BR75D2 - Do you respond according to an image? home
Brockwood Park, UK - 11 September 1975
Public Discussion 2

Text-only version

0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s second public discussion at Brockwood Park, 1975.
0:09 Krishnamurti: What shall we talk over this morning together?
0:14 Questioner: Could you continue with the question about the security and being nothing?
0:26 K: Oui, madame?
0:26 Q: You were going to speak on what is creation and maybe you can say something about creative intelligence?
0:33 K: Would you talk over what is creative intelligence.
0:38 Q: I have two questions... is there any meaning to reincarnation, and the quality or essence of the meditative mind?
0:52 K: Is there any reality in the belief of reincarnation, and what is the nature and quality of the meditative mind.
1:10 Q: Difference between denial and suppression of habit.
1:16 K: Denial and suppression of habit.
1:22 Q: It was said in this tent that in order for the mind to function sanely, one must have basic security of food and shelter. This seems logical. But it seems that in order to try to find a way of having this security, one encounters the horrors and the difficulties in whatever which make things so hard and impossible sometimes, and what is the right action to doing that?
2:01 K: I don’t quite follow the...
2:05 Q: How are we to live and have this... to be able to... how to live and have this basic security without taking part in all the horrors that are involved in this?
2:28 K: Do I understand rightly, or do we understand rightly that you are asking: what is the correct action in a world that is chaotic, insecure, where there is no security – one must have security and what is one to do – is that the question? Are you quite sure?
2:58 Q: I have a question which, when I ask myself I always come up to a wall because I say I am the observer and I would like to see the whole of the observer. I cannot see the whole of the observer because I can only see in fragments, so how is the observer to see the whole of the observer? It cannot unless there is no observer, so how can the observer see the observer with no observer?
3:32 K: How can one see the whole of the observer and can the observer watch himself as the observer – is that the question?
3:52 Q: Sir, a little bit about the state of observing-ness towards observation. Now, when a situation occurs, what keeps one into the observingness, that is, the observer different from what is observed? It seems a lack of attention to the moment, at the point, but to have attention to the point requires a tremendous vitality that sometimes we don’t have.
4:26 K: Is that the... have I understood the question rightly, sir? We do not have enough energy to observe wholly.
4:42 Q: Yes.
4:43 K: Is that it?
4:44 Q: Yes, I suppose you could put it that way, yes.
4:48 K: Now, which of these questions shall we talk over together?
4:52 Q: May I just ask, in continuation of that? Can an act of will-power, or I think you call it an act of friction, but it’s the same thing, can this generate the vitality or the passion...?
5:08 K: Can will generate that sufficient energy to see clearly – would that be right?
5:21 Q: Yes.
5:22 Q: What happens to the brain and the process of thought during hypnosis? Why in that particular case where that such an impact in such a short time, and is hypnosis a way of looking at one’s thought process?
5:46 K: Have you heard that question?
5:47 Q: Yes.
5:48 Q: But may I... like... I’m just suggesting, could everyone speak louder, clearly?
6:01 Q: For medical reasons, we use hypnosis in medicine. The words have very much importance in that... what is the process of thought in that particular case?
6:15 K: What is the process of thought when there is hypnosis – is that it?
6:21 Q: Yes.
6:24 K: Now, wait a minute, sirs, we have got so many questions. What shall we begin with? The observer?
6:37 Q: Yes.
6:39 K: The observer, and to see the whole of that observer, one needs energy, and how is that energy to be derived, to be got? How is that energy to be acquired? And will that energy reveal the totality of the whole nature and structure of the observer? Should we discuss that?
7:28 Q: Yes.
7:32 K: And what is the quality of the mind that has this meditative process, and so on. Now, wait a minute.
8:04 How is one to observe the whole of something, psychologically? How is one to be aware of oneself totally? Can we begin with that? Shall we begin with that? How am I, or we, or one, to be wholly aware of oneself?
8:41 Q: Surely one can only be aware of the totality if one loses oneself.
8:47 K: One can only be...?
8:48 Q: Be aware of the total human and all life... if one loses oneself...
8:55 K: Yes, sir. How is one, you or I, to be aware of the totality of our consciousness, with all its content. Right? Would you like to discuss...? That is what was proposed. Is it possible to see the totality of one’s own reactions, the motives, the fears, the anxieties, the sorrows, the pain, the totality of all that, or must one see it in fragments, in layers? Shall we...? Do you want to...? How is one to be aware of the content of one’s consciousness? Right? Can we begin with that?
10:13 What is consciousness? What do you think is consciousness? Under hypnosis as well as when one is not hypnotised. Most of us are hypnotised – by words, by propaganda, by tradition, by all the things that we believe in, and so on and so on. We are hypnotised not only externally, by external influence, but also we have our own peculiar process of hypnotising ourselves into believing something, or not believing, and so on and so on – all that – can one see the totality of one’s consciousness? Come on, sirs, let us inquire into this, shall we?
11:19 Q: The observer cannot see.
11:20 K: We are going...
11:21 Don’t let us say one can, one cannot, it is so, it is not so. Let’s inquire.
11:30 Q: One always has the feeling one has to begin, I think.
11:33 K: We are going to begin, sir. How shall I begin? From where shall I begin? To be aware of myself, myself being all the beliefs, the dogmas, the conclusions, the fears, the anxieties, the pain, the sorrow, the fear and the fear of death, fear of not... and so on, the whole of that, where shall we begin to find out the content of this? You understand?
12:19 Q: Yes.
12:21 Q: You just asked, sir, what consciousness was.
12:24 K: We are going into that.
12:30 Q: If one is going to observe, is it true that one has to stand outside the things one is observing?
12:40 K: Madame, I am asking, if I may, how shall I begin to inquire into the whole structure of myself? If I am interested, if I am serious, where shall I begin?
12:58 Q: When I question to who I am?
13:02 K: Inquire who I am? That becomes intellectual, verbal. Would you please follow this? I can only know myself, I begin to know myself in my relationship to others. Right? Do let’s face that fact. I cannot know myself in abstraction. It would be rather a vain process to say to myself, ‘I am going to learn about myself’, and then I can imagine all kinds of fantasies, illusions, and so on. But whereas if I could observe what my reactions are in my relationship to another, then I begin to inquire. 14:01 That is much closer, more accurate and revealing. Can we do that? That is, in my relationship with my wife, husband, friend, or boy, girl and so on, with my relationship to nature, with my relationship to the neighbour, and so on, I discover the nature of myself. Right? Please, this is a dialogue, not a talk by me. So how do I observe my reactions in my relationship with another?
14:51 Q: Each time I see something in a reaction about myself, it becomes knowledge, it becomes something retained.
15:02 K: I wonder if we are aware what takes place in our relationship with another. You seem so… Ah? You all seem to be so vague about this matter.
15:21 Q: When I am very interested in some relationship, I notice that I can really observe. When I am getting angry in my relationship, I see immediately that I really can’t observe what is going on.
15:32 K: Sir, you and I are related, mettons [let’s put it]; you and I are related as friends, or husband, wife or this or that: what is our relationship? What do we mean by relationship?
15:53 Q: When we seem to want something...
15:54 K: No...
15:56 Look at the word, sir, first, the meaning of the word.
15:59 Q: I like to compare myself with the other person.
16:03 K: No, sir, we are asking, if I may, the meaning of the word itself, ‘relationship’.
16:16 Q: To relate to another, to be with another, to be concerned about the relationship.
16:23 Q: Communication.
16:24 Q: It means you are relating to that person.
16:28 K: I am lost!
16:32 Q: Is it a response?
16:36 K: When I say I am related to my wife, or to my husband, father, son, neighbour, what does that mean?
16:45 Q: Care for the person, I care for the person.
16:49 Q:...a relationship with the whole human race as one of brothers and sisters
16:52 K: Oh, the love of Pete!
16:53 Q: Relationship means that...
16:55 Q: Attachment.
16:57 Q: I’d rather you told us.
17:01 K: Ah... I am related to you, either in blood, same father and mother, or I am related to you economically, I am related to you sexually, socially, or I am related to you because we have both the same belief, the same ideal, the same purpose. Relationship means, does it not – I am inquiring, please; I am not stating it – doesn’t relationship mean to respond accurately? Doesn’t that... to be related, 18:04 the meaning in the dictionary says to respond in... relationship comes from that word. Now, how do I respond in my relationship to you, if you are my wife, husband, all the rest of it? Am I responding according to the image I have about you, and you are responding according to the image you have about me? Or are we both free of the images and therefore responding accurately? I don’t know if you...
18:57 Q: Isn’t it largely subconscious?
19:03 K: We will go into that. First, let us see what the word means in itself.
19:10 Q: What is to respond accurately?
19:13 K: Accurate means curare, means care; the word ‘accurate’ means to have great care. Therefore accurate, if you care for something, you act accurately. If you care for your motor, you must be very well acquainted with it, you must know all the mechanical process of it.
19:50 So accurate means infinite care. We are using that word in that sense, that when there is a relationship with another, either intimate or distant, the response depends on the image you have about the other, or the image the other has about you, and when we act according to that image, that is, respond according to that image, it is inaccurate, it is not with complete care. Is that…?
20:42 Q:...love and hate relationship.
20:46 K: Love and hate relationship. Lordy, we... Sir, we are just beginning to inquire. We will come to that. Now, I have an image about you and you have an image about me. That image has been put together through... it may be one day or it may be ten years, through pleasure, fear, nagging, domination, possession, various hurts, impatience, and so on and so on and so on. Now, when we act or respond according to that image, then that action, being incomplete; it is then inaccurate, and therefore without care, which we generally call love. 21:45 Is this... May we go on from there? Now... please, not verbally. Are you aware, is one aware that you have an image about yourself, about another? And having that image, you respond according to the past, because the image has been put together but has become the past. I wonder if…
22:20 Q: And also according to one’s selfish desires.
22:24 K: I said that, fear, desire, selfishness.
22:28 Q: You can’t think of another person without an image, so how could you... like, how could you write a letter or visit some...
22:34 K: We are going to...
22:36 Q:...without having an image?
22:38 K: How quickly you want to resolve everything, don’t you? Ah, it’s raining. First of all, can we be aware that we have an image, not only about ourselves but about another?
23:06 Q: Are there... are the two images in relation?
23:09 K: Ah?
23:11 Q: Images of the other and the... in relation with the image of yourself.
23:15 K: So there is – you see what you are saying? – there is a thing different from the image.
23:27 Q: No, that’s not… The image of the other is made from the image you have of yourself.
23:33 K: That is what we said, sir. Ça passe. Ça passe. [It figures.] Tous les jours [Every day].
24:07 Q: Can anything practical help?
24:12 K: Sir, this is the most practical thing if you would listen to this! We are so… We want something practical, and the practical is to observe clearly what we are and act from there. Is one aware that one has an image about another? And is one aware that one has an image about oneself? Are you aware of that? This is a simple thing. I injure you, I hurt you, and you naturally have an image about me. I give you pleasure, and you have an image about me. And according to that hurt and pleasure you react; and that reaction, being fragmentary, must be inaccurate, not whole. This is simple. Can we go on from there?
25:50 Now, what do you do with the image you have built about another? I am conscious, I am aware that I have an image about myself, and I have an image about you, so I have got two images, the one that I have about myself and the other is about you. Am I conscious of this?
26:30 Q: From moment to moment.
26:32 K: No, just look, now, sir, not moment… Now, if I have an image, why has this image been put together? And who is it that has put the image together? You understand the question? Why is it that there is an image and who is it that has put it there? Who is the creator of these images? Let us begin with that. I have an image about you. How has that image been born? How has it come into being? Look...
27:51 Q: Is it experience and imaginary...
27:56 K: Experience, imagination and…
28:00 Q: Previous images have created further images through lack of attention.
28:07 K: How has it come? That’s not through lack of something, but how does come? You say through experience, through various incidents, through words.
28:23 Q: Retaining it all as memory.
28:26 K: Which is all the movement of thought, isn’t it? No? So thought as movement, which is time, put this image, created this image. It does it because it wants to protect itself. Right? Am I inventing or fabricating this, or is this actual?
29:05 Q: Actual.
29:06 K: Actual. That means ‘what is’. Actuality means ‘what is’. Sorry, I am not teaching you English.
29:19 Q: It means that it then can see itself.
29:21 K: No; no sir, just... You have an image about me, haven’t you?
29:32 Q: Well, it is changing.
29:37 K: Wait, wait. Go slow. You have an image about me, haven’t you? If you are honest, look into yourself, you see you have an image. How has that image been brought about? You have read something, you have listened to something, there is a reputation, a lot of talk about it, some articles in the papers, and so on and so on and so on. So all this has influenced the thought, and out of that you have created an image. And you have an image, not only about yourself but about the other. So when you respond according to an image about the speaker, you are responding inaccurately; in that there is no care. We said care implies attention, affection, accuracy; that means to act according to ‘what is’. Now, let’s move from there.
31:09 Q: Is not an image a thought-form?
31:12 K: We said that sir, a thought.
31:15 Q: Then when you say that thought has created images, it seems to imply, sir, that thought has created thought so it doesn’t...
31:25 K: Wait, sir, just hold a minute, we will get very far if we go slowly. So thought has built this image through time. It may be one day or fifty years. And I see in my relationship to another, this image plays a tremendous part; if I become conscious, if I don’t act mechanically, I become aware and see how extraordinarily vital this image is. Then my next question is: is it possible to be free of the image? I have the image as a communist, believing in all kinds of ideas, or a Catholic... You follow? It is not just an image but this whole cultural, economic, social thing has built this image also. And I react according to... there is a reaction according to that image. I think this is clear. May we go on from there?
32:55 Now, is one aware of it? Then one asks: is it necessary? If it is necessary, one should keep it, one should have the image. If it is not necessary, how is one to be free of it? Right? Now, is it necessary?
33:24 Q: These images, they form the whole chaos in our world where we live, so we see it is not necessary.
33:33 K: He says this whole image-making is bringing about chaos in the world – the image as a Hindu, as a Buddhist, as a communist, as a Mao, as a Trotskyite, as a Catholic, as a Protestant – good God. You understand?
33:59 Q: Doesn’t it imply making a lot of judgements?
34:03 K: Are we making a lot of judgement?
34:05 Q: In making an image, there is a lot of judgements.
34:09 K: Yes, but we are asking a little more. We are saying, asking whether it is necessary to have these images?
34:16 Q: No, and we can be free of it.
34:19 K: Wait! Is it necessary? First let us see.
34:22 Q: No.
34:25 K: Then if it is not necessary, why do we keep it?
34:31 Q: I have a feeling, being what we are, we can hardly help...
34:38 K: We are going to find out whether it is possible to be free of this image, and whether it is worthwhile to be free of this image, and what does it mean to be free of the image.
34:53 Q: What is the relation with the chaos? Is it judging that chaos is wrong?
35:01 K: No; no sir.
35:03 Q: What is it?
35:04 K: Look, I have an image about myself as a communist, and I believe in Marx, his economic principles. I am strongly committed to that, and I reject everything else. But you think differently and you are committed to that, so there is a division between you and me, and that division invariably brings conflict. Wait, go slowly. I believe that I am an Indian and I am committed to Indian nationalism, and you are committed to whatever you are, Muslim, and there is a division and there is conflict.
36:05 Q: Krishnaji...
36:07 K: So – wait, let me... slowly – so thought has created this division, thought has created these images, these labels, these beliefs and so there is contradiction, division, which brings conflict and therefore chaos.
36:29 Q: It’s a fact.
36:30 K: That is a fact. Now, wait a minute. That is a fact. So if you think life is a process of infinite conflicts, never-ending conflict, then you must keep these images. Wait. What?
36:50 Q: Who says?
36:51 K: I don’t say it, we are asking it, sir. All our wars – I believe there have been five thousand wars within the last two thousand years, more, five thousand years, and we have accepted that: to have our sons killed – you know? – the whole business, because we have these images. And if we say that is not necessary, it is really a tremendous danger to survival, to physical survival, then I must find out how to be free of the images. Right?
37:45 Q: I think something else is involved in that because you say we always react from the past but what difference you will make... the past is a cyclic phenomenon that repeats so you prevent yourself, you know it is a fact that it will be repeated in the same way all the time.
38:02 K: Yes, sir, but we are talking about the necessity...
38:08 Q: You prevent yourself...
38:10 K: We are talking about the necessity of having an image, or not having an image. If we are clear that these images are a real danger, real destructive processes, then we want to get rid of them. But if you say, ‘Well, I’ll keep my little image and you keep your little image’, then we are at each other’s throat. So if we see very clearly that these images, labels, words are destroying human beings...
38:48 Q: Krishnamurti...
38:49 K: Oh...
38:51 Q:...doesn’t spiritual commitment give a power of penetration, the channeling of energy? I mean, if I am a committed Buddhist and I channel my energy into that direction, it doesn’t necessarily mean I am in conflict with those that aren’t...
39:06 K: If I am a committed Buddhist, it does not necessarily mean I am in conflict with another. Right? Just examine that, please.
39:19 If I am a committed human being to Buddhism and another is committed equally to the Christian dogma, and another equally committed to communism...
39:40 Q: That is not my concern...
39:41 K: Ah, wait...
39:42 Q:...your challenge when you are committing...
39:46 K: Isn’t this what is happening in life? Don’t say, ‘It is not my business if you are a communist’. It is my business to see if we can live in security, in peace in the world; we are human beings, supposed to be intelligent. Why should I be committed to anything?
40:11 Q: Because it gives a penetration of the energies; it gives the power of penetration.
40:22 K: So let’s go on.
40:25 Q: The danger which is...
40:27 K: Yes.
40:28 Q: And I see that we are moving away from that fact.
40:31 K: What, sir?
40:32 Q: I see that we are moving...
40:33 K: Yes, that’s all I am saying. We are always moving away from the central fact.
40:37 Q: But are you doing that right now, when you say – you know? – ‘Is it necessary to have the image...?’
40:41 K: No, but you may think it is necessary; people think it is necessary to be an Englishman, to be a German, to be a Hindu – follow? – or a Catholic, they think it is important. They don’t see the danger of it.
41:01 Q: But some people think it is not important.
41:03 K: Let’s...
41:07 Q: Why don’t you see the danger?
41:11 K: Why don’t I see the danger. Because I am so heavily conditioned; it is so profitable, my job depends on it. I might not be able to marry my son to somebody else, who is a Catholic – all that stuff. You don’t have to… So the point is: if one sees the danger of these images, then how can the mind free itself from these images? That is the next question. Can we go on from there? For the love…
42:07 Q: Can I be aware when a new image is formed?
42:11 K: Ah, images, whether they are old or new, are the same images.
42:18 Q: Yes, but when an image is formed, can I be aware...
42:21 K: We are first of all going to go into that. How is an image formed? Is it formed through inattention? When I am not paying attention, the image is formed. You get angry with me, and if I am at that moment totally attentive to what you say, there is no anger. I wonder if you realise this.
43:05 Q: So the image and the image-former must be the same in that case.
43:10 K: Sir, look. Keep it very simple. I say something that doesn’t give you pleasure. You have an image instantly, haven’t you?
43:25 Q: Yes.
43:27 K: Now, at that moment, if you are completely aware, is there an image?
43:36 Q: If you mean that you are not trying to neutralise what has been said to you.
43:40 K: That’s right, call it any way, sir, neutralise, or liquidate or any word.
43:48 Q: And if you don’t have that new image, all the other images are gone.
43:52 K: Yes, therefore... that is the whole point, sir. Can one be attentive at the moment of listening? You understand? You are listening now, can you be totally attentive, so that when you call me a name, not a pleasant name, or give me pleasure, at that moment, that is, in exchange... at that precise moment, to be totally aware? Have you ever tried this? You can test it out, because that is the only way to find out, not accept the speaker’s words. You can test it out. Then if there is no image-forming, and therefore no image, then what is the relationship between the two? 45:04 You understand? I wonder if you follow all this. You have no image about me, but I have an image about you, then what is your relationship to me? You...? You are following this question? You have no image because you see the danger of it, but I don’t see the danger of it; I have my images and you are related to me, I am your wife, husband, father, whatever it is, girl, boy, all the rest of it. I have the image and you have not. Then what is your relationship to me? And what is my relationship to you?
45:51 Q: There is a barrier somewhere.
45:53 K: No... Of course, there is a barrier. But we are saying what is that relationship.
45:58 Q: There is no relationship.
46:08 K: You are my wife – my God! – and I am very ambitious, greedy, envious, I want to succeed in this world, make a lot of money, position, prestige, and you say, ‘How absurd all that is; don’t be like that, don’t be silly, don’t be traditional, don’t be mechanical, that is just the old pattern being repeated’. What happens between you and me?
46:40 Q: I help you.
46:41 Q: Division.
46:42 K: And we talk together about love. I go off to the office where I am brutal, ambitious, ruthless, and I come home and be very pleasant to you, because I want to sleep with you. What is the relationship?
47:03 Q: No good.
47:04 K: No, no, is...
47:05 Q: There is no relationship.
47:08 K: Is there any relationship at all?
47:10 Q: No.
47:13 K: At last. For God’s sake! And yet this is what we call love.
47:26 So what is our relationship, between you and me? I have an image and you have no image. Either you leave me or we live in conflict. You don’t create conflict but I create conflict, because I have an image. So is it possible in our relationship with each other to help each other to be free of images? You understand my question? I am related to you by some misfortune sexual demands, glands frightfully active, and so on and so on and so on, I am related to you, and you are free and I am not, of the images, and therefore you care infinitely. You follow? I wonder if you see that? To you this is tremendously important to be free of images, and I am your father, wife, husband, whatever it is, Then will you abandon me?
48:56 Q: No.
49:01 K: Ah, don’t say no so easily. Because you care, you have affection, you feel totally differently. So what will you do with me? Drown me? Hold hands?
49:25 Q: Try to make you see.
49:27 K: Ah?
49:28 Q: There is nothing you can do.
49:29 K: Why can’t you do something with me? Do go into it, sir, don’t theorise about it. You are all in that position! Life is this.
49:37 Q: Sir, it depends if the person has got the capacity to see what the truth of any matter is.
49:43 K: This is the truth – you have none and I have.
49:49 Q: See through it all and don’t take any notice of it.
49:56 K: When I am nagging you all the time? Ah, you people just play with words; you don’t take actuality and look at it.
50:08 Q: Surely, if you have no image in yourself and you look at another person, you won’t see their image either, you won’t think of them as having an image anyway.
50:21 K: I can’t hear, sir.
50:23 Q: If you have no image, you won’t see that image in the other person.
50:28 K: Oh goodness! No, what are…
50:31 Q: I didn’t say it, some...
50:32 K: Ah, yes. If I have no image, I see very clearly that you have an image.
50:57 Q: Sir, perhaps you could...
51:00 K: What will you...? Look, this is happening in the world, this is happening in every family, in every situation in relationship: you have something free and I am not, and the battle is between us.
51:18 Q: When there is nothing else...
51:19 Q: Facing that all day.
51:21 K: What, sir?
51:22 Q: Facing that situation every day.
51:23 K: That is what I am saying. What do you do? Just drop it and disappear, become a monk? Form a community? Go off to meditation and all the rest of it? Here is a tremendous problem.
51:42 Q: I tell you how I feel, first of all.
51:46 Q: But surely this is speculation because we have got images, we are trying to imagine...
51:51 K: I have said that, madame; if you have an image and I have an image, then we live very peacefully because we are both blind and we don’t care.
52:07 Q: That situation you have created for us because you want us to be free of the images.
52:13 K: Of course, of course I want you to be free of images because otherwise we are going to destroy the world.
52:19 Q: Of course, we are agree then. No, but you create for us that situation.
52:24 Q: Maybe do what we are doing now here, trying to do something...
52:29 Q: Because the others don’t have images.
52:36 K: We are not creating the situation for you. It is there. Look at it.
52:42 Q: Yes, I was joking.
52:44 Q: I have an image about you, and I have had it for a long time, and that’s a different kinds of images. I have been trying to get rid of that image or images because I have felt that they have created problems for me. Now, every time I try to work it out with you and I have been trying a couple of times; it hasn’t helped...
53:14 K: I am going to show you... I’ll show you, sir, how to get rid of it, how to be free of images.
53:21 Q: I don’t believe you.
53:22 K: Then don’t believe me; I am not asking...
53:26 Q: All the time you are sitting there talking...
53:28 K: I am not asking you...
53:29 Q:...abstractions and abstractions...
53:31 K: Sir, you see…
53:33 Q:...me having an image about you means that you are sitting up on a platform being an enlightened person. I am here as a listener, let’s say a disciple or a pupil. Now, I feel very strongly that is really not actuality or reality because we are two human beings, but still you are the guru, you are the king of gurus...
54:05 Q:...you are the one who knows and...
54:12 K: Yes, sir... Don’t... please, sir, be quiet; he is telling you something, please listen! May I, sir? You have said...
54:25 Q: No relationship.
54:26 K: I’ll show you something. Please, do sit down. I’ll show you something.
54:37 If that image of the guru has not created a problem, you would live with that guru happily. Right?
54:48 Q: Yes.
54:51 K: But it has created a problem, whether it is the guru, whether the wife, husband, it is the same thing. Now, how am I, how is one, or you who have got the image about the speaker as the supreme guru... Talking about gurus, the word means one who dispels ignorance, one who dispels the ignorance of another. That is one of the meanings. But generally the gurus impose their ignorance on you. This is a fact. Now, we won’t go into what... the whole business of the gurus.
56:06 You have an image about me as the guru, or you have an image about another as a Christian, and so on and so on and so on. First of all, if that pleases you, if that gives you satisfaction, you will hold it. Right? That is simple enough. If it causes trouble, then you say, ‘My God, it is terrible to have this’ and you move away and form another guru, another relationship which is pleasant, but it is the same image-making. Right? So one asks: is it possible to be free of images? The speaker sits on the platform because it is convenient, because you can all see; I can equally sit on the ground but you will have the same image. Right? So the height doesn’t make any difference.
57:25 So the question is, please, whether the mind, mind being part of thought, and thought has created these images, can thought dispel these images? You understand? That is the first question. Thought has created it, and thought can dispel it because it is unsatisfactory, and create another image which will be satisfactory. This is what we do: I don’t like that guru for various reasons, because he stinks, or I don’t like that guru, I go to another because he praises me, gives me a garland and says, ‘My dear chap, you are the best disciple I have’. And so on and so on and so on. So thought has created this image. Can thought undo the image?
58:35 Q: Not if you are looking at it intellectually, because if you are looking at it intellectually, you are not using your senses.
58:42 K: I am asking that, sir, first, look at it. Can the intellect, intellection, dispel the image?
58:52 Q: No.
58:53 K: Then what will?
58:55 Q: The response.
58:57 Q: Because the thing that stands in you, in the way you are talking about is merely self, the I...
59:03 K: No, sir. I know, but I don’t want to go into the much more complex problem of the ‘I’.
59:09 Q: You are saying the image...
59:11 K: Ah?
59:12 Q: The image.
59:12 Q: You mean, presumably, the image is what he means by the ‘I’.
59:16 K: Of course; of course. How do I... how does thought get rid of the image without creating another image?
59:29 Q: It feels uncomfortable perhaps with the image if the guru causes trouble, so if one can see the trouble and the discomfort, then perhaps that guru can help – yes?
59:44 K: You are not, sir, you are not going into it at all; you are just scratching on the surface.
59:49 Q: Thought cannot get rid of the image.
59:53 K: If that is so, if thought cannot get rid of the image, then what will?
1:00:01 Q: Understanding...
1:00:03 K: No, don’t use words like ‘understanding’. What do you mean by understanding?
1:00:12 Q: Getting rid of the thought can get rid of.
1:00:15 K: Getting rid of thought. Now, who is going to get rid of thought?
1:00:23 Q: Is it a question of time? Could it be a question that our images are all based in the past, whereas we should be... now.
1:00:32 K: Yes, how am I... as all the images are in the past, why can’t I drop all that and live in now.
1:00:43 Q: That is what I meant.
1:00:44 K: Right?
1:00:46 Q: Yes, that’s what I meant.
1:00:47 K: Yes.
1:00:48 How can I, with a burden of the past? How do I get rid of the burden? It comes to the same thing.
1:00:59 Q: Sir, if one lives in the present, do the past images still come to you?
1:01:05 K: If I live in the present, will the past images come. Can you live in the present? Do you know what it means to live in the present? That means not a single memory except technological memories, not a single breath of the past; and therefore you have to understand the totality of the past, which is all this memory, experience, knowledge, imaginations, images – you...? – which is the past. I am asking, that’s what... you don’t… you go off from one thing to another, you don’t pursue steadily one thing.
1:01:58 Q: Please keep on going with one having an image and the other having no image.
1:02:05 K: We have been through that, sir.
1:02:08 Q: Yes, but we didn’t answer it; we didn’t answer it because...
1:02:12 K: I’ll answer it, all right, if you want it. You have no image and I have an image. I want you to be the richest man, I want you to be... etc., etc. I have got an image and you haven’t; and I live with you – what happens? Aren’t we eternally at war with each other? No? What?
1:02:45 Q: Yes, but I can’t drown him, like you pointed out, I can’t drown him.
1:02:50 K: No, you can’t drown me.
1:02:52 Q: What am I going to do with...?
1:02:54 K: I am going to go into it.
1:02:55 Q:...by the image of the other.
1:03:00 K: I have an image and you haven’t. We are living on the same earth, in the same house, meeting often, living in the same community, what will you do with me?
1:03:18 Q: I would try to explain to him what...
1:03:21 K: Yes, you have explained it to me, but I like my image.
1:03:26 Q: Yes.
1:03:31 Q: Sir, we cannot know because we have these images ourselves...
1:03:35 K: That is what I am... that is all I am saying.
1:03:37 That is all I am saying. You are living in images and you don’t know how to be free of it. And these are all speculative questions.
1:03:50 So let’s begin again. Are you aware that you have images? If you have those images that are pleasant and you cling to them, and discard those which are unpleasant, you have still images. Right? Then the question is really: can you be free of them?
1:04:22 Q: Go and listen to music.
1:04:25 K: Go and listen to music. The moment that music stops you are back to your images. No, this is all so childish Take drugs, that also creates various images.
1:04:42 Q: Where is the division between wanting to hold on to the images and wanting to let go of these?
1:04:51 K: Wanting to hold on to images and to let them go. What is the line, the division? The division is desire, isn’t it? Listen, sir, listen. Listen. Desire, isn’t it? I don’t like that image, I am going to let it go, but I like this image, I am going to hold on to it. So it is desire, isn’t it?
1:05:26 Q: Sir, I feel that there is a pleasure motive even in coming to listen...
1:05:30 K: Of course, sir. You go off to… You don’t stick to one thing, sir.
1:05:37 Q: If I have no image, so the other person will get no image at all.
1:05:49 K: If I have no image, the other person has no image at all. How inaccurate that is. Because I am blind, therefore you are also blind. Don’t, please. This is so illogical. Do think clearly. Let’s go into this. We go back and… Too bad. How do I... what are the activities, what should I do so that there is no image-forming at all? May I talk a few minutes? Will you listen to it? Not cross… – you know? – let us think together.
1:06:46 Q: Sir, I think most people are – I am sorry – I think most people in this place are looking, in your words, for consolation, rather than any other; I mean, it all gets such a bore really because the same words get used over and over again, and everybody is looking like a load of zombies.
1:07:16 K: I am aware that I have images; aware being, I am conscious, I know; there is no question of it, I know I have images. Right? I am an Englishman, Dutchman, or a Hindu, a Buddhist, Catholic, communist, all the rest of it; I have an image about myself and I have an image about you. That is very clear. If I am satisfied with... both you and I have the same image, then we are satisfied. That is, if you think as I think: you like to be ambitious, I like to be ambitious, then we are both in the same boat, we won’t quarrel; we accept it, and we live together, work together, be ruthlessly ambitious. 1:08:26 But if you are free of the image of ambition and all the rest of it, and I am not, the trouble begins. What then will you do, who are free of that image, with me? You can’t just say, ‘Well, it is not my business’, because we are living together, we are in the same world, in the same community, in the same group, and so on. What will you do with me? Please listen to this. Will you discard me, will you turn your back on me, will you run away from me, will you join a monastery, learn how to meditate, do all kinds of things in order to avoid me? 1:09:19 Or, you say, ‘Yes, he is here’ – right? – he is in my house. What shall I do? Wait, wait, sir. What shall I do? What will he do with regard to me, who has an image?
1:09:45 Q: First, I would ask you politely to listen.
1:09:55 K: But I won’t listen. You people just... Sir, haven’t you lived with people who are adamant in their beliefs? You are like that. You are so...
1:10:09 Q: It is best not to waste one’s time.
1:10:11 K: We are going to find out, sir. You see, this is really a hypothetical question because you have got images and you live in those images, and the other person lives in those images. That is our difficulty. Suppose I have no images – and I haven’t, I have worked at this for fifty years, so I have no image about myself, or about you – what is our relationship? I say please listen to me, but you won’t. I say please pay attention, which means care, to attend means infinite care. Will you listen to me that way? That means you really want to learn – right? – 1:11:29 learn, not from me, but learn about yourself. That means that you must infinitely care about yourself; not selfishly, care to learn about yourself – right? not according to me, or to Freud, or to Jung, or to some latest psychologist, learn about yourself. That means, watch yourself and you can only do that in your relationship with each other. When you say, ‘You sitting on that platform, you have gradually assumed, at least in my eyes, a position of authority, you have become my guru’. And I say to you, ‘My friend, just listen. I’m not your guru. I won’t be a guru to anybody. 1:12:50 It is monstrous to be a guru’. Therefore it means... please, are you listening when I say this, or you say, ‘I can’t listen to you because my mind is wandering’. You follow all this? So when you listen, you listen with care, with affection, with attention; then you begin to learn about yourself, actually as you are. Then from there we can move, we can go forward, but if you don’t do that, keep on repeating, ‘Oh, I have got my image, I don’t know how to get rid of it’, and so on and so on, then we don’t move any further. Right?
1:13:53 Now, you have an image with regard to sex, that you must have a girl, or a boy, you must be a Christian – you follow? it is so conditioned we are. Now I say to you, please listen, are you aware that you are conditioned? Aware. Don’t choose parts of the conditioning. Right? Totally aware of your whole conditioning. One will explain what it means to be totally aware of one’s conditioning, not only at the conscious level but the... deeper levels. Right? We are conditioned much more at the deeper levels than at the superficial levels. 1:14:54 Right? Is that clear? One is conditioned very deeply, and superficially less. Now, can the mind – are you listening? – listening with your heart, not with your little mind; with your mind, with your heart, with your whole of your being; then is it possible to be totally aware of all this, the whole of consciousness? You follow? To be totally aware implies no observer; the observer is the past and therefore when he observes, he brings about fragmentation. This is clear, isn’t it? When I observe anything, trees, mountains, you, my wife, my husband, my children, my neighbour, and the politicians, when I observe from the past, what I observe brings about a fragmentary outlook. 1:16:31 Right? I only see parts, I don’t see the whole. So I realise that; I see when I observe from the past, there must be a fragmented outlook. Right? This is simple. So I have an insight that says don’t look from the past. That means, don’t have an observer who is all the time judging, evaluating, saying this is right, this is wrong, I am a Christian, I am a communist – you follow? – all that is the past. Now, can you listen to that, which is a fact, which is actual, which is not theoretical. So you are facing actually what is. 1:17:32 Are you? Facing in yourself what actually is going on. And can you observe another without the past, without all the accumulated memory, insults, hurts, so that you can look at another with clear eyes? If you say, ‘I don’t know how to do it’, then we can go into that.
1:18:33 As we said, any form of authority in this matter is the reaction of submission to somebody who says he knows. That is your image. The professor, the teacher knows mathematics, I don’t, so I learn from him, so gradually he becomes my authority. He knows, I don’t know – mathematics, geography and all the rest of it. But here, psychologically, I think I don’t know how to approach myself, how to learn about it, therefore I look to another – the same process. But the other is equally ignorant as me, because he doesn’t know himself. He is traditional bound, he accepts obedience, he becomes the authority, he says he knows and, ‘My dear chap you don’t know, become my disciple and I will tell you’ – the same process. 1:19:53 But it is not the same process psychologically. Psychologically, the guru is me. I wonder if you see that. He is as ignorant as myself. He has got a lot of Sanskrit words, a lot of ideas, a lot of superstitions, and I am so gullible I accept him. Here we say there is no authority, no guru; you have to learn about yourself, and to learn about yourself, watch yourself, how you behave with another, how you... – you follow? – then you find that you have an image about yourself, a tremendous image. And you see these images create great harm, they break up the world. Right? 1:21:03 The Krishna conscious group, the Transcendental muck group, and some other group – you follow? – and your own group. You have your own ideas, you must have sex, you must have a girl, you must have a boy, and all the rest of it, change the girls, change the boys, every week. And you live like that. And you don’t see the tremendous danger and wastage of life. Right? Can we move from there?
1:21:46 Now, we come to the point: how am I to be free of all image-making? That is the real question. Is it possible? So I will not say it is or it is not; I am going to find out. I am going to find out by carefully watching why images are made. I realise images are made when the mind is not giving its attention at the moment something is said. Right? At the moment of something that is said that gives pleasure, something that is said which brings about displeasure, to be aware at that moment, not afterwards. 1:22:51 But we become aware afterwards and say, ‘My God, I must pay attention; terrible; I see it is important to be attentive but I don’t know how to be attentive’, and I lose it and when the thing takes place, it is so quick, and I say to myself, ‘I must be attentive’. So I beat myself into being attentive. Right? I wonder if you see this. And therefore I am never attentive. So I say to myself, ‘I am not attentive at the moment something is said’, which gives pleasure or pain. 1:23:37 And I see why... and I see that I am inattentive. You understand? I wonder if you see this. I have found that my whole mind, make-up is inattentive, to the birds, to nature, to every... I am inattentive. When I walk, when I eat, when I speak, I am inattentive. So I say to myself, ‘I am not going to be concerned with attention, but pay attention to inattention’. You understand what I am saying? I wonder... please, do you get this?
1:24:15 Q: Yes.
1:24:18 K: I am not going to be concerned with being attentive, but I am going to see what is inattention; and I am watching inattention – you understand? – and I see I am inattentive most of the time. So I am going to pay attention to one thing at a time, that is, when I walk, when I eat, I am going to eat with attention.
1:25:01 I am not going to think about something else – you understand? – I am going to pay attention to every little thing. So what has been inattention becomes attention. I wonder if you see that. Phew!
1:25:30 Q: By fragmentation you mean choice?
1:25:33 K: No. Fragment means breaking up, broken up.
1:25:40 Q: I mean by fragmentation you mean choice?
1:25:43 K: No, sir. Fragmented, frammentare, fragment. Sir, is not thought a fragment? Or is thought the whole? There is a fragmentation taking place when I have an image and you have an image. In that relationship... that relationship is broken up, fragmented, it is not whole. Well...
1:26:37 So I am now paying, watching inattention. That is, I am watching I am not attentive. I look at a bird and never look at it, my thoughts are all... I am now going to look at that bird, it may take me a second but I am going to look at it. When I walk, I am going to watch it, so that out of inattention without any effort, there is total attention. You understand what...? So when there is total attention, when you say something pleasant, there is no image forming, or unpleasant, there is no image forming because I am totally there. 1:27:38 My whole mind, heart, brain, all the responses are completely awake and attentive. Sir, aren’t you very attentive when you are pursuing pleasure? You don’t have to talk about attention, you want that pleasure. Sexually, when you want it, you are tremendously attentive, aren’t you? And attention implies a mind that is completely awake, which means it doesn’t demand challenge. It is only when we have images, challenges come. I wonder if you see this. And because of those images, challenge comes and you respond to the challenge inadequately, therefore there is constant battle between challenge and response, which means the increase of images and the more it’s increased, more challenges come, and so there is always the strengthening of images. 1:29:11 I wonder if you see this. Haven’t you noticed people when they are challenged about their Catholicism or whatever it is, they become more strong in their…
1:29:29 So by being completely attentive, there is no image-formation, which means conditioning disappears. Right.
1:29:48 Q: It’s five past one.
1:29:50 K: It’s five past one – lunchtime.
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