BR73DSG1 - We can only learn about ourselves in the mirror of relationship home
Brockwood Park, UK - 29 September 1973
Discussion with Small Group 1

Text-only version

0:01 This is the first small group discussion with J. Krishnamurti at Brockwood Park 1973.
0:13 Krishnamurti: What shall we talk over together?
0:26 Questioner: Sir, I would like to talk about authoritarianism, not necessarily the kind which affects outer lives, but the kind which has more impact upon the inner life. Authoritarian groups, authoritarian orders, which lay down particular lines, indicating which way one should conduct one’s inner path towards understanding. Whether outer or inner they appear to be associated always with fear. But there is one school of thought perhaps which says, that authority is good for one, authority purifies, discipline in the sense of authority purifies. This whole subject of authority, of which you speak so often, for me, remains a difficulty. I always find myself in rebellion against authority, constantly as the years go by.
2:01 Krishnamurti: And also, sir, it has been said, authority of the wise is the salvation of the foolish, by the authoritarians. So shall we go into that?
2:16 Q: I was going to bring up the same subject, because I feel we are in danger of taking your words as authority. This is a big problem.
2:32 K: Shall we discuss that, the whole question of authority? Perhaps into that we can bring a lot of other things, whether the authority of the observer has any value at all.
3:05 DB: Perhaps we could also bring in, to emphasise the question of fear, which is behind authority, something deeper than authority.
3:16 K: Yes. Shall we really discuss that? Do you want to discuss it? Why does one want authority at all and what does that word ‘authority’ mean? We looked it up the other day, and it said ‘author who originates a principle, an idea, something new’. And from that word ‘author’ the word ‘authority’ derives. Now what is the necessity of authority at all? Does it act as a guide for our confused minds? Does it eliminate fear altogether because 4:40 one obeys certain authority? Does it eliminate altogether the sense of division in oneself and outwardly? And if it is the result of fear then the question arises: is it possible to eliminate fear altogether and therefore no authority, no outside agency for our own understanding? Is authority necessary if one is a light to oneself?
5:52 So all these problems are involved. Shall we take the first, take fear, which makes us accept authority? A doctor becomes the authority, a scientist, an engineer and so on. The acceptance of that authority is based on fear; the outward authority of law, of instruction, or are we talking about the authority which disorder breeds? Mussolini came into being because there was total disorder in Italy at one time. And if we are inwardly disorderly will it not breed an outward authority, or authority which that disorder sets up?
7:34 Now, I do not know how deeply one wants to go into this question. Whether it is merely a verbal discussion that we are having, an intellectual discussion, or a dialogue in which each one of us participates and really gets to the root of our fear, the root of our disorder, the acceptance of authority, at what level, with what care and intensity are we talking this matter over. I think that ought to be first settled. Is it a verbal discussion, opinion against opinion, and can opinion ever discover truth of the whole structure of authority and fear? If opinion does not, opinion being highly cultivated judgement, 9:17 study and so on, if it does not then are we prepared to put aside opinion as a means of understanding, and so it will no longer be a superficial discussion. So how deeply are we prepared for this? Do we want to go to such lengths? Please, I am not just the talker.
10:00 Q: Whatever is discussed, shouldn’t it be a sort of two way exchange rather than…
10:07 K: Yes, sir, that’s what we are trying to do.
10:10 Q: Instead of you telling us.
10:12 K: Of course. That is what we are trying to do. An exchange, a communication, where you and I and others share in this, find out. Neither am I the speaker asserting an opinion, or you, or another, but together we will find out for ourselves the nature of authority, where its importance is, where its necessity is, and where its destruction, and what is the nature of fear, which projects authority, either outwardly or inwardly. And the authority brought about through confusion in oneself and disorder in oneself, all that is involved.
11:11 So before we go into that, are we discussing this thing, talking over together superficially, or really wanting to go very deeply and either eliminate fear, and so authority? Or are we merely indulging in a form of mental exercise?
11:37 Q: Sir, it is a living question. Superficial, intellectual handling of the question will be quite inadequate, as far as I am concerned.
11:50 K: I think so too, sir. So if we all think that same thing, that superficial and intellectual examination is utterly – has no meaning for those who are really serious in this matter, then we can go into this question.
12:13 Am I, or is one prepared to observe one’s disorder in one’s life? Which must inevitably project authority, consciously or unconsciously. If one is in disorder then one rushes off to the guru, to a book, to a person, or whatever it is. So I think it is important to discover for ourselves if there is disorder, in our life, everyday life in our existence there is disorder. And who is the examiner? Who is the entity who says ‘I am disorder’?
13:20 So one has to go into this question of: is the observer different from the disorder?
13:27 I won’t go into all that just now. So please, let’s talk this over. Am I prepared both verbally, intellectually and inwardly, prepared to really investigate into myself the nature and the structure of disorder? Come on sirs, discuss. And what do we mean by disorder?
14:38 Q: The problem seems to me the point at which one discovers where disorder is. I mean if I am attached to authority, or if I accept authority…
14:51 K: No, sir, we are not discussing the acceptance of authority. We are trying to understand how authority arises, not the acceptance of authority.
15:05 Q: But I can only be aware of whether I accept authority because of the moments when the disorder arises. I do accept authority, I know.
15:21 K: Why?
15:22 Q: A lot of it is just habit.
15:28 K: Like smoke, like smoking, like eating meat, like – you know – some habit that one has superficially cultivated.
15:43 Q: No. One is brought up to accept authority.
15:48 K: I know that is the tradition, that is our education, and so on and so on. Are we aware of that? And what are the effects and the results and the nature of that acceptance of authority? All that is involved in it? Not just that I accept authority. Why do I accept it? Whether that of the speaker, or of anybody, why do we accept it? Why do I accept the authority of a doctor? Or the authority of a guru, or the priest – why?
16:35 Q: Because we feel that they may know more than we do.
16:43 K: The doctor certainly knows more than I do, than I can ever know because he has spent many years in the study of medicine and so on. So I accept him. Now the guru, the teacher, the priest, does he know more? What does he know?
17:02 Q: One assumes he knows more.
17:09 SB: I think you started by saying that authority means the originator, the one that originates, and we feel that in the spiritual sense the priest has discovered something which we haven’t, and for myself perhaps I feel I am unable to originate in that sense, and I think that perhaps…
17:37 K: Originate what? What has the guru originated? Guru, I am taking that word, you understand, that terrible word that has crept into this country and all over the world.
17:50 MZ: Don’t many people go to a guru in the same sense that I might go to the dictionary to look up a word.
17:59 K: No, what does he know more than the disciple? What does he know?
18:09 MZ: He is presumed to…
18:11 K: Ah, I am asking the guru. You are my guru – not my guru – and I say, ‘What do you know more than I do? What is it you know?’ I know I have discussed this matter personally with dozens of gurus, very, very famous and the little ones, and in talking over they say, ‘We know, we have experienced. ’ I say, ‘What have you experienced? Truth, enlightenment. How do you know you have it?’ Oh, he says, ‘You are just a seeker’ and they brush me off.
19:01 So if we could go into this question. Apart from the doctors, apart from the scientists, apart from the organisers of specific technological knowledge, apart from those, engineers, the architect and so on, those who say, the so-called spiritual leaders, the inward leaders, I question altogether their authority. I’m not frightened, if I make a mess of my life I want to correct it, but not according to their light.
19:50 MZ: Are we examining only the field of so-called spiritual authority?
19:54 K: That is what we began with.
19:59 MZ: I mean is it authority only in that sense?
20:02 K: That is so, because otherwise we will get rather confused.
20:07 DB: I should say that even in the scientific field there is tremendous misuse of authority.
20:15 K: Even there, of course.
20:17 DB: In the spiritual field, as you were saying , there is no justification for authority at all.
20:24 K: Sir, isn’t that so sir? The knowledge of the scientists, biologists, the archaeologists and so on, they have abused their knowledge and we all know that. But we are not specifically discussing that, are we?
20:47 DB: They are connected because part of the way in which authority is imbued in people is to accept some of these, the scientific authority.
20:56 K: Shall we come back to that after we have discussed the so-called spiritual authority? The inner and then come to the outer. May we do that sir?
21:08 Q: Around the author it seems that always there gathers a number of followers, and these followers together constitute a kind of weight. And this weight becomes authority, and this weight produces fear. And fear then produces the disorder. And out of the disorder one finds oneself unable to face that weight.
21:39 MZ: Isn’t that weight entirely projected from your own mind? Isn’t it you who gives the weight to those factors?
21:50 Q: Undoubtedly. Conditioning produces this state of affairs. But there one is.
22:00 K: Sir, if one is to be a light to oneself, which seems so natural, which is so revealing, why should I accept the light of another?
22:17 Q: Would it be helpful, sir, to accept the idea of authority as a means of survival.
22:41 Through the animal kingdom and through the kingdom of man, there has been always, in order to survive, the leader and the led.
22:53 K: The pack and – yes.
22:56 Q: In order to find food, in order to discard the weaker.
23:00 K: Doctor, I understand that. I understand that very well. To live physically I must accept certain authorities. To be secure, I must have certain authority, which may be corrupt, destructive, but there it is. But...
23:22 Q: As a means of survival.
23:26 K: All right, sir, I need to survive.
23:30 Q: And therefore of man’s mind.
23:31 K: I need to survive outwardly, that is essential. But what is there that demands survival inwardly, which creates the authority? What is there to survive?
23:47 Q: A healthy mind?
23:50 K: A healthy mind. Now can you, or a guru, or somebody give me a healthy mind? Healthy mind means no fear. And if you, as my guru, say look do this thing in order to achieve a healthy mind, I am caught in the trap of accepting my fear, overcoming it and following you.
24:31 Q: It is hard to escape the requirement of knowledge in the development of a healthy mind. And knowledge must come from an authority.
24:46 K: Yes, sir, granted. I see that. But what am I acquiring from the authority of a guru, of a leader, of a spiritual priest and so on and so on, what am I acquiring, knowledge of what?
25:03 Q: Of what you know already.
25:09 K: What am I acquiring from the priest, from the guru, who tells me this and that? What am I acquiring? I know I need knowledge to survive, but the knowledge which the guru gives me, what is the knowledge he gives me?
25:29 Q: The knowledge of oneself.
25:35 K: The knowledge of oneself. Can I learn from a guru, from a psychologist, from Freud, etc., etc., knowledge about myself? Or the knowledge about myself which they think they have.
25:50 Q: Well if I am in disorder, I wish to have more order, I suppose.
26:00 K: Now…
26:04 Q: How do I know what is order, right order?
26:10 K: One can’t. But I know what is disorder.
26:13 Q: Yes.
26:14 K: Contradiction and so on and so on. At least I can put those away and in putting those away I have order. Through negation I come to the positive. But let’s come back to this.
26:33 What is it that demands survival inwardly, which says I must have knowledge? To survive inwardly you say there must be knowledge. Who will give it to me? The guru? The analyst?
26:51 The psychologist?
26:54 Q: Me.
26:56 K: What?
26:58 Q: Me, I.
27:01 K: Therefore from whom am I to learn?
27:06 Q: Everyone has his own characteristic pattern.
27:12 K: Yes, sir. Characteristic, tendencies, idiosyncrasies and all the rest of it. From whom am I to learn about myself?
27:24 Q: Can I mention another factor besides learning and knowledge? The idea of energy. You say about a guru. Going to another person for energy. Feeling energy coming from another person.
27:43 K: Yes, sir. That’s a different matter. There are so many things involved. Sir, energy derived from another person, it’s a stimulation from another.
27:59 Q: Right.
28:01 K: And therefore I depend on that person, or on that idea, or on that guru or on that formula. So there is dependence and there is fear. Where there is dependence there must be fear.
28:20 Q: And yet isn’t it possible for that energy still to fulfil something within me?
28:28 K: That is somebody giving you energy.
28:30 Q: It would fulfil something that would perhaps even possibly, and to say possibly there would be a going beyond dependence and fear.
28:40 K: Sir, but you stimulate me, give me more energy and so gradually I depend upon you because I haven’t got my own energy, so I depend upon you. And in that dependence there is fear. One day I might lose you. You might die, you might – lots of things might happen, so I am afraid.
29:09 Q: Or there might be an energy coming in and a completion of something and then a separation.
29:15 K: No. You see that is – now let’s finish what we began with, not energy. We’ll come back to that, sir. What has the priest, the authority of a guru, the one who says, ‘I know’, what has he to teach me which will help me to survive?
29:45 Q: We only know this by becoming aware of relationship.
29:50 K: Yes, sir. Let’s stick to this one thing. Let’s go step by step.
29:56 SB: We learn in our relationship to the whole world, and that includes also, it could perhaps bring insight to listen to someone who is called a guru if one can listen and still perhaps…
30:17 K: No, I am questioning madam, I am really questioning this whole idea that another can teach you about yourself. Or another can give you this tremendous energy, passion – you follow? – this quality of a mind that is tremendously alive.
30:49 Q: Can’t I learn about myself in relation to other people? If I was alone I wouldn’t learn anything about myself.
31:04 K: Madam, if I accept a guru I am learning from him. What am I learning from him?
31:12 Q: Well, perhaps he has found out something about himself.
31:20 K: Then he is not a guru, he is just like me, like you.
31:26 SB: Yes, but that is learning, isn’t it?
31:29 K: But, no, that is learning. But I am asking one thing which is what I have to learn from an authority of a guru, etc., which will help me to survive, and what is it that survives?
31:48 That is the question we are discussing. I know I have to survive outwardly, I must have the authority of the milkman, all the rest of it, the doctor, but I am asking what is the nature of survival which a guru will give me as knowledge about myself? And I have a horror of this. Sorry!
32:17 Q: Perhaps I have to learn something apart from what I have been taught.
32:25 K: Therefore why can’t I begin to study myself, look at myself and learn about myself?
32:36 Then I am the guru and I am the disciple and nobody else is.
32:41 Q: But isn’t it very much easier to deceive oneself than for somebody to look at you and help you?
32:48 K: I should have thought so, I don’t know.
32:54 Q: Therefore if you are left to yourself to find out.
32:57 K: But we are not left to ourselves. Here we are. I am not left to myself. Education has destroyed me. Every newspaper, everything is interfering with me. So I have to start learning about myself, and I can only do that if I reject totally all authority.
33:29 Q: But so one may still go to a guru.
33:33 K: I would never go to a guru. What for?
33:35 Q: You said you did. You said you had been to several.
33:37 K: Oh, they come to see me, sir. I didn’t say I go to see them. They come to see me.
33:43 Q: But you talked to them.
33:45 K: Ah, yes, they talked to me because they think I am a super guru! (laughter) MC: But you see, Krishnaji, there is a kind of authority which is nothing to do with what the guru knows or teaches, but there is a kind of – I am talking about us coming to you, which is probably what we are all talking about.
34:06 K: You are not here as followers, I hope.
34:08 MC: No, Krishnaji, not as followers. But we are here because there is a sense that contact with you is going to open something.
34:19 K: How does that take place? Because you are willing to listen.
34:24 MC: Yes.
34:26 K: There, you are not willing to listen. Listening implies questioning, doubting, investigating, going into it. There, they say ‘No, I know and you don’t know. Follow me’. I must tell you that lovely story. A very famous guru came to see me in India and he made a lot of fuss about first sending his disciples that I should go and see him. I told the disciples I am sorry I don’t go out and so on and so on. So at the end of it he came with his disciples. We were sitting on a mat, on a thick mattress, about an inch thick, and we got up out of politeness and gave it to him. He sat there cross-legged and immediately because of that little height became the guru! (laughter) And he began to tell us exactly what we should do. I listened and he left!
35:44 So how do I – can I learn about myself? That is the real thing. My disorder, my confusion, my fears, pleasures, can I learn all about myself? Both the conscious as well as the unconscious me. And how do I learn? What is the ground in which I can learn?
36:22 Q: I think probably the question for me is, is it possible for one person blind to learn about the colours. Because this is a real question.
36:45 K: We’ll find out, sir. We’ll find out. If that is the major question, how do I – what is learning and can I learn about myself and where does this learning lie? Is it in the field of relationship? Or is it an abstract learning about myself? An abstract learning about myself has no meaning. I am talking all the time, sorry. And I can only learn about myself in my relationship with another. I can learn about myself in front of the guru.
37:54 Right? How he behaves.
37:55 Q: This is important in relationship to the question I put first. There is a guru perhaps, I have never met one, who will tell me about myself. There is another guru who will tell me how to find out about myself. He may also say that you can’t find out about yourself by yourself, you must relate to others, you must get together and agree to learn about yourself.
38:31 K: I am telling you that, sir. Am I your guru?
38:35 Q: I don’t really take it as such, no.
38:42 K: Because, why?
38:46 Q: First and foremost, of course, because one has been assured on so many occasions that you are not.
39:06 K: But that assurance may be a cover-up, a hypocritical stance. Why do you accept this from a guru who says only you can know about yourself in relationship, not by yourself?
39:26 Q: Because in relationship you are in relationship also.
39:29 K: What?
39:30 Q: You are…
39:32 K: Quite right, sir. So when the speaker, when the man says you can only – then you and I are related. Then is discussion, in talking, in walking together, being together we find out, learn about each other. In that relationship there is no guru. I don’t put myself as an authority, and you the follower, and say, learn from me, this is the way to learn. We are together learning.
40:01 Q: Can I carry it a little further, sir? When such a situation comes into being, say a group of people come together, some organisation becomes necessary apparently. And then the organisation takes on some authority and the authority is no better than the members of the organisation.
40:30 K: Quite.
40:31 Q: Perhaps this is really the heart of the question.
40:35 K: Yes, sir. So you are saying, authority assumes the form of organisation, and the organisation becomes a burden, and the burden one has to carry it around, and so we are saying why do you want an organisation.
40:58 Q: And one further thing must be added, unless you conform to the organisation we don’t want you.
41:10 K: But who is forming an organisation? Except here at Brockwood there is a school. That is an organisation, that has no authority to organise my life, or your life.
41:22 Q: Naturally I am not speaking of here. I am speaking of…
41:26 K: Oh, well.
41:27 Q: But this seems to happen always. It seems to be…
41:32 K: So organisation becomes far more important. Organisation means property, money, President, you know all the beastly stuff round it. We dissolved that long ago, sir – you follow?
41:47 So let’s come back to this. Learning about oneself, whatever that may mean, lies in the area of relationship.
42:00 Q: Is learning about myself learning about my mind, which has already been formed by my life?
42:12 K: Myself is my conditioning, my education, the culture I have lived, the religion which has been pumped into me – you follow? – all that is me.
42:23 Q: Yes. But I don’t know very much about it.
42:29 K: Therefore I am going to learn. Can I learn by myself, or in relationship with another?
42:39 To learn by myself means I must withdraw from all societies, all relationship, all communication and live completely by myself. Which is utterly impossible unless I become totally neurotic and I am locked up. So I can only learn about myself in my relationship, whatever that relationship is. And what is myself? And can anybody teach me about myself?
43:24 Q: I think it is not right.
43:30 K: All right, let’s take that.
43:38 Q: Because seeing in relationship all my life things I consider very important, whatever it is, but after, in the right moment, this knowledge – you understand? So this is not learning, because I can use this at exactly the right moment.
44:09 K: Yes, I understand, may I…
44:13 Q: So to learn is something but if we don’t have a mirror how is it possible to learn?
44:24 K: The mirror you have is relationship.
44:28 Q: But if I don’t see.
44:31 K: Therefore why don’t you see? Let’s find out whether it’s possible. Sir let’s find out how to look in the mirror. The mirror is the relationship, whether it is my wife, my girl, my father, mother, my whatever it is, my neighbour, that is the mirror I have.
44:49 That’s the only mirror that I have and I look in that. Am I capable of looking? And what does it mean to look? Am I looking at it as an observer outside looking in, or there is no observer at all but looking?
45:24 So we come back to the question: the observer is the observed. We won’t go into that yet, perhaps that is a little too far away yet. So the mirror is relationship which reveals the nature and structure of myself.
45:44 Q: If I see.
45:46 K: Of course. That is if I want to see. If I don’t want to it’s no use.
45:52 Q: The point is that nobody sees anything at all.
45:57 K: Wait, don’t assume that, Mr Carlos. Don’t assume that nobody sees anything. I want to see my feeling, my urgency, my intensity says, I must see because perhaps I will solve all my difficulties, all my problems, all my suffering.
46:20 BJ: Sir, excuse me. We have spoken about the guru. It seems to me that the subtler form of that in ourselves is that we are dependent on the approval or the disapproval of people around us.
46:36 K: That’s part of our relationship.
46:38 BJ: So it seems to me that I don’t have a guru, but I have that problem. Now how can I deal with that?
46:45 K: Sir, that is can I – you say I want the approval of others – why? Because I am rather nervous, shy, diffident and perhaps you will encourage me and say you are doing very well, old chap, go on, and so on. That means dependency which will inevitably cripple my thinking because it breeds fear. So I reject, the moment I see something of that kind I reject that dependency.
47:23 Q: That is something one could learn about oneself, isn’t it?
47:28 K: We are doing it now.
47:30 BJ: But you say I reject it. I don’t understand how I can reject it.
47:35 K: Sir, look sir. I look to you to encourage me, which means gradually I depend on you.
47:46 And dependence will inevitably breed fear. So there it is. I have learnt a great deal.
47:54 By depending on you for your encouragement, for your sustenance, for your encouragement, you know, all that, gradually I discover how frightened I am, that is what’s making me depend. Therefore I go into the question of fear.
48:12 SB: Sir, there seems to be a time lag from the moment of dependency with all the reaction that goes on, and then I sit here now and I see this, but at that moment there is this time lag which means that somehow the seeing doesn’t have the effect.
48:40 K: That’s why it is very important, are we seeing or seeing through the eyes of the observer? That is the whole problem.
48:52 DB: When you say the observer is the thought about it.
48:59 K: Yes.
49:00 Q: I think both things happen though.
49:04 K: Let’s enquire into it. Now if we see the point that no psychologist, no guru, no analyst will teach me about myself, and I can only learn about myself in the mirror of relationship. If that is taken for granted, as a basis, as the basic reality, the principle, then we can proceed from there. If we don’t see that then we go round talking about more gurus or less gurus, who is the strong guru, and who is the more enlightened guru and all the rest of that nonsense.
49:44 Q: Sir, I can’t feel this is the reality here at this moment.
49:48 K: What?
49:49 Q: I cannot feel that this is the reality, that we do see this. I am frightened to contradict you – not contradict, that’s the wrong word – to add to…
49:58 K: But we are doing this, sir. You are questioning me, aren’t you questioning?
50:01 MZ: Sir, many people would say that through relationship with that psychologist, or whoever it is, they are learning. In other words it is the interaction between the two people.
50:13 K: Now wait a minute. Must I go to the guru, to the analyst to learn? I am married, I have got sisters, sons, neighbours, why can’t I learn from them? Why should I go to a guru to teach me about myself?
50:29 MZ: Usually the people who are in trouble with relationship, are in trouble with those people around them, therefore they have to go somewhere else.
50:39 K: Therefore – which means what?
50:41 MZ: Seek another relationship which is less frightening.
50:44 K: Less frightening. So I come to you and I pour out all my troubles to you, and in that relationship with you I am learning. Em? Now in my relationship with you, which is frightening, in that relationship can’t I see clearly. What is it that prevents my seeing clearly in the troubled waters of relationship between you and me?
51:19 MZ: Generally it is that fear that in certain areas is so great that it blocks any kind of perception.
51:27 K: So I accept it and say I am frightened. So I go into that, what is fear. You follow?
51:36 I don’t want to go out of my world into another world to understand myself. I don’t want to go to Africa to learn about myself, through studying animals.
51:47 Q: In the situation, sir, one is faced with racing thoughts, boiling feelings.
52:00 K: We’ll come to that, sir, in a minute. If we here really see this point that we can only learn about ourselves in the mirror of relationship. That relationship is where we are. Not the relationship between me and my guru. If we start with that basic thing then we can proceed. Do we take that?
52:32 Q: Is the relationship between you and yourself, me and myself, or is the relationship between you and somebody else?
52:44 K: I am coming to that, sir. I am coming to that presently. We’ll see to that. Now I can only learn about myself in the mirror of relationship. Right? Now, what is necessary to see clearly in the mirror?
53:12 Q: Could it be honesty?
53:21 K: May be, I don’t know.
53:25 Q: It seems a quality of attention.
53:29 K: A quality of attention. Honesty, a quality of attention.
53:34 Q: Doesn’t one have to observe without judging?
53:43 K: Observe without judging.
53:46 Q: By looking at our conditioning.
53:52 K: That’s right, sir. But why? Who is the looker? Who is it that looks into the mirror?
54:16 Is it previous knowledge that looks into the mirror, as the observer? And the observer, the previous knowledge, experience, memory, who is the observer, looks into that mirror and says what he sees is different from what he thinks he is. I wonder? So as long as there is the observer, which is knowledge, which he has acquired through experience in relationship, exists there must be division between the see-er and the seen. And that breeds conflict.
55:28 So I have to learn, the mind must learn what the nature of the observer is before he sees himself in the mirror.
55:41 Q: Ignorance, it is.
55:45 K: Ah. Don’t put it into words yet. The observer, the actor, the experiencer, the thinker, all that, what is he? I have seen something in the mirror as the observer, from that seeing I have gathered knowledge, experience, in that relationship, and with that knowledge I look afresh at the mirror. Right? No?
56:31 Q: No.
56:34 K: Don’t contradict yet, sir, look at it, play with it a little bit.
56:40 MZ: Are we saying that what is being looked at is the past.
56:51 K: No. What is the looker, the observer is the past. Look, sir, I am related to you and in that relationship certain incidents take place, pleasurable and painful. Those incidents have become knowledge, and with that knowledge I look at you in the mirror, which is the past looks in the present, which is the active relationship, with the eyes of the past. So the eyes of the past is the observer, which he has put together through the experience of some incident. This is…You and I in our relationship have quarrelled, bitter words, 58:04 anger, you may have slapped me even, and that incident is the past with its knowledge, with its feelings, that incident is the observer. No? And when there is that incident in my mind in that relationship with you, I have stopped learning altogether. So learning means the observation in the mirror without the observer.
58:59 DB: I think that to call it an observer is already a conclusion, it isn’t observing anything. So it is just simply the conclusions of the past.
59:13 K: Conclusions of the past. That’s right. The conclusions of the past, the opinions, the experiences, which is the ‘me’, which is the essence of the observer, the see-er, the experiencer, the thinker, looks at that mirror and whatever he sees must be distorted.
59:37 And that distortion is disorder.
59:40 Q: In other words that is not seeing.
59:49 K: If I have an image about you how can I see you?
59:53 Q: That is what I am saying.
59:59 K: Yes, sir, that’s right. That’s right, sir.
1:00:05 Q: What about the function of seeing? There might be a person who is functionally able to see, there might be another person which is unable to see.
1:00:22 K: The person unable to see in the mirror is – he can’t see because he is looking through the eyes of the past – right, sir? I can’t see you because I have an image about you, and that image has been built in our relationship. If I have no image then I can see you. And is that possible? So I am learning. See what I have learnt – a tremendous lot about myself. I have learnt that there is nobody can teach me. I can’t depend on anybody, however enlightened, however noble, however, whatever they are. I have seen the truth of that. And I see the truth that any form of dependency must nourish more 1:01:44 fear. So I see the truth of it, not verbally, therefore it’s gone, I won’t depend on anybody. And I see and I am learning that only in the mirror of relationship there is learning, and there is no learning if the mind looks at that mirror with the eyes of the past. Now, is that possible to look at that mirror without the image, memory, the whole experience that has been built up in my relationship with you? I have lived with you for ten years and my God, we have gone through all kinds of things, pain, pleasure, sex, annoyance, vanity, companionship, all that goes on in any kind of relationship.
1:02:58 And I see that I cannot possibly learn about myself if the image or the images remain.
1:03:10 Therefore I have seen that. Now, the next thing is, how am I, how is the mind to be free of those images? Is that possible? Or are we fishing in waters that there is no fish at all?
1:03:35 MC: One of the difficulties is that when we talk about it sitting here one can get the feeling of this, but when one is in actual relationship as well as the two people there are often factual circumstances of which one never will lose the image because it’s as sort of factual as knowing how to sit in a chair. Therefore it is difficult for the mind to abandon images altogether.
1:04:04 K: We are going to find out, madam. We are going to find out slowly, if it is possible at all to be free of the image which the mind has built, or gathered knowledge, in this relationship, not only sitting here but all the time be free of this image.
1:04:33 Q: Sometimes I find that my actual reaction to a situation is not at all what I think it ought to be. And one can sometimes see the difference.
1:04:55 K: You see, when you say what it oughtn’t to be, my reactions oughtn’t to be that, you have got an ideal about what your reactions should be.
1:05:03 Q: Yes.
1:05:04 K: Which is the image you have about yourself. It is the same thing. So we are asking is it possible to be free of images altogether?
1:05:15 Q: Can one make a distinction between the memory that is essential and the one that leaves…
1:05:23 K: Ah, no, no sir. Memories as knowledge; I know how to ride a bicycle, how to drive a car, walk, knowledge. You can’t put aside that. I am only talking, we are only talking about knowledge as images which the mind has built about another in relationship. That’s what we are talking about.
1:05:51 Q: Yes, but I wondered if there is any distinction between those two.
1:06:00 K: Oh yes, surely.
1:06:01 Q: Can one really make a break, as people make between the conscious and the sub-conscious.
1:06:02 K: Isn’t there a difference between the two? The image of the policeman, and the image of my wife may be the same! Sorry! (laughter) Fortunately I am not married so I can talk!
1:06:28 MC: I think I see what you feel. In certain relationships with a person – if for instance you are in relationship with a younger person and you have certain responsibilities towards that person, factually any way…
1:06:45 K: Factually I have to.
1:06:46 MC: They might damage themselves if they do something else.
1:06:47 K: Of course.
1:06:48 MC: Nevertheless it sort of teeters over into an area where it is almost coming into a psychological thing. It is very difficult to separate the two absolutely.
1:06:56 K: You see, can we say intelligence will operate, functionally, when necessary, in relationship, whether young or old, if there is no image.
1:07:16 MC: Can I ask you if image means only the psychological image?
1:07:24 K: Yes, I have got dozens of images but we are only concerned with this for the moment.
1:07:34 I mean if you are British you have the image of the Queen and all that, and the glory of – you know, the past, the glory of Britain and all that. If you have the image of India you have the tremendous tradition of a religious life and all that. And so it goes on. But, we have got dozens of images, but we are talking of the image which we have in our relationship which prevents all learning. Learning about oneself. And is it possible to be free of this image?
1:08:19 Q: Does this include the sort of reaction that one has to a smell, or a sound?
1:08:23 K: No, sir.
1:08:25 Q: I mean sometimes that will bring back a whole emotional…
1:08:33 K: Of course, of course. When you smell a jasmine it has got all the romantic associations and all the rest of it. But we are not talking of that for the moment, sir. We are talking of relationship between you, your wife, your children, your neighbour. And in that relationship, in that mirror, can you observe without the image? Let’s stick to that one question.
1:09:04 DB: Aren’t you talking about the image which appears to be reality, not the image which is known to be an image.
1:09:15 K: Of course. The image which we have built up through thought.
1:09:21 DB: Yes, which is still seen as reality.
1:09:24 K: Yes, yes, of course, sir. Naturally. But this image which the mind has built in relationship is terribly real. You have hurt me, you have brutalised me, you have said things that are so appalling, you have given me sex and a dozen things and my image is very strong, my conceit about that image, I think I know.
1:10:03 Q: That image is very strong but in a very subjective way.
1:10:12 K: Yes, sir.
1:10:14 Q: It is not an objective image.
1:10:17 K: No.
1:10:18 Q: It is not seen with the eyes, and it is not really an image seen subjectively because the observer is bound up in it.
1:10:28 K: That’s why I want to come to that later. Whether it is possible to free the mind from the image, and what is energy – you follow, sir? – or the nature of this looking that will free the mind from the image of the observer itself, which is inward? I don’t know if I am making myself clear.
1:10:57 Q: Yes. It seems to me that the inward subjective image prevents you seeing the objective real thing.
1:11:07 K: Yes.
1:11:08 Q: But if the subjective imagery – one’s opinions and so on – is seen as its actual sensation or components, then that act negates those just as the previous act negated the objective one.
1:11:33 K: Yes, yes. You understand? I mean, I say to myself, how am I, how is this mind to free itself from the image of an Indian, the image of all the tradition, the nationality, the qualities of that race and the racial inheritance, all that is the image. And can that mind, which is conditioned by the image, and the image is the conditioning, can that mind free itself? And does the mind see the necessity or the importance of freedom, freeing from this image?
1:12:46 Q: You are going to free yourself in order that there is something better.
1:12:56 K: Ah, no. I don’t know anything better. If I say there is something better it is the creation of further image.
1:13:04 Q: Sir, isn’t just the seeing of it, doesn’t that create freedom?
1:13:15 K: That’s right, sir. How does the mind see? That’s what we are coming to, you see.
1:13:21 Q: You spoke about the authority of the observer and I find I am in much difficulty in the authority of the observed. It seems that what I observe is also the observer. That is whatever I look at I ask, is that real? I may say something is ugly or beautiful but have I put this on to the thing?
1:13:57 K: Obviously.
1:13:58 Q: What can I see?
1:14:00 K: I don’t quite understand what you are saying.
1:14:03 Q: Can the observer be separated from – no, sorry. Can the observed be separated from the observer? Can there be pure observation?
1:14:17 K: That’s what we are trying to find out. We have separated the observer from the observed.
1:14:25 That happens all the time in our relationship. And as long as the observer, who is the past, who is the image-builder, the observer himself is the image, which separates itself from the thing observed, can that observer cease? Otherwise he will be everlastingly building images. I throw away this image and I build another and so on and on and on. Can I learn, can the mind learn what it is doing, in relationship? Learn when it is attached, you know, all the interaction that’s going on all the time.
1:15:40 Q: Sir, when you put a conclusion on something, doesn’t that mean that is the observer.
1:16:07 And if you just see the thing without coming to a conclusion or without…
1:16:10 K: That’s right, sir. Yes, quite right. Can you do that in relationship?
1:16:14 Q: If you do that…
1:16:18 K: Not ‘if’. Can you do it now? Can you do this in relationship without the observer?
1:16:28 Q: Yes, if you…
1:16:32 K: Not ‘if’. It’s a tremendously difficult thing, sir. You have hurt me, you have said terrible things – you know all the rest of it, pleasure, pain, fear, consolation, a hundred things, they are all stored up in my mind whether wanting it or not, they are there. And that isolates me from you. That knowledge has separated me from another. And I remain in that separation, fighting, quarrelling, stifling – you know, bitterness, all the rest of it comes from that, from the flowering of those images. Now can the mind be free of those images? And is that ever possible?
1:17:42 Q: Further to what I said about the conclusion: if you take away the individual, such as yourself, out of the context of relationship, then that gets rid of…
1:17:59 K: Can you do that, sir? You have done it? I am not questioning you because that is your personal affair, but is that possible? I am not saying it is not, I am questioning it.
1:18:13 Q: I fall back into...
1:18:16 K: Then there are moments when you can observe the relationship without the image but there are other moments, or greater periods when the images dominate.
1:18:30 Q: Yes.
1:18:31 K: And I say that’s not good enough for me. You follow? I want to be fed all the time, not rarely. So I say to myself, is this possible to be free of the dozen images which the mind, thought has built? And the mind, the thought is the maker of images.
1:18:56 MC: For a very practical example: if a person has lied and twisted and it is in a sense proved, and you know you are involved in a continuing relationship with that person, are you saying that even the knowledge of that must go absolutely?
1:19:18 K: Wait a minute. I have lied to you – because for various reasons. You have that memory, that experience with me. How will you meet me next time? With that image? With that knowledge that I have lied to you? You are bound to.
1:19:41 MC: That is always the…
1:19:43 K: Wait. Then what takes place? So what will you do with me?
1:19:46 MC: Obviously one comes in a wary state of mind.
1:19:52 K: What will you do? I am your son, or your husband or whatever it is, your neighbour, how will you meet me? With your previous knowledge?
1:20:03 MC: There is always…
1:20:06 K: Tell me what you will do actually.
1:20:10 MC: Normally, yes.
1:20:11 K: Yes. Then what takes place? You have built a barrier against me. I have produced it.
1:20:19 I was responsible for it but it remains with you. And I may have changed. I see I shouldn’t have lied. I won’t anymore, finished. I’ll stand up or whatever I do. But you have the image about me.
1:20:41 MC: But if you meet a person who is…
1:20:48 K: …constantly lying? If I am constantly lying you say, ‘Well, my God, what am I to do with that chap’? So you are very, very careful what you do.
1:20:58 MC: That’s what I mean.
1:20:59 K: Of course you have to. Yes, if I am constantly deceiving you, you say I must go into it – naturally.
1:21:11 MZ: Is that an image?
1:21:15 K: Look, I am constantly hurting you. What will you do? I have faced this relationship, personally, what will one do? What will you do? Constantly being bullied, constantly being – all the rest of it. What does one do?
1:21:38 BJ: Be extra careful in your presence.
1:21:42 K: I don’t want to be careful in your presence. That’s another image which I have built – I must be awfully careful with that person.
1:21:51 Q: We also have images of people, whether we like them or don’t.
1:21:58 K: Of course, of course. All that’s involved. They smell bad, or they do this or that, a dozen things. Now I am asking: I am hurting you everyday, bullying you, threatening you – you know all the rest of it. So how will you be free, how will you remain so that you will not be hurt by me?
1:22:25 MZ: That’s a little bit different.
1:22:29 K: Sir, don’t discuss theoretically. There is a problem, right in front of you. How will you deal with it?
1:22:38 MZ: But that is a different question from what we were asking. In other words, you see the person who constantly does something harmful...
1:22:45 K: …to you, in relationship.
1:22:46 MZ: Yes, therefore when we meet that person again it is a fact that that person has done whatever it is.
1:22:53 K: A dozen things.
1:22:54 Q: But it is a different moment.
1:22:55 MZ: That person is that kind of person.
1:22:57 K: And I am living with you, I happen to be living with you in the same house, and we are related. Now how will deal with me?
1:23:05 MZ: Well, it would seem that the fact that the way that person is…
1:23:13 K: I am built that way. You are not concerned about me. I am built that way. I am a bully and you are not, and I am hurting you. What is your relationship? What is your structure of mind that is bullet-proof? (laughter) Q: There are two different kinds of bullying. There is physical bullying and…
1:23:44 K: Sir, sir, sir. We are discussing this psychological thing. Please stick to one thing.
1:23:48 Q: One becomes aware that one must be free of that image.
1:23:53 K: Sir. Look, sir. I am living with you as your wife, husband, son, and I am hurting you, bullying you, fighting, all the rest of it. And how will you be free of me and live in the house? You can go away and say, ‘Go to hell’ and walk out. That’s a different matter. But you are going to live with me, you are there, how will you deal, what is the nature of your mind that says, ‘Yes, I know how to deal with that stupid man’?
1:24:28 SB: The trouble is that we don’t know, do we?
1:24:35 K: I am asking you. Here is a relationship. I bully you and how will you receive it and remain unhurt?
1:24:49 Q: Because we are receiving that hurt in a context of I, me. And if we could receive that hurt without the I.
1:25:07 K: Can you do it? Will you do it? Tell me how to do it. Not ‘if’, conditional. It is an actual fact. Look, sir, I have lived with people who are really like that. What shall I do? I know what I did.
1:25:24 MC: It can be a working relationship.
1:25:26 K: It was, very working.
1:25:30 MC: I mean it is not even the context of me in that sense. It is often in the context of it interfering with work.
1:25:39 K: Interfering with work and so on, that’s a different matter. If I pay them I say, sorry, please from tomorrow don’t come.
1:25:50 MC: But you may not be in a position to say that.
1:25:53 K: Wait. I said if I am employing somebody who is a bully, then I can wriggle out of it. Wait, wait. But if I am living with you in a house, and you are bullying me – please take it as a fact – how will you live in the same house, see the ‘me’ and be free of the image that I have built in you?
1:26:21 Q: What one actually does is to search all sorts of ways to escape this situation.
1:26:27 K: Of course, sir, I understand all that. Escape, avoid, pacify, all the tricks that one plays with a bully. But you have tried all that. But you are not meeting my point.
1:26:41 Q: Sir, if one didn’t – sorry.
1:26:44 K: Yes, sir?
1:26:45 Q: If one doesn’t have an image of oneself.
1:26:49 K: Again, sir, forgive me, you are theoretically ‘if’, conditional thinking. I am sorry, I can’t accept that because I am wounded. And you come along and say, ‘if’ that happens you won’t be wounded. But my dear sir, I am wounded. It’s no good saying if you are healthy you won’t.
1:27:13 So I am living with you, I am the bully, how will you meet it?
1:27:17 Q: Not to resist it.
1:27:22 K: And the more you don’t resist the greater the bully I become. I have seen this happen.
1:27:30 Q: The image seems to be kept going by thinking about it.
1:27:37 K: It is happening every day.
1:27:42 Q: I mean one goes on thinking about it almost deliberately.
1:28:00 Q: It seems to me that where we actually are is not in wanting to discover ourselves, but to concern oneself.
1:28:06 K: I said, madam, at the beginning of the discussion, this dialogue, this conversation, do we want to, you know, is this our basic purpose that we have come together. If that isn’t there, it doesn’t matter, if you don’t want to learn don’t learn. Go and play golf or go and swim, or go and do something else, a nice cinema “The Day of the Jackal” go and see it.
1:28:36 Q: If we did drop the image, sir, it could be very dangerous.
1:28:44 K: I am not sure. You may have a different feeling altogether. You may know what love means, you may know something totally different.
1:29:00 Q: I meant the image of the person. If this person you expect him to do some real harm to you and you did drop the image, then it wouldn’t stop him from doing the harm.
1:29:11 K: I am asking you, sir: you have built an image about your wife, husband, neighbour, the world you live in, can you be free of that image? Be free, not just occasionally.
1:29:27 Q: But fear comes up.
1:29:30 K: Wait. No. There is no fear involved. You have these images, there is no fear involved.
1:29:37 You think you might be afraid, therefore it’s not fear. The fact is that you have these images, and the fact is that these images prevent relationship. And we are asking, can the mind be free of those images? Oh, come on, sir.
1:30:04 Q: The mind can only be free of those images in learning how to meet the person.
1:30:13 K: You can only learn, Nelson, you can only learn how to meet that person when you have no image which that person has created in you. Therefore can you be free of the image?
1:30:28 You go round and round.
1:30:31 SB: Sir, the mind, when you pose that question to this mind immediately makes another image in order to answer that question, so it seems to me going round and round.
1:30:44 K: No. If you put me that question: have you lived in relationship with another without an image? And if you have had an image are you free of that image? If you ask me that I say, ‘Yes, I’ll show you how’ – but you don’t go into it, you stop round it.
1:31:10 Q: The mind is the image.
1:31:15 K: How do you know?
1:31:17 Q: You become aware of it.
1:31:20 K: Have you?
1:31:21 Q: Yes.
1:31:22 K: You say the mind is the image-maker.
1:31:25 Q: Is the image.
1:31:28 K: The image. And the image-maker. Now can you be free of that image and the image-making?
1:31:34 Q: But who is this ‘you’ that is free?
1:31:49 K: Sir that is – I am only making it in conversation. Don’t put the ‘you’. Can the mind, your mind, the mind of those of us here, can our minds be free of the image?
1:32:10 Is your mind aware that you have images first? Right? If you have them, how is it that they continue to live?
1:32:20 Q: Because you are separate.
1:32:21 K: Don’t guess, sir. Bite into it to find out.
1:32:22 Q: Is it because we don’t see the importance that if we don’t drop the images then there is no relationship?
1:32:28 MZ: We want to keep some of them, don’t we?
1:32:39 K: If you want to keep some of them – you want to keep some of them that are pleasant and you want to get rid of the images that are unpleasant – but they are still images.
1:32:50 We are talking of all images.
1:32:51 Q: Krishnaji, every time you ask us whether we see images in ourselves, you also ask the same question just after that and say, do you also see the importance of not having images.
1:33:05 K: Of course. Do you see that you have images? What are the implications of having those images in relationship? We went into that, sir.
1:33:21 Q: With someone who is in a relationship where one party is constantly bullying, that can become real fact.
1:33:38 K: It is a fact.
1:33:39 Q: It is no longer imagery.
1:33:40 K: How shall I meet it without creating an image about that person? That means reaction, that means fear, you know all that thing that goes on. Can the mind meet that person without a single image?
1:33:58 Q: Meet the person, or meet his own state?
1:34:07 K: Sir, may I put it this way? I live with you and I am a bully, I am rather cruel and so on. You have naturally reactions from that, and those reactions are the image which I have given you in our relationship. And I am asking, can you be free of these images so that you are never hurt, never go through all the turmoil of all that?
1:34:50 Q: When you say the bully has given it to you – in the way that it has been something given to you is in your holding it in thought, you are taking the thought of what happened with this bully relationship. And then when you come into the room, or whatever, then that thought arises and so you are dealing with it immediately with the thought of the previous experience. That’s what happens. If you have the fear and the images. If you are not thinking about it, if you are not carrying the thinking around…
1:35:42 K: No, I understand. When you are not in my presence, you have no image of me. In my presence you get this image, it projects, comes into being immediately. Right?
1:35:59 Q: It’s thinking that brings it.
1:36:02 K: It’s part of all that. Now can you be free of the image so that you can look at me without any, not with indifference, that is another image – you follow? – meet me.
1:36:23 MZ: And not without knowledge.
1:36:27 K: Of course there is knowledge. Of course you are a bully. Of course you have done things to me, ill-treated and all the rest of it.
1:36:38 Q: Sir, there is no doubt about all this in hindsight. One must agree all along the line out of one’s experience in hindsight. But there is something missing at the very moment, at the crucial moment, there is not a clarity there at that moment. If there was a clarity there at that very moment…
1:36:56 K: That’s what I am saying, sir. Why.. [Gap between 2 tapes with short section missing while the reel was changed. Typed note included with the original tape about the gap in recording: ‘The following was all that could be taken down: (J. K.).. “So there is an action, a movement that will eliminate..”’] ..which really means can the observer be absent? – not ‘absent’ – totally absent, not occasionally, so that you only see me, the bully, and nothing else? You understand, sir?
1:37:30 So you, as the observer, are completely non-existent, with your reactions, images, intentions and all that, and you only see me. Do you know what takes place when you do that?
1:37:46 Q: Are you just asking if it can be done? If we can lose the images?
1:37:58 K: Yes. No. I say it can be done.
1:38:01 Q: You think it can be done.
1:38:07 K: Not think.
1:38:08 Q: Why should we do it?
1:38:09 K: Why should we do it? Because, sir, I have an image about the Pakistan as a Hindu and we are at each other’s throat. He wants to kill me and I want to kill him. This is happening. And the Jew and the Arab. My image as the Arab wants to push Israel into the sea. And I, as a Jew, want to push, and so on and so on. And we are everlastingly at battle with each other. And that’s why I want to be free of this battle. That’s intelligence says, for God’s sake, why live this way?
1:39:01 Q: I suppose the image we have of someone else is never true is it?
1:39:09 K: I am not concerned about another. I am saying can I be free of this image? And if I am free, if it is possible, what is then relationship?
1:39:28 MZ: May one ask one question about the image?
1:39:31 K: You may. (laughter) MZ: You have knowledge and you speak of knowledge and you speak of image. Now is there a factor in this concept of image which has, what I would call, reaction, so it isn’t just plain knowledge? The man is a bully, he bullies. That’s knowledge.
1:40:05 K: Finished.
1:40:06 MZ: Yes, that’s knowledge.
1:40:07 K: Of course.
1:40:09 MZ: When you are using the word ‘image’ about the bully, in that is there…
1:40:15 K: All my reactions.
1:40:16 MZ: Yes. So that is a different category.
1:40:21 K: Of course. We said that. If you look at me without any reaction, I am the bully – what – nothing.
1:40:33 Q: You can’t use the word ‘bully’ without…
1:40:37 K: No, don’t.
1:40:40 Q: You mean the object.
1:40:41 K: The object, sir. It’s a peculiar coloured object which is called bully. That is good enough. Now can you observe me without the reaction of the image, which is knowledge?
1:40:59 MZ: Before that – if I may?
1:41:02 K: Yes, go ahead.
1:41:03 MZ: You are speaking about the reaction because there is an image. And I am trying to ask does one have an image because one has built up a reaction to a fact?
1:41:17 K: That’s all. That’s all. Of course.
1:41:19 MZ: And then in turn with that image you get another reaction to the image that is already there.
1:41:26 K: Surely, surely.
1:41:27 MZ: So are you now asking can one look at the bully or whatever it is, with the knowledge of what that person does but with no element of reaction, either in the past or in that moment? Is that what you mean?
1:41:42 K: Of course. Then what is your relationship with the bully? It’s very interesting. Go into it. You follow?
1:42:01 Q: Part of this would be why would the person be bullying me? One may be sometimes even bullying somebody else.
1:42:13 K: I am there with you, in the kitchen, I am there with you in the office, I am there with you in the home. You can’t just say, get out. I am there.
1:42:23 Q: No, but why would you be bullying me, yet you wouldn’t bully somebody else?
1:42:29 K: Because I happen to be with you. I happen to be with you. If you weren’t there I would be bullying her. My nature is to bully.
1:42:38 Q: Yes, but all bullies don’t bully everybody.
1:42:43 K: Oh, for goodness sake. Of course not the greater bully! If you turn on the bully he crumbles.
1:42:53 DB: To approach it another way: you say that you are seeing us without the image, even at this very moment. Can you demonstrate that to us, what it is?
1:42:58 K: I don’t quite understand, sir.
1:43:05 DB: Well, you see, you are seeing us without an image, and if we could see you without the image then at this moment we would be in that relationship.
1:43:19 K: I understand, but I don’t know.
1:43:23 DB: Now you asked before you said that perhaps you could show us what this is, essentially non-verbal.
1:43:32 K: Essentially non-verbal.
1:43:33 DB: Yes, so it has to be shown, doesn’t it?
1:43:35 K: Yes, it has to be shown.
1:43:38 DB: Then it is no use for us to talk about it indefinitely.
1:43:43 K: No. So you are asking the speaker to demonstrate, to show what it means to have no image. Is that it?
1:43:56 DB: Yes.
1:43:57 K: In relationship.
1:43:58 DB: Yes. (laughter) K: He is Dr Bohm! What does it mean to have no image. All right, sir. Let’s proceed.
1:44:22 I have no image about being an Indian, none whatever, with all the traditions involved in it: the Brahmin, the tremendous orthodoxy not to touch a human being who is not a Brahmin – you know. It’s a tremendous thing in India. I don’t feel any of that. That’s a demonstration, isn’t it?
1:44:50 DB: But say you did get exposed to that.
1:44:53 K: I have been to India, a dozen times, lived with people who are non-Brahmins. It doesn’t come up in me at all.
1:45:04 DB: And therefore you can meet the Brahmin, and the non-Brahmin intelligently.
1:45:10 K: Yes, that’s all. Not intelligently. Wait a minute. It doesn’t enter into my mind whether they are or they are not.
1:45:27 DB: Therefore what you do can be intelligent. Otherwise it’s still an image.
1:45:35 K: I wonder how we are using that word intelligence, sir? I must be a little careful here because when the conditioning as a Brahmin, Hindu, is not, then what takes place? Is it intelligence?
1:45:59 If intelligence we mean non-division – you follow, sir?
1:46:06 DB: Yes.
1:46:07 K: Then we’ll accept that word. That is the non-division between the mind – there is no division in the mind that is no longer a Hindu, or a Brahmin. If that is intelligence, all right. Then what takes place? The tradition there is guru is the highest importance in religious matters. That in India, the word ‘guru’ means the one – it has got several meanings, the first meaning is, immense, the word itself means immense. Rather interesting.
1:47:03 And also it means the one who is enlightened, who is free, who is capable of taking away your burdens, the meaning of that. But instead of that the gurus put their burden on to you.
1:47:27 That’s a different matter. And guru also means who will carry you over to the other bank. All that is implied in that word ‘guru’. Now, that tradition every Sanskrit chant, that word is embedded in it subtly. And I chant a great deal about all that, but it never touched me, the mind.
1:48:01 DB: Never, from the beginning?
1:48:03 K: From the beginning. Although I said Guru, Master – the thing never touched me. I have demonstrated this to myself, watched very carefully when – and all the rest of it.
1:48:17 So in my relationship with bullies, or X Y Z I have watched it very, very, very carefully.
1:48:31 Not because I want to be free etc., just watch what my reactions were: first I was a great man – you follow? – then this, that, that, and putting all that aside, can I look at that man, or that woman or that person without any image? I don’t have to prove it to you.
1:48:57 I have done it. It doesn’t matter.
1:48:58 Q: You are able to say to us that you see us without images. If for instance I could see you now without images – will I know it, that I was seeing without images?
1:49:13 K: No. First of all you must know that you have images, haven’t you? Then is it possible for you to be free of the image?
1:49:22 Q: I don’t know.
1:49:23 K: Therefore find out.
1:49:25 Q: But to whom do I go to find out?
1:49:30 K: Ah, no. Don’t go to anybody. Then I become your guru. So how will you – let’s talk it over. How will you, who have an image, be free of that image? You know there are images not only at the conscious level but also images deeply embedded. Now, are you aware of it? The American, the English, your particular family, conditioning – you follow?
1:50:10 Are you aware of it?
1:50:11 Q: I am not sure if I am aware of the very deeper images.
1:50:14 K: What?
1:50:16 Q: I am not sure how deep my awareness goes.
1:50:25 K: If it doesn’t go very deeply then you are merely looking at it on the surface. And why are you looking only on the surface? Why can’t you go deeply? Deeply being conscious as well as the total content of your mind, consciousness, in which are all the images.
1:50:50 What time is it?
1:50:52 Q: Twenty past five.
1:50:58 K: Twenty past five. For two hours? Can we go on with this tomorrow? Right. We had better.
1:51:23 It’s too long. You don’t mind stopping now and going on, sir?
1:51:33 Q: Thank you very much.
1:51:37 K: Thank you very much, sir.
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