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CL68DYP3 - Is it possible to end the thousand yesterdays?
Claremont, California - 13 November 1968
Discussion with Young People 3



0:01 This is J. Krishnamurti’s third discussion with students at Claremont Colleges, 1968.
0:09 One of our major problems, it seems to me at least, is to bring about a unity of mankind. There has been a great deal of talk of brotherhood, of peace, of living together amicably, and apparently the results have been rather feeble and rather destructive. One can observe, if one cares to, how the whole of mankind in the East and in the West are splintered by their culture, by their religious beliefs, by their nationalities, linguistic differences, and so on. Religions throughout the world, except perhaps Buddhism, have produced wars, have contributed to war. Religions organized have in no way brought about peace to man, neither in the East nor in the West, one can observe. These organized religions have splintered, fragmented amongst themselves, as the Catholic, Protestant, and the varieties of Protestantism, and each asserting that it is the nearest to truth. And, as one observes, this fragmentation cannot be put together by the intellect, by any theory, by any possibility of a new set of ideas or speculative theological conceptions. Computers cannot bring about this unity. Perhaps it might be possible with a different kind of mind and heart, who are not committed either to communism, socialism or any particular theological concept. Which is, if man can think about the whole problem, which is, the unity and living together amicably, creatively, in complete relationship with one another – if that is what is essential then it seems to me we need not only a different kind of mind but also a different quality of affection, love.
4:54 We are using that word love not in the ordinary sense of that word, which is so heavily loaded. Every politician, every priest throughout the world, everyone uses that word. But when we look at that word a little more closely, it is heavily circumscribed, limited, surrounded by all kinds of morality. If a mother or a father really loved their children, actually loved them, not intellectually bringing them up to according to a certain standard or conception – if there was a real affection we would have no wars.
6:11 But such love does not exist. We bear children and we put them through college, university, and give them a job or help them to acquire a job, and the rest of the whole problem of living is neglected. And we have lived like this for millions of years. The Hindus, the Buddhists, the Christians, the Muslims, theoretically not at each other’s throat but actually each one believing that they have the truth, that their God is the only God, only teacher, saviour. And this division, this fragmentation, not only nationalistically but also linguistically and religiously, have been one of the major causes of war. War being destruction, killing another, in the name of religion, in the name of peace, in the name of some ideal concept. And it seems to me the function of religion – not organized religion, not a religion based on dogma, creed, belief, which are absolutely not religious at all but merely conceptual thinking, which has no value whatsoever – when we are faced with this problem, man hating man, and though the organized religions have brought about certain civilizing effect, the man who is violent by nature, inherited through the animal and also by the social structure in which he lives, and that social structure brought about by man – this whole concept, surely, must not only be dropped, this conceptual thinking, but actually face what is taking place – not theoretically, not intellectually, but factually – not only factually but also with that quality of a mind and heart that demands the solution, that seeks a way out of this terrible state of human society that has been the cause of so much misery and destruction.
10:06 So one inevitably asks: what is the function of any religious mind? Not belief, not dogma, not a theoretical conception of what truth is or what God is, but what is a religious mind? I think that is far more important than to what religion human beings belong to. Whether you are Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, that’s all a matter of conditioning. If one lives in India, there, after ten thousand or five thousand years of propaganda, tradition, the culture one lives in, all that has conditioned the mind to believe or not to believe. Here in the West, two thousand years of propaganda, continually dinning into the mind – belief, dogma, conceptual ideations of belief in a particular form, or according to the communists, condition them that there is no such thing as God, truth. All this is a matter of not only climate but also propaganda. If one discards all that, which one must if one wishes to think sanely, rationally, objectively and deeply, one must discard all that – not only because they have been the cause of fragmentation and therefore of war, conflict, struggle, battle, but also one must discard it because the mind can invent anything, any illusion, any fragment of a reality. Mind is capable of not only conceptual thinking but believing in that concept. It can make itself believe, commit itself, and act according to that belief. So the mind can make and believe in anything.
13:55 You must have experimented, if you have, by bringing a stone into the house and putting it on a mantelpiece and giving it every morning a flower. And so one soon finds out, after a month or so, that that stone has an extraordinary significance. The mind can create of that... bring about out of that stone anything it likes – a sacredness, a holiness, a sense of tradition, continuity, truth, and all the rest of it. If one discards all that then one must ask, if one is at all serious: what is a religious mind? For the speaker feels that is the only solution out for human beings – to find out for oneself the state of a mind that is truly religious. A religious mind, which is not a theoretical mind, which is not living on concepts and conceptual thinking, is obviously a highly virtuous mind. Not the virtue or the morality of society, which is not at all moral – a morality which is the very denial of the social morality, the social morality being based on aggression, greed, envy, competition, the worship of success in which there is no possibility of affection, love and tenderness. When one denies that, the morality of society, one denies aggression, hatred, ambition, the pursuit of one’s own personal achievement. And therefore out of that comes virtue. And virtue is order. Not the disorder of society. And this virtue comes only when we understand the nature of disorder. There must be disorder as long as there is this dualistic way of life. All our struggle in life is dualistic – the good and the bad, the right and the wrong, the holy and the unholy – this dualistic conflict in which we live – the ideal and the fact. There is only the fact, not the ideal. The ideal is merely an escape from what is. And the elimination of this conflict, that is, not to live in a dualistic state but only with the fact of what is, actually with what is, and to go beyond what is so that a mind that is no longer tortured, no longer twisted by its conflict, by the pressure, strains of its own making, and also the pressures of society, the environment – so that a mind can be very clear, without any distortion. And that is only possible when there is no conflict whatsoever, inwardly. And this whole way is possible through meditation.
20:06 Meditation is not an escape from the actual living of life. And if one goes into it very, very deeply, out of that comes a silence which is not put together by thought. And that silence is only possible when there is virtue, with its discipline. Discipline means to learn – not to conform to a pattern – that’s merely suppression and therefore breeding conflict, struggle, pain and sorrow. Then such a mind is truly a religious mind. Then it can find out whether there is such a thing as reality, for it is then free from the conditioning. And being free, it can find out for itself whether there is the supreme, the highest, or merely a void, nothingness. But to speculate about the reality, or total annihilation of man inwardly, seems to me so utterly vain, unnecessary, leading to a hypocritical life. Because after all, we have to find what is the real. It doesn’t matter what you call it – God, as the Hindus give it by a different name and the Buddhists and the Muslims – the names do not matter. But to find out for oneself the truth of it, the truth that is not put together by thought. To find out through self-knowing so that there is no possibility of deception, so that there is no question of any illusion. And that is only possible through self-knowing, knowing oneself. And out of that comes a very still mind, a free mind. And such a mind is the religious mind.
23:42 [Long pause] Shall we discuss? Or perhaps you think I’m too dogmatic. Being emphatic is not dogmatism. Assertion is not authority. To assert that it is black or white or pink or blue is not authority – it is or it is not.
25:02 Questioner: Sir, could you give us some procedure through which we could get at this self-examination... [inaudible] It seems to me that we could be deceived.
25:25 K: I understand, sir. The question is, the method, the procedure. First of all, one must see the danger of methods. Because you may have a method, and if I am foolish enough to have a method then we’ll quarrel about methods, the systems, the processes. So there is a great danger, is there not, in the search for a method – ‘Which is the best method?’ You know, sirs, there is great poverty, misery, starvation in India – everybody knows it, and the people living there know it for centuries. And the communists want to feed the Hindus in one way, according to their method, the socialist according to their method, the capitalist according to their particular system, and each concerned with their method of feeding the people. And so they never come together to feed the people, because to them method is the greatest importance, not the hunger of the people. The love of the method is not... can never possibly bring about the feeding of any person. So one must be extraordinarily alert, watchful of any method.
28:04 Now, the question is: one’s mind, one’s human structure and nature is conditioned according to the climate, culture, society in which we live. You are a Christian and somebody else is a Muslim, Hindu, and all the rest of it – it’s merely a conditioning. Now, how is it possible to be free of this, so that the mind can be fresh, young, innocent, alive? So the mind is capable of looking at life entirely differently, from a different dimension, not repeat the same old pattern. How is this possible? How is it possible – to put it differently – to end the thousand yesterdays? How is it possible to look at life as though you are looking at it for the first time? And we say that is only possible by being aware. Aware not only of the objective things but of all the movement of thought inwardly. Aware, to observe – not according to some specialist – then you observe according to what they think, or they have set the mould, the pattern – but to observe oneself without any choice. Is that possible at all? To observe oneself without any choice. Because choice implies confusion, and not freedom. If I choose, I will choose according to my conditioning. But if I observe without any choice then I am... then the mind is capable of observing, intimately. So is it possible to observe, aware, attend, to the movements of thought, feeling within oneself? Not only at the conscious level but also deeply, at the deeper layers. I know it is the fashion to give tremendous importance to the unconscious. Volumes have been written about it. Not that we, the speaker, reads any of these books – probably thank God. But there is this question of deeper layers of consciousness. Can one be aware of all that? Not only of the conscious mind – why you think certain things, how you behave, whether you are behaving according to the pattern set by society – to be aware of all of that. And also to be aware of the deeper, secret, hidden motives, tendencies, drives, deeply, inwardly.
33:51 Q: Mr Krishnamurti? Are you suggesting that when a person has examined himself and has become aware of his own consciousness, has become a free man, has understood the role of propaganda, has understood his own conditioning, that then that man can begin to live outside of those conditions, or not anymore affected by propaganda of some kind? And are you suggesting that a man can then live without choosing, without deciding which condition or which society or which religion he will then live out of?
35:16 K: Sir, the question is, sir, isn’t it... We haven’t finished answering that gentleman who’s thought out, who asked whether it is... what is the way to all this – we haven’t quite finished with that, sir – if we may afterwards go... We are saying, sir, that self-knowing, knowing oneself, which is not a matter of just accumulating and say, ‘I know myself,’ because myself is a most complex thing, it’s a living thing, a vital thing, a moving thing, and therefore I have to learn. There is a process of learning about it. So, to be not only aware of this conditioning outwardly, but also inwardly, deeper layers, deeper hidden recesses of one’s own mind. Is it possible to be so aware of the total consciousness, not just fragments of it? Perhaps some of us may have put that question, or others may not have. And the answer is not in any book or any philosopher or any specialist. The answer is obviously within ourselves – to find out whether it is possible to comprehend the totality of this consciousness, which is the me, which is the you, which is the human being. There is this division between the conscious and so-called – I don’t like use the technical term because that is also loaded – the unconscious. There is this division between these two, which is a fictitious division. And so the problem is: can the mind – and the mind including the heart, the whole entity – can the mind be aware of the hidden drives, motives? And so one asks: what is the unconsciousness, what is the content? One can observe this in oneself in very simply. It is the racial residue. The racial, the traditional, the family, the person – it’s all there. It is as trivial and as stupid as the conscious mind. No? So in that, the conscious as well as the hidden part of the conscious mind, all that is the me, the ego, the thinker, the censor, the observer. And so the observer, the censor, creates the space between himself and the thing observed. No?
40:31 And this space is the cause of all conflict. And to find out whether it is possible to observe without the observer. And, surely, when we look at a tree or a flower, there is always the observer, the thinker, the man who has experienced, known, whose mind is bound by tradition – he is the observer and looking. And therefore the relationship between the observer and the observed is always a divided process. In that there is a division. The observer being the Christian, the Hindu, observing a non-Christian, non-Hindu. Which is not only a linguistic division but the division which comes through this accumulated tradition and propaganda and conditioning, the image. So is it possible for the mind to be aware of all this? And there is no method. You can’t go to college and learn to observe. Do you observe when you are sitting in the bus? You observe when you’re talking, when you’re eating, the way you walk, the way you think. And when one is aware of that, watchful, then you will find... one will find that conditions break down and you’re a... there is a freedom. Then it’s only that freedom, in that mind that is free, can explore what is the real and act according to that reality.
43:53 Q: Sir?
43:58 K: May I finish...
44:10 Q: I beg your pardon.
44:19 K: Sorry. Your question, sir, whether a mind that is free from its conditioning, and whether it is at all possible whether a mind can really free itself from its conditioning. There are a whole group of people, like the communists who say it’s not possible, and therefore live in that prison and make the best of it, decorate it, become a socialist, this or that, worship the State instead of God, or God is dead, or invent a new God. So, one has to find out through this self-awareness, watching without any choice, just to watch oneself – not neurotically, not egotistically, introspectively, condemning, judging, evaluating, but watch oneself, the way you sit, the way you talk, the way you live. And then out of that everlasting watchfulness there is a freedom. And such a free mind can live in any society or bring about a different culture because it is tremendously active. Not active in the sense of wanting reformation, social patchwork; it is the most revolutionary mind. Not the revolution of blood, economic or socialist, a revolution that is so deep, inward, the whole psyche is entirely different, living at a different level. And therefore that mind knows what it is to love, for it has no hate.
47:25 Q: Sir, it seems to me that the I, the ego, only exists in relation to other things. Could you comment on this?
47:44 K: The ego, the I, only lives in relation to things, to people, to ideas. The ego only lives in relationship with things, people. Then we have to find out what is relationship. What is actually relationship? To be related means to be in contact. I am related to my wife or to my country, to my nation, related to the property or related to a concept. What does this word relation mean? Am I actually related to anything at all? Do please consider it, don’t throw it out of the window, but let’s find out. Are you and I related to anything at all? Or related to a concept, an image, an evaluation, experience, knowledge, which is me, the image of me, and that image is in relationship with your image – obviously. You have your image gathered through time, through experience, through pain, suffering, anxiety, and the other has his. And the so-called relationship is between these two images – the husband and the wife – sorry to bring it so close – the husband has an image of the wife. This image has been put together for many years – the sexual pleasure, the insults, the nagging, the domination, all that, on both sides. And these two images are in relationship. And that’s not relationship, that’s merely a conceptual relationship. So it is this relationship of image between image, is the ego – not the other relationship, the relationship where there is no image. In that there is no action of the ego.
52:01 Q: Agreeable that there is a desire to be blamed – the nationalism and the communism, etc., etc., and the religions and the theologies and so on. But when a time comes when a person realizes that, still there is the inner problem. It seems to me that the problem of the awareness of which you are talking about is extremely difficult, just as you have said. And people are left without the ability to break through. I’ve been listening to you, Krishnaji, for many years, in India and in other places in the world, and I’ve been following it, I’ve been impressed, and I think I’ve developed a certain awareness and so on, I know what you mean by awareness of the body and feelings and so on, and yet there comes a time when you try to be aware of the process of thoughts and so on and it seems to me that it’s impossible to do it in its totality. I have hardly met a person who is able to do it. Sometimes it seems to me that you are putting before us – even though you don’t like this word – an idea which is wonderful. It’s not an idea, I know. I know that you do not like the word idea, but a purpose, a goal: here, this is what you should do, try to be aware. And you say it so wonderfully, but is it possible? Is it really possible? It seems to me that one of the problems is the very weakness of our mind, the very weakness of our psyche, that it is not possible for us to get through.
53:58 K: Sir, first of all, if I may suggest, let us drop the idea that it is not possible or possible, because that only blocks. So let’s put that away. Then what are we left with? When you discard the possibility or the impossibility then what you are left with? [Pause] The impossible becomes possible only when you discard the impossibility of it. Sir, to find out anything, you must go beyond the impossible. Right? Just a minute, madame.
55:24 Q: It sounds like a paradox.
55:26 K: Not a paradox, sir. Just look at it, sir. I know I’m conditioned – let’s take it – as a Hindu, all the rest of it. How am I, how is the mind to be free of it? I don’t know how – you understand, sir? – because I haven’t – personally, I haven’t read a single book about all this, no religious book, nothing. I don’t want to read it, because in me every possibility is. So I say: there I am, conditioned. That’s obvious, both at the deeper level and the higher level. Now what am I to do? I don’t say it is possible or not possible. I have a problem, I have something that is vital, I must solve it. If I don’t, I live in a prison, help to bring about war, hatred and all the rest of it. I’m inhuman. So I must, under any circumstances, solve this – which is not a determination, which is not an action of will. So I watch – you follow, sir? – so I watch. I don’t want to go beyond. I don’t know what it means to be free of conditioning. So I watch. I don’t know where it’s going to lead me to. So, from the very beginning I’m free. Right?
57:39 Q: I can see this verbally but...
57:44 K: No, not verbally – do look at it. Because I really do not know what it means to be unconditioned. All that I know is the fact, the what is, which is, I am conditioned. Now I must solve that problem. I must see, explore, invent, search, ask – you follow? – learn. And to learn there must be freedom, otherwise I can’t learn. So, the very demand, the very perception that I’m conditioned is freedom. There is the beginning of freedom. Freedom isn’t somewhere else, at a distance. So I say: there is freedom to enquire. Freedom from fear – I don’t care what happens, I want to find out. Then I’m a real monk – you understand, sir? – a real person who says, ‘There must be a way, I’m going to find it.’ That requires energy. And to have that energy, it must not be wasted through conflict. And I shall waste it in conflict as long there is duality in me – wanting, not wanting, to achieve, not to achieve, possible, not possible. Am I...
1:00:04 Q: I understand.
1:00:08 K: Not verbally, sir. There is no understanding of anything intellectually. Either you understand or don’t understand.
1:00:20 Q: May I ask: what do you mean by meditation?
1:00:33 K: May I put it this way? To find out what meditation is we shall first find out what it is not. Obviously it is not something people have described, the Maharishi included. It is not an escape from life – then it has no value at all – going off into a monastery, Zen or Hindu or whatever it is, and there get into some quiet corner of a room and try to force your mind, to control it, shape it, beat it to pieces – you know – that’s not meditation. Or set it a problem which is so utterly impossible to solve, so that the mind is shocked by the problem so becomes quiet. That’s not meditation, either. So, it is not doing yoga – that’s one of the rackets that have been brought about from India to this country. Yoga is all right as exercise – which we do – I do it every day for an hour, an hour and a half – exercise which is quite a marvellous thing how they... old ancient people have found this. But apart from that, obviously breathing quietly, regularly, does quieten the mind, but a stupid mind can breathe regularly, all the rest of it, it’s still stupid. [Laughter] So if you discard all that. That means, look, sir, when you discard what is false and you realize what is false, then your mind becomes extraordinarily sharp.
1:03:12 Q: It implies the process of enquiry itself.
1:03:18 K: That’s right, sir.
1:03:21 Q: A constant enquiring, this is the freedom.
1:03:25 K: Yes, sir.
1:03:27 Q: This is the already the path through it.
1:03:32 K: That’s right, sir. Then out of that, when you proceed, comes the discipline – in itself, not imposed discipline, which has no meaning at all – then you become a soldier, drilled, brainless. So, as you begin to enquire and see what is false as false, and see the falseness in truth, and so on, go into it, then out of that comes a very quiet mind, a mind that is highly sensitive, active, but astonishingly peaceful, silent. Then if one goes that far there is something entirely different going on. Then what comes can only be described, and what is described is not the thing described. Description is not the thing described.
1:05:06 Q: You are saying, sir, that the enquiry itself is the ultimate concern. This is what you were saying.
1:05:19 K: Ah, no, no, no. Enquiry itself is the ultimate concern. That’s just the beginning. Because we daren’t enquire, because we’re frightened. I daren’t enquire into the structure of the society in which I live. If I do, I begin to doubt it, I begin to doubt its values, its structure, its establishment. Therefore I don’t want to enquire, it disturbs me. And I’d rather be secure, safe in my ignorance, than to enquire. Sir, look, sir, to put it differently: man has sought God. That has been one of the major concerns of man right from the very beginning. And because he hasn’t come upon it, found out, he invents theories, and at the end of ten thousand years or two thousand years those theories become an extraordinary belief and I say, ‘Well, there is God,’ or ‘No God.’ Now to find out – really to find out, not verbally, not linguistically, not a man who is panting because he can’t... he has had enough of the world – to find out he must discard fear and all belief. Such a mind is a free mind and it’s only the free mind can find out what is or what is not.
1:07:24 Q: If you’re going to talk, and as you have been talking for these many years, and this man has heard you...
1:07:44 K: I am sorry.
1:07:45 Q: I think that you must be prepared to be the teacher and you must be prepared to tell these people how.
1:07:51 K: Madame, ecoutez – I mean, sorry...
1:07:55 Q: The question is: how do we do it? How do we meditate?
1:08:01 K: I’m showing it to you.
1:08:05 Q: No, but...
1:08:09 K: Madame, no, I’m showing...
1:08:14 Q: How many people here understand, know? They want to know how.
1:08:16 K: I’m telling you, madame, how to do it.
1:08:20 Q: Do you understand how?
1:08:23 Q: Yes.
1:08:25 K: Never put the question how?
1:08:28 Q: But when you…
1:08:30 K: Madame, do listen to it, please, just do listen! The moment you ask how, you are caught, because then you want a method, then you want somebody to tell you what to do. And then we are... then that’s the end of things.
1:08:57 Q: Why?
1:08:58 K: Then you have authority.
1:09:02 Q: No.
1:09:03 K: No?
1:09:04 Q: No.
1:09:06 K: [Laughs] No, madame, just listen. If I tell you what to do, what would happen? I said sit, eat rightly, don’t kill, eat the right food without killing, sit rightly, think, don’t think at all – [laughter] wait, wait, wait – I’m telling you. Can you do all this? Do it!
1:09:34 Q: No. No, I can’t.
1:09:37 K: Then what am I to do?
1:09:39 Q: I can’t do it when you tell me to do it. You cannot tell me: do not be afraid.
1:09:52 K: I don’t say that. I say examine fear.
1:09:56 Q: How? [Laughter]
1:09:58 K: I understand your difficulty, madame. There is no how. Look out of the window. Don’t say, ‘How am I to look out of the window?’ – just look out of the window. Look, there have been people only too eager to tell you how to do, how to meditate. And they have their pattern. The Hindu comes along and says, ‘Sit rightly, breathe rightly, obey,’ gives you something to think about. That, we have done all that.
1:10:38 Q: They are taking the result for the method. When you meditate you begin to breathe rightly and you begin to eat rightly, and they start with the result and try to move back to where you begin, and that is not correct.
1:10:46 K: No.
1:10:48 Q: No, but when you meditate, you do breathe rightly and you do eat rightly because you want to and you know what you need and you know why you need it.
1:11:11 K: Is that meditation? To live fairly sanely in this world – is that meditation? Lots of people are. Lots of people are vegetarians, lots of people sit correctly, lots of people act more or less righteously, decently, quietly, unobtrusively, but is that...
1:11:27 Q: It is discipline with a lot of them, it is discipline. And when you are a meditator, it is not discipline. You want to eat what you need to eat.
1:11:38 K: That’s what I’m saying, madame. Therefore there is no how, never any. Look, look, madame, if you are the first person on this earth, taking the first voyage and not knowing where anything is, what will you do? What will you do? You have to find out how to meditate. You have to find out what is meditation, not how. There is nobody to tell you. Then what? Proceed from there.
1:12:27 Q: When you say: stop your mind from chattering, and you sit and you say: my mind is chattering, it shouldn’t be chattering...
1:12:36 K: Ah, no, I don’t say that. I want to know why it...
1:12:39 Q: No, I know.
1:12:40 K: I want to know why it chatters. I want to know why it chatters.
1:12:48 Q: Yes.
1:12:51 K: And there is nobody to tell me why.
1:12:57 Q: There is someone to tell you there is a why, and find out.
1:13:11 K: [Laughs] Look, if you are lost in those mountains, you have to find your way. What will you do? There is nobody to tell you. And we are a lost generation. The world is lost, in that sense. And each one, each individual, each human being now has to start all over again, because what we have been fed are ashes. And I have to find out. I have to know what love means, to love without hate, without greed, without ambition, to love, without jealousy – to find out. That’s part of meditation. And nobody is going to tell me, because there is nobody to tell me. Because I have now to be the teacher and the pupil. There is no teacher outside me. Isn’t that enough for the time? Quelle heure est-il?
1:14:43 Q: Onze heures vingt.
1:14:52 Q: The world now must get together, the people must get together soon.
1:15:04 K: Yes. Ah – you’ll get together if you love to, if you’re kind, if you’re gentle, if you’re nationalistic and all the rest…
1:15:11 Q: A man who is afraid and who is violent out of his fear, cannot say, ‘I love.’
1:15:17 K: No, therefore get rid of your fear.
1:15:19 Q: Yes.
1:15:20 K: We’ll go into it. I’ll show you what is involved in freeing the mind from fear. But you see, we’re all... we want to take a little pill and everything is all right. Look, madame, you’re lost in the wood, people are confused, and out of that confusion we want to know what am I to do. Don’t ask what am I to do – first clear up that confusion. Then you will do what is right, always. So why are you confused? And how do you clear this confusion? First, don’t do anything if you are confused. If you are lost in a wood what do you do? You look around, you stop, you watch. Do that, don’t say, ‘Well, I must clear up my confusion, who’ll help me to clear up my confusion?’ and all the rest of it.
1:16:31 Q: Tell me, sir, you’re spoken of truth and falsity. For you, how do you determine that which is true and that which is false, what is the criterion? Is it your conditioning that comes through, that this is false?
1:16:53 K: That’s right, sir, that’s right. As you observe, yes, sir.
1:16:59 Q: There is also fact, sir.
1:17:07 K: There is also the fact.
1:17:14 Q: I like the analogy of being lost in the mountains or in the forest, but is there no possibility at all to be helped from outside?
1:17:18 K: Sir, wait, sir. Look, sir, this is what man has said. He said there is an outside agency that’ll help me. Don’t ask for help. It may come, but don’t ask for it!
1:17:32 Q: I ask this question because we all know that it is extremely difficult. You yourself say it is extremely difficult.
1:17:45 K: It is extremely arduous.
1:17:46 Q: You want us not to say that it is impossible because then it is impossible.
1:17:56 K: That’s right.
1:17:58 Q: All right. But here is a specific question, and I know that you do not like…
1:18:07 K: Go ahead, sir.
1:18:10 Q: …the gurus and so on and so forth, but I want to ask a very practical question. Is it so that not a stupid mind but an enquiring mind, a mind which is a process, can such a mind be helped by being in the proximity of a mind greater than his? I would like to have a very definite answer.
1:18:25 K: I know... [Laughter] Yes, sir, yes, sir, it is a good old... [laughs]
1:18:27 Q: No guru.
1:18:28 K: Yes, sir.
1:18:29 Q: We read in the books...
1:18:30 K: I know this, sir, very well. I know.
1:18:32 Q: ...the Maharishi, people went there, sat there, they were enlightened. Is there such a help or none at all? [Laughter]
1:18:39 K: Sir, look, sir, there is the tradition in India that you must be with righteous people. Righteous people who live rightly – rightly in the sense, you know, not hurt, kind, gentle, not – all that – live with them. And gradually what happens? You depend on them. That’s the inevitable. You like their society, their company, so gradually begin to depend upon them. The meaning of that word guru – you know, sir, what it means – the one who points. A telephone is a guru. You know, because it tells you... it tells you. You can’t keep the company of a telephone. Sir, if we begin to enquire deeply within ourselves and not ask for help from any outside agency, whether it is from God, heaven or from righteous men, you will find that you have an extraordinary quality of energy which comes from being alone inwardly. Once, a secret agent came to see me, of a government, and the first thing he asked me was: I see you are a great deal alone. You walk alone. You keep to yourself a great deal. What are you plotting? [Laughter] [Laughs] Yes, sir?
1:21:08 Q: A while ago, the young lady asked how, and you said I can’t show you how. And then a few minutes later you said: I will tell you how to look at fear and I will tell you how to eliminate or avoid confusion.
1:21:28 K: I will point out, I meant, sir, point out. I may say – not how – I’ll point out.
1:21:33 Q: Well, for me that is the how, because when I started looking at the fear and when I started standing still and the confusion was there, then I found myself at times being on another plane. To me that is the how – dealing with the confusion and dealing with the fear.
1:21:57 K: I wonder if we understand each other when we use the word how. The how invariably means, doesn’t it, please show me how to put the car together – the how. Sir, to go back to that statement, if there is nobody but yourself, and you say to yourself: I must never be deceived, because it is so easy to deceive oneself. And there is nobody, no book, no philosopher, no guru – they’ve all failed. They can offer an escape but they have failed, therefore now I am left with myself and myself is such a deceptive entity. So I say: by Jove, I must from now watch, watch, watch, watch.
1:23:19 Q: Krishnamurti? The Maharishi is a signpost.
1:23:29 K: I’m sorry, I’m not talking of any particular maharishi.
1:23:33 Q: Yes, I know. I’m talking about the Maharishi is a signpost.
1:23:38 K: You know what maharishi means?
1:23:42 Q: No.
1:23:44 K: [Laughs] In Sanskrit maha means great, rishi means the one who has gone beyond, all that stuff. [Laughter] So, if a guru is a signpost – right? – you don’t stop there, you leave him.
1:24:15 Q: Yes, but…
1:24:17 K: Wait, wait. You leave him, put him behind, because you’re moving. So if you move, the guru is behind you. That’s all. Therefore he is no longer your teacher, no longer the guide. There is another post telling you move, move, move. That’s all. Finished. Therefore the guru is not important.
1:24:46 Q: Yes, he knows that. Yes, he says that.
1:24:48 K: That’s all. If we understand each other, it’s very simple.
1:24:50 Q: Yes, but he can teach.
1:24:51 K: Ah! [Laughter]
1:24:53 Q: He can teach people how to meditate. He can teach a Western man who does not have any time to be alone with himself how to reach his unconscious.
1:25:10 K: Madame, Western man is like the Eastern man. The Eastern man doesn’t know how to be alone. You can’t teach somebody to be alone. When you’re sitting by yourself in the bus, you are alone. Watch it then. When you’re out on the street going from house to house, you’re alone. Are you alone actually, or you are carrying the burden of yesterday? You know, there is a story – I’ll stop after this.
1:25:54 Q: [Inaudible]
1:25:56 K: Ah. Shut it off, sir.
1:25:59 Q: They want the room.
1:26:01 K: They want the room. May I finish?
1:26:05 Q: Yes, by all means.
1:26:06 K: I’ll just finish this story, sir. Two monks were wandering from village to village and one morning – they had cleansed themselves, did their – whatever they do – meditation or whatever – they were leaving, they were on their way to the next village. And as they go along they see a young woman on the banks of a river, crying. And one of them goes to the woman, young woman, and says, ‘Sister, what are you crying for?’ And she says, ‘This morning I waded across the river, now it has swollen I can’t cross it, and my family, my children are there, and that’s why, I don’t know what to do and I’m crying.’ He said, ‘Don’t cry,’ and he picks her up, carries her in his arms and wades across, and leaves her on the other side. And they go on. After two hours, the other monk says, ‘Brother, we have taken a vow never to touch a woman. How did you feel carrying that woman in your arms, wasn’t it... aren’t you breaking your vow to touch a woman, carrying her in your arms?’ And other monk says, ‘I left her two hours ago behind, you are still carrying her, are you?’ [Laughter]