ML70DSG2 - Can the brain operate without recourse to the past? home
Malibu, California - 22 February 1970
Discussion with Small Group 2

Text-only version

0:00 This is the second small group discussion with J. Krishnamurti in Malibu, California, 1970.
0:10 Krishnamurti: Shall we go on with where we left off yesterday? We were considering why human beings always compare themselves with something greater or identify themselves with something nobler or pursue some ideological fancy or mythology, and always this gap between what they are and what they should be, and the comparison between ‘what is’ and ‘what should be’. I wonder if you have thought any more about the matter and what you consider or see, the absolute truth of it. 1:27 Not some ideological explanation but the actual truth of something. Can we go on? That’s what we came up to yesterday and shall we go on with that? We said, why do we compare? In the field of the known there must be comparison. No? You accept that? It’s still within the field of the known. The additive process of knowledge is technology. No? In that there is progress: from the wheel to the jet. There’s definitely progress, going to the moon, and so on, so on, technologically. 2:54 And psychologically, the more is always comparative, the better. And to us there is a psychological progress also, through comparison. Right? Is that a fact? I was something yesterday. Through the process of living that of yesterday through today, it has been certainly modified, somewhat changed, added or subtracted, taken away, and so there is a future. Which is still within the same pattern as of yesterday, which is self-improvement.
4:05 Q: Which we call self-improvement.
4:06 K: Which we call self-improvement – quite right. Which is called self-improvement. And what? That is an endless and rather infantile process: improving myself all the time, getting more and more refined, more and more subtle in my egotistic pursuits and activities. No? And what validity has such an activity? The more I am. Right? The ‘I am’ is the bundle of all my anxieties, fears, despairs, guilt, all that. That’s what I am. And the refinement of that is still the refined fear, refined anxiety, refined butchery, refined... and so on, so on, activity. That’s what we call self-improvement. And therefore it’s a constant battle, constant striving, constant adjustment, constant conflict and a contradiction. Right?
6:10 Q: Well, in this instance ‘I am’ is really what I think I am.
6:14 K: No, but I mean, when I say ‘I am’ – I am God, I am Mr K or I’m Mr somebody or other – the very assertion ‘I am’ is still within the field of the known.
6:30 Q: Where is the contradiction?
6:32 K: The contradiction? Between what I am and what I should be.
6:36 Q: I see.
6:38 K: I was something yesterday, I must be different tomorrow. I have a little more property, I must have a little more property. The same outward movement is turned inwardly – the more bathrooms, the more virtuous. Sorry!
7:10 Q: Is image the ‘should be’? Is the image one has of oneself the ‘should be’?
7:14 K: Yes, the image. Yes, that’s right.
7:16 Q: Also the image of what one thinks one is.
7:23 K: I mean, does one realise the absurdity of such an activity? This whole idea of self-improvement, which religions throughout have preached, except one or two. Become more sensitive – you follow? What do I do with such a movement which I’ve accepted, which has become almost instinctive? What do I do with it?
8:10 Q: Throw it away.
8:12 K: How do I throw it away? And who is it that is to throw it away? No, no, this is really a very complex question, don’t…
8:23 Q: But you’re the only one that can throw it away.
8:25 K: No, look, sir, I’ve been brought up, as most of us, in this idea of self-improvement and self-progressive improvement. Right? And when one examines it closely one finds there is a great deal of hypocrisy in it. No? I am and I should be. The ‘should be’ is an idea, not factual. ‘I am’ is also an idea, not factual. I’m pretending to be different from what I am. I put on masks, facades and so on. In this self-improvement activity there is hypocrisy, contradiction, conflict and perpetuation of my misery. Right? Now, how does one drop it entirely, this whole movement? I may not want to drop it, because we are accustomed to it.
10:02 Q: We may not be able to.
10:04 K: No, first – not ‘be able to’ – do we see what is involved in self-improvement? I mean, the artist who says, ‘I’ll paint a better picture tomorrow’, is not an artist, is he? Why should the artist be different from me, when I say I’ll be better tomorrow? I don’t know if you’re meeting my point. Do I, not theoretically, not verbally, but actually see the involvement, the various forms of hypocrisy, self-deception and contradictions that exist in this self-improvement activity?
11:25 Q: But how does one know that these contradictions that we call self-improvement isn’t what you are?
11:32 K: Go into it, sir. Go into it. Think it out, sir.
11:37 Q: In other words, if I compare myself, how can I just say that that isn’t ‘what is’?
11:47 K: Can you ever say ‘what is’? Can you ever say ‘I am’?
11:53 Q: By saying it.
11:54 K: No. I mean, it is irrational to say, ‘I am’. Irrational to say I’m a Hindu or an American. Because the ‘I am’ is a living thing, a moving thing, it’s changing, a vital thing. You can’t fix it and say, ‘I am’.
12:15 Q: It may be irrational but that’s what you are. And to say that you want to be something else is comparative.
12:21 K: No, sir, look at it, sir. ‘I am everlastingly God’. Such an absurd idea, the whole thing.
12:30 Q: ‘God is everlasting in me’.
12:43 K: Do I see it in the sense I see the danger – danger involved in this whole psychological process of self-improvement? If I don’t see the danger, I can’t drop it. And what happens if there is no self-improvement?
13:33 Q: Well, isn’t there a self-progress anyway, regardless?
13:36 K: Is there self-progress? What do you mean ‘progress’? And what do you mean by the word ‘self’? You know, sir, these are terribly – you know? – this is not just a trick question. It is tremendously important to find this out. To live differently, to live happily, to live ecstatically, this must be solved. You follow what I mean? Otherwise one just goes round moaning, wasting one’s life.
14:08 Q: If two years ago I was incredibly unhappy, leading a certain type of life, and if in that period that my type of life altered, my point of view changed so that two years later I find myself immensely happier, is that considered self- improvement?
14:42 K: It all depends, sir. I don’t know. I mean, after all – I’m not being personal and therefore we can’t... – does one deliberately set about to improve?
14:55 Q: Some do.
14:59 K: I wonder how...
15:00 Q: That would inner conflict.
15:02 Q: The purpose?
15:04 K: That would be in conflict, he said.
15:10 Q: But this is part of.. The conflict is that when you see, you see in the past that possibly you have changed and you haven’t tried to change but you see you’ve changed, therefore sometimes we leave at the time to change again. You see? It’s what he was saying. He was saying if you back two years ago, you see that in two years, whether you tried or not, you improved in some way, you felt better or…
15:40 Q: I changed. But the improvement comes as a…
15:43 Q: It’s a judgment.
15:45 Q: Well, I did change. I did change. I altered somehow. I didn’t change.
16:01 K: Sir, shall we go step by step into it? Because it is a very complex question. You can’t just make statements. You know what I mean? And then fight over a certain formula. What changes? Does the self change, ‘me’ change?
16:28 Q: The image of myself changes.
16:32 K: The image of myself? What image have I about myself? Why should I have an image about myself at all?
16:44 Q: Well, your awareness can change.
16:48 K: No, no. We’ll have to begin...
16:55 Q: Is intelligence considered part of the self, or an action of self? Or is action of self separate from yourself? In other words, you can gain intelligence or improve intelligence, as it were. Would that be change?
17:10 K: Is intelligence a matter of cultivation?
17:16 Q: Cultivation? That to me means something that you decide upon.
17:21 K: Cultivate, like you cultivate a plant, a culture, by caring for it, working at it. Is intelligence a matter of time, progress, cultivation?
17:34 Q: No.
17:36 K: No, no, don’t say… Sir, go, inquire into it, explore into it.
17:41 Q: Here I am inquiring and exploring into it.
17:51 K: You see? Now, let’s start all over again. All that one is aware of is conflict. Right? Conflict which has been brought about through pleasure, through pain, through comparison, through contradiction. I am aware of conflict. Right? That’s all. We can start from that. All human beings – it’s a vast generalisation but true I think – all human beings are in conflict in one way or another, deeply, superficially, insoluble conflicts. 18:53 Now, what is the source of this conflict? Why am I in conflict? I have accepted it as the way of life. Right? I don’t want to live a way of life in which there’s conflict. Why should I? So I must find out why there is conflict in me. Right? Why? Go on, sirs, don’t let me talk all the time. Let’s push together. Why?
19:39 Q: One reason is because we compare.
19:43 K: We said: I compare. Why do I compare?
19:49 Q: I have no knowledge of myself.
19:51 K: No, sir. Why do I compare? Why should I compare myself with you or with somebody? What for? What a stupid thing to do! Why do I do it?
20:01 Q: That was our conclusion yesterday, it is stupid.
20:05 K: Not a conclusion. Then you’re already caught. If you come to a conclusion, it’s already a block. Haven’t you? Because that prevents you from moving further. No, we are inquiring – please, let’s go together in this step by step – there is conflict; why? We said comparison. Is that the only thing? I’m in conflict not only within myself but with my neighbour, with my government, with my culture, with everything around me, with the environment. I’m in conflict with everything because in myself I’m in conflict. Right? So, I want to see, I want to understand it, I want to go into it and see if it is possible to dissolve it.
21:18 Q: Isn’t that the analytical approach, finding the possibility to dissolve it?
21:22 K: No, it’s not an analytical approach. I just look. I want to find out. I’m looking. I don’t…
21:28 Q: So you can dissolve it.
21:29 K: I’m inquiring, sir, I’m inquiring. I don’t say it is impossible, not possible, I don’t know. I want to find out why I live in conflict.
21:53 Q: Conflict is a basic part of the structure of my brain.
21:56 K: Is it? Brain demands absolute security to function efficiently. No? You are all…
22:18 Q: Security is a very dirty word. The brain demands security to function?
22:22 K: Of course.
22:23 Q: Security of the temple or the body?
22:25 K: Complete safety.
22:27 Q: Security of ideas?
22:29 K: No, wait. Look at it. First see, to function properly, you must be secure. To function properly, you must have food, a shelter, clothing. You follow? Not say, ‘Well, I don’t know where I’m going to get my next meal’ – you can’t function properly. In the same way, the brain needs complete security to function properly. It can find security in neuroticism. It can find security in a belief or in an idea or in a formula, but it is still seeking security to function properly. I mean this is…
23:16 Q: This is biologically so?
23:18 K: I don’t have to ask a biologist, I can see it in myself. I can see…
23:26 Q: It isn’t an idea, it’s a fact.
23:27 K: It’s a fact.
23:28 Q: A fact that I need…
23:29 K: Yes, it’s a fact that the brain can only function efficiently, without any distortion, only when it is completely secure, protected, safe.
23:43 Q: It seems so, based on my own personal experience striving to be...
23:48 K: One can see this in the world.
23:53 Q: That doesn’t sound right.
24:00 K: What doesn’t sound right?
24:01 Q: That the brain must be secure in order to function properly.
24:04 K: Of course. Can you function properly if there is any form of disturbance all the time?
24:13 Q: What’s ‘properly’?
24:15 K: Properly? Efficiently, without any distortion. Because it’s frightened, it escapes into some neurotic states. And in that neurotic state it finds security, believing that it is Jesus, or some kind of imbalance. In that, it is completely secure.
24:40 Q: Every time it’s insecure it’s trying to do these things.
24:42 K: No. Sir, it finds security in something.
24:51 Q: This is how it works. This is how the brain functions and observes. It effects what it can see, that’s how it’s...
24:57 K: Sir, it’s so obvious, isn’t it? I don’t know why you question this at all.
25:01 Q: It seems true, from experience. In my own struggle and striving, it seems so.
25:07 K: You can observe your own mind. When it is uncertain, when it’s insecure, it cannot function cleanly.
25:17 Q: Anxiety.
25:22 Q: Fear.
25:32 Q: All of those things that it runs to are the past.
25:38 K: Which?
25:39 Q: All of the things that the mind runs to for security are, as we discussed yesterday, dead issues.
25:47 K: But, sir, that’s what our brain is doing. It finds security in the past.
25:54 Q: It knows about the past.
25:56 K: It knows about it, it has its experience, its knowledge, everything. It says, ‘Please, don’t disturb the past. I’m completely safe there’. And you come along and throw bricks at it, the establishment, and the mind rebels. Sir, you discuss with any strong believer, either in communism or in socialism or Catholicism or Hinduism or Buddhism – to him, the belief is his anchorage, is his harbour. No? No, sir?
26:44 Q: Yes.
26:47 K: And he doesn’t want to be disturbed.
26:53 Q: Doesn’t this imply two kinds of security, one fake and one just security.
26:59 K: Fake being every form of escape? As we were saying, it can find security in some form of neuroticism, in some form of belief.
27:16 Q: What’s the other type?
27:19 K: Other type, in which there is no escape of any kind. Only then. Which means a brain that has no conflict at all. That’s the point. You follow, sir?
27:44 Q: Are you saying that in a brain or mind that has no conflict, there’s security?
27:51 K: No, no, no, no. You see? A brain… Sir, I’m in conflict, we are in conflict, and being in conflict, it hasn’t been able to resolve it, therefore it escapes from it into some form of neuroticism. Right? Whether it is a neuroticism of communism, socialism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, or the Nixonism or whatever it is.
28:25 Q: Belief.
28:27 K: Belief. No? Don’t you find this a fact in yourself?
28:32 Q: Yes, absolutely.
28:34 Q: Yes.
28:36 K: Without going to any psychologist or all the rest of it? No, so we have discovered something. A brain in conflict must inevitably… if it is incapable of resolving it, must resort to belief, an ideology, a utopia, or live in the past. And therefore it becomes more and more inefficient and therefore more and more mechanical. I don’t know if you follow.
29:11 Q: Yes.
29:14 K: So, as it is imperative in all relationships to function efficiently – in all relationships, whether it is with the machine or in human relationship – to function properly, efficiently, cleanly, with intensity, conflict must end. Obviously, sir. Right?
29:41 Q: Right.
29:42 K: Then how is that conflict to end? And so give to the brain absolute protection.
30:02 Q: Doesn’t the desire for protection and security create conflict?
30:06 K: Sir, you’re putting round… I went into it just now. I’m in conflict. I don’t know how to resolve it. Therefore I resort to belief. The belief becomes more important than the conflict. Obviously. And that’s a form of neuroticism, because in that, there is fear involved in it. So, I see this happening in my life, in myself, so I say, ‘How is it possible to end this conflict completely?’
30:47 Q: Any attempt on my part just perpetuates it.
30:49 K: So what am I to do?
30:51 Q: Not do anything.
30:52 K: No, no. Sir, we can’t just throw it off that way. One has to go into this very carefully.
30:59 Q: But is it not true that any attempt on my part…
31:02 K: I’m going to find out. So I say any form of self-improvement is a perpetuation of conflict. Any form. I was this, I shall be that, I’m better, I’m worse, I’m superior, inferior – any form of self-improving activity is the continuation of conflict.
31:39 Q: But isn’t the apparent result – the apparent result – sufficient to sustain us sometimes? The apparent result of self-improvement.
31:51 K: I don’t quite understand, sir.
31:52 Q: In other words, granted that this is true, in my effort to improve, the fact that there is conflict becomes less and less apparent to me.
32:05 K: No, sir.
32:06 Q: The refining process itself.
32:07 K: But when we say improve, what do we mean by that word ‘improve’?
32:13 Q: That’s what I’d like to know.
32:15 K: Go into it, sir, don’t ask me. Go.
32:18 Q: You are not being yourself.
32:21 K: Improve from what? From yesterday?
32:25 Q: How about if we’re ill. If you are ill one time you...
32:28 K: Wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait, wait. I’m ill.
32:32 Q: Okay.
32:33 K: I was ill yesterday.
32:34 Q: All right.
32:36 K: What’s my concern? To get rid of the pain. It may take time – two days, a month, a year, whatever it is. Right? I don’t think in terms of, ‘Oh, I’m better today’. There is a movement or I die. You see, I think we are confusing two issues in this. When we use the word ‘improve’, improve from what to what? From the known to the known. I was ill yesterday and I have known myself not to be ill and therefore I hope it will be better. It’s still from the known to the known. That’s what we mean by improving. I was jealous yesterday and I hope not to be jealous tomorrow. It is still a projection of the known into the future. So it’s always within the field of the known, improvement. And what’s wrong with that?
34:04 Q: Now, this is getting back say to exercise, something like this, or diet. You see that you’re not physically fit or something, and you’re not comfortable, you’re not alert, you’re not happy, you’re…
34:20 K: Then you change your diet.
34:21 Q: Right. And so that’s improving yourself.
34:23 K: Ah!
34:25 Q: Isn’t that improving yourself?
34:29 K: All right, call it improvement. Then what? You’re better, all right.
34:34 Q: Then you’re better.
34:37 K: All right. And then you’ll get ill and then you’ll improve. You’re all right. You’re still better.
34:46 Q: Yes.
34:47 K: That’s what we’re doing, aren’t we? Not only physically, organically, but also inwardly, psychologically, we’re always trying to change ourselves, become a little better and better and better and better.
35:05 Q: That’s right.
35:06 Q: That’s extremely heavily conditioned, from the time we’re learning words, we go to school, we get money, we get possessions.
35:11 K: Yes, sir. Better and better and better and better and better – progress. What’s wrong with that?
35:26 Q: It doesn’t work.
35:27 K: What do you mean it doesn’t work? That’s how we’re all living.
35:31 Q: Look how we are all living.
35:32 Q: Yes.
35:34 Q: What are you going to…
35:35 Q: We see that it’s destruction everywhere, that we are destroying our planet and our lives and there’s no peace in it.
35:42 K: Therefore, what? What do you say then? If improvement produces this, then what are we playing with improvement for?
35:55 Q: We haven’t looked at it.
35:57 Q: Two different things. I don’t see that it is hurting. I mean, say in your physical being or improving your own physical fitness or whatever you’re doing, is that hurting someone else, is that causing conflict? I don’t see it is.
36:15 Q: Isn’t the difference – you were talking about the difference between buying a shoddy piece of material and a good piece of material. In other words, I mean, is that a problem? Isn’t that a function of very, very simple intelligence, that if you’re abusing yourself physically, you’ll improve yourself, quite naturally when you do it?
36:34 Q: You only increase the conflict when you compare with somebody, when you say, ‘Well, I’m not as strong as someone else’, or I’m not this, I’m not that. Isn’t that it?
36:41 Q: Well, no, if you are sick you are sick.
36:43 Q: If you have to keep on improving your physical…
36:45 Q: We’re not talking about taking care of yourself, we are talking the psychological myth.
36:53 Q: There is technological improvement and there is the improvement Krishnamurti is talking about. There are two different things.
37:00 K: Technological improvement...
37:01 Q: Technological improvement means putting a better roof on your house or shaving with a better electric razor or using a different diet or going to another doctor.
37:12 K: We went into that yesterday. There is a technological… We’re always mixing the two.
37:19 Q: There does seem to be a certain area in which they overlap.
37:28 Q: You’re proposing that we only know that way...
37:34 K: Sir, let’s come back. I am in conflict. We are in conflict. How is it to end? That is the question. I can give a hundred explanations why conflict exists – right? – comparison, a dual contradiction, a dual way of looking at life: me, us, they and you. You know? And this division between the fact and the non-fact – which should be – the formula according to which I’m trying to live, and so on – we can find a dozen explanations for the cause of this conflict. Now, after explaining everything in the minutest detail, the explanation is not the fact. 38:37 Right? So I’m still left with the conflict. Now, what am I to do? Can I improve conflict? You follow? Let’s stick to that. Can I improve this conflict? Getting better, more and more refined conflict. Refined conflict is not to kill you with a bayonet or with a gun but I’ll kill you in the business world, I’ll kill you in different ways. But still there is conflict. So let’s come to that point. If conflict is not a matter of improvement, then what am I to do? How is the mind to tackle this conflict?
39:38 Q: It can’t.
39:40 K: Can’t? Why not?
39:42 Q: Because if the mind attempts to…
39:44 K: We’re going to find out, sir.
39:47 Q: The only places it can is that which is causing the conflict.
39:51 K: What is conflict, sir? What is the state of conflict? Not what causes conflict but what is conflict? No, sir, what is conflict?
40:11 Q: Mentation.
40:12 Q: Being divided?
40:14 K: What is conflict, sir? Work at it. What is conflict?
40:20 Q: Security.
40:23 Q: Anxiety. The state of anxiety.
40:25 K: You know conflict, don’t you? How does it happen?
40:31 Q: You must have more than one side in order to have conflict.
40:36 K: No, sir.
40:39 Q: I have to have an idea about it. It has to exist as an idea. In other words, there’s conflict because I want to become something when I have an idea about what I want, and there’s conflict between what I am and what I want to become and the conflict is in that idea.
40:54 K: Which means what? Wait, wait, wait – which means what? A division. Any form of division between the fact and ‘what should be’, between us and they, between my country and your country, my god, your god, my particular ideology and your particular ideology, the family opposed to the community – any form of division within oneself is the source of conflict. Right? Which is, conflict exists as long as there is an observer different from the thing observed. When I am different from my wife – and I’m not my wife – when I am different, isolated, when I pursue my own ambitions, my own improvement, my own self-fulfilment, my own etc., – my – the division between me and my wife is conflict. Right? No?
42:29 Q: Oh, yes. Because it is two and one operates differently?
42:38 K: No, sir. Relationship implies a continuous contact. Not physical – a continual movement together, moving together. After all, that’s what communication means. Come on, sirs. Are you tired? So, as long as there is division in me, there must be conflict. As long as there are fragments in me, ‘me’ fragmented, there must be conflict.
43:33 Q: Does conflict exist between the two fragments?
43:35 K: Two fragments or the many fragments, or one fragment against one fragment.
43:40 Q: No, but I mean is there a conflict between the whole and the fragment?
43:44 K: There is no whole.
43:46 Q: There’s only fragments.
43:48 K: There are only fragments. I invent the whole. One fragment invents the idea of the whole, which is God, which is universe, which is me that’s going to integrate the various fragments, and so on.
44:06 Q: Sir? Have you finished, sir? After you.
44:10 K: I’m not finished ever!
44:24 Q: One of us will always interrupt.
44:31 Q: You spoke of the wife and the husband – it happens to me at home. And you spoke of this togetherness.
44:47 K: Not togetherness.
44:50 Q: No, I think it is possible with two people, they are in relationship. They have a basis for concern for each, for what happens between them. No? As to trust that each one being off on his own...
45:08 K: Sir, we are never together. Full stop. We are never together.
45:17 Q: Because we can’t be in each other’s skin.
45:19 K: No, no, we can never be together, because she has her image of me and I have an image of her. She lives in her own world of emotions, sentimentality, desires, children, family, cooking, and I live in my world of business and money, worry. You follow?
45:41 Q: Yes, but must it be that way?
45:43 K: No, no, that’s the fact.
45:46 Q: Yes. And you see that fact.
45:47 K: That fact.
45:48 Q: You see it.
45:49 K: No, we are saying division will inevitably bring about conflict. That’s all we’re saying.
45:58 Q: Yes. And you aim to…
46:00 Q: And it is division.
46:02 K: I’m asking whether that conflict can ever end.
46:06 Q: That’s a good question.
46:11 K: I’m doing it. Not between the husband and wife – that’s too silly – but I am talking about conflict in myself which results in the conflict between the husband and wife, between myself and the universe, between myself and the world, between myself and you, between us and they and we, and so on. So we see that conflict is inevitable, both psychological as well as outside the psyche in the environment, as long as there is division.
47:02 Q: Isn’t this division caused by…
47:04 K: Wait, no, we’ll go into it. Do I see the truth that division in any form will inevitably bring conflict? Whether it is the division brought about by opinion – see, sir, how complex it is – by a belief, by knowledge, by experience, by ambition, greed – you follow? – me and not me, we and they, the black and the white. Which means the ‘me’ is fragmented. Right, sir? And each fragment is opposed to another fragment within that ‘me’. 48:00 And one fragment says, ‘I’m going to improve the rest of the other fragments’. Right? And that’s what’s called improvement. You see the trick we’re playing? One fragment imposes what it considers improvement on other fragments. What gave it authority to say, ‘I am better than the other fragment?’ You don’t see all this. Right?
48:34 Q: You are saying that when I have conflict in me, I would therefore have conflict in relationship.
48:42 K: Obviously, sir, obviously.
48:44 Q: And if my own conflict ceases, then my relationships would be…
48:50 K: Of course. So I see the fact, not as an idea but the fact that division in me must inevitably create conflict in me and therefore in my relationship with everything. Right? Now, what am I to do? What is to be done? No, sir, go slow, go very slowly, patiently. What is to be done? Can all these fragments or one fragment – two fragments only is good enough – can one fragment integrate with the other fragment and say, ‘We are one and therefore whole? ’ You follow, sir? Go on, please. I’m working. You go into it. You follow my question?
50:03 Q: Yes. But the cause…
50:05 K: Is integration of fragments the answer?
50:09 Q: I don’t think so.
50:10 Q: No. It’s still the integration of all these fragments.
50:13 K: No, no. No, no, just see. First, see what’s implied in the question. Is integration between the fragments possible? And who is to integrate it? The psychologist? The analyst? Or one of the fragments says, ‘I’m superior to the rest, I’m going to bring about integration’? Right?
50:38 Q: It’s more of the same thing.
50:41 K: Same thing. Therefore integration is out. Right? Then what? Or analysis is out. That analysis being one fragment analysing the rest of the fragments. Which is quite absurd. That’s what the analysts are doing. Right? I don’t know, sir, shall we go on?
51:10 Q: Yes.
51:12 K: Right? So, first of all, what is this fragment in me? What are the fragments in me? Or there are only two fragments, not many other fragments. I don’t know. The fragment as the observer and the observed in me, in this total me. The observer and the observed.
51:58 Q: Well, it’s me wanting to become something.
52:00 K: Me wanting to improve, me wanting to change, me wanting to say I am angry, I must put it down, I hate, I must put it down, or I indulge in it, I like hating people, so on, so on, so on. So there are the observer and the observed. That is the real fragmentation, those two. Right?
52:26 Q: Right.
52:28 K: Now, can the gap between the observer and the observed cease? Then my problem is resolved. I don’t know if… Not the observer becomes the observed.
52:48 Q: Not just identifying with it.
52:50 K: Identifying with it or tying to dissolve himself in order to be that – and so on, all that. Can the observer cease? Because he is the cause of conflict. He is the cause of division. Right? Therefore, our question then is: what is the observer, the ‘me’?
53:22 Q: The mind?
53:23 K: Because the ‘me’ and the ‘not me’ is caused by the observer. I don’t know if you’re following. Therefore, what is the observer?
53:41 Q: Is it the mind, the accumulation?
53:43 K: Don’t ask me. Find out, madame.
53:46 Q: Isn’t the observer an idea about myself?
53:48 K: Go into it. Explore.
53:54 Q: Isn’t the observer looking at his idea of himself?
53:59 K: What is the observer, sir? What is the ‘you’ that says… that he separates himself from – from what? – from anger or jealousy, from anxiety. You follow what I mean? There is the division. I am angry. There is anxiety. I am anxious. I am frightened. Which means there is a division between the two. Right? Now, what is the observer, I’m asking? What is the structure of the observer?
54:40 Q: It creates division.
54:43 K: No, sir, look.
54:46 Q: When I am looking at my anger or my anxiety, then...
54:50 K: No, madame, cut out anger and anxiety. We’re asking: what is the observer? What is the structure, nature, the constitution?
55:01 Q: The past.
55:03 K: The past, isn’t it?
55:05 Q: Yes.
55:07 Q: Its own thought.
55:10 K: The past.
55:10 Q: It’s dead.
55:11 K: Wait, wait. No, don’t put into words yet. The past. What is that?
55:18 Q: Experience.
55:19 Q: The result of our experiences?
55:22 K: Do go on. I don’t have to ask this. Go on, push, sir.
55:27 Q: Resistance.
55:29 Q: Accumulation of our experiences.
55:31 K: The past – the resistance, the experience, the memories, the pleasures, the pains, all the past. Look, sir, to make it very simple. You flatter me and I love it. And that’s become the past, hasn’t it? When I meet you, you’re my friend. Me and you. You follow? It’s so simple when you see it. The past, which is the observer, creates the difference, the division. The past as yesterday, today and tomorrow – not only chronologically but psychologically. 56:28 Sir, go on; I’m talking too much. Proceed, sir. So the observer is always looking with the eyes of the past. And we think the observer is the most active, reasonable, sane, healthy, discriminating, intelligent person. So we are always living in the past. We are the past. And the past is saying, ‘I must improve’. Which is, still living in the past is going to improve in the past.
57:29 Q: Doesn’t the observer also create a policemen to try and control the present, based on the past?
57:34 K: The past is the censor, the past is the evaluated, the values which we have evolved through experience, through knowledge, through pain, through suffering, pleasure. It’s the past. We are the past. So the observer is the past and he separates himself from the present and observes the present. The present is a movement, flowing, living, and he observes it and therefore he is always in conflict with the present. 58:13 Because he is the past. The present has no time. I won’t go into that. So my question then is: if the past is the source of all conflict, the observer, then how is that to come to an end? And the brain is the past, because it has evolved through millennia to where it is. And all the memories of the brain are the past. This is a fact, done biologically I believe, too.
59:06 Q: The brain demands security.
59:08 K: And it finds it in the past.
59:10 Q: That is therefore the error, the mistake, seeing it that way and behaving as if it were true?
59:20 K: That’s right, sir. So the brain, with its memories, living in the past – which is, the brain is the result of the past and judges everything from the past. Right?
59:40 Q: It seems so.
59:42 K: It is, it’s a fact. Everything I judge. My wife, I say, ‘You were cruel yesterday, I must be careful of you today. You nagged me, you bullied me, you did this, you dominated, I dominated’ – you follow? – ‘I must be awfully careful’.
1:00:02 Q: It seems like the brain also has to explain everything.
1:00:05 K: That’s all the tricks of it. So, where am I now? The observer separates himself and he’s the cause of conflict. Right?
1:00:21 Q: We’re trained to believe we must separate ourselves to see what we’re looking at.
1:00:26 K: Yes.
1:00:27 Q: It’s an intellectual process.
1:00:31 K: That’s another trick. So what do we do? I’ve come to the point when I see that there are only two fragments: me, the observer, and the thing that is to be observed. The observer is the dead entity. He’s the formula. He’s the censor. He’s the judge. He’s the establishment, the past. And he is judging all the time what is right, what is wrong, this is good, this is bad, this is love, this is not love. You follow? And how is that observer to end? Because as long as he exists there must be conflict. Right? Find out, sir. Now, how is it to end?
1:01:40 Q: Well, does he have to end or can he just look at it directly instead of through the memory?
1:01:46 K: Yes, same thing. You can only look directly when there is no observer. I can look at that tree only when the botanical knowledge of that tree is not operating as thought when I look.
1:02:03 Q: Still there has to be something that records the tree and is aware of the tree.
1:02:13 K: So the question then – go on, sirs – is love the past?
1:02:19 Q: No.
1:02:22 K: Don’t say so easily ‘no’.
1:02:26 Q: But when I feeling loving I am not in the past.
1:02:31 K: No, madame, do listen to it, find out. Is love the operation of thought? You go on, I am lost. You’re not…
1:02:48 Q: If you were of the past, it means it would be a dead thing.
1:02:54 K: But it is with us.
1:02:57 Q: Yes, what we call love.
1:03:00 K: I was taking the word ‘love’. I love you.
1:03:09 Q: That’s the result of...
1:03:19 K: Ah, look at it, sir. So how is the entity who causes conflict because he divides himself from the thing observed, to end? That is a legitimate question, not an idiotic, fanciful question. Because I want to end conflict in myself. Myself being the entire humanity, not me as an individual living in a potty little house. I am the entire human being of the world because I am the result of the world. I am all… I am the result of every human being that existed before. No?
1:04:26 Q: Is it not to perceive that thought is ignorant? I mean, remembrance, hate, association, it’s a continuation of this error.
1:04:39 K: Of course, sir. Sir, please, let’s move from there. How is this observer who brings about division with his words as an American, I’m a communist, I’m a German, you are a Hindu, you’re a Muslim – you follow? – this whole division. Black and white and the revolt, or the black against the white, and the white – you follow? – how is that to end?
1:05:12 Q: He has to free himself of the past or from the negative thought...
1:05:19 K: How is he to free himself from the past when he is the past?
1:05:26 Q: By being aware.
1:05:30 K: No, no, do, do… I am different from you. I, with my memories, with my conditioning, with my upbringing, with my culture, with my peculiar experiences, all that, how is that to end? Because he is the cause of conflict. Well, sir, it’s your problem, isn’t it? How will you solve it? You must solve it as a human being. You can’t just say, ‘Well, I don’t know’, and give it up and go on in the same old rut.
1:06:13 Q: Be aware of it.
1:06:15 K: You do it, madame. I don’t know what you will do. It’s your problem. And you have got to solve it, otherwise you’re contributing to the Vietnamese war. You may say I’m against war and yet you’re giving it. You follow? So, you have to solve it at any price.
1:06:43 Q: Aren’t there some situations when you have to look at the present through the past? Such as, if every time you met a person with green eyes he hit you, what would happen if you came across the man with green eyes? Wouldn’t you be somewhat justified in saying, ‘Well, I’d better steer clear of this man?
1:07:01 K: No, sir. No, no, don’t take an example at present. I’m asking you. The thing is clear. The observer is the mischief-maker. Right? How do you end that?
1:07:16 Q: In some cases. But there are other cases where you need the observer.
1:07:21 Q: Technologically.
1:07:24 K: Sir, look, sir, if there was no observer, you wouldn’t be able to go home, would you? You wouldn’t be able to go back to Ojai.
1:07:33 Q: That’s part of the problem of why you have prejudices.
1:07:36 K: No, sir. Leave it for the moment. Look, you have conflict. Leave the Negro, leave everybody. You are in conflict, aren’t you? And how do you solve it? If you don’t solve it, you’re contributing to all the mischief of the world. And the baby is in your hand. Now solve it. Which is, you must have knowledge – right? – you must have experience. All science is knowledge and experience. And that knowledge and experience mustn’t create a division.
1:08:46 Q: It must discriminate.
1:08:49 K: It mustn’t become the censor. You follow, sir? How are you going to prevent this? You follow? I must have the knowledge to get home. Otherwise, amnesia. That’s not it. I must have knowledge. I must have the technical capacity, I must be able to do, act, and yet that knowledge mustn’t bring about a separation. How do you balance this?
1:09:28 Q: When one meets it nonverbally, as we were talking about yesterday, meets it fresh, there isn’t this...
1:09:35 Q: The observer does not make judgements. The observer just observes, is just aware. When he must use knowledge, pure knowledge, to get home, that awareness will be there.
1:10:09 K: Go on, sir, you solve it. I don’t know.
1:10:13 Q: Anybody?
1:10:19 K: What will you do, sir? You understand? You’re just spinning words. What will you do when you are given this problem? It’s your problem, and probably it’s the only problem – not peace in Vietnam, not Nixon, not Reagan, not the riots, nothing. This is the central issue for all man, because he lives in conflict therefore he spreads this misery around him.
1:11:00 Q: Is it not to see what we are doing when we are doing it? When we are using memory can we meet a new situation?
1:11:09 K: I don’t know. You work it out, sir. We’ll all work it out together. But let’s find out. What am I to do? Help me, please.
1:11:22 Q: If the past has led us here, we can’t rely on the past. There’s no further reliance on the past. Intelligence dictates that to us now, you see?
1:11:31 K: And my brain is the past. See the difficulty. You understand, sir? The brain, with all the nervous cells in it are the recording instruments that keep memory going. Right? Memory has become part of the material of the brain cells. Which is, thought is the brain cell. And that brain, that thought must operate in certain directions extraordinarily efficiently, logically, objectively, non-emotionally, non-personally. And yet that very thought creates the division, as the observer and the observed. Now, how do you harmonise this?
1:12:44 Q: Are you saying that the thought or the observer creates the division? Isn’t thought the division? Isn’t the observer the division itself?
1:12:51 K: That’s right, sir, the same. Quite right. How is that to disappear and yet function in certain fields absolutely? You follow?
1:13:15 Q: Sir? If we are using it for getting home, memory, that means we are… it’s something… see the sense of using memory to get home. Can we not also see the danger, the damage and the harm of using memory to meet a new situation?
1:13:39 K: But apparently you can’t.
1:13:41 Q: By the time we notice it, it has already happened.
1:13:43 K: It has already happened.
1:13:44 Q: It’s the only way we notice it. Like getting angry and saying, ‘Oh my god, I’m angry’.
1:13:50 K: Yes.
1:13:51 Q: Or I mustn’t be angry.
1:13:52 K: No, sir, tackle it. You see, you’re not tackling it. Tackle it from the source of it. You follow? What is the source of this thing?
1:14:07 Q: Me.
1:14:09 K: No, no, the source of the ‘me’. No, go slow, don’t answer it yet. Listen to the question, sir. What is the root of this observer? The root. You understand, sir?
1:14:32 Q: The need to be secure? The brain wants to be secure, that we want this absolute safety to function?
1:14:39 K: We went into that. Now, the security… the brain has found security in the ‘me’, in the division.
1:14:53 Q: In the idea of ‘me’.
1:14:54 K: In the observer it has found security. See it, sir. Careful. It has found security in the observer. It is the past. It says, ‘By Jove, that’s my security’. So, to attack this question, you must go behind the observer. Right? You are following?
1:15:29 Q: Who’s going behind?
1:15:36 K: I’ll show it to you in a minute. Thought is doing this, isn’t it, sir? Thought. Thought has established the observer, because the observer, in the observer there’s great security.
1:16:00 Q: In the belief in the observer.
1:16:03 K: Observer – the belief, the whole structure. You know – I don’t have to repeat ten times, fifty. It has found tremendous security in the observer, as the observer, which is the past. And thought is the very response of the cells as memory, in the brain cells. Right? Now, can the brain cells, which is the past – you understand, sir? – can those brain cells be quiet and respond only when it is necessary, which is along the technological lines. I don’t know if you’re…
1:16:59 Q: We have to stop thinking.
1:17:02 K: No, no. No, no, please don’t jump to conclusions. Do look at the difficulty first. The brain is the past – right? – and in the past it has found tremendous security – the older generation – you follow? Now, the past is memory. That memory responds as thought. So thought creates the division as the observer and the observed, and thought must also operate perfectly when it is demanded along the technological lines. Right? So my question then is: can the brain be quiet all the time? 1:18:11 Only when it’s demanded, it acts, technologically. The rest of the time it’s quiet. I don’t know if I’m making myself clear. Because the moment it acts, it goes back to the past. You follow, sir? The action is the past and therefore there is the observer and the observed. I don’t know – got it? Now, how are you going to make the brain absolutely quiet, only responding when it is necessary in a certain direction only and in no other direction? That’s your job.
1:19:04 Q: Wow!
1:19:11 K: To look at that tree or to look at my wife completely without any reaction as memory, as the past. You follow, sir? And to go to the office and work like a computer. You follow? Because in that there is no emotion, no ‘me and my boss’, and I’m going to become the manager. You follow?
1:19:56 Q: That’s a part of his office.
1:19:57 K: No, see what is taking place. So our question then is: can the brain operate objectively as a function but not act as the past in relationship?
1:20:45 Q: From a centre.
1:20:49 K: From a centre.
1:20:54 Q: Is there something beyond knowing that fact? Isn’t that knowing it?
1:20:58 K: No, sir, this requires – you follow, sir? Can you, Mr Roth, who has had a thousand experiences which have become the memory, the past, and that memory is necessary to function as Mr Roth in an office, in your daily life, unemotionally – listen to it – objectively, very clearly, logically, sanely. And that can only operate when you don’t bring in the observer. You follow, sir?
1:21:48 Q: That’s the question. Up to now it happens.
1:21:51 K: No, no, that’s not the point. The point is, can one act that way? Mustn’t one act that way? Which means the observer is not functioning when you have to act.
1:22:07 Q: Only when it is necessary.
1:22:12 Q: Sir, I may be going to the office because of the observer. The very office and the very job I’m in may be the action of the observer.
1:22:18 K: Maybe.
1:22:19 Q: It may be a beastly job which I’m doing for...
1:22:21 K: I know, but the moment the observer comes out of it, it may become quite a different thing.
1:22:27 Q: Then one might leave the job.
1:22:29 K: The job or change the whole structure of the job. I don’t know, that’s…
1:22:35 Q: We might be using the job…
1:22:37 K: Of course, of course. So, this is terribly… you know, go into it, sir, go into it. You will see it for yourself. Here I am. I must function logically, sanely, objectively, non-emotionally as a function, as a machine, as a computer. Because my brain is better than any computer. And yet that very brain in human relationship must have no centre from which the observer arises. I don’t know if you’re… How is this balance…
1:23:31 Q: Un-program the computer.
1:23:35 K: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
1:23:37 Q: No?
1:23:38 K: Sorry, I oughtn’t to bring in the computer. No, no programing the computer. Now, can we go back a little bit? Does it interest you, all this?
1:23:50 Q: Oh, yes.
1:23:52 K: All right. In going through all this step-by-step, what has happened to the brain, to the mind? You follow, sir? The whole of the mind, what has happened to it? We started out with conflict. We started out with saying comparison, and we went into all that and see the absurdity, the stupidity of comparing and all that, and moving away from it all the time, moving away from stupidity – you follow, sir? – away and away and away, till we come to this point: the observer and the observed. And I also moved away from the observer. You follow? Then what has happened to the mind? 1:25:02 No, what has happened to the mind? Hasn’t your mind become extraordinarily alive, extraordinarily active, and very sensitive? Because you started out with questions that were really vital questions. By walking away from it, away and away and away, the mind has become extraordinarily alert, sensitive. No? Which means the mind has become very intelligent. Right? I don’t know if it has. It’s become tremendously intelligent and therefore that intelligence is going to operate. Operate in the world of technology and not operate in the world of relationship.
1:25:58 Q: It seems to be a very simple effortless thing you are talking about.
1:26:02 K: Yes, sir, but you’ve done it without effort, all this. There’s been no effort at all, but only examining – you follow? – exploring. So, the stupid man compares. The dull man fights, battles with life. The dull man keeps the division perpetually between the observer and the observed. The dull man always lives in the past, whether it is the past of yesterday or the past of thousand years. You follow? So the intelligent man – you get it? So this is really the form of meditation which cleanses the mind, empties the mind of everything known. Right? You have done it. If you have done this, you have done it, you have emptied the mind of the past, and yet use the past when it’s necessary.
1:28:09 Q: It has to happen all the time.
1:28:11 K: I don’t know about all the time – it has to happen. A man who really wants peace, this has to happen.
1:28:26 Q: But I mean this has to happen in the office, in the house, not simply in the closet.
1:28:30 K: No, all the time. I wouldn’t like…
1:28:33 Q: In life.
1:28:34 K: In life.
1:28:35 Q: Okay, I’m sorry. In life.
1:28:37 K: That’s better. It has to happen all the time.
1:28:40 Q: It’s not a type of meditation which you can take time out to do.
1:28:44 K: No, no, no, of course not. From that arises really a further question, if you’ll go into it: can the brain cells be quiet? Absolutely quiet, not relatively. Absolutely quiet though it is observing, and when it is not observing. I can look at my wife absolutely quietly. The brain is not responding to the past – the pleasures, the angers, the incidents – you follow, sir? – absolutely quiet. And out of that quietness, operate, function when it is necessary. You get it? So can action take place out of silence, not out of noise?
1:30:26 Q: It almost seems that action can only take place out of silence. Reaction takes place out of noise.
1:30:31 K: Yes, sir, but for most of us reaction is action. No, but see what is involved in this.
1:30:41 Q: The mind can’t be seeking anything.
1:30:51 K: Silence is absolute nothingness, isn’t it? No, I mustn’t go into this. If you want to go into this, it’s really quite extraordinary if you go into it. Having a thousand experiences, consciously or unconsciously, not to allow experience to mark, to leave a shadow, the past. Let it go.
1:31:35 What time is it?
1:31:37 Q: Twelve thirty.
1:31:39 K: I think we’d better stop, don’t you?
1:31:41 Q: Just in time. Just before we get up and be greedy.
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