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GSBR74DT07 - Total responsibility
Brockwood Park, UK - 15 September 1974
Discussion with Teachers 07



0:01 This is J. Krishnamurti's second discussion with teachers at Brockwood Park, 1974.
0:10 Krishnamurti: Shall we go on with what we were talking about yesterday?
0:28 I would like to approach the problem of conditioning in a different way. May we?
0:40 It is said, I believe by professionals, that after one reaches the age of 35 or so, one begins to decline mentally.
0:57 Mr John? John Porter: After 25.
1:00 K: 35. Not 25 – no, give us a chance! (Laughter) Mary Zimbalist: (Inaudible) K: Mr John was reminding me of it the other day in the tent; and also Aldous Huxley used to talk about it a little bit, because there was, I believe, a book written about it all.
1:26 And is maturity a decline?
1:40 That is what is implied. And is it possible to prevent - or use another word if you wish - to ward off old age at 35 and let the mind mature slowly?
2:19 Mature, not reach a height and then decline, but keep on maturing as it grows older and older and older; more and more mature, more and more alive, more and more intelligent and all the rest of it.
2:40 I don’t know if it is a problem to you or if you have thought about it. I haven’t. I just thought about it coming down the stairs.
2:57 Our education consists in cultivating memory and cramming the brain, a certain area, with a lot of information, about almost every subject.
3:19 And the more one specializes, the more the decline I think is. Just a minute, I am just investigating, don’t… And is that one of the causes of our decline?
3:39 You understand my question?
3:46 If my brain is cultivated, a small part of my brain is cultivated only with knowledge and nothing else, as it is done in so-called education, which is a conditioning the mind, the brain, a certain area, only within that, with knowledge, is that one of the reasons of this immaturity as one grows older?
4:16 I don’t know if I am making myself clear. Am I making something clear or am I talking…
4:30 And if I had a son, my own son, I would want him to mature very, very slowly.
4:43 I would like to have him not experience sex immediately. It is the fashion now. It is pervading the whole world. It began in the West, now it is going to the East, and is destroying people there. I was told, in Delhi University, which never happened before, girls and boys, something extraordinary is going on in every kind of university, not only in Delhi and all over India, but also it must be happening in other parts of Asia.
5:20 And I want to find out if I can prevent my son from plunging into all this: drink, sex, smoke, the whole modern civilization, and prevent him, or rather find out, whether there is a possibility of cultivating or opening another area of the brain where knowledge is not so colossally important.
6:05 I do not know if I am talking any sense. There is Dr Bohm; I hope he will stop me talking nonsense!
6:24 Is maturity reached at a certain level and then decline, or is maturity a constant movement, it’s never ending?
6:49 I may live eighty years and the maturity must go on still.
7:00 Please, let’s talk.
7:09 It is a rather interesting subject if we can go into it, because it might reveal something in our education: how to bring up a student, how to help him to mature very, very, very slowly, and if the cultivation of knowledge, as memory, is the only thing that is so important in life, is that the cause of decline, after reaching a certain age, or is maturity a movement that is endless, till death naturally happens?
8:07 Right?
8:08 MZ: Could you define a little bit, or explain what you mean by maturity in a young student, because very often the students who seem to be the ones who understand what you are talking about, the more adjusted ones, are what one would also describe the more mature students, and the immature ones are the ones that seem to have more difficulty.
8:33 K: I do not quite follow what you mean.
8:36 MZ: Well, the maturity of a student within the ages that these schools are concerned with; often we would describe the student who seems more intelligent, more understanding of what we are trying to do, what you are talking about, as a more mature student.
8:55 And now you seem to use it in a pejorative sense.
8:57 K: I am trying to find out what is maturity, and whether this cultivation of memory is maybe one of the factors — emphasizing so enormously the cultivation of memory, may be one of the factors of decline after reaching a certain age.
9:21 Montague Simmons: Isn’t maturity the wrong word to use? Maturity suggests reaching a certain point and staying there — there isn’t developing or growth.
9:31 K: I know, yes, mature fruit - mature, reaching a point and staying there. But I don’t want to stay there, I want to move.
9:37 MS: Well, then I think we want another word.
9:38 K: Yes, I do not know. I thought of another word; I couldn’t find another word for the time being, as I came down the stairs.
9:52 Questioner: It is also difficult to separate one’s…
9:59 You can’t separate the physical and the mental organism, and thus if you wish to describe a process that’s ongoing and continually growing, changing, I believe it would be better to look for another…
10:10 K: You can see a boy or a girl, when they reach a certain age, puberty, the whole figure, the whole mannerism, everything changes.
10:19 They become coarser, they become… you know, everything… the childhood goes and something else takes its place.
10:31 Ted Cartee: Well, don’t they start mimicking what they want? They want that.
10:37 K: I am not… Ted, I am not… I don’t know, I am just pushing around, inquiring, you see?
10:46 I want to find out if it is the fault of the conditioning, that so-called maturity — if you find a better word do tell me — is reaching a point and remaining there, and then declines, or is maturity a thing that goes on indefinitely till you die?
11:14 Maturity is not the right word — let’s use…
11:16 Q: Growth?
11:17 K: Growth. Doris Pratt: You spoke once of dividing the life of man from the childhood, the toys - the demands of each age. And you spoke of the demands of the child; the demands of sex, which you said should be through by about 20; the demand of a business responsibility, of family; and then you said the wisdom of 80, and could we invite the wisdom of 80 into the…
11:41 K: …the age of 20.
11:43 DP: Yes. But you did say that each age has its demands.
11:48 K: I don’t know what I said, let’s…
11:51 DP: The demands of the body.
11:52 K: I would like to… You are all too quick for me. I want to find out how I can prevent a student from maturing, or growing too quickly.
12:13 Not in physical growth but emotionally, sexually, adjusting himself to society, smoking, drinking, and becoming vulgar and all the rest of it.
12:27 I want to also find out if the brain, when it is so laden with knowledge, cultivated and encouraged only in that little area - that may be one of the factors of decline.
12:44 I don’t say it is; I don’t know; I am asking.
12:51 And as long as memory is operating as the major instrument in our life - memory is the dead entity, dead, old - therefore we lose the vitality, the energy, the flame of life.
13:10 I am just inquiring; I am not saying it is so.
13:17 David Bohm: You are saying that there is a false maturity which is due to knowledge, as opposed, different, from a genuine growth, you see?
13:32 Say in the child where the growth is going, on but at some point knowledge comes in which produces false maturity.
13:42 K: Yes, sir. Since we emphasize maturity… since we emphasize memory — look at all these books - and I operate always in the field of memory, I am living a life of the past, and therefore a life which is already declining, decaying.
14:07 It has no vitality; there is no energy, tremendous energy in the past, in that dead thing.
14:22 DB: Can you say why this tends to happen at the age of 13 or so?
14:25 K: I think it is maybe our fault, of our education.
14:29 DB: But I mean, why does it just come out there? I mean, the trouble is starting earlier.
14:32 K: The trouble may start earlier because it may be in the family. The family may say… have emphasized that. The whole tradition is that, and therefore the child is caught in that tradition. I am just looking at it, I am not… Please…
14:49 Q: I think it comes to the forefront at that age, in the sense that the demands on the child, the expectations placed on him, his hormonal changes…
15:03 K: Yes, that is, you are pushing him all the time, the pressure of society.
15:08 Q: As David says, it is going on from… you can see it in a 2 year-old child.
15:15 You can see the process of memory and the process of the family.
15:16 K: I know. So is that one of the causes of decline, after reaching a certain age?
15:28 Q: The storage of knowledge.
15:30 K: Yes, I mean, always responding from knowledge, always acting from knowledge.
15:41 DB: Some brain physiologists would say that we lose, after a certain age, a certain number of brain cells every day, let’s say, fifty thousand, so in time the brain gets weaker.
15:55 Could that can be related?
15:56 K: Perhaps that may be related too.
15:58 Q: Well, there is fifty thousand cells in how bigger bowl of millions?
16:04 DB: Well, it is ten thousand million, but after a certain number of years it begins to be significant.
16:14 K: That may be the result, sir, of friction, conflict, of shock, of competition, the drive of ambition.
16:26 DB: Are you saying that we needn’t lose this brain cells, perhaps?
16:30 K: That is what I feel. I feel, on the contrary, the brain as it grows older must be much more alive, much more intense, because it is not losing any of its capacities through friction.
16:41 Q: Is it a fact? I seem to have heard it, that there is part of the brain does not seem to be used, or we do not know…
16:56 K: That is a different matter, sir.
16:57 Q: No it is not completely different. I am only asking. I believe I have heard that.
17:06 K: Yes, sir, I have said it very often, and may be totally wrong.
17:14 Can we prevent through education - I am using the word prevent, there is a better word maybe — ward off, this conflict in the student, which may be the factor of decline?
17:40 And also it may be the factor of operating always from memory.
17:48 Is this a vain subject?
18:03 Q: Are you suggesting that even physical maturity could be slowed down?
18:13 K: Yes, yes, the whole thing.
18:16 Q: How do we propose to investigate this? I mean, partly it is a question of physiology, so we can do is speculate.
18:25 K: No, sir. No, sir. Let’s find out, sir. Let’s find out. Our problem is this: you have got a student, you have got students, for whom you are responsible.
18:40 You want to prevent them entering into the field of conflict altogether.
18:48 That may be one of the factors — right? — of decline, of this mind going to pieces at the age of 40, 50, just mechanically operating; conflict, shock, this frightful competition to be somebody.
19:09 All those factors may be the deteriorating element in the brain.
19:24 I am just asking. I think it is.
19:31 Q: Well, it’s because each cultural condition is different, so one cannot say this one is right, or this one.
19:57 K: No, no.
19:59 Q: So there must be a certain variety, of course, first.
20:03 K: What, we stopped?
20:04 TC: Well, a certain amount of knowledge is… (inaudible) K: Of course, sir. Of course, of course. But if I am operating always from the past, I am living a life of… living in death, in the past.
20:19 When I live in the past there is nothing.
20:24 TC: This topic is an important topic, but I don’t see the connection that we can make with the physiology.
20:43 I mean we can just drop that because it doesn’t seem to me as though…
20:51 K: Triviality of… I don’t quite follow. Many: Physiology.
20:54 K: Physiology. All right, sir. All right. Let’s begin physiologically, physically. Can we prevent, in quotes ‘prevent’, a student from indulging in all the things which society around him is encouraging: immediate sex experience, immediate satisfaction of drink - you follow? — all the things that are happening around him — the bars, the pubs, the sex, the vulgarity, you know, all that is happening — can we physiologically prevent that?
21:32 Q: Physiologically man is at his most… (inaudible) K: ...at 20.
21:37 Q: Before 20.
21:39 K: Wait. I know all that, madame. I want to find a way, if it is at all possible, postpone further… They are trying to do this.
21:49 Q: They?
21:51 K: Yes, in China they are trying to do this. They say, don’t have sex before you are 29. If you do, we might you to prison or camp, or whatever they do.
22:07 Q: Unless you don’t have babies.
22:14 K: No, please!
22:17 Q: Why should we want to slow it down?
22:19 K: What, sir?
22:20 Q: Why should we want to slow it down?
22:21 K: Why do I want to slow it down?
22:25 DP: Because the accumulation of experience… (inaudible) K: You explain it to them — why should I explain?
22:29 DP: I don’t know, but I should have thought that…
22:32 K: He asks you, why should it be slowed down?
22:34 DP: Because the repeated accumulation of experience… (inaudible) K: No, physiologically, Miss Pratt. No, you are not answering him. My glands at twenty are fully operating, and why should they be slowed down?
22:50 Why shouldn’t they, at the age of 20 when the potency of energy, of sex is very strong, where bearing child and all the rest of it is beginning, why should it be slowed down?
23:07 Physically. Go on, sirs.
23:17 Q: It is a very difficult question to answer. That is difficult to answer.
23:24 K: No, no. No, I think… no, it is not difficult.
23:29 DP: (Inaudible) …implication. Brian Jenkins: Is it that if the child is going through these stages of being aware of these influences, if he is just allowed to indulge in the influence then he does not really see what is happening, but if he is looking at the influence...
23:46 K: Sir, you are not answering my question. At the age of 20, sex is very strong.
23:58 Why should you postpone it?
24:05 I suggested pushing it further, and he asked: why should you put it away, why not go at it hammer and tong?
24:15 BJ: Because then you are not looking at it, you are just indulging.
24:17 K: No, no. No, that is not the… Answer his question.
24:20 Q: It is a tremendous depletion of energy and aren’t you beginning the process of deterioration at a very rapid rate, already at the age of 20?
24:36 K: That is, as a doctor, you are saying this.
24:43 Yes. There you are, sir, does that satisfy your answer?
24:49 MZ: Well, it is based on speculation that the deterioration is arrived at through sexual activity.
24:55 K: No, she doesn’t say that. She doesn’t actually say that. She says, don’t waste that energy at that age. Dorothy Simmons: But you don’t see the full implications it all. You don’t see the full implications of your actions on the total thing, and so you are saying, I think… (inaudible) K: Let’s put it around the other way: don’t emphasize that particular kind of energy.
25:25 Don’t give it all-importance.
25:27 Q: But are you also saying that what we are talking about that normally happens at 20, can we physiologically push it ahead?
25:42 Can we physiologically make a person of 30 or 35 or 40, hormonally and actively…
25:49 K: Wait, wait, madame.
25:50 Q: That’s what you mean.
25:52 K: Go into it in a different way. Look at it differently. What is the function of living? Let’s look at it that way. What is existence? Apart from the traditional, marriage, sex, sex, marriage, children, office, responsibility, earning money, and quarrels and incessant battles, and dependency - this enormous struggle.
26:33 We are asking, what is the meaning of all this?
26:43 In which sex plays a tremendous part, in this field.
26:50 Now it is becoming more and more and more vulgar, more absurd, more and more promiscuous, and so on, so on, so on.
27:01 Now, unless we tackle this question, not only sex, the postponing, you know, the whole thing - we may have to approach it differently unless we understand what is the meaning of existence.
27:19 If that is not clear, then sex must happen, this must happen, the other must happen; it is normal and we will support it.
27:30 If our education is to encourage the furthering of this absurd society, then it is not education.
27:48 We agreed yesterday it wasn’t. Not agreed, we saw it wasn’t. Unless we find out what is the significance of living, not just day to day, but the totality of it, sex is as important as going to the toilet.
28:12 Why give one more importance than the other? Joe Zorskie: I certainly don’t mean to make a joke at this point.
28:21 K: Make one.
28:22 JZ: But, you know, if you postpone going to the toilet… (Laughter) K: Come off it!
28:28 JZ: No, no, I don’t mean it in a joke, I mean it in the sense that some natural…
28:29 K: No, sir, please… (laughs) JZ: If you can see the point, I don’t have to go on.
28:33 K: Yes, you don’t have to go on with it.
28:39 JZ: There are certain things that have to be dismissed at the proper time.
28:44 K: Yes, quite right.
28:45 JZ: And maybe sex is one that has to be done early and not late.
28:48 K: Sir, all that I am saying is: what are we educating the student for?
29:01 Right? Perhaps if we could approach it that way, we may be able to postpone the immediate plunging into all this and bringing… wearing down the brain.
29:50 I don’t want to wear down my brain. You understand? I can’t prevent it, but I want the brain to operate till the last moment, fully.
30:06 Therefore I want to find out how to prevent shocks to it — you understand, sir?
30:17 — how to prevent neurotic activities going on, I want to prevent any kind of friction, any kind of compulsion, any kind of conformity.
30:38 All these I want to prevent, so that the brain keeps alive. I don’t know if…
30:57 If we say education is merely a conforming to the pattern of the society, it is alright in a certain way, but it is not the education we are talking about.
31:12 Then what do we mean by education? Go on, sir, let’s…
31:21 Q: Surely it is to awaken the intelligence.
31:28 K: Yes, but is that intelligence… to awaken that intelligence, does it begin at the age of 20 and keep awake all the time?
31:50 Discuss it, sir. Harsh Tankha: Is it really the aim to awaken intelligence, or is the intelligence already there and we have to…
32:08 K: This is the eternal question. This is the eternal question, which is, intelligence is already there - it is not a question of awakening it — remove the layers of illusion or ignorance or stupidity, and intelligence will operate.
32:25 That is the good old… the theological concept of life. The soul is there, God is there, the infinite is in there, and all that you have to do is remove the layers and then that will operate.
32:43 That means I accept as a belief that it is there.
32:50 I start with that belief. That I think is untenable. I don’t want to have a belief that it is there. I don’t know, it may be or may not be.
33:07 Please, does this interest you? Is there any meaning in all this?
33:19 Q: I don’t know that that is quite fair, you know, because you could also have a belief that there is an intelligence which is to be awakened.
33:30 K: I don’t believe in anything.
33:32 Q: No, no, I know, but it is possible for somebody to have a belief that there is an intelligence which can be awakened. We don’t want to operate like that.
33:40 K: I mean, it is possible. Anything is possible, sir. I mean, you can believe that the tree is upside down. But I don’t want to have any belief. I say, look…
33:48 Q: No, exactly.
33:49 K: What? I don’t quite follow.
33:54 Q: I am not convicting it.
34:02 K: No, I just…
34:08 Q: What I really mean is, can one find out what prevents intelligence operating?
34:16 K: No, no. No, not prevent what is intelligence operating.
34:28 We live unintelligently. The freedom from unintelligence is intelligence. And can my life be stripped of all the things that are stupid?
34:49 And then naturally I am intelligent. I don’t have to assume that the spark of divinity has intelligence in me, or there is intelligence which I am going to achieve. Strip me of all the stupidity and there is intelligence.
35:04 Q: And the stripping process is not a layer; the stripping process is seeing the facts and the layers can all be removed.
35:13 Q: It seems we were talking about conditioning and that Joe wondered if the… you can’t postpone using the toilet, for obvious reasons.
35:36 Now, in that is implied something about an understanding that there is something important in sex that has nothing to do with conditioning, which implies that…
35:50 K: Don’t bring in sex for the moment. I want to find out, sir, if it is possible to educate a student not to enter into the field of conflict at all - and that may be one of the major factors of the decline of the brain after reaching a certain age.
36:26 That is all I am saying.
36:28 Q: We are looking at how that functions in the situation of the school and the conditioning involved.
36:49 K: Sir, look, you are going to meet the students in a fortnight’s time or so, and you have this problem.
36:57 And if one really loves one’s son or students, I am consumed with that problem, I want to prevent it.
37:10 Not to enter into all this beastly business of existence — his neuroticism, depending on his wife and the wife depending on him — you follow? — all that conflict, all that, out of that grows violence, hatred, you know, all that.
37:35 I want… I will do anything to prevent it. It is my responsibility as an older man to see that he does not enter into that field, ever.
37:51 And I say, how am I to do this? And to find that out I must also ask a much greater question which is: what is it all about?
38:04 You follow, sir? Why should he live without conflict?
38:17 Why should he not just destroy himself immediately, finish with it?
38:28 Which is what is happening. And I feel, no, I would like him to grow without all that, and grow slowly, you know, like a fruit that ripens, ripens, ripens; at the right moment it drops.
38:46 (Pause) Q: In the West, puberty is coming much earlier than it is in the East.
39:07 K: Oh, yes. Yes, here it is much earlier than the East. I know, I know.
39:11 Q: So the environment or the atmosphere has a tremendous importance, physiologically as well as…
39:17 K: It is, it is, but what am I to do? We know all this is happening. We have got students coming with us, to us; we are responsible for them. What is our education? (Pause) David Bohm: It seems that we have to consider that life has some meaning beyond the immediate.
39:28 K: Yes.
39:29 DB: But you see, in the past people, for example, may have thought of God as the meaning of life, and that has vanished.
39:59 K: Yes, all that is gone. David Bohm: That is gone, but we still have to have it — right? — in a sense.
40:07 K: So, we gave meaning to life by saying there is God, there is the saviour, there is heaven, there is hell - and all that is gone.
40:16 I mean, it was gone long ago, but any intelligent man discarded it totally long ago.
40:25 Now, is it that we must replace all that nonsense by another nonsense?
40:38 Then what will you do?
40:40 JZ: Well, we are not suggesting that we are going to replace it by some sensible theories, something that we can describe.
40:53 K: No, sir, the point is this: we have lived in illusion. That gave us security: God, Jesus and all that. Brush all that aside. And I am left naked. And being left naked I immediately want… I am only concerned with the immediate actions, immediate fulfilments, immediate urges.
41:19 Before, because I believed in God, God said don’t do this, do that, otherwise you will be punished - all that.
41:28 Therefore I restrained myself.
41:29 JZ: Certainly some people could, when you throw away this concept of God, certainly they could become acting from their immediate impulses.
41:39 But is this necessary?
41:40 K: No, of course not. But that is generally what happens. Like in the modern world, that is what is happening.
41:45 JZ: But we don’t want to replace it with some other more…
41:51 K: …nonsense, more logical nonsense.
41:53 Q: Whether it is Western science or Eastern philosophy.
41:55 K: Of course. So, is it a matter of replacing or is it seeing the false, and therefore seeing the truth of the false?
42:12 The truth. You understand? I wonder if…
42:15 JZ: Seeing the false.
42:16 K: Yes. Seeing the false implies that I see the truth.
42:27 Of course. If I see something false, the very seeing of the false is the truth.
42:33 Q: Not necessarily so.
42:37 K: No, wait. No, it is so. Do just look at it. I see the falseness of belief: Jesus Christ, God in me, intelligence in me, or there is heaven, there is hell - all that.
42:57 I see that as totally being false. The seeing of that is the truth.
43:04 Q: Then people are left with a vacuum.
43:09 K: No! No. On the contrary, when I see the false and I see the truth in the false, the truth is the real thing.
43:22 That is not a vacuum.
43:24 MZ: Krishnaji, to use a silly example, perhaps: if I see that the table is not a giraffe, I still don’t know what the table is.
43:36 K: No, please, don’t take examples. It is not a matter of examples here. It is a matter of perception, it is a matter of seeing, a matter of listening, a matter of looking.
43:52 MZ: If you see a false thing, do you necessarily see a truth in it?
43:58 K: Of course. If I see something false, I have seen the truth of that false thing.
44:02 MZ: But you have not seen the truth of whatever the thing you were considering is, necessarily, have you?
44:11 K: I don’t follow you at all.
44:13 MZ: Well, if you look at something and you see that it is not something…
44:16 K: Not something - I am taking this specifically.
44:17 MZ: All right.
44:18 K: I am taking the belief in God, in saviours, in all that.
44:25 I see that as being false.
44:27 Q: How did you do that?
44:28 K: How do I see it?
44:30 Q: I mean, how do you did it? Did you do it by considering that it was the truth?
44:36 K: No, I see it because it has no reality. It has no reality because it is an invention of thought, and so on, so on, so on.
44:47 Man wants comfort, he is afraid, and he wants to be saved from his fears, so he invents all this rigmarole.
44:54 JZ: If I start talking to you about micro-particles or universal mind, can you see the falseness in that?
45:02 K: I wouldn’t even consider it. I don’t know anything about micro-waves and cosmic mind. I know nothing about it.
45:09 JZ: It may be false and may also…
45:11 K: I am taking a specific thing. Sorry, I must keep on. I see clearly how false all this structure of belief is — the churches, the rituals, what goes on in in India — I see that as being utterly false.
45:30 Ingrid Porter: Seeing as a symbolic place in yourself, in one’s own attention, is that a falsity?
45:38 K: I can invent my own God. So I say, ‘By Jove…’ IP: No, I am not talking about God, but seeing as a symbolic place in one’s own attention.
45:49 K: I don’t quite follow.
45:53 IP: Well, seeing certain laws that can come together within oneself.
46:06 K: Certain laws coming within… I am sorry, I don’t quite follow.
46:12 Q: I mean, it is so simple, therefore maybe it is so difficult.
46:17 K: I know. Why do I have to have symbols? Why do I have to have an image when I look at a leaf? Why should I make… turn that leaf into some symbolic meaning?
46:38 Sir, you say: how do you know all this is false?
46:48 First of all, what it has done in the world. Right? I see it first as false and then I see the reason for it. I don’t reason and then see the false. You understand, sir?
47:00 JZ: I also see that, you know, reason can complicate.
47:06 K: Absolutely. But seeing is the factor that reveals the false.
47:15 And then around that factor I can reason.
47:19 MZ: Someone else may look, supposedly at the same thing, about religion and see all the so-called good it has done, and therefore come to a completely different…
47:33 K: No, no, what good has it done?
47:36 MZ: Well, many people could give you an endless reply to that.
47:40 K: Because they believe and they support their logic. Logically they support their belief.
47:46 MZ: No, they could point that people have been comforted for eons by this.
47:51 K: No, to be comforted in an illusion is no comfort.
47:58 MZ: People could argue…
47:59 K: Of course people can argue upside about everything. No, we are wandering off. Sorry. I want to find out, as I am responsible for the student who comes here, or to the future schools, whether it is possible to prevent a mind, a brain, deteriorating.
48:32 A brain that has been… that is cultured to live only in the past, which is knowledge, information, all the rest of it, and that may be one of the factors - I don’t say it is, I am just asking for investigation - that may be one of the factors of this reaching a certain age and then declining.
49:05 (Pause) Q: Then we put the question: what do we educate for?
49:20 K: I am asking that. Yes, what are we educating for?
49:24 Q: So, formally, all the religions gave a certain sense to life. And that has become an illusion now. It is seen by many as an illusion. But nothing else has taken that place.
49:36 K: No. Because somebody has said it is an illusion, you accept it.
49:40 Q: No, people see it themselves.
49:42 K: But how do they see it?
49:43 Q: Because they see the result, they see what it means.
49:47 K: No, no. No, you see, we are going back to something again. You want to replace the false by another false, or what you consider by truth.
50:04 I said don’t replace it. What you replace will be equally false.
50:10 Q: But you said seeing the false…
50:11 K: …that is the truth!
50:14 Q: It’s enough.
50:17 K: And that truth is not a vacuum. It is not an empty nothingness.
50:26 Q: Most people…
50:27 K: No, I am not… Most people want the pub.
50:31 Q: It is a vacuum. You can see… (inaudible) K: No, they want the pub. Most people, they want the pub. All right, let them have it.
50:37 Q: Isn’t it a vacuum when they half see it?
50:39 K: Of course, of course. I must come back to this, sorry.
50:46 Q: Well, if we could have students learn to see the false, I think we have done a fabulous job.
50:56 K: That is what I want to get at. I think we shall have done a fabulous job, as you call it, if we can do this.
51:06 And can we? Can we show or explain or give them the feeling: for God’s sake don’t enter into that field?
51:22 And they naturally don’t enter it.
51:30 Because that field is neurotic, that field is everything you can name it.
51:37 It is a garbage.
51:39 Q: You have to answer it to some extent in order to look at it.
51:46 K: Yes, but I want to be clear that I do not want him to enter into that field, at any price.
52:08 And if that is our education, to bring about a student who is totally different, not neurotic, not possessive, not dependent, all the rest of it - if that is what we want the student to be, what do we do?
52:26 How do we set about it? Apart from teaching mathematics, how shall I convey to him the urgency, the importance, the absolute necessity of this thing?
52:46 Q: It is not a question of trying to keep him from that simply because of the bad results — you know, warning it will do you that kind of harm and that kind of harm, but intrinsically some falsity in that situation.
53:16 K: Look, sir, I don’t want to live, personally, a life in which there is conflict of any kind.
53:28 Right? I won’t. I have lived that way and I am not going to allow myself to live in a conflict, because I see that is the major factor of deterioration of the brain.
53:43 The struggle, the conflict, the uncertainty, the failures, the frustrations, all that.
53:50 I don’t want, and I said, ‘Out’, for myself. And I am responsible to these children, to the students. And I see logically, sanely, how important it is to live that way. I’ll give you all the reasons, all the explanations, all the… and so on — I’ll give you all that.
54:15 But I am concerned now to see how am I to transmit to these children this feeling, this sense of, you know, ‘For God’s sake, watch.
54:26 Don’t just because you want to sleep with a girl, go and do it. Just watch. Be aware of the whole thing, what is implied.’ (Pause) Q: One can give the reasons and explain the consequences.
54:48 K: That won’t do.
54:49 Q: But it is not enough. There is another factor.
54:51 K: Therefore I want to find out that factor.
54:58 And that is what the ancient people have done, which is fear and punishment… fear and reward. On that basis the whole society operates, or the churches operate, religions operate.
55:12 If you do this you will be rewarded; if you do that you will be punished.
55:14 Q: Which means security.
55:16 K: Yes, yes, call it what you like.
55:24 Now, how am I to educate the students differently so that they don’t enter into that, into the neurotic world?
55:40 And the world is neurotic, so I don’t want them to be neurotic. Go on, sirs, what shall I do?
55:43 DB: Still we come back to the fact why we don’t want them to — because there is something far more important, significant.
55:57 K: No, I don’t like garbage.
56:01 DB: Yes, but I meant that if there were nothing else, then that might be all there is.
56:12 K: There is something else. Of course there is something else.
56:16 DB: Yes.
56:17 K: But I can’t convey that to him when he is living in the garbage.
56:22 Q: Surely he has to taste the garbage to see the other.
56:32 K: But I show it to him. I show him the garbage, I explain to him.
56:40 Q: But he has to go into it himself.
56:44 K: But he is in the garbage.
56:46 Q: He can’t take my experience.
56:48 K: He comes from the garbage. His family is garbage. Sorry! His environment is garbage, everything is rotten round him, and he comes out of that, and he is dumped here, willingly or unwillingly, happily or unhappily, he is left here, and it is my responsibility to see that he never enters into that field again, and cleansed of his garbage while he is here, and so that he is everlastingly free of all that.
57:13 That is my responsibility. Now, how do I translate that responsibility?
57:24 What am I to do with that chap? You don’t discuss that. You come to the point: what shall we do? Mr John? Come on Ted, discuss with me. What am I to do with this?
57:42 HT: It seems that you are suggesting that we create some kind of, like a Garden of Eden, where we can live in harmony and there is no division.
58:00 But there might be…
58:01 K: Sir, a Garden of Eden is rather difficult to create with people who are already in the garbage, who are already full of that muck.
58:16 No, you are not facing it.
58:23 Sorry, sir, please do face this issue. You have got these students, and your responsibility towards them, and your responsibility says - if you feel responsible - they cannot and must not ever enter into that field again.
58:41 Q: Well, you’ve spoken of seeing the false as the false, and is there some central illusion or preconception I have about myself which is generating the garbage?
59:01 Can I discuss that?
59:02 K: Wait a minute, sir, that is not my problem. That is not my problem. Sorry. Excuse me. I have these students with me tomorrow.
59:10 Q: When I say myself, I am including the students.
59:14 K: Yes. I have these children with me tomorrow — what am I to do?
59:30 I have provided the atmosphere, what we were discussing yesterday.
59:47 I have provided a sense of irrevocable stability, truth and all the rest of it, and he comes here to be unconditioned, and myself in his relationship, uncondition myself.
1:00:09 It is an interactive process. Admit that. Then how am I to deal with this? The problem, that having come from that rotten field - he is the product of that rotten field, and my responsibility is to cleanse him of that field.
1:00:37 Q: How is this rotten field fact different than the looking at the conditioning that we were…
1:00:48 K: I am putting the same thing differently. Move from there. I said I would approach — at the beginning — differently. Now, how am I as a one of the members of the staff, how am I to free him from that rotten field, of which he is the flower or which he is part of that?
1:01:17 HT: But I come from the same rotten field myself.
1:01:24 K: You don’t see it? Why not?
1:01:27 HT: I come from the same field.
1:01:29 K: Therefore can you see that field and strip yourself of it? Take a bath, do anything, get rid of it? Because if I don’t get rid of it I am contaminating more and more the child.
1:01:47 Obviously. I mean it is the mutual interactive process, and if I am not clean he will not be clean.
1:01:54 Q: But can’t we find out together?
1:02:01 K: We are doing it. I am doing it now! That is what we are doing.
1:02:04 Q: And with the children.
1:02:06 K: We are doing it now. Not with the student. Now, what are we to do? I am part of that field. I have come from that field. That rotten field has produced me and here I am.
1:02:26 And I say, for god’s sake, deal with it.
1:02:37 Don’t theorize. I am that, and you are the teacher — operate on me. Not with a surgeon’s knife, but operate, remove that thing out of me.
1:02:59 And you can’t say, ‘I don’t know what to do.’ You are not in a position to say, ‘I don’t know.’ Because you are responsible.
1:03:11 You understand, sir? You have taken the responsibility. If you have taken the responsibility, you have to act. You can’t say, ‘Well, sorry, I don’t know what to do. Sorry, I am part of that rottenness, you are part of that rottenness, we’ll just rot together.’ Q: With the student, I will question my habitual concept of what I am, go into that.
1:03:39 K: Yes, sir, go into it. Here I am. I am your student. Go into it. I say, sir, what are you?
1:03:57 You are part of the garbage. Sorry! How do you get rid of your garbage to help me to get rid of my garbage? Go on, sir, operate! (Laughs) Q: Well, some of the things are: we need the right food, the right… (inaudible) K: Yes, that we provide, the right food and right… all that.
1:04:21 But here I am, full of that… You are not meeting my problem.
1:04:24 Q: Well, it seems that it has been made, at this point, fairly clear; we are dealing with it right now.
1:04:33 K: You are dealing right now. Ted, come, deal with it.
1:04:37 BJ: Sir, you said earlier, ‘I don’t know what to do with this rottenness.
1:04:48 You don’t know what to do with this rottenness.’ But, sir, one doesn’t know what to do with this.
1:04:55 K: I will tell you. I said to you, you can’t say, ‘I don’t know’ — then you are irresponsible.
1:04:58 BJ: But I don’t know!
1:04:59 K: Then you are… No, sir, you are missing my point. The moment you are responsible, a totally different kind of operation takes place.
1:05:13 You have got to find out. You can’t say, ‘Well, I don’t know, let’s talk about it.’ In the meantime, I rot.
1:05:24 Your responsibility makes you — you follow? — drives you to find out.
1:05:32 BJ: What is that responsibility?
1:05:39 K: That responsibility is: I come as a student full of that rottenness, and your responsibility, as you are here, is to see that I am stripped of that rottenness, as quickly as possible.
1:05:59 BJ: And myself also.
1:06:02 K: That goes without saying. But do it. Tell me what to do. Don’t speculate, ‘Is it possible? Why am I this…’ — that is irrelevant to me. I come suffering, I come with tears in my eyes, and we say, ‘Now, let’s talk about it.’ Q: It seems it’s seeing this, and really caring about it, and feeling the responsibility of it.
1:06:32 K: Look, sir, you are going to operate on me. Do it.
1:06:37 Q: But it seems that in the relationship, the responsibility one feels…
1:06:40 K: Do it with me. I am your student. I come from that rotten field. How will you… what will you do with me? How will you talk to me? Talk to me. Show me. (Pause) Q: Well, I don’t see off-hand what is rotten about you, so therefore it puts…
1:07:18 K: Oh, yes, you see it very quickly, because I am from the same field as you have come.
1:07:23 Q: Yes.
1:07:24 K: I mean, it is very clear. My rottenness is fairly obvious. You don’t have to go through tremendous analysis.
1:07:34 Q: We deal with you now.
1:07:35 K: Yes, that is what I am doing. You are dealing with me as a student who has come from that rotten field.
1:07:48 What will you do?
1:07:50 IP: When I deal with my own problem, aren’t I dealing with the student’s rottenness at the same time?
1:08:12 K: You are interacting. No, but I want… You have got me here, so what will you do now? And you are going to be faced with this question in ten days’ time or a fortnight’s time.
1:08:29 What will you do?
1:08:30 Q: Pay all the attention I am capable of.
1:08:33 K: Do it now, Madame! (Laughs) Q: I think I would ask you what you mean by the word I.
1:08:45 K: No, sir. I say, sorry, you are going off at a tangent. I am not… please, I am being polite, I am not being rude. I say, sir, you are not answering my question. You are not facing my problem. I come from that rotten field. The rotten field is me. Tell me how to get out of it.
1:09:13 Q: The student wants certain things… (inaudible) K: No, no. No, it is your responsibility.
1:09:21 Q: You are saying you want to get out of it.
1:09:25 K: Otherwise I would not have come here.
1:09:28 Q: What puts you in that position? What do you see?
1:09:33 K: I don’t know. I don’t know. I am too young, too confused. You follow? I don’t know, but you know. You know that rotten field, because you have been there. You are more mature, you are alive, you have seen all the implications of that rotten field, and I come from there.
1:09:56 And it is your — you understand, sir? — responsibility to see that I don’t ever enter into that field.
1:10:07 And I say to you, Mr Ted, please, sir, here I am as a student, operate on me.
1:10:19 What will you do? What can you do? Come on, Ted, what can you do? Ted Cartee: Well, for a moment I thought that you were saying that you wanted something, and I was going to look at what you wanted.
1:10:42 K: I don’t know what I want. I am too young. How can you ask me? I want to smoke, I want… that girl attracted me, I want to chase her.
1:10:53 I want to go to the bar. My parents said don’t go there. And they have shovelled me, or I have come here willingly, or whatever it is. Here I am.
1:11:03 BJ: Is it realistic to say that the student wants to get out of the rottenness?
1:11:10 K: He may want. He still wants it, sir. Poor chap, because it is all he knows.
1:11:13 BJ: He wants the rottenness.
1:11:14 K: Of course he does.
1:11:15 BJ: But earlier on you said that I come here because I don’t want the rottenness.
1:11:23 K: I said I may come here because I don’t want it; I may come here because I don’t know what to do with it; I may come here because I have been shoved here.
1:11:34 Q: It is entirely possible to want the rottenness, and also to want to be out of it.
1:11:40 K: Of course. Everything is possible. But you are not meeting my point. I am saying, Ted, to you, I have come from that field, what will you do with me?
1:11:53 What will you… how will you deal with this problem?
1:11:57 Q: Can I try to put myself in the student’s place?
1:12:03 K: You can’t put yourself in your place, because you are beyond it. That is just imagination. That is mere empathy, or sympathy, or whatever it is. I don’t want you to do that. You don’t help me by putting yourself in my place. You will be patronizing, tolerating, you will pat me on the shoulder and say, ‘Poor old boy, you will get over it,’ or something.
1:12:30 I don’t want all that.
1:12:32 TC: And you can’t see how you are attached and using the things that you want.
1:12:43 You don’t see that...
1:12:45 K: Look, Ted, you are missing the point. Sorry. Here I am, your student. You want to educate me so that I will never enter into that field.
1:13:03 Right? Because you say to yourself, that field has produced misery, has produced confusion, conflict, wars, hatreds, antagonism, battles inside, outside - you know? — the things that are going on.
1:13:20 And you feel… you help me never to enter that field. That is your responsibility. You feel that very strongly. Then how will you help me? That is all. Stick to that one thing: how will you help me?
1:13:34 Q: I will not do anything at all, I will just…
1:13:40 K: No, you have to do something - you have to talk, you have to act. You can’t just sit.
1:13:47 Q: No, but I mean I won’t criticize or anything like that. I will just show you as my student that I am terribly interested in him.
1:13:54 K: No. You see what has happened? What has happened if you are interested in me?
1:14:07 Do you say that to your son, that I am terribly interested in you?
1:14:12 Q: No, but…
1:14:15 K: No, put it…
1:14:18 Q: Not interest but love.
1:14:21 K: Therefore what will you do with me? Love me? Be kind to me? How will you show me this thing? That is what I am trying to get at. Take me to my room and say, ‘There are nice blankets, blah, blah…’ or give me good food, give me… tell me…
1:14:48 What will you do?
1:14:52 HT: I think I would show you those things that I have seen that are not of the field.
1:15:00 K: So you’d show me. How do you show me? Verbally? Take me to the pub and say, ‘Have a beer,’ and, ‘how rotten it is’?
1:15:13 (Laughter) How will you deal with me, sir?
1:15:16 HT: Not show you the things of the field but show you the things that I have seen which are not of it.
1:15:23 K: How will you show it to me? How will you? Please, how will you show it to me, verbally and non-verbally, so that I grasp it? You understand? I say, ‘By Jove, how true this is.’ HT: By being constantly aware of the connection between us, and not to lose the connection.
1:15:49 K: Do it, sir, now. Do it now.
1:15:55 HT: I am trying to do it now.
1:15:56 K: Do it. You are saying you will show me certain rotten factors of that field, both verbally and non-verbally — show me the fact - right? — the fact and not the conclusion of the fact.
1:16:21 Not your conclusion or mine - the fact. And if I don’t see it… because I am incapable of seeing it — you understand? — I am too young, too brutalized or whatever it is. And help me to see it. What will you do?
1:16:36 Q: You must be constantly aware… (inaudible) K: No, don’t make me constantly…
1:16:45 I don’t know what you are talking about! Don’t tell me to be constantly aware.
1:16:48 Q: If you talking to the student, you realize that you cannot become an authority over the student.
1:17:02 Do not let that action take place.
1:17:03 K: All right, you are not an authority. Then you leave me in a position where I have to find out for myself. So I go to the pub.
1:17:13 Q: Caring would come along with that.
1:17:17 K: No, sir, the moment… Now, who creates authority?
1:17:32 By my disorder, by my confusion I make you into my authority. Because you at least look safe, you look secure; you are older, so out of my misery I make you the authority.
1:17:48 So, what? I am putting on to you authority, though you don’t want it. So you have to deal with this, sir. Now, what would I do? Come on, Ted, you are the student. Sorry!
1:18:11 TC: What would you do?
1:18:14 K: Why didn’t you ask me earlier? (Laughs) What would I do? You come from the rotten field, and I am also part of the rotten field, and I have seen the rottenness of it very clearly.
1:18:33 Seen it, not verbally - you understand? I have seen it with all my being, with all my awareness, with my attention, with my depth, I have seen the absurdity of all that.
1:18:48 And you are my student. I want you to see it. Not as I see it; as it is. Right? Because seeing it is not mine or yours. I want to be quite clear on that point. You understand? Am I making it clear? The seeing is not personal. Therefore I have seen that. Now, how shall I deal with you?
1:19:29 Because I feel tremendously responsible to you.
1:19:41 The responsibility makes me highly sensitive to you.
1:19:51 I don’t know if I am making it clear. You understand? If I am responsible to a machine, to a motor, I watch everything: the tyres — you follow?
1:20:07 — wash it. I become tremendously sensitive to the machine. And you must have noticed this fact. So, my responsibility to you makes me highly sensitive to you.
1:20:25 TC: Clearly, yes.
1:20:29 K: Right? See what has happened. My sensitivity to you brings a relationship between you and me at a different level, doesn’t it?
1:20:47 Not that I love you, therefore I am this. Not because I see and you don’t see. I don’t know if I am making sense. Mr John, do you follow this?
1:21:08 You are the student also. I am sensitive to you.
1:21:23 What takes place when there is sensitivity between you and me?
1:21:30 You are not sensitive, I am. To you. Right? Are we following this, or am I talking…
1:21:39 Q: You mean your level of attention, your sensitivity calls forth in me…
1:21:44 K: No, no, I am not concerned with you. You see, you are always… He asked me how would I deal with it.
1:21:53 JZ: Well, there are at least two things happening here.
1:21:57 K: Yes.
1:21:58 JZ: One, if I take the role of the student, and I say to you, ‘I don’t care about that, I just want to go out and I want to swim in the pool.
1:22:06 I don’t want to hear about it’…
1:22:08 K: No, wait. Quite right. Quite right. But I am talking…
1:22:12 TC: But is that what’s happening to you now? Let’s get to that.
1:22:14 JZ: No, I mean… Okay, so that, you know, with that out of the way…
1:22:16 K: Yes, but I am saying, sir, look, I am not talking about the student. He said to me, asked me how I would deal with it. You understand?
1:22:25 JZ: Yes, but you are dealing with us.
1:22:30 K: Yes, I took Ted as the student, coming from that field, and he asked me: how would you deal with this, with me?
1:22:43 And I am doing it. You follow, sir?
1:22:46 JZ: You are dealing with Ted and not with some student.
1:22:47 K: Ted, I am taking him as a student for the moment. If the student says, ‘Go to hell, that is the end of it.’ But the student is unfortunately there, so I have to deal with him, and I say this is how I would deal with him.
1:23:09 Deal with him in relationship to me. So I say, my responsibility makes me highly sensitive — right? - as I am highly sensitive to the motor, to a car.
1:23:28 If I am utterly responsible, I see there is enough air in the tyres, the oil, this, and clean.
1:23:36 I feel responsible - you follow, sir?
1:23:37 JZ: But then you have to do something.
1:23:40 K: I am doing it. Wait.
1:23:43 MZ: What do you do with regard to the person?
1:23:49 K: God, I am doing it!
1:23:52 MZ: But you said you are sensitive... (inaudible) K: I am coming… You are not meeting my… First I become sensitive. That is important. That is all I am talking about. Being sensitive in that sense, that I care infinitely for that car — you understand, sir?
1:24:14 — I want it polished, I want it clean. I clean it. You follow? My very sensitivity to the car makes me act.
1:24:26 That action is different from the action of wanting you to be different.
1:24:39 I don’t know if you see the difference. Do you?
1:24:44 Q: Yes.
1:24:46 K: Right? Can we go on from there? Phew! Now, I am sensitive to you.
1:25:03 So I am watching you, as I watch the car. I won’t go over bumps and… I am watching you. Not to transform you; I am just watching you.
1:25:20 And you reveal to me very quickly what you are.
1:25:28 Very quickly.
1:25:35 You understand? Now, you reveal whatever it is revealed. Must I take that? You reveal some parts of the rotten field. Right? Now, how am I to deal with that? That is my concern. My sensitivity which has arisen, comes into being because I am highly responsible.
1:26:03 The responsibility is… (inaudible). I don’t know if you see that. That is a major factor. Not because I love you, I love the universe, they are all my children. That is gooey stuff. But being utterly responsible has brought this. You see the difference? Right. That sensitivity to you reveals very quickly your whole structure.
1:26:37 Like a car. Now, having revealed then I am in a different position. My relationship is different, is entirely different. Right? Now, I might talk to you or I might not talk to you.
1:27:00 I might sit next to you at lunch, play with you, talk to you, show you — I would do lots of things.
1:27:13 MZ: What do you mean by showing?
1:27:17 K: How to eat properly.
1:27:19 MZ: Isn’t that pushing him?
1:27:22 K: Not at all.
1:27:23 TC: It’s responding to…
1:27:24 K: Is that pushing, putting oil in the car?
1:27:26 MZ: I don’t think that’s a parallel.
1:27:29 K: Oh yes, it is. I am not pushing him. I show him. I say, ‘Look, if you eat like this, with a lot of people sitting there, there is not enough room, therefore eat like that.’ MZ: (Inaudible) K: No, I will see that he doesn’t move over.
1:27:46 That is my responsibility, how I deal with him.
1:27:47 MZ: (Inaudible) K: Not in the least!
1:27:49 MZ: Why not?
1:27:50 K: Oh, for God’s sake, don’t enter into all that.
1:27:54 MZ: But Krishnaji, you said we cannot influence, we cannot show, we cannot tell…
1:27:58 K: Wait. You have misunderstood. I am not influencing him. I am not telling him. Please listen. I have very carefully explained: when I feel responsible, that very responsibility creates a certain sensitivity in me.
1:28:20 Right? And I am sensitive to you as my student. Therefore that sensitivity reveals what you are. What you are, not what I think you are. What actually you are. I see what you are: cruel, wanting your way, wanting to… afraid, all the rest of it.
1:28:48 Now, I am going to deal with it. I have to deal with it. Without compulsion, without imitation, without example, and all the rest of it. So I sit down. I will do it, very quickly, I will show you. Whether I am walking with you or talking, or in the class, eating, I will find a way, very quickly, as I would find a way with any machinery.
1:29:23 I am using the machinery as an example because I think it is a fairly good example. I am very careful when I drive, not to go over the bumps, to keep it, care… — you follow? - the whole of it.
1:29:41 My point is, unless I feel utterly, totally responsible, I will not have this feeling of sensitivity.
1:29:57 It is that sensitivity that is going to reveal what you are. Not clairvoyance - you follow? — all that. It may enter into that. Being highly sensitive, you will tell me a great deal more than you want to tell me.
1:30:19 So I watch you for a couple of days and then see how I can deal with it. The dealing with it is my intelligence operating. You follow? I can’t say, ‘Well, this way I will deal with you, and this way I will deal with that person.’ It is…
1:30:35 TC: How do you deal with someone who is attentive, who listens, but does not say anything.
1:30:43 No response. You ask a question and nothing comes back.
1:30:46 K: All right, I’ll find out what is wrong with him, why he does not talk.
1:30:49 TC: How do you find that out?
1:30:51 K: Oh…
1:30:53 Q: How do you find out?
1:30:58 K: I will find out why. He may be utterly shy, or he is hurt, or he is disturbed, or he is frightened of being discovered what he is, therefore he shuts up.
1:31:21 So I begin to… sir, I begin to question, I begin to gradually find out, push him into it.
1:31:29 Oh yes, push him into it. I am using the phrase — get on with it. Don’t… oh, for God’s sake, don’t stick to words.
1:31:36 MZ: I am sorry but I don’t… I mean, I may be the only one who does not understand, but what are the ways of dealing with this?
1:31:44 K: I am telling you. What are the ways? I told you just now. When I walk with him I will find out.
1:31:51 Q: But this sensitivity — you were talking about a student - you would see the shyness, you would see this fear.
1:32:00 You would see the shyness and the fear in the student, so the sensitivity would...
1:32:04 K: My intelligence would say how to deal with that student at that moment.
1:32:09 Q: Yes, so it may not be pushing at that moment.
1:32:14 K: Ah, I withdraw that word pushing. For God’s sake, I was quickly talking.
1:32:17 Q: How do we come to realize in ourselves this sense of responsibility?
1:32:28 K: How do you feel responsible? I don’t know.
1:32:34 Q: But sir, to do this thoroughly you really need one teacher for each student.
1:32:40 K: No, no. No, no. No, just a minute, we are going off. Ted asked me what I would do if he was my student.
1:32:51 What would I do? I explained that my chief concern would be: do I feel completely responsible for Ted, for the students.
1:33:12 Not to make them into something; responsible, for their behaviour, for their looks, for the way they eat, their mind, their feeling, their sensitivity to birds, to trees, their attitude - responsible for the whole of it.
1:33:36 Q: How can the sense of responsibility be awakened in myself?
1:33:47 K: I would say, why don’t you feel responsible?
1:33:56 What is wrong with you? When the house is burning and you sit and say, ‘How can I awaken that responsibility to put that fire out?’ I would say, ‘My God, what is wrong with you?’ I think, if I may put the question…
1:34:20 Q: There are depths of responsibility.
1:34:25 K: No, no, I said responsibility means not relative, not partial; a total responsibility.
1:34:42 Not dependent on my moods and my inclinations. I am responsible to put the fire out.
1:35:00 You see, responsibility implies the awakening of sensitivity which is intelligence.
1:35:12 My intelligence, that intelligence, not mine, that intelligence will operate when I sit next to a student at the table.
1:35:23 I’ll find out. The intelligence will operate, which may tell him, ‘Look…’ I would do lots of things.
1:35:37 (Pause) Q: Sir, what you are saying is fairly clear for me.
1:35:57 It is a good way to deal with the matter. But I want to suggest, maybe you don’t do what you are saying.
1:36:05 Maybe you see the whole machinery in your example, rather far, from afar.
1:36:15 K: You are saying, what you are talking about you are not doing.
1:36:20 Q: Maybe he is saying…
1:36:22 Q: Not maybe…
1:36:23 K: Not maybe. Not maybe.
1:36:25 Q: In my perception, I think you are rather far from the machinery that’s broken.
1:36:32 K: Ah, I understand. You are saying that I am not actually a member of the staff.
1:36:41 Q: Yes.
1:36:43 K: I come here for two months of the year and go away. Therefore I am not actually sharing in the teaching, in the daily life.
1:36:58 That’s right, that’s right — I am not.
1:37:00 Q: I am sorry…
1:37:01 K: Sir, this is so — there’s nothing to be… It is so.
1:37:05 Q: But I don’t remark that you are only two months, I remark that in daily life you are not.
1:37:14 You are always…
1:37:15 K: Naturally, sir. Of course, because if I stayed here permanently, as a member of the staff for eight months of the year, then I would be involved in it totally.
1:37:29 You understand? You understand what I am…
1:37:37 Q: No, I think you don’t understand me. It is not a matter of time. You can stay here one day and to share what is happening, what is being done.
1:37:49 K: I don’t quite follow. I don’t quite follow.
1:37:56 IP: I think what he is saying is it does not matter how long you are here, he feels that while you are here you are rather distant from what actually goes on in Brockwood now.
1:38:01 K: I am not at all sure of that. I don’t think it is quite so. Because - need I go into all that?
1:38:12 Q: I don’t know. I am sorry if you disagree.
1:38:16 K: No, no. No, sir, no, I am afraid it is not quite like that.
1:38:21 Q: May I add something? When you give the way to deal with the student, you start from the fact that the teachers must be responsible.
1:38:33 K: Yes, sir.
1:38:36 Q: And I think that for them it is very difficult to be responsible.
1:38:43 K: I know this, sir.
1:38:44 Q: To be responsible implies a certain quietness, a certain…
1:38:47 K: Sir, I know this, I know this. We know all this.
1:38:51 Q: Well, then you must… you need to get from the teachers what the teachers must get from the students.
1:39:02 K: No, sir. Just look, sir. You are saying I am assuming, I am taking for granted that the teacher is totally responsible.
1:39:15 Q: No.
1:39:17 K: I am not. I say it is necessary.
1:39:20 Q: It is necessary.
1:39:21 K: Yes. But most of us are not totally responsible.
1:39:24 Q: Because?
1:39:25 K: For various reasons.
1:39:26 Q: We can’t.
1:39:27 K: We can’t. Then you say: what is one to do? You don’t deal with that irresponsibility, you talk about responsibility. You understand, sir? Ted is irresponsible. I am taking that, supposing. And I take it for granted that he is responsible, or that I think that he should be responsible.
1:39:58 So I am not dealing with the fact. Right? I am dealing with a fact when I keep on insisting on responsibility, because he has to see it himself.
1:40:16 I will approach this question tomorrow differently, another day differently, but he has to see it; I can’t force him to see it.
1:40:26 Q: You cannot.
1:40:28 K: I can’t force him to see it. No, I cannot.
1:40:32 Q: But you can do what you were saying about the relation between the teacher and the student.
1:40:41 K: I am doing it now.
1:40:42 Q: Well, I don’t think so. I see you another… (inaudible) K: No, sir. Sir, look, sir, let’s take for granted for the moment that Ted is not responsible.
1:41:02 And I feel responsible, distance.
1:41:05 TC: Well, I might say at this point that you said this fifteen minutes ago.
1:41:12 K: I know. I know. I don’t think he is… Sir, what am I to do? I feel responsible and you don’t. You don’t. What am I to do?
1:41:30 Q: You must change.
1:41:32 K: Which is what?
1:41:34 Q: To be nearer.
1:41:36 Q: He is being nearer now.
1:41:39 TC: Right here, he just said to you, Hector, he said: you are not responsible, what shall we do?
1:41:48 He just said that. You are not responsible, what shall he do? He just asked you.
1:41:54 Q: To be nearer. We are near you here, now.
1:41:56 Q: That is what we are talking about now.
1:41:57 Q: Yes, but you are not near a moment after.
1:42:04 K: Must I hold your hand all the time, to be nearer?
1:42:08 Q: No, but it’s... Well, it is something of a gradation.
1:42:12 K: No, no, sir.
1:42:13 Q: Yes.
1:42:14 K: No, no. If Ted feels utterly responsible and I… it is the same, it is not variable, it is not relative, it is not dependent on him or on me.
1:42:27 Responsibility is impersonal. If I feel responsible for a child and if he feels totally responsible as I feel, we will both be on the same level.
1:42:45 That is what we are trying to do now.
1:42:47 Q: Yes. Now, yes.
1:42:49 K: Sir, at every meeting I do this.
1:42:52 Q: Only by lectures.
1:42:53 K: Then what am I to do? Then what am I to do? Hold your hand? Sit next to you?
1:43:01 Q: What changed? When you say that the teacher to be next to the student… (inaudible) It is only some appreciation, I don’t want to insist on it.
1:43:18 K: We are doing this, sir, all the time, aren’t we? We have spent an hour and a half, making each other, helping each other to be responsible.
1:43:35 Q: Yes, I think it was good.
1:43:39 K: We are doing it. We are doing it.
1:43:41 Q: (Inaudible) K: No, we are doing this practically every day. Whenever we meet, discuss, this is what we are doing. Keep on attacking the problem from ten different ways. (Pause) Q: Be with it.
1:44:03 What else can I…
1:44:09 K: No, how do you see it, how do you know the meaning of irresponsibility?
1:44:22 Is it just a feeling that you are irresponsible, or you are really irresponsible?
1:44:26 Q: I see it for a fact that I am not available totally.
1:44:30 K: Then what will you do with… No. Then what will the fact do to you? You understand the difference?
1:44:35 Q: Increase it.
1:44:37 K: No, no. No.
1:44:39 Q: Isn’t the seeing of that fact responsibility?
1:44:42 K: No, I see the fact that I am irresponsible.
1:44:49 The fact, not my idea of responsibility.
1:44:52 Q: No, the fact.
1:44:53 K: The fact that I really don’t care. What does that do to me? I don’t care — all right, I walk out.
1:45:10 Or that fact does something to me.
1:45:17 I meet a snake - the fact. The fact is going to tell me what to do. Right? Doesn’t it?
1:45:28 Q: Yes, it opens and moves me at that second.
1:45:33 K: So what will you do? At that second you are responsible.
1:45:36 Q: Something opens at that second.
1:45:41 K: Which means what? We are talking of responsibility. When you see actually the fact that you are not responsible, there are two actions that take place: you say, ‘All right, I am irresponsible,’ and walk out; or you look at the fact.
1:46:03 Q: And I stay with it.
1:46:05 K: You look at the fact. That is looking, that means remaining with it. That fact operates.
1:46:13 Q: Isn’t that responsibility?
1:46:18 K: That is what takes place, doesn’t it? I have been irresponsible and suddenly I become aware that I am irresponsible, and I say, ‘Yes, all right, what of it?’ I am bored with the damn thing and I…
1:46:35 Or I watch that fact. I am with that fact, that I am neurotic, or whatever it is, I look at it.
1:46:48 And I remain with it. And that fact tells me… says… operates. Which means as the snake makes me operate - all the rest of it.
1:47:08 I have got two things more or less to come down to.
1:47:18 Do I feel or do I know the full meaning of responsibility?
1:47:30 If I do not, am I aware that I am not, that I am not responsible?
1:47:44 And if I am not responsible then I can forget it and say, ‘Well, I am not responsible, I will just remain here casually.’ You follow?
1:47:56 That has its own action. Or I see the fact that I am irresponsible, and because I see it, a totally different kind of reaction takes place.
1:48:14 I mean, if the house is burning, I say, ‘Well, it is not my house,’ and walk away.
1:48:24 Or if it is a house that is burning, therefore it makes me act.
1:48:39 So how would I — we’d better stop, it’s now a quarter past one — how would I, feeling responsible — I think I am responsible — deal with a student who comes out of that field?
1:48:57 That is what we began. I say that responsibility makes me extraordinarily alert to you, sensitive to you.
1:49:18 Being aware, sensitive to you, I watch you. I watch you, I see what you are. You see the… I don’t know if I am making… am I conveying something or not?
1:49:35 Then I deal with it. I deal with it according to my… to the intelligence which that responsibility has awakened in me.
1:49:50 Right? The responsibility is doing this, not my intelligence, my cleverness, my moods. I don’t know if I am conveying this.
1:50:01 Q: The very act of seeing is the dealing with the problem.
1:50:12 K: If the food is being burned I am responsible for, I do something, actually, instantly.
1:50:19 If I say, ‘I am not responsible, she is responsible,’ I walk away.
1:50:30 So, I am conditioned as a teacher and you are conditioned as a student.
1:50:42 I am aware of my conditioning, aware, sensitive to my conditioning.
1:50:50 And in my relationship with you, who are also conditioned, the fact and the sensitivity to the fact is going to operate, is going to act, tell us both what to do.
1:51:06 Tell me especially because I am the older person, I see more clearly. I convey it to you. And that conveying to you depends on my intelligence, my tact - you follow? — the whole of that.
1:51:25 If I act brutally, compelling you, then I am back into the old, rotten field.
1:51:34 If I use authority, I am exercising that, so I am aware. You follow? Am I conveying something?
1:51:39 Q: If you act brutally you have in fact chosen not to care.
1:51:54 You are at this point of choice.
1:51:59 K: Not choice - I mean, if I feel I want to be irresponsible, there is no choice.
1:52:10 Sir, the use of the word choice, is rather difficult.
1:52:17 Q: I know, but it is a sort of crossroads every time, every moment.
1:52:25 There is this crossroads every moment, otherwise you would not have mentioned that.
1:52:33 K: That is why I am picking it up too. Is there a choice? Is there a choice when I am at the end of a precipice?
1:52:49 The choice exists only when I am rather insane. There is no choice when I walk away from it. That is not a choice, that is sanity.
1:53:07 Choice exists only when I am uncertain whether I should throw myself over or restrain myself. When I see what the precipice is, unless I am completely cuckoo, choice does not enter into the field at all - I walk away.
1:53:25 Q: Can I put it this way? When one meets a snake or a precipice or a burning house, or whatever it is, something that calls a certain responsibility from me, now, in much of daily life I am not in that position of energy, and yet I have to be responsible in that…
1:53:56 K: No, that is a different question from being responsible to a community in which there is a school.
1:54:08 That is a totally different responsibility than my responsibility living in a separate house by myself, with a family or no family, whatever it is.
1:54:19 Here I am responsible for all of it.
1:54:25 Q: I don’t think you choose to be responsible.
1:54:32 It is not a choice to be responsible.
1:54:33 K: No, no. No, that is not…
1:54:35 Q: Are you saying that if, say in Brockwood we have people who are responsible and we look at a student, that we are all going to automatically agree on the path that we should take?
1:54:52 K: Sir, let me put the question differently. Is it a matter of agreement? When you see something, is it a matter of agreement? Is it a matter of agreement when you say, the mind must be unconditioned?
1:55:15 Or do you see the fact and therefore there is no agreement - it is a fact.
1:55:21 Q: Well, we may agree that the student is disturbed.
1:55:25 K: Yes.
1:55:27 Q: But we may disagree on what…
1:55:30 K: I question that. I want to find out.
1:55:34 Q: But in the burning house, you all agree that the house is burning, but we use different methods to deal with it.
1:55:45 K: No, no. No, I question whether there are different methods. I want to find out. Saral Bohm: Sir, you said that responsibility is not a personal thing, this sort of responsibility, therefore wouldn’t it be that the responsibility acts and if it is that responsibility, then how can there be disagreement, because it’s that which is…
1:56:07 K: Yes, that is what I want to convey. We both see the necessity of unconditioning. Then we might disagree on the method. You might say, ‘Well, let’s do it this way,’ and I say, ‘No, no, that is the wrong way.’ I think that disagreement should never arise.
1:56:42 Because what is important? Unconditioning. Right? Not the method. So you and I have that central issue in mind.
1:57:01 If I am willing to see that your way of doing it may be better than mine, I yield to it instantly.
1:57:11 There is not agreement, because I am concerned with the unconditioning, not with my method, my way of looking at it.
1:57:25 I don’t know if I am making that…
1:57:29 TC: What you say is very clear. I am just thinking if it is an over-idealization.
1:57:34 K: No. No. I said if both of us are concerned with the primary issue.
1:57:43 If both of us are concerned with the building of a house then I yield to you, or you yield to me.
1:57:52 That is, we get on with it. I don’t stick to my method of building a house; we find out what is the best. That is not over-idealization.
1:58:01 TC: I can see there are matters of judgment.
1:58:07 K: Is there a matter of judgment?
1:58:11 TC: In certain cases, no, but in other cases, yes, I think so. If we choose to look at the cases where there is no judgement, surely there is no judgement.
1:58:17 K: Therefore I am completely open. I am completely willing to look at what you are saying.
1:58:22 TC: Can I give you an example so that I can clarify what is happening?
1:58:32 Let’s suppose that there is a light socket there and you have a European socket to go in it, and you want to put that in there, because you put it in there before.
1:58:44 Right? And I say, ‘Well, there is an adapter. I mean, this looks like an adaptor which if you put that in there, then you can put the other there and it works quite easily.’ But suppose that you say, ‘No, I want to put this in.’ Now, then what would…
1:58:55 I would like to see what… You say, ‘No, I want to put it in without the adaptor, I want to put that in.’ Is that what you are saying, that the person would suggest something?
1:59:07 Q: Obviously I didn’t have that example in mind.
1:59:12 TC: No, you didn’t have that example, obviously, but you are looking at people who are consider a situation and one of them suggests something and the other one suggests something.
1:59:26 Q: Fine, we can look at that. All right.
1:59:29 TC: But what do you want to arrive at when the two suggestions happen? Do you want to see what…
1:59:34 K: You see, Ted, what we are trying to get at — he says, ‘I want to eliminate agreement.’ Q: And hence disagreement.
1:59:43 K: Ah! I want to eliminate both disagreement and agreement. Then we will be battling each other about agreement and disagreement: ‘I am right, you are right, I am wrong, you are wrong.’ I want to eliminate that, because that can only be eliminated when the other issue is much stronger than your agreement or my agreement.
2:00:12 I don’t know if I…
2:00:20 TC: Say that you suggest using an adaptor which you feel is more intelligent and the other person still does not want to do that.
2:00:30 Q: Doesn’t see it.
2:00:31 TC: Doesn’t see that. You know, they don’t see it — they’ve been putting the plug in there before. Then what would you do?
2:00:38 K: What would I do? What would you do?
2:00:42 TC: Well, I… (inaudible) K: No, no, what would you do? Actually what would you do?
2:00:47 TC: Well, if I know that there is no harm going to come from using it without the adaptor, fine.
2:00:52 K: Let him have it.
2:00:53 TC: Go ahead and try to use it.
2:00:54 K: Let him have it. He is a stupid old man who insists on his old habit, let him have it.
2:01:00 TC: But what if we have a student, though, and I see that he is disturbed. Someone else sees that he is disturbed. I think that we can deal with that. I say, ‘Let’s let him stay here in Brockwood and let’s deal with it.’ And someone says, ‘I see he is disturbed, but I think he is a little bit too disturbed for us to allow him to stay here.
2:01:19 Let’s get rid of him, or let’s ask him to go here or there, or not renew his scholarship…’ K: Whatever it is.
2:01:24 TC: And so here is a case where either the student goes or he stays, and we have to make a decision.
2:01:31 K: So how do you decide, sir? Proceed, sir, proceed.
2:01:33 TC: There is no disagreement. I mean, there is no agreement here, but people honestly feel responsible for the person, but they also have responsibility to other students, and they have limited time.
2:01:42 K: All right, what takes place?
2:01:43 TC: What does take place? Well, I have to do it hypothetically, because we don’t...
2:01:53 Dorothy Simmons: No, we’ve actually had to deal with it.
2:01:57 TC: Well, but there was no real disagreement there. There was no real disagreement.
2:02:02 DS: Yes, there was uncertainty.
2:02:03 TC: There was uncertainty, yes. We were unclear. I mean, but we were honestly unclear. It wasn’t that one of us knew what to do and another one knew what to do. I mean, it is just that we didn’t have the experience or whatever it was.
2:02:19 DS: But we had to act. We became very sensitive to a particular student and we listened to what everybody else had to say, and we picked up without sort of taking a nominal vote, what was the overall for this place, including the student who was part of this place, and acted from what was felt right for this place.
2:02:37 It may have been wrong, but that was actually how we dealt with it.
2:02:48 K: Sir, the point is, can we prevent opinions dominating?
2:02:57 TC: Now, in that other situation, if you have an opinion, and you want to go ahead and do it, and it is your room, let’s say, then…
2:03:14 K: I have an opinion about the whole place — students, teachers - I have an opinion.
2:03:22 I stick to my opinion.
2:03:23 TC: Now, how am I…
2:03:26 K: Exactly. And I am trying to prevent… I want to prevent myself and in you the formation of opinion and holding on to them.
2:03:36 That is part of my conditioning, part of the rotten field from which I come.
2:03:46 We think through opinions we are going to find truth.
2:03:50 Q: And in the more ordinary way, with opinions we do our everyday…
2:04:02 K: Yes. Say for instance, collectively, why should we have opinions?
2:04:06 TC: Well, couldn’t we have an opinion in order to direct our action? But as soon as we say…
2:04:14 K: There may be a direction of action without opinions. Let’s find out.
2:04:18 Q: Sir, but sometimes the action is complex and requires the introduction of symbolic models and so on, and then we cannot know about the result.
2:04:31 Then we have an opinion.
2:04:34 K: No, no. No, no. Sir… No, I think we had better stop. It is now half past one. We will do it tomorrow, continue again. Sorry, it is half past one, I didn’t realize it. That poor dog must be… (laughter)