Krishnamurti - Can we bring about such intelligence that the mind is never conditioned?

Krishnamurti Subtitles

GSBR74DT05 - Can we bring about such intelligence that the mind is never conditioned?
Gstaad, Switzerland - 4 August 1974
Discussion with Teachers 05

0:01	This is J. Krishnamurti's 5th discussion with teachers in Gstaad, 1974.
0:11	Krishnamurti: This really began originally… at least at Saanen we have had four or five meetings of those people who are going to be permanently at Brockwood, to discuss with them, or dialogue or have a conversation with them about the necessity of forming a school, having a school where we are concerned chiefly with unconditioning the mind, and not turning out glorified bourgeois.
1:18	That’s what we have been talking about: what to do, not in terms of a system, not in terms of authority, punishment, reward and all that, but what can we do to help them to free their minds which are already conditioned; whether we should take a year, or can it be done within a week?
2:09	Sorry to turn my back; I don’t know what to do.
2:16	I’ll sit here, sir. Questioner: (Inaudible) Q: You’re all right.
2:21	K: Ça va, ça va, ça va. That is really the main problem. Right? Is it possible – we were discussing, talking about it last time we were here – is it possible to create an atmosphere so irrevocable that the student when he comes into it immediately feels the importance of dropping his desire for beer, whisky — you follow? — the whole background?
3:26	Is that possible? That’s what we left off.
3:42	(Pause) I don’t think any schools have tried this.
3:53	They have tried to uncondition them, but condition them in a different direction.
4:01	And whether we can do this, so that the student is something totally different from the whole mess of the world.
4:22	I think that is real education. That’s what we were talking about, with Mrs Simmons and the rest of us.
4:35	And what can we do? Factually, not theoretically. Factually what can we do? He’s a professor from Austria; that’s why I’m paying great respect to him!
5:04	(Laughter) Q: (Inaudible) K: (Laughs) That’s all right, sir, we’re only joking.
5:23	(Pause) You see, we have got two problems here: the students come conditioned, by their parents, by the society, by the children around and so on and so on.
5:40	That’s one problem, to uncondition them and so on. And to prevent future conditioning.
5:56	They may be softened, they may have slightly broken down their conditioning, but when they leave they take on the other.
6:08	So, is it possible to create such intelligence, to bring about such intelligence, that the mind is never conditioned?
6:31	This is a conversation, sir, please...
6:44	(Pause) This is not a progressive school; at least, Brockwood is not a progressive school.
6:55	You know what I mean by a progressive school – better, all the rest of it.
7:03	And since it isn’t, can we all, who are involved in it and have the responsibility for the students, in the very process of unconditioning the student, uncondition ourselves?
7:27	In the very process of it, not say, ‘I must be unconditioned first and then later I’ll uncondition the student.’ In the very discussion of it, in the very investigation of it, both the educator and the educated begin to see the importance and the necessity of freedom from conditioning.
7:50	Now, how is this to be done?
7:57	Not as a system, not as a modus operandi and so on, so on.
8:05	Can we talk this over?
8:15	I am the student, you are the teachers. I come with my family tradition, the racial tradition, the cultural weight on me.
8:32	In what way can you awaken this intelligence which naturally dissolves the conditioning, not replace it by another conditioning?
8:50	I am the student, you are the teacher — what is our relationship?
9:03	What can you do with me? I am resisting, I am frightened, homesick, I am slightly bewildered, or greatly bewildered, and you are meeting me the first time.
9:21	Go on, sir… (inaudible) Huges van der Straten: (Inaudible) I may have to take the word, I mean.
9:37	If you were coming for the first time, I would give you a chance, but if you don’t behave properly, probably I would say, ‘You had better go home if you are homesick.’ K: No, no.
9:48	My father has sent me (laughs). My father has sent me; I can’t go home because my father says, ‘That’s the right place.
10:03	I have investigated it and I think they are on the right track. I want you to stay there. There is no question of your behaving or not behaving and being sent home. You are there.’ HS: Well, I wasn’t here the last time you discussed the problem, so maybe I am stepping a little fast into the problem.
10:30	K: Yes, we have gone into this very carefully.
10:37	The student has been sent knowing the atmosphere, the whole thing, and the parent doesn’t want the child back, because he feels his responsibility, and therefore his responsibility is to say, ‘Go to Brockwood and you have got to remain there.’ That’s what happens in ordinary school.
11:05	I mean, in ordinary school they say, ‘Please, you are there, whether you like it or not, lump it.’ Here, if he is absolutely impossible of course he goes, but that’s not the point.
11:21	My point is, how can you awaken this intelligence in the boy within a very short period?
11:34	Because otherwise there is going to be resistance, there is going to be a group formation and there is going to be a battle between the teachers.
11:48	It must be done in a very short time. Mary Zimbalist: You gave us a week the other day.
11:56	K: (Laughs) I gave a week, the other day.
11:59	HS: That is very generous, I found.
12:01	K: I wanted to do it instantly, but there was a little hesitation about it. Now, how can this be done?
12:10	Q: I think first one has to throw out all titles and all conditioning, which could build a wall in us.
12:23	Then let us see what we are doing, both, in this together.
12:29	K: Sir, look, there is a difficulty in there, too. Somebody has to be in charge. In charge: somebody has to be responsible to the government, taxes, to police – you follow?
12:53	Somebody has to say, ‘It is our school, we are the authority. Not the authority over the children, and all the rest - we are the trustees.’ Admitted…
13:07	And we have gone into this question of authority pretty thoroughly for the last five years.
13:18	No sense of somebody dominating. That we all meet and discuss - Mrs Simmons and the staff and everybody meets, discusses what is the right kind of… whether you are the right student, you follow the teacher and so on, so on, so on.
13:35	It is really non… no, no, no — democratic — no — in that sense.
13:42	Now, the boy is used to authority when he comes, and here there is no authority, so he bursts.
13:51	Q: One has to see… (inaudible) K: Wait.
13:58	No, wait. I want to find out a different way. He bursts with a sense of freedom and all his repressed reactions come out.
14:13	He says, ‘Who are you to tell me? I am going to the pub. I’ll sit up late. I like that girl, I am going to sleep with her.’ You follow, sir? Everything is going to come out, and what are you going to do?
14:37	And in England — right? - the law says if there is any kind of sexual promiscuity in school, the school will be closed.
14:52	So my point, our point is, after discussing for several days - in fact, for months we have been discussing this, because we talk to the students three times a week, teachers and everybody, our point is this – not our point, our… what we are trying to find out: is it possible within a very short period to awaken that intelligence in the student and so he voluntarily drops his conditioning?
15:33	Put it very briefly.
15:40	Q: I mean, it’s an abstract construction, of course.
15:55	It’s an abstract construction; it’s not a reality now.
15:59	K: I’m not sure it is an abstract idea.
16:07	HS: Don’t you think, Krishnaji, it depends also of the children who comes?
16:14	With certain, maybe you can right away, I mean, obtain this deconditioning; with some others...
16:19	K: Some come fairly fresh, some come heavily conditioned, some come frightened - you know all that goes on in a school.
16:30	I have unfortunately or fortunately been connected for the last forty, fifty years with schools, in India, in different places.
16:40	I am not a teacher there; I go there to preach (laughs).
16:44	HS: But don’t you have the same problem when you are preaching, I mean?
16:51	K: (Laughs) Now, that is the question we must resolve.
16:57	Q: I think there are two issues: one is to provide an environment so that learning can take place, because if the child is at the pub no learning can take place, there is not a… or not of the learning of the kind that you hope to achieve, because the stimulus for the change cannot follow him wherever he chooses to wander; it simply isn’t the right…
17:37	K: You’ve got to come a little more...
17:42	Q: If the child is simply wandering, then learning of the sort that you are speaking about cannot take place in a systematic way; you simply can’t… it is not practical for teachers to follow the child wherever he chooses to go.
17:52	K: No, it’s impossible, don’t.
17:53	Q: So in some way the minimum requirements for...
17:58	K: …of restriction — put it any way you like.
18:01	Q: Okay, restrictions; so that you have a beginning point for learning.
18:07	K: Look, I am given a week as a teacher, and within that week I must find out how to awaken, arouse this intelligence which will break down the conditioning.
18:27	Within a week I have got to do it.
18:29	Q: If you do it for the first time, given the restraints of one week, you might not be successful.
18:37	K: Wait. I don’t know.
18:39	Q: You don’t know, but I…
18:40	K: I am going to find out.
18:41	Q: Okay. One way of looking at it, then, is that I feel the child learns only by a process of his own behaviour.
18:56	Other people can provide a stimulus for this.
19:00	K: No, that means I become the example.
19:02	Q: Not at all. Not at all. A child must for himself assimilate the ideas, work through those ideas in terms of his own view of the world himself.
19:15	He cannot deal with an example because he cannot live that example. He cannot learn, he cannot see with that.
19:17	K: No, madame, I think we are talking of two different things, sorry. Sorry, we are talking of two different things.
19:29	Q: I think this can only be done to the extent that the teacher himself has more or less felt this.
19:37	K: No, sir. I am conditioned as a teacher and I have got in front of me boys and girls who are conditioned.
19:48	How am I to awaken that intelligence both in myself and in the student so that in a very short period the thing is broken?
20:02	I must find a way. Don’t say, ‘I don’t know.’ I must find a way. That’s my problem — you understand? – that’s my responsibility.
20:10	Q: That’s just a word. I think that he feels also responsible in a short time that he is one of the group...
20:17	K: Yes, we are...
20:18	Q: …that he is together…
20:19	K: We have… unfortunate…
20:20	Q: …but he feels this responsibility that he wants to stay, that he wants to build and come… (inaudible) together.
20:28	K: No, madame. No, I am not concerned with the boy at all.
20:36	Q: (Inaudible) …ourselves.
20:39	K: For the time being, I am not concerned with the boy or the student. I am concerned whether such a thing can be done.
20:49	Q: It’s up to us.
20:55	Q: Krishnaji, before we talked about having an environment, a very serious environment, that would be there among the staff when the students came.
21:06	K: Look, you are one of the staff; there are half a dozen of us, or more, in this room who are staff of Brockwood.
21:16	We have been talking for the last so many months, and this time, and we feel we will undertake… we will remain there, if you don’t go away; this is our home, our responsibility, we are committed to it.
21:39	That’s right; I hope that is what we have said. And we are now asking of that group whether it is possible at all for such a thing to happen.
22:01	It must happen. Otherwise we are playing, we are going round and round in circles. So I want to find out.
22:13	MZ: (Inaudible) K: Somebody’s car in the way?
22:23	MZ: Yes.
22:24	Q: It needs a great deal of intelligence to see what is happening, what is going on.
22:33	K: How do I come upon that, sir? Here we are, we are the staff.
22:41	Q: In acting, of course.
22:45	K: We are the staff. We have lived there, some of us, for four years, some of us for three years, some of us for two years or a year, and we feel now that we are responsible.
23:05	We have deliberately committed ourselves to it. Right? Or am I saying something which is not true? Right, sir? Mr Joe?
23:13	Q: (Inaudible) K: All right. What? Did he say yes or… Dorothy Simmons: Yes, he said yes.
23:22	K: Yes, yes, all right. Now we are committed to it. We may be all dunderheads, stupid, but we say, ‘Look, this is our responsibility.’ We want in this responsibility to change our own conditioning and the students’ conditioning, because otherwise life isn’t worth it.
23:49	You follow? Life is too short. And we don’t want to turn out glorified bourgeois. That’s absolutely certain. Now, what are we to do?
24:09	We must find a way.
24:11	Q: It seems a very short time.
24:15	K: Very short.
24:21	HS: Krishnaji, I might be just…
24:28	K: Allez-y, allez-y.
24:29	HS: …repeating things you have been already discussing before, and I read some of the reports you had with the discussions you had in Brockwood itself between the staff and the students about what the problem was, what it came there and how it could be solved.
24:48	If I understand you correctly you seem to be trying to investigate today what could be improved.
24:56	K: Ah, not improved.
24:59	HS: Oh.
25:00	K: No, sir. You see, sir...
25:03	HS: In other words, if I may interrupt you again, I mean, you could start from the facts, I mean, what is happening now in Brockwood…
25:08	K: Ah, no, I want…
25:10	HS: …and what they have already achieved, I mean.
25:13	K: We have got a very good field. We have got everything — a school, a group of people, etc. I want to… if you will forgive me, I want to think of it anew; we may go back to the old but I want to think of it anew, the whole thing, to let more waters flow into it rather than less waters flow into it, to open the dam so that we are pushed along.
25:38	MS: Could you perhaps explain to some of those who haven’t been here before, Krishnaji, your talk about tradition, A and B and the ‘other’?
25:49	I think they ought to have that.
25:51	K: Yes. Would you, somebody, explain that. Would you explain, sir?
25:57	MS: Yes, well, what Krishnaji has generally been saying is that all the activities that we have been trying to do up to now — not only us, of course, but everybody in the world generally, making any effort at all — has been in the framework of tradition.
26:17	Whether what you have been trying to do is something very good, or whether what you have been trying to do is something very bad, it is all in the framework of tradition.
26:26	And he is asking now, is there an ‘other’, something that is not within that framework which we can, as it were, now plumb, explore, whatever metaphor one likes to use, and therefore - not let loose, but draw on a source of energy which up to now by the traditional methods nobody has been able to draw on?
27:02	I don’t know if that’s…
27:03	K: You have understood that, sir?
27:05	Q: Not quite.
27:06	K: Not quite. It is like this, sir. We have been functioning in the field of tradition: authority, conformity, example, this is good, this is right, you shall do this, you shall not do that.
27:26	Q: From the concept of the tradition.
27:29	K: Yes. We said all that is the concept of tradition. We have been working there.
27:34	Q: Not at Brockwood.
27:36	K: Some… I am not saying at Brockwood.
27:38	Q: No, no, don’t think so.
27:39	K: Some of it we probably have; that’s not the point. And along that line there is very little new.
27:54	Can we leave this line, this bank of tradition, and come upon that energy which is not this?
28:07	Drink at a fountain which is not traditional?
28:12	Q: Can we stand at the beginning and the end at once?
28:19	K: Yes, of course, it’s one.
28:22	Q: Yes.
28:23	K: Now, that is what we have been talking about; that’s a resume after a long time, after many talks and discussions.
28:31	Now, let’s come back to the point, which is, can we, as a group, committed to Brockwood, committed to a responsibility, which is not the responsibility of tradition, of a master, disciple, of a teacher, student - committed to that - in what manner, or in what… how is this intelligence to be born?
29:04	I must stick to that because otherwise we will wander off.
29:17	And I feel it must be done in a short time, because the pressure is much too great — the pressure of civilization, the pressure of the families, the pressure of environment.
29:39	And if we don’t do it immediately the pressure will swallow us.
29:49	So we were saying, put yourself in that position as a staff member in a school which is concerned with this - what would you do?
30:20	They are asking me. So I said, I would create an atmosphere, an atmosphere - (laughs) they are all waiting for me! – an atmosphere first of a complete whole, where there is complete security.
31:31	Not intellectually — security.
31:38	And a sense of immovable – I’m finding the word, it is difficult – an unshakable, immovable reality.
32:07	Q: In this whole?
32:12	K: In this whole, of course. Reality - not an idea, not a concept, but a thing that is there, living.
32:34	And when the student comes the very first day, whether old or new, he should feel this thing, that there are a group of people there whom he can trust.
33:13	Not that he will be allowed to do what he likes, but the feeling of trust.
33:21	I don’t know if I...
33:31	And the feeling is never shaken. That’s what I want to get at.
33:40	Q: You mean it’s never shaken?
33:45	K: Never shaken, the sense of trust. Ted Cartee: Last time you - well, we were asked what we would do in that situation, what would we do when we are faced with the student?
33:58	And I remember the high point of your last talk – I am sure we all remember – is that you said that you wouldn’t raise even a finger to help him, not even a finger.
34:09	K: That’s right, that’s right.
34:10	MZ: Did you mean by that, that the sense of this thing…
34:13	K: There must be a little clarity in this matter.
34:20	HS: Is that true, Krishnaji, to help the teacher or to help the student?
34:23	K: No, no, let’s be clear.
34:25	MZ: What did you mean by that, Krishnaji?
34:28	K: No, wait a minute, I must... We’ve discussed so many things, sir. Ted – that’s Mr Ted; he and I were talking, and we were all talking together - I said, to move from the traditional bank I wouldn’t lift a finger to help him to move from that bank, because his own intelligence will move him.
35:01	And that intelligence is stable — you follow? — it isn’t one day intelligent, the next day not intelligent.
35:12	And the student, coming into that atmosphere of feeling completely at home - which he doesn’t at home - completely the feeling, ‘By Jove, here are a group of people who seem to be awfully serious, and there is a feeling of — you know?
35:38	— a stability, a feeling of… they don’t think in terms of punishment and reward.’ Q: Is it not the absolute truth in reality at all?
35:52	K: Yes, yes. And they have... they are that.
35:55	Q: There is nothing between them.
35:56	K: Yes, that’s right.
35:57	Q: But in that atmosphere it seems the most important ingredient would be the feeling that the student has a feeling that something is going on there that he cannot categorise, that he cannot fit...
36:11	K: Quite. Yes.
36:13	Q: …into his picture of the world.
36:14	K: He has been used to categorizing at home and at other schools. Here he comes into something quite new and feels first rather frightened, and he realizes you are not frightening people, and therefore the immediate reaction because of not being frightened, he says, ‘By Jove, I’ll trust them.’ Q: It’s the only way one can go at all, I think.
36:45	K: Just a minute, sir. It is much deeper than that, it is. And I want also in that atmosphere, in that feeling in that house at Brockwood – I don’t say it isn’t there or it is there, I am just investigating anew – a sense of – don’t misunderstand the word I use – a sense of sacredness, a holy ground, that when you enter it you must walk softly.
37:52	Which doesn’t mean pictures, symbols, authority, cross, and this… (laughs) none of that.
37:58	Q: You use this word holy very often, I think.
38:06	K: Now, can we create that?
38:16	It may exist at Brockwood. I am not questioning that it doesn’t exist. I am saying only, we have reached a certain point; we must open the doors for much more.
38:35	(Pause) You see, sir, in the old days, at least in the traditional old days in India, the teacher – even now it takes place; a man I know, he is supposed to be first rank, top drum, mridangam, they call it, a drum; he lives with his disciples who are learning that.
39:15	They wash his clothes, they look after him, and though he is married they go to the market, and they are learning all the time.
39:24	It is a sense of his responsibility, and their responsibility to him.
39:33	And he tells them only when they can go out and play, public.
39:40	And it may take five years or fifteen years.
39:48	So it is a thing to which you are dedicated – you follow? — it isn’t just you drop it.
39:55	Now, to come back: can we as a group break down the bank of tradition because we see what it… because we are grown up people, not students, can we break down that bank in ourselves and therefore think totally anew?
40:30	Q: In Jewish tradition, the ancient high priest would prepare himself each day for a year before he could enter the sanctum sanctorum.
40:43	K: Of course, of course, that’s... I told you the other day.
40:45	Q: We only have a week, yes?
40:48	K: I know. But we want the student to enter right now, not fifteen years later.
41:07	So that is our problem, sir, and we have got to solve it.
41:15	We have got the ground, the house, all the environment, a beautiful environment; we have got people who are capable, who can run it, who can look after, who have different qualities and talents and all the rest of it.
41:38	And we say, for God’s sake let the waters flow much more.
41:45	Not that they have not flowed before but now let the waters of the ocean enter.
41:56	(Pause) You see, sir, if we put our minds to it we can solve this.
42:19	There is nothing we can’t solve. As the scientists say, ‘Tell us what you want, we will produce it.’ Q: (Inaudible) K: That’s what I would have said.
42:33	But here I believe we can do the same thing in a different dimension.
42:38	Q: (Inaudible) K: Therefore what is the energy, or what is the capacity, what is the drive that will create this thing?
42:50	Ted?
42:51	MZ: Krishnaji, you did give one analogy or simile in describing the fact that we are all, as he put it, on this bank.
42:59	Say it’s a river, we are on this bank where these two things he spoke of, good and evil, which we all know and live in, we live in this level of what he called A and B, good and evil.
43:12	And usually that emanates from people – am I right? – and we usually act and speak and think and everything from that.
43:21	He said that if we saw that totally and thereby were through with it, we would be on this other bank.
43:33	And from there you spoke of teaching. From there, if we are there because of having seen this, then we are living in that and that is the quality that you wanted the student to feel.
43:46	K: Yes, we talked that… we talked in one of the meetings here.
43:47	Q: Somebody said you could also drop into the river. (Laughter) Q: And the child must be on the other bank before learning begins.
44:07	K: There is no bank, there is only a river. That’s a simile.
44:11	Q: You used another one: there is a boulder in front of you. Krishnamurti is standing on the other side but he won’t tell you how to get over; what are you going to do?
44:20	K: Sir, that’s the problem we have.
44:22	Q: Is he standing on the other side?
44:24	Q: There is a boulder, there is a rock on the road, you have to cross.
44:29	K: We have this problem.
44:35	HS: Krishnaji, although you said this morning that one shouldn’t try, but act, even in a case like this...
44:44	K: That man, sir, he was saying — if I remember rightly, standing up there – he said, ‘I have tried two million,’ whatever it was…
44:53	Q: Two million times.
44:54	K: And I say, you can’t try the meditation. I went into that.
44:58	HS: But in a case like this, I mean, even without discussing about the exact meaning of trying or not trying, I mean…
45:08	K: Sir…
45:09	HS: Isn’t it in the course of acting that you can...
45:11	K: Look, what am I to do? I have got half a dozen students in front of me. I am conditioned, they are conditioned. Perhaps I am not so conditioned because I am a little older, a little more thoughtful, and they are mindless, merely reflexive, you know, reacting.
45:33	Now, how am I… what am I to do?
45:38	HS: Well, that’s the real problem, I mean...
45:42	K: I am not going to make it a problem.
45:44	HS: Well, I think you have to do it as you go along.
45:48	K: Ah, no, no. No, I am not going to make it a problem. I am not going to sit down and say, ‘By Jove, what am I to do?’ Think it out, rationalise it, draw out a plan, follow it — I am not going to do that because that doesn’t work.
46:07	HS: No, but don’t you have to do it, I mean, as you…
46:09	K: Wait. I am going to find out. I say, thinking it out won’t operate.
46:15	HS: No, sir.
46:16	K: Right?
46:17	HS: No, agreed.
46:18	K: Then what am I to do?
46:25	Thinking out implies memory, all that business, so I refuse to be caught in that and make it a problem.
46:34	That’s the first thing I have got to learn. Right, Ted? I am not going to make it a problem under any circumstances, therefore I am not seeking an answer to the problem.
46:52	My answer will be dictated by my conditioning.
46:56	Q: So live in your conditioning, unconditioned.
47:01	K: I am watching it, you see? I will not make a problem of it. Which doesn’t mean I am not aware of the problem. I am aware of the problem.
47:22	So what takes place?
47:31	I am there, confronted with those boys; I have created an atmosphere – and I mean it, because I feel that way; I feel this is something sacred, holy, a feeling of irrevocable truth, not invented by the priest, or symbols and all the rest of it; and it is their home as well as mine.
48:04	After creating that – created in the sense I am living it, it is born out of my mouth, ears.
48:13	You follow? And he comes; he brings the problem, I don’t bring the problem.
48:25	So I am not going make his problem into my problem.
48:29	Q: Meeting is the problem.
48:30	K: I am not going to even... That’s what I want to find out.
48:38	Q: Meeting is a challenge.
48:44	K: Meeting the challenge. I am inadequate.
48:46	Q: Well, you can’t say that. If you say you are inadequate, of course you will be inadequate.
48:53	K: No, I am inadequate, I see. Look at it. The challenge is – am I getting too excited or…? You are all right? (Laughter) The challenge is the boy, the student. And I am not totally unconditioned — you follow? — I am still conditioned, I have got spots, blind spots, all the rest of it. I will respond to that challenge inadequately, bound to, and make it a problem, because my response which is inadequate is going to create a problem.
49:32	Right? I wonder... So I will not respond to the challenge.
49:39	Q: It’s our problem.
49:41	K: Wait. Therefore there is no problem, in the sense… No, no, what am I to do? If I don’t respond to the challenge what has taken place in me? Brian Jenkins: Fear.
49:54	K: Ah, no. No, no, no. No. No.
50:00	Q: There is no communication, for example.
50:01	K: Wait, sir, wait. I don’t know. Wait. I am going to find out. No fear – there is no question of fear at all because it is your home and it’s my home.
50:12	BJ: Maybe I misunderstood you, Krishnaji. You are saying that there is a challenge to the student. I am inadequate. If I don’t respond to that challenge, what I was saying was that then I am not meeting the challenge.
50:26	K: No, sir. No. I am saying, being conditioned, or half conditioned or a little conditioned, my response to that challenge will be inadequate.
50:37	Q: Right.
50:38	K: The inadequacy of the response creates the problem.
50:43	Q: Yes.
50:44	MS: But if you realize your inadequacy you’ve removed the problem.
50:49	K: Wait; I’m asking. So, I discover in the challenge my inadequacy. I don’t know… Therefore I don’t respond according to my inadequacy. The challenge is going to create the action. I wonder if you… Got it, Ted? You see what I mean?
51:17	Q: Yes.
51:18	TC: But the challenge may take the form of an action on a student, a direction.
51:25	K: Yes. Yes, he will begin to smoke.
51:28	TC: Right.
51:30	K: I don’t want to deal with details yet – he will begin to smoke, drink or swear or whatever he does.
51:37	Now, how am I to act knowing my inadequacy – you follow? – and his inadequacy?
51:49	And I want to awaken that intelligence in him and in myself so that he will stop smoking without even my telling him.
52:02	I have done this, sir. I won’t go into it; it doesn’t matter, that’s…
52:08	Q: (Inaudible) K: No, that’s not important, because that’s an individual thing. But I am saying collectively, a group of us, what can we do? First, I don’t want to have a problem.
52:27	Right? Problems are dreadful — sleepless nights. (Laughs) I don’t want to have a problem.
52:38	And he smokes — let’s take that. What shall I do? It is his home, trust, the irrevocable truth of this thing, and I feel he is in a sacred place.
53:05	I feel all that; I have created that. And he smokes. What shall I do?
53:14	Q: Make a rule.
53:16	K: Make a rule? (Laughs) What would you do? Ted, sir, what would you do? Remember the atmosphere; that is tremendously important.
53:35	Come on, Ted, what would you do?
53:46	The student smokes. How to awaken his intelligence?
53:57	TC: Well, I can see coming very close to him with that particular, that specific thing, of his smoking.
54:09	Now, what his response would be that week is very hard to say, but...
54:16	K: No, I don’t want him to have response of denial, denying that, saying...
54:22	TC: In fact, I would guess that even if he got a strong understanding from our being together when he was smoking, he might… what would be… there would be a seed…
54:40	K: Ted, I don’t want him to feel that he is doing something wrong.
54:47	TC: Right. No.
54:49	K: Wait. Or that what he is doing is right.
54:54	TC: No.
54:55	K: I don’t want him to be put in a position of right and wrong, which is the tradition.
55:03	Right? So what am I to do?
55:14	I don’t want ever, while he is with me in that school, to be put in that position which is tradition: ‘don’t do this, do that’, ‘you shall, you shall not’ – you follow?
55:34	— all that stuff. I don’t want to cultivate the feeling of guilt or ‘I am right’.
55:43	How do you do it?
55:52	(Pause) Go on, sir.
56:02	TC: I see a problem for me here. We want to… now we want to operate unconditionally.
56:12	K: No. No, I am conditioned.
56:16	TC: Right, but it’s...
56:18	K: But I realize… I have learnt this. I have just now learnt this. I am conditioned and he is conditioned. I don’t want him — because I am older and a little more thoughtful, a little more objective and so on and so on — I don’t want to put that student in a position of guilt or not guilt.
56:44	I don’t want him to feel, ‘By Jove, I have done something wrong. This is a holy ground and, by God, I must drop it.’ Q: The difficulty in this is it is not enough for a short time; sometimes it happens, but a student forgets it in a certain atmosphere.
57:07	K: That’s irrelevant.
57:08	Q: It’s not enough.
57:09	K: That’s… (inaudible).
57:10	Q: It’s so difficult.
57:11	K: Now, what am I to do? Right? What am I to do?
57:21	TC: Well, the smoking, as this specific case happens to be, can be just as new a fact...
57:32	K: No, Ted, you haven’t time – you follow? – you haven’t time to discuss all this with the chap.
57:41	TC: No, not discuss, maybe the same thing...
57:43	K: Look, take me. I smoke. I am a student. You have created this atmosphere, you have worked at it, it’s your blood and everything is in it, and I come in and begin to smoke.
58:01	BJ: Sir, if you feel that atmosphere would you smoke?
58:04	K: I would because I have just come from the ugly world of tradition. I have just come in there and I... Take it for granted, sir. I may not smoke in front of you but go round the corner and smoke.
58:18	DS: The staff might, too.
58:21	K: The staff might, too. I’m saying — of course, anybody might. Now, I am saying, what shall I do?
58:28	Q: Sir, it seems to me it is a non-communicable transmit. You are asking us to communicate the non-communicable.
58:35	K: I think we can. I am going to do it, sir, wait!
58:39	Q: You are going to put it into words?
58:40	K: I am going to.
58:42	Q: Am I sitting up straight. (Laughter) K: I don’t know yet but we shall find it. We shall find it. I must find it.
58:54	Q: When a question arises, a question that is inherently in the order of things, here the words fail or the boundary of words.
59:02	It’s not wrong, it’s just clearly not the thing that communicates itself, no?
59:07	K: No, sir. I have learnt one thing: it is not a problem to me. And I have learnt another thing: to see that this smoking is not a problem to the child, to the student.
59:28	It is not a thing that he must struggle to give up, and against society and all that kind of stuff.
59:37	Now, how am I to create that?
59:44	Create in the student, in myself, if I smoke. Look, I won’t make a problem of it, I won’t feel guilty, I won’t even struggle to give it up; and I feel the thing must drop away.
1:00:03	Right?
1:00:04	TC: Just to clarify a point — is our objection against smoking the proven fact that it’s...
1:00:15	K: I took smoking, it’s just a case.
1:00:19	TC: No, no, I want to take the smoking out of being just a case. I want to see under what grounds do we… you know, we must always have a reason.
1:00:33	K: I will tell you. First of all, doctors and others have said it affects your lungs.
1:00:38	TC: Fine.
1:00:39	K: One. Two, it is a waste of money, smoking or going up in smoke (laughs) — right? - and it’s unnecessary.
1:00:48	BJ: It’s anti-social.
1:00:49	K: Why have unnecessary habits? You have many habits, why add another?
1:00:57	Q: Well, people often smoke because they are nervous, and perhaps if you have the right atmosphere there will be no need to smoke.
1:01:04	K: No. He is asking, what is wrong with smoking. And we are saying it affects your lungs, it affects your health; I believe it affects your brain also, and I believe it is detrimental in the blood system and all the rest of it.
1:01:21	And why have a habit which is unnecessary?
1:01:26	Q: But, sir, it doesn’t matter because we are dealing with the child non-verbally.
1:01:30	K: No!
1:01:31	Q: So we don’t need reasons. It is understood this is wrong. You understand it’s wrong.
1:01:36	K: No.
1:01:37	Q: You can’t tell…
1:01:38	Q: Who said we were dealing with the child non-verbally?
1:01:40	K: I have got to talk.
1:01:42	Q: We can’t… you said… just two minutes ago you said we can’t sit and talk to him; you don’t have time, you said, to talk.
1:01:47	K: I did not, sir. You are misunderstanding my point.
1:01:50	Q: He said he had no time to give him all the reasons and discuss.
1:01:51	K: You are misunderstanding my point. First, I am not going to make a problem, whether he smokes or not, because I don’t want problems.
1:02:07	A mind that has problems is a mind that is struggling between the conditioning and non-conditioning - battle goes on.
1:02:17	Such a mind is an uneducated, unintelligent mind. Wait. Sorry! So I don’t want a problem. And I want to see that the boy, the student, has no problem when he leaves the school.
1:02:33	No problem – sex problem, money problem, no problem whatsoever.
1:02:45	And therefore I don’t want him to make smoking into a problem.
1:02:53	So what am I to do?
1:02:57	Q: If I expect the child to become unconditioned in one week, I must work to uncondition myself within that one week also.
1:03:06	K: We said that. We said I am conditioned, the student is conditioned.
1:03:15	I can’t wait till I uncondition myself. But in talking about it or become… I uncondition myself and I help the student — it is a mutual relationship of helping…
1:03:31	DS: Isn’t that to reason with them?
1:03:35	K: I may not use reason. I want to find a different way.
1:03:40	DS: Yes, but to talk it over with them is to reason, isn’t it?
1:03:45	K: Then he may feel, ‘By Jove, these people are imposing on me; these people are threatening me,’ feel guilty.
1:03:52	DS: No, before he has even come we have said, ‘Look, we are a vegetarian school, we don’t smoke, we don’t drink’ - we have made clear some simple facts.
1:04:03	K: Simple things, yes.
1:04:04	DS: So that, at once, will give him, if he does smoke, a feeling of guilt without anything being said at all.
1:04:11	K: I want to prevent that.
1:04:12	DS: Yes, so do I, but...
1:04:14	K: That’s the point. How do I prevent it?
1:04:17	Q: You see, Krishnaji, a minute ago…
1:04:19	K: Bearing in mind, Ted, that I want him to live in this house without a single problem.
1:04:25	TC: Yes, now that’s what…
1:04:27	K: See the beauty of it, sir!
1:04:29	TC: Absolutely. Now, given...
1:04:32	K: Darling, first see the depth of it!
1:04:36	HS: That would be paradise on earth, wouldn’t it?
1:04:41	K: No, no! After all, that is education.
1:04:45	Q: But, sir, we are not talking about the beauty of it. There may be seen - one moment, please.
1:04:50	K: Go on, I’m not preventing…
1:04:53	Q: Please.
1:04:54	K: I’m not preventing, go on.
1:04:57	Q: We are talking about how, we’re talking about… We’re talking about how. How is abstract. The moment we are saying that the beauty is seen, if we all understand that, tell us now how.
1:05:08	K: I am doing it, sir! I am doing it!
1:05:10	Q: That we understand also.
1:05:12	K: You are not meeting me. Look, sir, I don’t want to have a problem in my life, and I’ve seen to it that I have no problem, about anything.
1:05:25	And I want the student, when he leaves or when he is there, to have no problem at all; because he must use his mind for something else than solving his beastly little problems.
1:05:43	So I say, now, how am I to bring about a mind in that boy who smokes – I am taking that as an example, don’t jump on it – and not feel guilt or that he say, ‘Oh, I am so sorry I smoke here,’ and then feel inwardly guilt.
1:06:11	I don’t want to create that in him. Wait. Now, what am I to do? This is what I’m… Action: what am I to do? We have, as Mrs Simmons has pointed out, we have told him no smoking, vegetarian, we don’t drink, we don’t fornicate immediately, wait till later, and so on, so on, so on.
1:06:34	What are you to do? What am I to do? Bearing in mind the atmosphere, home, trust, a sense of tremendous truth of what we are talking about, and that is a holy ground.
1:06:58	To me it is a holy ground. You follow, sir? And I want... So, that is the atmosphere. What am I to do?
1:07:06	Q: I mean, first thing is smoking mustn’t be even forbidden.
1:07:13	K: That’s because, sir… Wait, we will leave that for the moment. He smokes. I want to find out what you will do!
1:07:24	Q: If I go through my own process of deconditioning, I can perhaps generate energy and excitement which I can share with the student.
1:07:30	K: Ah, I don’t want to share! You are… You see, you are...
1:07:33	MZ: Then you are propagandizing him, sort of.
1:07:35	Q: I don’t propagandize, I don’t tell him that this is what he has to do at all.
1:07:47	I share the excitement.
1:07:49	DS: Excitement?
1:07:50	K: You are… Please, if I share with him...
1:07:54	Q: You have a… (inaudible) K: …I am already become the example.
1:08:00	Q: No, I didn’t mean to…
1:08:01	K: Just a minute, lady, just a minute. I won’t lift a finger to help him, because all the people have helped him before — the parents, the priests, the government.
1:08:21	I won’t lift a single finger to help that boy. That is irrevocable truth and he knows it the moment he enters the house.
1:08:37	You don’t get the truth of it, that’s what I am saying. Because if I help him I become his guide, I become his guru, his blasted authority, and he says, ‘Sir, what am I to do?’ And he leaves when... and he is still in that position, ‘what am I to do, sir?’, with somebody else.
1:09:00	So I don’t want to be an example, I don’t... So… And yet he is my responsibility, because I am the teacher there, I am part of this group. And I say, my God, what am I to do? Right?
1:09:15	TC: Now, that’s what I see to do.
1:09:21	K: What?
1:09:22	TC: What you just said.
1:09:23	K: What?
1:09:24	TC: What am I to do, and I am responsible.
1:09:28	K: Yes, you are responsible.
1:09:31	TC: And so, given that the situation were present...
1:09:35	K: The situation is there.
1:09:37	TC: Yes. Then I feel ‘what am I to do?’ but I don’t feel to do this or that.
1:09:46	MZ: You mean, you stay with the question and not the answers.
1:09:48	TC: Yes.
1:09:49	Q: I’m not sure.
1:09:50	K: Are you telling me...
1:09:51	Q: I’m not sure - what?
1:09:52	K: He’s… I think… You don’t understand him, I don’t understand what he is saying; let’s find out.
1:09:57	Q: Well, I think I understand him. But what comes to my mind is a danger that behavioural psychologists have used, where every time somebody lights up a cigarette you scowl at him.
1:10:12	K: Ah!
1:10:13	Q: Which is just a subliminal form of punishment.
1:10:15	K: Oh, no, no, no; all that’s out.
1:10:16	Q: Yes, but if we don’t want to let our concern be turned into reward and punishment in that manner, we have to also be intelligent, we have to be on top of the situation.
1:10:28	K: We have thrown that out. We call that traditional. We have thrown that out.
1:10:31	Q: Let’s go back to what Ted meant by ‘what am I to do?’ You didn’t… you meant not in the form of you looking at ‘what am I to do?’ in the form of a problem.
1:10:39	That’s out.
1:10:40	TC: Yes, not a form of ‘where’s the answer, where’s the answer?’ just...
1:10:41	Q: To say, ‘What am I to do… (inaudible)’ K: No, he is saying this: he says the moment you put a question, ‘What am I to do?’ you are looking for an answer.
1:10:50	Q: Yes.
1:10:53	K: And the answer will be according to your conditioning, your opinion, judgement and all the rest of it. Therefore he says, you are putting a wrong question.
1:11:03	Q: Is that what you were saying?
1:11:09	Q: Yes.
1:11:10	K: More or less.
1:11:11	TC: But ‘What am I to do?’ is still without the conditioning.
1:11:15	K: He wants a verbal explanation.
1:11:23	Right? You want a verbal explanation of what we are going to do. You’ve said that. The abstraction isn’t good enough.
1:11:30	Q: You say you can give one. I am not asking for it.
1:11:34	K: I am doing it, sir! You are not watching this.
1:11:37	Q: I think, sir, that you are asking right… This is going on on two levels. One level is here and the other level is the thing that we are talking about that is a hypothetical situation.
1:11:47	And they are paralleling each other. What goes on here will go on there.
1:11:50	K: No.
1:11:51	Q: And you are asking for inner transformation right here, not for an answer.
1:11:53	K: Yes, sir, I am not… that is not a hypothetical situation.
1:11:57	Q: If it is not happening here it is.
1:12:01	K: No, because you are not students.
1:12:09	You are not saying to me, ‘Look, we are both conditioned; let’s talk this over so that out of this conversation, out of that conversation which is action, intelligence will be born.’ You are not saying that to me.
1:12:30	The student is there for three months or six months.
1:12:37	I have a responsibility. I don’t take your responsibility; you are not my responsibility.
1:12:45	I told you right from the beginning I won’t lift a finger.
1:12:52	But the student is my responsibility because the parents have entrusted me. I don’t know if you follow this. Of course, there is a difference between you and the student. No?
1:13:05	Q: Why should we make that difference?
1:13:08	K: I’ll show you why, sir. I won’t lift a finger – you will forgive me for saying so – to help you.
1:13:26	Right? In lifting a finger to help you I am going to… intelligence is not going to be born in you.
1:13:43	Therefore I won’t lift a finger. That is an absolute truth. Right? Now, when you see the absolute truth of that, you see it, what happens to you?
1:14:03	Either you go to somebody to help you, or you say, ‘My God, this is something…’ — you follow? — you are awakened to something real.
1:14:14	Right?
1:14:15	Q: Yes, sir.
1:14:16	K: Have you awakened to that reality?
1:14:17	Q: Don’t ask me that question.
1:14:22	K: Ah.
1:14:29	So when I say, ‘What am I to do?’ I am asking… the boy smokes — or does something, that is irrelevant — smokes, in that atmosphere; I never want to create a problem of smoking in that boy, or any other problem.
1:14:53	Right? Because a problem implies unintelligence — right, sir? — lack of intelligence. So I want to awaken that intelligence therefore I won’t create a problem.
1:15:13	And yet I see that it is necessary for him to stop smoking — right? — because it is unhealthy and all the rest of it.
1:15:22	Now, what am I to do?
1:15:29	TC: I notice as one remains with that ‘what am I to do?’ that the seeing becomes more expanded, more total, and yet still quite with, if there is a specific, like this example, what is to do...
1:16:04	K: Look, Ted, are you saying this to me: do you see the importance or the truth that you won’t lift a single finger?
1:16:15	TC: Yes, and then this… (inaudible) K: Wait, wait. Do you see the truth of it?
1:16:21	TC: Yes.
1:16:22	K: I mean, irrevocable truth of it; a burning truth of it.
1:16:31	Not missionaries go out to India – you follow? — cut all that out. Do you see it is an act of… a lack of intelligence to say, ‘I’ll give you a lift’?
1:16:46	TC: Exactly.
1:16:49	K: Right? If you see that, what will you do?
1:16:56	TC: I am just saying, ‘what will I do’ right now is just expanding.
1:17:05	K: No, darling, you don’t see it. What takes place in your mind when you see this, absolute truth of this?
1:17:19	Not a relative: sometime you will help, sometime you… – never!
1:17:30	And your conversation with him will not be a conversation so that he will be helped.
1:17:38	Follow all that? All that is implied. What takes place when you see this reality? The priests have done it, the missionaries have done it, the fathers and generations of fathers have done it, the local teachers have done it — you follow?
1:18:02	— everybody has said, ‘We’ll help you to become what we are.’ Q: When you see the reality of that then you are operating on the other bank.
1:18:12	K: What has happened to you? Not ‘if’, not ‘when’. When you see this irrevocable reality what has happened to you?
1:18:30	Q: I mean, you put the boy on his own feet.
1:18:37	K: No, poor chap, I am not concerned with him.
1:18:41	Q: But you are doing this then.
1:18:44	K: I am doing… Sir, I don’t want...
1:18:48	Q: If you don’t lift a finger. You put him in this position.
1:18:50	K: I am not putting him in anything. Do listen, sir. I’m not… There is this atmosphere and I will not have a problem in myself about the boy; about anything in life.
1:19:08	And I want to educate that boy – ‘educate’ in quotes – so that he will never have a problem.
1:19:15	Right?
1:19:16	Q: You want to do it.
1:19:21	K: I want to educate him in the real sense. Now, which means I want to awaken his intelligence, which means I will not help him.
1:19:38	Now, what has happened when I see that truth of that?
1:19:45	To me - not to the boy yet. I will talk, I’ll discuss with him, I may not even point it out to him, because then it will become a problem to him and say, ‘Oh my God, I’m...’ Q: What would you talk about?
1:20:04	Q: No traditional talk.
1:20:05	K: I would talk about many things: about smoking, this; I would talk about anything.
1:20:10	MZ: Well, then what’s… in how does that differ from…
1:20:13	Q: It’s not coming from the traditional…
1:20:15	Q: Well, to paraphrase, it’s to help without the helper.
1:20:19	K: Yes. That’s right, sir. To see that the boy has no problem; to see that he is not going to receive a single help from me.
1:20:33	MZ: But you are pointing out about something.
1:20:37	K: No. I talk to him. I won’t even use point. I would talk to him about everything. That’s irrelevant. Please leave that. I said, my question is: the boy is not my problem now. My problem… No, the boy is not in question. The question is: when the mind sees this truth of… this burning truth, the reality of it, it is an unquenchable thing, what has happened to the mind, to my mind?
1:21:17	(Pause in recording) K: …knowing my conversation with him has to be extraordinarily alive — you follow?
1:21:35	— that I don’t slip, saying, ‘Oh, talking about smoking, how wrong.’ I have to be so alert, so careful.
1:21:49	Not intellect; because I have seen the truth of that, that is going to make me careful. Why?
1:21:56	Q: Exactly. You have to, because if…
1:21:58	K: Wait! Not ‘have to’ — that perception of that has made me alive, aware.
1:22:03	Q: There is no ‘me’, no observer.
1:22:07	K: I wouldn’t even put me.
1:22:10	Q: Perception observes.
1:22:12	K: Because the mind has seen the truth of that, the truth of that makes my conversation with the student non-guilty, non-rewarding.
1:22:24	Q: No motive, too.
1:22:26	K: You follow? Therefore he catches something. Oh, come on! So, as a group, are we doing this? As a group do we see it, not only individually but as a group? If you don’t see it and I see it, we destroy the student. Right? So do we see together?
1:22:57	The same thing; not you translate it one way and I… The same thing, the same colour, the same weight, the same depth of it.
1:23:11	Sorry, sir, to be… you’ll be involved in it…
1:23:17	HS: I am very happy not to be a teacher, you know, because… (laughs) K: Oh, yes, you are a teacher.
1:23:24	Oh, don’t worry, you are a teacher.
1:23:26	HS: Well, I am only a father, that’s all.
1:23:30	K: That’s good enough. You see, sir, what we have discovered?
1:23:42	To create an atmosphere means a home, a place of complete trust; and a home, a place where we are very, very, serious people.
1:24:06	We may laugh, we may play, but we are deeply serious — not in the church sense, none of that.
1:24:18	And this place, wherever we are, is sacred.
1:24:27	That is the atmosphere. And I don’t want a problem. I never had it, I never will, personally. And if I had a son I say, ‘For God’s sake, find a way to live in which you have no problem, about wife, children, money, nothing.’ And he is my son, and I am sending him to you.
1:25:01	And your responsibility says… because you see the truth, that to help him is to create an unintelligent human being.
1:25:14	And when you realise that, your creative energy is boiling. I don’t know if you see. Creative energy in relation to that boy — not painting; I don’t mean all that stuff. Creative energy in dealing with that boy. Right, sir?
1:25:34	Q: What will you do?
1:25:38	Q: That energy will…
1:25:39	K: Ah, I’ll tell you what you will do. If you are back on the bank of tradition you will be doing what the others are doing.
1:25:48	TC: What if I am not off that bank but I think that I am?
1:25:56	I think I’m operating from…
1:25:58	K: Then in talking over with the student, with the group, you say, ‘By Jove, I am just caught in illusion; it is not a fact.’ TC: Which group, this…
1:26:14	K: Us. Because I don’t want to be living in an illusion. Sorry. Because illusion will prevent me from being intelligent.
1:26:31	I don’t want to have an illusion of any kind – about my wife, my God, myself.
1:26:45	HS: But, Krishnaji, if really, I mean — I mean, I say we, although I am not a teacher - if we are really in that state of mind, I mean, of being so alive and so creative, whenever something comes up with one of the pupils, don’t you think that automatically, I mean, one will find the attitude of which…
1:27:10	K: Of course, sir. That’s all that I am saying. The student is not in question; we are in question.
1:27:23	Do I really see the truth that to help the student is to destroy that intelligence?
1:27:31	I’ll teach him mathematics — you follow? — I am not talking of that. But in the very teaching of mathematics I am seeing that there is this awakening of intelligence.
1:27:48	You follow, sir? I have got to do both, teach mathematics and also awaken this intelligence.
1:28:08	(Pause) You see, Ted, we all have to see this thing together.
1:28:39	You follow? If you see it and you die, I am stuck.
1:28:57	(Laughs) (Pause) You see, as he was pointing out just now, is creation something at the given moment?
1:29:26	Not, having that feeling and then translate that feeling into paint, or in a poem or in whatever it is.
1:29:40	You follow? It is the given moment that creation takes place.
1:29:50	That is, when I am confronted with the boy and I realise no problem for him or for me, at any level of my existence.
1:30:08	And creativeness is at that moment in the talk. I wonder if you understand what I’m talking. At the moment when I talk to him about not having problems.
1:30:33	Not that I preconceive how to put it. I don’t know if I am...
1:30:46	Preconceive a pattern which I want to translate to him. You follow?
1:30:53	Q: The intelligence is operating.
1:30:58	K: Yes, yes. You see that’s why… do I see that the bank of tradition, A and B, is really out of my system?
1:31:20	And I haven’t got time to investigate it — then that means analysis, going through all kinds of idiocies and all that.
1:31:29	Have I left that bank?
1:31:38	I don’t know. Right? But I see it must be left, but I don’t know if I have left it.
1:31:51	Very quickly I’ll find out. In talking with you, it… because I am open to it, because my urge is to leave that bank, really leave it, without motive and all the rest of it; to leave it.
1:32:10	And I don’t know if I have quite left it. In talking with you about something I see it, I see I have not left it.
1:32:21	Therefore I am awake, I am alive to discover; therefore I am never saying, ‘I am out.’ I wonder if you get this, what I am talking about.
1:32:36	(Pause) I once met in India a very old man.
1:32:46	He had read all the Indian sacred literature and he was very familiar with it.
1:32:57	He said, ‘I know.’ You follow?
1:33:04	And from that knowing he was acting. And his actions were traditional, dead; they had no meaning. I don’t know if you follow. But if you say, ‘I really don’t know if I am unconditioned or not, if I have left the bank or not,’ because you don’t know you are going to find out.
1:33:24	I wonder… Haven’t I talked enough?
1:33:39	Q: In the business of finding out if you have left or not, doing the process… well, the process of finding out if you have left or not…
1:33:49	K: It is not a process. It is not a process.
1:33:51	Q: That’s not the right word.
1:33:54	K: You discover it from moment to moment.
1:33:56	Q: As it goes. So at times it will be apparent to you that you have or you haven’t? Or is it like…
1:34:02	K: No, no, madame.
1:34:03	Q: I mean, if you say, ‘Ah, I have left,’ then obviously you haven’t left, because you think...
1:34:08	K: No, wait a minute. I am asking myself, there is this bank of tradition on which I have lived, and I see what it has done in the world, what it has done to human beings, what it has done to children, and so on, so on, so on.
1:34:25	Objectively, logically, intellectually, and other ways, I see it, and I say to myself, it is necessary to leave that bank.
1:34:36	It is absolutely necessary to survive in a different way.
1:34:44	And I don’t know if I have quite left it. I think I have left it, I hope I have left it, but I am not sure.
1:34:54	So, because I am uncertain, in that uncertainty, not knowing, that brings a certain quality of watchfulness, doesn’t it?
1:35:09	In that watchfulness I discover that I am still caught in there. So it is not a process, it is not a progression.
1:35:26	It is discovery each second. Which is more fun than saying, ‘Yes, I am out.’ So I meet that boy – sorry, I must go back to it.
1:35:49	What time is it?
1:35:50	Q: Twenty five to.
1:35:51	K: Seven?
1:35:52	MZ: Twenty five to six.
1:35:54	K: Twenty five? Doris Pratt: So it’s an hour and a half and five minutes.
1:36:05	(Laughter) K: He comes into this atmosphere. He has got problems and you have told him, ‘We don’t smoke, we are vegetarians, we don’t kill birds with slings and arrows.’ And we have already made an image in his mind, guilt, or saying, ‘By Jove, what a nice people these are, they don’t smoke, which is rare.’ And I, together, we have created this real atmosphere - not a verbal atmosphere but a real thing.
1:36:57	Right? Home, trust, not lifting a single finger, and that it is holy ground.
1:37:12	And I mean it. I feel that way, anyhow: I mean it. Now, he comes into this atmosphere. What am I... And he does things which are unclean, does things which he thinks maturity… because he thinks he is mature, should be done — you know? — all that.
1:37:43	I want to talk to him. I am going to talk to him when I am teaching mathematics or geography. I am going to talk to him. I am going to talk to him also at other times; and during those times I have got to… that intelligence must operate so that I talk intelligently, so that he doesn’t… he gets the smell of it.
1:38:08	Right, sir? I’d do it. I know what to do.
1:38:32	Because I am quite clear nobody can show me anything else; no problem for him or for me.
1:38:44	And to have no problem you must have the highest form of intelligence. That’s my only concern.
1:39:02	That means he must come to it himself without my help.
1:39:10	So… Well, sir? I would talk to him. Oh, I know what I would do, but what good is my telling you?
1:39:44	(Pause) First of all, sir, the place is beautiful.
1:39:58	You have been there, haven’t you? The place is beautiful, which is necessary; and somewhat isolated, which is necessary.
1:40:11	And a group of people who are really very, very serious, who have no quarrels amongst themselves, who have literally no opinions.
1:40:27	Right? Oh yes, sir, you and I can’t have an opinion.
1:40:41	Opinion means prejudgment. Right?
1:40:46	Q: Could we hold an opinion without holding it?
1:40:51	K: Why should I burden my mind with opinions?
1:40:54	Q: Well, I mean an opinion on how do we proceed from this point to another point. I mean, we have to at some time make a plan, we have to organise.
1:41:04	K: Ah, making a plan, organise, that’s different.
1:41:08	Q: Yes.
1:41:09	K: But if you have an opinion and I have an opinion what to do, what takes place?
1:41:17	Q: Well, obviously there will be some… if the opinions are not the same...
1:41:22	K: Therefore why not approach that thing without opinion?
1:41:25	MZ: Students coming to the school would say, ‘Well, you have an opinion about smoking, vegetarianism.’ K: Ah, no.
1:41:32	No, wait.
1:41:33	Q: If you have an opinion you can offer an opinion but not cling to it, I think.
1:41:37	K: I don’t want to have an opinion! Why should I have an opinion?
1:41:41	Q: Well, maybe I used the word differently than you. You ask me a direct question and so I offer you my opinion. My answer is my opinion. But I am not attached to it in the sense that I am listening.
1:41:56	K: I understand, sir, I understand.
1:41:57	Q: I am able to listen, I am able to see, I am able to allow you to take that opinion and show where it doesn’t fit here or here or here, and so that if I can then discard it...
1:42:07	K: I am questioning something else, sir. I am questioning something else. Why should you have an opinion about anything?
1:42:12	MS: Once you say, ‘It’s my opinion,’ you have blocked yourself.
1:42:16	K: I am asking you, why should you have an opinion at all about anything? Nixon – we know what Nixon is, don’t bother about that.
1:42:23	Q: Well, I generally don’t go around holding an opinion, but when offered, you know, to look at a situation I can come up with an opinion.
1:42:32	K: Wait. There is a situation; we both look at it.
1:42:34	MS: If you are asked a question, you say, ‘Could it possibly be like this?’ You don’t say, ‘My opinion is that it is like this.’ MZ: But if there is a considerable amount of information about something, is it an opinion to...
1:42:42	K: No, no, information is not opinion. How to grow a tomato is not an opinion.
1:42:45	MZ: There are many opinions on how to grow a tomato.
1:42:48	K: All right. (Laughs) MS: You are caught there. (Laughter) K: I am caught there. Let’s talk about it.
1:42:59	TC: I think that’s often the difficulty in which... There is no problem when the direction is clear. It’s the area, the grey areas are the ones in which we don’t have sufficient expertise.
1:43:11	K: Here we are, a group of people. Do you have an opinion about helping people? After all that we discussed, helping the student – do you have an opinion?
1:43:25	Or do you see the truth of it, therefore no opinion?
1:43:31	TC: I think I see the truth of it, yes.
1:43:34	K: Therefore no opinion. Logically you are caught.
1:43:39	TC: Well, you picked the easy example. (Laughter) K: Ah, that’s good enough. That is the most difficult example.
1:43:47	Q: Perhaps one could have a dialogue about something and yet not an opinion.
1:43:52	K: Ah, that’s a different matter. I am questioning why should my mind be burdened with opinions at all?
1:44:05	Think about it, look at it a little bit; it’s quite exciting to have no opinions at all.
1:44:18	Now, what takes place between the student and me when I am firmly fixed… when the mind sees the absolute truth of that?
1:44:35	And I am a teacher of history, mathematics — it doesn’t matter what it is — and how am I, in teaching mathematics awaken this intelligence?
1:44:53	I have got to teach him mathematics; he must know mathematics. You might say, ‘Why should he know?’ Without mathematics, your brain… etc., etc., etc.
1:45:04	He must know mathematics. Now, how am I, in the teaching of mathematics, to awaken that intelligence, which will have no problems?
1:45:15	I know.
1:45:22	Go on, sir.
1:45:33	My chief concern, in the class of mathematics, is not mathematics.
1:45:42	Right? Right? That’s not my concern. I’ll teach them; that’s not my deep concern.
1:45:56	My deep concern is the other, is the awakening of intelligence.
1:46:05	In the teaching I am going to see to this this happens.
1:46:17	(Pause) Can we play football, whatever game it is, without competition and be first-class at the game?
1:46:41	You understand? Sir, we have got such a wide field, you know?
1:47:02	I used to play first-class golf, first-class, and when I entered into competition nothing happened.
1:47:11	Q: I heard you used to shoot four under par.
1:47:19	K: Yes, right, right, I used to. I used to play with professionals - equals, they didn’t compete with me, I didn’t… but the moment I entered into competition I couldn’t do it.
1:47:31	Q: Why is that?
1:47:32	K: No, because I hate to compete with somebody. Either you are good at it or not; why should you test your goodness through competition?
1:47:44	That’s irrelevant. Now, can we have games in which there is no competition, but first-class?
1:47:52	BJ: That’s the time when the students get most excited, react most.
1:47:57	K: Of course, of course. Competition, of course. That is tradition.
1:48:05	Q: There’s more than competition going on. There’s more than that going on. There’s other… (inaudible) K: Of course there is. Lots more, with fun - I know all that. But the feeling of, you know, all that.
1:48:27	And can we point out something for the first time, once, and never again, so the boy says, ‘Right, sir, I have got it’?
1:48:42	Try all this. Not try, do it. (laughs) HS: Is it something that every real educator is in effect doing, without even knowing that he is doing it?
1:49:03	K: Real educators, sir, I hope they are.
1:49:05	HS: Some are surely, yes; in this room, too.
1:49:08	K: You know all the difficulties. Now it’s stopped. Is that enough? Isn’t it? Mrs Simmons has got a tremendous problem. No, not a problem, a tremendous responsibility.
1:49:26	DS: I reckon she has got a problem. (Laughter) K: There is the government on one side, the police on the other, the parents, the students.
1:49:37	No, no, sir, it’s quite...
1:49:39	DS: And the trustees breathing down one’s neck.
1:49:45	K: And the trustees watching her. And I come along and say, ‘This is all… Look, move, break… let the waters flow in.’ And so she…
1:49:58	Q: (Inaudible) …drown.
1:50:00	K: Yes, get drowned, but… (Laughter) So she says, ‘My God, where am I?’ And there are many outside who are criticising.
1:50:20	So, sir, the thing is not easy - you understand? - it isn’t just something you start and say, ‘Well, I am sorry, it is so difficult, I am going to close up.’ (Pause) Have I verbalized it, sir?
1:50:56	Q: (Laughs) I wouldn’t recognize it; you probably have.
1:51:02	K: Oh yes, sir, I have verbalized it enough. You can’t verbalize more than a certain amount, otherwise it is not… it isn’t there.