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GSBR74DT01 - The flame of responsibility
Gstaad, Switzerland - 23 July 1974
Discussion with Teachers 01



0:01 This is J. Krishnamurti's 1st discussion with teachers in Gstaad, 1974.
0:10 Krishnamurti: Do you expect me to talk right away?
0:30 Is your nose all right, sir? Questioner: Fine, thanks.
0:46 K: We were talking over things together with Mrs Simmons the other day and I thought it would be a good idea if those who are going to be at Brockwood and who are going to start a school, like these two ladies in Canada, western Canada, Vancouver, that we should all meet together here to see what we can do at Brockwood to bring about a flame — right? — that’s what we’re talking… – people who are there who would be really creative, responsible. That was the idea. And also we were talking, if anything happens to Mrs Simmons and to Mr Simmons and myself, what will happen there? Right? Who is going to be responsible to see that the thing is kept on the right lines and really bring about a different kind of human being – all that we are talking about in the tent.
2:56 Now, how is… some of you are going to be at Brockwood, others are going to start a school – what can we do? That is the basis of this meeting. Right? You approve?
3:17 Dorothy Simmons: Yes.
3:24 K: What can we do to make it a school or a place or a community, a centre where there will be people who are totally committed and concerned in education, who will be responsible to see that a different kind of mind is produced? Well, sir?
4:07 Ted Cartee: I have been thinking. There are two problems: one is to talk about the continuity, how do we preserve the continuity of what we have, and another is to look at the problem of do we have a revolutionary school now?
4:37 K: Of course, that’s the problem.
4:39 TC: I think there are many schools that are different; different from the ordinary school; I have seen many in the United States, at least a half a dozen schools...
4:51 K: Oh, there are a great many. A great many.
4:54 TC: A great many.
4:55 K: So-called modern schools, but that’s not the kind of school we are talking about.
4:58 DS: Here in England too you see quite a number.
5:03 TC: So I think… I have only been here for two months and I would benefit a great deal from hearing from everyone what they felt Brockwood was about. We use that expression a lot – right? – what is Brockwood all about? I think it would be good if we could…
5:25 K: You have been there for two months, sir – haven’t you found out?
5:30 TC: Not really, no. To me it’s not completely evident, to be frank. I mean, there are similarities and differences that I see between this school and other schools, but there are… No, I am wondering whether we feel we have come to the peak and we just want to maintain this.
5:57 K: Oh, lord, no.
5:58 DS: No, no.
5:59 K: I don’t think anybody feels we have come to the peak.
6:01 TC: No. So I think I would benefit from discussing what we feel are the areas in which we need more observation.
6:13 Montague Simmons: Well, you don’t want a programme; you don’t want to say what new methods, or anything like that. The basic thing comes down to, of course, each individual one of us. If we don’t show forth or make it clear by what we are and the way we act and behave, then we could talk till Doomsday and say what will make a better school, and it won’t be a better school; it won’t be a different kind of school.
6:51 Q: I think, Monty, I was only there for only about nine days but I have the same feeling as you have, that we can talk about the school as some abstraction, as a collectivity; I think we are going to have to deal with it in terms of the qualities of each of our own lives, and then how we interact, and whether that quality creates a different communal quality.
7:13 Mary Zimbalist: I think there is a tendency in these matters of… I am not saying I don’t agree but there is a tendency to become more or less hypnotised by what is going on in one’s own mind, that seems to make a kind of lethargy about things happening amongst the group, amongst everything. There’s too much – perhaps; I am not at Brockwood all the time and I can’t judge, but I’ve seen in many circles where this preoccupation with was, ‘Am I changing?’ or doing this, whatever it is, that doesn’t make something happening among everybody, including oneself – there’s a kind of closed…
8:02 DS: It is the working together that makes a very, very big difference, isn’t it?
8:08 MZ: Yes, I think so.
8:09 DS: I mean, it is having to live and work together for the general harmonious living of us all.
8:18 MS: I wonder if there are any who are, as it were, visitors to Brockwood who could give us their feeling on whether there is. Feeling, not put down in black and white words what we are doing differently, but if they have a feeling that there is something different.
8:32 Any of those who visit rather than those of us who are involved all the time.
8:38 Q: I tell you, Montague, my response was more to people in particular than to Brockwood as a whole. I thought Brockwood as a whole, as I also told Dorothy the other day, there was a quality I sensed of imitation, of mildness about people who were there. I sensed it myself most amongst the staff, a certain air of… I felt it was belying a certain restraint underneath, that this is how we should be and this is how we should behave, and so we can compose ourselves in such a manner because this is Brockwood Park. I think it was all subsumed under some – you will excuse me of saying – I think it was, ‘Here we are at the school of Krishnamurti and therefore this is the modus vivendi that we adopt.’ I sensed this very strongly, and I sensed that there was… it was to the detriment of recognizing that we were people with our own problems. And I don’t see why we should separate, Mary, the problems in our own lives from the problems we have amongst each…
9:49 MZ: I don’t mean to separate; I mean to go out further than just in oneself.
9:55 Q: Yes, I agree with you, but I think that’s the only way we can deal with our own problems in the community.
10:01 MZ: Yes. I mean, I think the totality of it is important rather than always the mirror to oneself. I don’t mean that you mean that either, but I think there is a tendency in that.
10:09 K: I would like to put the question differently. May I? I have a son or a daughter. I want to send him to a school to be really educated, to have a mind that’s capable of dealing with the modern world, with the world of knowledge, and all other fields. And I come there and I talk to you. And I ask, as a parent should: can you produce such a mind in this boy? Can you educate him totally so that he is really an intelligent human being, religious, all that? Will Brockwood, will you as the teachers there give him an opportunity, give him, help him …
11:35 MZ: (Sorry, there’s a traffic problem. Could you back the Cortina?) (Inaudible) K: …make him sensitive, make him, you know, a real human being?
11:52 MS: If we answered yes we could…
11:54 K: Ah, I’m…
11:56 MS: …it would be very arrogant of us.
11:59 K: Absolutely. But I am saying, have we the capacity to do it? If we say, ‘Yes, we have’, that would be silly, either.
12:11 Q: Yes. And what if the answer was no?
12:12 MS: You could say: are we providing the right sort of soil, as it were?
12:15 K: Yes, the right sort of milieu, the right sort of environment, right sort of… everything.
12:22 Not impose your own particular opinions, judgements and idiosyncrasies on the child.
12:27 TC: Well, certainly, one difficulty with proper education is, I think, a good example that I was thinking about today was that fellow, Abby, who asked you the last question in today’s talk: ‘Do you see the human race as moving towards order?’ And you said, ‘Well, obviously not,’ and he says, ‘No,’ he says, ‘obviously yes.’ I think an important thing for a student, for anyone, is to be able to see, not through propaganda, not through the pryings and direction of their teachers but through their own experience.
13:01 K: That’s what I am asking, sir. I send my son to Brockwood. For the moment I am concerned with Brockwood; I may send my girl to Canada. I have about a hundred children, (laughter) and I want to… I say to you, ‘Can you help this boy at Brockwood to be excellent in virtue – you follow? I want this; I want that boy to be that – excellent in virtue, live a tremendously orderly life, not conforming, and a good mind, educated mind, not a sloppy mind, and a deep sense of religion. You follow? I would like my son to have that. And I am sending him to you hoping that. Hoping – I don’t think that you have all the tricks to produce such a boy – hoping that you will help him to become that.
14:19 I was saying, I would send my son and other hundred sons to Canada, to Ojai, to India and to Brockwood — girls included; I am not a chauvinist; I’m also – what is it?
14:47 – women’s lib…
14:49 MS: Misogynist. (Laughter) K: …and I say, I want my son, I hope that my son will grow up into this: really excellent in virtue, live a really virtuous life, not imposed, you know, live it for its own sake, not because of reward or punishment; and a very good mind, educated mind, capable of expression, necessary (inaudible) – you follow? — all that; and a religious life, not prayer, but a really deep religious life, with love and all that. Can I send my son to you, hoping you will be able to help him? Not that you’re going to… you have all the means and you are the right people. Hoping. Can you do it?
16:01 TC: It seems that we necessarily have to very strongly, without a doubt in ourselves, need to see that that’s what we are there for.
16:21 K: No, Ted, look at it this way. There is a student in front of you, he is my son. You have become responsible – you understand? – because I’m gone, I have left him with you, and you have become responsible. You are answerable to me at the end, not to some examiner. You are answerable to me because I have entrusted my son to you, hoping you will produce something other than a beastly little clerk.
17:00 MS: Well, if you were that kind of parent asking that sort of question, surely you would be a sensitive kind of parent who would just look around for a few moments and say, ‘This is the right place.’ They would know; they would feel it.
17:15 K: Yes, sir. And I am asking you: how will you create this in this boy? How will you see that this boy grows up into something exceptional, not just the... I love my son, I want to be exceptional, I want him to be the salt of the earth, an elite of the elites, not just Tom, Dick and Harry, and I trust you to produce it, help him. I have been to Brockwood and I have looked at all of you and I have talked to Mr and Mrs Simmons, I have talked to you, I’ve talked to the various people, I have wandered through the woods and, you know, taken account for it and I think this may be the right place — you follow? — I think; I am not saying this is the only place; I feel this is the place because it is associated with this person and so on, so on, so on, and I say, ‘Here is the boy.’ I entrust you, that boy in your hands, and it’s your responsibility.
18:27 How you do it is what I am trying to find out. You follow?
18:36 Your responsibility means answerable to the man who has given his money, his son, and put the son or the daughter in your hands. You are dealing with a human life, you are not dealing with – you follow? — a Catholic, a Protestant, or this or that; you are dealing with a human mind which is immature, ugly, disorderly, conditioned and brutal, you know, he has acquired the habits of his friends and all that. I bring him to you and say, ‘For God’s sake, make something out of this material.’ Q: And to be able to feel quite happy about accepting that responsibility myself.
19:37 K: Sir, no, you are there – don’t tell me – you are there at Brockwood, don’t say...
19:42 Q: That’s what I am saying. I am in this position.
19:44 K: So what do you do?
19:47 Q: To be able to express any degree of confidence to the parent, I feel we need to look at some of the areas of conflict within the school that exist at the moment, because I have only been here...
20:04 K: Look, sir, I left him with you. I come back two months later and I say… I look at him, I look at the boy, I look at him and I say, ‘My God, what are you doing with him?’ You follow, sir?
20:21 DS: As indeed happens.
20:24 K: I am taking that. Of course it happens.
20:26 Q: Sir, excuse me, I am a bit befuddled by your question. Is ‘how’ an operational question?
20:32 K: No, no, no.
20:34 Q: Then what are you asking?
20:38 K: I am asking – you have a responsibility — right? — tremendous responsibility with regard to a human mind, and are you adequately answering that responsibility? Not ‘how’.
21:10 I leave it to you. I am not a professor, I am not your teacher there. You have undertaken to have a school. You have undertaken the responsibility. Are you fulfilling that responsibility?
21:33 I don’t know because I’m gone.
21:35 DS: But you should know.
21:36 K: Ah, how can I know?
21:38 DS: You see it, you are there, and to some degree...
21:40 K: Ah, no, I’m not. I am a parent that’s...
21:42 DS: But you are there sometimes.
21:45 Q: He is the parent.
21:47 K: I am an ordinary, dirty little parent (laughter) and I left him with you.
21:52 TC: Yes, but you want your son to be better than you and better than us.
21:55 K: Ah, no, I don’t want him to be better than me.
21:57 TC: No?
21:58 K: No. I want him to be excellent, not ‘better than me’ – that’s a terrible thing.
22:03 TC: But you are prepared to give your responsibility away for that.
22:10 K: I haven’t time, I haven’t got the energy, I haven’t got the capacity. I say, ‘Please, you are a school. I approve of the school and I have looked around, I think you have got something which I would like my son to have, and please make him excellent.’ DS: You can’t say you will do such a thing. You can say your intention is to…
22:35 K: Ah, I want more than that.
22:37 DS: But you can’t.
22:38 K: I want something more than that. My intention is always paved with, you know, paved with intention.
22:47 DS: That’s exactly it. You might have a boy that is quite incapable of understanding what it’s all about, especially if he has got a parent like that. (Laughter) Q: Like you.
22:57 DS: Yes.
22:58 K: I want my son to be excellent, noble, not some filthy little human being who is mucking about the place.
23:10 Q: It just seems to me being there with your son, to be listening to him...
23:19 K: Ah, I am not asking how you do it. We’ll come to that. Do you feel responsible?
23:26 Q: Of course.
23:31 TC: What I felt when you were asking the question a minute ago, was that we have to feel this responsibility beyond any doubt.
23:43 K: Otherwise you wouldn’t be a teacher.
23:45 MS: It’s not that we have to feel – do we? Krishnaji is asking, do you, not ‘you have to be’.
23:49 K: You see, when I sit on the platform I feel tremendously responsible for everybody in the audience. I really mean it. And because I am responsible for them, you know, I feel, by Jove, I want to change them — you follow? — all the rest of it. I think the moment you feel responsible – you understand? – responsible totally, then something will happen. After all, if the father and the mother feel responsible for their children, totally responsible, they will spend a great deal of time with them at home – you follow? — have their confidence, discuss with them; they would put their life into the children — you understand, sir?
25:31 — they will forget their problems, they will forget their quarrels between themselves and say, ‘For God’s sake, keep it in the bedroom. Let us give our time, our love, affection, care, find out the best school, talk to them.’ You follow? They would be totally involved.
25:53 Q: This is a human life that I am dealing with and the same quality of vitality, the same quality of energy with which I meet each moment of my life will be… knows no discrimination and therefore will meet completely that situation.
26:12 K: Sir, I am not telling you how you do it. I am asking you: do you feel responsible for their food, for their clothes, for their taste, how they behave, how they talk, how they think – you follow? — responsible. If Mr and Mrs Simmons feel that they are responsible in that way which I am talking about, they will see that we all become responsible. The fire of responsibility. That’s right. Right, sir? The fire of responsibility. Which parents don’t feel, because they send them off to school. The fire of responsibility means that they will see they are never killed, never wounded, never hurt, they live a life of supreme excellence. I think if we accept that, from there we can start.
28:46 (Pause) If I am one of the teachers or educators at Brockwood, in Canada or in Ojai, and I feel utterly responsible, with the implications of that word, I would see to it. I would see that they had such a mind. I would fight for it. You follow?
29:44 TC: May I ask in relation to that, and it seems to me, in many cases I see how this question is clear and answered to me but in other cases it is not, so I put it forth in a general form. Sometimes the way that another teacher helping in the same situation at Brockwood, the way that they want… that the way that they are involved with their responsibility is such that they disagree, more or less, or sometimes strongly, with how another person feels in their responsibility.
30:33 K: If I feel responsible, Ted, and you feel responsible — the flame of it; not just words, the flame of it — you and I would never disagree.
30:43 TC: But we would certainly discuss or...
30:45 K: Ah, we’ll never disagree or agree. We would talk together because we are concerned about the child.
30:52 TC: Yes. Right. I wouldn’t keep my thing and I would be willing to open...
30:56 K: Ah, not ‘willing’ – I can’t do it. I can’t put my opinion against your opinion. I have no opinion.
31:08 TC: Right. Right.
31:11 K: I don’t say, ‘I think this is right, this is wrong, you should agree with me, not agree,’ because I feel responsible — you follow? — therefore the flame has burnt my prejudices out. I keep it to them.
31:25 MS: You have to find out what the facts are.
31:27 K: Yes.
31:28 MS: Get down to the facts, not your opinions.
31:29 K: I keep my prejudices somewhere else, if I have any. I won’t… – you follow? – that’s what… All my meditations, my spookiness, my desires, I hold them.
31:50 I think this is really quite important to find out, whether one can be so utterly responsible.
32:20 And I think when one feels such a responsibility something happens in one. It’s like, I mean, I don’t know, (laughs) it’s like having a flame and you want to… You follow?
32:53 Well, sir, you are new to this; as you are a teacher there, either permanently or impermanently, do you feel such responsibility?
33:18 TC: It’s a hard question to answer.
33:22 K: Sir, this is life. It isn’t you sit on the bank and say, ‘This is a hard question; I am going to wait,’ this is what...
33:32 TC: Well, I have left other schools because I felt that my responsibility could not be manifested.
33:38 K: Sir, do you as a newcomer see the necessity of this responsibility?
33:50 TC: I do feel responsible for the students.
33:53 K: No, no, the way we are talking.
33:55 TC: Well, that’s…
33:57 K: No, because this is something – not that we can’t discuss it, not that you must agree with it, but nobody seems, except a few of us, nobody seems to feel this responsibility.
34:22 And if all of us feel this responsibility, that school will blossom like fury.
34:31 (Pause) You see, then there would be no division – to answer your question — we would be caught in the same flame. You follow?
35:18 (Pause) DS: Krishnaji, isn’t part of that flame for a newcomer, helping him to understand and see what it’s all about? It takes a certain time for the flame to burn and get rid of all the smoke, as you would say. You might not come fully fledged to it, burning…
36:02 K: Of course not.
36:03 DS: The same as the child, and so there’s a certain...
36:07 K: No. Ah, I am not thinking about the child. Poor child, he’s just a mess, a monkey messed up. He is not a monkey either, he is a messed up human little being. But I am there as a teacher, new or old, and do I feel responsible? Do I feel responsible? The house is burning — you follow? — and I can’t say, ‘Well, I am a newcomer, I want to see where it is burning.’ The world is burning. The house that man has put together is going to pieces.
36:59 Q: What do you mean, ‘what’s it all about’? Is there any difference in what’s it’s all about in Brockwood Park than anywhere else?
37:16 K: Ah, no, no…
37:17 Q: What do you mean by preparation? Why should…
37:19 K: No, sir, Brockwood is different, Brockwood is a school.
37:24 Q: No, but the urgency in Brockwood is the same urgency as in London.
37:30 K: Of course it is.
37:31 DS: Yes, but we are people who have come together and have said we feel this urgency, in some degree, we’ll say.
37:37 Q: But then we must… can we come to Brockwood for any other reason than for this urgency?
37:43 DS: Well, yes, it is possible, and people do. And you have got to see this. Yes, people do, they think it is a nice, soft pad.
37:50 Q: And part of the responsibility, I feel, is to know how to act when confronted by people, some of us at Brockwood, who are not, as I see it, serious, and I don’t know...
38:08 K: No, sir, you are going off. If I may point out. I hope you don’t think me rude. But I keep on repeating: do you feel responsible? If you do and I do too, and a few of us do, then we can sit down. We are the centre of that responsibility. He is a newcomer. He may say, ‘Wait, I want to look, I want to see if you are really… if what you say you mean, not play around with a lot of words and tricks and cushy pad.’ We say, ‘All right, but we, a few of us, we are the centre of that responsibility because we have been there for years,’ for four, two years, three years.
39:06 DS: Five.
39:07 MS: Five.
39:08 K: Five years. My God! Five years. And we are the nucleus, the focus, the flame of that, of that responsibility. Between us there is no quarrel, no dissension, no saying, ‘This is right, this is wrong, my opinion…’ because we are responsible. You understand?
39:38 And you come. You look at us. You want to find out, because naturally you mustn’t trust us, you mustn’t take us for granted, nor must you be so sceptical that you won’t even look.
40:04 DS: Or sit on the fence eternally.
40:08 TC: I don’t intend to do that.
40:14 K: So we say to you, ‘Come, look, tell us if we are wrong.’ We are not sitting on a pedestal, but don’t stand outside, sit on the fence, come inside and work and do something.
40:36 (Pause) Sir, now there are about four or five schools in India, recently started; two schools have been going on for forty years and more; and they are going to start one in Ojai, California; and there is one in Brockwood, and there is going to be one, according to them, in Vancouver Island, in Canada, western. When I go to India I feel responsible to those teachers, to the students. You understand, sir?
41:17 TC: Well, how do you manifest that responsibility?
41:22 DS: Talk.
41:23 K: How do I manifest that responsibility?
41:27 MZ: What he’s doing right now.
41:29 K: I talk to them.
41:30 DS: Discussion.
41:31 K: I meet the teachers every other day, the so-called educators; meet the students every other day, discuss with them, and have a few teachers who come and see me, and I say, ‘Look, be responsible.’ You follow? ‘You are responsible for this.’ I keep at it for three weeks. You understand? And I leave. One or two catch the flame and feel responsible, the rest don’t feel responsible. So gradually the too few are being smothered — you understand?
42:10 — because the volume is too great. And this is going on and on and on.
42:20 Now, at Brockwood things are different. There, there are few students, fifty. In India in the two big schools there are about three hundred. Here we have only fifty and we have limited it to fifty — right? — because of space and also we think that is the best thing to do. Now, as I feel responsible — and I mean it in that sense — when I talk publicly or privately I feel really completely responsible, in interviews, all the rest of it. Now, if I remained in Brockwood and I felt this utter responsibility then I would see that you…
43:27 I would help… I don’t know… I would bring about this responsibility in you. I would work for it. I would work for it night and day. I am not concerned how this responsibility is going to act – we can come to that later – but the feeling of responsibility, the seriousness of it, otherwise you can’t create anything. The responsibility implies passion, implies strenuous attention — you follow? — all that is implied in that.
44:44 And that’s why, when we were talking with Mrs Simmons the other day, I said let’s meet, a few of us who are at Brockwood, and perhaps others, a few of us, let’s see if we can’t create this fire of responsibility in ourselves. Of course we need this fire of responsibility outside also – right? – but we are now concerned only with education in these two places, Brockwood and Canada. And since we have Brockwood and the Vancouver school will take place, we are concerned to see that those of us, the few of us that are here, somehow have this flame and this passion of responsibility. Otherwise we won’t create the school, we won’t create a new generation of excellent people.
46:23 So if we say, a few of us say we are responsible in the sense that we are talking, really mean it, then we can say: now, how do we… how does this responsibility act? Right? Right?
46:50 It’s not my responsibility, it’s responsibility – yours, mine, hers – you follow? — the feeling of responsibility of a few of us. And he comes from America and looks at us, within the cage. He is outside the cage, we are in the cage. (Laughs) DS: He has what we want also, he’s a mathematician.
47:19 K: He has technique, learning, mathematics, science, this or the other. We want him too, but we want him primarily to feel responsible as we do.
47:31 DS: Yes. And we are in a process of seeing if this is possible, but he’s got to be honest with himself.
47:40 K: Ah, I am not concerned about him for the moment. He is there, he is looking at us. Now, how does this responsibility deal with these chaotic children? Because he is looking at us, he wants to come in but he wants to be… I don’t know if you do, I am just...
48:10 TC: Yes, I hope not.
48:12 K: What?
48:13 TC: I hope… because I don’t feel that I am outside. Maybe somebody else does feel that I am outside looking in. If you feel that, I don’t know…
48:20 K: Sir, I didn’t say you were outside.
48:21 TC: …but I don’t feel that I’m on the outside looking. Maybe that was true the first few weeks or so but I feel that I...
48:27 K: I am not saying you are outside or inside.
48:29 TC: Fine.
48:30 K: I am taking you as an example, being outside, who wants to come inside.
48:36 TC: Fine.
48:37 K: The novitiate – you understand? – in the monastery.
48:40 TC: It happens all the time.
48:44 K: Naturally. So I say: how does this responsibility deal with that child? He must be educated – mathematics, geography, history, all that – excellent in behaviour, all the rest of it. Now, how do we translate that? You understand, Ted? How do we do it?
49:20 TC: Partly it is directly by our action, and when the child seems to respond more to what his conditioning or desire is, then we must take a particular interest in what he is doing which is not helpful or inconsiderate or...
49:45 K: Look, Ted, you want to transmit this flame of responsibility to the child. You follow?
49:58 He can’t accept it, he doesn’t know what it means even, but you want him to grow up with this flame, responsibility as a human being to other human beings.
50:11 TC: For everything.
50:12 K: To everything. And how do you prepare that soil to receive this flame? Because that soil has been mucked about, messed around; he comes with revolt, or he comes with all these idiocies, peculiarities and neurotic — you follow? — how do you transmit this to him? You have got to teach him mathematics, science, biology, God knows what else, and he takes most of the day in that. You follow? How will you give this to him, help him to have it?
51:09 TC: Well, even in that particular subject, mathematics, I mean, I would be involved because, one, of extreme interest in the subject and, two, the extreme interest in the child learning, really discovering, really learning something, so that the class, as you were saying, is a lot of the student’s time but it should be happening during the classes.
51:42 K: Ah, I am not interested in ‘should’. I am not interested in ‘should’, ‘must’, ‘if’, ‘when’ – I say, what will you do actually?
52:05 (Pause) You understand, Ted, when you and I – I am including, please, all of us – have this flame of responsibility, we create an atmosphere. You follow, sir? You understand what I’m saying?
52:33 TC: Yes.
52:35 K: It is created in spite of us; it is there. Now, into that atmosphere come these monkeys (laughs) or non-monkeys. Now, obviously atmospherically it will affect them, a little bit; can’t help it – you follow? — but you want much more than that. Now, if I was there I’d say, how am I through teaching mathematics, geography, whatever it is, and through daily contact, on the playing fields, dining together, talking together, reading, whatever it is, how am I going to transmit or help him to have this flame? That is my chief concern.
53:38 You follow? Not mathematics, geography, but I am using mathematics, geography to convey this flame. So what shall I do? How shall I do it? You see, Ted, that gives me an opportunity of creativeness. You follow? I wonder if you… Do you understand? I have to find a way of transmitting this. I can’t go to books because no book will tell you how to do this. So I have to find a way of doing it. So I have to be… You follow, sir? Now, if I was there and I feel responsible, how am I going to help to implant, ‘indoctrinate’ – quotes – this flame into them? Well, sir, you are supposed to be inside now, how do you answer this question?
55:18 TC: Well, I see the question very well now. I can’t ask you how I am going to do it.
55:27 K: I am asking you.
55:28 TC: Yes. Right.
55:29 K: Listen, sir. You are totally responsible.
55:32 TC: Right, but I...
55:33 K: No. You are totally, completely responsible. So am I. Together, what are we going to do?
55:49 How are you going to give that child this flame, which will operate right through life?
55:58 Because I am not going to waste my life – you follow? – on hoping that boy will catch it or not catch it. I won’t waste my life. I want him to have it. So what shall we do?
56:21 You teach mathematics, I teach – what? — whatever it is, biology. I don’t know anything about it (laughs) – biology.
56:28 Q: But having that flame, what you are talking about, when one feels that energy that you are talking about there is no obstacle, it will...
56:40 K: No, my lady, just a minute. I am asking him: how do we ‘educate’ that student – educate, quotes – that he has this burning flame for the rest of his life? Go on, sir.
57:11 It’s your responsibility to see that he has it. Not, ‘Oh well, let’s hope he’ll have it’ — he must have it. You will turn heaven upside down so that he has it. What will you do? We are together — you follow? — half a dozen of us – what shall we do?
57:49 Q: Well, what shall we do?
57:52 K: Ah!
57:53 Q: Sir, in the same way that you are passionate in telling us about this and discussing this with us, if we have the same passion when we are talking to these children, or being with them...
58:01 K: Not ‘if’. Not ‘if’.
58:02 Q: Well, we shall be, we must be.
58:05 K: The moment you feel totally, utterly responsible, you have it. Then the problem is: how shall we give it to them, help them to have it, so that it’s not just for a few years, they say, ‘Yes, sir, marvellous, I’ve got it,’ and become a dirty little clerk in an office, or parliament, or whatever they do?
58:43 DS: That’s exactly what does happen, Krishnaji.
58:45 K: I know. That’s what I’m trying to prevent. I don’t want my son to end up in there.
58:51 MS: He might set the office on fire.
58:54 K: Anything but end up there.
59:03 I was talking to Balasundaram. He is the principal of Rishi Valley school. Perhaps some of you know him. I said, ‘Look, you have spent so many years there, what have you produced, in the name of God? And is it worth it?’ India is in a very, very difficult position – and I don’t want to compare India with Brockwood and all the rest of it, so we can leave that. All that I am saying is, if – not ‘if’ – when there is this responsibility, the burning of it, then how do we show it or help to bring this about in a student? Have you understood, Ted? Now, what shall we do? The doing is our responsibility.
1:00:16 You follow? Then in the doing of it there is unanimity. I wonder if you… Right? Right, sir?
1:00:31 Q: Yes.
1:00:32 K: Are you just agreeing for the...
1:00:34 TC: Well, I’m waiting to hear one...
1:00:37 K: Ah, come off it.
1:00:39 TC: No, I think we have to look at what we are doing first.
1:00:42 K: No, I am not concerned of what you are doing now. I am concerned first if you have that responsibility, and if you have that responsibility totally, how shall we, you, I, X, Y, who feel the same responsibility, help that child to have that feeling right through life? Right, sir? What shall we do? What will you do?
1:01:27 (Pause) I don’t want those children, those students to end up as ordinary, mediocre, bourgeois little men, with titles or with Rolls Royces, or bus drivers.
1:02:15 TC: But do you want them to wind up like us?
1:02:27 K: If you have that responsibility, the flame, you are not like the rest; you have already gone beyond that.
1:02:37 MS: Even if you go to an office. Even if you are in an office.
1:02:55 K: Yes. That’s…
1:03:05 (Pause) I know what I would do. Right? If a few of us feel responsible it would be each of our concern to see that responsibility is sustained at its highest level all the time. Right? You would help me and I would help you to maintain that.
1:03:39 I may get depressed one day and say, ‘For God’s sake…’ but – you follow? — that would be my first job, your job as well as mine, to see that each of us maintain this thing, in spite of headaches, in spite of moods, in spite of quarrels — this is the thing. Right? Then what shall I do? How shall I convey to my students, the students, this responsibility? How would you do it, sir? Come on, sir.
1:04:34 TC: Well, first we have to get to know each student very well.
1:04:40 K: I am not bothered about that, that’s too long. There must be a different thing.
1:04:51 Q: Sir, I’d begin by showing it to them in everything that I did and everything that I said, and let them know that everything that I was teaching them was fine, nice to know, but how to use it, what’s behind it, that’s the important thing.
1:05:15 K: Look, sir, I don’t want them to imitate me. I don’t want to be their example. I don’t want them to copy me in any way. They are monkeys and they have copied others, and I don’t want to become another factor of their imitation. So that’s out. Because — you follow? — when you have examples, following, it destroys human beings. Right?
1:05:51 So what shall I do? How shall I convey this to him so that it is in their blood for their life? Come on, sir.
1:06:14 Q: There is responsibility. Is there more you can say? Is the question valid? If there is responsibility, is your question valid? Can it be answered?
1:06:24 K: Oh, yes.
1:06:25 Q: Can it be answered?
1:06:26 K: Sir, I have stated it. I feel responsible.
1:06:29 Q: But isn’t that the answer in the question, sir?
1:06:32 K: No. I want to know how to do it, to help those children.
1:06:36 Q: But we can’t answer you. We are not answering you. Isn’t that the point? We are not answering you. Is the question wrong or are we not responsible?
1:06:47 K: No, I think… I don’t know. I can’t answer you for others, but I know what I would do.
1:06:59 Q: I know what I wouldn’t do because I am responsible, but I don’t know what I would do.
1:07:07 K: No, no, you are missing my point. Look, sir, I have got those students. I am teaching mathematics. I am living with them. I see them on the playing fields, I see them eating, I see them quarrelling, reading this book, that book and so on. I am with them. You follow?
1:07:27 And I want to convey to them this fact. I will teach them mathematics but this is my chief concern. Now, how am I to do this, so that in talking over with you we’ll find a totally different way of doing it? Not example, not imitation, not authority, but there must be a different approach to educating the child.
1:08:03 What, sir?
1:08:04 Q: I have nothing to say.
1:08:07 K: Why not?
1:08:14 Q: We are talking about a certain seriousness that would be sensed. A certain seriousness, a certain purpose.
1:08:31 K: I have said that; we are serious.
1:08:33 Q: Well, to the child, to the student, if one has this energy, if one has this purpose…
1:08:39 K: Not ‘if’. My lady, you are going back to ‘if’. I am saying you are responsible.
1:08:46 Q: This responsibility will come. The child will feel it. The child will respond to it.
1:08:57 K: Oh, I am not concerned. He won’t respond to it. He is not interested in the beastly stuff you are talking about. He wants to smoke, he wants to drink, he wants to do all kinds of things because he has been conditioned that way when he comes to you.
1:09:13 Q: But by talking over to that child and letting him discover for himself.
1:09:23 K: Ah. You see, you are all replying the same way. I want to find a way of doing it so that it enters into his blood.
1:09:32 TC: Well, we don’t want to condition him in some other way, though.
1:09:35 K: No, of course not, that’s understood.
1:09:41 Q: Well, it seems if you totally realize and see this responsibility, all that can happen when that student participates with you in living there, is all that he is going to uncover and discover is this vital responsibility that you are living, manifesting, acting.
1:10:09 K: How does your responsibility express itself?
1:10:13 Q: In whatever you are doing.
1:10:16 K: Ah, don’t spread it out too quickly.
1:10:17 Q: In understanding of the child.
1:10:18 K: No, you are not answering my question.
1:10:27 Yves

S: Well, you are attentive to the child.
1:10:38 K: Comment?
1:10:39 YS: You are attentive to yourself and the child.
1:10:43 K: No, Yves, just look, sir. You are the child. I feel utterly responsible. Not, ‘I must feel responsible’, ‘if I feel it’ – I feel it and really deeply in my very roots of my feeling I feel this responsibility. And you are the child. My chief concern and commitment, though I may teach mathematics, is to see that you have it. Have it. Now, what am I to do?
1:11:29 YS: And probably I don’t want it. I don’t care. (Inaudible) K: You don’t… you are the child, you say, ‘For God’s sake, my parents have sent me here.’ I may want to be here, I don’t want to be here, or I want to go to the pub to have a drink – all that – girls, boys, all that. But my intention, my concern, commitment is for you to have it, and I don’t care anything about anything else. So how shall I do this? I will talk, I will explain to you this, that and the other, but there must be a different approach to this. Because we have done this — you follow? — we have talked, we have said, ‘Please do this, don’t do that, sit straight, don’t sit straight, don’t make noise’ – we have done all that. Now, I want to find a way of directly touching you. You understand?
1:12:54 (Pause) Look, sir, I have talked for fifty years. I feel responsible. And I have an audience of thousands. Some of them don’t care at all. Some of them they don’t know what it’s all about. Some of them care, attend, all the rest of it. The flame must enter in spite of these ugly human beings. It must penetrate into their eyes, blood. How am I, as a teacher, educator, to deal with the child so that he has it? Does it take place in spite of him – you understand? – or does it take place because he is sensitive, he is somewhat different?
1:14:31 Or does it take place through breaking down the barriers? You understand what I’m saying?
1:14:41 His conditioning, his talking about it – breaking down the barriers, explaining, urging, coaxing, talking, showing, all that, or does it take place in spite of everything? You understand, Ted, what I’m talking about? The thing that takes place in spite of everything is a miracle.
1:15:23 I’m sorry, I’m... You understand? Miracle in the sense, I am a stupid man but you have talked to me, you have shown me and I have become an enlightened human being. You follow?
1:15:40 Not because you have explained, you have talked, you have urged, coaxed, loved me, held my hand, but something else takes place. I wonder if I’m… Right? Am I conveying anything or nothing? Right, sir?
1:16:01 TC: Well, I see that you… what you say to me is that this process of learning to interact with the student, learning his barriers, learning his blocks, working with them, is too long.
1:16:22 K: Is too long and also…
1:16:24 TC: …it may not even work anyway.
1:16:25 K: ...it may not work out.
1:16:26 TC: And so you are suggesting that there is something else.
1:16:30 K: There must be another thing. You understand, sir? I have tried that door, that door, that door, if I was an educator, and somehow it hasn’t worked. I want to see if there is a door that we haven’t touched at all. You understand?
1:16:53 TC: I am wondering whether I’ve walked through that door.
1:16:56 K: We are going to find out. We must find out.
1:17:13 (Pause) You see, mothers have talked to their children; they have got their confidence, they have said, ‘Don’t…’ because they themselves are good – you follow? – they don’t smoke, drink, fornicate and all that kind of stuff; they are very good people and they want their child... But the child grows up into a monster, in spite of them. You follow?
1:17:42 So I say, by Jove, that may not be the right way. You understand, sir? And there are the teachers who have discussed with them, pointed out, trusted them, the students had their confidence in this, but again they turn out to be ugly. And I am asking myself: is there a way of doing this, not these two – you understand? – is there another approach to this thing?
1:18:17 (Pause) What do you say? Come on, sir. How to prevent them from growing into monsters, in spite of everything that is taking place around you? I have seen families, children with the families, where they are really kind people — you understand? — completely kind, they won’t hurt a thing, they are generous, happy, but the child grows into... You follow? So what is wrong? Is it the general atmosphere of the world, with all the vulgarity and so on that is absolutely crushing the child?
1:19:49 (Pause) TC: Is this a question that we are going into here, or is this a question that after some fifty years of teaching that you have an answer for and are leading us toward?
1:20:17 K: Perhaps; playing with it. Not leading; awakening your responsibility so that you yourself perceive it. You understand? Not I show it to you and you say, ‘By Jove, that’s right.’ That is back again to the filthy business. You follow? We have had that; people as examples showing it to you, and you accepting it and saying, ‘That’s right.’ And you become another monkey following him. Not you. You understand, sir? Is there another way? We know the traditional ways: example, authority, coaxing, explaining, taking infinite care. They have done that at Brockwood for five years and look what has happened. So I say to myself: if this is not producing the fruit, what is there… is there a way of producing the fruit, or is this inevitable? You follow, sir?
1:22:20 (Pause) TC: Well, obviously, for the most part, conditioning and cause and effect on the… pleasure, pain, these are the factors, in subtler or nicer forms, that even the most conscientious institutions use.
1:22:56 K: Yes, quite.
1:22:57 TC: And it’s up to us, or up to the person, to see the failure of that, and in that person discover something else; in yourself get rid of the error.
1:23:23 K: No, Ted. Look, Ted, you have tried all those ways and the fruit hasn’t ripened.
1:23:40 What will you do? You say, that is not the way — right? — somehow it hasn’t happened.
1:23:52 Right? Now, what will you do?
1:23:56 TC: Well, I must see the tendency to try to use that in...
1:24:06 K: You are finished with it.
1:24:08 TC: Right.
1:24:09 K: Then what will you do? You have finished the example, coaxing, analysing, talking.
1:24:23 That has not changed the mind — you follow? — it still remains crooked and all the rest of it. Now, if you don’t do any of those things, what will you do?
1:24:35 Q: You stop looking for a method.
1:24:45 K: Yes. Look further. What is that?
1:24:50 Q: You realize that there is no method, perhaps another dimension.
1:24:54 K: Ah, you are going back to methods: there may be another method. When you discard these methods, you discard methods.
1:25:02 Q: You have to explore. You have to say, ‘I don’t know. What am I going to do? Let’s do it,’ you know, ‘let’s do it together,’ if they are at the same point that you are, if...
1:25:15 K: No, no, my lady, just listen. If you discard these methods you discard all methods. Right?
1:25:24 Q: Yes.
1:25:26 K: There is no better method – all methods…
1:25:31 Q: …are methods.
1:25:33 K: …don’t seem to work. Therefore you discards methods – in which is included examples, coaxing, all that. Then what will you do? Mathematically, sir, your problem — what will you do?
1:25:52 TC: Physics.
1:25:53 K: Physics, all right. What will you do? Here is a new problem to you. Being responsible you have to find an answer. You follow?
1:26:19 Q: Well, we have looked at the… we’ve rejected an interaction between... the careful…
1:26:33 K: That’s accepted — kindness, being kind — you have done all that. Millions have done it.
1:26:42 TC: Well, is the problem in the student or is the problem in the staff?
1:26:48 K: I am asking you, as an educator, feeling responsible, with this flame, what will you do?
1:26:56 Q: Is it possible that I feel responsible but I am not completely free so I don’t know?
1:27:05 K: I don’t know. Sir, when you feel responsible you forget about yourself. You understand?
1:27:18 You are responsible. You are responsible to the parent who has brought to you that child.
1:27:24 Q: Well, sir, when you have discarded all methods then is not something else going to operate, that intelligence?
1:27:32 K: I am asking you!
1:27:33 Q: It will operate.
1:27:35 K: Ah! What is it? Tell me what.
1:27:38 Q: Well, I don’t know. I mean, as you say, it’s not the ego operating.
1:27:42 K: No, not the ego. No, no, you are missing it, please. You see you have tried being kind, explaining, discussing, pointing out, talking, gaining his confidence, and you giving your confidence, you give him your affection, he feels that you care for him, and at the end of five years he becomes a monster like the rest of them — right? — modified, slightly more kind, a little more this and a little more… but he still… he hasn’t got that flame which you want him to have. Now, what will you do?
1:28:26 (Pause) Sir, in physics if you have a problem, what do you do? Answer this, sir. Look at it as a physicist. You have got a new problem and you know very well you can’t apply the old methods, because if you apply the old methods the answer will be according to the old methods.
1:29:05 TC: Well, generally that’s the first thing you do, try all the old methods.
1:29:08 K: You have done it.
1:29:10 TC: Yes.
1:29:11 K: Now, what will you do? How will you answer a psychical problem that’s put to you?
1:29:22 Q: By becoming silent. By being silent.
1:29:31 K: No, I am putting it to him now. Not silent – you have got to do something! You have the responsibility of my son in front of you. It’s no good saying, ‘I am going to be silent’ – he will say, ‘What is this business?’ TC: Well, the first thing you would have to do is to understand the problem very well.
1:29:57 K: There is the problem; you have understood it. You can’t dodge it. (Laughter) That’s what you are trying to do now.
1:30:10 TC: Well, I mean, I’m really not trying to dodge it, I’m trying to see…
1:30:16 K: It is there.
1:30:17 TC: I’m trying to see your point.
1:30:18 K: Yes, see my point. My point is very clear, which is: you want for the child to have this immense flame of responsibility so that when he grows up he is responsible for all humanity.
1:30:36 You understand? You know what I’m… That’s obvious, sir – you understand? He talked about it this morning and you have heard it, if you have heard it. And you want to convey it to him, so that being with you he has got it. You understand?
1:30:58 TC: Well, we could… when you are doing… you’re doing something with us now. You are doing something with us.
1:31:08 K: Obviously.
1:31:09 TC: Obviously. Now, if you were a student...
1:31:12 K: Ah! No, no, don’t move away from what you have just now said. For God’s sake, you are too quick. What has taken place? You are a physicist. You apply all the old methods, and the old methods haven’t solved your problem, so what do you do?
1:31:55 Q: Become intensely aware.
1:32:00 K: You are aware. You are aware that these methods, these systems, this cajoling, talking, having gained his confidence, all that, hasn’t produced the flower that you want him... And as a physicist he has got a new problem and you say: how do you solve this problem? You have got brains, you have got capacity, and you have used that capacity, that brain in the old methods. Right? And you say, ‘No, right, I won’t use those methods anymore, it’s out. They are stupid; it’s like knocking against a wall hoping that wall will open a door,’ and therefore you give it up; you never go near that wall again.
1:33:06 TC: I think maybe physics may be a bad example, it’s...
1:33:11 K: Ah, cut out physics or any other thing. Now, what will you do? What is taking place here?
1:33:23 What time is it? I’m tired.
1:33:28 MZ: It’s half past five.
1:33:32 Q: Five forty.
1:33:35 Q: Really?
1:33:36 K: Jesus. What will you do?
1:33:39 TC: You must really stop trying to use the...
1:33:44 K: You have got to do… something has to take place.
1:33:48 Q: It has to take place right here. What you are trying to tell us, it has to take place right here.
1:33:58 K: Yes. Is it taking place? He said the same thing in a different way. You have analysed, you have searched, you have discussed, you have said, ‘By Jove, this is right, this is wrong’ — you follow — and that hasn’t operated. Your mind is not awake to this flame, is not involved in this flame, is not burning with it. So you say now: why? You have tried all this.
1:34:52 (Pause) I think we’d better stop, don’t you? Sorry, I’ve talked an hour and a half this morning, an hour. That’s enough. When do we meet again? With us only, not new people and start it over. You follow? Not that we can’t admit new people or we are exclusive, but it means starting all over again. Right?
1:35:27 TC: Well, when would you be rested?
1:35:33 K: Now, sir, look what has happened to you. What has happened to you?
1:35:40 TC: I thought I was answering a question that you just asked.
1:35:45 K: I am asking you: what’s happened to you at the end of an hour and a half? I am the teacher and you are the student.
1:35:56 TC: You said you were tired.
1:35:57 K: Ah, wait, wait. Just finish it. I am the teacher for the time being and you are the student for the time being.
1:36:09 TC: Yes.
1:36:12 K: What has happened?
1:36:19 TC: I’m going to try to answer that.
1:36:23 K: He put that question. Right?
1:36:27 TC: Yes. I am going… and I don’t know, the description may be poor. I have obviously let go of certain ways of trying to...
1:36:40 K: May I say something? (Pause in recording) K: …a germ has been planted into you. Don’t say… (inaudible) – let it answer you, not you answer it. Right, sir?
1:36:58 (Pause) TC: Can I tell a little story here?
1:37:06 K: Delighted.
1:37:09 TC: When I was a new teacher, it was my first year of teaching at a certain school, I was selected to participate in a week-long conference on teaching, how to teach. And day after day it was people, old teachers got up and delivered a lecture on how to teach – how I teach, how you should teach, how we should teach. I could barely keep awake. And then there was one teacher got up and instead of teaching how to teach, he picked a subject and he taught for twenty minutes. The subject was cartoons and he just picked it out of the air and began teaching. And I have forgotten the whole conference except that twenty minutes where instead of talking about teaching there was a demonstration of how… not how to teach but a demonstration...
1:38:17 K: No, a demonstration of teaching.
1:38:19 TC: ...of teaching.
1:38:23 K: That’s right.
1:38:26 MS: There was a teaching, you mean, not a demonstration.
1:38:28 TC: Right. There was a teaching, yes.
1:38:29 K: That’s better. We’d better stop, don’t you? When do we meet again?
1:38:39 May I tell you another story which I recently heard? I’ve told them so… Nixon goes to Washington and says, ‘Mr President, what am I to do? I am in great trouble.’ Washington says, ‘Do what I did: don’t tell a lie.’ And then he goes to Jefferson. He says, ‘Mr President, what am I to do? I am in a dreadful predicament.’ He said, ‘Do what I did: follow the constitution.’ And then he goes to Lincoln and says, ‘Mr President, what am I to do? I am in terrible trouble.’ He says, ‘Dick, relax and go to a theatre.’ (Laughter)