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GSBR74DT09 - The art of listening, the art of seeing, the art of learning
Brockwood Park, UK - 17 September 1974
Discussion with Teachers 09



0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti fourth discussion with teachers at Brockwood Park, 1974.
0:07 Krishnamurti: Shall we go on where we left off yesterday, or would you like to start something new?
0:15 Questioner: Could we continue with the same thing? Could we continue with what we did yesterday?
0:25 K: What do you say?
0:28 Q: I’m asking, sir, because I’m afraid I got lost in the last half hour yesterday. I just couldn’t take it.
0:44 K: I think we were saying, what I, K, would do with regard to the conditioning of the student and the conditioning of the educator.
1:12 What would I, if I was the educator here at Brockwood, or in Austria or in Canada, what would I, or in Ojai or in India or whatever place — too many of them!
1:24 – what would I do? How would I set about to uncondition ourselves, myself, if I was the teacher, and the student, in this interrelationship, in a small community like this?
1:52 I think that is what we began didn’t we? A little bit, began that. Then we went into… I will begin again. What would I do? Shall we go on from there? Bene. As we were saying yesterday, I think I would begin with the art of listening.
2:39 I believe the word art means to fit things in their right place.
2:51 Right, sir?
2:52 Q: That’s right.
2:55 K: By Jove, got it first shot! To fit things in their right place. The right place first is to listen.
3:10 After all, we listen through the ears and see through the eyes.
3:18 And I would help him to learn the art of listening, in the class, wherever he is.
3:34 And the listening is to listen totally, not interpret or translate, or through the description of the word create an idea or an ideal, an end according to which he will function, but rather listen totally to what is being said.
4:06 That is the first thing I would do.
4:15 I think in that art of listening lies the clue to all this, the clue to uncondition oneself.
4:32 Can I listen to my conditioning without deviating from the act of listening?
4:50 Can I listen to what Ted or someone says to me, without bringing the personal issue into it?
5:06 Now, can I help the student to learn the art of listening?
5:22 The art of listening to his voice, to what he hears, and so on.
5:36 The first thing is I would cultivate that, that if there is any personal deviation from listening then there is no listening at all.
5:55 It is no art then, it is merely personal opinions, judgements and evaluations.
6:02 Are we sharing this? All right. Mary Zimbalist: Excuse me, sir. Are you saying that in listening to what is said, the listener hears two things: one is what is said and the other is his own conditioning?
6:19 So they are like two parallels things that don’t get confused. Is that what you said?
6:24 K: Not quite. I am listening to what you said just now, that there are two parallel things: one, the conditioning going on, and the description which you have given me about my conditioning.
6:45 Right? The art of listening to my conditioning only.
6:51 MZ: I’m sorry, I… (inaudible) K: Ah, then we are missing…
6:59 Wait, let’s begin again. I said I would help the student to learn how to listen — to listen to the birds, to the wind in the trees, to listen to the workmen, to listen to his friend, to the teacher, to himself.
7:24 Listening. There is no listening if there is a personal element entering into that listening.
7:36 Personal element is opinion, judgement, evaluation, rationalisation, ideation from what I hear, and so on.
7:47 Can this be done? Because the student, as well as ourselves, when we hear a statement we draw from it an idea.
8:04 Right? Can the student prevent himself from drawing an idea from what he hears and acting according to that idea?
8:15 But rather listen to what is said, and the very act of listening is the action.
8:22 Let me get myself clear, what I’ve said.
8:35 I act according to a preconceived idea, self-created or imposed, and according to that idea I try to act.
8:54 Idea being experience, which is the past, and so on, so on, so on. That is one way of acting; and in that way of acting there is contradiction, there is approximation, there is an adjustment to the idea; it’s a constant struggle to maintain the pattern of an idea and action.
9:19 Right? That’s clear I think. Joe Zorskie: Is this what science does?
9:25 K: What human beings do.
9:27 JZ: But scientists…
9:28 K: Scientists may do. Do you?
9:31 KZ: Well, just a very specific question: is this… when we form a scientific theory of the universe, is this in the same category?
9:40 K: Maybe. Ask Dr Bohm. David Bohm: Well, the scientist may approximate to an idea but when he sees something new he should be free of that.
9:53 K: He drops it. No, I’m not talking as a scientist or somebody, I’m talking as a human being.
10:05 As a human being, we act along those principles - the prototype, the archetype, the perfect type, and try to conform, adjust and so on, to that.
10:24 That breeds constant conflict. Right? Now, is there an action which doesn’t breed conflict.
10:37 You follow? Which is, I listen to what you say. Which is, I say to you, don’t make an idea of it, see this thing, hear the thing completely, and the very act of listening is the action.
11:00 JZ: Is this to act with no idea?
11:07 K: Wait, sir. Now, we’ll come to that. First let’s see it. You tell me I am violent.
11:28 You have described to me what violence is. You have described it, you have shown the logic of it, you have shown what the results of violence are, and so on, so on.
11:40 And then you say to me, ‘Listen to what I say. Listen, don’t bring in your personal prejudices, your aggressiveness and so on, don’t bring in all that, but actually listen to what is being said, which is, do not be violent.’ Right?
12:06 That’s what you say to me. Now, in the very act of listening to what you said, without ideation, violence comes to an end.
12:24 Does this sound phoney? You are all so very silent.
12:34 Q: Well, that is that very act of listening that is the very act that you described.
12:42 K: Ted, you have explained to me what violence does in the world. Ted Cartee: And I’m not having ideation.
12:49 K: No, you have explained to me.
12:52 TC: Right.
12:54 K: The wars, the class differences, ideals and act - the contradiction between an idea and action - between the races and the classes and the beliefs — you explained all that very logically, sanely, without your personal injection into the thing.
13:15 You say, ‘This is what violence has done in the world and we are perpetuating it.’ You explain this very, very carefully to me, and you ask me, ‘Listen to my explanation.’ Then you tell me, ‘Now, don’t be violent’ - in different words, you put it differently.
13:40 Now, can I listen to what you said with complete… with a sense of non-personal opinion about it?
14:04 Just listen. I think that does produce an emptying of the mind of violence. Sounds rather crazy, doesn’t it?
14:13 DB: (Inaudible) …come back and say this word art, meaning to fit, and see that being violent means to act in a way that does not fit, imposing that way…
14:21 K: Yes.
14:22 DB: …and I’m coming to conclusions. Now, those conclusions don’t fit, you see, they are just coming from me, from the past, so if I listen without those conclusions then the violence has gone.
14:47 K: Yes, that’s it. No, not when it has gone, but I said first I would help the student to learn the art of listening, because I think that is really tremendously important.
15:00 TC: Well, that’s the whole importance of what… the rest of what you said is because of that.
15:10 K: Yes.
15:11 TC: The rest happens because of that.
15:13 K: Yes. You have explained to me. You understand? You don’t say, ‘Don’t be violent’ — that means nothing. But you have explained to me, very, very, very carefully.
15:23 TC: In the same way you can explain attention and...
15:30 K: Anything. Take violence, take anger - anything - or jealousy, greed. You explain the result, all that, you give me a total survey of the whole map, of the whole terrain, and you say at the end of it, ‘Don’t be aggressive.’ Put it differently.
16:00 My mind is prepared by your logic, not by your insanity.
16:08 By your logic, by your reason, by your explanation, by your intensity — you follow? — my mind is open. Right? And when you say, ‘Look, listen, and don’t be aggressive,’ there is instant cohesion – you follow? – of the fact and the realization of the reality of non-aggression.
16:43 I don’t know…
16:46 MZ: When you first said that to teach the art of listening he must listen to what is being said, and I think, unless I’m wrong, you added: he must be aware of his own conditioning…
17:01 K: Now, I come to that.
17:03 MZ: Now, is that brought in in discussing the terrain, or do you go immediately to this thing you describe, which is only listening, never mind your conditioning.
17:12 I mean only listen to the words.
17:13 K: Yes. I would discard… I would wait till a little later, bring all the… but first help him to learn the art of listening.
17:30 Because first of all, he doesn’t listen to anybody, even in the class. He doesn’t listen. He doesn’t listen to that motor just started, he doesn’t listen to his friends, because he is consumed with his own whatever it is.
17:52 So, the first thing I would do is that. I would spend a great deal of time explaining that.
17:59 Q: You would include looking too, wouldn’t you?
18:01 K: I’m coming to that. I’m coming to that, just… I would do that, spend infinite care and time and intensity and show him what is involved in it — in the class, at lunch, all the time: listen.
18:31 Seeing is another art, but it’s not so intense as listening.
18:39 DB: Why do you say that?
18:46 K: I think...
18:54 I’m exploring it myself.
19:04 We learn… You see, I would go into… Wait, I’m coming… I’m sorry, we will come to that. Third is, I would go into the art of learning. Art of hearing, art of seeing, art of learning.
19:24 So we dealt a little bit with the art of listening and the art of seeing.
19:38 Because those are the two factors that help me to learn, doesn’t it? Seeing and hearing. Or tasting. No, that is not so intense as hearing and seeing.
19:58 Q: Bodily feeling is… I mean, the total bodily feeling...
20:03 K: Yes, feeling, touching, sense, taste, and all the rest of it.
20:12 Now, seeing. Can I see the thing as it is?
20:21 Not imagine the thing different from… not imagine something which is not ‘what is’.
20:31 Q: Sir, can I clarify something? When you say seeing, we are talking about actual visual seeing?
20:41 K: Of course, seeing.
20:42 Q: Not when somebody says, ‘I see the point.’ K: Ah, no, no, that’s quite different.
20:47 Q: But seeing…
20:48 K: Seeing. Seeing. I see you. Can I see you without any coloration, having the colour of my prejudice upon you?
21:05 MZ: What do you mean by seeing when you apply it with this?
21:14 What is the depth of that seeing?
21:17 K: I’m slowly, slowly moving into it. Can I look at you, visually, without all the responses, reactions which I have about you?
21:31 I don’t like blue; I like blue. You are a woman, I’m a man. You follow? All the reactions that naturally, or cultivated, arises.
21:50 Can I look at you without the memory of the images which I have built about you?
22:01 Q: Without forming the idea that you are stupid or intelligent.
22:09 K: That’s an ideation again. So can I look at you without any distraction?
22:21 Which is the image, the memories of hurt, and so on, so on, so on.
22:34 Can I look at you without any response which has been cultivated through education, through society, all that?
22:46 Then, can I look at my own conditioning without the usual response, of ‘how terrible it is’ or, ‘how beautiful it is’ or, ‘it must be like that because otherwise I wouldn’t survive in this society,’ and so on, and so on.
23:08 Can I look at my conditioning – that is, inward look, at my conditioning as I would look at that tree, without any response, reaction?
23:22 MZ: Could you be more particular, Krishnaji?
23:29 You meet a person. You look at the person. You know, one, that it’s a woman, you know that she is a certain age; there are certain immediate perceptions which are not necessarily – I wouldn’t say projections of your own feelings about something, they are recognitions.
23:51 K: Wait. I look at Ted. He hurt me yesterday.
23:55 MZ: But that is immediately someone you have already known. Could we, using an example, try to… Say you meet a stranger, about whom you know nothing.
24:03 K: I meet a stranger. I have no reaction. I meet a stranger.
24:07 MZ: No, but your perception includes various things about that stranger. It’s a man, it’s a woman…
24:14 K: Yes, when I meet a stranger I see him, I watch, I see how he is dressed, his language, his gestures, his way of walking…
24:25 MZ: Those all have referrals to your experience.
24:30 K: No, I just watch.
24:31 MZ: But don’t they? Don’t they refer to your previous experiences?
24:35 K: Wait. I just watch. First, I watch. Please listen to what I’m saying. I watch a stranger, I see how he is. The other day when we went in the train, there was a complete stranger. I don’t know him from Adam - or from Eve, which is it?
24:55 Q: Adam.
24:56 K: (Laughs) All right. I don’t know him from Adam. There he was in front of me, sitting there. I watched him. I don’t know who he is. He was dressed in a yellow shirt, brown tie and a checked coat, and black trousers, wide backed trousers with checks on them, wide, big checks, and shoes that were not highly polished.
25:20 I watched him and he looked at me shyly, like that. You know? He didn’t quite make out what I was: ‘Good Lord, is he a Turk, Arab, a Hindu, or what is he?’ I could see this, you know, obviously.
25:38 And he began to look at me slyly, because I was watching him and he didn’t want me to see that he was watching me. So I forgot him and looked out of the window. Now, what response? There he is. I’ve taken him in, observed him. I have no response to him, except I was very polite when I got up, I said, ‘Please, after you.’ He goes through the carriage first and that’s the end of it.
26:08 MZ: And there’s no responses?
26:11 K: None at all.
26:12 MZ: Because you are describing the way the man was dressed knowing your notions of dress. I would say there was a considerable personal response, evaluation.
26:17 K: No. No, I just looked at him. I wondered if he was a bookie or, what, I don’t know.
26:21 Q: But you did say that you could see that he was wondering what you were.
26:24 K: Ah, because it was so obvious.
26:25 MZ: And you say he may have been a bookie. That would be judging, perhaps.
26:30 K: No, I said, what is his profession? I wonder what he does. I said he might be a bookie, might be a… God knows what.
26:35 MZ: But my only point, I don’t want to labour it endlessly, is that in seeing anybody we all use certain facts about other human beings, which are already part of our experience.
26:47 K: No, I am giving you an accurate example of this incident. There was no reaction. He smelt of beer. I said, all right, he smelt of beer.
27:06 And his overcoat was very carefully folded next to his seat, which meant he didn’t want anybody to sit next to him.
27:13 I watched it. That’s all.
27:15 Q: Do you mean that there was recognition without reaction?
27:18 K: Not recognition. It’s what he was. Why should I react to him? That’s what I’m saying.
27:23 Q: No, I said that. Is it recognition without reaction?
27:26 K: Yes, if you like. Recognition of what?
27:30 Q: A man.
27:31 K: Yes. (Laughs) He wasn’t a woman! Yes, I saw he was a man. Rather heavy, and so on. Now, wait a minute, that’s one thing. I meet Ted, whom I know, and he has hurt me.
27:52 The memory of it remains. Now, can I look at him the next day without the response of that memory?
28:08 Ted has cheated me, taken my money away.
28:15 Follow this; this becomes rather complex. Can I look at Ted — forgive me - who has stolen my money and the memory remains, is recorded – memory is a recording – and the response from that memory, can that not act?
28:47 That is the art of seeing, my memory and its responses. No, let’s come back, I want to get at this.
29:00 These are the two, the art of seeing and the art of listening.
29:11 The art of listening is I think more important than seeing. I don’t know, don’t call it more or less, both are important.
29:24 Let’s stick to that, both are important.
29:27 Q: Is it not more easier, listening?
29:31 K: It may be easier. That’s what I was just wondering. It may be easier and it may be more subtle, and it may be more complex.
29:43 And the other too is very complex, the seeing. Don’t let’s say… I withdraw. ‘One is better than the other’ — I withdraw that. So, these are the two things I would help the student to learn.
30:05 Then I would go into the question of what is learning. You follow? The sequence of it. That is, I would help him to learn the art of hearing, listening very, very carefully.
30:22 And the art of observation, the seeing; and the art of learning.
30:30 Three arts.
30:31 DB: It seems to me that the order you put is right, because he’s got to listen to you before you point out to him how to see.
30:53 It’s not that is more important than the other, but it’s a necessary order in coming into it.
31:00 K: Yes, sir. We have learnt the art: we have put order!
31:02 DB: Yes.
31:03 K: Good.
31:04 Q: Could I ask something?
31:05 K: Sir, this is a discussion.
31:09 Q: About listening. I say that to the student. I understand what you say.
31:16 K: No, wait a minute.
31:21 Q: Well…
31:23 K: Wait a minute! Do you understand verbally or it is a reality?
31:35 Q: I think I understand. I think it is a reality. It is very difficult to say yes to…
31:42 K: Oh yes, sir. No, no. Look, have I learned, myself, the art of listening? I must learn it, like mathematics. I must learn before I transmit mathematics to somebody.
32:01 Have I learned to listen to somebody I don’t like?
32:05 Q: I wanted to put a question.
32:08 K: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes.
32:11 Q: The student is going to say, ‘Yes, but my reaction comes in.’ K: Yes.
32:15 Q: Now, my question is: the fact is that the reaction comes in. I am looking, but the fact is the reaction comes in.
32:23 K: Then listen to that reaction.
32:25 Q: That is what my question is. Can I look at the reaction…
32:28 K: Of course. Forget what...
32:30 Q: …so that it instantly disappears? That’s my question.
32:33 K: Look, in listening, my reactions arise. The important thing is to listen to those reactions and see what takes place.
32:48 I listen. I observe my reactions. Say for instance, I am attached to you, for various reasons, and you say to me, explain to me very, very carefully, what attachment does.
33:12 Attachment destroys any kind of affection; real affection, love.
33:21 Destroys freedom. It causes pain. It causes conflict between you and me. I want to possess what I’m attached to, and therefore in possession I must dominate, I must hold, I must feel secure.
33:41 And therefore there is a battle between you who are another human being and myself. You want to be free also. And you may look at somebody else. You may want to be by yourself and I’m jealous, I’m anxious, I’m frightened, I hate. All these are the factors of attachment. And I explain this very carefully. Right? And I say, listen to the explanation very carefully. Now, don’t be attached.
34:19 You follow? And listen to it completely, without saying, ‘Oh my God, what shall I do if I’m not attached’ - you follow? - all that.
34:31 So I think at that moment of actual listening, the catalyst, whatever it is, destroys attachment!
34:52 So, I talk to him about the art of listening. It is a marvellous idea really. Sorry, not because I say it — I see it. Art of seeing. To see something without the image, without the previous memories, previous conditioning, previous likes, and so on.
35:17 To see. And to see my own conditioning, and to listen to my own conditioning - which you have explained very carefully, what it does; what it does in the world, what it is doing in the world, all the rest of it; divides people, divides not only people who are intimate and friends and all that, but also it is a factor of division in oneself and therefore conflict in oneself — and all that I very, very minutely, logically, sanely explain.
36:02 Now I say to him, ‘Now, learn. Let’s learn, let’s find out what is the art of learning.’ Joe Zorskie: But the student wants to listen or to learn or to see, then they can listen to you and, well, there will be then listening.
36:23 K: Sir, this is quite… You follow? This demands quite… (laughs) JZ: Well, I’m trying to think what happens when the student can’t listen, and so the demonstration of the listening…
36:36 There is no listening there.
36:37 K: Yes, there is no listening.
36:38 JZ: So, that... We’re almost saying…
36:40 K: So I have to pick it up day after day, go around it in, you know, different ways, and keep on, till he learns completely from me.
36:51 I’ll be at it. So I would say next, the art of learning.
37:04 What is learning?
37:12 What is the meaning of learning, sir?
37:18 DB: Knowledge, basically.
37:21 K: To learn.
37:23 Q: Changing behaviour.
37:26 K: The dictionary meaning of the word to learn.
37:35 French, apprendre, to learn. Enseinger — no.
37:40 Q: It is a basic word, to learn.
37:42 K: Yes, I know.
37:43 Q: You can’t get beyond it.
37:46 K: I know — to learn. It must have a root. What is the root meaning of it, to learn?
37:49 Q: It means to learn!
37:50 K: Yes, sir. No, but how does the word come into being?
37:52 DB: There’s an English word lore. It meant knowledge in some way, the English word, but the other words may not. Apprendre means ‘to take hold of’. I think it’s not very clear.
38:05 K: Not very clear.
38:07 DB: The meanings are not clear.
38:09 Q: When you say, changing behaviour… If you change your behaviour you are learning.
38:14 K: No, sir, I want to find out the meaning of the word itself.
38:17 Q: Etymologically.
38:18 K: Etymologically.
38:19 Q: All right.
38:20 K: What, sir?
38:21 DB: To take hold of? The French word has the meaning basically, to take hold of.
38:26 K: To take hold of: apprendre.
38:30 DB: Yes.
38:31 K: Apprendre. Oui.
38:34 Q: Take hold of, as to grasp.
38:39 DB: Yes.
38:40 K: To grasp, to understand. Now, I would go into it, I would say, ‘What is the function of learning?’ Come on, sir.
38:56 What is the function of learning? Why should I learn? Not mathematics, the learning. Why should I learn at all? What am I learning?
39:19 What am I learning about? Come on, sirs.
39:28 Q: Well, generally the human episode in learning is one of accumulation, and that’s not what you’re…
39:40 Accumulating knowledge, that’s not what you…
39:41 K: I come to your class and you are teaching physics, mathematics or whatever it is.
39:48 What is the act of learning when you are teaching mathematics, or physics?
40:00 What do I learn?
40:03 Q: You see the facts.
40:07 K: No, I am absorbing, I am storing up the verbal information as knowledge.
40:16 Right? You are transferring what you know, and you’re transferring that to me, and I store that up as knowledge.
40:30 Right? And that’s what we call learning, isn’t it?
40:36 JZ: That’s part of it.
40:39 K: Part of it. Then what is the other part?
40:41 JZ: Another part of it in physics and mathematics is the…
40:46 K: …experiment.
40:47 JZ: Well, is the connection between these factual things that you have stored and you learn to make an association between them, these facts, and other…
40:59 K: That is, all that implies, you have information, knowledge, and you’re transferring it to my brain.
41:08 Q: No, I see another factor as meaning, which doesn’t have to do with the teacher’s interpretation or authority or transference, but has to do with the – any person – seeing, and seeing the meaning or the understanding of it.
41:35 Q: I can see a factor too, which is showing me how to use my brain.
41:42 How to use my brain; which isn’t exactly information.
41:52 Dorothy Simmons: The process of logical reasoning.
41:55 K: How to use my brain?
41:56 Q: Make connections.
41:57 DB: I mean, skill is involved in learning. The skill.
41:59 K: Yes. That is, the skill to operate that knowledge is learning.
42:04 DB: Yes.
42:05 K: The skill — no, that is, you know and you transfer that me, to my brain, and I use skill to carry out that knowledge.
42:19 All that is learning: transference of what you know to me, and the action of that knowledge in action, skill.
42:31 That’s called also yoga.
42:38 Skill in action is also part of yoga. Now, that is one kind of learning. That is, the cultivation of memory, and acting according to that memory skilfully.
42:59 Right? Now, if that is all learning – expand it, make it more subtle, give it a little more colour, but if all that is learning, then I am living in a world of the past, the knowledge, of things known.
43:21 No? Of course.
43:24 DB: You could say you are meeting the new with the known.
43:38 That is the… The present is new, but you are meeting it from…
43:41 K: …from the known.
43:42 DB: Yes.
43:43 K: Yes. So I live in the field of the known, which is the past. And what does that do to my life, to my everyday life, to my brain, to my whole existence?
43:58 Come on, sirs.
44:01 Q: It limits it.
44:03 K: Go on, expand it, go into it. See, sir, if I live entirely in the past, which we do, which is what we said - learning is the transference of knowledge from one to the other, and the skill in action of that knowledge; all that, we said, is learning, which is essentially based on the past, of knowledge, so the known.
44:36 An area of the brain lives always in the past, no?
44:45 Q: But the skill in the use of the brain can bring an elation and a vitality.
44:58 K: Ah, all that. I’m not saying… Of course. The technological world, the whole thing is based on the stimulation of the past. All that is implied. I am not… It gives you a certain energy, a certain capacity, all that. But living always in that area, doesn’t that make the mind deteriorate, the brain deteriorate?
45:26 DB: But I think that people wouldn’t generally feel that way.
45:33 You see, they feel it’s only natural to do that, because it’s not evident how the brain is caused to deteriorate.
45:40 K: We’ll go into that; I was just want to… I’m just seeing it.
45:44 JZ: I don’t mean to resist this idea.
45:45 K: No, sir, do resist it.
45:46 JZ: I think it is a good idea but I have to ask one clarification. Say I teach you the mathematics of the relationship between the sides of a triangle and the hypotenuse.
45:59 Now, that can remain in your mind as an image. You may discover, as some students do for themselves, that in the real world, so to speak, that a door has sides and the distance across its corners, although it is square, it can be thought of as a triangle.
46:20 And so they make a new association.
46:21 K: Yes, sir, but it is still within that area.
46:24 JZ: Is it? Is it within that area or is it a trivial excursion from it?
46:29 K: It is the same thing. A trivial excursion — all right, call it trivial.
46:33 JZ: But I mean it’s still a taste of something beyond knowledge.
46:37 K: Yes, but I… Carol Smith: Isn’t that an insight?
46:40 K: No, don’t bring in a new word, I just want to… If we confine ourselves to the meaning that learning is this process - expand it, make a little more subtle, but always within this area…
46:56 Is it hot in here?
46:58 Q: Yes.
46:59 K: I’m feeling hot too. Can we open a window, sir? Brian Jenkins: Sir, isn’t it the confusion here that for the student he is learning something new, but that thing that he is learning new is part of society, which is the known?
47:24 For him it may be a new experience but in fact he is learning… it’s part of the movement of society and fact it is something old.
47:27 K: Yes, sir. Wait, I just want to get this. I said it may be one of the factors of deterioration of the brain, and Dr Bohm said, ‘What do you mean by it?’ And you say, ‘It may be…
47:43 I like the idea, I think there is something in it, let’s go into it.’ Q: Well, in that case, perhaps one could say that what Carol called an insight is a reorganisation of what we already know.
48:03 K: Maybe, yes. Yes, it may be that. Yes. Why is it a deterioration? I think it is fairly simple.
48:27 I think I see it. It is a deterioration because it becomes mechanical.
48:30 Q: If you say, ‘Why is it a deterioration?’ we’re looking at this question, you are presupposing that it is a deterioration.
48:47 K: No. No, no, I’m not presupposing. If I keep operating always within that area, expand it, contract it, make it a little more subtle, give it a different colour, but always within that area, it becomes mechanical.
49:06 Montague Simmons: And therefore any machine wears out.
49:13 Any machine wears out.
49:16 K: Yes, yes. If I constantly use the brain in that field, always operating, it becomes mechanical, a routine, operating in patterns.
49:33 DB: Does that mean that the brain perhaps was not mechanical in the beginning?
49:40 K: Therefore I have to find out, is the brain mechanical?
49:49 And are you encouraging me, in helping me to learn, to sustain and maintain and continue the mechanical process?
50:00 I’m getting it. We are getting it. Mary Cadogan: But a child’s natural response is always to listen and look and learn…
50:03 K: Yes.
50:04 MC: …through the movement of life.
50:05 K: Yes.
50:07 MC: Whatever that movement happens to be around it.
50:14 Although one feels what you are saying is essentially true, the techniques seem so important…
50:24 K: Of course, we have understood. That is skill in action.
50:28 MC: Yes. You are saying, if you are always in the field of technique, there is deterioration.
50:30 K: Yes. Of course.
50:32 MC: With a child there seems to be a period when…
50:34 K: No, but Dr Bohm raised a point, which is, he says: is the brain mechanical?
50:41 Like a computer, registering, holding, and responding.
50:51 Registering, holding and responding. This goes on all the time. And when that is the operation in the known, then obviously the mind becomes dull, the mind loses its vitality.
51:10 It may have vitality through stimulation, but then that means dependence and so on, so on.
51:17 So, the question is…
51:18 BJ: Sir, can one ask, is there not something different? Can one ask, in the same vein, is there not something different?
51:27 K: We are going to find out that, sir, much later. I’m going to find out first whether the brain is mechanical.
51:37 It looks… it is partly mechanical. And you are making it more mechanical, not less.
51:53 You are making through your education, cultivating my memory over and over, imprisoning me in this field; imprisoning the brain in this field.
52:11 And knowing the imprisonment, I begin to invent gods – you follow? – ideals; I say, ‘Well, I had a marvellous vision of Jesus the other night,’ or the Buddha or whatever it is.
52:26 Right, sir?
52:27 DB: In a certain area we need this mechanical operation.
52:34 K: Yes, I need this mechanical operation. Obviously. To drive a car, etc., etc.
52:43 Q: Dr Bohm said, is there something at the beginning of this process which is not mechanical? Didn’t you?
52:50 DB: I sked that, yes, but, I mean, when the child is begun… he is first exposed to this kind of learning, perhaps he is not mechanical entirely.
53:08 K: I don’t know, sir. I wouldn’t know that. But we can approach it differently, can’t we? I see education is the continuance of the mechanical process.
53:22 Right?
53:23 JZ: Well, most of it, sure.
53:32 K: And I say to myself, that is a very destructive way of living. Though I need mechanical knowledge, which is obvious, that is a very destructive, deteriorating, degenerating way of living.
53:52 I say to myself, I see this and what am I to do? I must function in the field of knowledge, skilfully, technically, all the rest of it, and I know if the brain only operates there all the time, it is going to destroy itself.
54:13 That’s obvious.
54:14 TC: There may be other portions of the brain that we don’t use.
54:21 K: We are going to go into that. Now I say to myself, what am I to do? What? Sir, look, what are you to do? How are you as a teacher going to prevent this spending all one’s life in this area?
54:41 JZ: Well, it’s obvious. You have to be out of that area.
54:48 K: No, I don’t know. How will you prevent me, your student, knowing that I have to live in that area, but not all my life, all the content of my days and years in that area, in that field?
55:09 Q: Take up painting.
55:11 K: Ah, that’s still that field! Painting, music, dancing, learning the new way of painting - it’s all from that. Alan Rowlands: Can I suggest something? We were talking just now about seeing and listening, and then intrusion of ideas and images.
55:32 I open my eyes; I don’t know what I’m going to see. In the moment before the images come in, is that mechanical?
55:41 K: I don’t…
55:43 AR: Could we explore that?
55:45 K: A little bit. That is, sir, you’re saying I observe you. And I say, ‘Mr Rowland is a pianist.’ AR: Before you say that.
55:57 K: Just a minute, sir. I see you. You’re saying the interval between the seeing and the verbalisation of the image taking place.
56:11 In that interval, of two seconds or a second, is that interval non-mechanical?
56:17 AR: I really meant just the very first seeing.
56:20 K: Yes, yes, that’s what we are coming to. Perhaps it may be. I am concerned how to convey to the student that to live in the field of the known, however beautiful, however extensive, however subtle, is still within that field.
56:43 Go to any corner of that field, it is still that field. And to live in that field is a deteriorating factor, I’ll show it to him, logically.
56:55 Then he says, ‘Sir, all right, I agree I have to have certain skill in the field of knowledge, but what am I to do?
57:05 You are teaching me mathematics. I need mathematics. But what am I to do?’ Right? Come on, sir, you are the educator.
57:18 Q: Give a too small space for this time, and the mind can listen.
57:29 There must be a possibility to a listening and seeing in operating mechanically.
57:35 K: So, I’m asking, sir. I’m asking a different thing. I’m asking, what is learning? Is learning only this area of the field, or is there a different kind of learning altogether?
58:02 What are you smiling… (laughs) JZ: Are you interested in that question?
58:08 K: Yes.
58:09 JZ: You want to know? You want to know what to do?
58:11 K: I know what to do, but I’m asking you.
58:12 JZ: Do you want me to show you?
58:14 K: Show me.
58:15 JZ: All right. What do you mean by ‘what to do’?
58:18 K: I mean by ‘what to do’: you have left me in that field through your education.
58:28 Right?
58:30 JZ: Which field?
58:33 K: The field of the known. You have left me there. And you have also said to me that it’s also a very destructive and deteriorating factor.
58:46 And I say, ‘Yes, I realize, but what am I… how am I to…’ You follow?
58:51 JZ: Well, I mean, you say you’re in the field of the known. Does that imply that you know that there is some other field?
58:56 K: I don’t say anything. I only have said, to live in that field of the known all my life is a very destructive, deteriorating, degenerating factor.
59:09 That’s all I know. And your education has dumped me there. And I say, ‘What? Tell me, sir, don’t leave me there.’ Therefore you say to me, ‘Wait a minute…’ JZ: I mean, do you see that you are in the field of the known?
59:39 Do you see that you are in that field?
59:42 K: No, sir. No, I’m not in that field. No, I must not go into… Don’t bring in that question, it’s not relevant for the time being. We will come to that. Wait a minute.
59:55 AR: But weren’t you treating him as a student then?
59:58 Q: Yes.
59:59 MZ: Are you speaking as a student, or yourself?
1:00:00 TC: That’s what we are doing.
1:00:01 AR: Aren’t you treating K as a student, to illustrate?
1:00:02 K: I’m not…
1:00:03 MZ: You were the student.
1:00:05 K: I want to go on with something. You’re messing me up! (Laughter) JZ: I’m sorry.
1:00:14 K: ‘Don’t leave me there. Don’t leave me with the deteriorating factor, degenerating, and a mechanical thing.
1:00:25 Don’t leave me there.’ And then you say to me, ‘Find out what is learning.
1:00:38 I know the art of learning, so far as you have been able to transfer.
1:00:45 You follow? That art you have taught me. And I have operated in that field all my life. And you say now, ‘Find out if there is another kind of learning.
1:01:01 Not learning from somebody. You understand, sir?
1:01:09 JZ: Are you talking as a student?
1:01:12 K: No, no.
1:01:13 JZ: No.
1:01:14 K: I’m talking as a student as well as an educator, both.
1:01:23 And the student says, ‘For God’s sake, sir, don’t leave me there.’ And the teacher says, ‘All right, I won’t leave you there, but find out what is the art of learning.
1:01:38 The art of learning is what you have learned, the known, always in the known. Is there another art of learning?’ The other art of learning is never accumulating.
1:02:04 Accumulating is always the known.
1:02:11 Right? Are you meeting me?
1:02:16 JZ: You mean… But you don’t mean this to mean never to add to your knowledge.
1:02:21 K: No, that goes on, that goes on. Add, subtract, change - always within that area.
1:02:28 JZ: So that can accumulate.
1:02:31 K: That is accumulation. That you have taught me. That has been my education; the education of generations of people.
1:02:43 And they pass it down generation after generation, and I’m caught in that area. And you come along and tell me, ‘Look, find out if there is another kind of learning, non-accumulating and therefore non-mechanical.’ The moment you accumulate, it becomes knowledge, it becomes mechanical.
1:03:17 Right? Find out. I don’t say there is. Find out what it means.
1:03:26 CS: So then the true art of listening and the true art of seeing, equal, are the true or…
1:03:38 K: No, wait a minute, lady. Just a minute. Watch it. You have left me, through your education, through your society, in the field of the known, and you have explained to me the effects of that.
1:03:53 And you have said this all is learning. That’s all we know about learning. Mr Joe comes along and says, ‘Look, perhaps there may be another kind of learning, which is never to accumulate and therefore never mechanical.’ Saral Bohm: I don’t quite understand what you mean, never to accumulate, because it’s inevitable.
1:04:35 K: I know. That is what I have learned. That is what society, religion, everything has told me: you must accumulate and live in there.
1:04:49 And also you have told me: to live in there is your destruction.
1:04:55 MC: Although it is absolutely essential at a certain level.
1:05:02 K: No, no.
1:05:03 MC: Without techniques.
1:05:04 K: Ah, no, wait. Technique also becomes very destructive.
1:05:06 MC: Yes, but we have to find… (inaudible) K: Ah, wait. I agree, but I want to look at it differently. Even technique becomes deadly. Which is what is happening!
1:05:19 MC: Only when it’s misused.
1:05:22 DS: Oh, it is.
1:05:23 MC: Only because we misuse it… (inaudible) K: Which is, technique by itself has no meaning.
1:05:27 AR: I think I can see something. Could I try to put it into words? We see that repetition is mechanical and deteriorating.
1:05:38 K: We know.
1:05:39 AR: All right, that’s okay. For each of us there is – I may use these words badly, I’ll do the best I can…
1:05:45 K: Go ahead, sir, it doesn’t matter.
1:05:47 AR: For each of there is a field of awareness, which contains all sorts of things.
1:05:54 There are sights and sounds and thoughts and feelings and bodily sensations, which is always changing, and it is unpredictable.
1:06:08 And I’m asking, is the watching of that whole field, the learning you are talking about?
1:06:16 K: No, no, no. No, no, no. Sir, just a minute, we’re trying to go into it. Sir, we’ve finished for the moment, the field of the known. Leave it there.
1:06:28 AR: You understand, I wasn’t referring to the known.
1:06:29 K: I know. I know what you… I understood. I said, leave… I want to tell you something; listen to it. I want to find out a learning which is non-mechanical.
1:06:55 Non-mechanical implies non-accumulation, because accumulation is the cultivation of memory; back again.
1:07:10 You follow? So I want to find out if there is a different listening, different seeing, different learning, which is non-accumulative, non-storing-up, and therefore non-mechanical, and therefore non-destructive, degenerating.
1:07:41 Now, is there such learning?
1:07:52 Both psychologically and technologically, the storing up is the cultivation of the ‘me’.
1:08:06 The ‘me’.
1:08:13 The ‘me’ who says, ‘I know, I am secure in the known, I am aggressive,’ all that — the ‘me’ that always operates in the field of the known, and therefore the ‘me’ is the accumulated entity of the past, and so on.
1:08:32 And that ‘me’ becomes a mechanical, destructive, degenerating factor.
1:08:40 It’s a fact. I realize it. Now I say, is there a listening, seeing and learning, totally different from the accumulative factor?
1:08:55 Right, sir? Am I making sense?
1:08:57 DB: Well, it seems that we have to say that at this moment that we have to see all that we have accumulated about knowledge has to go, in order for this to happen.
1:09:26 Even all that we’ve been saying.
1:09:27 K: Yes, yes, yes. Go on, sir.
1:09:29 JZ: Are you asking this question out of a… Does this question come from your past knowledge?
1:09:35 K: No.
1:09:36 JZ: It doesn’t?
1:09:37 K: No, I’m putting this question for the student, whom you, the educator, have dumped him.
1:09:45 JZ: But where did you get this question from? I mean, really.
1:09:49 K: Where did I get this question from? I don’t know. I am just looking, investigating, opening. Does it matter?
1:10:01 JZ: Well, to me it matters because if it comes from your knowledge it’s just a kind of habitual question-making machinery.
1:10:12 K: Of course, of course. No, sir, look. The question comes out of seeing this isn’t enough; this is too damned stupid to live there.
1:10:33 This question arises from the fact that one must have freedom from that.
1:10:48 So I say to myself, is there a learning?
1:10:59 Is there a learning, is there a listening, seeing, listening, totally different from the ordinary learning, seeing, hearing, which you have encouraged, which you have taught me?
1:11:13 Is there a different thing? To me there is.
1:11:27 I say there is a different way of listening. And you tell me, ‘What is it? How do you come to know that?’ Right? ‘How do you have that?’ I say first, be totally dissatisfied with the known, with its technology, with its mechanical habits, with its memories.
1:11:54 Be disgusted with it! Cry over it, spit on it, do anything! Say, ‘That is not good enough.’ (Pause) What, sir?
1:12:04 DB: That’s certainly right. You see, I think that…
1:12:19 I mean, if you look at it you can say it isn’t enough.
1:12:45 K: That’s just it. Of course.
1:12:48 DB: Although it may be the illusion that it is enough, in fact.
1:12:54 K: No, I mean, I have to… that thing must be burnt out of me.
1:13:02 You follow? Put it any way you like.
1:13:15 There is no satisfaction or clarity or something good in that: the gurus with their knowledge, the enlightenment, the books — out!
1:13:30 Q: And then learning or teaching not out of the field of the known, not from the past, but out of the known.
1:13:46 K: Yes, so I’m saying to myself, now how am I, K, how am I to convey this to the student? You understand, sir?
1:13:53 Q: Seeing the reality… (inaudible) K: I’m going to find out. I’m going to find out. That’s your creative operation. How are you… I want to find out how to convey all this to the student, who is conditioned, who is not too intelligent, who is not sensitive, who says, ‘For God’s sake, I want to go out!
1:14:20 What are you all talking about, this kind of thing? I want to smoke,’ or whatever it is; or, ‘I do want to listen to you, but your language isn’t sufficient,’ etc., etc.
1:14:33 So how am I to convey all this to him, that he must learn the art of listening, the art of seeing, the art of learning?
1:14:48 There two arts of learning; the one, the known, which is transference of knowledge, and the skill achieved through practice, through discipline in action of the known – which is still the known – and there is another kind of learning which is never accumulating, therefore it is a constant movement of freedom.
1:15:19 Now, how am I to convey all this to a student? Because in that learning, movement, there is no time.
1:15:32 Oh, I won’t go into all that. Sorry! There is no time, there is no direction, there is no operation of will.
1:15:50 Now, let’s come back. Which doesn’t mean you drift, which doesn’t mean you’re pushed around; it means tremendous steadiness in freedom.
1:16:12 I won’t go into all that. Now, how am I to tell you this, sir? You are my student. How am I to convey this to you, because to me this is the essence of education.
1:16:33 How am I, during the days of eight months with you, to show you this?
1:16:48 Not only show you; you are impregnated with it, your blood, you mind, everything. How am I to do it? Come on, sirs, it’s your job.
1:17:05 You are the educators. What are you going to do? I leave you with this. Not I – you’re left with this, what will you do? Kick it around, discuss? What will you do? You are going to meet the students next week - aren’t they? Yes. (Pause) AR: And do it simply.
1:17:38 And do it simply, not with any sort of…
1:17:52 K: I don’t know, it’s up to you. I’m leaving. This is your baby now and you have to deal with it. The baby has to have right food, right environment, right amount of sleep, right amount of exercise, right amount of amusement, entertainment, sense of beauty, and all the rest of it.
1:18:22 And also you have to show him the whole thing: the art of listening, the art of seeing, the art of learning. Come on, what are you going to do?
1:18:36 How are you going to translate this to him so that he really…
1:18:50 You understand?
1:18:52 JZ: We were looking at the… for a moment you asked us to look at the question: is there a knowledge…
1:19:06 K: Ah, is there a learning.
1:19:07 JZ: Is there a learning beyond knowledge?
1:19:10 K: No. Is there a learning which is non-accumulative?
1:19:16 JZ: I’m into the second… (inaudible) K: I know.
1:19:18 JZ: Is there a learning beyond… which does not have accumulation?
1:19:20 K: Yes.
1:19:21 JZ: Now, we can’t… we have to look at that question without accepting or rejecting it.
1:19:30 K: Now listen. Listen. I say to you — I have said to you, as you are my student – I have said to you, the education has been the accumulation of knowledge, transferred from one to the other, and that knowledge skilfully used.
1:19:50 That is what we call education. Right? And I say, look what that education has done in this world: mechanical, go to the office, go to the factory…
1:20:05 JZ: Well, I see that but now I…
1:20:08 K: Wait, wait. No, you are listening to me. Listening. I say this is what education has done. You are living within that field of the known all your life. You may go to Zen, you may go to India, meet the rishis, the yogis, and all the blasted group, but you are still within that area.
1:20:35 And that area — you are listening, listening — and that area is very destructive, both in the operation of technology, in the operation of human relationship, in every way that is destructive.
1:20:51 I have shown you, I have talked to you, I have pointed out.
1:20:58 And I say to you now, look, is there another way of learning which is not accumulative.
1:21:09 Is there? I’m putting that question to you and you listen to it, not respond.
1:21:22 You follow? You have learnt the art of listening, therefore you are listening only to that question.
1:21:31 Not, ‘Oh, I don’t know; I do know; is there another area?’ You follow?
1:21:38 None of that, just listening completely to that question.
1:21:45 You have the answer if you have listened to all the rest of it — you follow? — the activity of the known, what its implications are, what are its results, what are its subtleties - all that.
1:22:09 If you have listened to all that carefully, and when the man says, ‘Listen also to the question: is there a learning which is non-accumulative?’ there is the answer.
1:22:27 You listen very carefully to the explanation of the fact that a mechanical mind, operating however skilfully within that area of knowledge, is its own destruction.
1:22:44 You have listened to that. You say, ‘Yes, I see that very clearly; I understand that,’ but you are not equally listening to the other.
1:22:54 You are already thinking, by Jove, is it so? You are not listening. Therefore I have to go back and say to my students, ‘Forget it. Forget all that, now let’s go back and see how to listen.’ You understand, sir?
1:23:13 BJ: Sir, you said just now you are listening to the other.
1:23:20 What do you mean by that?
1:23:25 K: Listening to the other question.
1:23:29 Q: What was the other question?
1:23:30 K: Learning without accumulation. Can you learn without accumulation? That’s the other question. And you say, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, that’s too absurd, I don’t know.’ Which means you haven’t listened to my question.
1:23:42 Therefore I say, ‘Come back.’ Now, let’s begin. How do you listen? Do you listen to anything at all? I begin. You follow? I’m not going to leave you alone. I’m not going to dump you in the field of the known and leave you there.
1:24:08 I say, ‘You are my brother,’ my son, my sister, ‘you must be out of it.’ Sorry!
1:24:19 Q: So I would ask you as my student to find out for yourself whether you can look at anything which is totally familiar to you, like a tree or a flower, without any sort of memory, any sort of association.
1:24:41 K: Yes, that’s right, that’s right. So begin again. I would go into that again.
1:24:44 Q: And the same thing with the listening, without memory.
1:24:46 K: The same thing with the listening. I would go into it every day, till it is in his blood.
1:24:55 Which doesn’t mean I am forcing him to conform to my idea. Because I have no idea; I say, ‘Just look.’ Looking is not an idea.
1:25:13 DB: What is the difference between listening, looking and learning?
1:25:20 K: What is the difference between looking and learning?
1:25:21 DB: Or listening and learning.
1:25:23 K: Listening and learning. Listening, I can listen and accumulate; and I can listen and not accumulate.
1:25:35 I can listen to your calling me a bloody fool — I’m sorry, a fool — and not accumulate from there.
1:25:47 That’s fairly simple.
1:25:56 So it’s my concern then not to leave the student in the field of the known, dump him there and say, ‘Please…’ walk out, ‘it’s your affair.’ Don’t leave me in the garbage.
1:26:23 The garbage may have a nice smell - perfumed by Rochas!
1:26:31 (Laughs) — but I don’t want to live in there.
1:26:40 So I have to find out. Absolutely, I have to find out what to do.
1:27:08 (Pause) I have to say, ‘Forget your technological knowledge, everything, forget it, it’s not important.
1:27:16 Don’t elevate technology into something extraordinary and worship it.’ Human beings have lived without all this technology.
1:27:39 My father and his father lived absolutely without all this muck! I’m sure they were perfectly… or as happy as you are. Probably they hadn’t toilets and probably went out in the fields and all kind of things.
1:27:55 That does not mean we must go back to that kind of life; that’s not the problem.
1:28:06 So, I have to convey to the student the utter futility of action in that field anymore.
1:28:18 JZ: Action includes thinking and feeling in that field.
1:28:23 K: In that field — obviously. ‘My wife’ — you follow?
1:28:42 AR: There is another subtle trap that comes in sometimes. Perhaps this looking - not perhaps - this looking takes place for a second and then I begin to see myself as doing it.
1:28:55 You know, that is not quite the same as my reaction.
1:28:59 K: Yes, I understand.
1:29:02 AR: You understand?
1:29:03 K: Yes, yes.
1:29:05 AR: It’s a lovely trap!
1:29:08 K: Sir, forget for the moment yourself, but what will you do with the student whom you have dumped in there, in the garbage?
1:29:38 (Pause) I don’t think we feel strongly enough that he must be pulled out of it.
1:29:52 It isn’t a burning problem. You understand, sir?
1:29:57 TC: Isn’t it clear that right now a lot of us are trying to see what to do and haven’t seen that we’re not seeing?
1:30:09 K: Look, my dear chap. Look, Ted, if it was a burning problem, that he must not be left in there, what will you do?
1:30:22 If you have that enormous, intense response that he must not be left there, under any circumstances.
1:30:34 If you have that flame, what are you going to do?
1:30:42 What takes place? You’ll inevitably will find another way. You follow? You must find another way.
1:30:59 (Pause) It’s one o’clock, we’d better stop.
1:31:13 After all, the scientists can only tell us what is the known; they can’t tell us something else.
1:31:41 The philosopher – philosopher in the sense, the man who spins out theories and all the rest of it – is still operating in that field.
1:31:54 And I say to myself, my God, this is endless that way!
1:32:14 (Pause) So, we will continue tomorrow morning, shall we?
1:32:22 We’d better stop because it’s one o’clock.
1:32:25 DS: We’d better make sure that everybody does know there is a talk tomorrow.
1:32:32 K: Tomorrow morning, eleven-thirty