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GS62DSG4 - Authority and imitation
Gstaad, Switzerland - 17 August 1962
Discussion with Small Group 4



0:00 This is the fourth small group discussion with J. Krishnamurti in Gstaad, 1962.
0:32 Krishnamurti: We said this morning we would discuss… what was it?
0:39 Questioner: (Inaudible).
0:42 Q: Imitation.
0:44 K: We thought we would discuss this morning imitation and authority.
0:56 We began by a question which was what is negative thinking, and that opened the door to this question of imitation and authority, and we were going to discuss it this morning, and we said we’d go into it fairly thoroughly.
2:06 It seems to me... we can analyze authority pretty deeply and widely.
2:27 Authority as the outer, the law, and the law established for oneself.
2:44 I think it is fairly simple to understand the outward authority and that one has to accept willy nilly; whether you like it or not it’s there.
3:05 But we were going to discuss the psychological authority and how far that authority is productive of imitation, and whether it is at all possible to be entirely free of authority.
3:54 One can very easily discard the outer authority of the church, of an organized belief, as of a religion.
4:12 One can easily discard the authority of books, the saints and the people who know, and people who accept them as their guide... that’s fairly simple.
4:29 I don’t know if it is difficult for others to discard all that. Shall we discuss that a little?
4:42 Does that need discussing?
4:52 Q: It seems to me it does.
5:08 K: Ah? What is involved in accepting the so-called spiritual – spiritual, I’ll put that in quotes – authority?
5:32 Why does one accept it? Is it the same as accepting the authority of the specialist, of a doctor, of a scientist?
5:50 I accept the authority, let’s say, of - who?
5:57 I don’t know - of a Hindu saint or a Christian saint.
6:07 What is involved in it?
6:14 The saint or the teacher knows and I don’t know. He says, ‘Do these things and you will get that’ - the ‘that’ is the heaven or the nirvana or bliss or that state of undiluted innocence and so on and so no and so on - and I want that, because my life is pretty shallow, empty.
6:46 My life is full of travail and I would like to have that. My life is constantly undergoing change and that is a permanency, so I want that, so I follow him, and I do the most absurd things he tells me, reasonable and as well as unreasonable, because the incentive is the guarantee of ‘that’.
7:18 Now, that’s involves, doesn’t it - please, let’s discuss it.
7:27 I’m going to stop a little after - that involves doesn’t it, that I accept what he says to be true.
7:35 It doesn’t matter who it is, whether it’s Jesus, whether it is Buddha, whether… - you follow? - it doesn’t matter who it is.
7:44 I accept because of my craving, my desire, my longing for something more, much more beautiful, more this and that, I accept whatever he says.
8:01 And how do I know what he says is true?
8:12 Why should I accept him at all?
8:25 First of all, the whole idea involved in that is that thing is a permanent state, something attainable, like a mountain top: concrete, definite, and by doing certain systems and following certain ideas I’ll get that.
8:54 And surely that thing is not permanent. It can’t be. But I’d like to have something permanent, so I follow.
9:08 And this following, this pursuit of a thing which is greater gives a stability to my idiocy, to my stupidity, to my shallowness.
9:32 So all round, I feel very safe, secure, and nothing to be disturbed about.
9:51 So if I understand that whole process, which is that I’m seeking security, a permanency through imitation, through conformity, which will eventually guarantee me a certain idealistic state, if I understand all that, need I go through all that process - you follow? - or can’t I cut at the root of the whole thing and get away from all this?
10:39 You know, the idea of being a light to oneself - you know?
10:54 - being a light to oneself, what does that mean? Does it mean that one has to follow another at any time, and to be a light to oneself does it mean accepting all the experiences that one has had and making that as the guide and pursuing that?
11:18 I mean, all this is fairly simple, isn’t it, or not?
11:27 Can I rely on my experience at all? Can I put faith in another, in the guru, in the teacher, in the book, and if I reject that, I have no trust in that.
11:46 I have none. Then why should I have faith or trust in my experience? I don’t know if you’re following all this.
11:52 Q: Your experience is just like someone else’s experience, surely.
11:59 K: My experience, I’ll tell you what it is: a response from my background.
12:08 My background is the result of my conditioning, in a particular culture, society, with certain morality and so on and so on and so on, and that reacts to a particular challenge and that reaction I call experience.
12:24 Can I trust that experience? Can I trust that, a residue of the past?
12:36 So if I reject both - you follow? - which I do personally; I say no, outward authority is too absurdly silly, immature, and also I reject any form of experience which will act as a guide, which will become my authority.
12:56 I don’t know if… It is so simple. Ah, not simple in the sense... simple as an explanation. Now, if reject both what happens?
13:13 And can I reject it?
13:18 Q: But take a so-called outward authority, Krishnaji.
13:30 K: The policemen, the law?
13:32 Q: No, the so-called spiritual authority.
13:34 K: Ah.
13:35 Q: One observes that life is... that one’s life is miserable, that on the surface...
13:44 (inaudible) miserable and so he encounters a person - through reading or personal contact, it doesn’t matter - who says that the reason for your misery is yourself, therefore you have to find out who is the actor who creates this misery, and if you withdraw your gaze from the outside and look in, then you can discover who the actor is and the mischief will stop.
14:16 So that sounds reasonable, so one tries that.
14:24 So it seems to me that that is what really what so-called spiritual authority is, and that seems a reasonable thing to try to do.
14:33 K: Yes?
14:34 Q: So now the trouble with that course is that if one takes it as an experiment, which seems reasonable, and then if after a given length of time, the experiment doesn’t work out and you’re still the same as you were, then one should have the nerve to say, ‘Well, I’ve tried, but it doesn’t work,’ and therefore I put it aside.
15:01 But that isn’t what happens. What happens is that someone else comes along and says, ‘Well, the trouble is you didn’t do just this right so try it this way.’ It seems to me that that’s what the spiritual authority is, Krishnaji.
15:15 K: But sir, I don’t want to reach anywhere. I don’t want to get over something.
15:26 I don’t want to free myself from my petty life.
15:32 Q: You don’t?
15:35 K: No. I just want to understand it. I want to see it, what it is composed of. Like a scientist under a microscope, he wants to see what the whole process of living, all the microbes and all the rest of it.
15:54 I just want to see what is pettiness.
15:58 Q: But you want to see that because you’re dissatisfied with it.
16:06 K: No, not at all.
16:08 Q: Otherwise...
16:09 K: Why should I look?
16:10 Q: (Inaudible).
16:11 K: No, wait a minute. What do I mean by... what do you mean by discontent?
16:20 Discontent with what?
16:21 Q: Discontent...
16:23 K: I’m discontent with having this house. I want a bigger house. I want a better job and begin anew there. I want to be a better man, more perfect - you follow? - more money, more clothes; discontent: in better position, better known in the world, more famous, etc., more capacity, talent, and all the rest of it.
16:49 I say that’s too... that’s... Bien. Then I say I’m dissatisfied still, because I haven’t found the substance, the worthwhileness of living.
17:06 So my search is to find something to live for.
17:13 No? Many: (Inaudible).
17:16 K: Then what is my search?
17:22 Q: It’s to find out the significance of life. You say that there... here’s life all around me, now I don’t know what it is.
17:25 K: Ah?
17:26 Q: I’m ignorant, I’m blind and I want to know.
17:29 K: Then how do you begin to know? Not by discontent. It isn’t a motive that makes you look. You see... Please, just... I want to... Let’s discuss a little bit about discontent. If I am discontented, what does it mean to be discontent?
17:54 Q: To be in one state and to desire to be in another state.
17:58 K: Yes. Intrinsically, sir, what does discontent in itself mean? To be dissatisfied with what is. No? At least... there are some English people here so they’ll tell me - the word.
18:17 It is always, you see, discontented with something. I don’t know... You follow?
18:24 Q: Yes.
18:25 K: I am discontented with my look. I am discontented with my fortune. I’m discontented with something, and the moment I have resolved the discontent with something, I’m satisfied.
18:42 I’ve found a groove in which I settle down. No?
18:48 Q: You’re discontented with your lack of understanding.
18:51 K: No, wait, wait. I’ll show you. I am discontented with something. Now, being discontented with something is not discontent.
19:05 I don’t know if you… I am dissatisfied with this house. I’m dissatisfied with something. I don’t know if I’m… you’re seeing what I’m seeing.
19:23 Q: Yes.
19:24 K: So my discontentment, it is always limited.
19:30 Q: And can stop.
19:31 K: Oh, of course; obviously. It becomes too childish.
19:35 Q: And then you get comfortable... (inaudible).
19:37 K: Comfortable, and settle down.
19:40 Q: Yes.
19:41 K: I don’t know if we get the… if I’m trying to... if I’m making it clear Q: (Inaudible)... towards discontent without the object.
19:47 K: That’s it. Discontented without... discontentment not with something.
20:05 Then it’s like a flame alive, burning.
20:11 Q: Does the attachment to an object just... you must... you have discontent in association with an object...
20:17 K: Of course; obviously.
20:18 Q: Then the…
20:19 K: The object becomes important.
20:20 Q: Yes, there’s a dissipation of the energy.
20:23 K: That’s right. The object becomes important, not discontent - you follow? - not the feeling, by Jove, nothing satisfies me. Which is what we were discussing yesterday, which is reaching the end of the tether.
20:40 Q: Well, do you think discontent arises, then looks around arises and finds an object to settle on?
20:48 K: Sir, look, I am discontented with little things at first as a boy, and as... (inaudible) more and more discontented with something, and in order to escape from this discontent, which is change of objects, I finally fix my eyes on something far away.
21:09 It is still within the framework of time, with something. I don’t know…
21:14 Q: Yes, yes, but the discontent itself is integral. Even as a boy, is that you interpret your discontent to mean...
21:24 K: Yes.
21:25 Q: ... (inaudible).
21:26 K: All right. Can’t you remain with the discontent, not with the object?
21:34 Now, that is like having a fury inside you.
21:41 You follow?
21:42 Q: Yes.
21:43 K: And with that fury you look.
21:45 Q: (Inaudible)... the subtle thing is not to attach itself to the object.
21:56 K: Object. With that fury you look, and you look at authority - you follow? - not to dissolve authority, not to be free from authority, but to see the truth or the falseness of authority.
22:20 So if you reject the outer authority of the church, the saints, the Jesuses, the Buddhas, the... - you follow? - then if you reject the outer, you must also reject the inner, because the outer is the inner.
22:40 The outer is the social structure of which you are a part, and if you reject both - you follow? - as a mature man must, then where are you?
22:58 Now, we can discuss this still more: implication of the inner, which is experience, thought, the creation of idea, and so on and so on; all these become the authorities.
23:29 Now, if you… do we reject that authority?
23:40 Q: This provides a release from this discontent, you see; this is the difficulty that... these outward things ease the sense of tension straight away.
23:50 K: My dear chap, they are not outward things; they are me.
23:53 Q: Yes, yes, yes... (inaudible).
23:54 K: You follow what I mean? I reject authority, either outer or inner.
24:02 Q: But the point I was making, this is what actually occurs, that why we do this is because it eases this tension.
24:09 K: No, I know why do you, because first of all it breeds fear, essentially. You follow? No?
24:17 Q: (Inaudible)... too quick.
24:23 K: Too quick. If I have no authority…
24:31 Q: Yes... (inaudible) yes.
24:33 K: There is a… I live. I may make a mess, I may not make a mess, I might... I’ll be flowing. You follow?
24:41 Q: Yes, but I couldn’t quite see the connection with fear... (inaudible).
24:46 K: (Inaudible)... because what has built authority, outwardly, inwardly?
24:56 My desire to be secure; my desire to find something which will be constant.
25:04 Q: Yes, that’s got its roots in fear. I’ll try to see if I can explain this. You have this discontent. It attaches itself to an object because of fear.
25:23 K: Yes sir. I am related to you, because in this relationship, I want that relationship should be maintained at any cost.
25:36 You follow? I have established a particular relationship which is pleasurable, which is gratifying, which is satisfactory, both sexually, emotionally, intellectually, etc., etc., etc., and I want that to be permanent, and anything that disturbs, I’m afraid.
25:58 I call it jealousy, I call it... oh, a dozen things.
26:03 Q: Yes. You see, there’s a step here, isn’t there?
26:15 I mean, it’s your fear which makes you... you want this permanent state because of fear.
26:23 Now, I cannot yet quite see at what stage does this fear come in. If you know that this is happening, obviously you wouldn’t do it.
26:32 K: No, wait, wait. It comes in because I don’t understand fear. I don’t know how to tackle it, how to dissipate it, therefore I create a frame in which I accept; my mind is in a state of acceptance.
26:49 Q: So at some stage or other you’re unaware that fear was operating... (inaudible).
26:54 K: Obviously. Sir, look, why do I want a permanent relationship with anybody? I know... I’m going against family, against… (inaudible). Just take it… Why do we want a permanent relationship with anybody? Permanent in the sense, she’s my wife and husband and child, and it must be that way.
27:20 Why? Which doesn’t mean I become promiscuous and all the rest it. I’m not talking all that silly nonsense either. But why it is insistence?
27:32 Q: Because anything that you could attach yourself to, those would appear to be most permanent.
27:40 K: But what is the basis of this demand of permanency in relationship?
27:47 Q: Security.
27:49 K: Yes sir, but go a little more behind, go into it.
27:57 First of all, outwardly that’s... society is that. You can’t destroy it. Let’s leave that for the moment. Why do we demand this permanent relationship?
28:07 Q: You feel more alive.
28:12 K: Alive? More alive through having a wife and a husband who is… whom I insist never must change; how can I be alive?
28:23 Q: But that’s what we think. It gives us feeling.
28:27 K: Does it give a feeling of being alive when I say to my wife, ‘You are my wife, I am going to hold you’?
28:34 Where is the aliveness in this?
28:36 Q: But there’s a fear, is it not, of being alone?
28:39 K: No sir, no sir. Just do, Mr Craig, Just a minute, sir.
28:49 We are trying to find out why we demand permanency in relationship - you understand?
29:05 - not only permanency, you and I, as a husband, wife, child, mother, but also we demand a permanency in idea, in a belief, in a vision, in a state which is eternal and all the rest of it.
29:14 Why?
29:15 Q: Isn’t there a dread of death?
29:18 K: Ah? Dread of death?
29:21 Q: Yes.
29:22 K: No, no. no, no. You are missing... You’re not getting at this. Go... Now, we can give explanations, but why is it we seek permanency? Go into it a little bit, please.
29:35 Q: Because it’s convenient, so we don’t have to keep making decisions all the time.
29:42 K: So you want a state of convenience maintained.
29:48 Q: Well, we’re lazy.
29:50 K: No, no, no, no, that… No, that’s very... That’s not... (inaudible).
29:55 Q: When see that everything is impermanent.
29:58 K: No sir, go a little deeper. Don’t throw out suggestions. Go into it a little bit deeper. Why?
30:06 Q: We don’t want to be disturbed.
30:09 Q: Ah, why?
30:10 K: No, madame. Think it out, sir. Why...? Please, take a little thing. You’re all married or not married, I don’t know. Take a simple thing. I want a permanent relationship with my wife, with my children.
30:25 Why?
30:26 Q: Because I want to become something and stay permanently... (inaudible). It’s a way of becoming.
30:30 K: Yes sir, but that’s not… go a little... move away from all this. Move away.
30:39 Q: It’s a continuity, it’s a… it keeps the continuity of...
30:43 K: Now, wait a minute; stop, sir; just stop; stop.
30:51 What do you mean by that word continuity? What gives continuity?
30:55 Q: It’s the attachment... (inaudible).
30:57 K: No, no, don’t… Stick to one thing. Don’t move away from it. What gives continuity?
31:02 Q: Fear, doesn’t it?
31:06 K: No, no, no; do look… Don’t throw everything into one basket. Sir, take a very... What gives continuity?
31:22 Q: We’re changing.
31:24 K: No, no, no... Attendez, madame...
31:27 Q: Memory.
31:28 K: Now, just look sir. What gives continuity? You’re not... It’s so simple if you look at it. Vous avez compris? (Italian)? What gives continuity?
31:40 Q: Repetition.
31:42 K: What do you mean, repetition? Look, sir, Mr Craig, don’t expend your energy too much on such a such silly thing.
31:54 Q: (Inaudible)... it’s the name, it’s the…
31:56 K: No, no, no. Just look, sir. I like to look at that mountain. I look at that mountain. It’s lovely. You follow? Then I think about it. Thought gives continuity.
32:11 Q: (Inaudible).
32:12 K: Ah... Thought gives continuity. I like that face and I think about it. I don’t like that face and I think about it. So there is a continuity through recognition, saying I like and I don’t like.
32:31 This is simple. sir, isn’t it?
32:33 Q: Right. It is memory, isn’t it?
32:36 K: Ah, ah... You are reducing the word to memory. I don’t want...
32:40 Q: Thought and memory... (inaudible).
32:41 K: No, I don’t want to reduce it to memory. You’re missing the point, if you don’t mind my… Please, I talk very free; I hope you don’t mind my saying... I’m not being disrespective or... all the rest of it. I’m being very simple and clear and direct. Now, let… What gives continuity?
33:04 Q: It should be possible to think without the sense of continuity, sure. I…
33:11 K: Ah, no; wait a minute, sir, that’s not the point. We are trying to find out what gives continuity. I think about my wife: the pleasure, sex, the family, the cook, the house, the …- you follow? - think, think, think.
33:34 What gives continuity is thought, thinking about something. I’ve got used to this house, to this view - the hill in the middle of these two mountains.
33:53 Q: Yes. That’s true that…
33:56 K: Wait. And move me from… to another place - you follow? - higher up the valley, and I say it s not… I’m already disturbed. You follow?
34:10 Q: Yes.
34:11 K: And I object to that disturbance. Wait, wait. In the same way I’m married, I have a wife, I’ve thought about... - you know? - all the rest of it, and she turns away from me or I turn away from her.
34:28 Then begins the disturbance which is called jealousy... - you know? - then I feel everything has gone out of my life.
34:43 I’m ready for the… for the grave. It’s childish, isn’t it?
34:53 I don’t know… please.
35:00 What is behind this? That’s what I want to get at.
35:08 Why do I want permanency? After creating it through thought, which is…, gives continuity, why do I keep on, seeing how absurd it is, or what is the thing behind all this that‘s making me to do it?
35:35 Q: Is it not acceptance of impermanency?
35:42 K: No, no, no, no. What is the thing that is making me hold on to… to hold on to a...? I just want to stick to one thing. You follow, sir? What is it that’s making me stick to a particular relationship, relationship to these hills?
36:02 Don’t we know when the wife turns or the husband turns away, what havoc it creates?
36:18 No? (Laughs) Q: I am empty.
36:24 K: Now, proceed.
36:27 Q: I may want all those...
36:30 K: Obviously. I feel lonely, empty, insufficient, hollow, and this relationship gives me some sense.
36:47 No? Not ‘some sense.’ This relationship keeps me away from that.
36:53 Q: There is a sense of identity involved in it.
36:59 K: Of course, sir, continuity; that’s what we mean. So when my wife or my husband turns away from me, all hell is let loose, because I am faced with a fact, which is, I am lonely, insufficient, empty, dull, stupid.
37:22 Right?
37:23 Q: Yes.
37:26 Q: But my relation with my wife is only an illustration of my loneliness then.
37:31 K: Oh, I wouldn’t say ‘only’.
37:32 Q: Yes; mainly, partially... (inaudible).
37:34 K: Whatever you want to say, sir. That’s for you to find out. (Laughter) K: Don’t put it on me.
37:50 (Laughter) Q: But this surely, is it not, the sense alone… of loneliness is the most terrifying, perhaps, of the various fears.
38:01 That’s why it’s so... it’s incredibly difficult to face.
38:11 K: So sir, you see how authority begins?
38:14 Q: It’s the running from …
38:19 K: From the fact that I am empty, that I’m extraordinarily lonely, dull by myself.
38:29 And we run away to God, to knowledge, to science, to spirituality, or attend these meetings, God knows what else.
38:39 So I set up authority.
38:48 You have helped me to run away from my loneliness, from my emptiness, from my stupidity - you follow? - and then you become my authority.
39:10 What do you say, sir?
39:21 So is it possible for me, for a human being, to reject authority, outer and inner?
39:31 You follow? And do we do it now as we are discussing or is it something that we are just exchange... talking about? You follow?
39:46 Q: Then the essential thing is to face that emptiness.
39:56 K: Now, you... No, just follow this, sir. First we begin to discuss authority, then we see what is involved in authority.
40:11 That doesn’t need great a deal of analysis, does it, anymore?
40:15 Q: No.
40:16 K: Right? Can we proceed? All right. Then we see this insistence of permanency which breeds... which cultivates imitation, because he tells me what to do, the guru, the teacher, the master, the… and I follow and I begin to imitate, conform, adjust to the pattern which he has established or the book or the... something.
40:50 Now, I see all that and I put it away from me; completely put it away from me.
40:57 Never, never again. You follow? It doesn’t matter if I fail, if I die, if I… no more. I don’t know if you feel... You see? It’s finished for me because it has no meaning. Then what happens? Then I’m confronted with the idea... with this feeling for a permanency - you follow?
41:21 - not through whom or through what. I don’t know if you’re… I’m left with this concern, with this demand for permanency.
41:37 No?
41:38 Q: Si.
41:39 K: He seems rather doubtful, is he? All right, sir?
41:45 Q: (Italian).
41:46 K: Now, what gives permanency, to anything? Obviously thought. I like that view and I think about it and I compare. You follow? And I say I don’t like this, but I like that. I’ve already given through thought a continuity in my relationship.
42:14 Right? Sir, do look; you put a picture of your wife or your husband or some great saint, or whatever one does on the wall and you keep on looking at it; by looking at it becomes... - you know all the game of it - and you have forgotten the wife, the children, everything, but the picture becomes terribly important.
42:41 Q: It’s the same with every thought.
42:44 K: Same with every... Of course, sir. Now, wait… I just... We have come to that point. Then I’ve rejected all this. I’m not… - you follow? - I hope you have rejected it with me. You have rejected, denied, destroyed all this.
43:02 Q: (Inaudible)... Krishnaji. It seems to me that one’s first impulse, and that shows no understanding, I’m sure, is to reject it on empirical grounds, because it doesn’t work.
43:20 K: Ah, no. I am not rejecting it because it doesn’t work. Anything can be made to work. The most crooked, silly thing can... (inaudible). Look at your churches, sir, the most silly absurdity.
43:34 Q: Yes, but they don’t work for you.
43:36 K: It works for nobody if they begin to think about it.
43:39 Q: No. So that’s why you reject it now; it’s wrong.
43:41 K: No, I don’t reject it because it doesn’t work for me; because I see inherently, per se, that it’s absurd.
43:56 I don’t want money because... it means struggle, it means competition. It isn’t ‘because’; I just don’t want it, full stop.
44:07 Q: Yes, so then even in the rejection of authority, then that has to also be on the grounds of not taking your own experience as authority.
44:15 K: But I’ve said so.
44:16 Q: Yes, you have. But still, that that’s a tendency to do that... (inaudible).
44:20 K: I said both outer and inner authority. The outer is accepted through fear, etc., etc., and the inner is established through one’s own experience and that experience is the reaction of your conditioning, which is the outer.
44:36 Q: Yes, but...
44:37 K: So it is not …
44:38 Q: But one is likely to take the result of one’s own experience and...
44:41 K: (Inaudible).
44:42 Q: ...and then, because of that, take that as a guide and reject authority.
44:46 K: But you have to reject this... one’s own experience as being marvellous, as the only thing.
44:52 Q: That’s a possibility too.
44:57 K: Ah?
44:58 Q: I can see that’s a possibility also.
45:01 K: What’s the possibility?
45:02 Q: That side of it...
45:03 K: How can it be?
45:04 Q: That your experience has been marvellous instead of otherwise.
45:05 K: Sir, I am conditioned as a Christian and I see Jesus in my… when I sleep or when I look around.
45:11 Q: Right, and you become... (inaudible).
45:13 K: Yes, of course.
45:14 Q: Yes.
45:15 K: But that’s the result of my culture in which I have been brought up, in which I am conditioned and my experience says, ‘By Jove, I have seen God, Jesus.’ It is so absurdly silly.
45:32 No? You’re still…
45:36 Q: Because even though you become an extremely happy and ecstatic person, still you could... you have to see that even that is all a conditioning.
45:45 K: Of course it is.
45:47 Q: No, I see that. I see that.
45:57 Q: So that wipes the saints out right there.
46:01 K: Ah?
46:02 Q: That point itself wipes all the saints out.
46:07 K: Exactly. So what happens? When you wipe out the outer, inner you are left as you are. You follow? You are left with something which you say ‘My God, I’ve been running away from, which is my emptiness, my shallowness, my loneliness.’ When you strip me of everything which society has given me - not me - which society has imposed, what have I left?
46:40 Right, sir? What have I left, actually?
46:46 Q: Yourself.
46:47 K: What is yourself?
46:50 Q: I don’t know.
46:51 K: I’ll tell you what yourself is.
46:52 Q: No, I don’t want you to tell me. That would be authority.
46:57 K: Ah, not in the least. That’s not authority. Good god. Don’t abuse that word authority.
47:04 Q: If you tell me something, you are imposing your... (inaudible).
47:07 K: I am not at all imposing. We are here to discuss. If you strip me of society, which is my education, my religious ideas, the books, the newspapers, every… strip me, what have I left?
47:26 Nothing inside, and that’s what I am, actually.
47:30 Q: Yes, exactly.
47:31 K: Miss Pratt, you’re rather doubtful? Doris Pratt: No. (Laughter) DP: I was doubtful because somebody said ‘exactly’... (inaudible).
47:38 K: Ah, no, no, no. Not ‘exactly’. One has to feel this thing. One has to be (inaudible). You can’t say ‘exactly’. That’s mere verbal agreement. So you strip yourself of your knowledge, of your church, of your gods, of your experience - what is there?
48:01 You are just empty. There is no you to say, ‘What am I?’ It is that emptiness you have to face.
48:18 Shall we proceed from there?
48:19 Q: Yes.
48:20 K: So you have dropped imitation. You follow what I mean?
48:30 Now, how do you...
48:40 how does one face a fact? The fact is this thing called me is empty.
48:54 Right? Because I have denied church, I have denied relationship which I wanted permanent, I have denied ideas, I have denied gods, I have denied saints, I have denied vanities, ambition, power, prestige; I’ve completely put away from me all that.
49:17 I don’t want to be a success.
49:26 I don’t want fame. Anything that society has given me or man has put together through centuries as religion, I wipe it away, destroy it, put it away down the sink.
49:39 But you don’t feel all this strongly, sir. So I’m... what am I then?
49:51 Ah? What am I then?
49:59 Ah?
50:00 Q: The emptiness?
50:01 K: Ah... What am I then?
50:04 Q: Nothing.
50:05 Q: I.
50:06 K: Ah... Please, what is the I? What society... (inaudible) together.
50:10 Q: I don’t know.
50:11 K: That’s all. You see, you’re all so... fiddling with words. When you have denied all this you come to a point when you say, ‘I really don’t know what I am, what is there.’ Don’t you?
50:28 Q: Of course.
50:29 K: Ah, not ‘Of course.’ But is it so?
50:37 Is it so when you say, ‘By Jove, I know nothing. I am … I don’t know what I am’?
50:50 Right?
50:51 Q: If you don’t know, how can you face a fact?
50:53 K: I’m doing it now. I’m going to show it to you. Sir, you’re a scientist, aren’t you?
50:56 Q: No sir.
50:58 K: Physicist?
50:59 Q: No.
51:01 K: What are you?
51:03 Q: Nothing.
51:05 K: Oh, no... (Laughter) K: Oh, come off it. As your profession, sir.
51:15 Q: You like to pin it down, sir.
51:17 K: Ah, know. As a profession, what are you?
51:19 Q: Nothing.
51:20 K: Oh, no. How do you earn a….? He is a biochemist; he is a some writer, this, that. We have some profession. Because if you are a scientist, physicist, how do you face something which you don’t know?
51:37 Q: I can make an attempt.
51:43 K: Ah, ah, ah, ah, you can’t make attempt.
51:49 Q: As a physicist.
51:50 K: Not... That’s just it. You are making an attempt as a physicist.
51:53 Q: Correct.
51:54 K: And this is not a laboratory testing. You see, that’s what I mean.
52:06 Sir, look sir, I hope you’re not following this verbally, but actually.
52:16 If one completely denies without motive the whole social structure, including religion, gurus, the whole works, then what is your mind?
52:36 What is the state of your mind?
52:40 Q: Naked.
52:42 K: Ah, not... Is it a fact? Don’t... Please, sir, I don’t want to pin anybody down. I just... I want to go into it, otherwise it will become verbal; it has no meaning then.
52:59 Q: But you’re not projecting into the future at all.
53:05 K: All that’s finished. You follow? Then I don’t want anything, and everything I’ve… You follow? I’m not thinking about tomorrow. So what is the state of the mind which has completely wiped away everything that it knows?
53:29 Q: A state of not knowing.
53:33 K: Ah?
53:35 Q: It is a state of not knowing.
53:38 K: What does that…? Sir… I… These are just words. What does it mean?
53:43 Q: Yes. I think what it means... (inaudible).
53:45 Q: It’s a vacuum.
53:46 Q: It’s an empty mind.
53:47 K: Is your mind empty?
53:49 Q: Yes sir.
53:50 K: Oh, my darling sir...
53:52 Q: (Inaudible) ... the process goes on.
53:54 K: Don’t so easily say it’s empty, so easily agree. What is involved in it?
53:59 Q: Well, you have discarded everything.
54:01 K: Have you? Sir, I’m not asking you. Has one?
54:06 Q: But isn’t the feeling to be alive something? We are alive.
54:13 K: No, no, that is not my question. You understand? My question is, if one has discarded talent, if one discarded the technique, the relationship of permanency - you follow? - all authority, wanting, success, the things that one has built up - you follow? - you put all that aside very easily, gracefully, with a smile, not with a kick.
54:46 Then what is the state of your mind?
54:49 Q: Well, if I tell you what I feel you’ll probably be upset but…
54:53 K: I won’t be upset.
54:54 Q: I never seem that I’m alone because there’s all the time something coming.
54:58 K: All right. If you are...
55:00 Q: There is the… I don’t know. I don’t feel alone and lost.
55:07 K: No.
55:08 Q: There’s also, I don’t know… (inaudible).
55:12 K: You feel naked. If you take away your clothes you feel naked.
55:14 Q: I feel my ears, my eyes…
55:16 K: Yes. Just a minute...
55:18 Q: That’s what I feel.
55:19 K: You see, you’re translating all this yet; you’re not… You’re still in the process of recognition.
55:24 Q: By the nature of things, it would be impossible to answer this question, surely.
55:33 K: That’s one of the difficulties, sir. You see, it is fairly easy to strip, take clothes away from oneself - you follow? - and feel naked.
55:45 But it’s much more… oh, to say, ’I am naked,’ inwardly.
55:50 Q: (Inaudible)... if you say that, it’s obviously not.
55:54 K: Of course not. So I say when one… You see, with that mind which has completely slipped though the valley with a laughter, with a roar (laughs) - you follow?
56:17 - like the stream, like a river, then, you see, then you face this so-called emptiness.
56:33 Q: Isn’t the difficulty for us that we make a blank enough mind and we call that a…
56:49 we don’t know what it is; it’s just putting aside…
56:54 K: No but how do you...? Then how will you get to know anything? How will you get to know...? I mean, how do you get to know? How do you…? You must discard, mustn’t you, to find out? Sir, for you, if I may say, sir, it’s very difficult to discard what you have learned about Buddhism.
57:24 Q: Yes.
57:25 K: Very difficult.
57:26 Q: Yes.
57:27 K: All their ideas, their meditations, their virtues, you have read a great deal about it and so you say, ‘By Jove, how true,’ and you’re caught in it, and it is… almost impossible to say, ‘Out with it.’ Q: It’s true...
57:48 (inaudible).
57:49 K: You know that lovely story of a Buddhist monk who lived in great height?
57:56 One night it was terribly cold and he had a statue of the Buddha - very, very, very old; beautifully carved, so lovingly handled, polished through centuries, you see?
58:10 And it was a cold night, so he said, ‘I’m so cold.’ He broke it up and made a fire out of it.
58:30 (Laughter) Q: Well, the state of your mind cannot be a void.
58:54 K: How do you know?
58:56 Q: Because that would be impossible to live with.
58:57 K: Why shouldn’t you live with void, which it is? Why do you want to live with all this muck on… put on top of you?
59:05 Q: No, you don’t want to live with just a dull, empty void.
59:10 K: How do you know what’s going to happen, before you come to it?
59:16 Q: Of course, you project the experiences you’ve had… (inaudible).
59:24 K: Which is all absurd so, you reject all that, put away, keep on. You see, at least by doing that you have a very sharp mind now.
59:48 You follow? Not an accepting mind, not a mind that says, ‘Oh, this is right, this is wrong. I must follow…’ You follow? You’ve got a sharp mind.
59:58 Q: But in such a case there wouldn’t be any movement in your mind.
1:00:04 K: How do you know?
1:00:05 Q: And then you would be afraid that you wouldn’t... (inaudible).
1:00:07 K: How do you know?
1:00:08 Q: You couldn’t meet life.
1:00:09 K: How do you know? What is life? You see, you are just... not denying, not...
1:00:21 You want to... with one hand deny, with the other hand hold, at the same time.
1:00:30 Q: But it seems impossible to be as nothing because there’s a constant reaching out from that.
1:00:58 K: Because you never denied... You haven’t... Sir, it’s fairly simple. Deny your authority and see what happens. Not catching hold of something and then giving this... (inaudible).
1:01:14 Deny this first.
1:01:26 (Pause) You see, that’s what we were saying the other day: we are second-hand, and how can a second-hand find something, which must be the origin of everything - you follow?
1:02:20 - which is not second hand? (Inaudible)... if I want to find it, not that I’m going to find it. I don’t know if it exists, but I must completely cease to be second-hand.
1:02:36 But you don’t want to cease second-hand. You want the Buddhas - you follow? - you’re still caught up in that, which is completely second-hand.
1:02:53 Q: Well, we have to look at that wanting.
1:02:58 K: No sir, not ‘wanting.’ Cease to be second-hand. (Pause)