Q: The needs may change.

K: Needs may change.
56:27 Q: But if we have no idea of our needs we have the freedom to take at the right moment what we need and… (inaudible) K: So what will you do? You understand?
56:44 That freedom implies non-attachment. Right? To ideas, to needs, to various forms, etc., but it also… it doesn’t mean that you must have everything, as much as you want – which is a denial of freedom too. Right?
57:16 S o when freedom is all-important, what is your responsibility with regard to what you require?
57:33 You understand my question? Are you understanding my question?
57:39 Q: Sir, are you making distinction between the assertion of what ones needs are and the just looking and needs make themselves apparent?
57:48 K: I am not concerned about my needs.
57:55 Oh, if I have trousers, I have trousers; if not it is all right, I will put on the old ones. But I am not concerned with needs. I don’t know if you follow what I am saying.
58:09 Q: Are you also saying that there is something mechanical about having needs?
58:12 K: Yes. And also it is very limiting.
58:21 And also I must be very careful when I say, I am not concerned with needs. I might have… I want more and more and more. I don’t mean that.
58:33 Q: In that area one has to have some intelligence because one can easily rationalise one’s needs into needing two hundred of something when one will do.

K: Of course, of course.
58:44 But as I said at the beginning, it is absolutely necessary to be free.
58:55 That is the essence of it. If that is what is the real urge – the excellence of freedom – then in talking it over with you about needs, this and that, attachments and so on, the intelligence is beginning to operate, or beginning to being awakened.
59:28 Is it being awakened in you?
59:48 I feel intelligence will say: look, don’t do this and don’t do that. In that there is no conflict. You follow?
1:00:01 Whereas if I say, ‘I need these and no more’, and suddenly I may have a desire for more, and there is a battle, there is conflict, there is struggle.
1:00:12 I have said, ‘I need only this’, and I find… the conflict begins. So I am trying to avoid conflict in myself by understanding the absolute necessity of freedom.
1:00:31 Anything that restricts, anything that denies freedom, is unintelligent.
1:00:44 Like attachment is unintelligent.
1:00:52 Agree? Even intellectually, you agree?
1:01:04 At least verbally you can say, ‘Yes, I agree with you’, and go on being attached.
1:01:16 Which means that you are really not understanding how important it is to have freedom.
1:01:29 Because otherwise you can’t mature, you can’t grow, you can’t flower.
1:01:52 Look, all right, let me put it this way. Some of you come here from a society, from a family, already established in certain grooves, certain opinion, certain judgment, certain way of living. Right?
1:02:16 You come here, and here they say, ‘For the beginners, you must have certain rules’.
1:02:24 Wait a minute, go slowly. Go slowly, don’t jump.
1:02:31 Don’t jump on me. They say don’t smoke. That is one of the rules. And you are used to smoking, or doing something else, another habit.
1:02:46 And when you come here they say, ‘Please don’t do that’. They explain it to you, go into it very carefully, how harmful or this or that, but you have formed a habit. Right?
1:03:05 So you are in conflict with what Brockwood says and with your own habit. Right?
1:03:16 Now what will you do? Bearing in mind all the time, freedom is absolutely necessary. Right?
1:03:26 Freedom doesn’t mean doing what you like. Right? Because you can’t do what you like – that’s impossible. Right?
1:03:42 But you have understood freedom means to do what you like.
1:03:51 So, you say, ‘I smoke and I am free to do what I want’.
1:03:59 And here Brockwood says, ‘Don’t smoke’, so you are in conflict. Right?
1:04:09 But you have forgotten the essence of being free, which is not to be attached to any habit.
1:04:20 Right? Your habit is to smoke. Your habit to say, ‘I will do what I want to do’. Right? That is a habit, especially in a permissive society that allows you to do what you want.
1:04:42 So, you are fighting a restriction here – rules, if you like to call it.
1:04:50 But when this is carefully explained these are not rules but we have gone into it and seen that it is bad for your health and so on, so on, so on, and you are unwilling to listen – right?
1:05:08 – because that is your habit – so, what will you do? Which means you really don’t want freedom.
1:05:21 Right? Freedom implies, being attached to a habit not to be attached to a habit, to a person, to this or to that.
1:05:38 You see the problem? So Brockwood says examine it, find out.
1:05:48 Don’t say, ‘I must smoke’ – explore it. We will talk it over together so that you yourself begin to have this intelligence that says, ‘All right, I won’t smoke’.
1:06:04 And that will take time, won’t it? Because you come afresh and you are caught in that habit and it takes time to explain to you, gently first, and you keep on doing it, then it gets irritated because you do it.
1:06:26 So you have to… both sides, your responsibility and my responsibility is to say, ‘Look, freedom is absolutely necessary’.
1:06:40 And freedom implies, don’t be attached to anything your habits, your prejudices. Right?
1:06:49 That is intelligence. That intelligence will tell me what I require or not require - I am not bothered with limiting my needs.
1:07:01 I wonder if you understand this. Are we meeting each other now? I feel it is unintelligent to say, ‘My needs are these’.
1:07:23 That’s a danger in this. Because if I am not very careful, I say, ‘I need, I require everything’ – you follow? – more and more and more.
1:07:38 So intelligence says being free is the most important thing and anything that comes in the way of that is unintelligent.
1:07:58 Right, sir? Won’t you, somebody trip me up?
1:08:15 You see, look at the totalitarian states. Those who are privileged, like the artist, the politicians, the scientists, the elite of a certain society, they have got extraordinary comforts.
1:08:32 They beat the capitalist society. with their dachas and, you know, all that. And that society says to the others, ‘You need only that’ So, can we really see the importance of being completely free?
1:09:14 Not what you want to do, your desires, your habit – to be free implies complete unattachment, detached from habits, prejudices, tradition, persons, ideas.
1:09:35 Gosh, if you do that…
1:09:50 So, we are saying at the end of this talk: Will you demand the highest form of freedom for yourself?
1:10:06 Does it deny affection, love? Go on, sir – does it? I am attached to you and that attachment makes me say, ‘I love you’. And I realise that attachment is the very denial of freedom.
1:10:29 Then what is my relationship with you to whom I have said, ‘I love you’?
1:10:37 I am attached to you. You follow all this, sir? Go into it. What is my relationship to the person with whom I have lived, with all the implications of it, and I realise one morning or one afternoon after hearing somebody, I realise freedom is so extraordinarily important and therefore I tell my wife, Look here, old girl, I am detached.
1:11:12 I am not attached to you. She will say, ‘What the dickens are you talking about?’ Follow this, sir, go into it very carefully.
1:11:26 And I say to her or him, ‘I am free from attachment’. Does that mean I have no responsibility towards her, that I don’t love her?
1:11:44 Is love attachment? You follow? You are following all this? I wonder if you see this. The lady to whom I have been married, or girlfriend, I have said before, I love you. I need you.
1:12:03 You are my companion, sex – I need you. And one day I discover, read a book or find out for myself, how extraordinarily important it is to be free.
1:12:20 To me that is absolutely in my blood. And I go to my wife or girl or boy, whatever it is, and I say, Look, attachment implies no love.
1:12:37 Love can only exist when there is freedom in our relationship. Will she accept it? Will she merely tell me, ‘Oh, you don’t love me’?
1:12:57 Because my relationship with her may have been based on needs – sexual, need for companionship, need for various forms.
1:13:14 Consciously or unconsciously I have become entangled in my attachment.
1:13:23 You are following all this? Right? See the difficulty. So, I see freedom implies love, responsibility.
1:13:40 Attachment doesn’t. Though society, the whole world says attachment means responsibility.
1:13:55 That is why you have a piece of paper that says you are married.
1:14:02 You understand? Legally or in the Church, it says you are married. See the complications of all this. But it becomes extraordinarily simple if you and I, the woman and the man, the boy and the girl, see freedom is absolutely essential for human flowering.
1:14:29 If both of us see then it becomes very simple. Right? Then you are not attached, I am not attached. Then perhaps in that there is an affection, there is care, there is responsibility, there is love.
1:14:46 But attachment never can have the beauty of love.
1:14:53 It is only with freedom. So my needs are not dictated by the intellect, by thought.
1:15:12 I think we should better stop, don’t you? A quarter past one.
1:15:21 Oh, we started at twelve. I am sorry. That’s all right.
1:15:28 Is that enough for this morning? I think so, don’t you? Right.