Krishnamurti Subtitles home


BR81DSS2 - Thought and knowledge
Brockwood Park, UK - 14 June 1981
Discussion with Staff and Students 2



0:20 Krishnamurti: What shall we talk about?
0:31 Any suggestions?
0:38 No?
0:53 I think one of the most common factor in life is that we all think – whether we are very, very skilled in our particular career or whether we are astrophysicists, great scientists, or a good carpenter, or the lowly-paid factory worker or labourer – all over the world every one of us think.
1:44 Right? And thought has done the most extraordinary things in life – it has created the bomb, the atom bomb, it has educated the most skilful surgeon, it has put man on the moon, marvellous communication all over the world.
2:22 Thought has brought about extraordinary physical results – better health, better communication, better travelling, and so on, so on, so on.
2:49 But also it has created wars, all the machinery of war; the computer, which almost thinks like the human being, skilfully programmed.
3:15 And all our actions in daily life are based on thought.
3:24 Right? Do we agree to all that? So thought is the common factor in all our human existence.
3:37 It has done great good and it has brought about a great deal of harm.
3:54 And man has lived throughout his existence on the activity of thought – you go to school, you are educated there – science, biology, whatever it is subject, and you go out with your particular knowledge to earn a livelihood, skilfully or not.
4:37 And it also establishes a relationship between people.
4:45 Thought creates a relationship between people, based on pleasure, sensation, and all the things involved in that – sensory responses and sexual responses.
5:13 So thought is the common denominator of all our existence.
5:31 And thought is born out of knowledge, accumulated through millions of years, stored up in the brain as memory, and the response of that memory is thought.
6:01 Then thought acts and from that action we learn more.
6:10 So man, human being, is caught in this cycle: experience, knowledge, memory, thought, action.
6:26 From that action you learn more, so you keep the cycle going. Right? And we have lived that way, for millions of years.
6:47 And also we have lived with suffering all our lives – pain, grief, a great deal of tears and laughter, and our relationships with each other is always apparently, a continuation of conflict.
7:24 So we are asking: is thought responsible for this conflict between human beings?
7:38 Please, let us together think about it. Together – I am not making a sermon this morning, or any morning, but we are thinking together. Right?
7:57 You see this in this world – thought with extraordinary capacity, marvellous poems, sublime architecture, great painting, literature, and the vast accumulation of knowledge, and we think through knowledge we are going to ascend, grow, flower.
8:41 And also, as we said, thought in relationship apparently creates conflict – between man and woman, between the neighbours, whether that neighbour be very close or very far.
9:07 Thought has divided the world into the British, French, Dutch, German, Italian, Russian, Hindu, Chinese, Japanese, and so on.
9:22 Thought has divided people; their belief.
9:31 There is the world of Catholicism, created by thought, with all the rituals, the hierarchical structure of the Catholic world, their belief based on thought or on superstition, illogical, utterly unrelated to daily life; and it’s the same phenomenon in the Asiatic world, with their rituals, with their superstitions, with their images, as here.
10:30 And man apparently has not been able to solve this conflict between human beings, this perpetual threat of war.
10:48 I wonder if you have ever imagined or thought how millions of people who have cried, their sons have been killed, their wives, their lovers and so on, all over the world, as long as history has been recorded, the terrible brutality of it all.
11:20 Thought has been responsible for that.
11:29 And thought has been responsible for talking about peace, which apparently doesn’t exist in this world.
11:45 Right? That is the state of the world at present.
11:55 And most of the young people are going out to meet this terrible world, so-called being educated, to fit into this pattern of conflict, wars and struggle from the moment you are born till you die.
12:32 And apparently we have never questioned why we tolerate conflict, not only outwardly but also deep in ourselves.
12:57 We never asked of ourselves, of our society, of our religion, whether it is possible to live in this world without a shadow of conflict.
13:26 If one were to ask, each one of us, why we live in conflict, in confusion, in this so-called madness of civilisation, if one were to ask you why you live in conflict, what would be your answer?
13:58 We are in conflict and there is no question about that.
14:11 Why? Questioner: Because we are not satisfied.
14:18 K: Why are you in conflict? Because, you say, ‘We are not satisfied’. Satisfied with what? Please, let’s inquire together. Right?
14:39 Don’t let me answer that question and you go to sleep or accept it, but together let’s inquire, explore why human beings, you, almost every human being in the world pretending, double-talk, contradicting, you know, the whole process of conflict – why?
15:16 This is important to ask because it may be possible that we can live without any conflict whatsoever.
15:32 It may be possible. And any intelligent man, any man who is at all concerned with the world and with what is happening, must ask this question.
15:52 Not find rationalisations for conflict, like saying all nature is in conflict – for a tree to grow it must struggle, and so on.
16:15 Those are all mere explanations without much significance.
16:22 But if one asked of ourselves why this constant conflict, disagreement, one opinion against another, one theory against another, one belief against another, a conclusion opposing another conclusion.
16:56 This is how we all live.
17:05 Why do we go on this way?
17:12 And we are supposed to be highly sophisticated, educated.
17:22 We can go to the moon, we can do the most extraordinary technological things and yet this very root of our existence we never question.
17:47 And you reply to that, say, We are not satisfied, we are discontent, we want something more.
18:04 So, what are we discontented with, dissatisfied with?
18:22 Dissatisfied, discontented with what we are?
18:34 And being dissatisfied with what we are – either rich or poor, lack of love or being lonely, and so on, so on, so on – being dissatisfied with what one is, you want to change that. Right?
18:59 You want to escape from it.
19:09 So how do you… when you say, ‘We are dissatisfied’, have you looked at, actually observed what you are before you say, ‘I am dissatisfied with it’?
19:30 You understand my question? Suppose I am dissatisfied with myself because I am poor, I am not well-educated – perhaps that’s a good thing – I am not clever, bright, nice looking, so I am dissatisfied with all the things I am.
20:05 Why? Is it because I am comparing myself with somebody else?
20:18 Right? So, is comparison one of the reasons of conflict?
20:35 It doesn’t mean I must be satisfied with what I am – because I don’t know what I am. Right?
20:45 I am a very, very, very complex entity.
20:52 I have got so many desires, so many sensations, so many fears, such desperate loneliness, I am frightened, uncertain, wanting to be certain, I have pain, I depend on somebody – so I am a very complex entity.
21:20 And how can I be dissatisfied with this complexity before I have understood it, before I have even looked at it?
21:28 You understand my question? Can I look at it, observe it, when I am comparing myself with, say, Einstein, with Greta Garbo?
21:48 I used to know her.
21:55 Or with Dr Bohm.
22:05 If I am comparing myself all the time with somebody, I am not understanding or observing what I am – my eyes are directed in a totally different direction.
22:30 So, to say I am dissatisfied with what I am, isn’t that rather irrational?
22:41 I am not criticising, I am not saying it is wrong or right, but isn’t that…
22:49 doesn’t that show that we are not looking at ourselves as we are, actually?
23:05 Then what place has dissatisfaction?
23:14 Dissatisfaction implies you are seeking satisfaction. Right?
23:26 And is there total satisfaction at any time?
23:38 I want a nice husband, nice house, nice garden, but my neighbour has a better house, better garden, he has got a better job, more money, he goes all over the world, and so on.
24:09 Is dissatisfaction part of jealousy?
24:18 I see him having everything: clever, nice wife, well-connected, title, plenty of money, and by comparison with him I become dissatisfied.
24:43 That is, satisfaction has in it a certain quality of envy. Right?
24:56 And if I dig deeply into envy there is a certain sense of not only resentment, not only a change, but there is this hate of somebody who is better than me.
25:18 You see the consequences of dissatisfaction? So can I look at myself and the world as it is, observe things as they are?
25:45 Is that possible?
25:54 Because if you are merely dissatisfied – and that is an endless process, isn’t it? – there is always somebody better than me, in knowledge, in happiness, in all the trivialities that he has accumulated.
26:24 Right? So can I look at the world – the terror, the wars, the political nonsensical divisions, the religious division of belief, one belief, one prejudice, one superstition against another?
27:01 This is what is happening in the world – seeking power, position, money, and always the threat of war.
27:19 This is what is happening. Right?
27:26 Can I look at that – look at it, not say it is right, wrong, it is good or bad, how terrible – just look at it?
27:39 As you would look at a cloud, at a tree, a bird on the flight, the new grass in the pavement – look at it.
28:00 And with the same observation can you look at yourself?
28:07 Not say, Well, this is not right, I am dissatisfied, I wish I were different – just to observe as you are.
28:23 Can you? Or is that very, very difficult?
28:32 Because philosophers and the psychologists have told us what we are, your parents, your priests, your knowledge has told you what you are.
28:59 So you look at yourself with other people’s conclusions. Right?
29:08 So can you put away other people’s concepts about you, their conclusions, put all that away and say, ‘Look, I am going to look at myself’?
29:25 And when you do look at yourself very carefully what then is your relationship to the world, there?
29:38 You understand my question? Are we following all this?
29:46 What is your relationship to the world, to the society in which one lives, your relationship to so-called religion – what is your contact with that?
30:18 Are you different from that?
30:32 Are you different from the world, which is frightening, dangerous, put there by thought? Right?
30:49 Created by thought, all that. Please go slowly, you will see it for yourself. All that is created by thought – the good and the bad, extraordinary beauty of a poem, the picture, a statue, and also thought that has made this world, which has been divided as the Muslim, the Hindu, the Buddhist, the Christian – you follow? – the British, the French, the German, so on and so on.
31:47 Thought has done that. And also – look at it very carefully, slowly – has thought created all this in you?
32:04 Your anger, your jealousy, one’s loneliness, the sorrow, the desire, the dissatisfaction – has thought created all this too?
32:37 Please, I am asking you a question; find out.
32:45 You understand? Thought has created that and thought has created all that I am.
32:54 Say, I believe in God or I don’t believe in God; I am a Protestant, I am a Catholic, I am a Buddhist, I am this, I am that – thought.
33:11 Right? Do you see that? I wonder if you see. Do you understand, if I may ask, the words only or the fact of it, the truth of it?
33:38 Which is it? Thought has created the world, with all the extraordinary beauty of the world and the terrible things that are happening in the world – thought is responsible.
34:00 And all that I am – my anxiety, my jealousy, my uncertainty, confusion, thought is also responsible for all that – is it?
34:18 Question it. Don’t accept anything that anybody says, including me. Question it, look at it.
34:37 Apart from biological process of which we are, taken years, centuries upon centuries to create a human being – that is not the result of thought.
35:00 Right? Thought hasn’t created the tiger, thank goodness.
35:13 Thought hasn’t created this marvellous tree.
35:22 Thought has not created the physical structure of a human being.
35:33 But apart from all that, thought has created almost everything that I am.
35:46 You understand? Right? Do you see that as a fact or a theory, or as an idea you see?
36:00 You see the difference between an idea and a fact?
36:07 Fact is I am violent. Idea is I mustn’t be violent. Right? And I pursue non-fact. I wonder if you see this. Right? Because I don’t know… I am rather frightened to look at the fact of violence. You follow?
36:40 So I am creating, thought is creating a concept of not being violent.
36:52 And thought also has created violence. I wonder if you see all this. Right?
37:13 So, this is the cycle we live in. Thought has created problems – economic problems, social problems, problems of international relationship, thought has created nationalism, and then having created it then thought says, ‘I must solve it’.
37:45 You understand? So watch it carefully. So our brains are trained to solve problems.
37:58 Mathematical problems, problems of relationship, problems of how to go to the moon, how to travel under the sea – they are all problems, and having problems thought says, ‘I must solve them’.
38:16 Thought has created the problems and then thought says, ‘I must solve them’. I wonder if you understand all this. Right? So, do we see what thought has done?
38:39 The great beauty of a cathedral and the beauty of a dynamo.
38:53 Have you seen any enormous dynamos or great dams?
39:00 They are extraordinary.
39:10 So, what shall we do? You understand?
39:17 If thought has made this outward world as it is now and thought has also put together this whole complex structure of ‘me’ and thought creating problems there and here and therefore perpetual conflict with each other, so what shall we do with thought?
39:52 You understand the question now?
39:59 I am not oversimplifying it, the speaker is not trying to exaggerate things, or he is taking particular point of view and trying to convince you of that, nor is he telling you what to do, like a priest, but just to observe this thing as it is.
40:40 To observe a tree as it is. You can’t change the tree, but you can destroy the tree.
40:55 You can look at the stars of an evening. You can’t do anything about that.
41:09 So, come to the point, it is really quite important if you want to go into it – what shall we do if thought has done this to all of us, to the so-called educated and the so-called uneducated?
41:50 Go on, tell me. Have a dialogue. Let’s have a dialogue about it.
42:00 Q: Is there something in me which is not of thought?
42:04 K: Is there something in me which is not of thought? How will you find out?
42:17 How will you find out, discover if there is something untouched by thought in one?
42:32 Religions, especially the Asiatic religion, they say there is something in you.
42:46 Perhaps Christianity says that too in different words and different symbols, and that is the assertion on the propaganda of the priest.
43:03 Right? So, will you accept that propaganda and say, There is something in me which is not the product of thought?
43:23 If you say that, then you have already come to a conclusion and you can then go no further in your examination in your exploration.
43:52 You see, all this implies that our conclusions give us safety, security. Right?
44:05 I believe in something very strongly, like there is God, or the communist theory – I believe in that very strongly.
44:27 When I do believe very strongly in something and you believe very strongly in something, naturally quite opposite, there must be conflict between us.
44:42 Right? Like what is happening in the Middle East, the Arab and the Jew fighting, because they all believe what they believe.
45:03 And if you have noticed very carefully, at all, if you have noticed it, doesn’t belief, strong belief, believing in the saviour, Jesus, here in the Western world and the Eastern world believing in something equally strongly – doesn’t that atrophy the brain?
45:33 You understand the word ‘atrophy’? Dull, wither, which means lack of nourishment to the brain.
45:47 You follow? If I believe in something very strongly and I keep on repeating it, because in that belief I find great security, whether it is illusory or somebody told me, or I invented that belief myself, that belief gives a security whose reality is non-existent.
46:24 I don’t know if you follow all this. And the brain, repeating that belief, seeking, having security in a belief which is not actual, must inevitably become dull, must inevitably lack nourishment that keeps the whole brain active.
46:57 Right?
47:04 So, seeing all this, what shall we do with thought?
47:21 Come on, sirs, have a dialogue about it.
47:30 Thought has invented heaven and hell, the saviour, only son of God, and the Asiatic world equally strongly believes in something – that’s much older, belief in Asiatic world, and they are much more secure in that belief.
48:10 And all this process is the activity of thought.
48:19 So what shall we do when we realise thought divides ‘me’ and ‘not me’, ‘we’ and ‘they’. Right?
48:38 ‘We are right and they are wrong’.
48:46 And when one sees thought is common to all mankind – like sorrow, like pleasure, like fear, like attachment, it is common to all humanity.
49:17 So, is there another way of living?
49:24 You understand my question? You understand? I have seen what thought is, what thought has done.
49:36 Not ‘I have seen’ – there is the perception of what thought has done in the world and in me, what thought has made, and so on.
49:49 And one perceives… there is the perception that thought, born of knowledge, can never be complete. Right?
49:59 Be quite clear on this point. Knowledge can never be complete about anything.
50:25 And being incomplete thought also must be limited. Right? Do you see that? And so whatever thought does must be limited. It can think about God, but that God is limited because it is put together by thought.
51:02 So, thought having created problems, then thought says, ‘I must solve those problems’.
51:12 See the absurdity of it.
51:19 So what shall we do with thought?
51:26 Not ‘we’ separate from thought; we are thought.
51:35 Then, is there a different way, or give thought its right place?
51:59 Right?
52:10 Thought has its right place as knowledge has a right place.
52:21 If I have to be a good carpenter, I must have knowledge of the wood, the instrument. Right?
52:32 Knowledge there is necessary. If I have to be a professor, I must have a great deal of knowledge.
52:43 There I earn a livelihood, it is necessary. To drive a car well I must have knowledge, practice.
52:58 So knowledge, however limited, has its place. Right?
53:06 You – forgive me for talking about you – you are being educated here, in all the schools of the world, colleges and universities, and you, during those years in school, college, university, you are accumulating a great deal of knowledge, about matter, chemistry, biology, physics, history and so on.
53:46 That knowledge is necessary to live, to earn a livelihood.
53:54 But that knowledge is always limited. Right? Is this clear? So it is necessary.
54:14 Go on, ask the next question. It is necessary there, to earn a livelihood, to drive a car, to speak a language, to be a carpenter.
54:34 Because you have to earn a livelihood.
54:41 To become a scientist, explore into the nature of matter.
54:51 You choose a career and then that career demands certain discipline, knowledge.
55:01 Right? There it is necessary. Now ask the next question, please. Go on.
55:18 Is knowledge necessary anywhere else?
55:28 Anywhere else is – go on, I am doing all the talking, you are not having a dialogue with me.
55:38 I say knowledge is necessary there. Is knowledge necessary anywhere else? Anywhere else is – go on – human relationship. Right?
56:02 Because we can’t live without relationship.
56:09 Life is relationship.
56:23 So, is knowledge necessary in relationship?
56:35 Is this too difficult?
56:42 Q: Well, Krishnaji, I need to know people’s names.
56:46 K: What sir?

Q: I need to know people’s names.
56:50 K: Of course. I need to know people’s names. I can’t say, ‘Well, I met you yesterday, who are you today?’ that would be silly.
57:00 Of course, I must know your name, your face, that’s... Now, go – I am asking a much deeper question. That’s a very superficial… of course I must know. I can’t be introduced to you every day. Then I would be a cuckoo and you would be a cuckoo too. That would be absurd.
57:28 So, ask yourself: is knowledge necessary in relationship, apart from recognition as Mr So-and-so?
57:48 Go on, investigate it, exercise your brain.
58:02 Q: Sir, in what way does knowledge operate in relationship?
58:16 K: I know you as my wife or husband or my girlfriend or boyfriend.
58:27 I know you. What is that knowledge when I say, ‘I know you’, what is that based on?
58:46 Q: On memory.
58:48 K: I am married to my… there is a wife… I have a wife or girlfriend, whatever it is. I have a wife, because I’m rather respectable.
59:02 I have a wife and I say to her… and I say I know her. Right? What do you mean by that word ‘know’?
59:18 Q: You have an image of her.

K: Go on, tell me more.
59:26 I know Daphne. What does that mean? Are you… what does it mean? I met you – I won’t bring you into it. I have a wife.
59:49 What is my relationship with her?
1:00:00 Go on, tell me.
1:00:04 Q: It would depend on how you look at her. If you look at her through yourself or as she is.
1:00:08 K: What is your relationship with your parents?
1:00:17 Is that based on knowledge?
1:00:26 Q: Yes, from all I know of them.

K: Of course, of course. Which means what?
1:00:39 I have lived with my wife for ten years, or two days or fifty years.
1:00:53 I have lived with her, I have had sexual relationship with her, she has given me comfort, encouragement, told me this and that, got angry, irritated, quarrelled, and I have built an image about her the quarrels, the encouragement, the sexual fulfilment, the irritation.
1:01:35 So gradually during those ten years or fifty years or two days I have built an image about her, a picture about her. Right?
1:01:47 Which is what? Carefully examine.
1:01:59 Experience – right?– knowledge, memory; thought has created the image through accumulation of all this and that image I have about her, and she has an image about me.
1:02:21 I have been angry with her, I have flattered her, I have coaxed her, I have bullied, I have possessed her, sex, and all that.
1:02:35 So she has a picture about me.
1:02:42 Which is what? Carefully examine it. Which is knowledge. Right? Clear?
1:03:00 Which means what? My relationship to her is based on thought.
1:03:14 I know a lot of people will deny this, but go slowly. When you say, ‘I love her’. I say, ‘I love my wife’, so I have to find out what it means.
1:03:43 You follow? Then is my relationship based on knowledge?
1:03:56 If it is, that relationship is incomplete. Right? Being incomplete it must bring about conflict.
1:04:11 Like, I am a Hindu, you are an Englishman, I am German, you are – and so on.
1:04:19 So my relationship with her, when it is based on knowledge, and knowledge being incomplete and therefore it must…
1:04:30 my relationship will always be incomplete.
1:04:40 Therefore, that which is not whole must have contradictions in it. I wonder if you understand all this. Right? Not difficult? Look, I am a Jew and you are an Arab.
1:05:07 Right? That division is created by thought, of centuries.
1:05:17 I have been brought up as that and you have been brought up as that. Right? Because that is your security, when you say, ‘I am Arab’, ‘I am an Englishman’, that is a security.
1:05:37 When you go to the Catholic world and you say, ‘I am a Protestant’, it’ll be rather difficult. You follow?
1:05:47 And so any belief is partial. Right?
1:05:56 It is because it is put together by thought, and thought is incomplete, always.
1:06:06 Therefore, that which is incomplete must inevitably create conflict.
1:06:18 Right? So, my relationship with my wife, based on knowledge, which is in...
1:06:27 therefore I must be in conflict with her. I am – that’s a fact. Fortunately I am not married, but I am just saying. It is so. The world is like that.
1:06:46 You understand? And you are going to get married, you are going to have children, you are going to cry, you are going to get angry, bitter, cynical, and say you love, and – you follow? This is life.
1:07:08 You are attached to a person, to an idea, and you cling to it, because in that attachment you feel secure.
1:07:19 But you don’t see the consequences of that attachment – jealousy, anxiety, fear. Right?
1:07:33 So, you have given knowledge its right place. Right?
1:07:41 Technical knowledge, business knowledge, scientific knowledge – there you have to have…
1:07:49 a good carpenter and so on, there you have to have knowledge. Right?
1:07:56 But do you need knowledge in your relationship?
1:08:03 Q: But how can you relate?

K: Just see.
1:08:06 Q: How can you relate? How can you relate?
1:08:10 K: So – look, Daphne – is relationship, my relationship with my wife, it is not only physical but also psychological, inward, and that psychological in relationship is based on my everyday experience of her and she of me.
1:08:38 That becomes the knowledge. Right? So we are perpetually pulling in different directions. I am ambitious. I want to succeed. She says, ‘Please, let’s have a good time’, and so on – you know all the thing that goes on.
1:09:05 So, find out, carefully go into it. Then you say: is love thought, is love knowledge?
1:09:25 I know my wife, therefore I love her. Or I fall in love with her at first sight – whatever that may mean.
1:09:40 Coup de foudre!
1:09:54 So, you see what we are doing all the time? So, I am asking you, can there be a different relationship and therefore different action, which is not the outcome of knowledge?
1:10:21 This is a difficult… I am just putting it forward to you, you can think about it, but it is very difficult to go into. I won’t go into it because it is too…
1:10:36 So you see, then we say, ‘Love is without thought, love is compassion, this and that. Right?
1:10:51 And I love my wife that way but I… and begins the whole business. You follow? So you have to find out for yourself, not be told by another.
1:11:09 For God’s sake, don’t be told by another about all these matters. You can be told a great deal, how to be a good carpenter – right? – how to be a first class academician.
1:11:25 If you are there, you must be told. But in the world of… inward world, psychological world, don’t listen to anybody; find out.
1:11:43 Because ultimately you have to be a light to yourself, haven’t you?
1:11:55 Like a tree that stands alone, you have to be like that.
1:12:06 So you have to find out if you can live – psychologically in your relationship – without a single shadow of remembrance of the accumulated knowledge about your wife, husband, boyfriend, to live differently.
1:12:29 You have to find out. You have to inquire. To inquire, let’s do it together. You follow? Not I tell you and then you listen, but together inquire.
1:12:50 Which means both of us might be free of our conclusions, of our opinions, our prejudices and so on.
1:12:59 So you drop all that and say, ‘Let’s walk together to find out’.
1:13:10 What time is it?

Q: Quarter past one.
1:13:13 Q: 1:15.
1:13:16 K: I think we’d better stop, don’t you?
1:13:28 Is that enough?
1:13:37 Perhaps some of you heard this story – those who have heard it, please forgive if one repeats again.
1:13:49 There was a preacher, a teacher, a prophet or…
1:13:56 who every morning, he gave a sermon to his disciples.
1:14:04 You know the story? Sorry. May I repeat it? You know it too?
1:14:11 Q: I don’t know.

K: Good.
1:14:18 So he used to get up on the rostrum, on the platform and give a sermon, day after day, early in the morning.
1:14:29 So one day he gets on to the platform and just about to begin his sermon when a bird comes along and sits on the windowsill and begins to sing.
1:14:46 And it sings his heart out. It’s a lovely spring morning, he is establishing his rights, but it is a lovely song.
1:14:59 And the preacher, the teacher says, when the bird stops and flies away, the teacher says, ‘The sermon is over this morning’.
1:15:12 Got it?