Krishnamurti - We have divided life as the outer and the inner

Krishnamurti Subtitles

BR79DT2.2 - We have divided life as the outer and the inner
Brockwood Park, UK - 20 June 1979
Discussion with Teachers 2.2

0:38	Stephen Smith: Krishnaji, I was wondering if we could talk about the educator, – that is, the teacher – both in the classroom and outside, and how he is able to educate, having some understanding of what the nature of education is, that is, a total responsibility for the life of the student and for the life of the community. And for perhaps some understanding of the place of his specific instruction, his specific knowledge in the whole scheme of things, but having only a partial understanding of the depth of things, the reality of things. How is he to proceed to bring about a different kind of understanding in a student, that is an understanding that is not just of the subject but deeper and beyond the subject, a more global understanding?
1:49	Krishnamurti: Would you consider the relationship between the student and the educator, what is the relationship?
2:06	SS: Well, so far as the subject is concerned, the teacher knows more about the subject than the student.
2:16	K: And so he informs. SS: He conveys certain information.
2:20	SS: So that is... K: ...fairly simple. SS: That's fairly straightforward.
2:24	K: But what is more involved in this relationship? You're the teacher and I happen to be your pupil, your student. What's our relationship, apart from the subject and the information involved in the subject? What's our deeper relationship, if we have any at all?
2:59	Harsh Tanka: I don't quite understand how you are using the word relationship in this context. Surely one relationship between the teacher is to instruct and is there any relationship beyond that?
3:16	K: If that is all the relationship one has, which is generally what happens in ordinary schools, then it's very simple. You inform the students about mathematics or whatever subject you teach, and you go back home or go back to your room and forget about the whole thing. But we are not talking of such a superficial relationship, we are talking much more of a relationship where we are living in a community of teachers and students.
3:59	HT: Most teachers would say that they have a concern for the student which goes beyond just instructing them in the subject, they have a concern with their wellbeing, with...
4:13	K: I wonder if that is so. Take an ordinary school in England, or in India, or in America, are they really concerned?
4:24	Wendy Smith: Some of them are concerned, but it's very difficult if you have thirty students in your class and you see them three times a week, where else do you see them, how can you have a relationship?
4:38	K: That's what I'm saying. If it's an ordinary school there is very little relationship.
4:45	WS: But you might want to have some more relationship.
4:47	K: That's different. If you want it, how do you set about it?
4:53	SS: You probably have to start a school of your own eventually, or join a school that was moving in that direction. One of the two.
5:02	HT: Are you saying it's not possible in the school system, to have that kind of relationship?
5:09	K: I don't see the possibility there at all. Take even Winchester College or any of these public schools, what is the relationship?
5:23	HT: Well, you would have thought that in a residential school where the teachers are living nearby and the student is there all the time, that they would be in a position to have more.
5:35	K: Generally they have rules, regulations, you must, must not, and there it ends.
5:42	WS: But surely we have to have rules.
5:45	K: Yes, we have to have rules. I'm not saying that. But we are talking of a relationship between the educator and the student in an ordinary public school, or even in a grammar school – it means very little.
5:59	Mathew Mitchell: That seems also to be the source of a lot of the dissatisfaction with teachers these days who work in ordinary schools. There is some feeling that they would like to reach out more to the people they're working with but they can't, just because of the physical circumstances.
6:13	K: The system prevents it. Would you say that is so, that's a fact?
6:19	HT: I don't quite see how the system prevents relationship. Surely it would be possible for a teacher to have a relationship with the student if he wanted to.
6:33	K: I wonder if it is possible, in an ordinary school, in public school, or an ordinary grammar school, is that possible?
6:41	HT: Well, let's take a teacher in an ordinary school.
6:44	K: Yes, what does he do?
6:45	HT: He comes to school in the morning and he maybe goes to an assembly...
6:53	K: There is the class, subject. And he teaches for forty five minutes in the morning, afternoon, or something like that, and he tells them, and there is the house master, and he passes them all to him. And there is the game master and the prefects, and the whole system of fagging and all the rest of it, where is the relationship possible there? Relationship in the sense we are talking of, in the sense, feeling responsible for the student, not only academically but morally, socially, his behaviour, his way of thinking and so on, concerned totally. It doesn't exist.
7:48	MM: Why not, when they're eating meals or after school is done?
7:53	K: We are saying it is possible but it doesn't exist.
7:56	MM: But it is possible.
7:58	K: Anything is possible.
8:01	Brian Nicholson: It can exist, sometimes. I know some people, friends of mine who are teachers in an ordinary school, and they are really trying very, very hard to build up a relationship with the students. To some extent they're succeeding but always limited by the school they're in.
8:16	K: That's what I am saying, the system prevents it. The modern education is merely concerned with giving information, giving a certain amount of knowledge and helping him to get a career. Isn't that so?
8:40	SS: I think ambition comes into it at some stage, because in many schools, however well meaning the teachers are, eventually they've been there for three or four years, they want to go on a bit further, to get a better job. So ambition comes into it.
8:59	K: So, at what level are we talking about education, about the ordinary education that an average person receives. Or are we having a dialogue about a school where both the educator and the student feel totally responsible?
9:25	HT: We seem to be talking about education and we don't really have a very clear idea of what that means.
9:32	K: I think we have, don't we? First of all they need academic training, discipline. You all agree to that.
9:43	HT: Yes. They need skills...
9:47	K: And we also want, or desire, or wish, that they should have social consciousness, socially be conscious of what is happening in the world, morally, in behaviour, the way they talk, that's what I consider education. The development of the whole human being.
10:21	HT: But attention is given to behaviour and to the moral upbringing or whatever.
10:26	K: It's all discipline: you do this and don't do that.
10:30	SS: There a question comes in about being on the same level here really. About the way what you are saying is conveyed, in the sense that you approach it from a position of not being higher or superior to the student but rather you may point something out, but without the implication of a psychological superiority.
11:11	K: That's right. And also, isn't the question here, the student comes conditioned and the teacher, the educator is conditioned, both are conditioned. Conditioned according to the culture and so on, so on. And as far as one observes, one is helping them to conform or fit into the wider or narrower conditioning. Would you say that?
11:46	HT: Well, I am not so sure that I would say that. I would say that, as most teachers would say, they are interested in the moral upbringing in a much wider aspect. Whether they can do it is a different question.
12:03	K: The idea and the fact are different. I would like to be something but the fact is I am not.
12:12	HT: And most teachers would say they're trying, but...
12:16	K: So what are we discussing, that's what I would like to find out. Are we talking over together the average school, either public, or grammar schools, or a school like this, at Brockwood, where we are concerned with the total cultivation of man, or the student, and so ourselves. I don't know if I am conveying this.
12:50	BN: We've all decided to come here rather than to teach at an ordinary school. So, really we have to talk about this school.
12:58	K: So we are talking about this school. Then let's talk about that. Not the average, the people who want to do this but can't, and so on. So let's start from here, shall we? Is that it? You all agree? What are we trying to do here? If we could talk frankly and openly, what are we trying to do?
13:36	SS: We're trying to bring about some learning through understanding, which is not an understanding in a particular area but rather understanding per se, some kind of universal understanding.
13:52	K: Would you explain that, I don't understand it. Would you explain it.
14:02	SS: Generally knowledge is assimilated in fragments or in parts, mathematical parts, physics, a language, we also do this here, the student learns, not six or eight subjects but...
14:14	K: My question is, what are we trying to do here as a community, as a teacher and the relationship with the student, and the student with the community and with the teacher, together, as a body of people, what is it we are trying to do?
14:31	SS: Well, I am trying to work round to it by saying this. In a school, in any school, it's necessary at some point to point things out to others. That is part of one's responsibility, as I see it anyway. Now, the significant thing seems to be that if you are able to point this thing out in such a way that it would make sense to the other person, that he sees the point of it, then that also becomes part of his own learning, and also it's part of your learning as well because you've learned how to convey it.
15:21	K: Have you answered my question?
15:23	SS: That is what we're doing.
15:24	K: No, what is it we are trying to do? Have you answered my question?
15:30	SS: I am trying to answer the question.
15:34	HT: All of us have some very different ideas. We might not be able to get at it.
15:41	K: No, we've had the school, you have been here for a number of years, and so has he, and all of us, what is it together we are trying to do?
15:49	WS: Part of what we're trying to do is actually live together rather than separately.
15:57	K: You are living together in the same house.
15:59	WS: Yes, but I mean actually co-operate and work, all that living together involves without necessarily avoiding each other.
16:07	K: Is that what you are doing here?
16:09	MM: It certainly seems to be part of it.
16:11	WS: It's a part of what we're trying to do.
16:14	MM: Also when you ask that question what immediately comes to my mind is – I don't know how to express it – except perception, to begin to learn how to look at things, because we don't know how to look at ourselves, or to look at anything just clearly. We have thoughts, some sort of guide lines with which we look at things. To learn how to perceive things clearly.
16:36	K: What do you say, what is it we are doing here, not only trying, actually doing? Trying becomes rather vague and rather indefinite but what is it actually we are doing?
16:55	HT: We're looking at the way we live. We're looking at it in relationship and trying to understand how we are, what we are...
17:13	SS: I would say we're working for a common understanding, which is not a personal understanding, which is not an understanding of this person but a common understanding.
17:32	MM: It's very difficult to put into words.
17:34	K: You are leaving me rather vague about all this.
17:36	MM: What would that mean? SS: A common understanding.
17:39	MM: It sounds nice, how do you work towards that?
17:45	K: Are we concerned, if I may ask, not only with the present activities of living, relationship, and academics, informing the students academically, etc., or are we also concerned, what's going to happen to them in the future, when they leave here. What is their life, whether they are going to be absorbed into the whole mass of the average?
18:22	SS: That relates to it.
18:23	K: So are we concerned not only with the now, the now being good relationship, helping them to understand not only mathematics but understand the whole significance of life, and also be concerned with the future of their lives.
18:47	WS: But surely, the now is inextricably related to the future. I mean, how you look at life now and work on life.
18:56	K: That's just it. How do they look at life now? How do we look at life now? How do we help the student or ourselves to understand the now, what is happening now?
19:12	BN: I was on holiday last month with two students from this school, and there were two or three children who spent some time with us, who went to ordinary local schools, and they couldn't understand the relationship which I had with these students. They kept on asking, won't he be cross if you don't do the work? Or, why don't you call him sir? and so on. They sometimes just stood there watching us. They couldn't understand what was happening.
19:43	K: That's what I want to get at. Are we concerned not only with the actualities of present living, our relationship with each other, whether it is personal or whether it is objective, whether we are cultivating the mind, the brain, the capacity to think, to think objectively, sanely, and also the sense of affection, all that. And will that sustain them right through life? You follow what I am saying? Or they will be caught in these traps?
20:30	SS: They may be caught after being here.
20:33	K: I want to prevent that. If I have a son and a daughter and I send them here, I'd say, please help him not to be caught in these traps.
20:44	SS: Well, of course. Some are not caught, but some are also.
20:54	K: I want my children not to be caught in the trap, in this rat race that goes on. Whether it's in India, here, or in America, this perpetual struggle.
21:08	WS: So surely, the only way we can help them is to make sure that they develop a real understanding of what the struggle is.
21:18	K: Are we actually doing that? I'm just questioning it, I'm not saying you're not. Are we actually seeing that they have this quality of intelligence, which is not the intelligence of ideas and all that, but this intelligence that will help them to ward off danger, keep away from all the travail of man, are we doing that?
21:57	BN: We're certainly trying but we're not always succeeding.
22:00	K: Not with every student. Now let's come back, down to earth again. Are we saying that this is the purpose or the intention of this place?
22:16	Teachers: Yes.
22:19	K: Then how do we carry it out?
22:25	SS: I don't think it can be carried out in an unfailing way. That is, in such a way as there will be no casualties, so to speak, that's not possible.
22:38	K: But I am saying, we understand the basis of the school. How do we bring it about?
22:54	MM: I think that's the question we've all been asking ourselves. We're attempting to do that but we don't quite know, we're feeling that out.
23:02	K: I am asking you, what shall we do? I leave my daughter and my son here – I haven't got any, but if I leave them here – and I say, please, sirs and ladies, it's your responsibility to see that these two are not thrown to the wolves, are not caught in the social machine, or become mediocre, average, unintelligent citizens. I say it is your responsibility. And what shall we do, we are together as a community of teachers what shall we do? That's what I want to get at, you are not answering my question.
24:00	HT: Well, we can't help the student if we are mediocre and unintelligent ourselves.
24:10	K: So, will you wait until you become intelligent, not mediocre, and then become the teacher?
24:18	HT: We can't, they're here already.
24:20	K: That's impossible. That's too stupid to say, I'll wait until I make myself all right and then come to teach. So, our relationship then is, I am not totally stupid, conditioned, and the student is, so we both are on the same level.
24:50	SS: Yes, that's very important.
24:52	K: That is really important, except when you are giving information about mathematics, that's a different matter, or history, or language and so on.
25:02	SS: Psychologically on the same level.
25:04	K: So, psychologically, we are on the same level. Now, how shall we help each other to be free of our mediocrity?
25:18	HT: Can we stay with this, Krishnaji, this is a tremendous thing you're saying now.
25:23	K: I know, I am doing this.
25:25	HT: That we are psychologically on the same level as a student.
25:28	K: Absolutely. I feel that way.
25:30	WS: It becomes difficult sometimes because when one is older one feels that you have, in a sense, more experience.
25:38	K: About what? Wait, no, just look at it. Sex, drink, smoking, what?
25:50	SS: There are other things as well. K: What? Climbing the mountains?
25:55	SS: No, you may also have gone through the war, you may have been a conscientious objector, and gone to prison for that. So you have stuck your neck out in some way probably.
26:08	K: That's a different matter. So I'm just saying, look, if we are on the same level with the student, how shall we begin to free ourselves from the results which society and ourselves have imposed upon ourselves? That is the problem, no?
26:33	HT: I'm not quite sure that we see the necessity for being on the same level, that we are on the same level as the student.
26:39	K: No, not necessity, it's a fact. As a human being, one is conditioned, if you agree to that. Then the student is conditioned by his father, by his mother, by his friends, by the society he lives in and so on, books he reads, television, he is conditioned by all that. So the teacher is also. Not exactly, but they are both conditioned. Now how are we to help each other to – if I may use the word – uncondition it themselves?
27:26	SS: Are all conditionings equal?
27:30	K: No. It's a good question, let's stick to it. Is there a common factor which is the actual conditioning? You follow? Teachers: Yes.
27:52	K: As an Englishman, you are conditioned in a certain way. And another as a German, or comes from India, it doesn't matter, America. Time, the climate, the food, the language, the television, religion, the superstitions, all that has made him what he is, and more. What is the common factor in all human beings who are conditioned?
28:34	SS: You mean more than the fact of conditioning itself? Or different from the fact of conditioning itself?
28:41	K: You are an Englishman and I happen to be born in India, what is the common factor in our conditioning? Language, is it?
28:53	SS: Well, it could be.
28:55	K: It could be. That's what I want to eliminate. Is it climate?
29:00	SS: Definitely not.
29:06	K: This awful spring. Food? Literature, television, the magazines? Go on, watch it, don't say no. And the upbringing, the tradition, being British and all the pride in that word, and another born in India he has got the same pride, the same religious superstitions, only he is darker, probably not as strong as you are, physically, malnourished and so on, so on. What is the common factor between these two?
30:05	SS: So you're saying only the form is different.
30:07	K: That's all.
30:13	HT: They might be proud about different things, or they might hold different gods.
30:17	K: Of course, but it's the same movement. So if we agree the educator and the student are both conditioned in their own way, and the central factor is to be free of this, to become human beings, not labels – if we can put it that way.
30:41	SS: Yes, so the movement you speak of is a psychological movement,
30:46	K: Obviously. SS: Which is common to all. I think we perhaps ought to pause over that for a minute. After all what is the common factor to an Englishman, to a German, to a Russian, or Indian, or an American, the common factor is they all have this enormous sense of ambition, the common factor of fear, the common factor of pursuing pleasure, the common factor of suffering, struggle, anxiety, grief, lack of love, and all that is the common factor between all of us. So you're saying now that there is the educator and the student...
31:29	K: They're in the same boat. Exactly the same thing.
31:35	WS: The expressions might be different.
31:37	K: Yes, you might express it by going to church, and another might express it when he goes up to his room crying. That's irrelevant. The factor is we all go through the same phenomena. Now, as an educator and as the student, that's the common factor. Or would you disagree there?
32:10	HT: No, we seem to agree.
32:12	K: Don't easily agree, because if both of us see that it's common then we can do something together.
32:22	HT: But why is this so important in education, the fact that both of us may be afraid but of different things? Why is that so important?
32:32	K: Because fear, whether it is in the educator or in the student, what does it do? It cripples a human being, it dulls the mind, it creates havoc in one's life. No?
32:53	BN: My daughter is just seven years old every time I see her again she has picked up things from somewhere which are making it not easy for her to see straight, and so one has to say, where do you get this from, and why, and is it true, all the time.
33:05	K: If we all agree that it is the common factor for all of us, how shall we help each other to be free of all this? That is the function of the educator.
33:16	WS: Surely we must want to be free of it first.
33:22	K: No. See the dangers of it. One is born in India with all the cultural, religious, climatic, malnourishment and so on and so on, and here you have the opposite, marvellous climate – sometimes – good food, sanitary, all that. But you as a human being and he as a human being, go through extraordinary miseries, wars, deprivations, tremendous sense of guilt and depression, all that. And if you are an educator, that's your function, to say look, let's work this out, and don't let's be caught in all this.
34:24	WS: But is it possible? I think there's also a feeling that in a certain sense maybe it's not possible to be free of all this.
34:34	K: Then you're admitting something terrible. If you say it's not possible then you are caught in this.
34:43	WS: But if that's all I know, how could I possibly be free of that?
34:47	K: If you only know fear, don't you want to be free of it?
34:52	WS: Yes, but how can I if that's all I know?
34:56	K: Aren't you aware that there's fear? WS: Yes.
35:00	K: Don't you want to be out of it? WS: Yes.
35:03	K: So does the student. He's afraid of exams, he's afraid of a dozen things, public opinion – you may not, but fear is common to us. He expresses it one way and we express it another way.
35:25	HT: Now we are saying that we must help the student to be free of his fears, anxieties.
35:31	K: Aren't we? That is my responsibility. Our responsibility, as a group of teachers.
35:37	SS: Or we must understand the nature of fear itself.
35:43	K: Yes, that's what I mean.
35:45	WS: So it's not just the student but for both of us.
35:48	K: Because both are related, we're both in the same boat.
35:54	WS: So the student might help us as much we help the student.
35:58	K: That's what I want to get at. BN: It's an actual fact, it happens. My daughter helps me as much as I help her, as well as students.
36:07	K: Is this what education is, or is it merely to help the student to become the average, mediocre, clever, cunning citizen, ambitious, greedy, envious, fighting each other, killing each other, the whole modern society.
36:35	HT: But now we have to deal with all the pressures of society because we want to understand what fear is and we want to be free, both the teacher and the student want to be free of all those things that will make life difficult, but there's the pressure of earning a livelihood, of exams.
36:56	K: No, here the pressure of earning a livelihood is not, for the time being.
37:03	SS: Well, it's in abeyance because very early on the student, for instance, discovers that examinations are the means to a certificate...
37:16	K: So can we find a method, or a way of not having exams, or treating exams as though it were nothing? A level and O level, the whole business of it?
37:32	WS: But if I feel that the only way I can get a job is by having that.
37:36	K: No, but we might find out a way of not being afraid of exams, you understand what I am saying? Or during the whole term, or couple of terms, or whatever it is, watching students and say, he's good enough, you're all right, so as to remove the fear of these beastly exams. Watch him throughout the year, the student, say look, study a little more, encourage him, and all the rest of it, so that when the final horror comes he says it is not a horror at all, he goes through. Can we do that?
38:35	SS: One does that but seemingly, at the last moment, so to speak, and the student may feel that it is nevertheless a horror. One has protected him from the horror in a sense, but the horror is still waiting.
38:54	K: Who invented exams? The Chinese? The Mandarins? I believe they were the original people who kind of invented this monstrous system.
39:11	BN: But you obviously do need some exams at some stage if people are going to build bridges, or be doctors, it has to be clear to themselves and to everybody else.
39:21	K: Yes, but is it possible to help the student not to be afraid of exams?
39:30	BN: If you really had time to do the teaching properly, yes, you can, I think.
39:35	K: That's what I'm trying to get at.
39:40	WS: I think it's just a fear. I'm not sure it is just a fear of exams actually. I think it goes a lot deeper than that really. It's not just a fear of examinations, it's a fear of the future, and fear of not being secure, with having your exams.
39:55	K: So what does that mean? Fear of not being successful.
40:00	WS: That's much stronger than any teaching you can do.
40:06	K: So, we all worship the god of success.
40:11	WS: That's much stronger.
40:12	K: So can we go into it, can we go into it with the student and say look, what is this whole idea of success? Why has it become so important in life?
40:28	WS: It seems also to do with self-fulfilment too, that part of fulfilling yourself.
40:34	K: All that's involved. Like a boy I heard the other day, he said, my ambition is to become prime minister. No, he really meant it. Not here. I met somebody and his son was saying that. I am going to devote my life to becoming the prime minister. And probably he will.
41:03	HT: What puts that kind of idea into people's heads?
41:10	K: Our whole culture is that. A man who is not successful, he's considered beneath, he's treated with contempt.
41:27	HT: Now we are saying that we are putting ourselves against the whole of culture and society.
41:32	K: Against the whole current of this modern world. I am for that, anyhow.
41:42	HT: We must be careful here because we aren't just talking about revolution in the sense that it is known about: in destroying the system, destroying society, getting rid of exams or whatever it is.
41:55	K: No, I am not getting rid of exams. We are trying to help the student to understand the whole meaning of success, what is implied in it, and whether he is going to give all his life to this idea of becoming something in the world. Look, it is not only in this physical mundane world, but also spiritually, the ordinary priest is ambitious to become the bishop. And the bishop wants to become the archbishop, or the cardinal wanting to become the pope. It's the same pattern.
42:41	BN: And the parents may be saying, if you don't pass your exams you can't stay on at Brockwood for another year.
42:47	K: That's right. So can we as educators go into this with the student and say, do we see the danger of it?
43:00	HT: This wanting to be is so deep rooted.
43:03	K: I know, that is our conditioning.
43:06	WS: The educators have it themselves too.
43:08	K: That's what I'm saying.
43:10	WS: So surely we must start looking as well at ourselves, we can't just point it out to the student.
43:15	K: No, can we have a dialogue about it with the students. In the course of the dialogue I am freeing myself, and helping the student to get free of this goddess. I don't know, I've watched it all over the world this extraordinary phenomenon of success. Be somebody in the world.
43:47	SS: Are we also suggesting that, in our discussion, we would uncover something of greater value?
43:58	K: Of course. Aren't you reversing the whole way of thinking about oneself? Now we think, I must be a businessman, I must be an executive when I grow up, even if I fail I must be a foreman in a factory, I must be the shop steward, the whole thing is this.
44:39	SS: Is it that, or is it also confused because the person wants to be those things, he is ambitious, and yet he feels perhaps in the back of his mind that he would like to be free, he would like to be less bothered, he would like to have a free life but he's caught.
45:06	K: He would like it but the fact is he's caught by the throat.
45:11	SS: Has this dichotomy come about in culture itself?
45:15	K: That's what I'm saying. I mean, you are always comparing B to A, which begins the idea of success. So can we as educators discuss this or have a real serious dialogue and point it out to them what is involved in it.
45:44	WS: I'm worried by when you say point it out to them, because...
45:47	K: Point it out in the sense I am doing it, I'm pointing it out to myself, I'm not saying point it out to them. In the course of the dialogue I'm aware that I'm also pursuing the goddess.
46:06	MM: It goes back to what we were saying earlier, which Harsh was suggesting staying with, that the student and the teacher are psychologically at the same level.
46:17	MM: If we both really realise that, that creates a certain atmosphere.
46:23	K: That creates an intensity. Look, we are both in the same boat. And that gives us a strange sense of responsibility. It's not I row and you sit still. Or you row and I look at the heavens. Can we educate them that way, is that possible?
46:59	WS: We've said pointing out, but we've not really talked about how we actually work on that.
47:07	K: Let's have a dialogue about it now.
47:10	WS: We say we worship success but what is it?
47:13	K: Wait, I am your student, how will you deal with this, with me? How will you all, five of you, who are going to be my educators, teachers, how will you explain, go into this question? Pointing out the consequences, the dangers, how will you show it to me?
47:35	WS: We'd have to find out first what we mean by success.
47:38	K: It's very simple. To be somebody, financially, bigger car, bigger house, to be somebody. Money. If you can't have money, you are somebody with an enormous sense of information, scholarly. Being somebody implies – you know what it implies – you're a doctor, you're a surgeon, you're a prime minister, or just an ordinary clerk, he wants to be somebody.
48:21	WS: Can we find out what's behind the wanting to be somebody.
48:27	K: What do you think is behind it? No, you are teaching me, you are helping me to understand, we are in the same boat, don't immediately wander off. We are in the same boat, help me to understand this. What is behind it? Why has man right through the world made this goddess so extraordinarily important?
49:11	HT: It seems there is a desire within us.
49:13	K: Look at it, go into it. I'm your student, don't just give words, throw out words. Why has man, right through history, it's not just now, right through.
49:29	SS: It seems in some sense to be connected with survival.
49:33	K: That's right, isn't it? Security.
49:36	SS: Because he has survived at the physical level and then as society gets more sophisticated, more developed, he feels that he needs to survive at the psychological level also.
49:51	K: And also each one wants to survive. He is only concerned with his survival. Obviously. So, I want to survive at any price and my survival is laid out as success, money, position, all the rest of it. and you also, in a different way, but both of us desire to survive, individually. Family, the nearer family, and then the nation, and so on, so on. The tribal instinct is very strong in all of us.
51:06	WS: It's continually being reinforced by everything that you do, by how you are educated.
51:12	K: The British, the British, the British. And when you go to France, La France, La France, La France, I mean, what?
51:20	MM: We also seem to make the assumption, since we need a physical security, and we understand that, we also assume that similarly we need a psychological security. We don't even question that at all.
51:31	K: We never question psychological security, which may affect our physical security.
51:41	SS: You mean by that, endanger our physical security. K: Yes.
51:45	BN: Or someones worries that they don't work so well, they don't do what they need to do.
51:50	K: So can we, being on the same level at the same time, can we convey all this to the students and to ourselves, not verbally, just words, but in depth?
52:16	SS: In discussion therefore. Not just in discussion. Not just in discussion, but in discussion, in action, in games, in everything you're doing. That seems to be implied in what you said there, in a variety of ways.
52:36	K: I'm very keen to find out why I worship this goddess, which has so many facets, so many faces. Why? Is it security? Individual? Then the family and so on, or is there much more to it? There is much more to it, surely, than mere physical survival, as well as psychological survival, there is much more involved in it. Is man nothing but this? The priest wanting to be bishop, bishop wanting to be pope, etc. Is this all? That's what we made life into.
53:45	SS: Generally, by implication, that is all.
53:49	K: That's just it.
53:52	HT: So far we've said nothing about a whole range of things: about beauty, about love, about affection.
53:59	K: I am purposely avoiding it because as long as I am worshipping this extraordinary strange goddess, I can't have the other. Obviously I can't love.
54:15	HT: If I am only concerned with myself.
54:18	K: Obviously. I can't see beauty if all the time I'm worshipping this goddess.
54:35	HT: Still I hang on to this question.
54:37	K: You see, it's right through. The painter wants to be somebody. The musician always, you follow? It's right through. So it's like a tremendous mountain which you have to climb, but it's not. If we see the truth of this it becomes very simple. Yesterday morning we had a discussion with the students only, and we went into this question, they wanted to know whether this hall should be used for this or that. It took fifty five minutes to disentangle them. And I said look, let's find out if you want a room where you can be quiet. They all agreed we must have a room where we can be quiet. They said, why not in the library, I said, somebody is reading. They ultimately came to the point that we must have a room where we can all be quiet, or I want to come here and be quiet, each one of us. They agreed. I said, from that principle, work it out. One began to say, we must have in this room whatever we like, jazz, I said look, don't offer opinions. So we continue with this, don't we? I think we should.