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GSBR74DT10 - Listening and ending
Brockwood Park, UK - 18 September 1974
Discussion with Teachers 10



0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti fifth discussion with teachers at Brockwood Park, 1974.
0:09 Krishnamurti: What do we start on?
0:30 (Pause) Questioner: Could we look at the difficulty that was arising yesterday, in getting together, understanding the point of learning?
0:49 We went back to listening.
0:59 K: What did we say? I more or less forgot it.
1:03 Q: Well, we were looking together and listening, looking, and then the issue of what is learning?
1:18 K: Yes, yes.
1:27 I think we were saying, weren’t we: is learning a mechanical process?
1:38 Storing up information as knowledge and memory, and skill in operation of that memory.
1:50 That is what is generally is called learning, if I’m not mistaken.
2:07 And we asked if there is any other kind of learning, which is non-accumulative, non-mechanical.
2:15 We are educated to be mechanical, and the mechanical way of life – perhaps occasional breakdown in that mechanism and therefore enquire into something else – that is the way of our life, of our education, of our daily activity; the cultivation of memory and the operation of that memory as skilfully as possible.
3:12 And if we live in that area all the time, which we apparently do, then life becomes mechanical, distorted, destructive and so on.
3:38 Now, if one sees that very, very clearly, in the sense sharing it very clearly, listening to it very clearly and seeing what is happening in the world and inside us, this mechanical process, including the technological knowledge and all that, and I listen to that very carefully, not as I would like it to be, not distorting what I listen to, and I see the absolute fact of it, unequivocal fact - like it is a lovely day; it may rain later on, but it is a lovely day.
4:58 I listen to that, listen to your explanation of the mechanical way of life and mechanical education, mechanical activity which is gradually breaking down and therefore breaking down civilisation, breaking down the content of the earth, and so on, so on, so on.
5:26 I listen to that really very carefully. Ted Cartee: May I point at something that seems to happen to some of us?
5:39 That we sense or see that we are listening with this clarity and that there’s a sense of insight, but then there is something in the brain that indicates, well, it is going to rain later in your brain.
5:57 You see, later there won’t be that.
6:00 K: No, there can’t be. There can be no doubt about it. A poisonous snake.
6:15 Someone has explained it very carefully, that is a poisonous snake, look at its tail, it’s a rattler, and it is deadly, and you are aware of the pattern of the head, the diamond shaped head, and the whole thing of it.
6:34 You follow? You have explained to me, and I can’t forget it. I can’t say, ‘Well, I’ll pick it up tomorrow’ — it’s another day and I pick it up and then…
6:46 You follow? It is stamped in my mind. So I can’t go back to it.
6:56 That’s why I have listened to you with greatest attention, with greatest inquiry, with a feeling that you are telling me something that is so obvious that I have overlooked the very…
7:13 Because it is obvious I have not looked at it. Because it is simple, I’ve discarded it. So you telling me that, informs not only my active brain but also the unconscious brain, the unconscious part of that area.
7:38 And I listen to it very, very carefully, and tomorrow someone comes along and says, ‘No, it is not mechanical.
7:53 That area of the brain is extraordinarily creative, extraordinarily free.’ So I examine it, I don’t discard it.
8:10 I say, ‘Is it free?
8:17 Is it creative?’ And what do we mean by creative? A further development of the known.
8:30 Is that creative? Further exploitation of the known, further expansion, further objective looking, and so on, so on, is that creative?
8:46 And is that freedom? So I haven’t stopped inquiring. I listen to what the other fellow has to say very carefully too.
9:07 So, after this inquiry, nobody can distort that fact that that area of the brain has become mechanical.
9:33 And I further inquire: if that is mechanical, is the whole of the brain mechanical, or only one area of the brain?
9:49 I don’t know. So I’m inquiring, I’m looking, I’m listening to what has been explained and I have an insight into it and see the truth of it.
10:11 Not my opinion about it. I see the truth of it and then I begin to look, ask if there is a totally different area which is non-mechanical.
10:26 So you have explained all that to me.
10:44 And is there an area which is non-mechanical? How do I find out? The religious people say, right through the world, that there is a part in you which is non-mechanical: God, soul, Atman, Brahman, all kind of names they have given — the higher consciousness, the supreme consciousness, the higher self, and so on.
11:17 I don’t know anything about it; they have said it. They may be under an illusion; I won’t accept it.
11:27 Because I don’t see… You assume there is something, and that assumption is based on your pleasure, fear, or your despair and hope.
11:43 So I don’t fall into that trap.
11:53 Right? So I really don’t know. So I can then begin to inquire. I can then look, mind can look if there is an area which is not mechanical, contaminated by the mechanical education of life.
12:32 (Pause) What is the next question?
12:47 Q: I think someone would like to ask: how do you see this… how do you be this ‘not knowing’ without incorrectly arriving somehow?
13:05 K: I don’t know. I mean, that is a fairly honest statement: I really don’t know. If one doesn’t know one can say, I really don’t know if there is any part of the brain which is non-mechanical.
13:21 I know the area which is mechanical. That is a fact. I know it. I have looked at it. You have explained to me a dozen times and have gone beyond the word and I see the fact in myself.
13:40 And therefore I say, I really don’t know if there is an area where thought has not entered at all; thought being mechanical, and so on.
13:55 Now, how do I, as an educator, convey all this to the student?
14:09 I’m sorry to come back to it; because that’s what we have got to face next week.
14:35 We’ve said we have to create an atmosphere — I’m sorry to go back to that — an atmosphere which is a natural outcome of a group of people, two or ten or fifty, a group of people who are imbedded in this — I don’t want to use the word ‘truth’ — in this way of life.
15:35 That is, that their security is not in belief, in idea, ideals, in concepts, but their security is that intelligence which comes, which is awakened, which comes, with the act of listening, with the art of listening, the art of seeing, with the art of learning.
16:11 I don’t know… Alan Rowlands: Sir, can I just go back to what you were saying before? You said you really don’t know if there is something non-mechanical. But doesn’t one have some intimation, some glimpses of something…
16:28 K: Ah, that may be one’s own conditioning, that may be one’s own desire, one’s own illusion, one’s own wish.
16:41 I have to discard everything.
17:04 And that atmosphere - sorry I must go back to that - of a group of people who are highly, in the sense we are using that word, intelligent; non-emotional, non-personal — because intelligence has nothing to do with persons - and they are imbedded in that.
17:37 And that does create an atmosphere.
17:44 And the sense of welcome, which the student must feel the moment he arrives into this atmosphere.
18:10 Can we create this thing, bring it about?
18:19 Not one or two, but as a community of people, as a group of people who have learnt the art — not have learnt — but are learning the art of all that, and thereby give the sense that it is their home, their place, that we are all working together.
18:59 All that. You know? All that’s important. Now, can we create it, can we bring this about?
19:18 And how is one, or a group of people, to translate this to the student?
19:31 Not in ten days’ time or at the end of the year but at the very first moment of entry into this house or into this quality of people.
19:49 Come on, sir, I’m talking all the time.
20:09 (Pause) Ted, suppose you say you have to do this or your head will be chopped off!
20:21 (Laughs) It’s your responsibility, it’s your… I won’t use a Sanskrit word, dharma, it’s your… it is yours.
20:36 You have got to do this, it’s your baby, you can’t kill it, you can’t neglect it, you have to be very diligent.
20:55 So what will you do? Come on, sir, what will you do?
21:13 TC: In the urgency and not carrying my own… (inaudible) K: No, I’m not interested in that, sorry.
21:28 What are you going to do with the baby? Don’t tell the baby, ‘I’m not interested, I’m…’ (laughs).
21:38 There it is; the car has arrived, from the nursing home or from the hospital, and you are going to face this next week.
21:54 People, boys and students from America, Holland, England - you follow? — all over the place, being conditioned, with their own peculiar grouches, hurts, unhappiness, you know, enjoyment — all that is going to be dumped on your door tomorrow… next week.
22:24 How are you going to meet this?
22:42 You can’t say, ‘Wait, wait, wait, wait, I have to collect myself; wait, wait, wait, I have to see this awakening, this listening, I haven’t learnt it, I must learn it’ — the baby wants food - you follow? — it’s crying, can’t wait.
23:10 Come on, sir.
23:17 (Pause) TC: Right here, I don’t feel the inadequacy that you are indicating, you are hinting at.
23:36 K: I am not saying you are inadequate. I’m not saying… It is there. You follow? Next week the whole thing is dumped over here. What are you going to do?
23:52 TC: Right now, it would seem I would have to assume the quality of that being dumped on me.
24:02 K: Why assume? It’s there. It is happening, old boy, don’t assume anything. It’s a fact.
24:08 TC: In that case, I would look at my mind right now.
24:13 K: I’m one of your students. I have come from Jamaica or from Indonesia or from America. I’m one of the students, and I come to this.
24:30 Have you created within this week this atmosphere, this sense of indestructible security?
24:44 Not an idea — you follow? — all that. A sense of total welcome and care. Have you created it for me to come into it and say, ‘By…’ — feel it.
25:00 That you’re going to look after my food, my clothes, the way I walk, the way I talk, how I sit at the table, how I listen to you, what I do, how I play, everything.
25:14 Q: You cannot wait for one week, I think. You have to do it immediately.
25:20 K: Ah, a week, good enough. Montague Simmons: I think the way you put your question rather stumps a number of people, because they immediately start scratching their heads and saying, ‘When that child is in front of me, do I do this, shall I try this, shall I try that?’ Whereas the implication of your question really is, is the attitude there?
25:49 K: Yes. Is the clarity there?
25:55 TC: I mean, it would seem that…
26:03 K: Wait. Is the clarity there in you?
26:13 So that you tell me how to listen.
26:26 I learn from you the art of listening.
26:29 TC: But I feel now that if I proceeded into the art of listening, with you now at this moment, that you would stop me in some way.
26:43 K: I won’t stop you. I’m your student and I want to know… I mean, are you absolutely clear about this, so that your stability, your clarity, your sense of care, from my toenails to my hair (laughs), sense of… that you want… you have this feeling that under any cost this intelligence must be awakened in me?
27:40 TC: And in me. You see, this is the condition, the… You see, I need to act with what I am at this moment, but without the conditioning or my wants or my emotions being what’s guiding.
28:13 K: Sir, look, that’s not my problem. You’re not my problem.
28:27 The problem is, how are you going to deal with those students that arrive?
28:37 Not after five years that atmosphere, that sense of clarity — does it exist at Brockwood, I don’t know, it may exist — you follow?
28:48 — perhaps it does; I hope it does — and I’m asking, if that clarity isn’t there now with you, what will you do?
29:08 Wait till you have that relationship with the student, discuss, interact?
29:18 I mean…
29:19 TC: No, no. But at this moment it is an interaction with us here.
29:23 K: Yes.
29:24 TC: So what will we do now with that same question?
29:41 (Pause) K: You see, sir, they come here with sloppy minds, sloppy dress, sloppy outlook, laisser-aller, you know?
30:13 And you have got to stop it — you follow? — so that they are…
30:33 So how will you do all this?
30:42 I don’t know. (Laughs) You’ve got a tremendous lot of work to do. Joe Zorskie: You want us to talk about what we are going to do, or to demonstrate it?
31:00 K: What? You are going to talk about what?
31:03 JZ: Do you want us to talk about what we’re going to do when they come, or you want us to demonstrate now what we will do when they come?
31:09 K: Who’s to demonstrate it?
31:11 JZ: The people in this room.
31:15 K: Yes, will you demonstrate it, show it, show us, or to each other, if this clarity exists?
31:29 Not only… you know, clarity, all round.
31:33 JZ: Well, how can we demonstrate clarity?
31:41 K: Not demonstrate, sir. Brian Jenkins: Live it.
31:49 K: No. Yes, live it. No, Mr Joe wants something else. He says, can we show to each other, help each other now, sitting in this room, what we mean by clarity.
32:14 Show it. Verbally, feeling, everything; put it down, as it were, on the table and look.
32:23 That’s what is called demonstrating.
32:30 (Pause) Go on, sir.
32:54 JZ: How can we reveal…
33:07 K: I don’t know; you wanted to demonstrate it.
33:19 I think you can, sir.
33:33 I think we can explore together – I mean together – the implication of freeing the mind, the brain and all the rest of it, the mind, from its own conditioning.
34:06 Right? I think we can go into that. And I could talk to the students about it. I know what I would say.
34:16 JZ: This is a discussion.
34:19 K: Of course.
34:27 JZ: Are you saying that in the discussion the clarity will…
34:34 K: Must.
34:35 JZ: …be evident?
34:36 K: Yes. The clarity must blossom in dialogue, in talking together.
34:46 Talking over things with the students, with you and I, the thing will naturally flower, if we are serious, all the rest of it.
35:01 That’s why… have I listened to the events of the world?
35:14 Not the various daily events - kidnapping and the Japanese hijacking and all the rest of it - but have I listened to the world, the tremendous turmoil, confusion, always operating in the field of the known and trying to alter the pieces there, have I listened to all that?
35:56 And if I have listened to all that very carefully, in the right sense, I am no longer caught in that.
36:09 Because I have listened to you telling me that it is a rattler, a cobra, a viper; be careful.
36:24 And you have shown me the colouration, the pattern, the head, the whole snake, how dangerous it is.
36:35 And I have listened to you because something very dangerous you have pointed out to me.
36:42 And there are plenty of snakes around me, so I must be tremendously watchful. So in the same way, you have explained to me this chaos in the world, and I have really seen the danger of it.
37:04 And I can communicate that to the student, obviously.
37:08 JZ: I think we have to clarify a point right here. If we present to the student a view of the world, we have to be careful not to propagandise.
37:22 K: No, no.
37:23 JZ: I mean, it is not propaganda to present a poisonous snake as dangerous.
37:28 K: No.
37:29 JZ: But if you don’t fully understand this point…
37:32 K: Of course, it all depends how I do it. I may be committed to communism, with a cover of capitalism, and convey my communistic dialecticism, materialism and all the rest of it, and gradually do propaganda.
38:03 That’s not listening to the whole world. I don’t know…
38:09 JZ: Yes, sure. But the students, most of them I think, have a very… they hardly know anything outside of their immediate families and countries.
38:20 K: Of course, of course. Therefore I have to educate them.
38:22 JZ: We have to do two things. We have to present facts, without filtering them.
38:29 K: Of course.
38:30 JZ: And then…
38:31 K: And then listen to the fact.
38:34 JZ: They have to learn how to listen to facts.
38:42 K: Therefore I begin.
38:44 Q: But there is also the problem of listening to the facts and then from the facts referring conclusions.
38:51 K: No. And therefore — you follow? — I go into all that, not only amongst ourselves but also with the students.
39:01 I hope it will be a nice day like this when they come next week.
39:10 Q: So it’s a matter of meeting the student on his level of…
39:16 K: No, no.
39:18 Q: In the sense of what is fact to him, what can we use as…
39:25 K: No, poor chap, what facts? He says he wants something or other. He has no facts.
39:29 Q: No, something like the snake, something that you could both share.
39:32 K: Yes, but that is a very demonstrable fact: that is a snake.
39:39 Be careful, it will…
39:40 Q: Yes, it’s far more demonstrable than the insanity of the world, to a 13 year old.
39:44 K: Yes. You see, to convey to me or to the student, a fact which is not as demonstrable as a snake.
39:57 That is, a fact that where there is division between people as nationality, this and that…
40:04 TC: May I disagree? Why isn’t it as demonstrable as…
40:09 K: I’ll tell you. Because there you’re dealing with prejudices…
40:15 TC: Are you referring to the child’s mind or to our mind?
40:25 K: To the boy’s mind, to the student’s mind. He says, ‘How do you know, sir? Why do you say that?’ Then you… You follow? I mean, a snake is observable.
40:36 TC: But shouldn’t what you’re pointing out, or working with the child about, to yourself be as clear a facts as seeing the snake?
40:47 K: Of course, of course.
40:59 Sir, physical danger one sees very clearly: a precipice, a snake, a tiger, a bus coming, rushing at you.
41:16 But psychological dangers, like nationalism, like sectarianism, beliefs that divide people, or so called unite people around a belief, those are very difficult to demonstrate in the sense like the snake.
41:41 You can describe it, you can say, ‘Look. Look what is happening between the Jews and the Arabs, the Hindu and Muslim.’ You follow?
41:50 You can show it but it is not as observable as a snake.
41:56 TC: It is not as observable as a snake within the ordinary context of the observation.
42:03 K: Yes, yes.
42:05 TC: Within a clearer context of observation…
42:08 K: Of course. Now we come back. So what are we talking about now?
42:17 BJ: Mr Joe was talking about propagandizing. He says we can’t propagandize. And you talked about the communist and the capitalist. But the problem with that is surely that both of those are ideologies. What we’re talking about is something which not an ideology.
42:35 K: But when we use… We must be careful of propaganda, that’s what we were…
42:42 BJ: What I’m saying is, I think it’s rather easy to get caught in putting things over as ideas, without the clarity.
42:51 K: Of course. That’s just it.
43:02 Sir, can you, the group of us here, can we experiment with this very simple thing, which is, hearing a statement and not draw a conclusion out of it, or make an idea of it?
43:32 You understand what I mean?
43:44 Now, can you do that? Hear a statement very clearly explained and let it soak into you without a conclusion being formed out of that?
44:15 (Pause) I can’t think of an example.
44:30 Take one. You think about it. Make a statement which is true, not just invented.
44:45 All right. Belief divides people. Right? My belief, your belief, I believe in God, I don’t believe in God.
45:01 You follow? Belief divides people.
45:04 JZ: Don’t we have to say separate beliefs?
45:10 K: Yes, call it separate beliefs. Separate beliefs. Beliefs never unite people either.
45:17 JZ: But that is not as clear. Mary Zimbalist: Then the believer might say non-believers create separation.
45:27 K: Here we are. Wait, wait. Oh, for God’s sake, don’t go off. Here we are. You make a statement, that belief in nationalism, belief in God, belief in a particular ideal, or belief in the communist system of economy, or this or that, obviously divides people.
45:54 TC: When I heard the sentence, listening can be without interpretation…
46:07 K: Can you listen to it without interpretation, without saying, ‘What shall I do,’ or…
46:17 Just listen to it and not draw a conclusion, an abstraction.
46:20 Q: Yet to derive at the truth of the statement. We’re presuming the statement is true.
46:24 K: It is true to me.
46:29 Q: Yes, yes, but say a student...
46:32 K: I’m making a statement which to me is true.
46:35 Q: But suppose you hear the statement for the first time, never looked at it. So, one has to derive…
46:40 K: I’ll explain it. I’ll explain to you. I say, look what is happening with their believes and traditions in India, the Indians and the Muslims eternally at war with each other, encouraged by others, and so on, so on, so on.
46:56 Q: But isn’t this diverting from…
46:59 K: No. You made a statement. You hear it for the first time. Therefore I have to explain to you what it means. And I take great pains to explain, historically and so on, so on. All that is involved in holding on to one’s beliefs; how you act, how it is supposed to give you security but it doesn’t.
47:27 It is an illusion in which you are hoping to find security and therefore it is neurotic.
47:36 And so on. I explain it as completely, as much as I can. Within a certain period — I can’t explain it for the…
47:43 JZ: But if I hold a conflicting belief, I mean, if I believe a statement that conflicts with yours about division with people with different beliefs, I may keep raising objections in my mind to what you say, or misinterpret…
48:03 K: No, I explain to you. Put it out. Come, explain to me your objections.
48:09 JZ: And so you then engage me in an honest…
48:12 K: Of course, naturally. I don’t say, ‘Listen to what I have to say, I am the (inaudible), I am the oracle.’ I want to know what you think.
48:24 So, in discussing, in having a dialogue with each other, talking things over together, you and I see clearly.
48:35 Then I say to you, after explaining lots of it, I say, don’t have a belief.
48:42 Belief is destructive.
48:52 Can you listen to that statement ‘belief is destructive’ without making it into an idea?
49:03 Because after all, the students are coming full of ideas: short hair, long hair, dirty shoes, ‘Why can’t I walk barefoot?’ and God knows what else.
49:19 JZ: Well, if a person has a belief because of certain reasons in his mind…
49:23 K: I question it.
49:24 JZ: Right. Then if he can expose those reasons, then it can be looked at.
49:30 K: Of course.
49:31 JZ: But what if the person has this belief without a reason? Then what occurs?
49:37 K: Then if he has belief without a reason, either he is an obstinate, either he is so frightened...
49:44 JZ: You can make him see that he is believing it without a reason.
49:50 K: Of course. He is the captive audience; you got him under your thumb!
49:59 (Laughs) Now, that’s what I’m saying. Now, just a minute. We have explained, belief divides people.
50:11 Right? And therefore belief is destructive, brings antagonism, breeds hatred, conflict, wars.
50:27 Belief being, I’m an Englishman, you’re a German, and so on, so no, so on. So after explaining all this to you, I say, ‘Don’t have beliefs.’ BJ: Sir, I may see that very clearly…
50:45 K: Wait, wait, wait. Just a minute, just a minute. Can you listen to it, and the ending of that belief in that act of listening, in the art of listening?
51:00 That’s my point. If it doesn’t end, you are still carrying on with ideation. You follow? You are still carrying on with an abstraction that we must end it.
51:17 Q: Which is another belief.
51:18 K: Of course. I don’t know if I have conveyed it.
51:33 Q: That is a kind of conclusion.
51:36 K: What?
51:37 Q: Saying that I must end belief is a conclusion.
51:39 K: No, no, no. No, it’s not a conclusion. I have explained to you the snake. Look at its head; if it has a triangular head it is a dangerous snake. If it has got a rattler, a gentleman snake, be awfully careful, don’t go near it, because, I show you, people have been killed, etc., etc. — and I show it to you.
52:04 Either you listen because you are concerned not to be killed, not to get hurt, or you listen because you want to find out.
52:17 So you listen. And then you say, ‘Well, all right, I know the rattlers, cobras for the rest of my life. I won’t go near them.’ Now, in that same way I show it to you that belief separates people: my kingdom, your kingdom, my God, your God, my theory and your theory, and so on, so on - I explain all that to you and I say, ‘Look, such belief destroys people.’ Now, has your belief ended?
53:01 Being an Englishman, American, whatever it is, Catholic, Protestant, communist, socialist, all that — belief.
53:20 If it has not ended then you have not listened to the verbal explanation.
53:28 So I go back and I say, ‘Listen very carefully, I’ll explain again,’ I go into it.
53:37 I show you what is happening in India, in Japan, in China, Mao’s theory against Lenin’s theory.
53:48 You follow? I point out as much as I can and I hope that you are listening to it.
53:57 At the end of it I say, ‘See what this belief has done in the world.’ And does that belief end there, with you?
54:16 Otherwise what is the point of listening? You follow? But with the snake you have listened. And therefore you don’t see the danger of belief. If you saw the danger of belief, you would end it, as you would not touch a cobra, a viper.
54:41 TC: Obviously you need to have a sensitivity to what the child is more prone to…
54:47 K: Yes, I’m talking to you. I have said to you, Ted, have you listened to the explanation of the division that takes place through beliefs, which brings about conflict, wars and destruction, violence?
55:09 Have you listened to that?
55:16 And if you have listened you have dropped belief. You follow? Belief, opinion, judgement, you have dropped it, it’s no longer there. Harsh Tankha: Isn’t the case of the cobra still belief? Because what if someone tells you that a snake with a rattle is harmless, pick it up.
55:36 K: Go and play with it then, you will soon find out!
55:39 BJ: But it may be too late already.
55:42 K: (Laughs) Don’t say, when the bus is rushing towards you, and you say, ‘That is just a belief, wait there!’ David Bohm: I think when you explain the snake, you see, you can point out it’s fangs and the poison that is in them, and it becomes very evident from the structure that…
55:59 K: Of course. It becomes very evident.
56:01 DB: …there is no way out of it. But it doesn’t seem to be so evident from the structure of the other one.
56:07 K: That’s all what I’m trying to get at. The other one isn’t evident because we are so conditioned. And I say, don’t bother about your conditioning. You are conditioned, but listen to what the other fellow has to say. And when you listen that conditioning must end.
56:26 JZ: Would it clarify or confuse at this point if I asked you if you believe all this?
56:37 K: I?
56:38 JZ: Do you believe it?
56:40 K: What do you mean, believe? What?
56:42 JZ: Do you believe what you’ve just told us?
56:44 K: Believe? I don’t believe.
56:46 JZ: You don’t believe it?
56:49 K: I don’t believe it. It is so.
56:52 MZ: It’s not in in the area of belief.
56:56 K: What is there to believe?
56:58 JZ: Fine.
56:59 K: (Laughs) I mean, I don’t believe that it’s a cobra; it is a cobra. It is a viper, it is a rattler. I don’t believe it is a lovely day; it is a lovely day. Anneke Korndorffer: Krishnaji, won’t they immediately say, ‘If there is nothing to believe, what is there to go by?’ Which young people always ask.
57:19 K: Ah! You have gone… Look. No, they are stupid people who ask, ‘What am I to go by?’ You have gone by belief and you have produced this.
57:30 JZ: That is a conclusion.
57:31 K: No, no!
57:32 JZ: No, no, no — what Anneke was suggesting is a conclusion.
57:36 K: Of course it is, but I have got to break that down.
57:41 AK: Just facts to go by, but in the way of finding out what one…
57:47 K: Wait. No, wait, wait. You have gone by the church, with its belief. It has landed you nowhere. You made society as the most… etc. - I say, at the end of all this, where are you? You have believed in this and believed in that and believed in a dozen things, at the end of it where are you? You are in a lunatic asylum!
58:18 So, the desire to go by something, which means guided by something, is unintelligent.
58:28 AK: Yes, but you see, belief is so obvious, but there are so many things we go by because we don’t know.
58:35 Somebody tells me, well, say, poisonous, not good for your health, or… We go by so many things that we don’t know.
58:42 K: No, I don’t. I don’t. If somebody tells me, ‘Eat a lot of yoghurt, it’s awfully good for you,’ I try it for a few days and I find by Jove, it isn’t so good after all.
58:56 I drop it.
58:57 AK: So you mean to say, only go by facts.
59:02 K: Obviously.
59:03 AK: Find out for yourself what facts.
59:05 K: No, I don’t have to try all the facts out, because that would take all the rest of my life. But I can see certain facts. To live by ideals is a lunatic way of living.
59:25 And if you don’t have ideals, what will you guide yourself with or by? So you substitute, instead of an ideal, a piece of stone, or God knows what else.
59:38 So, don’t substitute. See the falseness of it. When you see the falseness of it, you see the truth of it. The seeing the truth of it is intelligence. Intelligence will be your guide. Full stop. Sorry! (Laughs) Doris Pratt: But when you say that you see the facts, the facts of nationalism and all that, have you finished with belief? But doesn’t belief go very much deeper?
1:00:04 K: It does.
1:00:11 Belief in myself.
1:00:12 DP: Exactly.
1:00:13 K: Belief in my capacity, belief in my… I have tremendous confidence. Right? Belief implies not only belief in something outside but also deep inside. I’ve pushed it all out, because all that is implied in belief. Because Ted has explained to me: belief is division of people, belief in myself as a great man or a little man, belief that I… this and that and the other.
1:00:46 So he says, take all that into consideration, not just one belief of nationalism.
1:00:55 Take the whole basket of it.
1:00:59 AK: Something like systems, economic systems, they are very… you know, like the communists or the capitalists, to take a simple example, they go by something.
1:01:11 They think it’s… Because it is too complicated to see.
1:01:13 K: That’s why they never meet.
1:01:14 MS: One of the great believers, Saint Paul, gave himself away by saying, ‘Belief is a substance of things hoped for.’ K: Yes, of course.
1:01:26 MS: And didn’t realise he’d given the whole situation away.
1:01:27 K: I know, I know.
1:01:29 Q: What was it?
1:01:30 K: ‘Substance of things hoped for’ - Saint Paul.
1:01:37 I mean, the communists have their system of economy, the capitalists have their system, the socialists.
1:01:45 Now, if they dropped their systems and said, ‘Look, let’s all get together, how to solve this problem,’ they would solve it.
1:01:53 But ‘my system is better than your system’. Oh, that’s so simple. So, after explaining all this, not only the outward beliefs and the inward beliefs - the belief in myself as being intelligent, the belief in myself as being capable.
1:02:26 ‘I’m capable of facing life’ — you know, all kinds of beliefs about myself.
1:02:36 You have explained that. You have explained how historically beliefs have brought wars. Catholics have had a Hundred Years War. The Protestants, the Muslims, and so on, so on.
1:02:55 So, you explain that, and I listened. You have taught me the art of listening. I’m learning it, therefore when you say… when you explain all this, I see it, and naturally it goes.
1:03:19 As naturally as when I see that rattler, that cobra, whatever that snake is.
1:03:27 It is dangerous, therefore finished. No amount of what somebody says, ‘No, my friend that’s not a cobra, that’s just a green rope’... I was walking once in Madras, in the wood, and there was a snake just going across.
1:03:54 It was a long, fat, lazy snake. You could see it had eaten a lot of frogs and you could see them. (Laughs) And it went across. I didn’t know what it was, so I followed it, quite close. I was on top of it and I was following it, (laughter) and it went all over place and I went all over the place, climbed.
1:04:22 And there were villagers standing by. They said, ‘For God’s sake, call him back, that’s a cobra!’ You follow? I didn’t know. I wasn’t frightened, but the moment he said cobra, I kept looking and watching if it would raise its head. It didn’t. So I gradually went away. You follow? The moment you realise something is dangerous, finished.
1:04:44 Q: He possibly wasn’t hungry though.
1:04:47 K: No, no, cobras, it has nothing to do with hunger.
1:05:02 They are as frightened as you are.
1:05:16 So. (Pause) You see, I’ve listened to all this to myself; I’m full of it.
1:05:29 I don’t know if you… And I don’t want any more talking about it, I’m full of it. So when they come, I’m bursting with it.
1:05:52 (Pause) We’d better stop early, don’t we?
1:06:00 Rather nice, isn’t it, to stop early?
1:06:02 JZ: Can I present one more situation?
1:06:09 K: Yes, sir.
1:06:12 JZ: I can see it happening that you could explain danger to some person, the danger of a precipice or the danger of driving too fast, but yet the person already knows the danger, and it is the very danger that attracts them.
1:06:31 They like the feeling of it, the adrenaline, the heart beating faster. They like the excitement of the danger, and everything else in comparison is dull.
1:06:39 K: Yes, sir, I understand. So you are saying danger has its attraction.
1:06:46 JZ: For some people it seems to do that.
1:06:49 K: Like those people who climb the Everest, or go racing round and round — (laughs) you follow?
1:06:58 - willing to destroy themselves. Now, they won’t listen to you, will they?
1:07:02 JZ: Not listen in the way you…
1:07:03 K: No, they won’t listen to you. ‘I like this.’ So what are you going to do with such people?
1:07:13 You leave them alone. Exactly.
1:07:18 BJ: Can you make a strict demarcation between such people and people who will listen?
1:07:29 K: No. Sir, you are willing to listen here. If you weren’t willing to listen you wouldn’t be here. And the same with those students — perhaps some of them are willing to listen.
1:07:44 So you… you know? I mean, talk to a general — I have - about war.
1:07:55 He says, ‘What the devil are you talking about?’ All his military training comes on top; he wants to kick you!
1:08:13 Ingrid Porter: So you just leave the general alone.
1:08:21 But what about the students that won’t listen? We can’t just send them home.
1:08:24 K: As I said, they are your captive audience, so you’ve got them under your… (laughs) You’ve got them!
1:08:37 Right, I think we’d better stop.