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LO65D2 - Effort involves dissipation of energy
London - 26 April 1965
Public Discussion 2



0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s second public discussion in London, 1965.
0:09 Krishnamurti: Shall we continue with what we were talking about the other day?
0:23 We were saying how important it is to be serious, to be earnest in anything that we do, especially in matters that concern much deeper understanding and perception.
0:59 I think one has to not only understand words and their significance but also one has to go beyond the mere words, explanations and intellectual concepts.
1:33 We live by formulas, and it’s very difficult to free oneself from an ideation, a concept.
1:49 And it seems to me that if we would understand the whole of existence, one has not only to understand the meaning of words but also realize that the word is not the thing.
2:18 The word is never the thing, but for most of us the word is the thing and so communication becomes rather difficult.
2:46 And we were saying the other day that to live means to treat life as a whole and not fragmentarily.
3:13 And we do treat life in fragments: intellectually, emotionally or merely sensual… sensory.
3:27 There isn’t a total approach to life.
3:38 We mean by life not only earning money, satisfying some sexual appetites and satisfying some sensory superficial desires, but there is something much more deep, much more vital, much more significant, and to live that way, one must, it seems to me, at least, approach life as a total thing.
4:32 And we were saying that it is not possible when we live in departments, trying to solve problems fragmentarily and as long as we approach life through the action of will.
5:02 That’s what we were saying the other day. We must have contradictory and opposing problems; and we said what is this... will, and we…
5:25 surely will is the result of intense desire.
5:34 And we asked what is desire, and we said that desire arises when there is - which is inevitable, natural - perception, sensation, contact and desire.
5:53 That, I think, more or less…
6:00 But we asked what gives it continuity and what gives it intensity, and someone suggested thought; and why does thought interfere with desire, and that’s where we left off, if I remember rightly.
7:02 (Pause) Is it possible, living in this world, not in a monastery, not in an ivory tower, not in some region of isolation, but living in this world, carrying on with our daily activities, is it possible to live without effort?
7:44 Effort implies will. Will is the outcome of contradiction.
7:58 And unless we understand this whole question of desire, not suppress it, not deny it or transcend it or try to control it and drive it in a certain direction, unless we understand the whole structure of desire, it seem to me it will not be possible to solve our problems totally.
8:41 So we were saying that desire has a continuity when thought interferes or identifies itself with it; and why does it interfere, why does it identify and why shouldn’t it interfere?
9:14 That’s what we were going to discuss today.
9:25 Questioner: Krishnamurti, when you use the word desire, I take it that you mean the feeling of to want, and is it possible to want spontaneously?
10:07 Is it that we see something, and you say we see, there is sensation and there is contact…
10:10 K: But it’s not what I say, sir; this is what takes place, doesn’t it?
10:12 Q: Well, no, I don’t think so.
10:15 K: How does desire arise?
10:17 Q: I think… I see and because... (inaudible) I’ve seen this previously, I know that I like it.
10:25 K: But how… the previous life, how does it come into being?
10:29 Q: It’s from a memory of the sensation.
10:31 K: Go on, sir; yes. Proceed; dig deeper.
10:34 Q: (Inaudible)... really saying is that I don’t really know the source of original desire.
10:46 All my desires apparently are in the… they have occurred previously.
11:06 K: This is, sir… let me… Everything we do, almost everything we do is the result of effort. We strive, we struggle, we adjust, we compromise and in that there is always effort.
11:32 Is it possible to live without effort and hence spontaneously and all the rest of it, and yet be intensely active, not vegetate, have all your faculties heightened and live so completely, so intensely but without effort?
12:10 Because, to me, effort involves dissipation of energy, and I don’t know if you have noticed that when all energy is concentrated, in the sense not… all energy is concentrated when there is no movement of any direction, in any direction of energy, then that energy explodes, and that explosion is creation.
13:13 Q: There’s no effort when there is interest.
13:25 If one is interested in something, there is no effort involved.
13:35 K: Then how are you to be interested totally?
13:47 And I have no interest - how am I to arouse interest? That arises a problem, doesn’t it, and so we battle... back again. No… let me talk for a little, may I?
14:04 Q: Yes.
14:06 K: You see, our life is routine, a boredom, a constant strife and a struggle.
14:20 All our relationships are a tension and we fall into habits, mechanical and superficial and carry on, consciously as well as unconsciously, and that is a fact, that’s what goes on in our daily life.
15:03 And I ask myself, knowing that, how is a mind, how is a human being to break away from this mechanical existence so that life is a thing that is creative?
15:37 To find that out, one must inquire, surely, how one dissipates energy.
15:46 Because you need tremendous energy, and that energy without movement, it’s only something new can take place; then only an explosion can take place.
16:01 I don’t know if… We’ll come to it; we’ll come to it. So I must find out how the mind dissipates energy.
16:22 And the ancients have said you dissipate energy by being worldly, by being sensuous, by…
16:47 and treating the world as illusory – you know? - all of that, so one left the world and went into a monastery; there you trained, controlled, subjugated, suppressed, or you accepted the world as it is and lived a very superficial life, not being… not interested in any of the wider and deeper things.
17:35 And it seems to me this escape from life into a monastery or into a religious concept, a religious dedication to an idea is still a waste of energy because it bred conflict, and hence conflict is the essence of waste of energy - I don’t know… - conflict at any level - physical, emotional, intellectual, a total effort, and is it possible to end all effort?
18:24 Will cannot do it. I don’t know if you are… If I exercise will to stop energy… again there is a battle; again that very exercise breeds conflict.
18:50 Because one finds that to live an effortless life… because I think that’s the only way to live, and that’s the only creative life.
19:22 And to live that kind of life, one has to understand the structure of desire, because desire breeds conflict of the opposites, duality, the want and the not-want, the pleasure and the non-pleasure.
19:48 So I… one has to understand the structure of desire, neither suppressing it nor transmuting it, nor trying to control it, nor shaping it.
20:09 So one has to find out how desire arises, from the very beginning, not just now; the whole structure, the foundation of desire.
20:21 And we said what it is. And we see also thought gives it shape, continuity and why does it?
20:38 Why does thought interfere with desire? I may not be using that word but I hope you will understand.
20:50 I see something beautiful, a woman, a car, whatever… a house and the desire begins and thought gives it a duration.
21:13 And if thought didn’t interfere with it, there would be the end of desire. I don’t know… If you have experimented with it, you will see this. It is the ending of something that’s what we are afraid of, isn’t it?
21:45 If desire ended and there was no continuity to it, what will happen to you?
21:56 I don’t know if… So time is involved. I don’t…
22:17 So we use time - not the chronological time but the psychological time, which is invented by the mind, which is not a fact - because we are afraid to come to an end of everything.
22:49 No? So thought interferes, or thought, which is also the result of desire, takes charge of the desire to which it gives duration, because for us time has become extraordinarily important.
23:38 (Pause) Psychologically there is no tomorrow.
23:51 I don’t know… If one was really confronted with that fact: psychologically there is no tomorrow, one would be horrified.
24:05 No?
24:06 Q: Isn’t it also that we use our thoughts which are creating past time to locate ourselves?
24:38 We’re so uncertain of where we are that by having our thoughts in past time, we can locate ourselves and feel more secure?
25:01 K: Which is the same, surely. So we cling to time, and so thought, giving duration to desire, is the prolongation of oneself, of one’s desire, one’s future.
25:32 Q: The feeling that you are the same person as you were a moment ago is so ingrained and so automatic that I don’t see how it can be broken through.
26:01 K: Sir, let’s put the question differently.
26:15 One sees one’s daily life is mechanical, the same repetitive thoughts, desires, activities, habits and so on, which are all mechanical, and is it possible for a human being to break away from that and be fresh each minute, each day, each moment?
27:09 That is the real issue, isn’t it? Now, how is that to come about?
27:20 Well, sirs, let’s talk about…
27:30 Q: You have to really see that you do... (inaudible).
27:47 K: I mean, first of all, our life is mechanical in that sense that we have stated.
28:00 Do we see it is mechanical? Our pleasures, our sorrows, our anxieties - a repetition.
28:17 If one sees that, how is one to… can it be ended?
28:25 Q: It does end sometimes but it starts again.
28:41 K: I don’t think it ends sometimes and starts again.
28:45 Q: If we continue to see, and we see every day, don’t you think we begin to distance ourselves from the conditioned mind?
28:52 K: That means you are looking to time as a means of destroying the mechanical process.
29:06 Right?
29:08 Q: Yes.
29:11 K: I will eventually come to it by slow degrees, by being aware, by freeing myself from my conditioning - all that implies time.
29:29 Right? And I look to time as a means of ending this mechanical way of living.
29:39 Right, sir?
29:40 Q: Except that I feel it puts one into another dimension of time. It isn’t the dimension of time of the conditioned mind. But I agree it’s still time.
29:51 K: But I don’t know what the other dimension of time is.
29:59 I may invent it, I may speculate about it, I may hope for it but the actual fact is I don’t know it; I’m not with it, it’s not part of me so I have to find it, I have to come into it.
30:24 So I must not use time because time implies a continuity.
30:33 I don’t know if… The mechanical process goes on and on and on.
30:48 So, is it possible to live in such a way that there is no tomorrow?
31:07 I mean, there is tomorrow for planning and all the rest of it but inwardly, psychologically, the continuity of pleasure, because, after all, that is the real thing that we want – no?
31:40 – a pleasure that has tomorrow.
31:44 Q: The subconscious conviction that it is you who will suffer or will have pleasure the next moment is so strong, I don’t know if it’s possible to do as you say.
32:10 K: It’s not ‘Do what I say,’ but see what happens, sir.
32:13 Q: But, sir, is the psychological freedom from tomorrow possible when we live in natural laws?
32:20 That is, it is day and it is night, there’s light and there’s darkness. That goes very deep into one, surely, even deeper than the conditioned mind.
32:29 K: I don’t quite follow, sir.
32:36 Q: To be free of wanting, to be free of the waiting for tomorrow and the continuity of time, how is this possible when we live in natural laws, that is, under natural laws…
32:55 K: Night and day.
32:56 Q: … which is, day and night, darkness and light - all that is making us aware of time.
33:00 K: Does that make us aware of time, night and day?
33:04 Q: That only makes us aware of change, not time.
33:11 Q: I see that it need not make us aware of time, yes.
33:19 K: I look to tomorrow because I’m going to enjoy tomorrow, something… it gives me pleasure thinking about tomorrow: I’m going to meet… you know, the whole pleasure.
33:36 Q: But I might not be enjoying tomorrow. I might think of something which I would be afraid of... (inaudible).
33:43 K: (Inaudible)... tomorrow; I’m afraid of tomorrow; it’s the same thing.
33:48 Q: How is it possible to fear tomorrow if I do not know what tomorrow is; it’s unknown?
33:54 K: Ah, but that’s an idea, sir; you are afraid of tomorrow, of death, of not being, of losing a job, of your wife running away... and so fear of tomorrow, surely.
34:06 We all know that. And also we all know very well the pleasure of the… thought creating pleasure of tomorrow.
34:25 Q: Following what that gentleman was saying about this natural law being we are like a goldfish in a bowl; we’re so surrounded by things which are continually reminding us of time; even our posture is a habit and the way we balance; we have to consider time the whole time.
34:57 It would seem to be rather difficult to separate the psychological time from the physical time, the clock time and the natural living processes of our own body.
35:07 K: All right, sir, let’s look at it differently, approach it again differently.
35:19 What is the act of learning?
35:27 And what is the act of seeing and of listening, the act, the moment?
35:44 When you are listening, are you listening in time?
35:58 If… I hope I’m…
36:06 Are you listening with concepts, with formulas, with ideas?
36:21 Are you merely listening? There is that noise going on outside the room of the traffic - how do you listen to it?
36:43 Do you listen with irritation, with memories, with distaste and so on and on, or do you merely listen?
37:05 Or when you see, do you see with time or out of time?
37:28 I don’t know… Do you see your wife, your husband, yourself in the mirror, or yourself, when you’re looking at yourself in time, which is memory, distaste, despair, depression and so on and on?
37:59 How do you see? Not only with our eyes and all the rest of it but…
38:10 Q: Well, I think that when you say how do we learn, I don’t think we do learn, but I think the process that we try to do is that we do bring time into it.
38:24 We look in the mirror and we see more grey hairs and we compare how many were there yesterday and we say we’ve learnt that we’re getting older.
38:32 That is the way we learn. I don’t think it is real learning but that is the process... (inaudible).
38:37 K: Then what is learning, sir? What is learning?
38:39 Q: Well, I think it’s seeing without time.
38:44 K: No, no, don’t speculate about it, that’s what… What is learning? When do you learn?
38:52 Q: When you become aware of something.
38:53 K: No, no… When do you learn? Don’t answer immediately, please. Just look at it. When do you learn? What is the act of learning? What is the state of the mind when it is learning?
39:11 Q: Do you mean learning as apart from seeing?
39:12 K: For me, seeing, listening, learning are the same.
39:13 Q: Yes.
39:15 Q: It’s experiencing.
39:19 Q: To be open.
39:23 Q: Receptive.
39:27 Q: Concentrate.
39:30 Q: To be is to find out.
39:35 K: When do you learn? Learning is different from knowing, isn’t it? Accumulating knowledge is different from learning.
39:42 Q: Learning... (inaudible).
39:46 K: The moment I have learnt, it becomes knowledge, and after I have learnt, I add more to it.
40:00 This process of adding we call learning, but that’s merely accumulation of knowledge.
40:10 I’m not… we are against accumulation of knowledge, but we’re trying to find out what is learning, the act of learning, when the mind is really learning; only when…
40:25 it learns when it… in a state of not knowing. Right? I don’t know – then I’m in a… then I’m learning.
40:37 The moment I have learnt, it becomes knowledge and time.
40:54 I… Right? And with that knowledge I function. I wonder if you are… No? And I can function also in the act of… with the act of learning.
41:19 No? Are you…? Am I meeting somebody or is it all too…?
41:29 David Bohm: I think that sometimes one just says in words that one doesn’t know, you see, and this is not the real thing that...
41:45 I mean, I may say that I don’t know…
41:48 K: Ah… quite; quite.
41:49 DB: … but it is not the real thing.
41:50 K: Not the real thing; no.
41:51 DB: There is something else which is to perceive what actually the fact is.
41:52 K: So I can… there can be learning only when there is an ending, actual ending.
42:05 No, sir?
42:06 Q: Why shouldn’t it be the real thing?
42:14 K: Sir, what is it we are trying to find out?
42:25 We are trying to find out, not verbally but actually, factually, we’re trying to find out if it is possible to live in this world at a different dimension in which there is no effort involved at all, which means at a level where there is no problem, or if a problem arises, to meet it so completely that it’s over the next minute.
43:11 That’s what we are trying to find out, not verbally, not theoretically but actually.
43:21 Actually in the sense, to live it, because we can go on spinning a lot of theories…
43:29 that’s too stupid and infantile. That’s what we are trying to find out, and to find out, there must be an ending, mustn’t there?
44:01 To find out anything, there must be an end to the things I have known, or not let the things I have known interfere.
44:20 So I must learn what it is to end – right?
44:44 – learn.
44:53 And to end, the ending must be in complete energy.
45:02 I don’t know… Am I making myself clear?
45:10 Q: Are you meaning something more than to forget... (inaudible)?
45:13 K: Oh, of course; good Lord, yes. To forget is fairly simple.
45:22 Q: Krishnamurti, could you make it a little clearer what you mean by ending?
45:30 K: Look, sir, very simple. Have you ever experimented with yourself, ending a pleasure?
45:37 Q: Yes.
45:39 K: Without effort?
45:41 Q: Yes.
45:43 K: Without any form of restriction, without not knowing what will happen after?
45:51 Q: Yes.
45:53 K: Ending?
45:54 Q: Yes.
45:56 K: Ending a habit.
45:57 Q: Yes, just letting it rise and go.
46:04 K: Ah, no…
46:07 Q: Not when... (inaudible) become bored... (inaudible).
46:10 K: Oh, no, not bored, that’s… Sir, take your own particular pleasurable habit, sexual – whatever it is - smoking, drinking – whatever it is - ambition and so on, to end it without struggle, without knowing what is going to happen next.
46:46 To end the habit of smoking – I’m taking that as an example - end it immediately without rationalizing, without fear of what it will… if you continue smoking, what kind of cancer you are going to get and all the rest of it, the harm of smoking; to end it.
47:13 Q: While you still enjoy it.
47:21 K: While you still enjoy it; of course; of course.
47:31 If you don’t enjoy it, it’s fairly simple. (Laughter)

K: Now, how does one come to that point when, in the full enjoyment of something, to end it?
47:54 Right? How does one come to it?
48:09 Q: Surely it’s by remaining inactive.
48:22 When you normally make some action to satisfy this desire, and instead of that, just don’t make that action and just watch what happens to yourself.
48:30 K: Now, how do you watch? No, please; do it; do it; don’t theorize; that’s... moment you theorize, you won’t… we won’t be able to proceed. Take a particular pleasure which you are enjoying; and, first of all, why should you stop it?
48:53 If you’re enjoying it, you enjoy it and you have a good time with it, why should you stop?
48:57 Q: Yes, but just take this very example of listening to you as a pleasure; why should we end it at all?
49:06 K: No sir. Ah, because I’m going to leave in half an hour; you can’t go on listening to this poor chap for ever and ever; there is no fun to it.
49:22 Q: (Inaudible).
49:23 K: You haven’t… No, please; you have to… You know, this repetitive pleasure becomes mechanical – right? – and then you form…
49:39 you get disgusted with it, you form… you get hold of another pleasure and that goes on.
49:46 So we live in contradictions. Right, sirs? Come on… No?
49:53 Q: Yes.
49:55 Q: You wouldn’t give it up unless you see that it binds you.
49:58 K: I don’t want to give up anything. I want to see… I see life is so terribly mechanical, the pleasure and the pain, and the boredom with pain and with pleasure.
50:19 And being bored, the escapes we have, the network of escapes from this boredom, from this mechanical life – right?
50:32 - whether the temple, the church, meditation or the masters, knowledge – it’s all escape from this real mechanical process of living.
50:45 Now, I want to find out, not theorize; I want to find out if I can live in a different way which will not be mechanical.
50:58 Right? Now, how is one to do it?
51:18 The only way, as far as I see it now — I may change the whole thing… — is that there must be cessation of all wasteful energy, because I… to end anything I need tremendous energy.
51:49 Right? Sir, to listen I need energy.
52:04 Right? To see without the interference of thought, without the interference of my conditioning, without prejudice and so on and so on, to see, the very seeing is total energy, isn’t it?
52:21 I don’t know if you are...
52:26 Q: Yes.
52:27 Q: Right.
52:29 K: To listen to that rumour, to that car going by – to listen – I need great attention, in which there is no interference, and to attend so completely demands great energy, doesn’t it?
52:57 Not only neurologically, mentally... total attention demands energy. Right? Now, but I’m dissipating energy.
53:13 How am I to stop this dissipation of energy without effort, because that... moment I make an effort to stop it, that breeds other forms of contradiction, other waste.
53:27 You’re following all…? So I have to… The mind realizes that and it has to stop the waste of energy. How is it to do it? Come on, sirs.
53:40 Q: I see that the mind itself, by itself may not. Unless I as a whole am convinced, know, see, understand that it has to be, I will not.
54:03 K: Sir…
54:06 Q: Could you repeat what he said; we couldn’t hear what he said.
54:13 K: I beg your pardon. I… (laughs). He says the mind – please correct me, sir - the mind itself cannot stop this because the mind is made up of time, made up of prejudices, idiosyncrasies, temperaments and experience and all the rest of it, and therefore the mind which is the result of time cannot end the waste of energy.
54:56 And the mind itself, using time, is wasting itself, so it cannot operate.
55:05 That’s what the question is.
55:15 When you are listening or seeing or learning, are you using the mind?
55:27 Or your whole being, which is the mind, which is the intellect, the… total being…
55:40 Q: Total awareness.
55:43 K: Total awareness, a total attention, a total intensity, whatever… awareness is in operation when you are listening.
56:05 And we never listen that way, obviously. Right? Am I…? Shall I go on with it, sirs? Many: Yes.
56:17 K: So there are moments when I am completely attentive, completely aware – right? - and there are gaps, long periods when… in which I’m not attentive, in which I’m not so completely aware.
56:47 And what am I to do?
56:54 We generally say, ‘How am I to be continuously aware?’ Right?
57:07 I think that is a wrong question, that’s a wrong demand. What one has to do is to be attentive to inattention – right? - because it is the inattention that is breeding conflict, not attention.
57:32 I don’t know if you’re meeting all this. Many: Yes.
57:40 K: So when there is no attention, not to breed problems. I don’t know if you are… Am I…? Are we proceeding?
57:56 Q: Yes sir.
58:07 Q: Yes sir.
58:18 Q: But when there is no attention, who is there to... (inaudible)?
58:28 K: Ah… When there is no attention, who is there to be attentive to that inattention - that’s the question.
58:39 When you are attentive, when you are listening, when you are learning, when you are seeing, is there an entity which is observing?
58:52 Ah, please, sir, as you are listening to me or listening to the speaker, find out.
59:06 When you give your complete attention, with your body, with your mind, with your nerves, with your eyes, complete attention, is there an observer, a censor?
59:24 Many: No.
59:25 K: It’s only when you are inattentive the thing comes in.
59:37 And this inattention breeds problems. I… Right? And the solution of the problems are still sought in inattention.
59:53 If one had a problem, and you listened to the problem completely – you understand what I…? - totally, without trying to find an answer, without rationalizing, trying to find an escape from it, but totally lived with it, then you will see there is no problem at all.
1:00:39 The problem arises only when there is no attention. I… You’re meeting…?
1:00:54 Q: You say that, quite rightly, I feel, that this form of attention needs tremendous energy.
1:01:04 K: Yes.
1:01:04 Q: And that is true. I cannot be in this form of attention except by moments, following from moment to moment, and yet I lose; I cannot renew this attention sufficiently.
1:01:32 K: Ah, attention…
1:01:33 Q: This energy is necessary.
1:01:35 K: Sir, attention can’t be renewed.
1:01:39 Q: I think during those moments of attention, one sees that it has been there all the time…
1:01:44 K: No…
1:01:44 Q: … until you lose it.
1:01:45 K: No…
1:01:47 Q: Krishnamurti, the problem is, you’re saying, is that we have to have total attention in order that we can look at our problems but if there seems to be something which is at the back of my mind continuously, and I don’t know about others, and that is that the reason I don’t have total attention is not because that I can’t; it’s because I don’t want to.
1:02:18 K: Then don’t.
1:02:19 Q: Because I want my problem.
1:02:20 K: Then keep with your problems. (Laughter)

K: Don’t bother… You see, you’re making… Sir…
1:02:33 The way we live is full of problems, isn’t it? And if you like it, live with it, go on with it; suffer, pain, anxiety, despair, hope, fear – that is our life.
1:02:49 Q: No, it’s not exactly what I meant. What I meant was that I have a fear of what that total attention would do. In other words, you said, you know, there is this burst of energy...
1:02:58 K: Ah, you… But sir, you can’t have a fear of something which you don’t know.
1:03:04 Q: I find... I mean, it’s a fact that you can’t… in actual fact it is possible to.
1:03:10 K: So, all right; so you say, ‘As I cannot be totally attentive because I’m afraid.’ Q: Exactly.
1:03:19 K: So let us examine fear, shall we?
1:03:28 What is fear? Now, please, sir, try this with me; listen to it completely, will you?
1:03:37 Not how to get rid of fear; not all the intellectual concepts and escapes – just listen to it.
1:03:49 That is, listen to it, giving your full attention to it, and you can’t give full attention if your body is not completely relaxed – right? - if your mind is not completely quiet.
1:04:12 Right? Are you…? Right?
1:04:15 Q: Yes.
1:04:19 K: Physically it must be completely rested; mentally and emotionally, psychologically there must be a quietness so as to listen.
1:04:36 Right? Are you following…?
1:04:39 Q: Yes.
1:04:40 Q: Yes.
1:04:42 K: Do it, sirs; and listen in that state.
1:04:53 Listen to what? Listen to an explanation?
1:05:04 Listen to a series of words? Or are you listening to the thing of which you are afraid? I don’t know if you’re following all this. And if you are listening that way, is there fear?
1:05:26 And moment… when you listen that way, you can listen to the unconscious promptings of fear, can’t you?
1:05:34 And then is there a fear?
1:05:41 Let’s take… there is the fear of loneliness – you know? - this sense of isolation.
1:05:59 Though one may be related to lots of… one may have a great many friends, groups and all…there is the sense of complete loneliness; one knows it; and that’s one of the… probably the major cause of fears.
1:06:19 Now, to listen to that feeling of loneliness and learn about it.
1:06:32 First see it, in the sense, feel it, listen to it and learn about it, and to learn, to listen, to see it, you must have energy, mustn’t you?
1:06:48 You must have tremendous energy which is not dissipated, which is… doesn’t want to run… it can’t run away; no rationalization, no explanation.
1:07:02 It is completely quiet in that state of listening with regard to that loneliness.
1:07:14 Right?
1:07:21 Then if you are so attentive, learning about it, there is no entity who is accumulating knowledge about it.
1:07:38 Right? I don’t know if you are…
1:07:46 Right?
1:07:47 Q: Yes.
1:07:50 K: And there is not the observer and the thing observed. This is the most difficult thing. Right? And this contradiction, this division as the observer and the thing observed, creates the problem of conflict.
1:08:19 I don’t… Right, sirs? Many: Yes.
1:08:26 K: So is it possible to look at something so completely, the observer is not?
1:08:44 What is communication? How do you communicate?
1:08:59 Words are necessary, understood, gestures or whatever it is, but communication demands, doesn’t it, that both the speaker and the person to whom it is communicated must be in the same tension, as it were, with… they must both be at a certain intensity.
1:09:36 And in that state of intensity there is not you listening and the speaker; there is only the act of listening.
1:09:46 I don’t know if you are…
1:09:56 Q: Yes.
1:09:57 Q: Yes.
1:09:58 K: And that is the only… that state of mind is in communion. (Pause) Surely communion implies, doesn’t it, space.
1:10:42 (Inaudible).
1:10:53 As we were saying earlier, a mind that has problems becomes a dull mind and a dull mind cannot possibly be attentive.
1:12:19 It is only attentive, intense, learning, listening, seeing when any problem arises, to meet it, dissolve it and move.
1:12:38 I don’t… Right? Now, how is a mind which has so many problems to meet problems?
1:12:59 You understand what I’m…?
1:13:06 There is the problem of death, there’s the problem of time, there’s the problem of space, problem of relationship, problem of living, livelihood… - you know?
1:13:22 - problems: disease, health, old age.
1:13:29 How is it to meet all the problems, not one by one – I don’t know…
1:13:47 Right? - the whole of it, without effort, all the rest of it?
1:14:07 I wonder if you are…
1:14:16 You see, again, we meet problems… all our problems are fragmentary.
1:14:28 There is the problem of death, problem of fear, problem of a livelihood, boredom, enjoyment — you know?
1:14:38 - problems, one after the other.
1:14:46 Is there a way of meeting all these problems, not separately, but totally?
1:15:02 Am I…? Because if I deal with each problem, each problem is going to take time.
1:15:14 You follow? So I have to understand time.
1:15:43 Right, sir?
1:15:57 Are you…?
1:15:58 Q: If you can deal with all problems at once, then that implies they have a common root.
1:16:08 K: Ahah, ahah…
1:16:10 Q: (Inaudible).
1:16:12 K: Partly; that’s right.
1:16:16 Q: If you’re living in the present, you only have one problem at a time, then.
1:16:23 In fact, all the problems have coalesced into one problem.
1:16:26 K: Not ‘If I live in the present.’ What does it mean to live in the present?
1:16:30 Q: Well, not looking at the problems…
1:16:32 K: No sir, no sir, don’t… What does it mean to live in the present?
1:16:37 Q: We are aware of time.
1:16:44 K: The existentialists say, ‘Live in the present’; what does it mean to live in the present?
1:16:53 Q: To see the whole.
1:16:55 K: Ah? To see the whole? No, madame, you… Look, take… What does it mean to live in the present, in the active present?
1:17:11 Because the present is active; what does it mean?
1:17:15 Q: It means that thought doesn’t take you away from it.
1:17:21 K: No sir; no, do… go into it a little more, sir; don’t…
1:17:28 How can I live in the present when I’m the result of the past, and I’m using the present as a means to the future, how can I live in the present?
1:17:40 I don’t know… Right? It means I have to bring all time, the past and the future, into this… into the immediate present, mustn’t I – the past, the present and the future.
1:18:06 I have to collapse time, haven’t I? I wonder if you... Time must collapse, mustn’t it, to live in the present.
1:18:18 Q: I should say so it is direct perception without endeavouring to do anything about it.
1:18:30 K: Yes, madame, but do look at this; look at the immense difficulty; you don’t... How is time to collapse? You know, how is space to collapse?
1:18:48 The distance to collapse between here and the moon? Don’t say, ‘Well, if I’m attentive…’ - that’s not the answer.
1:19:06 We are concerned, when we say, ‘Live in the present,’ it must be something extraordinary, mustn’t it?
1:19:16 Q: Time has exploded... (inaudible).
1:19:17 K: No, madame; no, don’t explain it to me; do… do look at it.
1:19:25 Because I’m the result of two million years, my mind, my brain, my habits, everything is of time and you tell me, ‘Live in the present.’ I say, ‘What do you mean by it?’ How can I live in the present when I have this immense history behind me which is pushing me through the present to the future?
1:20:01 How am I to live in the present with the past? I can’t. Therefore I must… there must be a collapse of time. If I use the wrong phrase, it doesn’t matter; you will... I hope you will… Time must come to an end; time must stop.
1:20:16 Q: I feel I’m present, or live in the present when I’m not filled up, when I have no memory at that very moment, when I’m just that.
1:20:43 K: Yes sir; that’s what… ‘When’; ‘when’ is a supposition.
1:20:46 Q: No, I mean (inaudible) are the moments I have experienced.
1:20:51 K: Yes, but those moments come and go but that’s not good enough.
1:20:58 We have all had those moments when time has no meaning at all.
1:21:05 Q: One perceives the interrelatedness of all the problems and then there is an action which arises from that and that is... (inaudible).
1:21:24 K: Look, sir, take action. What do you mean by action?
1:21:32 To do, to be, to function, to think, act – what does action mean?
1:21:39 Getting up, going to… and all the rest of it, to… what is that action based on?
1:21:47 The past, an idea, on memory. So for us, action is related to time.
1:22:03 I’m not trying to make everything fit into time.
1:22:12 And to find out, to live is to act in the present demands the understanding and the ending of time, surely.
1:22:27 Q: And for time to collapse, it must mean the collapse of the entity.
1:22:46 K: Yes, sir, collapse of the entity.
1:22:47 Q: Would you explain why it is that the past and the future always seem to be so much more interesting than the present?
1:23:06 K: (Laughs) quite. The lady wants to know why the past and the future are much more interesting than the present. Oh, that’s fairly obvious, isn’t it? (Laughter)

Q: Well, can I ask this question – because I know it’s escape – but why is the present so difficult to confront?
1:23:28 K: That’s what we’re trying to find out.
1:23:29 Q: I mean, one can be in a safe environment and yet it’s still difficult to confront.
1:23:38 K: Madame, if we understand something really, if we see some fact truly, then that very fact, that very observation brings its own action; I don’t have to find out how to act.
1:24:02 I don’t know… Right? So what we are trying to find out, what we are trying to discover for yourself - not trying to find out what I am saying, because that’s not important at all – how…is it possible to live in the present at all?
1:24:23 Q: Isn’t it rather that it’s impossible not to, that it’s the only place you can live?
1:24:32 K: Ah, that’s an idea, sir, because I live... Look, all my acts are based on ideas, on a formula, on an experience, on knowledge, which are all the past.
1:24:54 I know no action which is not related to time.
1:25:06 And then someone comes along and tells me, ‘Live in the present.’ I say, ‘What do you mean by it? How can I live in the present?’ Unless… it may be a theory, then it’s valueless; it has no meaning at all, somebody coming and saying, ‘Live in the present.’ But to find out what it means, I have to discover, understand what… be totally aware of time; time as space, time as distance, time as a gradual achievement, using time as a means of getting rid of something or gaining something.
1:26:00 You follow? I have to… that way of thinking, that way of looking, that way of living must collapse to live in the present.
1:26:13 But my whole being is of time, conscious as well as unconscious.
1:26:24 How is the mind to step out of it?
1:26:27 Q: All images of oneself must collapse.
1:26:30 K: That’s right. All images of oneself must collapse, he is suggesting. Obviously, sir, but, you see, that is an idea, sir – you follow? – it’s not a fact.
1:26:47 Q: The fact is that I don’t know enough... (inaudible).
1:26:54 K: No, but you have no time to know enough.
1:26:57 Q: But I see myself creating time and every time I think, I create time, and every moment that I’m not at full attention, which, in fact, is all the time, thought goes on.
1:27:17 K: Yes sir.
1:27:18 Q: And builds the walls of my life and creates time.
1:27:21 K: Right. How are you going to end it?
1:27:24 Q: You can’t just arbitrarily stop thinking.
1:27:34 K: Of course not. Sir, wait; forget yourself and your problems and all the rest of it for the moment.
1:27:48 Is it… can time collapse?
1:27:55 That is, there is no tomorrow at all.
1:28:03 Q: No.
1:28:05 K: Ah…
1:28:07 Q: No.
1:28:09 K: To live in the present means there is no tomorrow.
1:28:25 That means there is an ending of pleasure, there is an ending of pain, ending of sorrow — not tomorrow, but now.
1:28:36 And you cannot live in the present with sorrow – right? - with despair, with hope, with ambition and all the rest of it.
1:28:53 So one has to come to this ending of time, or the stopping or the collapse of time differently, not directly.
1:29:01 I don’t know if you… One has to come to it through… negatively. Because you don’t know what the ending of time means, so one has to come to it by being aware how the mind thinks, how the mind uses time as a means of achievement, negatively or positively.
1:29:41 Right? I don’t know if you are…? Sir, you see, look; there is the question of peace. No, it’s half past eight, I’d better stop.
1:30:03 How is one to be peaceful; not theoretically, not as some ideal to be achieved; to be peaceful when in this world there are wars, contentions, quarrels?
1:30:29 Everything is based on violence.
1:30:43 And peace… to have… for peace to be, there cannot be tomorrow.
1:30:57 Ah?
1:31:06 I believe scientists are also inquiring into this question of collapse of space, which is the collapse of time, because the rockets, to go to Mars, will take so many months or years; is there a way of getting to Mars much quicker?
1:31:35 (Laughter)

K: No, no, there is tremendous things involved in it.
1:31:45 In the same way, a mind like ours, which has been used to time, which is the result of two million years, can now, having lived that way for two million… suddenly collapse?
1:32:05 You follow? Not take endless arguments, rationalization, fears, hope… You…?
1:32:21 We’ll have to stop. Let us, when we meet, next Thursday, is it? Thursday? Let’s go on where we left off because I really… we’d really like… should discuss this question of time, whether it is possible to stop time.
1:32:55 Perhaps that is creation. We’ll come to it.