Krishnamurti - Awakening the flame of orderliness and intelligence

Krishnamurti Subtitles

GSBR74DT11 - Awakening the flame of orderliness and intelligence
Gstaad, Switzerland - 23 October 1974
Discussion with Teachers 11

0:00	This is the teachers’ discussion with J. Krishnamurti, at Brockwood Park, 1974.
0:10	Krishnamurti: What shall we…
0:17	(Pause) What shall we talk about?
0:31	I don’t know. Ted Cartee: Krishnaji, you have discussed with us about responsibility, and I’m interested in coordinating my responsibility with those that I work with and those that I live with, so that it’s together.
1:12	K: I don’t quite follow. You mean, how to work together? Come on, Miss Pratt. Doris Pratt: Excuse me, sorry.
1:28	TC: Yes.
1:46	K: I can only work with you if I also feel responsible for the same thing.
1:55	I mean, do we, all of us feel responsible in that sense that we are all building this together?
2:10	Though there have to be certain decisions made, say by Mrs Simmons, is it possible to work together in the sense of creating this place, creating together, thinking together, working what we have thought out together?
2:37	Can we all do this? Not form little groups of our own, little gurus - you know what I mean, all that stuff. Can we do this?
3:12	Do we feel really responsible, in the deep sense of that word?
3:28	Brian Jenkins: Krishnaji, I feel we’ve discussed this word ‘responsibility’ before; it means…
3:39	I think it implies a certain caring, to care and also to respond rightly. It seems to me that, speaking for myself and maybe others feel this, the case of responding rightly seems to be a difficult one, because at the present I get the feeling the students are rather confused, they have a lot of different ideas, things they want to do, things they don’t want to do, and how to respond to that rightly seems to be the question.
4:18	K: Is it the doing, or is it the feeling of responsibility? You know what I mean? The feeling of responsibility, and then the doing together - which is it first?
4:39	BJ: Well, I think the feeling is there.
4:47	K: I’m just… No, apparently, when Ted asked: how can one, I — he said how can he, though he might feel responsible, bring about a coordination with others who also feel responsible?
5:06	And to that we said: do we all feel responsible?
5:14	Or we feel more responsible than the others.
5:30	I would like to discuss this really, go in to this rather deeply.
5:33	DP: It could be that our very sense of responsibility puts us at variance.
5:47	(Pause) K: What are you all looking at me for?
6:06	(Laughter) I feel a bit nervous.
6:08	DP: No, we genuinely want help.
6:11	K: No, I’d like to discuss this question, not what to do first but whether one has the feeling of it, the spirit of it, the perfume of responsibility.
6:34	I might feel responsible and I might express that responsibility in a rather authoritarian way, and therefore that feeling of responsibility is destroyed by my authoritarian action.
7:07	Or I might express that responsibility not clearly, rather sloppily.
7:25	I might express that responsibility with sentimentality, with emotionalism, with a little irritation, anger, or in a different mood, and so on.
7:41	So all those expressions, varying according to my daily activities, daily feeling, might destroy the inward feeling of real responsibility, in the showing of it.
8:00	I wonder if I’m making myself clear. I think it’s fairly clear. Right? Now, which is it? The feeling of responsibility, first, do we all have it? That is, do we all feel it at the same time, with the same intensity, at the same level?
8:34	Or you feel responsible in one way and I feel responsible in another way — you follow? — so there is a clash between our responsibilities. If you and I felt responsible at the same time, with the same intensity, at the same level, maintain that all the time, then there would be no divergence, there would be no division between you, saying, ‘You’re not responsible, I am,’ etc., etc.
9:05	Can we maintain this responsibility, not let it down or go, one day feel it less, one day feel it more — you follow?
9:15	- according to our moods and idiosyncrasies. I think we ought to discuss that a little bit. Mary Zimbalist: Krishnaji, sometimes, there’s a difference of style in people, a difference of temperament, way of expressing, but that doesn’t have to be a difference of serious intent, does it?
9:36	It’s just a different way of putting it.
9:40	K: No, I might express my responsibility through a gesture, and that gesture might convey to the person that I’m authoritarian, and so my feeling of responsibility is diminished in relation to him.
10:06	So he says, ‘Well, he’s really not responsible, he just...’ and brushes me off. So my question is: can we maintain this responsibility? Montague Simmons: I think we want to bear in mind the two sides of responsibility.
10:29	There’s you responding to somebody else, and somebody responding to you.
10:33	K: Quite.
10:34	MS: And I think the danger is frequently that we recognise our own response to a situation but don’t take in the other person.
10:46	K: Quite. All right, sir, let’s begin. What are we trying to do here? Please tell me.
11:00	You tell me. What are we all trying to do here? Joe Zorskie: Amongst other things we are trying to create an environment or an atmosphere in which students will learn to feel their responsibility towards this community and towards the world.
11:36	DP: I think we are also trying to create an environment where we can see ourselves functioning more clearly, come upon ourselves.
11:49	That’s what I think; at least it is for me - to come upon ourselves without being introspective.
11:56	Come upon the centre core which makes for disharmony in living.
12:02	MZ: Aren’t we also demanding, by our intent, a degree of maturity in young children and all of us, which is, it would seem to me, notably lacking in the world today in all fields?
12:17	We’re asking them to have order, intelligence, and what comes out of self-discipline — out of themselves and out of all of us, to live that way without any imposition and restrictions, which is a very, it seems to me, demanding thing to ask of everybody.
12:44	Questioner: Isn’t there a tendency, by saying this, to throw up ideals, to make...
12:53	By saying what you’re trying to do, aren’t you creating an ideal?
12:59	K: No, no. No, no.
13:01	DP: We are trying to act intelligently.
13:02	K: No, I am not trying… Here we are, a group of us, responsible to the parent, to the student, and responsible to ourselves and responsible to each other.
13:20	And here we are. What is it that we are trying to create? Dorothy Simmons: I think that what Nicholas just said is a cause of considerable confusion here, that if you say anything clearly, you’ve created a sort of template of what is expected.
13:39	K: Ah. Does clarity bring confusion? Suppose I say something very clearly and definitely, does that create trouble?
13:53	MZ: Certainly not create trouble, but it is translated by the...
13:59	K: No, wait, let’s look at it. I say something very clearly and definitely, and you to whom I’m saying that, don’t like it.
14:12	Why? Because you’re confused?
14:14	MZ: Well, I may like it but I may say, ‘Oh, yes, that means we must do this.’ K: No, no.
14:24	No, a much deeper level. I’m not asking what to do. I say something very clear and obvious, and you refuse to see it and translate what I say as creating confusion in you and about you.
14:42	Is that it?
14:45	MZ: That may be. That may happen too, but...
14:51	K: No, no. No, I want to get at this. Mrs Simmons says, ‘Look, I...’ It’s fairly obvious, I don’t have to translate it.
15:07	How do we take this up?
15:19	MZ: Possibly from a young person’s point of view — please correct me because I don’t come too much in contact with the young — but is it as though we’re saying to them, ‘We expect you to behave intelligently and correctly, but there’s no pattern’?
15:37	In other words, they say, ‘Well, what am I supposed to do?’ and they quickly make a formula.
15:42	K: All right, let’s take that very clearly. There is no pattern, and the student says, ‘I don’t know what you want me to do.’ DS: And the moment you say anything clearly... (inaudible) K: Wait a minute, that’s what I want to bring in.
15:53	MZ: Then they say, ‘Oh yes, that’s the pattern and I like it or I don’t like it,’ or whatever it is.
16:01	K: That’s what I want to get at. (Pause) What do you mean by not having any pattern here, not any system, not any method, not any framework, mould, form, which they loved in the science… — form, framework — what do you mean by that, there is no framework here?
16:47	Would you tell me?
16:48	Q: We don’t have tradition. We’re attempting not to have tradition.
16:53	K: But you have a tradition.
16:55	Q: We’re not having a tradition in the sense that things are because we say they are and that’s the way it has always been.
17:01	K: No, not in that sense. I’m asking you, what do you mean by not having a frame here?
17:08	DP: We don’t say you must come to the morning meeting.
17:12	K: Wait. Take that, take that one incident.
17:15	MZ: But do they feel that? Do they feel they are treated equal if they come or don’t come?
17:21	K: Wait. No, I want… Just a minute. We have no framework. You say we have no framework, but yet you expect the students to come to the morning assembly.
17:32	DP: Yes.
17:34	K: That’s a framework.
17:37	DP: What is in a framework, a fiction or a fact?
17:40	K: That’s what I want to… No, you expect them to come here.
17:45	DP: Well, you hope.
17:46	K: You expect them, and that creates a form, doesn’t it?
17:53	DP: Yes.
17:54	K: Why do you want them to come here, come to the assembly in the morning?
18:01	DP: So that they can participate in the corporate feeling of being together and doing something together.
18:07	K: What are you doing together, meeting in the morning?
18:10	DP: Well, being silent and watching our thought and listening to something together.
18:19	K: And you expect them to come every morning to do that?
18:22	DP: No, we don’t expect them but we feel that if they did come it would be an immense value to them.
18:26	K: But I don’t feel like coming — what will you do with me?
18:28	DP: We don’t know.
18:29	Q: In fact we do expect them to come.
18:31	DP: We don’t know what to do.
18:33	Q: In fact we do expect them to come.
18:37	DP: And we don’t know what to do.
18:39	K: You expect them to come?
18:42	Q: And maybe that expectation is...
18:44	K: Now, you see, therefore you’ve got a form.
18:49	Q: Right.
18:50	K: Don’t fiddle around with words.
18:52	Q: Exactly, we have a form here, we have a framework.
18:57	MZ: We expect them to come out of themselves, so to us it isn’t a form.
18:59	DP: We hope they come.
19:00	K: Hope, wish, subtly suggest.
19:01	DS: (Inaudible) …come out of their interest... (inaudible) DP: Because they haven’t got it.
19:03	K: Wait. That’s what… next step. Either I come out of myself, out of interest, therefore I come; and there’s another who doesn’t want to come, he wants to stay in bed or get up and wander, whatever it is.
19:14	What will you do? No, do…
19:17	DP: (Inaudible) K: I know all your answers. Please listen to me first. What do you expect out of this gathering in the morning, what is it to you?
19:33	Ted, what is it to you in the morning?
19:41	TC: I come and there are many other people there.
19:55	I find that I can listen with everyone to the same thing and afterwards not expect an intervention or confusion, but for a short length of time, carefully look as closely as possible and as quietly as possible.
20:35	K: Are you saying it’s a period or a time of self-recollectedness, of being recollected, of recollection, of being watchful during that fifteen minutes?
20:54	TC: Yes. I didn’t understand the word ‘recollection’ but when you described it, yes.
21:01	K: Is that why you come?
21:03	TC: At that time...
21:08	K: And is it important for you?
21:11	TC: Oh yes. Yes.
21:14	K: And you’d get up, work to get here, to be here?
21:20	TC: Yes.
21:21	K: Now, how do you convey that to a student to whom you’ve already said, no frame, no form, no tradition, no etc., etc.?
21:38	How will you convey that to him? Without authoritarian voice, without authoritarian gesture, how will you say, ‘Look, this is very important for you to come.’ TC: In a few cases recently, I’ve been trying to understand clearly what, like in one case it’s sleepiness, and yet I find the person getting to bed on time and they just have this trouble getting up.
22:09	Some mornings, between I and another person, we will wake them up three or four times.
22:17	That case is...
22:19	K: No, I am asking a different question: how will you awaken in the student the necessity or the importance or the essence of this feeling, that it is good to sit quietly before the day begins, watching, being aware, alert and all the rest of it?
22:47	How do you awaken that so that he says, ‘I’m sleepy but I’m getting up’?
22:56	TC: Well, now in my failure in the last week or so, I now want to go to spend, not in the morning when the person is so tired, but some other time with them.
23:13	K: No, you haven’t understood, Ted. I’m your student. You have impressed upon me there is no authority here. You have impressed upon me to exercise my own intelligence, you’ve exercised… you’ve shown me that there is no frame, mould etc., etc., and you want to awaken in me the feeling that I must come, it’s very important for me to be here, because you feel it’s important, you see the quality of it, you see what happens, all the rest.
23:56	You follow? How will you awaken that in me?
23:59	TC: Well, I feel that I can share that.
24:04	K: Ah, I can’t share it with him because I don’t know what it means.
24:09	TC: No, but...
24:10	K: I want you to awaken that feeling in me.
24:13	BJ: Krishnaji, I feel first that perhaps I would begin from a different direction: talk about the confusion in the world, the confusion in ourselves.
24:30	K: No, sir, don’t… I’m asking you something: how will you awaken that interest, which you have, in the student, which will make him come to the meeting, to the assembly in the morning?
24:46	BJ: Yes, that’s what I am saying. And then I go on and talk to him about thought.
24:50	K: I am not… You’re not meeting my point. You talk about his thought; by the time you explain to him, he’s bored with you.
25:09	He says, ‘Oh Lord, here comes Jenkins with his explanations, and some more of it, I’m bored.
25:23	I’ll listen but my mind is somewhere else.’ I’m asking something else. I don’t see the difficulty in this. How will you awaken that desire, to put it very simply, in the student, to make him of his own accord to come here?
25:38	TC: Maybe I’m going to misuse this word again, but what I was looking at was that I can discuss, I can do something with anybody, with a student, that we get closer together and find at the same level something that we’re talking about clearly, that can expose, that they can appreciate something.
26:22	K: Look, Ted, they come with dirty shoes, they come with deliberate trousers torn — you follow? - all the rest of it - unwashed, long hair all over their face and I can hardly see their faces sometimes.
26:38	Sorry. I don’t know whether it’s a man or a girl or a boy. How will you impress on them the necessity of cleanliness, tidiness, not dirty - you follow? — all that, including the morning session?
26:59	Come on, sir, discuss with me.
27:00	Q: You said we can’t share this, but surely if there is a real relationship between you and I, and we respect each other and we therefore really listen to each other, and if I’m clear about this, then in our relationship something will be shared.
27:17	K: No, you are clear — wait a minute — you are clear that you must come here in the morning.
27:21	Q: Yes. Not must but I...
27:23	K: I’m using a quick word. You see the importance of coming here.
27:28	Q: Yes.
27:30	K: And I don’t. I come to lunch or dinner or breakfast unwashed, uncombed hair — you follow? - untidy, patched trousers, you know, all the rest of it. Now, how will you create the feeling in the student that this… without telling them the whole substance of it?
27:55	Q: Sorry, without?
27:57	BJ: Long explanations.
27:59	DP: I think he’s saying that our being has got to convey it, not... (inaudible) K: No, I’m not…
28:06	No, Miss Pratt, don’t translate what I’m saying. I’m here.
28:08	DP: Yes, I know, but I feel that it is the quality of our being is what is essential and that no amount of words from any one of us is going to impress them much.
28:14	K: Oh, yes, it will.
28:15	DS: That’s another pattern, isn’t it? That’s another pattern, really.
28:21	K: Another pattern.
28:22	DS: An example. (Inaudible) …saying, ‘Look at me’…
28:26	Q: Clearly we’re not…
28:29	DS: Or, ‘Look at this action.’ DP: No, not, ‘Look at me.’ DS: Well, us, then.
28:37	K: You’re missing my point. Forgive me. I come as a student here, sloppy mentally, emotionally, physically; dirty trousers, long hair, unwashed, all in a mess.
28:56	And you say to me, there is no authority here, no pattern here, no example here; we look to your intelligence that you do the right thing.
29:10	You’ve already thrown tremendous responsibility on myself, haven’t you?
29:17	And I feel lost, therefore, being...
29:20	DS: They came on those terms. They came on those terms.
29:25	K: I know, but...
29:26	Q: They don’t really understand that.
29:27	K: They don’t deeply, poor devils, how can they understand this thing?
29:31	DS: No, but you’ve got to begin somewhere.
29:32	K: I’m going to show it. Wait. We’re going to begin. I come here. Though you have written to me, though you have said to me, etc., etc., etc., I come here. I want to come here, but I come with all that thing in me. And here you suddenly say, ‘There is no pattern’, and I am shocked, I am surprised, I am a little disturbed, and so I fall back, to be secure in myself, in my old habits.
30:04	Though you have laid down, you have written to me, you have… — you create this uncertainty in me, that there is no pattern, no this and that, and I have nothing to rely on, therefore I’ll go back to my old habits.
30:22	This happens. So what will you do, or not do, or say, or create in me the feeling that I must be orderly, I must come to this meeting?
30:41	The feeling in me. How will you do it? You understand? My feeling. I come as a student in disorder. That’s inevitable; the house is in disorder, society is in disorder, everything. I come in disorder. And suddenly you face me with a reality which I can’t understand, a reality which says, no pattern here, no authority here, you have to exercise your own intelligence, your own…
31:31	— and I am at a loss — right? — and I go back to my old tradition, which is, I’m sloppy.
31:43	All right, I’m going to be sloppy, because here there is no order. Therefore I’ll find security in my disorder.
31:51	DS: But there is order here. We haven’t said there’s no order here.
31:55	K: No, no, you have said there is no pattern, there is no authority, there is no… you have to exercise your own intelligence.
32:06	And you leave me there. And I, being confused, I say, ‘Well, I can’t do anything,’ but unconsciously I go back to my old… to my disorder.
32:28	How will you free the mind of this disorder? I’m putting it differently. How will you do it? And exercise...
32:43	Q: Can you point out the disorder and show the consequences of it?
32:54	K: You point out. You say, ‘Look, you’ve got dirty trousers, you’ve got too long hair, all over your eyes and face,’ and they’re not washed, and smelly, they’re dirty.
33:04	You point all this out to them. What happens? They say… Go on, tell me, sir, what happens?
33:15	Q: Well, if they can see it...
33:17	K: Wait. (Laughs) If they can see it, then it’s very simple.
33:22	Q: But often it causes a resentment because they see that as authority.
33:26	K: That’s what I… Resentment and saying, ‘I’m going to stick to my...’ — because you have no authority here.
33:32	Q: They see us as trying to impose an authority.
33:35	K: That’s what I’m trying to… So what will you do?
33:38	Q: One thing, it seems, is that there really must be no authority, because if they can really see there is attempted authority, then...
33:49	K: But yet you tell me, ‘Don’t come down with dirty trousers.’ Q: Exactly. So we do in fact have a framework.
33:57	K: No, no, do look at it, sir, don’t… See, look at it. What will you do? No authority, no frame, no form, don’t come down in dirty trousers.
34:09	Q: Krishnaji, we say there’s no frame and no form but in fact in subtle ways there are frameworks and forms, through our expectations.
34:18	MZ: Isn’t it a mistake to say there is no framework and form? Couldn’t we say we don’t want to operate by a pattern, we don’t want to do these things because they are a pattern, but we do in fact want to be clean, orderly.
34:36	K: No, but I translate it as being a form, authority.
34:44	MZ: Well...
34:46	K: No, it is a very...
34:50	DS: Well, you’re asking unintelligent people, insensitive people, to act with intelligence.
34:56	K: That’s the whole point. Put it in a nutshell or two words, what will you do?
35:03	BJ: Krishnaji, it seems to me they are not going to listen to you if they have a feeling about you that you’re a hypocrite or you’re prejudiced or whatever.
35:13	So we’ve really got to examine our inner prejudices.
35:19	K: You are supposed to do that all the time, sir.
35:26	If you’re responsible, you’re not going to project your prejudices, your moods and all that - you keep it in your room and lock it up.
35:41	(Pause) You see, with the result, what takes place is that one or two people say - Mrs Simmons or another says, ‘Don’t come down with those dirty shoes,’ and they resent it, they are frightened of her, they say, ‘They’ll turn me out if I don’t obey,’ so this thing goes on in them.
36:19	So how will you prevent all this? (Pause) BJ: Krishnaji, you say one or two are the ones who point out.
36:40	K: Or you all may do.
36:46	BJ: (Inaudible) K: Don’t take that, sir - you all may do. (Laughs) With the result they might be all frightened of you, or frightened of one or two people, and so on, so on, so on.
36:59	BJ: But doesn’t it add to the confusion if one or two are pointing out and the rest aren’t and therefore one group are one’s friends and...
37:05	K: Therefore, look, if all of you point out, you’ve scared the daylights out of me.
37:12	(Laughs) So what will you do? This is really a problem - you understand? - it’s not just ‘do this’. What can we do? No authority, no frame, no system, and you say, ‘Do this on your own intelligence,’ and they are not intelligent.
37:41	They are not intelligent, they are disorderly, they are in revolt, they react, they are frightened, all the rest of it.
37:50	Now what shall I do? If I was in your place, what should I do?
37:59	Q: In the course of interacting with the student, for instance, if I’m talking to a young student and her hair... just her nose is peeping out, in a sense it makes me feel I don’t know who I’m talking to.
38:19	K: I know, but they like it that way because that’s the fashion.
38:20	Q: But if in the course of talking, for instance, I would like to see the face of who I am talking to.
38:30	K: I understand, but not the face - you follow? — the whole… If I was in your place, what shall I do? I’ve no authority, I’ve no frame, I want them to act on their own intelligence, which they haven’t got; or they have an intelligence which becomes cunning, fearful — you follow?
38:55	- all the rest of it follows — so what shall I do?
39:06	(Pause) I know what I would do.
39:10	Q: What…
39:12	K: What were you going to say?
39:14	Q: What would you do?
39:19	K: First of all, in my personal life, I’m not sloppy - mentally, emotionally, physically, I cannot…
39:31	I don’t feel sloppy. Right? I know I don’t feel sloppy. I’m very clear. Right? I want to convey this non-sloppy clarity (laughs).
39:53	I’m not interested for the moment whether they come in dirty trousers or combed, etc.
40:02	I want to convey to them how destructive mentally it is to be sloppy.
40:13	I don’t know whether you noticed those scientists, they were not sloppy, in their field.
40:24	Right, sir? But they were lost in other fields. Which is sloppiness. Sorry, I wouldn’t call them... So, I would talk to them about that first, I would make this very clear, how destructive...
40:44	DS: In a way, Krishnaji, we have, and they say, ‘My goodness, you look so sort of refined, you’re a pain to me.’ K: I am refined.
40:54	Life is...
40:55	DS: Yes, but they feel refinement is as offensive to them as sloppiness is to us.
41:00	K: I would go into that: ‘Don’t be offended by what I say.’ BJ: It’s unrelaxed, Krishnaji, perhaps they would say.
41:07	K: Ah, I’m not relaxed. I don’t want to be relaxed sloppily. When I’m relaxed, I’m relaxed decently. Sorry!
41:16	BJ: But that seems to be your morality.
41:18	K: I don’t put my feet on a chair. I never put my feet on a chair.
41:22	DS: But that requires a degree of sensibility that doesn’t seem to exist.
41:28	K: Therefore I have to convey it to them. It doesn’t...
41:33	DS: But we have conveyed it to them. They say… (inaudible) DP: (Inaudible) K: I am going to find a way of doing this. I’m going to spend my time to find out.
41:43	DS: But we are. Six years we’ve spent.
41:46	K: But we have… six years, every year there is a change. Every year there are new people coming in, sloppy; you have to begin all over again. What shall we do?
42:03	What would I do? I don’t want to be an example — right?
42:14	- I don’t want to be a dominating, authoritarian, non-sloppish person, I don’t want to be a school headmaster who says, ‘Don’t do that,’ and scare the chap out.
42:35	So what shall I do?
42:45	What will you do? Come on, sir, you all sit quietly round me — what will you do? What are you doing? Right, let’s take that: what are you doing?
42:57	DP: We’re each one pointing things out in our own ways.
43:04	K: Ah, I don’t want you to point it out in your own way.
43:08	DS: Say the noise that goes on at night.
43:11	K: I know it.
43:12	DS: Yes. Well, then what we actually did was to call them all together and say, ‘Look, you’re disturbing many people. Do you realise you’re doing this?’ K: But it doesn’t… Yes, for the moment.
43:21	DS: And they listened. And they were very good about it, they understood, and they fully intend to cooperate in that.
43:32	K: And a few minutes later they forget.
43:34	DS: Yes.
43:35	K: Bang goes the… shout... (inaudible ) DS: (Inaudible) ...and they grow a little older.
43:38	K: I understand all this. This is a perpetual game, this. What shall we do?
43:42	DS: You see, they do respond to talking it over and seeing what they are doing.
43:54	They hadn’t seen that, it was just they were so delighted to be here, bounce, bounce, bounce and all the rest of it.
43:59	K: (Laughs) Naturally.
44:00	DS: And they do fully intend to do something about it.
44:04	K: But they forget it.
44:05	DS: The same as we may well do, at other levels.
44:07	K: I understand all this. They will forget it five minutes later.
44:09	DS: Yes.
44:10	K: They are full of beans, full of energy and they will shout, five minutes...
44:15	DS: Yes, well, then what actually in fact happened, after about four or five times, with about ten different staff, I come in and say, ‘For heaven’s sake, it’s now ten-twenty, twenty minutes past your late night time, gramophones are going, there are four adult staff wandering around trying to get you to bed,’ I said, ‘It’s ludicrous.
44:38	Get to bed!’ That is actually what I said. ‘Turn the damn gramophone off and get to bed!’ MZ: It worked like a charm.
44:48	DS: It worked like a charm. But it smells somewhat of authority. (Laughter) Q: It smelled!
44:59	DS: (Inaudible) K: This is what the schools do — rules — if you don’t, out you go, expelled and all the rest of it.
45:10	Now, here we’re trying to work out differently. Right? What shall we do?
45:13	Q: I try to speak to them about how we should be aware that our actions differ from what we say we understand, and that if they could understand this point, if they could realise they were cheating themselves and cheating everybody when they do this, that that was really an important point for them to see, that I don’t want to hear any more of their excuses.
45:38	K: Then what happens? What’s the result of that?
45:40	Q: Then they were quiet last night.
45:41	K: Yes, for a few… one night. Next night they’ll begin again.
45:43	Q: (Inaudible) K: So, look what happens to you: you keep on repeating it and you get irritated and you become mechanical or authoritarian.
45:58	So what shall we do with these… to a group of people who are thoughtless, who are unintelligent, who really want to go on their own way?
46:19	What shall we do? You see, in India, students are very docile, really too docile.
46:32	‘Go to bed at ten.’ ‘All right, sir, we’ll be in bed by ten,’ and they go, because — you follow? — the tradition is you must obey the older people.
46:44	That has been established for centuries. So, ‘All right, sir, I’m in bed, we won’t quarrel,’ but they might quarrel behind…
46:52	— you follow? But this whole sense of accepting, in India and Asia. Here, on the contrary: to hell with everything — etc. Now what shall we do? (Pause) DS: You see, really Krishnaji, it’s almost like the survival of the fittest.
47:21	You see, if we don’t really feel strongly about what we do feel about, and what does truly interest us, the survival of the fittest law will take over.
47:32	K: Of course, of course.
47:34	DS: And so you’ve got to make it very clear some things, as far...
47:40	K: Make it clear. Then what? Look, I’m a very orderly person.
47:43	BJ: I haven’t quite understood what Mrs Simmons is saying. I didn’t quite understand the survival of the fittest.
47:51	DS: I mean that if people are allowed to make noise, have the gramophone on, jump down the stairs, shout about, talk until two o’clock in the morning, then get up late, and the cycle begins because it has never ended, the last day — if that is allowed to go on and we can’t convey to them, ‘Look, this is what you’re doing,’ and this is… you can’t… that is you being an authority.
48:18	And we’re saying, look, it is a common authority of us all, we’ve all got a certain authority of our own life living, of living things, and so you must convey that, what interests you, what has significance for you?
48:33	K: But you see, they don’t take all this in.
48:52	DS: I know.
48:53	Q: What’s more, they say, ‘Are these so-called outward forms important?’ they say.
48:56	K: I know, that’s a dodge, that’s a good, clever…
48:59	Q: Exactly. They don’t differentiate between what’s really... (inaudible) K: Of course. ‘Oh, what does it matter outside? What matters is what you are inside,’ and when you tackle the inside: ‘Oh, that doesn’t matter, what matters is the outside.’ You can play this game endlessly.
49:39	(Pause) Well, sir, what? Give it up?
49:44	Q: I don’t know.
49:45	K: Why not?
49:46	Q: If I knew the answer, I’d tell you.
49:47	K: No, let’s find out the answer. Not you don’t know and I don’t know, but let’s find out.
49:52	DS: Krishnaji, each person…
49:54	MS: I think we all want the answers…
49:58	DS: Sorry, go on.
50:00	MS: I think we all want the answers too quickly. We want to sort of wave a wand and say, ‘I’ve talked of this and I’ve done this and I’ve done this, and they haven’t responded, and they’ve gone back.’ But our experience would be that we have indeed experienced all these disturbances at one time.
50:12	We’ve also experienced when the general community and the atmosphere has become part of them; unconsciously they have seen things that six months before they’d never have seen.
50:23	I don’t want to particularly give in so soon over it.
50:26	K: Sir, here is a problem. Here is a group of us, faced with another group of people, students, who are — all the rest. And we want them to do this intelligently - all the rest of it. Now, this is our problem. Now, let’s find out, let’s contribute, each one of us, to the solution of it, and perhaps out of that will come something real. Now, what do you contribute? Come on, sir, what do you contribute? How do you tackle this?
50:56	We are going to ask each other, and answer it, not say, ‘I don’t know,’ and just leave it for somebody else to settle. How would you tackle this problem? How would you go about it? As Mr Simmons has pointed out, you can’t do it overnight, but how would you, looking at the whole picture, how would you go at it?
51:20	JZ: I’ve been watching this now for about two weeks, this particular lack of attendance at the morning meeting, and I’m trying to find out by paying attention to who does come here and who doesn’t come, which students are the perennial, well, whatever... the ones that are absent.
51:38	K: Perennial green.
51:39	JZ: Yes. So it’s not… so I’m trying first not to just to say there’s a lack of attendance, but to find out in which students is the spirit missing.
51:49	Some students, they do come, and I’ve noticed… (inaudible) K: No, Mr Joe, you…
51:52	JZ: I’m evading the question, aren’t I?
51:55	K: Yes, you’re not answering my question, which is, here is a problem which you and I must solve.
52:05	JZ: But I’m also trying to think that this is not really a… I mean, this particular problem, if this was the only problem...
52:13	K: No, no, I’m not talking of getting up, noise, etc., I’m not talking...
52:17	JZ: It’s a general problem.
52:18	K: Yes, a general problem. The problem is - let me repeat again — the problem is, here are a group of people like us, trying to… who have said no frame, no authority, no etc., and at the same time we want them to be orderly - you follow? — and so on.
52:42	And they are incapable of this, apparently. Now what shall we do? Without authority, without anger, without irritation, how shall we awaken in them the feeling, ‘By Jove, this is the right thing to do.’ JZ: Looking at myself, I think, in those problems in which I’m absolutely sure of, I mean, I really know exactly where I stand and I’m very clear on it, say, like the question of violence between one student and another.
53:14	And when I see violence, I mean, there is no doubt in my mind that there’s something wrong there, and so I mean, I can move in that situation.
53:21	K: No, you’re not answering my question.
53:23	JZ: Yes, but I’m answering it in this way, that in some of these situations, I’m really not that clear. I mean, I’d like to be clear, I’d like to say I’m clear. I’m not that clear on this morning meeting thing. I’m looking at myself.
53:33	K: I am not — sir, you’re misunderstanding — don’t take any particular case - assembly, disorderliness, sloppiness — don’t take any particular case, but I’m asking a general question, which is, how do we awaken in them a sense of intelligent action, which includes coming to the meeting, etc., all the rest of it, so that they themselves say, ‘This is the right thing to do,’ and do it?
54:13	How would you solve this?
54:20	You’ve a brother who is untidy, sloppy, all the rest of it - how will you, out of your compassion, out of your friendship, out of your… as your brother and all the rest of it, say, ‘For God’s…’ — how do you waken the flame of orderliness in him, and intelligence?
54:56	JZ: In class, when there’s...
55:01	K: Ah! (Laughs) Don’t take examples. I’m not… I don’t want examples. What shall we do together? You take class, I cook, somebody else does… — how do we do this together?
55:20	You’ve understood my question?
55:26	JZ: In general, then, I expect intelligent behaviour.
55:28	K: They are not intelligent, they’re a cook.
55:32	JZ: No, but I mean I show them, I show the person that I’m not… in a sense I’m surprised when intelligent behaviour doesn’t come about.
55:47	(Inaudible) K: Yes, it’s all right, be surprised, old boy, smile, and I go on.
55:55	You haven’t answered. How will you awaken that sense of intelligence in me, in the student?
56:05	JZ: Unless we engage in an inner relationship with them, they will continue to do...
56:13	K: Is that your answer, that you say, ‘Look, we are really not related to the student’?
56:22	We talk about relationship, we talk of responsibility; we are really not related to the student - is that it?
56:29	We really have not this compassion — which I use that so much, the scientists talked of — therefore I can’t convey this to them — is that your answer?
56:46	Q: That’s the beginning of it.
56:48	K: No, is…
56:49	JZ: I think that’s… I mean, if we do have a good — not a good relationship — if we have a relationship, there is a real relationship in that sense then there will be no problem.
57:00	K: So you’re saying we have no relationship. It may be true. Let’s face it. You follow? So you said the only way to do this - according to you - is to establish a real relationship with the student, of compassion, of making them feel… all the rest of it.
57:25	Is that your answer to the problem?
57:34	If you haven’t got it, why haven’t you got it? That’s the next step. Right? Then why do we talk about relationship? Why don’t we beat them on the head and say, ‘Look, either you do this or you get out’?
57:55	So is it generally — I’m asking, please, I’m not saying you’re not or you are — that we haven’t got a serious feeling of responsibility with which goes care and compassion and all the rest of it?
58:12	Is that it?
58:13	Q: Would you say that again, because you went from relationship to what you said, and I missed it.
58:22	K: No, he said we may not have true relationship with the student.
58:29	True relationship being affection, compassion, patience.
58:36	I’m concerned with the chap to see that he does this. I’m going to find a way that he does do it. I’m going to find a way with each boy, with each girl.
58:52	I’m concerned that they should come to the morning meeting because it’s very important to start the day with that feeling of quietness, start the day with that feeling of together, you know, we are drinking at the same fountain and so on, so on, so on.
59:26	And it’s very important to come tidily, clean, all that.
59:33	Is it that we haven’t got this feeling of care and therefore being ourselves sloppy, mentally, emotionally, not physically because… — but that very sloppiness of our inwardness makes us…
59:56	‘We are responsible but what can we do,’ and so on, all the rest of it? You understand what I’m saying? I’m asking. I don’t say you are or you’re not.
1:00:14	JZ: That’s not so easy either. Sometimes there’s a fear and a reluctance for the student to engage in...
1:00:22	K: Ah, I’m not talking of the student, I’m talking about myself. I’m talking about ourselves in relation to the student. We know what the student is, he’s irresponsible, he’s slack, sluggish.
1:00:37	You know what they are, don’t… — poor people. (Pause) You know what...
1:00:52	DS: Krishnaji, they think they are communicating something of very real value to us.
1:00:58	K: Which Dr Wilkins said: there’s a gap between the older and the younger.
1:01:05	What are they contributing to us?
1:01:06	DS: I think Brian Jenkins summed it up a little bit, in that to be very, very informal is to equate with being relaxed.
1:01:19	I know, but that’s what they think.
1:01:21	K: Look, do you know what it means to be relaxed? Relaxed doesn’t mean to put your legs up.
1:01:28	DS: No, but since those meetings, I mean, the old patched trousers, everything’s come out, the hair’s not put back, and quite frankly I have stopped asking people to do so.
1:01:42	K: You know what one of the scientists said to me? He said, ‘You’re very definite, aren’t you?’ DS: Well, definite...
1:01:49	K: Wait.
1:01:50	DS: ...apparently, seems to be they connect it with authority.
1:01:58	K: No. ‘You’re very definite, which means we are indefinite.’ You follow?
1:02:07	DS: No.
1:02:09	K: When one of the scientists said to me, ‘You are very definite in what you’re saying,’ that means he conveyed the feeling that you have not left a door open for further investigation.
1:02:34	MZ: A closed mind was implied. Wasn’t he implying that you’ve made up your mind and that’s the end of it?
1:02:45	K: That’s the end of it, and I… and so on. But the people who are definite are considered to have a closed mind. People who say it clear, they say, ‘Well this is clear, everything…
1:02:57	I am not concerned.’ Now what shall we do? Together — it can’t be done separately. I can’t become a little guru in the corner and attract a few students round me. That would be silly. So what shall we do together to see that this intelligence is awakened?
1:03:20	DS: You see, I think it is awakened, Krishnaji, in that they came here in the first place.
1:03:32	I think it is there.
1:03:33	K: I don’t know a thing. I refuse to say it is there.
1:03:36	DS: Well, I think the fact that they are here hints at that.
1:03:46	K: It may be. They indicate, they point, they show symptoms of that.
1:03:50	DS: Yes.
1:03:51	K: But that isn’t good enough.
1:03:52	MZ: Don’t overestimate that, Dorothy. Maybe the alternative was something awful, so this was, ‘Oh, my God, anything’s better than something over here, so I’ll go.’ DS: I think with some that’s so.
1:04:03	Carol Smith: It may be, I don’t know.
1:04:06	K: Let us take it for granted that they are not, and it is my job to see that they are. What shall we do?
1:04:13	CS: In talking to the students I’ve gotten the feeling that many of them come here with the feeling the place is different, and the difference of the place will affect them and make them different, rather than they are the place.
1:04:35	They are Brockwood and it’s a matter of each one becoming transformed, losing what happened before. And there’s a great rift between that, in the sense it’s even lead to a situation that’s occurring now, with a great feeling of disappointment that this place hasn’t transformed that, that this place is just another school.
1:04:52	I mean, someone even once called it, ‘It’s like a vegetarian high school.’ K: I know.
1:05:02	That’s dreadful. If I may ask another question: what have you got to give them, and what have they got to give you?
1:05:15	Have you anything to give them? Apart from mathematics, I’m not talking of that.
1:05:25	Have you anything to give them?
1:05:28	CS: Yes, I think we have a lot to give them.
1:05:30	K: And have they anything to give you?
1:05:34	CS: Yes.
1:05:35	K: What?
1:05:36	CS: Well, it would start with just this ability that they can talk about...
1:05:37	K: No, I’m not talking… What have you to give them?
1:05:39	CS: Or what have they to give us?
1:05:41	K: Both. Look at it first: what have you got to give to them? Come on, you discuss. You keep quiet, you must… you talk to somebody. Don’t jump, don’t be nervous when I look at you. What have you to give them? Have you something to give them? Shakuntala Narayan: I think both of us have something to give each other and that’s...
1:06:05	K: Ah, I didn’t ask… You see, you’re all so damn clever. Have you got something to give them?
1:06:13	SN: An opportunity to learn.
1:06:16	Q: For some of them, perhaps, for the first time in their lives, real care and concern and affection.
1:06:24	K: No, no, I’m asking, have you something to give them?
1:06:27	Q: Yes. I think so. Yes.
1:06:30	K: What? Wait, I won’t even ask. So you know you have something to give. Have they anything to give you?
1:06:38	Q: To begin with, some, no. (Inaudible) K: Have you — it’s too complicated.
1:06:56	BJ: Krishnaji, I have something to give them, and they perhaps respond or react to that.
1:07:08	K: Ah, I’m not… You are all… I’m asking you, have you something to give them? Not how they take it, how they receive it.
1:07:15	BJ: But you were asking what they have to give.
1:07:17	K: I’m not even asking you that.
1:07:20	MZ: You just did. You just did ask us.
1:07:25	K: Later. I said I’m asking first, have you anything to give to them? And the next question: have they anything to give you? First, have I anything to give to them?
1:07:46	SN: I don’t know whether this is...
1:07:52	K: Ah, I’m not… You see, don’t expect what I think. Have you something to give to me?
1:08:01	SN: There is already a difference in this environment, certainly.
1:08:06	DP: A feeling of concern, I’d like to give to you, a feeling that I really care, or think I care.
1:08:16	Q: Does that attitude of ‘I have something to give to you’, doesn’t that create...
1:08:24	(inaudible) DS: That in itself could be wrong.
1:08:29	K: Please, you’re all… (laughs) A bee goes to the flower because it’s got nectar. It doesn’t say, ‘I’ve something to give you’ — the nectar is in the flower so the bee comes to it.
1:08:45	Now, have you a nectar? (Laughs) It sounds ridiculous, all these similes. I hate these similes. Have you — that’s why… — have you something to give?
1:08:56	DP: Not in that sense.
1:09:00	K: Please, find out. And when you say they have something to give you, what have these students to give you?
1:09:15	Q: I learn a tremendous amount. I learn a tremendous amount through my relationship with them.
1:09:20	K: What do you learn?
1:09:21	Q: Quite a lot about myself.
1:09:24	K: No - you see? — what do they give you? You may...
1:09:31	Q: The relationship gives me something. They directly are part of that relationship.
1:09:33	K: No, sir, you’re not answering my question.
1:09:34	Q: Well, in that case I don’t know what... (inaudible) K: I’m sorry, I may be obtuse.
1:09:46	Have you…
1:09:47	BJ: Krishnaji, there is that intelligence in them. Surely we’ve got to push away the rubbish or allow the rubbish to be seen, and then the intelligence will blossom.
1:10:02	K: Oh, you know, that’s a dangerous statement. For God’s sake, don’t make that statement, because that’s a good old idea, that God is in you or intelligence is in you, all that you have to do is to help them to slip off their ignorance or their stupidity and then the thing will...
1:10:15	BJ: Isn’t it so?
1:10:19	K: Sir, I know nothing about those students.
1:10:26	And that’s not my problem for the moment. My problem is: have we something to give them? Intelligence, compassion, care. Give, not say, ‘You must have it.’ BJ: I think we have some, but not very much.
1:10:46	K: No, no. You’re all... (laughs) Q: Krishnaji, if I didn’t feel this, then I wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t burden the place with myself.
1:11:05	K: No, my dear chap, you’re missing my point. You see, look, we’ve got this problem between us, all of us in this room, that without exercising authority, without saying you must, you must not, these are the rules, this is the form, we have to create in them a feeling of great order, a great sense of care, with their body, with their mind, with their heart.
1:11:44	Care of them - you follow? And a sense of non-violence between each other and between ourselves, between the students and so on.
1:11:57	How do we create this spirit in them? That’s our responsibility. How do we create it, so that they don’t get frightened, they don’t resist you, that when they are frightened they say, ‘Yes, you did that, you frightened me, but now I’ll discuss with you,’ confidence, and all the rest of it — how will you create this?
1:12:31	I don’t know. If I stayed here, you know what I mean, if I took the responsibility of being — you follow? — on of…
1:12:45	I would find a way of doing it. I would go… I would find it, because I like such a problem, I want to solve it.
1:13:01	You follow? I want to find out how to do this. No example, no authority, all that. And I want to find a way of solving this problem so that they come out of this, when they leave this place they have that.
1:13:27	Now, is it an issue that you want to solve this?
1:13:45	Together, does it interest you to solve this?
1:13:52	Q: Indeed.
1:13:55	K: Then what will you do? Here you are. I’m leaving. Sorry, I’m leaving. You follow? I’m gone. What will you do? How will you set about it?
1:14:12	Q: Well, the ways we are setting about it up to now, long term, repetitive perhaps, lengthy and so on, and so they hold the dangers of irritation, of authority and so on.
1:14:34	But the only ways that I — not ways; the only doing that I do...
1:14:39	K: Go ahead, sir, use any way, any word, get the feeling of it. I’ll get the feeling.
1:14:43	Q: …does involve slowly, patiently, many, many times, and things do happen.
1:14:52	There was a time when you were talking about, is there no way where… does it have to be such a long… so many years?
1:15:04	I mean, we’re never going to get anywhere.
1:15:07	K: I know, I know. I can’t stand this long years of slow, patient, pushing up the hill. I’m bored with that kind of stuff, personally, for myself.
1:15:16	Q: And it holds these dangers which exist here, that are… through our gradual lacking of patience, whatever, our irritation or our whatever, we do… we have become… created authorities, perhaps.
1:15:32	And the student sees the anomalies that exist.
1:15:34	K: Sir, if I do it slowly, there are other factors entering in to it.
1:15:43	The very slowness becomes a habit and also I accept it.
1:15:51	You know?
1:15:52	Q: Yes. And it kind of… (inaudible) K: I accept it. I say, ‘Yes, quite right, I’ll gradually get intelligent.’ At the end of it I’m not intelligent. So we have to find a way of doing this. It’s our baby and we’ve got to learn to find out how to feed that baby.
1:16:15	Right? Now what shall we do? You don’t discuss it, you keep quiet.
1:16:23	Q: I think it’s just becoming obvious to the group as a whole that this is a problem, that it’s not something that can... (inaudible) K: If it has become obvious, sir, then what will you do, here, now?
1:16:50	You have to do something today. What will you do?
1:16:56	TC: Well, I can see, firstly, having a lot of time that I can associate with the students, with what they are doing, and I have one strong feeling in that relationship, and that is, I would like to see why their actions appear right to them.
1:17:33	Because doing the action is in a sense a certain...
1:17:38	K: That’s fairly simple.
1:17:40	TC: Is it?
1:17:41	K: It’s fairly simple: I’m used to it. I’m used to going to bed late, coming sloppily down to breakfast, whatever it is. It’s my…
1:17:47	Q: That is not the total relationship. That is not the relationship.
1:17:52	K: I understand that. You understand, Ted? How will you help, how will we help each other to solve this problem? Because you see, as Mrs Simmons just now said, they go to bed…
1:18:10	I mean, two o’clock, one o’clock, eleven o’clock and they won’t go to bed. And she comes along and says, ‘Get to bed,’ and they all get to bed, because she says…
1:18:24	Then she puts herself in that position of authority, they get frightened, and so they give to her the halo of authoritarian assertion and fear, and therefore they won’t talk in front of her, and all the rest of it follows.
1:18:49	Now, how do we, together — I want… — create… solve this problem?
1:18:56	TC: Yes. You see, if we’re really spending, you know, besides… well, in the class time and in the time that we would separate ourselves, if we’re more intent on finding a closer relationship that reveals how to do something with them, that improves the total relationship, I mean, if we’re bent on discovering in the relationship how to...
1:19:26	K: Aren’t you bent on it? Because it’s a problem now - you follow?
1:19:29	Q: Right.
1:19:31	K: You can’t...
1:19:32	DS: You see, they’re going further, too, Krishnaji. Really they’re saying, look, all these things, going to bed, long hair, short hair, noise, going to lessons, really they are not of very great significance - why don’t we talk about humility, love?
1:19:47	K: Who says this?
1:19:50	Q: The students.
1:19:51	DS: There’s nothing ever talked about or done here that has real depth and seriousness.
1:19:56	K: Quite. Why don’t you?
1:19:59	DS: Well, what we have said, we can only move at the speed and at the depth we can, and while we come out of our rooms that look like a cave, it’s a little bit of a large step to take to talk about love.
1:20:16	K: No. So to you, then, appearance matters very much more than the feeling behind? You see, I’m taking their side, saying, ‘I want to talk deeply and you object to my trousers.’ DS: Well, nobody stops then talking deeply, but I wonder if we have the capacity to do so while we haven’t been able to do the ABC, so to speak, of ordering our immediate extension of our rooms and our person, that we don’t even wash, some of us.
1:20:52	CS: It’s also a matter of, in that particular case, I think, the students who want to talk deeply in many senses they are getting on an intellectual vein, and they have separated these two processes.
1:21:08	K: Of course. The scientists are doing it, the top scientists — right, sir? - separate everything except their own little circle of knowledge.
1:21:14	MZ: But in the talking, can’t all that be gone into, so that you don’t make it all a theoretical discussion of what is love, but the other implications could be brought in?
1:21:33	I mean, can’t it be both, in other words: clean your room and talk?
1:21:36	DS: Well, that’s what we have been saying, really, but at the moment these mundane, superficial things should be discarded and let’s get down to business.
1:21:46	Philip Brew: But in fact a lot of them are not ready for, or not able to discard that, and it’s the appearances that are… our attention to those so-called mundane, superficial things doesn’t help create a climate where the other, the so-called deeper things can be gone into.
1:22:20	It is as though our attention is on the outer and not on what they would see as more deeper things.
1:22:28	Q: What happens if we do what they say?
1:22:33	PB: If we do what?
1:22:34	Q: If we do as they ask, and talk about whatever, and don’t tell them what to do. What happens then? I don’t know.
1:22:42	DP: To talk about what though exactly?
1:22:45	Q: Well, humility, love.
1:22:46	PB: Well, surely we must be able to talk about these.
1:22:48	K: Then they would say, if I was in their place, I’d say, ‘All right, let’s talk about it.
1:22:55	For God’s sake leave me alone to my sloppiness, and let’s talk about love.’ PB: But in that talk we might find they are related.
1:23:06	K: No, you see, when they don’t want to discuss, in relation to love, orderliness, their daily life, it means they are avoiding the issue.
1:23:15	PB: Yes.
1:23:16	K: So, you want to combine both, that is, for goodness sake talk - I don’t know - talk about love or humility, and also, for God’s sake, wash.
1:23:27	PB: Well, it’s part of the same thing.
1:23:29	K: Of course. But they don’t see that.
1:23:31	PB: No, but they want to talk about the one.
1:23:35	K: And avoid the other.
1:23:36	PB: Yes, but in the talking about that, which is what they want to do, they may come upon this discovery.
1:23:42	K: Will they? It’s our job — I’ll come back to it — it’s our job, isn’t it, to solve this problem?
1:23:51	If I had a son, and I love… I like… I love my son, what shall I do to awaken this intelligence in this boy? Without beating him up, without scolding, without all the rest of it, what shall I do?
1:24:14	PB: It really is a matter of doing this together.
1:24:21	I mean, really it seems that I’m… we’ve got to find a way of really coming together, and not just in the same room.
1:24:27	K: Sir, he’s my son, I see him every day, at every meal.
1:24:35	I play with him, I put him to bed, I watch over him. But he’s so damn silly, he’s in revolt. [I say], ‘Don’t do this, do that,’ and he goes off, smokes, does this…
1:24:53	How can I awaken this thing in him? That’s your problem, sir, that’s what I’m trying to… How will you solve this?
1:25:05	BJ: Krishnaji, if I play with him, if I’m affectionate with him, if I talk with him, what else can I do?
1:25:18	K: Apparently that has not solved it. You have talked, you have played, you have done all kinds… but he still goes on being disorderly, being silly.
1:25:33	If you gave him a chance, he would go to the pub every day.
1:25:41	DS: That will probably be the next thing.
1:25:47	K: Yes, and there get sex and all the rest of it. How will you...
1:25:58	(Pause) TC: It seems by facing the issue bluntly with this questioning, either you have the capability or the whatever, to discover what to do, or you continue to question what to do.
1:26:36	K: No, Ted, do you feel they are your sons and daughters? I’m sorry - you understand what I’m talking?
1:26:39	TC: Yes.
1:26:40	K: If you had a son here, a daughter here, you would be tremendously concerned, wouldn’t you?
1:26:47	Or not? Then you’d say, ‘My God, I’m going to find a way to solve this,’ wouldn’t you? You would apply your mind, your capacity, you’d be watching, you’d be enquiring, you’d be digging and finding out how to do this.
1:26:58	DS: Which we are doing, Krishnaji, you see?
1:26:59	K: If you are doing it, then what is the problem?
1:27:02	DS: It seems to be a very slow process.
1:27:11	K: Is that what you’re objecting to, the slow process? Is that what you’re objecting to?
1:27:24	JZ: Well, one difficulty that we come up against, one way that we try to deal with it often, is that we get all together in one room, and we may begin talking about something.
1:27:40	But there are twenty of us and forty of them, or whatever, something like that, and half, more than half of them will never say anything.
1:27:48	K: I know.
1:27:49	JZ: And so then we find out that it’s not them talking, it’s us talking to them, it’s not an interaction.
1:27:55	K: Of course not. Of course.
1:27:57	TC: They can’t and we really haven’t learnt how to handle a large group situation.
1:28:02	K: And I accept the...
1:28:05	DS: Krishnaji, if we had, I mean, we’d have done. The fact is, that you keep on having to do it. There’s no ‘that you have done it’ at any point. You have to keep on doing it over and over and over again.
1:28:20	K: Look...
1:28:21	DS: You solve it in a different way each time.
1:28:25	K: I feel they have nothing to give me. Sorry. What has my son to give me? He would give me, I don’t know, what in fact can he give me?
1:28:49	JZ: Do you feel anyone has anything to give you?
1:28:53	K: No, don’t enter into that. That’s what the professors asked. (Laughs) Don’t come back to that. But I am just an ordinary father. What has he got to give me, actually?
1:29:12	So I take it as an actual fact that he has nothing to give me.
1:29:18	PB: He can give you a lot of real care and affection, or trust.
1:29:23	K: Wait!
1:29:24	DP: Can’t he give you trust?
1:29:26	K: It all depends on me.
1:29:28	PB: Yes.
1:29:29	K: Not on him.
1:29:30	PB: But then it comes from him also.
1:29:33	K: When I have it, then he gives it.
1:29:36	PB: Yes.
1:29:37	K: But it comes from me first.
1:29:39	PB: All right.
1:29:40	DS: Of course. I see that.
1:29:42	K: So I start with the fact that he has nothing to give me. Right? Then what have I to give him?
1:29:52	DS: They’d find that difficult, Krishnaji. They’d find that very difficult. I’m just trying to think of it... (inaudible) K: I’m not interested what they… I know… What have they given you? Please, look.
1:30:07	MZ: One doesn’t have to say it to the child, ‘You have nothing to give me.’ K: I wouldn’t say that to the child, poor fellow.
1:30:15	No, don’t, don’t. Give me a little compassion, a little intelligence. I wouldn’t go round saying, ‘Look, you have nothing to give me, old boy, buzz.’ But I’m saying...
1:30:23	DS: I think that’s probably where our problem is though. I think that’s probably where there is a problem, that… (Pause in recording) K: …give you? Food? Food for thought, food for affection, food for something deep, fundamental.
1:30:46	TC: Well, a bee has a certain natural taste for nectar, and it seems that our nectar is not something that is immediately sweet.
1:31:10	(Laughter) K: Probably! (Laughs) (Pause) So what have I got to give them?
1:31:26	I have seen much more of life than they have, I’ve thought much more than they have, I’ve suffered much more than they have.
1:31:39	DS: They say, ‘Bad luck.’ K: I know, I know. I’m looking at it. They have nothing to give me, so they are not in my picture at all.
1:31:46	DS: But they think they... (inaudible) K: Wait, I’m not… what they think, I’m not concerned for the moment.
1:31:49	DS: I’m trying to think of it all now, Krishnaji.
1:31:52	K: No, no, no. I know what they think: it’s bad luck, you’re an old man, why should you go through all that? I know, I’ve been with them. When they are 30 they talk like this too. So I say, ‘All right, I’ve heard all that,’ and I say: what have I got to give them?
1:32:21	And if I have something to give them, how am I going to give to a mind that is incapable of receiving something that they haven’t even an inkling of?
1:32:40	I want to tell them about intelligence, about intelligence that will act rightly all the time, under all circumstances.
1:32:50	I want to tell them. That’s what I want to give them. They won’t accept it. They say, ‘Keep it to yourself, you’re an old gaga idiot.
1:33:04	Let me go our way, we’ll experience what we want to experience.’ We know all that.
1:33:12	So how am I to do it? Knowing the difference between us, the gap, their saying, ‘Oh, keep it to yourself, we want an easy life, we don’t want to go through all your misery, we’ll go through our misery.’ They don’t see misery is the same — it’s mine or his — but this is our misery and your misery.
1:33:41	So they are essentially a thoughtless generation. So I say now: what am I to do to see my son is really intelligent?
1:34:00	I know what I would do. That’s simple. I can’t… it’s simple for me.
1:34:04	DS: But you see, they do it to you. They come to your talks and they listen, and they see it. They do. I mean, that last talk on Sunday, they did.
1:34:12	K: I know.
1:34:16	DS: So what is it that we’re not doing?
1:34:18	K: That’s just what I’m asking you. What have you to give? Not whether they are capable of receiving or not - if you have something to give, they’ll take it.
1:34:36	I’m not saying you have nothing to give. Please, I wouldn’t be so silly, or conceited, or vain, or whatever it is.
1:34:44	DP: Probably it’s the truth.
1:34:45	K: No, that’s not my concern. I wouldn’t even enter into that conversation, when you say… I’m just saying it’s not my concern. Have you anything to give? Which doesn’t mean I get depressed because I have nothing to give.
1:35:09	On the contrary, since you’re much older, more etc., you have something to give, you must have.
1:35:31	You must have. Since you have, how will you... what is the communication, how will you convey it to them, without all the antagonism, fear, authority, all that nonsense coming out of it?
1:35:44	DP: Well, I think it’s not sufficient for you to say ‘you must have’. All I’ve got is a lot of experience, which is nothing.
1:35:52	K: You have lived sixty years. Have you something to give?
1:35:56	DP: No.
1:35:57	K: Therefore why do you talk?
1:35:58	DP: I don’t.
1:36:00	K: You do.
1:36:01	DP: Well, up to a point. Because I want to find out.
1:36:04	K: No, I’m asking you what you have to give. If you have nothing to give, find out why you have nothing. You don’t sit down and say, ‘I have nothing to give, I just talk occasionally.’ If you have nothing to give, find out why you haven’t got… nothing, after seventy years or sixty, fifty, thirty, whatever it is.
1:36:28	Every priest says, ‘Yes, I have something to give, because I love Jesus.’ And I say, ‘For God’s sake, that’s just rubbish.’ You follow?
1:36:42	‘You’re not giving anything, you’re just repeating.
1:36:50	No, that’s why I say you’re bound to have something to give.
1:37:03	This is not just to encourage you. I mean, I don’t go in those terms, I don’t think in those terms, of encouragement or discouragement.
1:37:12	If you have nothing to give, find out. For God’s sake, sit down to find out why you have nothing to give.
1:37:21	If you have something to give, then how will you give it to them so that they take it from you?
1:37:32	Without all that scream, without screaming about fears, screaming about authority and all the rest of that business.
1:37:49	Right, sir?
1:38:07	(Pause) I think it is a dangerous thing to say, I have nothing to give.
1:38:21	DP: It’s also dangerous to say I have something to give.
1:38:27	K: No, no, you don’t say that. You don’t say, ‘I’ve something to give, old boy, take it.’ They’d slap you.
1:38:39	But I’m saying it’s a dangerous thing to say to oneself, I’ve nothing to give, because if you have nothing to give, then you can find out why, and work.
1:39:01	And if I’ve something to give, I have to find out how to give it without doing harm.
1:39:10	There’s a marvellous Sanskrit chant which says, ‘Give with fear, give with care,’ and so on, I won’t go into all this.
1:39:20	Fear in a different sense.
1:39:31	So I may have nothing to give, but I want that boy, that girl to be intelligent.
1:39:44	I know what intelligence is: to do the right thing at the right moment, irrespective of circumstances and all the rest of it.
1:39:57	That means, to do the right thing at the right moment, means intelligence.
1:40:08	Now I want to awaken that intelligence. I’m going to find a way of doing it. God, they’ve invented fantastic instruments, haven’t they?
1:40:25	Technologically. Fantastic things. I was looking at some. And here we are, we can’t do a very simple thing with human beings. Because we haven’t applied our minds to this.
1:40:49	Let’s apply our mind and see how we can do this.
1:41:08	(Pause) You see, to do this I must be very subtle.
1:41:21	Right? They don’t know me, my intelligence, what I have. I don’t know it myself, either, but I feel something I have. I must convey it to them so subtly, never in my face, never in my voice, never in my gesture.
1:41:43	That’s out. They can’t judge, capture something from my word, gesture. Word, perhaps, but gesture, face, nothing. So I have to say, now, I’m going to be awfully careful - ‘careful’ quotes - how I look when I talk to them.
1:42:08	Not careful - you understand? - not put on a mask. You understand? Am I going too quickly?
1:42:13	Q: (Inaudible) K: Never, because this is something very subtle.
1:42:22	That means I am talking to them not at the conscious level.
1:42:31	Do you understand all this? Am I making this into a mystery? Ted, do you understand what I’m talking about?
1:42:40	TC: Well, no...
1:42:43	K: Look, they have tried...
1:42:47	TC: Let’s look at that question again: do I know what you’re talking about?
1:42:56	Can you say the same thing again?
1:42:58	K: I’ll say it. I was going to show you. They have tried subliminal advertising. You know what that is? Very quick. And I believe governments have stopped it because it goes much deeper than the conscious.
1:43:22	Now, they are obstinate, they have their own desires, their own will, their own tradition, their own habits.
1:43:40	Are you going to attack them? You understand? Attack — I am using quick words. May I go on? You understand when I say attack, I don’t mean attack — are you going to go at them, point out, or are you going to approach it differently?
1:44:06	Do you understand what I’m talking about?
1:44:10	Q: Yes. Could you go on with it?
1:44:14	K: First step, I want to understand. I’m trying to find my way into it.
1:44:28	I want them to change their trousers. Right? Clean. But I’m not going to attack it, I’m going at it indirectly.
1:44:41	Which means I have to be very subtle to convey something to them which they are going to resist — right? — or throw away.
1:45:02	So I have to talk to them at a level that they can’t immediately grasp.
1:45:17	Which doesn’t mean I become sentimental, gooey and all that rubbish, but at a level where they feel I am not against or for, that I am attacking their sloppiness and all that.
1:45:44	I am going to attack their sloppiness, but I am going to do it after establishing at the deeper, unconscious level, the necessity of order.
1:46:03	At the unconscious — please be awfully careful with these words; I’m using it in a particular sense, don’t translate it unless you understand what I mean by unconscious — there I would attack, there I would go in.
1:46:23	BJ: Krishnaji, I don’t think this is totally irrelevant but it’s a little bit far away...
1:46:32	K: Don’t. If it is irrelevant, keep it, sir, because this, what I am talking, is quite difficult to convey.
1:46:37	BJ: Well, it does… I mean, you’re talking about a subtle way of communication.
1:46:48	Can I give you an example? A student came to me recently. He said he wanted to make a sculpture in wood. A young boy. It’s a rude sign he wants to make in wood. A rude sign with fingers. And he wants to do this very much. And I talked to him about — I didn’t attack it directly, but I talked to him about rudeness, about swearing and so on, and we talked about this together.
1:47:09	But he still wants to do this. What do I do?
1:47:13	K: Now, how will you convey to him that’s a wrong thing to do? ‘Wrong’ in quotes.
1:47:20	BJ: He wants to do it.
1:47:24	K: They want to go to the pub.
1:47:29	DP: And also these challenges are continuous, they are not one at a moment, but every moment they arise.
1:47:35	K: I’m asking, how will you make him see it’s the wrong thing to do?
1:47:40	BJ: I’ve spent time with him.
1:47:45	K: No, be clear in yourself, sir, first.
1:47:53	For God’s sake, how will you create this thing in him — to say, ‘Look, I want to do something ugly,’ and you want to say, ‘Don’t do it,’ and he instinctively says, ‘Right, I’ve dropped it’?
1:48:12	That’s why I’m saying, sir, if you say that’s the wrong thing to do, he’ll battle you, battle with you, he will resist you.
1:48:28	And as you’re older, he’s frightened of you, you might turn him out, and so on and so on. So knowing all that, how will you do it?
1:48:46	Knowing he’s thick - you understand? - his brain is thick, his consciousness is thick.
1:49:01	So how will I do it? First — I think this is the way I’d approach it - I’d point it out to him the vulgarity of such a thing.
1:49:17	BJ: Yes, but he says this is the way… (inaudible) K: Wait, wait, listen to me. Listen to me, listen to me. I haven’t finished yet. I’d point out to him first the vulgarity of such a thing. I would explain it very quietly, logically, sanely, not emotionally. I’d point it out, and I’d leave it there. Then after verbalising what I want to say, and make it perfectly clear to him so that he doesn’t misunderstand, and I leave it at that.
1:49:54	Then I would… I have to find a way to go behind his mind - you follow? — his desire to do such a vulgar thing.
1:50:09	How would you do it? Come on, sirs, how would you do it?
1:50:31	He knows what I… he knows very well my verbal statement. He understands English and I’ve conveyed it to him very well, but he is resisting it. He says, ‘I want to do it,’ and he is frightened if he insists too much that you might do something.
1:50:48	So he has fear and the desire at the same time to do it. Now, what will you do? The more you talk, the more he’ll resist. The more he’ll say, ‘Oh, he’s back to the old game,’ and whenever he sees you he says — you know, all the… — and so on, so on, so on.
1:51:11	Now, what am I to do? Come on, sir, what will you do?
1:51:16	BJ: Talk with him about different matters, about...
1:51:22	K: I’ve done all that. You’re missing my point. I have made this clear to him, vulgarity on one occasion, vulgarity on another occasion, do mischief, and so on, so on.
1:51:35	I’ve done all that. I want to get at him from somewhere else.
1:51:47	I want to appeal or indicate...
1:51:49	JZ: I might participate with him in it.
1:51:53	K: I’m not interested in participating in vulgarity.
1:51:56	JZ: No, I mean he may have a point.
1:52:00	K: I’m telling you he has no point.
1:52:02	JZ: No, but he may have a point. He may feel that there is vulgarity around, and we might find a way together... (inaudible) K: Wait, sir, that’s not my problem.
1:52:13	That’s not my problem.
1:52:14	DS: That’s what the psychiatrist suggested we should do. Everybody should beef, grouse about all their problems and all their vulgarities and all their inhibitions, and then having collected it all, having put it outside themselves, they would then, I suppose, be free of it.
1:52:30	That is exactly...
1:52:31	K: After vomiting your stuff, of course you’re free of it. But it comes back.
1:52:37	DS: Yes, well, that’s what I said. And also you see, what I can’t quite understand is, why are we dealing… why are we having to spend so much energy on such...
1:52:48	K: …trivialities.
1:52:49	DS: ...behaviour.
1:52:50	K: But they are… but we are… the world is like that, the students are like that.
1:52:56	JZ: What would we do if this fellow says, ‘Look, I’m going to make this sign. It only takes me half an hour. I’ve got the wood. I just want the saw. I’m making it right now’?
1:53:12	K: All right, but I want him to know that it’s vulgar. I’ve stated it and I want him to feel that he can never do such a thing.
1:53:25	BJ: And surely also...
1:53:28	DS: Krishnaji, he can, and he would display it and feel fine.
1:53:34	BJ: And it would create a precedent.
1:53:35	DS: And he would draw with him half a dozen more who say, ‘Oh good, let’s all have a go.’ K: Of course, of course. I want to prevent all that. If you allow one boy to be vulgar, because they all have that instinct to be vulgar, then they all join him.
1:53:52	Not all of them; some of them will join him. And so you have then a group of vulgar children who will exercise their authority over the other non-vulgar children, and so it goes on.
1:54:04	So what am I to do? Now look what is happening here. It’s very interesting. Do you notice? I’ve stated a problem: how do I — I’m not conceited, I’m not vain, all the rest of it — how do I make you intelligent?
1:54:35	DS: I wonder whether you have.
1:54:38	K: That’s my problem, I’m saying. I’m saying, how do I, as your friend, say, now, how can I awaken this intelligence in them without pointing a way, without authority, without this and without that?
1:55:08	If I appeal to your conscious mind, you’ll raise arguments, examples: it can be done, it can’t be done, it should be done, it must — all those sequences of thoughts arise.
1:55:27	I know that. So what shall I do? Which is what is happening here now. What shall I do? I have to touch or point or go into a realm where you are incapable of resisting.
1:55:59	This is dangerous, you know, this. I’m not talking of hypnosis, I’m not talking of mesmerising or influencing, I’m not talking in those terms at all.
1:56:20	Where the resistance is not. I don’t know if you follow.
1:56:31	Are you… have you understood what I’m saying?
1:56:38	Now, where is that place in you where I can say, yes, if I could only talk to that, if I could only get in touch with that, perhaps you will see something which will say, ‘Yes, it is quite right, I see it.’ Then that inward insight will operate and function so that the resistance naturally disappears.
1:57:19	You understand? Am I making this into a mystery? I am. Yes, I thought so.
1:57:41	Phew! (Pause) I have talked, pointed out, shown, reasoned logically, everything.
1:58:08	And you have seen it. But apparently the student doesn’t say, ‘Well, it’s finished, it’s over, from this second all that’s gone.’ Right?
1:58:20	DS: I think they do sometimes.
1:58:24	K: No, please, not sometimes. The poison is out of me, never…
1:58:35	You follow? It’s out. And how can I give you the energy — not ‘give’; again quotes — how can I awaken that energy in you that says, ‘Finished, old boy, it’s all over.
1:59:03	I’ve seen something — not occasionally — I’ve seen something that clears the whole field.’ How can I do that?
1:59:25	You know, this has been my problem. My problem, not yours. When I talk to those scientists or when I talk to others, it’s my problem.
1:59:36	How can I convey this to them? They’ve all the arguments on earth, all the tradition, all their knowledge, all their own particular idiosyncrasies and all the smell of all that.
1:59:52	I know it very well by now.
1:59:59	And I say, all right, I want to get behind it.
2:00:02	Q: Did you feel that you got behind it with some of them?
2:00:06	K: Not… With some of them, maybe. But that’s generally my problem — you understand, sir? — when I talk in Saanen or in Bombay, as I’m going to, or Delhi or anywhere, in the tent, I say, how…
2:00:20	— I don’t make it a problem, but I see that is the real thing. The real thing in the sense, to touch them somewhere where this awful brain isn’t all the time operating.
2:00:37	Which isn’t a mystery, it isn’t something… higher plane and all the rest of that bilge.
2:00:51	What are you frowning? So I’m asking, how… - you’re in that position, you have talked, you have pointed out, you have said do, you have said don’t, you’ve said, ‘Get to bed,’ and you’ve said, ‘Get the hell...’, order — you have done all that.
2:01:15	Is there another way of communicating with them, so that they will accept it — not accept it; they will, yes, they will see it for themselves?
2:01:30	Is there another way of communicating what you — communicating this sense of intelligence and order another way?
2:01:46	Holding their hands? That doesn’t work. Talking to them endlessly, explaining to them? That doesn’t… You have done it; it doesn’t work. It works temporarily. I mean, works totally, so that… inwardly, deeply. It may not be possible at all.
2:02:25	(Pause) You know, it is said the Buddha, priest for fifty years, at the end of fifty years he had two disciples who really understood.
2:03:03	I don’t mean that in a depressing sense.
2:03:15	What shall we do? Come on, sir, it’s your job, let’s work this out.
2:03:25	It’s twenty five to two.
2:03:28	DS: Is it?
2:03:30	K: Yes. My God! George Carnes: If it’s true, there must be another way.
2:03:50	K: What is the way, sir? Tell me. (Pause) You see, human beings have tried everything: song, dance, sex, worship, prayer, introspection, analysis - they have done everything possible.
2:04:20	And here we are. We’re saying, look, we want to do something totally new, knowing all that way, discarded all that, we’re trying something totally new.
2:04:34	And therefore one has to have a very sensitive mind and hands.
2:04:42	Am I saying something? Something new one has to find out, therefore I have to have very sensitive eyes and mind and…
2:05:00	Are you… Do we go on? Two hours and ten minutes?
2:05:03	Q: Why not?
2:05:06	K: I don’t mind, but what about… that poor dog is waiting up there.
2:05:17	CS: Poor children.
2:05:18	K: Oh!
2:05:19	MZ: The children are waiting for lunch.
2:05:20	Q: It doesn’t matter… (inaudible) DS: I think it does, really.
2:05:25	K: I think we’d better stop.
2:05:30	DP: I think we ought to stick with it. It seems all wrong to stop.
2:05:36	Q: (Inaudible) DS: Still, we can’t help it.
2:05:39	K: You see, I’ve found it for myself.
2:05:40	DP: But we want it. We want it for the school and ourselves.
2:05:42	K: No, you have to find it. Not I have to find it and tell you.
2:05:44	DP: But you have to help us.
2:05:45	K: No. Then you’re lost.
2:05:47	DP: We’re lost anyway.
2:05:48	K: No, Miss Pratt, let’s wake up.
2:05:50	MZ: Let’s not go back and talk about that if we’ve only got a few minutes left.
2:05:55	K: Yes. I say you have to find it, nobody is going to help you.
2:06:03	That’s why I said they can’t, the students can’t give it to you.
2:06:14	They have nothing to give. So you have to exercise your highest intelligence, capacity and brain to find out.
2:06:35	After exercising your capacity, your brain and heart and everything, really exercising, to leave it alone.
2:06:48	But you have to exercise at its highest excellence.
2:07:00	And I think after exercising it at its highest level, to leave it, not say, ‘Have I done it, have I not done it?’ — you follow? — all that.
2:07:10	Work till you reach the highest and then leave it. And then the thing will operate.
2:07:16	BJ: Krishnaji, I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you mean by exercising the mind at its highest excellence.
2:07:23	K: Oh, I think… I mean, that’s… Here is a problem, sir. How to convey, or how to arouse, or bring about this intelligence, order, and all the rest of it, in the children.
2:07:42	It’s your problem to solve it, therefore you have to exercise your mind, your brain, your capacity, every day, watch it, looking all round in yourself what… — you follow?
2:07:57	— all that, all the time operating at its highest level.
2:08:01	BJ: And then you say...
2:08:04	K: Finished. After reaching the mountain top, you don’t say, ‘Well, have I reached the mountain top?’ You have worked to reach the mountain top, and then leave, move, wait and see what happens.
2:08:18	Right? Am I conveying something? If not, I’m sorry, the children are waiting.