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BR82DSS2.3 - Discovering something totally new
Brockwood Park, UK - 17 October 1982
Discussion with Staff and Students 2.3



0:19 Krishnamurti: What shall we talk about?
0:23 Questioner: Sir, can the brain understand the brain? Can the brain understand the brain?
0:33 K: How does the brain understand the brain. Any other question?
0:40 Q: Perhaps we could discuss the question of whether there is anything that would make people change, human beings change fundamentally, not just superficially.
0:55 K: What would make human beings fundamentally change.
1:01 Q: Can we also talk about attention?
1:05 K: Attention. Anything else?
1:18 Q: Can thought understand thought fully?
1:22 K: Can thought understand thought fully. The same thing as: can the brain understand itself. Can thought look at itself, understand itself? Anything more? May I begin and then we will put all these questions together? Did you hear last night – Dr Bohm and Dr Abraham talk about the brain, the wholeness of the brain? Wholeness. No?
2:11 Many: It was in French.
2:23 K: All right. Most human beings, including us, want to live a peaceful life, not a life of decay, sluggishness, but they want a kind of peace out there – outside and inside. That is what most people want. And to have peace outwardly and inwardly you must have a great deal of intelligence, not cleverness. We are going to discuss what is intelligence and the rest of it. Not cleverness, not a great deal of erudition or a specialised brain, but you need deep intelligence because without that intelligence we cannot have peace in the world. The politicians are encouraging wars, as most people are. I do not know if you have noticed within the last month or so they have been talking about the Falkland Islands all the time, practically every day. The war was over six months ago and they are still at it – war heroes, people who have killed more than the others, an so on – bravery and so on. Can there be peace in the world? This is a very important question to ask, for you especially, when you are going to enter the world. We older people – we are going, you are coming. And isn't it important to find out for yourselves whether is possible to live in this world peacefully, without being conscripted, and so on? Is that possible? And what does it mean to live a life of great peace, intelligence? And with it goes great affection, love, and all that. Is that at all possible here in this world? Christianity says more or less – they have put aside that question. Perhaps you will have peace in heaven. You won't have peace here on earth, but you may somewhere in the skies, in the clouds. And the ancient Hindus too had this concept of heaven. And the Buddhists in a different way, they talked about having peace, a sense of righteous living and so on. Right? Now, is that possible for you? Not join a monastery, that is not peace at all, that is an escape. Not become a hermit, or join a small group talking about peace and they never have peace. This sense of isolation can never bring about peace. So, our brains have been accustomed, traditionally conditioned to conflict. We are examining now the brain, as you said, and thought. Our brain, our life, is conditioned to constant conflict. Agree to that? Why? Why have we accepted conflict as the way of life? You might say all the trees in a forest fight to have light, nature is in constant battle, conflict, bigger animals killing smaller animals and so on. That is not conflict, that is the natural way, isn't it? A tiger, and then a lion, cheetahs, leopards, panthers – they all live on other living things. And we are supposed to be more intelligent, more evolved and we still maintain, sustain this sense of conflict. Agree? Do we see that? You are in conflict, aren't you? Why? Why should one accept a life of conflict? Please, discuss with me. Why should one?
8:47 Q: Are you suggesting that there is something different between the conflict among the animals and the conflict among the human beings?
8:54 K: Yes, I am talking of human beings.
8:56 Q: But you seem to be suggesting there is something different there. Some people say we are just like animals and so therefore we have that conflict naturally.
9:03 K: But we are supposed to be evolved. I don't know about that – supposed to be, I said. I am asking myself why should I live in my relationship with others, and in myself, live a life of perpetual conflict? Not having been able to solve that question we avoid it, evade it, and we say, this is the way of life, this is our existence as it is, we must naturally accept it. We are questioning that, we are doubting it, we are asking why. Go on, sir, discuss with me, don't go to sleep.
10:01 Q: It is a compulsion, it seems, Krishnaji. There seems to be a compulsion towards this conflict.
10:09 K: No, but I am asking, why am I as a human being like you, accepting this pattern of life? Is it our brains are so conditioned? Our thinking is – part of the brain – our thinking is to rationalise conflict, or escape from conflict, or try to submerge it, suppress it. These are our ordinary reactions to conflict. But an intelligent human being – if there is such an intelligent human being – asks naturally: why? Why don't I break through this conditioning? Do you ask such a question? Or do you just accept it. You accept war, you accept the rotten governments all over the world, the world becoming more and more dangerous, tremendous unemployment all over the world. Do you accept things as they are? Not say, I don't accept it, but I will become a communist or a socialist or something else. It is the same pattern. So, do you trust governments to bring order in your life? Which is peace – right? Go on, sir, discuss with me. Or do you begin to enquire, explore why we live this way of life? Shall we do it together? Would it interest you? Not just intellectual, verbal explanation – interest, deeply committed to this question, to find out if you can live a life of great intelligence, great integrity, and proceed to investigate that. Would you like to do that?
13:11 Q: Yes.
13:14 K: It doesn't mean that you just listen to what the speaker is saying – you enter into it. You enter into this whole process of it. Are you willing? Now, we have lived on this earth for about two or three million years, or more. Or more civilised within the last 30,000 years – let's accept that point – and all the ancient drawings, pictures and literature have shown conflict between good and bad. So called evil and the good, what is right and what is wrong. There has been from time immemorial this conflict and our brains have accepted it. Why? Go on. We discussed the other day, very clearly, that our brain is not mine. Thinking is not my individual thinking. The most poorest man in the world and the most sophisticated scientist thinks. One may think very simply – the poor man – but the scientist has tremendous capacity, complicated mathematical brain, but he also thinks. So thinking is not individual. Do you see that? But see it. If you accept it, if you see the truth of it, you are no longer concerned with your own fulfilment, with your own desire, you are concerned with the whole of humanity, of which you are. Do you accept that? This is more difficult. You see, again our tradition, our conditioning says thinking is my thinking not yours, my brain is my individual limited brain. But when one begins to see that thinking is common to all mankind – by thinking he may build a hut, thatched roof, and the great architects may put up skyscrapers 40, 50 storeys high, but it is the same process. So, from there proceed. We are investigating, not whether I can live a peaceful life, but can human beings throughout the world live a peaceful life – of which I am? You understand? So I am not selfishly concerned to have a peaceful life. When I discover that it is possible to, then it becomes a human issue not a personal issue. Have you understood? I wonder. Are you clear on this? I can say to myself, I must live a peaceful life. I will submit to my wife, to a government, I just won't even think about it, I will just trot along accepting the traditions, leading a normal, bourgeois, mediocre life. That is, I won't even think about it. Or you begin to think, rationalise, and say, it is not possible, and accept things logically. Say for instance, that we must be ruled by governments. Those presidents, prime ministers, all over the world – you know what they are, I don't have to go into all that. So, are you concerned to find a way of living, not only for yourself but for the rest of mankind, a way of life that is not in perpetual turmoil? If you are, then let's find out what is conflict. What is conflict? You understand? Not between you and me, not between government and myself, but the nature of conflict, the word conflict. Go on, enquire with me. What does it mean to you: conflict? The word, the meaning, the significance of that word.
19:45 Q: Isn't it a challenge?
19:47 K: No, conflict. You have conflict, haven't you?

Q: Contradictory to what one says.
20:00 K: Do something contrary to your thinking. That is one form of conflict – right?
20:10 Q: But it could also be a challenge, that you don't know what to do and you are also getting conflict.
20:18 K: No, I am asking you, if I may, with respect, I am asking you: what does that word conflict convey to you? The word. How do you look at, consider the word?
20:41 Q: Battle.
20:45 K: Yes, sir. Struggle. Is that it?
20:53 Q: There is pain.
20:56 K: Pain. All right. Perhaps I am asking a wrong question. When you use that word conflict, what is the feeling you have?
21:20 Q: A feeling of contradiction within oneself.
21:28 K: Contradiction – that is what this gentleman here was saying. Contradiction between what I think and what I do. When there is that contradiction, what is the feeling behind that contradiction?
21:54 Q: Confusion.
22:00 K: Is it confusion?
22:03 Q: Fear of unknown.
22:10 K: Not fear of unknown.
22:13 Q: I think it is the feeling that I am wrong, that there is something wrong.
22:22 Q: Sir, there is a suggestion that there are two opposites in contradiction with one another, a duality.
22:32 K: Yes, contradiction. I haven't gone into this, that is why I am objecting. I am explaining it and you are just listening. When there is contradiction what is the state of my mind? When I realise there is contradiction, opposition, a sense of duality, I want this and I don't want that?
23:03 Q: Resist against...
23:11 Q: Resistance.
23:13 K: Resistance. Is it? Just a minute, let's go into it slowly. Let's take a very simple example and work it out. All right. I am attached. Right? You all are attached, aren't you? No?

Q: Yes.
23:50 K: Attached to a friend, attached to a husband, attached to a girl, attached to an idea, hold on to some concept, some image that you have in your mind, or some experience that you have had and you say, my God, how marvellous, I am going to hold it. You have had all this, haven't you? And somebody comes along and tells you, look, why are you attached? It gives you comfort to be attached to somebody, doesn't it? In that comfort also there is contradiction. I am attached to you and I am not letting you go, and you want to move away from me – you know? After all, you are not my slave, but I am attached to you. So, jealousy arises out of it, fear, anxiety, anger.
25:08 Q: Comparison with other people.
25:09 K: Slight affection. Compassion doesn't enter into attachment, nor love. It gives me comfort, it gives me security, I feel well with you, so I am going to cling to you. Right? Agree? Now, there is a contradiction: I am attached to you and at the same time there is fear that I might lose you. So there is a contradiction. Now, what is the feeling in that contradiction?
25:54 Q: Anxiety.
25:57 K: All right, let's use the word anxiety. Now, that is a conflict, isn't it? To be anxious about you – right? And we live that way. I may be attached to you for a number of years and I am tired, or you leave me, and I will be then attached to somebody else. This process goes on all the time. I divorce my wife and seek another wife. But the same problem exists with the other wife. Agree? How do you know all this? Have you read about it or have you observed this phenomena? You understand what I am saying? Have you observed it and therefore say, by Jove, what a strange way of living? Or you just read somewhere in a novel or somebody talked about it, and it is just verbal acceptance. Which is it?
27:13 Q: Some of us have lived it, Krishnaji.
27:16 K: I know. I am asking, not us older people but I am asking others this. If it is a direct perception and you see the nature of anxiety in attachment, which breeds conflict, then will you live that way? Now just a minute, you wanted to know what attention was. Will you attend to this question? Will you give your energy, which is attention, to look at this problem? This problem is attachment. In that attachment there is fear, which is contradiction or anxiety, and with that anxiety you live, as long as you are attached. And that then begins the whole problem of conflict. Agree? Even verbally, intellectually see this first, then go into it much deeper. Which means, why should I be attached? Why should I depend on you to give me comfort? Why should I depend on you? So I feel secure, I attach to my group, to my nation, to my party, to my ideology and so on. There I feel secure. So, in that security there is danger, isn't there? Do you see that? So, the next question is: why do you accept it? Is it part of your conditioning of the brain which has always said, I must depend? I depend on the postman, on all that, naturally, the man who brings milk and so on, but why should I psychologically, inwardly, depend on anything? That dependence brings conflict. Do we see that? Come on, sir, this is so simple – of course it does.
30:27 Q: Krishnaji, I may be wrong but I get the feeling we are not quite touching upon the issues of conflict that tend to affect us in daily living here.
30:36 K: I am coming to that, sir. First let's understand what is conflict. That is all I am trying to get at, pointing out.
30:45 Q: But we need to think of actual situations such as, say, I want to do something and somebody comes and tells me that I should be doing something different.
30:56 K: Something else. That is right, the same thing. I want to go out for a walk and you tell me, no, sorry, you have to play football or study. This is not a time for a walk, you haven't finished your homework, so please. Now, watch it. You want to do something and an outside person tells you to do something else. Now, either you create conflict by saying, sorry, I must go for a walk, and therefore there is a struggle between you and somebody who says, you can't go, or what will you do? Go on, tell me – what will you do?
31:47 Q: I go to play football.
31:53 Q: You see whether it is necessary to do something else instead of playing football.
31:58 K: Be clear: I want to do something. The school says I must not do that.
32:08 Q: I would ask them why I couldn't go for a walk.
32:11 K: Now wait a minute. The school says: we don't eat meat here. And you are used to eating meat, aren't you?
32:28 Q: Yes.
32:31 K: Don't all of you say you are vegetarian. That is no fun at all! All right, the school says you are not allowed to smoke here or take drugs, and you are used to taking drugs. I hope you aren't. You are used to taking drugs of some form or another – tobacco, whisky, some form of drug. Now, there is a conflict between what you want to do and what the school, from the beginning says, we don't allow this. There is a conflict, isn't there? What are you going to do? Use your brain. How is the brain going to react to this? To restrain you from doing something with which you have been accustomed. You understand? What is your reaction then? It is very interesting – go on, sir.
33:49 Q: You still want to have that drug.
33:52 K: You want it. The school says, no, sorry, you cannot have it here.
33:57 Q: I think you would be contradicting yourself because you came here in order to try and change, and then you go and try to find a stimulus such as a drug and they try to help you by saying, look at what are you doing.
34:16 K: That is a different matter. If I come here with the idea that I am going to have to change then there is no problem, but if stick to my drug and the school says no, what is your reaction, how will you adjust? Go on, sir, what will you do?
34:44 Q: You may feel some kind of aggression towards the person who tells you that.
34:48 K: No, you may feel antagonism to that person but you jolly well have got to drop your drug or leave the school.
35:00 Q: You have to suppress your desire.
35:09 K: Which means what? Conflict.
35:10 Q: You keep conflict within yourself.
35:13 K: How will you meet this challenge? Go on, meet it! Don't say the usual responses: suppress it, I must escape from it, I must submit. How will you deal with it? Not to have conflict. Go on, this is very interesting.
35:29 Q: I am sure you have to look at it. You have to look at it, look at why you are taking drug, why you need to take a drug.
35:36 K: Are you willing to do that?

Q: Yes.
35:39 K: Which means?

Q: That you are willing to drop it.
35:42 K: Which means what? Look at it. Which means I will talk it over with the school. Right? I will discuss it: I am sorry, I smoke, and you are not allowed to smoke here but I have been smoking quietly, secretively for a couple of years and it has become a habit. So you talk it over. Are you following this? Will you? And perhaps the school says, all right, we will allow you one cigarette a day until you get over it. So what does that mean? You are willing to be free of conflict, not to have conflict. That is a very simple matter, smoking and all that, but if you are married and if you have a husband, children, wife, how will you deal with that? It is much more complex, isn't it? And are you willing to discuss, go into the matter?
37:03 Q: You will have to do it alone, yourself. If you are married, say, you have to really...
37:09 K: But unfortunately we get married before we know where we are.
37:13 Q: I know.
37:19 K: You understand? Either you suppress conflict, or escape from it through various forms of amusement including religious amusements, or you look at it to find out. You exercise your capacity, your intelligence, your energy, attention, to say, I will see if I can't talk it over with my wife and remove conflict. What I am trying to point out: how important it is not to have conflict. Because to have constant conflict wears out the brain. Strain, conflict, anxiety – all these are various forms of energies that begin to wear out the brain. Right? Now, will you stop doing it? Don't say yes. You have to very attentive to this. Attentive. Any movement of attachment with its anxiety, with its conflict – you are aware of it. Not say, I must escape, I must suppress, but you gather your energy to understand it so that one can live a peaceful life – I won't call it peace – a life in which there is no conflict – which means no problem. If a problem arises, look at it. Don't say, I must solve it. Just look at it first. What is the meaning of that problem? Right?
39:39 Q: But Krishnaji, this situation, as you say, is not that simple...
39:44 K: Of course not. Nothing is simple, sir.
39:49 Q: I may have a conflict because I want to do something and the school says something else. But then say you come to me and say, now look, you must take off your jacket, it is an untidy jacket.

K: No.
40:06 Q: But it is said to you in a bossy way, so you get hurt.
40:11 K: I know.

Q: So how do we deal with that?
40:16 K: When you tell me in an aggressive way to do something, what will you do? Why do you ask me? What will you do? I come aggressively and say, do this! – partly anger, irritation, repetition, because I have been telling you to do this and you don't, and also I am weary, tired, I have my own problem, I didn't sleep well. You follow? All that. Take all that into consideration. That means are you willing to meet aggression intelligently, not react to aggression? You understand my question? Will you meet aggression with a great deal of attention and intelligence? So let's proceed from there. You have asked a question, which is: can thought observe thought? Does this interest you, this question?
41:48 Q: Yes.
41:52 K: Does it interest you?

Q: Yes.
41:54 K: Don't say yes just because.
41:58 Q: I am not saying yes just because.
42:02 K: Which is, can the brain be aware of its own activity? Is this question too difficult?
42:20 Q: No.
42:22 K: Not for you, sir. It is no good your saying. We are old people. I am talking of the younger people. Now, there are specialists in the brain like Dr (inaudible) which you heard last night – he was one of the specialists. There are others – we are not going to refer to them at all. We are just ordinary laymen. Agree? We are laymen. We are not depending on the authority of some experts. Agree to this? So don't quote me what somebody says. So we are examining, we are looking, asking whether the brain, which has this movement of thought also, can that thought be aware of itself? Have you ever noticed the beginning of a thought? Have you ever been aware just before thought begins, or as thought comes?
44:18 Q: I think after, I am aware.
44:24 K: You may be aware after, but I am asking: are you aware the second thought begins?
44:36 Q: Sometimes you are.
44:38 K: No, sir, not sometimes – just look at it first. Ask this question yourself.
44:43 Q: Can you be thinking the thought and still be aware of it? Can you be simultaneously thinking the thought and being aware of it?
44:53 K: Now, you ask a question, which is: are you different from your thought? That is what you are asking.

Q: Yes.
45:03 K: So you can say, yes, I am aware at the beginning of a thought, which means you are separate from thought. Are you? This is a little complex, go slowly. Are you aware that you are separate from thought? When you say, I am watching my thought, then you are separate, aren't you? Please, it may be a little difficult, go patiently. That is what we generally do. I am aware that my thinking is not complete. I haven't thought about the matter. There, you are separate from thinking. Right? Is that so? Are you separate from thought? Or you are the result of thinking. Answer my question first.
46:34 Q: I am trying to answer now. If when somebody comes up to me and I am doing something and he says it in a certain way – let's say I am brushing – I am just about to react to it, but I catch myself and not say what has gone on, what I was just about to say, but say, ok, let's go – then is that catching it?
47:09 K: No, I don't mean that. First, listen to what I am saying. I am aware I am thinking. Are you aware that you are thinking? Yes, of course. Now, are you, who is aware of thinking, different from thinking?
47:34 Q: Yes.
47:37 K: Yes? Why do you say that? Careful, think it out.
47:44 Q: If you say, I am aware that I am thinking, isn't that just another thought? So, of course you can say, I am aware that I am thinking, and actually be thinking.
47:56 K: Yes. But are you separate from thought? Or you are the result of thinking. You see, you are not used to this. Ask this question before you answer. I am angry – right? Is anger different from me?
48:31 Q: We think it is.

K: Wait! Listen to my question first.
48:36 K: I get very angry or very greedy. Am I different from my greed?
48:52 Q: Not at the time, but afterwards.
48:56 K: I am asking you, please. Would you kindly answer? Are you different from your greed?
49:04 Q: No.

K: Are you sure?

Q: Yes.
49:07 K: Don't guess.

Q: I am not guessing.
49:10 K: So you say, I am not different from greed. Which means what?
49:20 Q: If you are not different from greed it means you are totally your conditioning. If you are not different from greed or different from your thoughts that means you are totally your conditioning.
49:29 K: No, look, forget conditioning. Are you different from greed? All right, begin again. Are you different from your name?
49:45 Q: Yes.
49:46 K: Are you different from your form? The way you look, your body, are you different?
49:52 Q: Yes.
49:55 K: Are you different from your desire?
50:03 Q: At times.
50:05 K: Don't brush it off – I want you to answer this.
50:13 Q: At times I feel different from my emotions or my desires.
50:17 K: So you are saying, as I am different from my name, from my body, I am different from my desire, from my anger. Right? Careful, because I will show you something if you go into this slowly. If you are different from your anger then you can control anger then there is conflict between your anger and yourself. Agree? But is that so? Is it a fact that you are different from your desire, from your anxiety, from your greed, from your anger? Are you?
51:13 Q: No...
51:16 K: You have said it. I understand, you have said it. You are not different, you say. But I am asking the others. What do you say? Are you different from your anger? You see, if you are different, separate from anger then you act upon it.
51:44 Q: Yes, I think I am different from anger because I suppress it or at least I am different from the things I don't like.
51:54 K: At least you are different from the things you don't like. So if you like, you are. It is part of you, what you like. Go into it slowly. This is very important, please. Don't brush it. This is really very, very important to find out. If you can find out, this may be the ending of conflict. You say I am different from my name, from my form, from my desire, from my anger, greed – that is something totally different from me. And I am used to this idea that being different I am going to act upon it, I am going to control it, I am going to suppress it, I am going to transcend it. Which means conflict. You have accepted that. All your life that is your whole philosophy, parents, education, everything, religion, says these two are separate. Is that so?
53:18 Q: When I am angry, I really am angry and at that moment I don't realise it, but afterwards I might think that I shouldn't have been.
53:27 K: Yes, afterwards. But I am asking a question: are you different? Are you separate? Is anger over there and I am over here?
53:39 Q: No, the anger is you.
53:43 K: You are sure?

Q: Positive. I feel when I am angry that is me.
53:47 K: That you are anger.

Q: Yes.
53:49 K: Now, wait a minute, proceed. You are envy, you are anxiety – you are conflict. So what will you do? Wait, careful. If am anger, if I am greedy and if I am anxiety and so on, I am that, then what happens? Careful, go into it very, very carefully.
54:34 Q: Then you cannot act upon it if you are that. If you are anger you cannot act upon anger.
54:41 K: So what happens?
54:53 Q: When you are not anger, anxiety, then you have no conflict.
55:05 K: But you are anger. Not when you are. This is a very good exercise for you.
55:19 Q: You can't do anything.
55:24 K: So what will you do?

Q: Nothing.
55:27 K: Careful!
55:30 Q: You have no resistance.

K: Which means what?
55:34 Q: You observe it.
55:38 K: If you have no resistance, if you are not acting upon it, then what happens? Don't guess – look at it carefully.
55:48 Q: Then it goes away.
55:52 Q: Then you are not there anymore.
55:57 K: When you are anger, envy, jealousy and so on, you said just now you can't do anything about it. I have got white hair – I can colour it, I can do something or other, I say that white hair is part of me. So what happens? You said, I can't do anything about it.
56:21 Q: You just accept it.
56:23 K: No, don't use the word accept – it is so, you are that.
56:27 Q: It is a fact.

K: It is a fact. Don't accept the fact. You understand the difference?
56:41 Q: It just is.

K: Yes.
56:45 K: I am anger, I am light brown, I am this and that – I am that. But if I separate myself from anger then I will act upon it. If I am not, I can do nothing, as you said just now.
57:11 Q: So there is no more comparing.

K: Wait, go slowly.
57:16 K: I can do nothing – right?

Q: Yes.
57:20 K: What does that mean? Slow, think step by step. Have you not eliminated conflict?
57:37 Q: You have.
57:40 K: That is all. That is good enough, so far. Right? Before, when I acted, resisted, there was conflict. Here I say, I am anger. I am that. I am not accepting it, it is so. Therefore from that I realise an extraordinary fact that I have eliminated this duality, this opposition. Right? Do you see this?
58:21 Q: For me, it is still a theory. I don't see it.
58:26 Q: Sir, are you saying that if you accept it, it is still you who is accepting it?
58:35 K: I didn't use the word accept. You used it.
58:38 Q: I know.
58:39 K: Therefore, when you accept it you are...
58:43 Q: It is you who is accepting something else.
58:45 K: Yes. Therefore you are that.

Q: Right.
58:53 K: Now, proceed from there. What we are talking about is: is it possible to live a life without conflict? If you are anger, haven't you eliminated this division, this contradiction? No?
59:25 Q: Yes.

K: Explain it to him.
59:30 Q: If you are anger then you are anger, there is no saying that anger is not me.
59:38 Q: Or I shouldn't be angry.
59:40 K: That is right. Go on. It is good this.
59:45 Q: That is for me, a theory. It is not a fact.
59:48 Q: Okay, look, if you are mad at me.
59:58 K: Allez, go on.
1:00:01 Q: If you are angry at me, show me the anger. I don't mean demonstrate it to me but show it to me. Do you understand the difference?
1:00:19 Q: I can show it to you but I still have it.
1:00:22 Q: No, I don't mean demonstrate it, I don't mean stomp your feet and scream at me. I mean, you right now, take this situation – Juan is angry at Katie – show me where the anger is.
1:00:40 Q: If you have anger, you can't get rid of it – you are angry.
1:00:43 Q: Yes, but by wanting to get rid of it, you are judging it.
1:00:46 K: Wait a minute.
1:00:53 Q: Let's say I haven't done my biology homework – right? You are really, really mad at me. You say, look, I am not teaching you, I am not spending five hours a night trying to fix up the class ready just for you not to do your homework. I am really mad with you. You must do it. It is you who is being angry, isn't it? You can't say that this anger has come from the air and it is coming through me, can you?
1:01:24 Q: Of course not.

Q: So there you are.
1:01:25 Q: So the anger is coming from within you. It is a part of you.
1:01:31 Q: I understand that, at least that is so, I still say it is different because you might be saying words to me. That is what I want to say. Why this division?
1:01:44 K: Sir, just a minute. They have explained to you. Somebody comes, listens to all this, he says, what is the matter with you? You are rather stupid, aren't you? Wait a minute, I am not being rude, please. This chap says to you, you are rather stupid. What is your reaction to that? Reaction when he says you are stupid.
1:02:11 Q: Maybe I am.
1:02:14 K: No, what is your reaction? What do you say? Is that reaction different from you? You are not willing to face it. Face that. I am you asking this question, sir. Please answer it. He says to you, you are stupid, after all this explanation. And what do you say, what is your response to that word?
1:02:50 Q: I get hurt.
1:02:55 K: No, what is your response? What do you feel? Hurt? All right, you get hurt. Do you get hurt?
1:03:05 Q: Yes.

K: At last.
1:03:08 K: Now, wait a minute. Is that hurt different from you?
1:03:17 Q: At the beginning, no.
1:03:20 K: So, at the beginning it is not. Then why should it go on? If it is at the beginning clear, keep it clear. What we are asking is: is your reaction different from you? You are reaction. Right? At last! Have you got it?

Q: Yes.
1:03:48 K: If you say, my reaction is different from me, then you can react, you can control that reaction. Then in that there is conflict, there is justification, etc. But if you say, yes, that reaction, that hurt is me. Right?
1:04:15 Q: It always gets there before I do.
1:04:27 K: No, please, this is a tremendous problem. If you discover this for yourself, it is the beginning of ending conflict. The observer is the observed. Right? The thinker is the thought. Is the thinker – all right, put the question differently – is the thinker different from thought? Is the experiencer different from experience? Go on, sir, think it out. Answer me. Follow it, sir. If the experiencer is not different from experience then why seek experience?
1:05:51 Q: Because it is pleasure.
1:05:54 K: No, then you are separate from pleasure. Aren't you pleasure? Go into it carefully. This is not a conundrum, it is not a trick. Have you found out for yourself the thinker is made up of thought? So, the thinker is not separate from thought. Agree? So there is only thinking, not a thinker who thinks. One of those Frenchmen – Descartes or somebody – who said, 'I think, therefore I am.' If you didn't think, you are not. So you are made up of thought. Go on. So whatever thought has created about you, you are thought. It is part of you.
1:07:27 Q: Krishnaji, would it be easier to understand it the other way round? In other words, if you weren't there, there wouldn't be a reaction, there wouldn't be a hurt or an anger. With no you there wouldn't be anything, would there?
1:07:47 K: Of course, they have seen that. Now just move a step, a different step. You look at those trees, autumn leaves, those colours and all that beauty of that, the light on this, the sun on it – really it is a marvellous thing. Is that different from you?
1:08:09 Q: Is the tree different from you or is the looking different from you?
1:08:12 K: No, I am looking. That tree, that thing we call tree, is that tree different from you?
1:08:20 Q: No.

K: Ah?
1:08:25 K: I hope it is, otherwise I am tree.
1:08:30 Q: No, I gave it the word tree.
1:08:34 K: I am not talking of the word. I said, the thing you look at which we call a tree, is that thing different from you?
1:08:45 Q: Yes, it is.

K: Of course.
1:08:51 K: So what have you discovered? Go on, what have you discovered?
1:09:03 Q: The me. The one who is looking at it.
1:09:10 K: Please, this is important for you to discover it. We just now agreed – you were also beginning to agree – that I am anger, anger is not separate from me. I am anxiety, anxiety is not separate from me, greed is not separate from me. That is clear – right? That thing we call tree is separate, but is that me?
1:09:52 Q: No.
1:09:54 K: Is that me? No. Why don't you say so? Which means what? Thank God I am not the tree. Or rather, the tree is not me. So I have discovered that. I don't want to tell you – go on.
1:10:22 Q: There is no you and me. No, I mean psychologically there is no you and there is no me because our anger is us.
1:10:42 K: Haven't you discovered anger, anxiety, greed, jealousy is me? All the psychological things which I am, I have separated myself from that and I have been acting upon it. Now I discover all that is me and I say, by Jove, I can't do anything about it. I have discovered where there is a division there must be conflict – the Arab and the Jew, the Muslim and the Hindu, the Christian and the non-Christian, Britain, France – where there is division there must be conflict. But there is a division between the tree and me. There is no conflict with the tree. Is there? Of course not. I am not the moon, thank God, but there is no conflict, it is there. But where there is identification with the separate, as British, as French, there must be conflict. Have you understood this?
1:12:07 Q: Yes.
1:12:09 K: Which means are you British, are you French, are you Hindu? If you are, you are going to create conflict. If I say, I follow Jesus, or I follow some guru, you are creating conflict. Right? So you don't belong to any group, you don't become a follower of anybody.
1:12:51 Q: As long as there is thinking in me, there is a thinker. Isn't that so? There is thinking in me, thinking that is me.
1:13:08 K: As long as there is thinking – what are you saying?
1:13:12 Q: There is a thinker.
1:13:18 K: Yes, there is a thinker, but the thinker is put together by thought. If there was no thought there is no thinker. It is so obvious, so don't be complicated. As long as there is thinking there must be a thinker. But the thinker says, I am different from my thought. But the thinker is put together by thought. The thinker is the past, he has had different experiences, memories. The thinker is the past. Agree? There is doubt about that, you see?
1:14:15 Q: So thinking is more real than the thinker.
1:14:20 K: No.
1:14:25 Q: But what about the thought that just goes on in your mind all the time? What about the thought that goes on in your mind.
1:14:36 K: The thought that is in your mind is the result of past experiences, past knowledge. There is no thought separate from the past. This is a little bit complex. Say, for example, engineers have built the internal combustion engine. That has been the tradition that has been going on for hundreds of years. Then suddenly somebody discovers the jet. You understand this? That is, I have been thinking for the last 1000 years – not 1000 – 2 or 300 years of internal combustion, ordinary. That has been my tradition, my practice, I have worked at that. And suddenly I discover the jet. You understand? How does that happen? It is important for you to find all this out.
1:16:01 Q: When you put aside the past.
1:16:03 K: You can't. Don't say put aside. What do you mean put aside? Who is to put aside?
1:16:11 Q: Well, for you to discover something new.
1:16:15 K: That is it – how do you discover something totally new? Come on.
1:16:26 Q: When you nothing to compare it to.
1:16:28 K: You have discovered something new when you say, I am anger. Therefore you have eliminated conflict. That is a great discovery, isn't it?
1:16:48 Q: You can understand something new.
1:16:54 K: No, how do you discover something new?
1:16:59 Q: By investigation.
1:17:02 K: You are an engineer or a scientist – doesn't matter what it is – you are an engineer. How do you discover something new?
1:17:13 Q: Through knowledge.
1:17:19 K: Is that so?

Q: Yes.
1:17:22 Q: Krishnaji, I think the engineer would say that he would find the internal combustion engine inadequate.
1:17:27 K: All right, and then what?
1:17:31 Q: He would begin to think and wonder about an alternative.
1:17:34 K: Which means what? Proceed, sir.
1:17:36 Q: He wasn't happy with what he had before.
1:17:40 K: I discover as an engineer this internal engine is inadequate, wastes too much energy. I want to find out. What do I do?
1:17:52 K: I study.

Q: Look at different possibilities.
1:17:55 K: Different things, but isn't there a moment – this is what I want you to find out – isn't there a moment where knowledge stops suddenly and I see something new?
1:18:05 Q: It has to.

K: Otherwise you are just repeating.
1:18:20 Q: The image of the new thing is obviously new, but the things which lead up to this image is based on what is old.
1:18:35 K: Of course, go on. Proceed further. Now, wait a minute. My tradition says, you are different from your anger. My tradition, my education, religion, everything says you are different from anger. And you come along and tell me, no, you are not. You tell me. Will I listen to you? Or I say, you are rubbish, and go away. If I listen to you, I begin to enquire, don't I? I say, Is that so? And I suddenly see it is not – that anger is me. So I have discovered something new, which means I have not accepted the tradition. That is all. I have been an engineer, I am used to internal combustion, it is inadequate, insufficient, so I am inquiring, looking, watching. I have studied other books but they are repeating the same things. So I must put all that aside and be free to look. Don't answer me. Just see. To discover something new you can't rely on the past. That is all I am saying.
1:20:29 Q: But the man who invented the jet engine obviously relied on the past.
1:20:35 K: Did he? Of course not.
1:20:38 Q: The facts are that these people say that it is quite mysterious what happens. They see that the old ideas are inadequate, they look at them, they wonder, they try different new ideas. But then if something new comes it is quite mysterious.
1:20:56 K: Haven't you discovered something new this morning? When you said, I am not different from my anger, that is a discovery, isn't it?
1:21:07 Q: Yes.

K: That is all.
1:21:28 Q: There is something which is used as a tool up to a certain point. This man used his knowledge of engineering up to a certain point.
1:21:40 K: Yes, up to a certain point. Yes, that is all. I am saying up to a certain point, as he pointed out, it is inadequate, it is not sufficient, it is a wastage of energy, and he looks around, but he is inquiring, he is open, he is looking.
1:22:03 Q: He is not stuck on the old ideas.

K: Therefore he finds something new.
1:22:07 K: If I repeat as a Catholic over and over and over again, day after day, I would never discover. But if I say, by Jove, it might be false, and let me look. So, education is to help you to look not only at the past, which is knowledge, learned, but also be open, free to inquire. Right, that is enough for this morning, isn't it? Not enough? It is nearly 25 past. May we get up?