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GSBR74DT08 - The habit of conflict
Brockwood Park, UK - 16 September 1974
Discussion with Teachers 08



0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti third discussion with teachers at Brockwood Park, 1974.
0:10 Krishnamurti: I think we left off yesterday: what I would do confronted with students who are conditioned — and we know what the meaning of that word is by now – what would I do?
0:37 I think that’s where we left off, wasn’t it?
0:49 Questioner: Yes.
0:52 K: Yes. I think I would be concerned not with the immediate action but rather with the whole life of the student, from the moment he comes here till he dies, the whole of that.
1:20 Whether he is here for four years or five years and goes away and the rest of his life he spends outside in a rotten world, I would be concerned with the totality of his existence, in which is included the cultivation of memory as knowledge, his sexual life, his suffering, his conflict, his fears and his innate pursuit of pleasures and so on - I would be concerned with the whole of that.
2:13 Therefore my action would be in relation to the whole, to the particular.
2:23 I don’t know if I’m making my… Am I…
2:25 Q: Relation of the whole and the particular.
2:33 K: The whole… I see, for me, the whole is more important, the whole of life, than the immediate action.
2:50 That immediate action must have its relationship with the whole, otherwise immediate action has no meaning.
2:57 I don’t know if I… And being concerned with the great sanity of the totality then what is the student’s relationship to that totality, to that wholeness?
3:23 I don’t know if I am conveying anything or not; am I? If I am building a house, I am concerned with the whole of the house, and then I look to the detail — the proportions of the house, the necessary rooms, the quality and the architecture of the house, the beauty of the room, and so on and so on — and then I would go into the particular, from that understanding of the whole.
4:12 I don’t know if I am…
4:19 May I? To me, the whole means a life of no conflict.
4:37 Which doesn’t mean I go off to sleep, become a recluse, or sentimentally enclose myself into some kind of illusion.
4:50 No conflict implies at all levels of my existence — physically, emotionally, intellectually, psychologically.
4:57 The totality of my existence must be lived without conflict, because conflict produces insanity, neurotic activities, psychological and pathological movements, and so on and so on.
5:20 So that would be my concern with regard to the whole - one of the concerns.
5:27 Now, can I translate that, this sense of not having conflict at all, without going to sleep, without isolating oneself, without being afraid of being hurt and therefore enclosing myself or running off — to live without conflict implies a tremendous awareness, intelligence and watchful - all that is implied, not just childish intimation of, ‘No, I am not going to have conflict, I don’t want conflict.’ Now, how do I translate that to the student, in my relationship and responsibility, in being with him, in the community?
6:32 Can we discuss that? Because more and more, from what we saw last night, or yesterday afternoon, Vancouver Island, and the Austrian people, they are going to get a castle and all the rest of it, if they can – it’s going to be more and more residential, somewhat isolated, a small educational centre - small or big, but it will be an educational centre, both for the older people as well as for the younger people.
7:19 And in that community with the student, how would I translate to the student a life that he must – ‘must’ quotes – must lead?
7:34 Q: So how can one live in this isolated place completely openly?
7:42 K: I want to find out how to do it. Completely open, aware, in touch with the world, what is happening in the world, aware of all the miseries that are going on in the world, and yet live a life without conflict.
8:04 My concern then is how do I translate that in my relationship and responsibility to the student.
8:15 Q: Including to teachers. Even to teachers. And also to the teachers.
8:25 K: Of course, that’s community. Community means… here we are, a small community, how do we live together and with the student, helping each other to live without conflict?
8:50 And my responsibility as an educator in this community to the student, how do I translate that essential, that important thing so that the student understands it and lives it?
9:09 Can we start from there? This is what you asked me, what I would do. Now, how can I within a very short period — not take a year because he’ll then become worse and worse or thicken himself into some kind of attitudes and so on - I’ve a very short time, how can I do this?
9:42 In my relationship to the student, that doesn’t exclude my relationship with the others, with the older people, so it’s all together.
9:53 Now, how do I… my chief concern is the student.
10:00 And in that, I learn how to live without conflict in relationship with him, in interaction with him, and so on - I learn.
10:08 Now, how do I help him to learn this?
10:20 I can point out all the effects of conflict, logically, rationally, sanely — the division of people, class, so on, and his own ambitions which create conflicts, his own goals which bring about conflict, his own desires and so on, so on - I can point it out rationally, logically to him but that isn’t good enough; he is much too clever already.
10:55 So how shall I deal with this problem, not only verbally but also nonverbally?
11:02 Come on, sir, this is your job.
11:10 How do you set about it? Come on, Shakuntala, how do we set about… how would you do it?
11:20 Because if we don’t succeed in this — ‘succeed’ in quotes — we are not real educators, we are not absolutely involved in something totally new, we just repeat what the other schools have done, or a little better, a little worse, and so on.
11:47 But this is something entirely different and we have to answer this. At least… How would you answer this? How would you translate to the student both verbally and non-verbally the necessity that he should live without conflict?
12:09 Which implies not having shocks, mentally, physically, emotionally; not be caught in any pattern and then has to break that pattern.
12:29 All that is implied in this not having conflict. It isn’t just physical conflict. The idea and then the adjustment to the idea is a conflict.
12:44 So it involves a tremendous lot. And how do I as a teacher convey this to him and see that he lives it - not just convey it verbally or nonverbally.
13:04 How do I do this? Come on, Shakuntala, it’s your job. It’s our job. You answer it, some of you, discuss it. Of course, don’t say, ‘I must be without conflict’ - that’s understood.
13:22 Q: To do this without conflict.
13:25 K: To do this without conflict in myself and with the student, and learn in my relationship with the student how to live without conflict.
13:37 Myself and the student. Because I think part of this maturity, which we were talking about yesterday, is this sense of freedom from conflict.
13:59 Because conflict does wear out the brain cells more and more and more and more; obviously.
14:11 And as we said, it’s only a mind that lives without conflict can mature slowly, go on endlessly, till it dies naturally.
14:23 So as an educator I’m concerned with that. I want the students to live ninety years without conflict and die happily.
14:43 How can I translate this to him? What shall I do? Is this a problem to you? Is this? You are all quiet; I don’t know.
15:02 Come on, Mr Joe. Come on, sir. Ted Cartee: Well, to make it more concrete, can we look at one of the major types of conflict that arise in situations with the student?
15:25 K: Yes, take any... Now, look, Ted, be careful, because the moment you take a concrete example, and then you have to know the cause of it, and there is not a single cause but multiple causes for any action - multiple, not just one - so you will get, in the examination of the multiple causes, lost.
15:55 I don’t know if I’m conveying this. So I want to approach it in a totally different way, not causation-effect and the many multiple causes which bring multiple effects and so on - all the complexity of causes.
16:18 I don’t know if… I wonder if I’m conveying… Look, I’m your student.
16:35 How would you translate this? How would you help me? It’s your responsibility. You are burning with it — you follow? — it is a reality to you. It’s not a theory, it’s not an ideal, it’s not something that you kind of fabricate out of your own desire.
16:54 It is a human necessity. The more intelligent you are, the less you have conflicts.
17:05 It is only the savage, the uncivilized human beings that have this enormous amount of conflict.
17:12 You are convinced. It’s your life. You are convinced. Now, how would you translate that to me? How will you help me? I am your student.
17:24 Q: The how is difficult for me to verbalize, because...
17:28 K: Help me. I’m your student now. Show me how to do it, how to live this.
17:32 Q: But it’s such a part of everything.
17:34 K: I have told you, sir. Go into it. Don’t apologize. Plunge into it.
17:39 Q: Well, I really feel I am plunged into it, but I still find it… except through talking a great, great deal, I find it difficult to verbalise particulars or hows and whys, and I don’t see the value of explaining it.
17:58 K: Sir, within a fortnight you are going to have those students and you have to convey this to them from the very first day.
18:09 Q: Yes, I feel that very much.
18:12 K: Therefore how will you do it? How will you show this to them? So that they say, ‘By Jove, sir, I’m with you entirely.
18:26 It’s such lovely thing to do.’ (Pause) Q: Well, for me the responsibility, this acute responsibility I feel in this direction...
18:40 K: Yes, old boy, but that’s… I accept all that. How will you deal with that student? I’m sorry to push you.
18:49 Q: Well, I can’t tell you now what I will do, I just know when the students are here…
18:54 K: Ah, you’ve got to. You’ve got to exercise your highest capacity to find this out.
19:07 You have to learn, haven’t you? You don’t know how to do it. Right?
19:15 Q: I think I…
19:18 K: Wait, wait. You have to learn.
19:23 Q: Of course.
19:27 K: Now, let’s learn together now.
19:35 Right? What shall I do? You are my student. How shall I convey it to you, the urgency of it, the importance of it, the necessity of it? I can say to you, ‘Look, sir, what is happening in the world.
20:02 The Hindus against the Muslims. ‘The Hindus’ is just an idea, ‘Muslim’ is another idea, a concept.
20:13 According to the concept they are conditioned — the Arab and the Jew, the English living on an island and the European…’ etc.
20:22 — I would show you how conflict arises through division.
20:30 Division, you understand? I want to learn. We are learning. And I say, not only there is physical division, geographical division, historical division, and also there is the division of ideas which bring conflict — the communist ideals, the socialist ideals, the Catholic ideals — you follow?
20:56 – Hindu and so on. So ideals, ideas divide and therefore conflict. Now, you get this inside your skull.
21:08 And also there is the division between you and me.
21:15 You wanting more power, more whatever it is, money, more prestige, a status, an ambition.
21:29 You want all that and I want all that, therefore there is a division, therefore there is conflict between you and me. So I have to drive it inside you. Sorry. You understand? I want you to swallow it, I want you to absorb it, it must be in your skull deeply. Then I would say, ‘Now, during the day we are going to watch it.
21:58 During the day we are going to watch whether you and I express this division.
22:10 In games — we’ll play games, be first class at games; but the division — whether we can play games without that division.’ TC: Which obviously doesn’t mean you all play on the same team, though.
22:29 K: Same team or… I mean, be excellent. Wait. So, watch it during the day. And watch your appetites during the day — physical, psychological, intellectual appetites: I want more; you must have less — you follow? — this battle.
22:55 And I would go into the question of knowledge. Does it interest you? Knowledge. I say, ‘Look, knowledge… if you live in knowledge and that’s the only field from which you operate, then that is one of the major factors of division.’ I don’t know if you understand this.
23:29 Q: (Inaudible) K: ‘I know and you don’t know,’ ‘I am the teacher, the guru, the enlightened one, the saviour and I’m going to save you,’ which is, my knowledge, my experience, my understanding is going to be conveyed to you.
23:51 It isn’t together — you follow?
23:57 Q: Yes, I understand.
23:58 K: It is always me and you. I would watch. I’d say, ‘Watch during the day. All day, watch it.’ Don’t watch it self-centredly; watch it, play a bit around.
24:17 You learn much more when you are playing around and watch. So I would talk. So I would go into that; physically how we want to be like everybody else — long hair, short hair.
24:38 So, conflict implies also conformity. I would — you follow, sir?
24:48 — I would go into this. I would do this every day, in different ways, invent different ways – you follow? — so that it doesn’t become monotonous.
25:13 And we are doing it together. Movement is together, not I tell you and you tell me but we are doing the thing together.
25:32 So we are cooperating together.
25:33 Q: Yes, and there is no fear attached to that.
25:37 K: Yes. So you see, that brings a different vitality into you and to the student, when it is together. I don’t know if I’m conveying it.
25:46 Q: Yes, and it’s not a separate thing from the teaching of mathematics or anything; it’s a part of it.
25:53 K: Together we are doing it. Moses, come on, come on.
26:04 I would begin physically. Things I know, physically. I say, ‘Physically don’t compete.
26:25 Don’t say, “I must be as beautiful as that woman or that man; be what you are and that is beauty in that.”‘ I don’t know if I’m talking…
26:40 TC: Well, as a student I could take the position that I want to raise an objection, I want to put my opinion in here.
26:45 K: Put your opinion.
26:47 TC: I say my opinion is that competition improves me and makes everybody better, so that we should compete.
26:55 K: Is that so? Is that so?
26:57 TC: I think so.
26:58 K: We have accepted that.
26:59 TC: No, this is not my opinion.
27:00 K: No, no; take it as your opinion.
27:03 TC: Fine.
27:04 K: Is that so? We have accepted that as a traditional thing, but is it a fact?
27:12 To compete…
27:13 TC: Yes, it’s a fact, I could say.
27:14 K: Is it?
27:15 TC: Sure. We look at the Olympics and everybody gets better every year, they run faster and they run longer.
27:20 K: Yes, and then what? Run faster and faster and faster, and then what?
27:23 TC: Sure. Oh, well, that’s… everybody improving, getting better.
27:26 K: (Laughs) No. All right. Shakuntala Narayan: They also get worn out.
27:31 K: You are competing… England is competing with Japan, or Germany, as it is happening now.
27:38 TC: And we have to get better or we are going to lose.
27:42 K: Ah, no. Is it better? Are we getting better or we are destroying each other?
27:46 SN: Leading to insanity.
27:47 TC: You see, what I am saying, that my brain or my… I may not be able to handle what you are saying to me. It’s fine if I understand it but if I have a complete misconception…
27:58 K: Therefore we have to learn. I say, all right, put your ideas forward, let’s discuss it. Competition is necessary - is it? Cooperation would save humanity now — right? — because each country is concerned with itself.
28:18 TC: Well, I mean, I happen to agree with you.
28:21 K: Ah, no, no, don’t agree.
28:23 TC: But I don’t want to… I don’t know if it’s… Do you want me to pursue this?
28:27 K: You can easily pursue, sir, but it won’t be real, because it will be theoretical.
28:31 TC: It’s too theoretical.
28:32 K: Theoretical. No, but you see what competition has done to people, to groups of people.
28:41 ‘My guru is better than your guru’ attitude, it destroys cooperation, and we need cooperation right throughout the world.
28:58 Isolated India trying to solve its own problems; isolated Germany — you follow? — all the rest of it.
29:05 So it’s simple enough, right? I would start physically. As I said, I would start physically with the student. You see, I would talk to him about his appetite, physical appetite.
29:26 I wonder if… Physical appetite in the sense, more food. I say, ‘Look, watch your eating.
29:44 Learn whether you are eating out of real necessity or is it a habit that you have cultivated‘ – you follow? – ‘and therefore you must have more, more, more?
30:02 Does eating more give you more energy or less energy?’ You understand?
30:11 ‘So experiment with it. Let’s experiment. I’ll eat as much as you do; let’s find out.’ Sir, you follow? It gives me an energy of discovery. And also I would say, ‘Are you competing in your looks with somebody else?
30:32 Are you trying to imitate somebody else physically?
30:42 Are you trying to conform to the pattern which society says is beauty?’ Are you following all this?
30:55 TC: It may not be in a form of… Say a person is physically attractive already, but then they extend this to some other…
31:04 K: …dimension.
31:05 TC: They may be a very good athlete or something that…
31:10 K: What have you done?
31:11 TC: Oh, I just cut my hand. Like, let’s say a good athlete, you see, or some, you know, like a fad now is karate and things - the person may be attractive but they see a greater extension in this…
31:25 K: Yes, that’s it. That’s the competition, you see?
31:27 TC: Yes. Oh yes. And you see, I’ve heard it expressed it expressed this way, a student expressing it to another, that by being so good at something that I will fear no-one.
31:42 K: Ah, that’s it. That’s it, that’s it.
31:47 TC: And I will be free of fear.
31:49 K: Yes, quite, quite, quite. So I would begin with the physical and how the physical reacts…
31:58 I mean, controls the mind, shapes the mind.
32:06 Because if I am concerned with my physical body all the time, my mind is also concerned with physical matter.
32:19 I don’t know if I… Obviously. So I would go into it. Montague Simmons: The fact that you are using the word attractive straight away says I want to draw people to me.
32:33 K: To me - of course; to attract. So that means, can I live a life without comparison? Physically, psychologically, intellectually and all of it, without comparing.
32:55 After all, the saints are the record breakers. (Laughs) Sorry! Because it is their… their very structure is that.
33:07 And can the student… I would talk to him about it, I would say a great deal about comparison, physical comparison: ‘He is beautiful I am not beautiful; he is attractive, I must be attractive’ — you follow? — this begins.
33:28 So I would go into it. I would say, ‘Look, don’t do it.’ Talk to him, point out what it does.
33:40 It is the same in a class where B is compared to A, then you destroy B. When B compares himself with A, B is destroying himself.
33:57 So - you follow, sir? — I’ve got a whole field where I can teach him, learn.
34:04 TC: May I ask you question on that point, B and A?
34:13 Where B says, ‘Well, in fact, I am not, but what I have discovered is that it’s my nature and need, naturally, to develop physically,’ for example, ‘and that I don’t see it as attraction.’ Now, how in what… (inaudible) K: No, develop physically but also develop mentally, psychologically; it isn’t just physically.
34:34 It’s like having a good body, a lovely house, and nothing inside. What’s the point of it? Like all these Miss Europe and Miss America and Miss whatever it is — lovely or whatever they call it, nice bodies or not nice bodies, and then what?
34:55 For God’s sake. It’s like these kings, all dressed up - strip them and they are nothing.
35:00 TC: Well, what if I take another attitude, that I understand everything you say completely; I have no conflict with you; my head is… you know, my physical and mental development is really fine.
35:19 K: But are you in conflict?
35:23 TC: No, no, I am fine.
35:25 K: (Laughs) Ah, then, all right, old boy, that settles it; but I’m going to watch you!
35:30 TC: (Laughs) Fine. (Laughter) Q: That’s the trouble.
35:33 K: I am going to watch you. I’m going to watch you in your class, I’m going to watch you when you eat, I’m going to watch you when you play. I’d say, ‘Look, you said that - look what are you doing.’ TC: ‘What are you always watching me for?’ I might say. I’d say, ‘You are always watching me.’ K: Why? Because I watch everything. I watch the butterfly, I watch you, I watch myself that way too. Saral Bohm: But wouldn’t that already be a sign of conflict if I say to you, ‘Why are you always watching me?
35:55 It makes me feel uncomfortable.’ It’s a sign of conflict.
35:59 K: He is only joking.
36:00 SB: Yes, I understand but it’s not entirely a joke.
36:03 TC: Well, I’m trying to get to a situation where a student, when you approach them, or, you know, anyone, of course, you approach… an approacher… you are being approached continually and then fear starts to come up.
36:17 K: No, that’s my job. Being older I would tell them right from the beginning, ‘I’m going to watch myself, I am watching others, I’m watching everything.
36:29 I like to watch. And it is my responsibility to help you to learn how to watch.’ TC: But this scrutiny may cause a fear, may cause a…
36:41 K: No, no. I watch. If my watching causes fear, either I’m watching wrongly, critically, wanting to catch you out (laughs), or I watch you to see how you are, like a doctor watches you.
37:05 The doctor watches you to see that you are in good health. You are not afraid of the doctor. Unless you are afraid of being operated on - that’s a different matter. But you are not afraid of him. You go to him. Mary Zimbalist: You could go into why he minds being watched.
37:29 K: Oh, of course you can. I mean, the moment you are in relationship with that student he has opened the door.
37:37 You follow? And you can enter that door.
37:41 Q: And it’s together. It’s not a matter of me watching a specimen who is being watched; it’s nothing to do with it.
37:50 K: No, no. So can we do this? Not only I as a single teacher, but together as a group of people in relationship with the student, and in relationship with each other, can we do this?
38:11 I want you to live a life without conflict.
38:22 I’ve been talking about it for fifty years (laughs), it is not…
38:34 Q: Sorry, but to get back to what you were saying before: it seems the greatest problem is to watch without being critical.
38:41 This seems to be…
38:43 K: That’s only partly, sir. That’s only partly. To watch. I am watching that wasp being caught in that glass. It wants to get out. I watch it. If I can help it, I’m going to help it. I took out half a dozen this morning. In the same way, I watch. That is not critical watchfulness. It is not a watchfulness of admiration or praise or flattery or pleasant watching; I just watch.
39:12 Q: The watcher by itself is watched in this process.
39:13 K: Of course. I watch myself. I said to you. I am not only watching you; in that watching I’m watching myself, how I’m reacting to you.
39:25 It’s a watchfulness all round.
39:27 Q: It cannot bring out fear then. Brian Jenkins: One may not be oneself aware of one’s criticism. Perhaps the student…
39:36 K: Therefore if I am a student I’m going to find out. I might come and say, ‘Sir, you are watching me, but I’m watching you too.’ (Laughs) (Pause) Q: I had a situation with a student during the gatherings which… he was doing a certain thing in the tent, a certain behaviour, and I watched him do it, and immediately I sensed that it was wrong what he was doing, and I tried to look at it: was I just reacting to it with annoyance, that I thought it was wrong or was it basically wrong what he was doing?
40:31 And I approached him with it and he had dozens of reasons why he felt it wasn’t wrong, and then I was sort of left with the feeling that I hadn’t approached it… you know, rather than approach it with the idea that…
40:54 I used the word that what he was doing was wrong.
40:57 K: No, just a minute. I understand. I have got a habit. You watch me and you find I have a particular, peculiar habit, whatever it is — twisting my nose or scratching my hair or putting my tongue out, or whatever it is — and you want to break it, because you see any kind of habit is a deterioration factor - mental habit, a physical habit — you follow? — it’s like a machine just going round and wearing itself out.
41:35 You see that. And I have a particular habit and you want me to break within a very short period. I have done it in three days; a physical habit, I can break it; I have done it, it’s quite easy.
41:53 Now, you want to help me, how will you do it? A physical habit. Mental habits are much more difficult. It is much more attractive; it gives you security, all kinds of things, mental habits.
42:13 Now, here is a physical habit a student has — how will you break it?
42:28 And you have discovered it; I haven’t discovered it. And I say, ‘It’s all right, sir, I like that habit because it’s nice,’ or, ‘I have enjoyed it so who the hell are you to come and criticize me?’ — and so on, so on, so on, so on.
42:43 Now, you see intelligently that any kind of habit — mental, emotional, psychological, physical — is a factor that makes the mind dull.
42:57 Any habit, obviously. Now, you see that, you understand it, you are trying to stop your own particular habits. Now, how will you help me to break it down? Come on, sir, discuss with me.
43:14 Q: Well, first of all, your approach must be such that it doesn’t…
43:19 K: Ah, ah, don’t preach to me.
43:21 Q: No, no. No, no. My approach…
43:24 K: What will you do?
43:25 Q: I will not be judgemental or critical K: No, you have watched… I have got a habit. You want to help me to break it down. What will you do?
43:33 Q: Well, it’s…
43:35 K: Act now.
43:36 Q: Are you aware that you’ve got this habit?
43:39 K: I’ve got a habit.
43:40 Q: You are aware of it.
43:43 K: You are aware of it; I am not. Wait, listen to it carefully. I’ve got a habit. By watching me, you have discovered the habit, physical, psychological, whatever it is - for the moment, physical. And you say, ‘Look…’ for you have understood the importance of not having habits.
44:02 Because, you know, you see the reason why. Do you?
44:07 Q: Yes.
44:08 K: And you understand the necessity of a mind that is not caught in a habit.
44:15 And I’m your student. By watching me you have found that I have got this habit, and it’s your responsibility to break it down.
44:28 How will you do it? Proceed. Proceed with me.
44:32 Q: I’d start off by discussing with the student about habits… (inaudible) K: Do it.
44:40 I am here, sir! I am here your blasted student — go on. (Laughs) Dorothy Simmons: Krishnaji, I have a ‘blasted student’ who doesn’t… isn’t able to sleep at night, and we’ve taken her to the doctor and still she doesn’t sleep, and so she gets up very late in the morning and she doesn’t come to the morning meeting, which she really quite wants to come to.
45:06 K: I wonder what it is.
45:09 DS: Well, that’s what we’ve been trying to find out for quite a long time.
45:12 K: Is it fear? Is it he has got peculiar dreams?
45:18 DS: She just doesn’t sleep.
45:19 Q: Well, doesn’t she also drink coffee quite late?
45:21 SN: No, no. No, she doesn’t.
45:23 DS: No.
45:24 K: No, I’m just… wait…
45:25 DS: She wants to… (inaudible) K: I don’t know what it is. Don’t mention names or anything, or he or she (laughs).
45:31 DS: Well, it. (Laughter) K: Now, is it that in sleep, however short, there are dreams which threaten him?
45:42 Is it overeating, over-exercising, over-talking, overindulgence — you follow? — during the day and that stimulates him so much they can’t sleep?
45:59 Or the parents have said something or acted in a way which might upset him therefore…
46:08 You follow? One has to go into all this.
46:10 DS: We have been into all this.
46:12 K: Then what did you find?
46:13 DS: Well, it still goes on.
46:15 K: No, why?
46:18 DS: We’ve gone into it with her together, individually, many of us.
46:25 We’ve taken her to the doctor.
46:27 K: Apparently you haven’t found it.
46:28 DS: No, we haven’t.
46:29 K: Therefore…
46:30 DS: It hasn’t been found in a year.
46:31 K: Why not?
46:32 DS: I don’t know why not. Because we haven’t found it. It still goes on.
46:35 Q: Was this her pattern before coming to Brockwood?
46:36 DS: Yes, it was.
46:37 SN: Yes, it’s since childhood. Doris Pratt: She’s established a pattern for herself, that is the trouble.
46:39 K: A pattern for herself. No, no, no…
46:41 DS: She goes to sleep at two o’clock in the morning.
46:45 Q: And she wakes up at nine or ten or so.
46:52 K: Now, it’s fairly simple, this kind of thing. I don’t know, I can’t discuss because if you can’t… if you can’t sleep as a student, I would talk to you about it.
47:05 I would go into it enormously, or rather listen to everything he or she has to say to me.
47:15 Q: That’s not the problem. She can sleep. She sleeps from two to nine, which she wants to change. She can sleep.
47:21 SN: She can sleep late.
47:22 K: No, no.
47:23 Q: She sleeps from two to nine. We want to change the hours that she is sleeping.
47:27 K: There must be some reason, something that’s preventing her.
47:30 MZ: If she gets up at the normal pattern of everybody else, doesn’t she eventually get so sleepy that she shifts her pattern to get enough sleep?
47:40 DS: That’s what we hoped.
47:43 MZ: It didn’t work?
47:44 DS: We actually, with her cooperation, she agreed to get up when she was called and came down in a semi-conscious sort of state, but I mean, that’s she using our energy to do something.
47:54 I mean, that’s no answer at all.
47:57 K: No, that’s… Look, you are taking a case which we can’t possibly discuss unless that person is there and deal with him directly.
48:12 MZ: Krishnaji, in discussing habits with anybody, particularly young students, it seems to me that you would have to go into what is a habit.
48:24 In other words, it’s our habit to have a morning meeting, to have lunch at one, to do…
48:31 K: Madame, you are extending too much. I want to…
48:33 MZ: No, but the student will need to have this area explored, of what is a habit.
48:37 K: We are doing it now. What is a habit? I’ve got a peculiar habit, of picking my nose or whatever it is - we won’t enter into the whole structure of habit, which requires a great deal more enquiry.
48:55 Habit — how will you deal with my habit which you have discovered, which I haven’t discovered; because I go on doing it.
49:04 How will you prevent it? Go on, sir. Brian Jenkins: Do you know you have this habit, first? First I would ask you if you know you have this habit.
49:19 K: Yes, sir, I don’t… No, sir, have I got a habit?
49:22 BJ: Yes, I’ve noticed it.
49:24 K: Have I got a habit? You say, ‘Yes, you do.’ Tell me, sir, how you would deal with it. Here I am. For goodness sake!
49:31 Q: Let’s look at the fact of this habit or… (inaudible) K: Look, old boy, I am here, I have got a habit, and you are facing me and telling me what to do.
49:42 How do you proceed with this thing?
49:46 Q: I think we are proceeding.
49:50 DP: Well, I’ve got a habit too.
49:53 K: No, please, you are going off the…
49:54 DP: You set about exposing your own habits.
49:56 K: You are going off the main point.
49:59 DP: But is it going off the main point if you approach the student by saying, ‘I have a habit of crossing my legs when I sit down because it’s comfortable, even though I’ve been told it stops the circulation’?
50:13 K: All right. Now, how will you stop that?
50:23 You cross your leg, and you have been told by the doctor, by people, by friends, ‘Don’t do that because the leg that you have crossed doesn’t bring proper circulation,’ and you keep on doing it.
50:36 Now, how am I as a teacher to help you to stop that habit?
50:45 Go on, sir, tell me.
50:52 Q: Well, unless you point out that it’s dangerous, I don’t think I would stop the habit.
51:09 K: You point it out to me that it stops circulation and therefore I’ll have varicose veins or this, this, that and the other, and next morning I do the same thing.
51:18 Here you are, you are all doing it.
51:19 BJ: So I don’t think I would talk to the student about it if he was actually doing it there and then; I think that would create a reaction immediately.
51:25 DP: No, I am talking about my habit to the student, in order to show the student the significance of habit.
51:32 MZ: Then the student would say, ‘What are you going to do about it?’ DP: (Inaudible) …his habit and say, ‘Now, I’ve noticed also that you have a habit of going… (inaudible).’ K: Look, Miss Pratt, that’s not my question.
51:45 I’ve got a habit; you have noticed it.
51:47 DP: Well, I’m not in a position to condemn… to do anything about your habit if I haven’t done anything about habits myself.
51:53 K: No, I’m your student. Please don’t play around with your habit first and my habit second or together habits.
51:59 DP: Well, it’s the problem of habit, sir. Your habit or my habit makes no odds.
52:02 K: I am talking about a physical habit which you have noticed in me.
52:09 Leave everything else aside for the moment. How will you help me to break down that habit?
52:17 Q: I will tell you to watch it.
52:25 SB: But, sir, could we say about this question of the circulation, the child won’t understand if you say it’s bad for him, but perhaps we could discover what it means, circulation, and go into the question of circulation.
52:36 K: Yes, (inaudible). I say, ‘It’s bad for your circulation, old boy, it gives you arthritis, gives you paralysis, it gives you…’ SB: Yes, but we can learn about circulation.
52:46 If we learn about circulation…
52:47 K: Yes, I’d teach… I said, circulation, it’s bad for you, but yet he does it because it has become a habit. You follow? It has become a constant habit. He’s seen his father, he’s seen everybody do it, therefore he does it. And you have to teach him, help him to do it without conflict.
53:08 SN: He may want to get rid of it.
53:12 K: Oh, for the love of Pete! This is becoming absurd. How will you help me? I’ve got a habit.
53:18 Q: I would say, ‘What are you doing?’ when you are doing it. First I would do that, and if this has happened to me, in Brockwood…
53:29 K: I am not interested in you. Sorry, I am not interested in you. I mean, you are interested in me.
53:36 Q: So I’d say, ‘What are you doing?’ K: As a teacher you have discovered that I’ve got a habit. Now, you want to say, ‘Look, I want to help him to break that habit.’ How will you proceed?
53:47 Stick to that simple thing.
53:48 BJ: Sir, I don’t think it’s sufficient to think in verbal terms. It’s what we seem to be doing.
53:50 K: You have to convey it to me.
53:58 BJ: But right now we are thinking in verbal terms.
54:01 K: Yes, I mean, verbally you are telling me I’ve got a habit. No, proceed, sir, you are missing my...
54:11 TC: Well, isn’t the point that to proceed, you proceed without conflict?
54:18 K: Look, Ted, you have made a life in which there is no conflict.
54:29 That is essential. And you want to convey it to me. And you are going to convey it to me through observation. You are watching, and in your observation you discover I’ve got a peculiar habit.
54:50 And you want to help me to get over that habit without a single effort, without conflict, saying, ‘I must not,’ and therefore restrict myself; I watch it and I say, ‘Oh my God, I’m doing it.
55:07 I mustn’t.’ So how will you help me to do this without conflict? Stick to that one thing.
55:14 Q: These are not intellectual things and therefore one cannot do it on this level.
55:21 K: Obviously. I’ve got a physical habit. Come on, sir, help me. Come on, Shakuntala, how would you proceed? Don’t dodge the issue: ‘I’ve got a habit therefore I can’t help you.’ And you want him to get it over as quickly as possible.
56:04 An interesting problem this.
56:09 Q: I think if it’s approached as a problem then it’s a problem. It’s a question of perception.
56:12 K: Tell me, sir, tell me what to do. You are all dodging it. Come on, Mr Joe.
56:18 Q: Well, look at it. Do you have a habit?
56:21 K: Yes, you…
56:22 Q: You are aware of it.
56:24 K: You have discovered it, I haven’t.
56:26 Q: So I’m asking you: do you see it?
56:28 K: No. You see it; tell me about it.
56:30 Q: I’m telling you, I am asking you, do you see it yet? Or shall I point it out to you?
56:38 K: Sir, what do you mean by habit?
56:45 Go on, tell me. I’m asking you, what do you mean by habit? Are you condemning it? Because if you are condemning it you have also a habit, it may be…
56:52 Q: (Inaudible) Q: Surely.
56:54 K: You are not condemning it, are you, sir?
56:56 Q: No, not at all.
56:57 K: So you say, ‘All right, I’m not condemning it.’ Q: But this is an interesting thing which you do habitually…
57:01 K: Yes, show me, sir. Go on, proceed.
57:03 Q: …which doesn’t seem to have any rational basis…
57:06 K: Proceed, sir, please. Tell me. You see, you tell me, ‘Look, you’ve got a habit. Have you noticed that habit?’ Then what next? Go on, sir, explore, teach me.
57:23 Q: Why do you do this?
57:28 K: But it’s a habit; I’m not aware of it.
57:31 Q: Well, it’s a very simple thing; why aren’t you aware of it? Look at it.
57:34 K: Proceed. Therefore you say, ‘First…’ — or do you say, ‘Are you aware that you have got a habit?’ He says, ‘No, sir.’ Now, I say, ‘What do you mean by being aware?’ Do you know?
57:52 You used that word aware — what does it mean? What do you mean, sir, by saying aware? Go on, sir, tell me. I’ve got this habit; you say, ‘Be aware of your habit,’ and I say, ‘I have no habit.’ You say, ‘Yes, you have.
58:10 You cross your leg. That’s a habit. And are you aware you are doing this?’ I say, ‘No, sir, I’m not aware.’ Then how will you help me to be aware of this habit?
58:27 Q: When you do it in this moment.
58:29 K: At that moment. You follow? How will you help me to be aware at that moment of crossing my leg?
58:37 Q: Are you interested in being aware?
58:41 K: Wait, wait! I’m not… don’t… those are all your… I want you to teach me to be aware at the moment I cross my leg, because that is the moment of formation of habit.
58:57 So, can you help me to learn what it means to be aware?
59:08 Go on, sir, help me. Go on, Suseela… I mean Shakuntala. Gosh, this… Can you help me? There you are, a whole group of you, you are all responsible for it; help me to get over this habit.
59:42 (Pause) Silence?
59:52 I know what I do. You see, I don’t want to tell you what I do. Heck. Joe Zorskie: Well, we all have habits.
59:58 MZ: You point out when they do it.
59:59 JZ: All of us have habits. I mean, I can recognize you walking across the field by your habit of walking.
1:00:05 K: Of course.
1:00:06 JZ: But I wouldn’t come up to you and say, ‘You’ve got to change your way of walking so that I can’t recognize you,’ or walk different ways every day.
1:00:14 K: No, sir. Mr Joe, please, sir, don’t go off into something…
1:00:16 JZ: No, I mean, I’m not…
1:00:17 K: I’m asking you, I’ve got a habit as a student and which you have discovered, and you say habits are destructive.
1:00:27 Right? Habits.
1:00:30 JZ: I mean, is your habit of walking… (inaudible) K: No, no.
1:00:37 Wait a minute, it is not a habit. Wait, wait, wait! Wait. I’ve very carefully watched… (laughs) need I go into all that?
1:00:44 JZ: Sure. You are carefully watched.
1:00:46 K: I’m carefully watched. I also watch myself very carefully. I knew certain dancers, very well-known dancers, and I knew the captain of the Alpiniste.
1:01:03 You know what they are? They are the group of soldiers in Italy who carried weight and walked, I think, three and half or three kilometres in a certain period, with their weight, up and down the hill, all the time maintaining the same speed.
1:01:24 So he taught me a little bit of it. And I’ve learnt, and so on. Need I go into all this? So, it is not a habit. Habit means a thoughtless action, an action which you repeat thoughtlessly — I know, I know you are going to jump on me — an action which I’m unconscious of, an action which has no reason, an action which is imitative, and so on, so on - I can give half a dozen explanations.
1:02:18 When I walk it is not a habit. I’m very careful about that.
1:02:21 SN: Which means when something is done perfectly it’s not a habit.
1:02:27 K: Ah, don’t… No, I don’t know. Don’t… You are all going off to something else! I am asking… (laughs) SN: (Inaudible) Q: If it’s senseless.
1:02:39 K: I am asking you, Shakuntala, as you are my teacher, educating me, I’ve got a habit.
1:02:49 You observe it, you’ve watched it. You say habits are detrimental, all the rest of it; intellectual habit, repeating the same thing because your idea… etc., etc., etc.
1:03:05 And I have this. You want to help me get over that habit. How will you do it? Stick to that one thing, don’t expand it.
1:03:14 MZ: But, sir, do we say to the student, take the position, that all habits are destructive?
1:03:22 Or are there only… that it’s the destructive habits we are after…
1:03:28 K: I’m going to find out. I’m going to find out. I’m learning.
1:03:32 MZ: Should we explore that with the student?
1:03:33 K: I’m going to. I’m learning. Through one habit. The enquiry through one habit, I’m going to learn the implication of habits all together. Not just good habits, bad habits - I’m going to learn the whole structure and nature of habits.
1:03:50 That’s all.
1:03:53 Q: When I’m with the student…
1:04:00 K: You are with me here. I’m your student.
1:04:05 Q: Okay. All right. You are crossing your legs. I would either, you know, touch your leg or say, ‘You know, you’re crossing your legs now,’ and that would be that.
1:04:13 K: You see, what would happen then? Either I resist you…
1:04:15 Q: No, I wouldn’t say, ‘Uncross them.’ K: No, no. I would resist you. I’d say, ‘Why not, sir? Why are you touching my leg?’ Q: If you wish to cross your leg you may. I’m just pointing out that when we talked about it yesterday you said that you are not aware of it.
1:04:31 K: I want you to do it now with me. (Laughs) Q: Your legs are crossed. We talked about…
1:04:41 K: You see…
1:04:43 Q: I notice that you cross your legs quite often.
1:04:46 K: I don’t want to tell you what I would do.
1:04:47 Q: But we do want to go into the issue of the conflict in the habit.
1:04:54 K: Yes. Yes. So you say, ‘Look…’ How would you talk to me about the whole business of habit?
1:05:07 Whole of it, not just one little habit, physical: intellectual habits, psychological habits of repetition, of holding on to an idea – you follow?
1:05:20 – habits. How will you break it down? How will you help me? How will you help the student to learn the nature of habits? Go on, sir, it’s your job. Now tell me.
1:05:35 TC: Well, Ted has got his legs crossed right now…
1:05:40 K: I know.
1:05:41 TC: Why don’t you get him?
1:05:43 K: Poor chap, I don’t want to catch him at it. (Laughs) Go on, Ted, I’m interested in this. Both of us are interested. I’ll tell you. What is a habit? I don’t know what the dictionary says; I haven’t looked at it; I will later.
1:06:10 What is a habit? I smoke… (inaudible). I smoke because all around me people are smoking; and I have tasted it and it’s unpleasant the first day, and because others are doing it I swallow my wanting to vomit, but gradually I establish a habit of smoking.
1:06:42 Which is conformity to a pattern. And that conformity has poisoned my system, nicotine, and the body demands the nicotine.
1:06:58 And that’s one kind of habit. Right? Thoughtless imitative action which has poisoned my system through nicotine, and the body now says, ‘Please…’ So there is a battle between the desire to give it up and the battle with the body which says I must have that poison otherwise I feel depressed.
1:07:23 That’s one problem. That’s a physical problem. Then there is the problem, or rather, habit of the idea, the ideal, and conforming to the ideal.
1:07:39 I listen to you. Immediately I translate it into an idea and I live according to that idea. Not directly live, but I live according to that idea, which is conflict, which is conformity.
1:07:58 When I listen to you and act, there is no conformity; it is instant action. Now, wait. So that is one kind of habit. The other habit is: I am an Indian or an Englishman or whatever it is.
1:08:16 That’s a habit. The idea that I am an Arab, a terrorist or whatever it is, that’s a habit.
1:08:24 So, there are physical habits, psychological habits, intellectual habits, of which I am conscious or unconscious.
1:08:32 Or if I do meet them I say, ‘All right, old boy, why bother with it?
1:08:39 Everybody has habits, what is wrong? I have a few and they have more, or I have more — it’s all the same thing, it doesn’t interfere with life.’ And you come along and tell me, ‘Look what habit does.’ You follow?
1:09:00 You show me that every kind of habit is a factor of deterioration. Because a thing that is constantly repeating, repeating, repeating, wears itself out.
1:09:16 Right? Clear? So, one has all these innumerable habits. Now, what will you do to break it down? I’ve given you a sketch of it. Not the whole picture but a sketch of it.
1:09:38 We can go into minute details.
1:09:45 If you want to, we can. And, now, listen. You have listened to this. Right? Now, you have listened to what I’ve said about habits — intellectual, emotional, physical, and the varieties, the subtleness of it, the exchanging one habit for another habit, one is called good, the other is called...
1:10:08 I’ve given you a little sketch of all that. You listen to it. Now, are you listening to it and forming a conclusion that you must have no habits, which would be a conclusion, or you are listening to it and see the whole thing directly?
1:10:28 You understand what I mean? You see the whole thing directly. Not through an ideation. I wonder if I… What is happening? Tell me actually.
1:10:48 TC: I’m seeing the habit of looking at things through ideation.
1:10:54 K: No, no, no. No, you didn’t listen to what I’ve said.
1:11:00 TC: No, I did listen, but…
1:11:02 K: I say to you, Ted, listen to me first. Listen. Don’t form a conclusion from what you hear. Right? That’s clear, isn’t it? I say to you, ‘That’s a tree.’ Don’t form a conclusion about that tree; look.
1:11:23 So I say to you, Ted, ‘There are intellectual habits, that I’m a British, that I’m an Indian, that I am this; I believe in God, I don’t believe in God; I am a communist — habits which give you a certain sense of security; habits of belief; and there are all the emotional habits – I am good, I am not good, I must be good; I feel depressed, for various reasons.’ I tell you this.
1:11:59 And I also say, ‘Look what physical habits are.’ Now, I’m telling you this.
1:12:06 How do you listen to what is being said?
1:12:11 TC: I was looking directly at habits.
1:12:19 K: Are you looking at the description?
1:12:23 TC: (Inaudible) K: Ah, careful. Are you looking at the description?
1:12:31 TC: That’s what was… what I was saying is going back in and out of description and into fact.
1:12:38 K: Ah, no, no, no, you can’t ‘in and out’. Are you looking at the description? Which is not the fact. Are you looking at the fact without the description?
1:12:53 TC: Well, it seems a fact. That I’m looking at the fact.
1:13:04 K: Therefore what takes place if you are looking at the fact?
1:13:09 TC: I see that habit doesn’t… isn’t… (inaudible) K: Ah, ah, wait, wait. Listen to it carefully. You are looking at the fact. The fact is what is happening here. Right? What’s happening intellectually, emotionally. Happening; not through a description and therefore happening.
1:13:36 You have discarded the description and only observing what is actually happening.
1:13:43 Right? Now, what is happening? Are you aware — aware in the sense cognizant, fully aware — your habits of thought, habits of feeling?
1:14:06 ‘Oh, I don’t like communism,’ ‘I like my mother’ — you follow?
1:14:13 — whatever it is. Habits. Now, proceed from there. If you are observing the fact and not the description; or through the description observe the fact; are two different things.
1:14:33 Right?
1:14:34 TC: We’ve got… we’re finished with that.
1:14:35 K: I want to be clear. So description has no meaning anymore — you are directly looking at that tree, not my description of the tree.
1:14:52 So what takes place if we are directly looking at the tree and not through the verbal description? What takes place?
1:14:59 TC: Do you mind if I stay with habit?
1:15:01 K: Yes, yes, that’s what I’m… I am doing that. I realise… no… mental habits - you are no longer… you are finished with the description, you are looking directly at your mental habit.
1:15:22 What takes place then? Move.
1:15:26 TC: Well, I am going back to the habit.
1:15:33 What happened when looking just at habit was it stopped as an action that was sticking and causing my activity.
1:15:41 That stopped.
1:15:42 K: No, no. Have you dropped the formation of conclusions? That’s a habit. The forming of conclusions is a habit. When you look at it, has the formation ended?
1:16:08 That’s the test.
1:16:18 If it hasn’t ended, you are back into description.
1:16:30 When you cut yourself you are there with fact, not with a conclusion, and you acted immediately.
1:16:42 I don’t know… If you had a conclusion then you say, ‘Well, I’ll postpone it; I will do this; I’ll go and do something else.’ You get the point?
1:16:55 When you are facing the fact there is an action but when you are dealing with fictitious description then you are lost.
1:17:18 Got it?
1:17:19 Q: At one point you said, do you see the fact of the habit? But there was no habit to look at, at that point.
1:17:25 K: No, no. Look, wait, sir, take it up. Have you got a habit of forming conclusions? Be simple about it - yes or no?
1:17:38 Q: Sure.
1:17:40 K: Sure. Now, wait a minute. That’s a habit, isn’t it?
1:17:52 I say to you, ‘Live a life without conflict.‘ Just a minute.
1:18:00 You listen to that and you have formed a conclusion out of it, haven’t you, that it is possible; not possible; yes, it must be lived; how it is to be lived.
1:18:17 So when I make a statement ‘live a life without conflict’, you have abstracted from that statement a conclusion.
1:18:31 Right? That’s a habit; everybody does this.
1:18:37 Q: Is that a conclusion?
1:18:41 K: Oh, obviously.
1:18:45 Q: No, have you made a conclusion that everybody does this?
1:18:50 K: This is what is happening all over the world. ‘I am a Hindu,’ ‘I’m an Arab,’ ‘I am a Jew,’ ‘I’m a Christian.’ Q: No, but I mean, since you haven’t met everybody all over the world…
1:19:00 K: No, of course, I was only… Come, come, I have moved. I was only joking there.
1:19:03 Q: No, but I…
1:19:04 K: Now, I say to you in a conversation, as we are now having, I say it is essential to live a life in which there is no conflict.
1:19:16 I give you all the reasons. You listen to that. What do you do?
1:19:28 Q: I try and see when conflict comes in my life.
1:19:39 K: So you have drawn a conclusion.
1:19:43 TC: You are making meaning, making…
1:19:44 K: You are not listening to what I’ve said.
1:19:45 TC: You mean what do I do?
1:19:48 K: No, sir…
1:19:50 TC: All right, we’ve got to…
1:19:54 K: I say to you, ‘Live a life without conflict. It is essential to live such a life because conflict destroys, conflict brings about neurotic actions, conflict brings violence.’ I give you reasonable, logical… giving you reasons, pointing out all what is happening.
1:20:23 You listen to that: ‘Live a life without conflict.’ When you listen, do you draw a conclusion from that, or you really listen without any conclusion?
1:20:56 You call me a fool. Can I listen to that without drawing, saying, ‘I am not,’ ‘Oh, you are another,’ ‘I am not a fool because I do this…’ — you follow? – but listen to what you say without any reaction.
1:21:16 Reaction is a form of habit.
1:21:21 MZ: May one use the word evaluation in this, or is that not the same?
1:21:28 K: No, no, I don’t want to use that word evaluation.
1:21:30 MZ: Then if you say anything, how does one perceive if it is a fact or not?
1:21:37 K: No, I’m going to find out. Just a minute, go slowly. The response to a description is one thing.
1:21:51 Right? Right, sir?
1:21:53 Q: By response, do you mean the…
1:21:57 K: I describe a lovely scenery.
1:22:00 Q: A scenery which I can’t see.
1:22:03 K: Yes, and you respond to that description.
1:22:10 But seeing the beauty of the sunset yourself, the country and so on, is quite different from the response to the description.
1:22:20 Wait, wait.
1:22:21 MZ: Give us one example, because…
1:22:23 K: I don’t want to take an example - that’s…
1:22:26 MZ: But you had the one. You say to live a life of conflict is destructive.
1:22:32 K: What are you trying to tell me?
1:22:37 MZ: Well, when you hear a statement like that, you listen.
1:22:43 K: That’s all I’m saying – listen.
1:22:46 MZ: But…
1:22:48 K: No buts.
1:22:49 MZ: Well, the but that comes in, it seems to me, is that to determine if that is so or not one has to…
1:22:58 K: No, we’ll come to that much later. I say to you, listen. Listen to what is said. Don’t draw a conclusion from what is said. Don’t make an idea of what is said. That is, don’t make an idea of what is being said, but listen.
1:23:31 Right? Right? Now, I say to you, live a life — and it can be lived — without a shadow of conflict.
1:23:46 Which doesn’t mean you go to sleep, etc., etc. Now, I say that to you. Do you listen to it, or do you draw a conclusion, say, ‘Is it possible; is it not possible; how am I to live it?
1:24:04 Oh, it is… I can’t…’ — etc. You follow?
1:24:08 Q: I think the words ‘draw a conclusion’ are not clear to me.
1:24:16 TC: Well, for me it’s like making connections. It’s like you create a kind of meaning, you give it a kind of sense of what that means. You see, for example with shape… (inaudible) K: Sir, yes, an abstraction. The Greeks made a perfect abstraction of life. They said there is the archetype.
1:24:36 Q: But for me, even to listen to you, the very word conflict makes some kind of image in me, some kind of association.
1:24:51 K: Yes, you see, that is a conclusion.
1:24:54 MZ: It’s an abstraction.
1:24:56 K: Oh, for the love of God!
1:24:57 MZ: You say the tree isn’t, but a statement like this involves abstraction.
1:24:59 K: No, no.
1:25:00 TC: In the same way that a description of the sunset…
1:25:02 K: No, no, if you tell me, ‘Look at that tree,’ I look.
1:25:13 I don’t symbolize a tree, I don’t make a picture of the tree, I have no image of the tree, I just look.
1:25:23 JZ: But if Freud comes in here and says to you, ‘Look at your id,’ and then you say, ‘What are you talking about?’ K: Of course.
1:25:33 JZ: So that he has to explain id to you.
1:25:34 K: And he explains to me.
1:25:35 JZ: Then you have to handle all sorts of things about ego and super-ego, and you may not know what he is talking about.
1:25:41 K: Of course not.
1:25:42 JZ: Because he may not be talking about anything.
1:25:43 K: He may not; he may be talking nonsense.
1:25:45 JZ: Right. Right, and so you…
1:25:47 K: But I have explained to you. I said… from the beginning I said, ‘Look, conflict exists when there is division, between people, between nations; and where there is conflict there is violence,’ and so on - I have explained logically, sanely, the structure of conflict, and I say to you, ‘Can you live, Mr Joe, without a single conflict?’ JZ: Well, I know no matter what I say, you are going to say, ‘Do it.’ K: No.
1:26:31 I say to you, how do you listen to it? Are you listening — just a minute — are you listening to the idea of the statement, ‘live without conflict’, to the idea, or are you listening to the fact?
1:26:57 To the fact of this enormous conflict around you.
1:27:01 JZ: If my life is a life of conflict, then a life of not conflict is not… - and I’ve never seen it, I’ve never been in it — so any reference to a life of no conflict is not something that I have seen.
1:27:19 It’s not something that I can direct my gaze to. It’s something that I admittedly have an image of.
1:27:28 K: Look, sir, you…
1:27:29 JZ: I don’t have a life of no conflict.
1:27:31 K: Yes. The way I operate, this person, is this: I listen. You say to me, ‘Live without conflict’ and you give me all the explanations, the reasons etc. — you have described the whole thing.
1:27:45 JZ: But you have a life of conflict, you’re saying, yes?
1:27:50 K: No.
1:27:51 JZ: You don’t ?
1:27:52 K: No.
1:27:53 JZ: So you know what that is. You know what a life of no conflict is.
1:27:57 K: I don’t know what life is without… but I know I have no conflict.
1:28:00 JZ: I know I have conflict.
1:28:04 K: That’s all. That’s all the difference. That’s all the difference.
1:28:10 MZ: But when you have the word conflict, that’s an abstraction. So what do I… when you say conflict, I either think of an abstraction that’s conflict or I think of an instance of conflict.
1:28:24 Now, is that an idea?
1:28:26 K: No, no, the way I operate is… when you say, ‘Can you live a life without conflict?’ I don’t draw a conclusion about it, I don’t make an idea of it.
1:28:42 Wait, listen to me. Listen to me, what I am saying.
1:28:46 MZ: Yes.
1:28:47 K: I don’t draw an idea, a conclusion, an abstraction. The perfect life in which there is no conflict, that’s an abstraction. I listen to you. When you say, ‘Live a life without conflict,’ what takes place in me?
1:29:11 (Pause) Do you want to know?
1:29:22 TC: No conclusions.
1:29:25 K: No conclusions. Therefore how am to tell you? I’ll tell you. You are going to draw a conclusion. Don’t draw a conclusion. Therefore I’m preventing you from drawing a conclusion, an abstraction, an idea out of it; which you say, ‘Yes, it is impossible; possible; not possible,’ or, ‘I must live that.’ When you tell me to… first you instruct me how to listen — right? — to listen to what you are saying - not to the words, not to the idea but to the fact of what is happening in conflict.
1:30:19 To the fact. Right? So I listen to the fact, not to the description. Right? Following? Right? You are following me, sir, that’s simple enough. So what does that fact reveal to me? It shows me that I live a life of conflict. That’s all it shows me.
1:30:55 And when it is showing me that my life is a conflict, I absolutely don’t wander away into a conclusion; I remain with that.
1:31:11 Right? You get it? What? What are you all puzzled… You understand what I’m talking…
1:31:20 Q: So in other words…
1:31:21 JZ: So we’re to the point where we understand…
1:31:22 K: Now, wait, I am coming to it. That is, you have first taught me or I’ve learnt from you, how to listen – right?
1:31:39 — to listen to the fact and not to the description. The description is fictitious, has no reality. Fact has. So you have taught me to listen to the fact only, without any reaction, saying, ‘I don’t like,’ or like, but just to listen to the fact.
1:32:05 JZ: You mean to see the fact through the words.
1:32:08 K: Or I put away the word and the fact. Right? The fact tells me your life is of conflict — the fact, not a conclusion that I live a life of conflict.
1:32:26 I don’t know if you see.
1:32:30 Q: (Inaudible) K: Oh, for the love of Pete!
1:32:43 This is important. All right. This is very important. Which is – sorry! – which is, I have learnt from you the art of listening.
1:33:01 Right? You have taught me what it means to listen. To listen without translation, to listen without interpreting what you are saying, to listen without any form of ideation.
1:33:19 Just to listen. Can you do it?
1:33:25 MZ: May I ask again?
1:33:27 K: Yes, go ahead, I don’t mind.
1:33:29 MZ: When you are talking about an abstraction, how do I listen without any ideation?
1:33:36 Q: How is it an abstraction?
1:33:37 MZ: Conflict, the word conflict is an abstraction.
1:33:39 K: I’ll tell you. Ah, because you have an idea of non-conflict…
1:33:43 MZ: No.
1:33:44 K: …or it is justified, or it should be. You don’t see the actual fact of conflict. The fact: the Arab, the Jew, the Hindu, the Muslim. The fact.
1:33:59 MZ: But that in itself is an abstraction.
1:34:02 K: No. No.
1:34:04 MZ: Yes.
1:34:05 Q: But is there conflict in you?
1:34:06 MZ: All right, those are instances – the conflict in me, the conflict in the Arab, the Jew, the terrorist.
1:34:12 K: That is not an abstraction. It is not an abstraction. When I’m jealous it is not an abstraction, it is a feeling.
1:34:19 MZ: Therefore when you say conflict, the reality of that in my head is my conflict?
1:34:27 K: Of course.
1:34:28 MZ: So in other words, the mental process is I then look at my own instances of conflict.
1:34:35 K: No, not a mental process — that’s what I’m objecting to.
1:34:38 MZ: Well, what happens in the brain.
1:34:39 K: It is not a mental process. You have — please listen — you have taught me the art of listening.
1:34:52 The art of listening, you have shown me, is to listen to you, not to the description.
1:34:59 You have shown me to listen to you and not make an idea of what I listen to.
1:35:09 So I don’t do any of that. You have taught me only to listen. I listen to music, Beethoven; I don’t draw any conclusion, any romance, any picture, any image, just the sound, the beauty of… just that sound.
1:35:38 Now, I’ve learnt that, it’s in my blood, it isn’t just a habit, and you say to me, ‘Live a life without conflict.’ The immediate response is to the fact that I live in conflict.
1:35:57 Right? Conflict: I want, I don’t want; I am jealous, I am not jealous; I hate and I love; I am contradicting what I… – conflict.
1:36:09 Right? The immediate response to what you have said is: I am listening to the conflict in myself.
1:36:20 Right?
1:36:21 JZ: If there is conflict.
1:36:24 K: Ah, I am saying. I am listening to the conflict. Listening in the same way I have listened… I have learnt the art of listening, therefore I’m listening to that, without translating it, without rationalizing it, without justifying it, without saying, ‘I must not, I must…’ — you follow?
1:36:48 — none of that. I am absolutely listening to that. Right? Are you doing it? (Pause) Q: Sir, when you listen with that intensity, that there is conflict… (inaudible) K: No, no, don’t abstract.
1:37:05 Don’t abstract. Please be careful, don’t draw a conclusion. Are you doing it? That means have you learnt the art of listening?
1:37:21 Not to the description, to the translation, but just the art of listening.
1:37:30 Then when you have learnt it, then I come along and say, ‘Look, live a life without conflict.’ Listen to that, not an abstraction from that, not a conclusion, not a translation: ‘Oh, how can I live in this world without conflict?’ Those are all avoidance of the fact, which means that you are not listening.
1:37:55 So can you listen to that statement that you are… ‘live without a conflict’?
1:38:05 When I listen to that, I am fully aware, completely aware of the fact of conflict; that is, my struggle with you, my ambition and so on.
1:38:19 I’m aware of that. It is not an abstraction. Pain isn’t an abstraction, toothache isn’t an abstraction.
1:38:30 MZ: When you say toothache isn’t an abstraction, probably none of us have a toothache at the moment.
1:38:40 K: Of course not.
1:38:42 MZ: So what is happening?
1:38:45 K: I’ve got one (laughs).
1:38:46 MZ: So what is happening when you…
1:38:47 K: It’s not toothache, slight pain. Go on.
1:38:49 MZ: Yes. So that statement, none of us can…
1:38:52 K: This is so…
1:38:53 MZ: No, but what is that, what’s happening?
1:38:55 K: What?
1:38:56 MZ: When we hear that statement and we look at it in this… (inaudible) K: Ah, that’s the difference.
1:39:04 You say, at this moment I’m not in conflict, therefore I have to invite conflict. Right? Which is an abstraction.
1:39:18 I am saying, listen to the fact of conflict, and that listening to the fact brings up the whole structure of my conflict.
1:39:37 Obviously.
1:39:46 Then what takes place? I’m asking now: is conflict a habit? Obviously. You follow? I’ve accepted it. I say, ‘Yes, that’s the way I have to live in life.
1:40:13 It’s only the idiots or the saints or some neurotic man that says he can live without conflict.’ So it’s a habit.
1:40:23 So I say, ‘By Jove, look what I’ve done.’ I’ve listened to you in that way and I’ve discovered a very deep-rooted habit.
1:40:36 Right? Discovered it, not been told. Right? So can I listen to that habit, not want to get rid of it, suppress it, go beyond it and all that — just listen to that habit of living in conflict.
1:41:11 Then I see it is –you follow? — that it can be lived completely; it is possible.
1:41:33 But I can only do this if I actually learn. As I learn Italian, Russian or whatever it is, learn the art of listening.
1:41:52 And I want to teach the student that art. It’s ten past one. We’ll go on the day after tomorrow.
1:42:12 JZ: So we have to go into that every time somebody crosses their legs?
1:42:23 (Pause in recording) Is that it?
1:42:24 K: No, you throw a brick at him!