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BR81S5 - Communication
Brockwood Park, UK - 15 September 1981
Seminar 5



0:21 Krishnamurti: What shall we talk about this morning?
0:40 Questioner: Could we review the steps by which we come to the need not to do anything, and then try to stay with that issue for as long as we can?
1:09 Q: You said some very remarkable words, the other day. You said, ‘I love you and I want nothing from you’.
1:26 K: I withdraw that.
1:40 Q: I don’t want the withdrawal. But I was thinking, as far as I know, there are quite a large number of people here, including myself, who would say deeply, sincerely, ‘I love you, too’. But I do want something from you. I want help, which you so generously give, at all times, to lead a better life, a daily life. I think the quality of our daily life is so immensely important. From the moment we wake in the morning, till we go to bed at night, I, personally, fritter away my energies, fritter away my life. I think it’s part of education to learn how to live a single day without conflict.
2:56 Q: This is perhaps entirely off what Doris just suggested, but there has been discussion here, and there is among students too, on what is the correct way to try to face the appalling dilemma of the nuclear threat, of war, the political maneuverings of big powers? That is something that touches everybody’s life and yet most of us don’t know how to meet that. Do you want to go into that or is that off what we’re talking about?
3:43 K: Would you ask them?
3:50 Q: To me, it would be a total waste of time to talk about nuclear war while we haven’t solved the problem of our own simple daily life. That’s only my view.
4:04 Q: But isn’t part of the same thing?
4:08 Q: Even to link the two is, to my mind, an escape.
4:14 Q: Yes, what sort of link is possible in the sense that we’re feeling that there is very little we can do directly to affect major world issues, but there are nevertheless things we can do at a personal level which do, in some ways that, perhaps, we don’t understand, have an effect on these major world issues. Not directly, not through political action, but through our own consciousness.

Q: That may be.
4:45 Q: This is an idea that’s beginning to form in my mind. I don’t fully understand it, but it perhaps represents the only possible alternative to direct action which simply doesn’t seem to work.
5:02 Q: Do you mean that we can only do something on a personal level and that it is absolutely useless to join some sort of movement, preferably a peaceful movement, a non-violent movement? That the uselessness of most actions nowadays, is due to the fact that there are too many small organisations. They are all working in the same direction, but without any unity. And if a great man or somebody would take the lead and try to unite these movements in a non-violent action, I think it would be better than what is being done now.
6:06 Q: We’ve more or less in this group come to see that what is required is a change of perspective. Not a different or better organisation of existing organisations, but a different perspective. I think it would be valuable if we could dwell on that, somewhat.
6:37 Q: Can you say what you mean by a change of perspective?
6:44 K: Apparently, France, England, Israel, and Gadhafi, India, America and Russia, of course, have the atomic bomb. And Russia – I’m just observing things as they are, I’m not taking sides in this matter – Russia is in Africa, Angola, the Cubans are there, Russia is in Afghanistan, Russia has its army, two hundred and fifty thousand men in East Germany. You know what it’s like in Poland, what is going on there, Romania, and all these countries are subjugated to Russia, tyrannised and so on. And do we encourage Russia by not thinking about all this? Or thinking about it? You understand? Russia is spreading aggressively – there is no doubt about that. Do I not think about it, say, ‘The moment I think about it, I’m encouraging Russia to be more aggressive’? That’s one point. And the other point is, apparently, all these countries, more or less, can develop the nuclear bomb. And what is one to do with all this going on? The authorities don’t seem to be able to deal with it, the spreading proliferation of the nuclear bomb. The organised religions, which have tremendous power, don’t go against it. Am I right or wrong?
9:29 Q: Some do in some countries, particularly in Holland.
9:33 K: Holland is a small country.
9:35 Q: They have started in Germany, too.
9:37 K: I know that, but I’m talking about organised religion. The Catholic world doesn’t say, ‘I’ll excommunicate anybody who takes part’.
9:54 Q: Certainly.

K: They don’t do that. If they did, they would be wiped out. So, organised resistance to all this apparently doesn’t do anything either – demonstration – that’s been going on in Germany, in America, a little bit in India, in Germany too, in England too, but apparently, that does very little. So, what is one to do? Join a group that says we’re anti-nuclear business? And you know that doesn’t do very much either.
10:53 Q: It may depend on how many people join.
10:59 K: The moment lots of people, a million join, say for instance, ten million as in Poland against all that’s taking place – there will always be contention in the organisation – which way to do it? Right, sir? So, what is one to do? Not think about all this? Every morning, the newspapers have headlines about all this.
11:35 Q: Isn’t the first thing to see that all political action is wrong?
11:41 K: It’s obvious.
11:44 Q: But part of the problem is that many of these organisations that are supposed to be thinking about these issues turn political, and the moment...
11:56 K: They’re also in great difficulty.

Q: Yes, they are.
11:59 K: Because what are they to do? You probably heard last night, Labour talking about not having nuclear bombs in England.
12:11 Q: Nobody listens to them.

Q: Yes, they do.
12:14 Q: I actually had it recorded so that we could listen to it.
12:18 Q: Yes, when I say listen, I mean nobody really takes any serious note.
12:26 Q: But can we take a concrete example, please? Now France has a new government. The French President of the Republic, is a man who always said he was against atomic weapons.
12:40 K: But did you read this morning’s paper?
12:43 Q: Yes, that’s why I…

K: They’re talking about atomic…
12:46 Q: The neutron bomb. On the same day he inaugurates the United Nations conference for poor countries and a nuclear submarine. Today he says he’s going to manufacture the neutron bomb. So, all this is probably a dilemma for the men in power.
13:15 K: Neutron bomb. Kill the people but keep the buildings going. Lovely idea!

Q: Who for?
13:24 K: A splendid idea.
13:33 Q: But Krishnaji, we talked about this the other day and quite a few people understand that there’s violence in me and I must look at that, but perhaps also, I should join some organisation which is non-political and which is against the bomb for my country. Like, for example, in England, I join an organisation which is non-political but it is for unilateral disarmament.
14:07 Q: How can it be non-political? You’re trying to influence politics?
14:12 Q: It’s not my opinion.

Q: No, I know.
14:16 Q: What jolly good will it do?
14:18 Q: In this morning and yesterday’s Herald Tribune, it’s reported that Haig has modified his views about the deployment of arms in view of the peace movement in Europe.
14:36 Q: Krishnaji, we’ve got the problem or possibility of nuclear war…
14:43 K: I doubt it, sir, I doubt it. I doubt they would be crazy enough to do that.
14:53 Q: You doubt or you hope?
14:57 K: I doubt it very much.
15:00 Q: Then, sir, for instance we can also address ourselves to another problem, approached in the same way, which is hunger and the starving people. Do we join political organisations to approach that? In view of all the insanity and suffering that goes on in the world, is a political approach ever appropriate? Is an organised, social approach what one should engage in?
15:31 K: Suppose, sir, every little country had a neutron bomb. Every country. Perhaps that would solve the problem. Why not? It’s as crazy as the other. They all would know the danger of it. Perhaps, that may be the way out.
15:57 Q: But, sir, when you take the level of the heads of some governments… If you give it to Idi Amin or Gadhafi or…
16:09 K: My grandmother too, included.
16:19 Q: Krishnaji, the question seems to be what is right action? What is one to do? How is one to live?
16:29 K: Sir, if you have votes, you elect the right kind of people.
16:34 Q: Also, I think it’s very significant what Jim Fowler just said, that Haig has thought twice about what he came over to do because of the energy of the people in the countries that he went to.
16:49 K: They need petrol, so Saudi Arabia – don’t talk about it.
16:55 Q: I’ve seen it myself.
17:02 Q: Non-political action is significant in one very important respect, in that movements, such as the anti-nuclear movement have tended to be associated with particular political opinions. And I think that this, in a sense, has diminished their value. There is definitely a possibility for movements which are apolitical but which must nevertheless work in the political arena because it’s a political reality that we’re dealing with. I feel some degree of hope that there’s a possibility of a depolarisation of political opinion into areas such as that.
17:55 K: You heard last night the Labour Party saying no atomic bombs, withdrawing from the Common Market, but Britain is also selling armaments. On one hand you say all this, on the other hand you encourage every…
18:17 Q: When you say vote for the right people, that’s what most French people thought when they voted. You vote for the right people and when they are in power, you discover they’re the wrong people.
18:29 K: Yes, they go mad.
18:31 Q: Power corrupts.
18:34 K: So, what’s the good of talking about it?
18:38 Q: Could one try it like this? I will only act, if at all, with other people where there’s a sense of cooperation which has nothing to do with a common cause but is something which actually one can work from day by day and is not brought together by any particular belief. From there, things may happen, like this school, or other things. But I won’t join a group because of a principle.
19:13 Q: Then why join?

Q: Exactly.
19:16 Q: Why would you seek out a group?

Q: I wouldn’t.
19:21 Q: Then there would be no problem because you simply wouldn’t join.
19:25 Q: I’m trying to approach this from this starting point, with whom will one cooperate? And in what way can one to do something which won’t become divided and troublesome?
19:39 Q: We don’t know how to cooperate, do we?
19:42 Q: How would Haig be aware of this resistance to the deployment of the arms, if it hadn’t been organised?
19:52 Q: Whatever the consequences of that is not of fundamental significance to what we’re trying to talk about at this moment. Over a perspective of 10 or 20 years, one can’t tell what the significance of Haig’s relationship to a peace movement of Europe will be. I doubt that nuclear arms will have vanished from Russia and America in twenty years’ time, as a result of Haig’s visit to Europe.
20:14 Q: It’s highly significant because he has actually modified his intentions purely because of the peace movement.
20:20 Q: It’s significant to you, Jim, it’s not significant to me. It’s the inability of people to work together with cooperation for a period longer than two or three days, that’s really significant – except when they’re held together by some cause and then they do something over a period of months or years, but then that turns out to be dangerous in another way.
20:47 Q: So, you’re asking, does it need a cause for people to cooperate? Usually the way of cooperation is to join a cause and then you cooperate through that rather narrow cause.
21:03 Q: Is that a question we could look at as a starting point?
21:08 Q: I’m inclined to think if the cause is sufficiently well-identified then it makes cooperation easier. There are examples of small groups having effect on large organisations because their cause has been relatively simple. One that comes to mind is an organisation called CAMRA – the Campaign for Real Ale – which persuaded the large brewers to improve the quality of their beer by action which was located with a very small organisation.
21:56 Q: I think we’re missing a point. I don’t think we’re discussing ale. We’re concerned more with the fact that each of us, by our behaviour is creating confusion in the world and creating these kinds of conflicts that we’ve been describing. We are responsible for what’s going on in the world, by our behaviour. I think we’re moving away from that fact.
22:23 Q: But there seem to be possibilities of both sorts of action, in the sense, individual action, if we can use that term, and collective action, providing the objective is well defined.
22:34 Q: While we’re deciding how to act, it’s bound to go wrong. If we get away from this compulsion to act, our action may be effective. It may be in the outward field or it may be in a small, local field. But if we’re discussing how we ought to act, then I don’t see that any of our actions can be particularly effective.
22:59 Q: Would you say, Brian, then that pacifism has a cause?
23:03 Q: Oh, yes.
23:05 Q: I wonder the real meaning of pacifism.
23:10 Q: Does it have a cause, not is it a cause?
23:12 Q: That can be a sort of action, can’t it, a certain passivity.
23:16 Q: By the time you’ve used the word, it’s a cause, isn’t it? A cause you follow, you join, you adhere to…
23:21 Q: No, I wouldn’t actually join the cause as such. It seems to stem from a human response to…
23:28 Q: Would you call yourself a pacifist?
23:29 Q: No, I wouldn’t actually, no.
23:31 Q: So then the word doesn’t have to be used, but the action may still be there.
23:35 K: Sir, would you consider my suggestion a little bit, now? Personally, I can’t physically do anything. The thing is rolling, gathering. I can’t stop it, personally, nor you as any person stop this wave that’s going on. We can observe what is happening, very clearly, the aggression of one country spreading, trying to influence all the other countries, from Afghanistan to Cuba. Cubans in Angola. It’s a potty little country. You follow?
24:33 K: These are the facts. France said, ‘We won’t have the atomic bomb’, now it says, ‘We must have it’. They are all cultivating this thing. These are all facts. Tremendous aggression on the part of one country and perhaps, less on the part of other countries. Looking at all that, what am I to do? My talking to people will have very little effect.
25:13 Q: Yes.
25:15 K: Perhaps I have talked to some prominent politicians and they say, ‘Yes, go and talk to the other country and stop them and then I’ll stop’. This has been the argument. I have seen all this. So, what am I to do? I can talk, write, shout, but it has very little effect. Is there another level of consciousness which we can touch? You follow what I’m trying to get at? Instead of joining groups, shouting, demonstrations and all the rest of it, which seems to have very little effect, is there another form of communication, which is not merely verbal, not violent or anti-violent? Is there a level of communication, which unconsciously people can capture? Am I conveying this?
26:42 Q: You’re suggesting that this isn’t just tied to one issue but to all.
26:46 K: I’m talking of all issues. The whole thing. The whole lot, yes, the whole bag full.
26:57 Q: Krishnaji, I don’t want to play devil’s advocate here but the common opinion – you said that demonstrations and the shouting and the marching doesn’t have any effect.
27:09 K: Very little effect, I said.
27:11 Q: The argument is that we’re simply not doing it well enough. We need more people, be better organised, shout louder, march farther gather more numbers.

K: But they are doing that. They are doing that very well.
27:28 Q: Well, people say that it’s not well enough, we need more numbers still.
27:31 K: What is happening in Ulster and so on and so on, this is all fairly obvious. Right?
27:38 Q: Well, it’s not so obvious, apparently.
27:40 K: Obvious, in the sense, it is having very little effect. Atomic bomb or the nuclear bomb is being developed by countries. There is no question about it. We are not going to stop it, except if all the world’s scientists said, ‘Sorry, we won’t do it’, all of them, then there’s a possibility. But the scientists are not doing that.
28:15 Q: High school students can build them – you don’t even need a scientist.
28:19 K: The heads of the really powerful religions are not saying, ‘Stop it’.
28:27 Q: You’re saying, Krishnaji, in fact, that no amount of demonstrating and...
28:32 K: It has very little effect.
28:35 Q: But Krishnaji – granted that it’s limited…
28:39 K: Agreed.

Q: …it has had an effect that made for great change in various instances.
28:45 K: In certain incidents, I agree.

Q: So people pursue that.
28:50 K: But I’m talking about war, the nuclear bomb. Will demonstrations stop it?
29:02 Q: It seems that any demonstration by any group or organisation really seems to be the other end of the same movement. In their very demonstration, there is the same aggression.
29:22 K: Let us say demonstrations, newspapers, have some effect, but that little effect doesn’t stop this, because of nationalism, competition, all that is involved in all this – the desire for one nation to be more powerful than the other – we must be the first, and so on. Knowing all this, what is a person who is fairly intelligent, who has observed all this, what is he to do? He can’t go back and say, ‘Let’s pray’ – that has no meaning. So, I’m just wondering, I’m not saying this is right or wrong, whether there is not a different avenue of communication. Not only to the people in power, and perhaps they may not pay attention at all to that form of communication, but is there a form of communication which is not media and all that? A different movement. Am I saying something? Has it some kind of meaning?
30:48 Q: It doesn’t depend on what one says or does.
30:52 K: What one says and does, we have done enough. It has had some effect, probably more than we realise, but that doesn’t seem to end this crazy business.
31:15 Q: We’ve been thinking about our relationship with other individuals, but now we’re thinking about international problems. One tends to separate the two but if you read in the paper that Russia has moved into Afghanistan, can one, in relation to that in the same way that one is to other people, not fear, seeing it without a reaction?
31:49 Q: Yesterday, we were saying there is this field of human consciousness where there’s memory and there’s knowledge and all these actions that we’ve been performing for millennia, and that any movement inside of this, is just the same old thing. Either that applies to this situation as well, or it doesn’t seem to have very much meaning.
32:16 K: Look, sir, just take you and I. I’ve talked to you, you’ve talked to me, a great deal. We’re part of all this mess. My verbal expression, explanation has very little effect – suppose. I must find a way of communicating with you, not at the verbal level, because I’ve tried that – written level, verbal level, demonstrative level, example level, and so on, so on – that doesn’t have tremendous effect, that doesn’t, let’s say it doesn’t change you, completely. So, I must find a way of communicating with you, which is not this. Is there such a communication? That’s what I’m asking.
33:29 Q: We all have had some experience and evidence that such communication does exist.
33:35 K: I’m not talking telepathic or hypnotic communication or some kind of mystical communication but I want to find a communication. I think there is. Let’s investigate. I would like to discuss it.
33:57 Q: If we look at these discussions, at the verbal level each one is different and if it just stayed at that level, each one would remain so. But because there’s something going on at the non-verbal level which is immovable and the same throughout, each discussion has the same form and the same resolution.
34:16 K: What is that communication? Let’s talk it over, shall we? Please, join me. What is that communication? I used to know a Benedictine monk. He used to come to Saanen often and we used to talk together. He agreed, he went into all this, he discussed. Frightfully intelligent, in the normal sense of that word, but he was anchored in his order, Jesus, the whole 2,000 years of tradition. I haven’t seen him for many years now. And I used to know one of the high Jesuits. Again, he was anchored in that, though he left the order. There must be a communication, which is non-verbal, non-example, non-demonstrative, which will affect them profoundly – you follow what I mean? – not just superficially.
35:36 Q: Which isn’t an example.

K: Example doesn’t work. Example or influence – all that becomes tawdry.
35:45 Q: Not a silent example of just being good and friendly.
35:47 K: That doesn’t work at all.
35:52 Q: Is this in a way that they understand? There must be a profound effect – in a way that somebody understands?
36:03 Q: Mentally, you mean?
36:08 K: You investigate, sir, don’t ask me. Let’s investigate together.
36:14 Q: I would say that there’s not necessarily a mental understanding, in the first instance.
36:23 Q: Do you mean conscious?

Q: Conscious. I would say that comes later, possibly.
36:30 Q: Because understanding usually means a conscious recognition of something. That’s why I didn’t quite understand what you’re saying.
36:40 Q: Sir, we did come, I can’t remember which day to say we approached the notion of sharing a perception of something. One person sees something and in looking at it somehow, that perception was communicated despite the words.
37:01 K: Scott, forget what we have talked about, totally forget altogether. Begin again. I want to tell you something. I’ve talked to you a great deal. I even became the example, suppose, all that, and yet that hasn’t… I haven’t really communicated with you. Because communication means both of us seeing the same thing at the same moment, feel the same thing at the same level, and so on. Apparently, words, example, books, that doesn’t touch that core. I want to find out by examining, discussing, investigating, what is it that can be communicated so that we meet at the same level, at the same time, with the same intensity? I don’t know if I can convey what I’m talking about.
38:17 Q: From what you’ve just said about the Benedictine monk...
38:20 K: Forget him.
38:21 Q: But what you mentioned was that he was still anchored. So, until he pulls up his anchor he can’t listen to that.
38:30 K: No, forget what I said about the Benedictine. Let’s start all over again.
38:37 Q: Sir, just as you say that and you asked that question, now there can be a communication of your question which is perhaps beyond the words in your question, about the need, the necessity of meeting at the same place, at the same time, on the same issue. If that takes place...
39:01 K: Go on, sir, investigate. Don’t ask me – investigate.
39:06 Q: I don’t know how to investigate without asking.
39:10 Q: Ask yourself.
39:14 K: Sorry, go ahead.
39:16 Q: We’re not really talking about a communication between individuals.
39:21 K: No, I’m not. I’ve tried that. I’ve tried to communicate with my son and my son listens to me, likes me, somewhat has an affection or respect, but the influence of other boys, other society, is so strong that what I say has very little meaning to him. But I want to get at him at a deeper level. You follow? I want to have a contact at the greatest depth possible with him. That may have some kind of effect throughout his life. That’s my concern. So I talk to him, point out all this but he doesn’t pay much attention to what I’m saying because the other is much too strong. So, I realise I have to approach him from a totally different angle. What is that communication which, even though he’s unconscious of it, is working in him? You understand what I mean? Now, what is that? Let’s discuss.
40:48 Q: Sir, at the beginning you did mention the word ‘subconscious’.
40:54 K: Yes, call it ‘deeper level’, doesn’t matter.
40:58 Q: I’m not quite sure what you mean by communicating with someone at a subconscious...
41:05 K: Not subconscious – at a deeper level, call it. Don’t you know what I’m talking about?
41:14 Q: I have an inkling of it, but...
41:17 Q: It’s like planting a seed, you’re thinking.
41:23 Q: Isn’t that a communication with love?
41:27 Q: You’re sort of implying that I’m totally unaware.
41:30 K: Sir, don’t ask me. Discuss it.
41:35 Q: There is a saying, ‘where somebody is coming from’. Which does seem to me to indicate, as I have observed it, something more than their conditioning. I have observed somebody change where they’re coming from and yet there is no real indication of why they should have changed. There seems to be some possible movement which changes something deep in them, yet doesn’t come from surface events. I don’t know if that has anything to do with it. It’s an observation I’ve had.
42:16 K: Is communication ever mechanical? You understand? At present, is our communication with each other mechanical?
42:30 Q: It can be with conditioning.

K: Apparently, it is. Because it doesn’t affect a non-mechanistic mind. You’re not discussing with me.
42:53 Q: If we’re discussing communication, I want to communicate something to someone else. With a communication of information, there has to be content and I do the communicating. If we’re talking about deeper levels, then we have to ask what sort of content this communication has and what sort of communication it could possibly be. Normal communication involves I say something to someone else – it emanates from a source and goes to a receiver. If it’s me wanting to communicate to someone else – this hypothetical son doesn’t listen – and I want him to listen, I’m trying impose my will upon him. If this deeper level works in quite a different way, then it may not have the element of will or content, and it seems difficult to see how it could have the element of ‘I’.
44:07 Q: A little louder, please. It’s difficult to hear from this side.
44:11 Q: Oh, I’ve just finished.
44:14 Q: If there is a content, I think there is a motive. But what I’m thinking of doing with this child is to just establish a deeper link and then whatever communication there is would probably go through the linkage automatically.
44:35 Q: How do you know how to establish a deeper link?
44:38 Q: And what’s going to flow along the linkage?
44:41 Q: Whatever is spontaneously necessary to be communicated, whatever you feel.
44:49 Q: If you feel that you want to do the communication, it’s not spontaneous.
44:52 Q: If I really strongly feel and have the necessity to reach the person, it would happen. It’s not a belief of some kind, it’s just a feeling.
45:10 Q: This is a sort of condition where telepathic communication occurs, but we’re not, apparently…
45:17 Q: I don’t know what telepathy is.
45:20 Q: Just what we’ve been talking about.
45:24 Q: We’ve got a bit off the track, but I wonder if we could go back to what you said about content. When we’re communicating in an ordinary way, there’s always a content and there’s also the ‘I’ that is conveying the content. I think there may be a clue in that. I don’t know.

K: Go ahead.
45:56 Q: I feel there was something in it. I’m just trying to grasp it. I wonder if we can go into it, a little bit.
46:09 K: Louder, sir, they can’t hear.
46:12 Q: Has charisma anything to do with it? It is different from charisma, but charisma also is a form of communication. In what way is this different?
46:24 Q: Charisma is a dangerous thing.

Q: Yes, it is. I feel this is different.
46:30 Q: All the gurus have this charisma and they’re misleading people. It’s not that.
46:36 Q: We don’t know what it is, do we? We’re talking about a possible communication at a deeper level, and since we don’t know what this is, it’s rather difficult to define it.
46:46 Q: But I think we do know, actually, don’t we? Sometimes somebody said something to us and we’ve instantly got what they’re saying at a deeper level, without thinking about it very much. It’s quickly taken up, and I’m wondering if that’s the sort of thing that one has to talk to, when we’re involved in this sort of discussion.
47:06 Q: Then they’d have definite content. Is that’s what we’re discussing? It thought it wasn’t.

Q: Yes, it would have content then. This would be a sort of understanding, wouldn’t it? You can have conversions to different points of view. I was converted to CND by somebody explaining it and suddenly I saw the thing from a completely different point of view and became a supporter of the CND movement. But that was still a thing with concepts in normal communication. The fact that I was converted to CND hasn’t abolished nuclear weapons.
47:44 Q: To communicate and to be able to actually meet a person one needs to meet that person with the same intensity. It seems that one of the things that’s missing is the intensity. If there’s a lack of intensity, obviously, there is no communication. In other words, it’s being seen as communication on two levels and therefore, there is no communication as such. We’ve gone round and round, and come to the brink several times. We’ve explored that communication, being able to see a thing clearly, that words and the usual forms do not bring about the space that’s necessary for a change to come about in us. It seems that we retreat each time. Can we explore this point where we retreat instead of just remaining with the situation where we can see we cannot go any further one way or the other? Because nothing ever gets resolved, it’s just repeat and repeat.
49:06 Q: Could we investigate if there’s a form of communication which paradoxically has nothing to do with communication, as we know it?

K: Yes, sir. I’ve heard in India and in Europe a group of people praying for peace – the Christian nuns and monks and special groups, pray from morning till night. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, I’m just looking at it. People have hoped through that there will be peace, otherwise they wouldn’t pray. Is that an indication – I’m just asking, I’m not saying it is – that a state of mind which is capable of meeting… I’m lost. No, I’m not, I know what I want to say. Let us look at it this way, for a moment. There have been good people in the world, and in the air, as it were, there is a reservoir of goodness. And also there is a reservoir of that which is terribly evil – we’ll use the word ‘evil’ just to convey – unrelated. Good is not the outcome of evil, there are two separate activities in human beings. There have been a tremendous lot of people in the world who have said, ‘Let’s be good, talk about goodness. Let’s write about it. Let’s think about it. Let’s try to live it’. There is another group – terrorists, the evil. It exists in the air. Right? Must exist in the air. After these million years – like the television, what do you call it?
52:03 Q: Waves.
52:14 K: Now, this thing which is called evil is predominating now. Right? I’m just examining, sir, don’t accept it. This is dominating the world – atom bomb, terrorists, national divisions, the crazy things that are going on in this world. The other is not in opposition but it is also working on its own. And that seems to have very little effect on this, apparently. Right? Are we together so far? I want to examine this a little bit.
53:00 Q: Perhaps even a diminishing effect. Perhaps, there’s a polarisation of the two.
53:06 K: Synthesis of the two?

Q: No, a polarisation of the two.
53:08 K: What do you mean by that word?
53:11 Q: That the good is affecting the evil less and less, and vice versa.
53:14 K: That’s right. That’s what I’m saying. The good is affecting less and less the other. How do I make that thing which is good all-enveloping? You follow my question? I’ve done prayers, I’ve worshipped, I have done all kinds of things in order to resist the other, but the other is getting more and more dominant, more and more powerful, and the other is getting less and less. Apparently, that’s… don’t discuss the ratio and all the rest of it. Can that goodness communicate to the people who are indulging in the evil? You understand what I’m talking about?
54:32 Q: Why doesn’t it communicate now? Why does not the good communicate with the evil, now?
54:39 K: Perhaps it is. After all, you are very good. Suppose you are very good in the highest sense of that word. And I’m not. I belong to the other camp. Your very being good is somehow affecting me though I may not know it. It is not some mysterious process, it is a chemical process. You follow? It’s like fresh air and air that has been polluted. The fresh air is always coming in, but I’m always polluting it. So, how do you help? No, how do you see that your air remains pure wherever I am? Am I conveying something?

Q: Yes.
55:58 Q: Are we talking about communication which is not intentional? It seems to be the missing word. I can conceive of communication which is not intentional communication. I find it very difficult to understand communication which has nothing to do with communication. It doesn’t seem to be saying anything worth saying. But there are maybe forms which are not intended to communicate, which nevertheless do.
56:30 K: Suppose there’s a body of people who don’t belong to any religion, no faith, no nationality, who in themselves have completely abandoned any form of violence, which means no fear and so on. If there were such a group of people here, on earth – not in heaven, here – they would have tremendous effect. Not the effect through a media – you follow what I mean? There is a communication which is not through cause, institutions and all the rest of it.
57:27 Q: Through a change of state in the environment communicates. It’s probably simpler than that, they haven’t set up any machinery…
57:45 Q: Are you saying that it isn’t communication in the active sense of something being given out towards something, but simply the fact of its being?
57:57 K: That’s all. I’m saying that. Yes, that’s right.
58:03 Q: Is it to do with the clarity of the person from whom it comes?
58:22 Q: Is there anything more, Krishnaji, that you can say about this?
58:27 K: Not ‘I can say’ – we are talking together.
58:36 Q: I was going to say, in this idea of the group of people, is this ‘whatever happens’ dependent on the size of the group? Would one person be as good as ten or ten people be as good as twenty or a hundred? What is the role of a group as opposed to a single person in this process?
58:57 K: Don’t let’s even call it a group. A number of people. I don’t know how to put it.

Q: To eliminate the quantitative?
59:05 K: That’s right.

Q: Could it be just one person?
59:08 K: Yes, sir. Suppose you are – not suppose, you may be, you have no nationality, no identification with any sect, any religion, and you are free of fear and so on – you are an extraordinary person. By your very existence, you are communicating something to me, which is non-verbal.
59:42 Q: I have no problem accepting it.
59:51 K: It’s not a question of accepting it. It’s a question of whether we are such people.
59:59 Q: You communicate this by the very fact of it, but this other thing is so strong, as you put it, with the son. So, what happens to the communication?
1:00:10 Q: But does there need to be a critical mass to these people? We can’t avoid quantitative thoughts. Maybe ten of these people are ten times more powerful than one. If there’s enough, maybe there’s potential for something very positive.
1:00:28 Q: We were eliminating the quantitative element, weren’t we?
1:00:31 Q: Yes, but maybe you can’t. Because maybe you need lots of these people to effect this balance of good and evil that we’re talking about.
1:00:42 Q: I think we’ve moved into something else now because it’s changed the whole question somewhat.
1:00:49 Q: This is not really an academic question that we’re discussing, it’s a question of whether we can look into this right now.
1:00:57 Q: I don’t think the word ‘academic’ means much in these circumstances.
1:00:59 Q: We’re not discussing what might happen if twenty or a hundred people. We’re discussing now whether it’s possible for us, this group now, to have this communication. Numbers is really irrelevant.
1:01:18 Q: I wouldn’t accept the numbers are totally irrelevant.
1:01:25 Q: If there’s a balance of power, good and evil like Russia and America – then it would be a numerical thing. If you could jump up to another state where you were no longer talking about this balance of power, not in terms of just hydrogen bombs, but if somebody had a superbomb which could blow up the entire universe, then we’d be talking about a different thing. Then it might no longer have this quantitative element – if one of these superbombs could blow up the entire universe, then the whole question about the balance of power, good and evil just disappears. But it hasn’t happened yet, otherwise we wouldn’t be here discussing it.
1:02:28 Q: Sir, you’ve asked us to look at this communication.
1:02:32 K: Discuss it.
1:02:34 Q: It seems so elusive, so difficult to get any perspective on, I don’t know how we can discuss it. I don’t know if we can. Even asking how does one meet at the same place at the same time, with the same intensity, seems something which is beyond what we are capable of discussing.
1:03:01 Q: I understood that we are doing this, more or less, that it is a process going on.
1:03:13 K: Not quite, sir, not quite. but go ahead, let’s talk about it.
1:03:19 Q: The difficulty is that if we approach it as individuals, we get absolutely stopped, but if we’re not individuals there is this communion or whatever, that’s here. But we constantly destroy it or ignore it or lose it because we are thinking of ourselves as individuals. Then we start asking, ‘How can we communicate with each other?’
1:03:42 K: Sir, is it a problem to you, not being able to do anything about all these terrible things going on? A problem, like hunger is a problem if you have no food? Is it an acute problem with you? Or you say, ’Let’s talk about the atomic bomb’?
1:04:08 Q: It’s a problem.

K: Is it an acute problem to you that Russia is spreading like wildfire? You know all that, I don’t have to describe it. I feel it is a tremendous problem, a very complex problem, so I have to do something about it. And I cannot go and demonstrate – that’s too silly – or join a group or form an organisation. It seems so utterly infantile, in front of this enormous problem. That’s what I feel, it’s infantile all this, immature, whatever word you like to use. So, what am I to do? If it is an acute problem with all of us, then what happens? That’s what I want to get at. Not intellectual problem or emotional or sentimental – ‘Don’t do this, don’t think about the Russians because then they’ll become more aggressive’. They are aggressive. You can’t make them more. So, what am I to do confronted with this enormous problem? Either I run away into some Himalayan retreat. I can’t do that because I have a son, a daughter, I’ve got people around. What am I to do? Come on, sir, let’s talk about it.
1:06:35 Q: Sir, you ask a question like that and one feels stumped.
1:06:42 K: No, I’m not stumped. I’m asking, is it an acute problem with us? As it is for those people who are living in Poland now, or in Romania or in Hungary, who say, ‘My God!’ There was a letter from a person living in Eastern Europe to this famous author whom I used to know. He said, ‘Don’t talk about peace, for God’s sake. Advocate war, because only then we shall be free’. You follow? It was a tremendous, burning problem to them, to be trodden down. So, if I feel this is a tremendous problem and I know I can’t resolve it – I can’t change Mrs Thatcher or Mr Mitterrand or Mr Reagan’s mind. I can’t. Even Brezhnev! So, what am I to do? I can’t go to the Pope and say, ‘For God’s sake, excommunicate everyone who takes part in it’. That’ll be the end of the Church. So, they won’t listen. None of them will listen. So, what am I to do?
1:08:54 Q: One thing is to make sure one doesn’t contribute to this oneself.
1:08:59 K: I am. By paying tax, I’m supporting this. By buying a stamp, something goes out of it.
1:09:17 Q: I don’t mean physically, I mean mentally, how, in oneself, lives one’s life so that it doesn’t contribute.
1:09:30 K: May I ask, is it an acute problem with us?
1:09:47 Q: It isn’t acute to most of us, I would assume.
1:09:53 K: No, that’s right. Therefore, we let Reagan, Mrs Thatcher, Brezhnev run us. We are slaves to them. Sorry, I hope I’m not... Mrs Thatcher won’t put me in prison. Suppose it’s an acute, burning problem with me and I know I cannot do a thing to alter these people’s minds, what happens in that realisation?
1:11:32 Q: In my case, the hope arises that some other path is possible, totally unlike all these. It generates a quite unreasonable feeling of hope.
1:11:45 K: I don’t quite follow.
1:11:47 Q: If one feels blocked in all possible normal ways of acting…
1:11:52 K: I am blocked.

Q: Yes. Because this feeling of being blocked is intolerable and because if one really does feel it is a problem, one can’t just sort of forget about it and get on with something else…
1:12:08 K: No, I can’t get on with something else.
1:12:13 Q: In that condition, the only hope is a vertical take-off into some other state.
1:12:23 K: That’s what happens, sir. That’s what actually takes place when I realise I cannot do anything to alter the course of these leaders.
1:12:37 Q: He said that there would be a vertical take-off.
1:12:41 K: Does it happen? Or do I turn my back on it all, which is meaningless? Or the very realisation that I can’t do anything has brought about a totally different élan. A totally different kind of energy which is not the energy of causation. I don’t know if I’m…
1:13:33 Q: You mean realising this doesn’t lead me to despair.
1:13:42 K: I’m neither optimistic or pessimistic, despair, hope – that’s all finished long ago.
1:13:49 Q: Usually, when we look at all this and realise that we have no power, we feel dismayed.
1:14:04 K: No, when we realise we have no power, we become indifferent.
1:14:11 Q: Isn’t it partly because we see the situation individualistically?
1:14:21 Q: When you’ve really got this problem and you’re stuck, you can’t hope or despair. That’s too much energy and activity. All that movement of thought and feeling – there’s no room for them. Hope or despair about what might happen are absolutely academic.
1:14:39 Q: But we all seem to come to this point where a jump has to be made, a vertical take-off, if you like.
1:14:50 K: The very confrontation brings action. Not we have to make a jump. This is a tremendous problem and I can’t solve it.
1:15:09 Q: Sometimes I think maybe I’m in an illusion.
1:15:12 K: Oh, no.

Q: I don’t mean to be offensive.
1:15:15 K: In Afghanistan, they are killing each other by the thousands. In Beirut. The concentration camps in Russia.

Q: Yes, I am aware of that truly, but something seems to be lacking.
1:15:35 K: Is it that it’s not a problem to us? That we don’t feel responsible for all this? I do. As a human being, my grandfathers, everybody, has contributed to all this and I see I am contributing by buying a stamp. So, mustn’t I buy a stamp, not travel? No, look at it, sir, look at it! Gradually, I drive myself into a corner. I can’t move then. By turning on the electricity, petrol – the whole of it. To say, ‘I won’t be responsible’, it’s meaningless. So, I have to say, ‘Now I’ve come to a point that whatever I do, is contributing to this horror. Whatever I do’.
1:16:59 Q: Would it be that we feel partly responsible in our small field? You seem to say that we are totally responsible.
1:17:09 K: Of course, I’m totally responsible. We’re all totally responsible.
1:17:13 Q: Normally, we feel partly responsible in a small field.
1:17:20 K: I am totally responsible, as long as I’m a nationalist, as I recognise a country, a belief, all the rest of the business. It’s only when I am totally not responsible, I am out of it.
1:17:43 Q: It’s because I feel totally responsible for it that I think it’s not enough just to talk about it. I feel I have to do something else.

K: No. No. It’s not something else I have to do. Sir, confronted with an enormous problem you become silent, don’t you?
1:18:10 Q: Sometimes.
1:18:12 K: No, you are not. You are talking about it. I cannot solve this, as a human being who is the rest of mankind. Mankind has brought this situation about. Not Mr Einstein only, all Einsteins in the world have contributed to this. My fathers, my grandfathers, my great-grandfathers, past ten generations have contributed to this. And confronted with it, I feel I’m incapable. I cannot solve it. But I’m not going to run away. You’re missing the point – what takes place when you’re in that position?
1:19:30 Q: When there’s something deeper than my thinking self feeling affronted which will cause me to stop and look.
1:19:41 K: Sir, take a totally different thing. Human beings have suffered for thousands and thousands of years. Think of all the men and women who have been slaughtered, who have shed tears, maimed, wounded, no arms, no legs, all that. There is this immense sorrow. And confronted with it, I can’t do anything about it. So, the fact, the realisation comes, as long as you are belonging to that you’re contributing to it. That’s all.
1:20:48 Q: Does this also bring us back to the point we were discussing that maybe if we feel intensely about something that this releases energies which are able to communicate to others? This seemed to be where we got to and we seemed to abandoned that point, and that seemed to be very important because this was leading towards an alternative strategy for looking at these problems.
1:21:30 Q: I don’t see how we can ask any questions at this point, least of all of Krishnaji.
1:21:38 K: That’s what I’m saying, we are never silent to face the problem. That silence answers the problem. I don’t know what I’m saying – right? I’m not stupidly silent. I don’t say, ‘I must be silent to understand the problem’, that’s too infantile. But the very problem makes me silent. And I’m naturally a silent person, therefore it goes through my... Therefore, when you ask me, how do you answer this problem of aggression by Russia or by any country’, I say, ‘Don’t answer it’. If I answer it, my answer will be according to my conditioning. But if I’m not conditioned, my answer will be entirely different. So, my concern is to free myself from all this blasted nonsense.
1:23:29 Q: Which takes up all our energy, most of the time.
1:23:43 K: I don’t know if you heard last night – what’s his name? Tony Benn on one side, on the other, Healey. Healey tells Mr Tony Benn, ‘You are telling a lie and you know you are’. And nobody challenges it. You follow? They accept it. Is it that we haven’t got humility? This is not to be cultivated – real humility, in front of something enormous.
1:25:32 Q: You seem to be telling us that we should take ourselves away from a society that supports these evils. Is that a practical proposition?
1:25:55 Q: Do you mean also, sir, that we cannot be partially good?
1:26:00 K: It’s like a partially bad egg. Do you remember that lovely story? A husband is taking his wife to the hospital because she’s just in labour. And as they enter the hospital, he says, ‘Darling, do you really want to go through with this?’
1:27:15 Q: So, is education helping the child or everybody to step out of this mess? Not to be accustomed, not to find his way in the mess but to step out of it.
1:27:35 K: To realise you can’t do anything in front of this utter confusion requires a great deal of intelligence. I’m glad we all met. I hope we shall meet again.