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MA73D2 - We are the world and the world is us
Madras (Chennai), India - 16 December 1973
Public Discussion 2



0:01 This is J. Krishnamurti’s second public discussion in Madras, 1973.
0:10 Krishnamurti: What shall we talk over together this evening?
0:19 Questioner: Choiceless awareness.
0:29 K: Choiceless awareness.
0:40 Q: Greed.
0:46 K: We talked about yesterday greed, envy.
0:58 What do you think we should talk about together this evening?
1:02 Q: Do you think you could not go back to the topic which was originally suggested last night about isolation and whether or not the spiritual path can be pursued at the same time as total integration with the... (inaudible) K: The questioner wants to discuss isolation, whether it’s possible to live a spiritual life, whatever that may mean, and at the same time carry on with our daily life.
1:42 Is that right, sir?
1:43 Q: Yes.
1:44 K: What shall we...
1:45 Q: Yesterday we talked about greed. Today we’d better stick to greed.
1:47 Q: Problem of suffering.
1:54 K: That’s what the gentleman said – problem of suffering.
2:07 Do you want to discuss that?
2:12 Q: The problem of living daily.
2:26 Supposing you are a businessman. You are a businessman…
2:31 K: What would you do?
2:32 Q: …would you remain uncorrupt? You may not corrupt others.
2:36 K: Yes. If you – if you (laughter) – if you are a businessman, would you remain uncorrupted.
2:50 You want to discuss that? (Laughter) Q: (Inaudible) …yesterday you were talking about chaos and our relationship to it.
3:07 K: Fear and our relationship to what?
3:10 Q: Chaos.
3:11 K: Fear and chaos – our relationship to it. Now just a minute, sir. You want to discuss suffering, choiceless awareness, what would I, the speaker, do if I were a businessman and remain uncorrupt, and the last question.
3:32 Q: About death also, sir.
3:36 K: Death also.
3:38 Q: Peace of mind. Talking on peace of mind.
3:43 K: It’s all right, sir, I can hear. (Laughter) Peace of mind.
3:53 Q: Sir, it’s not for fun I am talking to you.
3:56 K: I understand, I understand, sir.
3:58 Q: An extra point: I would like to remain uncorrupt but I have been corrupted. Without corruption I cannot get on in life. That is life. What would you do in that situation?
4:08 K: What would I do if I was a businessman, knowing that I’m being corrupted and the whole structure is based on corruption.
4:20 What shall I do. Is that what you want to discuss? That really interests you, does it?
4:30 Q: Choiceless awareness.
4:31 K: Choiceless awareness, greed, sorrow. All right, sir.
4:38 Q: One more, sir.
4:45 In very ordinary life, supposing I want to come here… (inaudible) …but if I am not competitive, I cannot come here…
4:56 K: If I’m not competitive the world would destroy me. What shall I do. Sir, these are the problems. We live in a world that is utterly corrupt, immoral socially, a great deal of injustice, poverty, hunger, war, suffering, and what is one to do if one lives in this world, surrounded by pollution both mentally and ecologically, everywhere there is great deal of personal and non-personal sorrow.
5:48 What is a human being who wants to live intelligently in this world to do?
5:55 Right? Can we discuss that? Audience: Yes.
6:02 K: How do you, if I may ask, look at the world?
6:18 How do you regard the world?
6:27 Q: How is an individual to become a peaceful man?
6:36 K: How is an individual to become a peaceful man.
6:40 Q: ...in the world.
6:41 K: Same thing, sir. Now, let us please be clear what we are discussing, what we are trying to go into.
6:49 Which is, an individual, a human, an individual, can he live a life in this world, a life of not being corrupted, a peaceful life, and so on?
7:08 Now, individuality, the meaning of that word means indivisible.
7:15 That means a human being who is whole.
7:24 Such an entity, a whole being, is really an individual. But anybody who is fragmented in himself is not an individual. We cannot use that word ‘individual’, which has very specific meaning. In English, if you want to go into it, it means an entity, a human being who is whole, not fragmented, who is sane, holy – H.O.L.Y.
7:55 All that is implied in that word. And we are asking how is a human being who is, who himself is in sorrow, confusion, conflict, liable to be corrupted, liable to face all the misfortunes and the aches of life, how is he to live here peacefully, intelligently, and a life that has meaning.
8:31 Can we discuss that? Let’s stick to that. All that is implied in that. So I asked a question: how you sitting there look at the world.
8:45 What is your response or your relationship to the world?
8:55 The world being the national divisions, national sovereignties with their armies, the world of violence, brutality, wars, hatreds, enmity, corruption – what is your, as a human being, your relationship to all that?
9:19 Go on, sirs.
9:24 Q: Yes sir, I think I try to make the best of it for my own…
9:33 K: No, no, no, please, sir, we are going step by step into this.
9:35 Q: I am trying to answer that.
9:44 As I am now, I try to make the best use of it for my own purposes.
9:46 K: I asked a different question, sir.
9:47 Q: I’m sorry.
9:48 K: I asked what is your relationship to this world.
9:50 Q: Attempt to penetrate the chaos into the divine order.
10:03 Q: (Inaudible) K: Sir, please answer my question.
10:14 If you don’t want to answer, it’s all right. But you’ve asked me to discuss that and therefore I’m asking you a question, a simple question: what is your relationship to the world about you?
10:30 Q: I am part of it.
10:35 Q: We are part and parcel...
10:40 K: Sir, just a minute. You are part and parcel. I don’t know what that parcel means. (Laughter) Q: (Inaudible) K: Wait, sir, please, sir. You say you are part of that world. Right? Now what do you mean by that? What do you mean when you say, ‘I am part of that world’?
11:01 Q: We are responsible for it.
11:04 Q: (Inaudible) K: I’m sorry, sir, I can’t hear what you are saying, therefore please...
11:25 Q: (Inaudible) K: Sir, look, we live in this world.
11:33 Socially it is immoral, politically it is corrupt, there is pollution, lack of energy, and so on, so on, so on.
11:43 What is my relationship to this?
11:46 Q: You are part of this world.
11:48 K: Do… What is my... Am I separate from that? Or, I am the world, because I have created this world.
12:05 God hasn’t created it. Man has created this misery, this world, of confusion, conflict, wars, tears, suffering. That is the world we have created; we human beings have created it.
12:24 Isn’t that so? You are rather doubtful about it? (Laughter) Q: (In French) K: So do you feel that you are the world and the world is you?
12:51 Because you have created this – your parents, your grandparents, your – human beings have created it, this brutality, the wars, the injustice, the sorrow, the tears – we have created it.
13:10 No? Right, sir?
13:13 Q: Yes.
13:16 Q: Out of choice or compulsion.
13:23 K: There is no choice, sir. You are in it up to your neck.
13:30 Q: I haven’t created it.
13:34 K: So you have – because you as a human are corrupt.
13:41 You as a human being identify yourself with a nation, calling yourself India or Indian and so on – Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic, Protestant, Communist, Mao and so on – you have divided the world as India, Russia and so on.
14:01 Right? Aren’t you responsible for it? No? Sir, how extraordinary. You’d rather discuss abstract subjects about which you know nothing and get very excited, but when you face reality like that, you are responsible, you as a human being living in this country are responsible for everything that is going on – for the corrupt politicians, for the people who are in politics who want to hold positions, you know, all the rest of it – power – you are responsible.
14:47 So you are the world and the world is you. Whether you like it or not that is a psychological, physiological fact.
15:01 Right?
15:03 Q: How is it that I am responsible for this, for this mess?
15:09 K: Aren’t you?
15:10 Q: (Inaudible) K: Wait. Don’t you call yourself a Hindu?
15:13 Q: Yes.
15:14 K: And the Muslim; Pakistan and India, and they are at war.
15:22 You are a non-Brahman or Brahman, hate each other, exploit each other, all the rest of it is going on. Aren’t you responsible for that?
15:30 Q: The individual… (inaudible) … has contributed.
15:34 K: Sir, we are not deaf. I’ve explained, sir. Individuality means a human being who is not broken up, fragmented; and we, most human beings are fragmented which means contradictory, they live a contradictory life.
15:56 Therefore you cannot call yourself an individual.
16:01 Q: But we have not come here at our willing, sir.
16:13 Q: No, we are born helplessly in the world.
16:17 K: We are born helplessly. We come into life. We didn’t want to come here. (Laughter) You people are not serious at all. You are playing with words. Sir, the house is burning. Your house is burning and you sit there, discuss, and say, ‘I wasn’t… they didn’t ask me before I was born’.
16:48 Sir, do look at this problem, please. This is really a vitally important question that is troubling the whole world, not your little mind but the whole world is concerned about this.
17:05 What is the relationship of a human being with the world which he has… which exists? If I am corrupt, I am part of that world.
17:19 If I call myself a Hindu, I am part of that world. If I support national sovereignty, I am part of that world.
17:31 No? Do you... are you silent about this, sirs?
17:42 Q: What if I am good and not corrupt?
17:44 K: What if I am good and not corrupt. Are you?
17:46 Q: Yes.
17:47 K: Oh, sir, don’t, don’t. It’s like saying when the house is burning, what is the colour of your hair.
18:01 Do please face the fact. Both psychologically and physically you are the result of your culture.
18:12 Right? The culture: your tradition, your gods, your economic state, your divisions as a Brahman, non-Brahman, hating each other, poisoning each other.
18:26 Aren’t you responsible for this?
18:33 No?
18:34 A: Yes, sir.
18:38 K: Therefore, sir, you are the world and the world is you.
18:47 You may not like it, you may think you are most extraordinarily spiritual, divine, etc., etc., but the fact is you are part of this world and the world is you.
19:00 Q: One cannot constitute the world.
19:09 The individual cannot constitute the whole world.
19:11 K: The individual cannot constitute the whole world. I explained just now, sir, what the individual means. Aren’t you the whole world? The whole world is suffering. The whole world is in tears. They are afraid of death. They have divided themselves into nationalities, into religious sects, Catholics, Protestants, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims.
19:46 They are suffering; you are part of that suffering.
19:54 No? Oh, for god’s sake...
20:10 Q: (Inaudible) Q: He said, physically I am separate but psychologically I am the same as the audience of the world…
20:36 K: Look, sir, aren’t you the product of your culture? Aren’t you? The culture being your tradition, your gods, your social life, your – you are the product of that, aren’t you? Or do you think you are some strange human being who is not related to this world?
20:59 I am surprised you don’t… All right, sir, I’ll go into it. Psychologically you are part of this world. You may have a different face, you may have dark skin or light skin, you may have a bank account, you may call yourself by a particular name – that does not constitute an individuality.
21:24 You are a human being. Human being is not only what – his face, his height, his body, but also psychologically, inwardly – what he believes, what he is frightened about, his pursuit of pleasure, his ambitions, they are common throughout the world.
21:48 The objects may change but the desire for a particular thing is the same.
21:55 Please, this is a fact. Need we labour this point? Need we go… Sir, is that clear? Now, how do you look at the world? Are you separate from the world?
22:19 Q: (Inaudible) Q: He says, as a reflection of my own consciousness.
22:38 K: Yes. So, look: I am the world. That is a fact. And the world is me. Now what am I to do? How am I to live in this beastly world – mad, insane, chaotic world, which has so many religions, so many gurus, so many ideas, opinions, judgments, everything crowding in – how am I to live in this world sanely?
23:06 Isn’t that your problem? Oh for god... No?
23:14 A: Yes.
23:16 K: Then what do you do? How are you to live in this insane world sanely?
23:33 Right? Now, when you say to yourself, I am the world and the world is me, is it a verbal statement, an ideological abstraction of a reality, or do you see the fact?
24:03 You understand, sir? The fact is one thing and the abstraction of that fact is another.
24:12 The fact is you are the world, you are the product of the culture in which you live.
24:21 Therefore you are not an individual, just an expression of that culture.
24:28 Now, that’s a fact, both biologically, psychologically, genetically and so on, that’s a fact.
24:40 Now how do you look at that fact? Do you draw away from it into an idea and then say, what am I to do about that idea?
24:55 You are following this, sir? Therefore you are not concerned with the fact but with the abstraction which you have made about the fact.
25:07 Therefore you are concerned about the abstraction and not the fact. Do you see this, sir? Please. You understand, sir? Do we… are we meeting each other?
25:24 Q: Yes, sir.
25:26 K: Sir, we suffer, you suffer, not only physically but psychologically – pain, grief, the agony of loneliness, frustration, disappointment – you suffer.
25:45 That’s a fact. The ‘away from the fact’ is a conclusion, and you are more concerned with conclusions than with fact.
26:01 Do you see this? Please. The fact is that you are a human being, like everybody else throughout the world, but you have labelled yourself as a Hindu, as an Indian or a Muslim or a Pakistani or god knows what else, and that label is much more important than the fact that you are a human being.
26:35 Do you see? This is a simple fact, sir, do you see it? And we quarrel about the abstractions. You understand? I’m a communist, you are a capitalist, I am Mao and you are something else – just ideas which are abstractions from reality.
26:54 You understood this, sir? I wonder if you...
26:57 Q: (Inaudible) K: No capito.
27:07 I don’t understand what you are saying, sir.
27:19 Q: (Inaudible) K: I might be talking Greek.
27:33 Now, sir, that is a fact. So let us face the fact and not the abstraction of the fact. Right? Can you do that? Do you understand what I mean?
27:58 I suffer, I have a toothache – that’s a fact. The abstraction, that is, withdrawing from the fact is an idea that I shouldn’t have toothache, but the fact is that I’ve got a toothache.
28:14 It’s much more important to deal with the toothache rather than that I should not have toothache.
28:24 You understand this, sir? Now, all the world is concerned with abstractions not with the fact.
28:35 The fact is – listen to this please, this is important for your life – the fact is there is starvation, poverty in India.
28:48 Terrible poverty, degradation. Now, the politicians have plans – you understand?
29:01 – communists have plans how to solve this starvation, the congress people have plans how to solve this, the Mao people have plans, and so on, or the various political groups, they are concerned with plans – you understand?
29:19 – not with the fact. (Laughter) You laugh; your life is it, sir.
29:27 Q: Sir, the government… (inaudible) K: Wait, sir. Wait, sir, do listen to what I am saying. So we are, we live in abstractions and not with facts.
29:40 Q: The plan is not an abstraction.
29:46 K: Wait, sir. I’m coming to that, sir. The fact is starvation, and that is the only fact. And if all of us – politics, non-politicians, communists – all of us said that must be solved, then we would solve it. But if I come with my plan and you come with your plan, we will begin quarrel about the plans. Right? Now, so the fact is you are the world.
30:20 Can you remain with that fact? Not say, what to do? We are coming to… what to do is the next step, but can you remain with that fact and not wander away?
30:33 Q: Sir, you are going away from the fact. I’m telling you – please listen. See, the world is becoming so complicated that things have been divided and each is taking a part of the work up.
30:47 And so the government takes up the responsibility of doing such social work. It has a plan. You and I cannot do it…
30:53 K: Sir, we are not talking at that level...
30:54 Q: Then what are you talking?
30:55 K: I am talking… I am stating a first fact and move from there, not government level. I’m talking about your responsibility if you are a human being, how you face this fact.
31:08 Q: Individually it is impossible…
31:10 K: No, I told you – as a human being.
31:12 Q: Yes, correct.
31:14 K: How do you face this fact? That you are the world and the world is you. How do you look at it? Do you look at it with an abstraction or do you face it as it is? You understood my question, sirs?
31:26 Q: I am contributing to the world as it is, and the world is contributing to what I am, but how does it make the world me and me the world?
31:52 K: I’ve just... I am not going to go over it over and over again, I want to move otherwise we will get stuck with words.
32:02 Now how do you face this fact? With fear? With a conclusion? You say, ‘What shall I do, what is the right action?’ You follow?
32:16 Those are all abstractions, away from the fact. So can you face the fact without the movement of withdrawing away from the fact?
32:30 Have I made this question clear? I am the world and the world is me.
32:46 Now, when that fact is so, what takes place in my mind… in your mind?
33:01 You understand, sir? When you face a fact, what takes place?
33:17 What takes place, sir, when you face a fact that there is a cobra right in front of you, what takes place?
33:23 Q: Action.
33:25 Q: Immediate action.
33:28 K: There is action, isn’t there? Isn’t there, sirs? Now, when you face this fact that you are the world and the world is you, what takes place?
33:42 Go on, sir, what takes place?
33:48 Q: (Inaudible) K: Wait! You see – do you say that in front of a cobra?
33:53 Q: No.
33:55 K: I’m asking you a question. When you face a cobra there is immediate action because you are dealing with a deadly fact.
34:09 Right? Now, this is a fact that you are the world and the world is you. What action takes place? You don’t answer because you don’t face the fact.
34:37 You are dodging it, you are avoiding it, you are inventing theories – say, ‘What am I to do? What should I do? What is my responsibility?’ – you are moving away. You don’t say, ‘This is a fact, I’ve got to answer it’.
34:55 Q: I realize that the imperfections... (inaudible) K: I’ve said that, sir. You are the world and the world is you. Because you are ambitious, greedy, seeking power, position, and so you create a society that supports you.
35:18 Right? You create a religion that says, go on old boy, play with this, only think occasionally of god if you can.
35:28 And you play that game. Now, a man who is serious, confronted with this problem, that you are the world and the world is me, and no escape from the fact, what will he do?
35:49 What takes place in your mind?
35:52 Q: I have to live in the world.
35:59 There is no way… (inaudible) K: There is no way out?
36:04 Q: (Inaudible) …but I live with it.
36:07 K: You live with what?
36:08 Q: Live with the world, as it is.
36:11 K: You live with what, sir?
36:16 Q: (Inaudible) K: You live with what, sir?
36:21 Q: In the world.
36:22 K: What is the world?
36:24 Q: The world is brutality...
36:27 K: So you live – listen, sir, what you are saying – you live with violence, you live with brutality, you live with the wars…
36:37 Q: There’s no way out.
36:43 K: So you accept it, don’t you.
36:46 Q: Yes.
36:47 K: Therefore, what takes place? You are supporting this rotten world.
36:53 Q: Not supporting... (inaudible) K: When you say, I live with it – live with what?
37:02 Live with yourself? That’s what you mean. And you live with yourself, which is your violence, your fears, your pleasures, your ambitions, you live with that.
37:17 That’s… you are that.
37:20 Q: (Inaudible) K: That’s a lovely theory. (Laughter) It’s like saying, ‘I love my brother’, and have my hand in his pocket.
37:35 Oh, don’t, you are not… you really are not serious people at all.
37:44 You don’t know what it means to be serious.
37:47 Q: Sir, if I am the world, and I recognize that, I must… (inaudible) …without corruption and without violence...
38:03 K: Madame, madame, listen please. What takes place when you are facing a fact? When you face a fact that there is a deadly snake in front of you there is instant action.
38:20 Q: (Inaudible) K: You don’t even have the courtesy to listen to what is being said.
38:31 Here is a fact equally dangerous; tremendous meaning in that.
38:40 And when you face that fact what do you do?
38:52 Q: Immediately physical action.
38:56 K: Immediately physical action. What does that mean?
39:07 Q: (Inaudible) K: Look, sir, look, sir, please, just – would you have the courtesy to listen to the speaker for a few minutes.
39:31 Courtesy – just listen, don’t offer your opinions, just listen.
39:38 Not that you agree or disagree – find out what the speaker has to say, and to do that you must have a little attention, a little courtesy, a little patience.
39:51 It is established, not only by the scientist, but if you examine yourself very closely you will see that what you are the world is.
40:05 And the world is you, however imperfect, however ugly, however brutal, is what you are.
40:13 That’s a fact. Now what shall I do when I’m confronted with that enormous fact? Please don’t answer it. What do I do when I’m confronted, when I’m faced with a deadly poisonous snake? One is a physical action – right? – the action of running away from it, which is instantaneous; there is no time interval between the act and perception – please listen to what I’m saying! – there is no time interval between perception and action when I see a deadly poisonous snake.
40:59 Now, here the problem is immense. When I say I am the world and the world is me, it is not a verbal statement, it is not an abstraction but a reality.
41:16 Now, what is my action when I’m confronted with this thing, when I realize I am the world and the world is me?
41:27 I realize it, not verbally accept the statement, not accept a conclusion, but a fact that I am that.
41:36 When I am ambitious I create a society that supports my ambition. When I am corrupt I create a society that supports. So, I am the world and the world is me. I am faced with that fact, and therefore no moving away from that fact.
41:57 What action takes place? There must be action when you are faced with a fact.
42:06 Q: I can do nothing about this.
42:12 K: You can do nothing about it? Is that what you are all saying? Be honest, sir.
42:20 Q: We don’t know what to do.
42:21 Q: We are not facing the fact at all, sir. Like a physical danger, the psychological danger we are not facing it at all.
42:33 Why this lack of seriousness in us?
42:35 K: Right, sir, just a minute. You are educated from childhood to face the cobra – right? – that is a danger, and there, through tradition, through experience, through memory, through what people have said: ‘Be careful of that snake’, therefore you are conditioned to act instantly.
43:02 Right? Here, you are not conditioned to act instantly. On the contrary, you are conditioned to withdraw from the fact into an abstraction. Right? See what is going on, sir. With the snake you are conditioned to act instantly, here you are conditioned to go away from the fact.
43:29 Right? So your difficulty is how to uncondition the mind to face the fact.
43:39 You understand? You can look at the fact. You logically, intellectually, every way, say, ‘Yes, it is so’. But you cannot act about it because you are living in an abstraction.
43:55 Therefore you have no answer. You understand? If I don’t live in abstractions – I don’t. Personally I don’t live in abstractions at all, about anything.
44:15 I have no belief. I have no ideals, no concepts, no conclusion, no opinions.
44:26 I observe the fact and the fact tells me what to do.
44:33 Right? But if I live in abstractions then I don’t know what to do.
44:43 So, our question then is: why are you living in abstractions? When you call yourself a Hindu, that’s an abstraction, isn’t it – or a Muslim or whatever it is.
44:58 Why do you do that? Go on, sir, answer, sir.
45:03 Q: Fear. Division.
45:05 K: No, sir, answer it from… not just intellectual word. Why do live in a world of abstractions?
45:17 Q: (Inaudible) K: You are not answering my question.
45:26 Q: It’s an easy way to live.
45:28 K: It is the easiest way, to live in abstractions? Look, sir, you have an abstraction called reincarnation, haven’t you?
45:42 All of you believe in that – god knows why, but you believe in it. That’s an abstraction. So, what is your life? You are going to live next life. Right? Therefore this life matters enormously what you do – doesn’t it? If you believe in reincarnation, because then you will be born next life and a better life – more money, more houses, more, more – you follow? – and if you believe that strongly, then what is important is how you live now, isn’t it.
46:27 Therefore, the belief is an abstraction, the reality is what you are doing now.
46:44 And you won’t face that. So why does the mind, your mind, live in abstractions? There must be brotherhood – right? – we are all brotherly, and we form societies, groups and god knows what else – why? Either you are brotherly or not brotherly. Right? So, why aren’t you brotherly? Because you are – very simple fact – you are concerned about yourself.
47:11 You say to the other fellow, ‘Go to hell, I’m only concerned about myself. I’ll be brotherly when it pays me’. You never face facts. Right? Now, I say to you, why do you live in abstractions?
47:35 You haven’t answered me. Do you go and read the Bhagavad-Gita which will tell you why you live in abstractions? Will you go to your guru, and tell you why you live in abstractions? Will he tell you? The Upanishads? Will anybody tell you why you live in abstractions? Come on, sir, tell me.
47:58 Q: Isn’t it because… I have this feeling that it’s because I find it easy to conform myself to the society that I live in.
48:08 That’s what happens.
48:09 K: So you are confirming to a pattern which society has established, and the religious teachers have established it as an abstraction.
48:22 Q: Yes.
48:23 K: Now wait. Then what do you do? Just carry on, living in abstractions? That’s a fact. All right, I’ll take you up on that. You live in abstractions, that’s a fact. Right? Now what is your action when you face that fact?
48:45 You know what abstraction means? Words, a conclusion, a formula, a dictum, an ideology – all those are abstractions and you are living in that.
49:01 That’s a fact. And when you face that, what is your action? You understand, sir? What is your action when you face that you are living with ideas, which have – ideas – you follow?
49:17 – words. What is your action? Do you drop them? The dropping of them is action. Right? As it is an action when you see a cobra.
49:39 A man who is hungry, by reading a menu is not satisfied is he?
49:48 You read the menu – you understand? – and you think you are satisfied.
49:57 You understand, sir, what I am saying? That has been your religion, your education, your way of life.
50:07 So, what is a man to do when he is confronted with the fact that he is the world and the world is he, himself.
50:17 You know what it means, sir, to realize that fact? Not verbally, intellectually, but to really realize it in your – realize it. Do you know what it means?
50:32 That you are totally responsible for every action of yours, and not somebody else – not the government, not society, not your culture.
50:50 You are the product of that and therefore you are facing the fact and therefore you are absolutely responsible for that.
50:58 Sir, don’t you feel responsible for your family and children? Do you? Do you, sirs? What do you do? Just go up in abstractions, and let them starve, let them get disease and so on?
51:19 You work, don’t you?
51:20 Q: That’s the root of the problem.
51:21 K: Wait! That’s what I’m saying, sir. You work; you have to act. You don’t say, ‘Well, I will have abstractions that I must act’.
51:36 You go. You go every morning from nine o’clock till five thirty or five to a beastly factory, office, sweat, be insulted, goaded, and that’s your life.
51:56 Right? By golly. And because that’s your life and so boring you trot off to your guru. Don’t you? You go off to a temple, take a bath, shave your head or fast, or play tricks with yourself.
52:17 So, sir, now what takes place? What takes place to a mind that has realized that it is the world and the world is itself, and doesn’t move from that fact?
52:36 What takes place?
52:46 Q: It ceases to live.
52:51 K: It ceases to live. How do you know? That’s a conclusion, isn’t it. What takes place when I realize that when you kill a Pakistani for the love of your country, and the Pakistani kills you for the love of his country, the wife, the husband, the children are crying, what takes place in you?
53:31 Just, what happens to you? I’m not being sentimental, emotional. What takes place? Right, I’ll show you if you want. You see, unfortunately that will become an abstraction to you, not a reality.
53:56 To me it is a reality because I am not a Hindu, I don’t belong to any country.
54:06 Right? I have no religion as you... the religion of yours, which is non-religion.
54:19 I have no authority. You understand, sir? I don’t follow anybody. And I live a life in which I don’t compare myself with anybody.
54:35 Therefore I’m not envious of your cars, of your women, of your money, of your enlightenment, gurus.
54:45 Right? Can you do that? That is action – you understand, sir? – a positive direct action. And when all of you do that, do you know what will happen to India, to this country? You’ll bring out a new generation of people.
55:04 Q: (Inaudible) K: Can you do that, sir?
55:15 That’s your next question. Because you are facing a fact. The fact is that your house is on fire – your house not my house.
55:35 And when you realize actually your house is on fire, you don’t theorize, you work. Don’t you? Now will you, faced with this fact, act? That is a mind that has no tradition, therefore it is a fresh mind.
55:54 You understand, sir?
55:58 Q: But how does it help to change the world?
56:13 (Inaudible) Q: How does it stop butchery taking place in the world?
56:31 K: How does it stop the wickedness that is going on in the world.
56:39 Are you asking me?
56:43 Q: Yes, sir.
56:48 K: Why? How do you stop it, sir? Not how do I stop it.
56:54 Q: I can’t stop it, sir…
56:56 K: What do you mean? The world is you and you are the world. If you stop being wicked, you have stopped wickedness.
57:07 Q: Has it stopped?
57:09 K: Oh for – do listen to this, sir! If you love – I mustn’t use that word, you don’t know anything about it. Sir, the moment I realize I am the world and the world is me, and see the immense significance of it – not my little world, my little family, my little money, my ambition, my petty little opinions – I am the world, of this extraordinary world, of the world of beauty, nature, the flowers, the skies, the marvellous earth, and also the human beings that are suffering, aching, lonely, miserable, shedding tears – I’m all that.
58:05 And I realize the wickedness exists there because I am wicked.
58:13 If all of you realize that now, do you know what, you would be marvellous human beings.
58:21 You’d change the world tomorrow. But you are not interested in changing the world, nor changing yourself either. You know, sirs, this is becoming a great problem, whether human beings – Arabs or Jews, or Hindus and Muslims – whether they can live peacefully.
59:00 Whether knowledge has any place to bring about peace.
59:07 You understand my question, sir? Whether knowledge has any place in bringing about peace between human beings.
59:20 Knowledge being experience. We’ve had probably over 5,000 wars since history began, written history.
59:35 People have cried, they have been mutilated, without arms, without legs, without eyes.
59:43 Women have cried the world over. They have had thousand experiences of tears, and we are still going on.
59:54 So has knowledge any place in bringing about peace between human beings?
1:00:01 You understand my question, sir? Please, even understand the question, not how to answer it.
1:00:11 You understood my question, sirs?
1:00:18 Has tradition helped to bring about peace in the world? – your tradition, my tradition, the Muslim tradition, the Christian tradition – you follow?
1:00:30 You know that word ‘tradition’ means ‘tradare’, to transfer, to hand over, and also it has another meaning.
1:00:41 Another meaning is ‘betrayal’. Betrayal of the present: a man who lives in tradition is betraying the present.
1:00:56 I wonder if you understand this. Not understand it up here. Therefore a man who lives in tradition is always betraying the present, which means the present agony, the present suffering, the present ache, loneliness, lack of affection – that is the present.
1:01:23 And when you function in tradition you are betraying all that. And that’s what you all, gentlemen, ladies, have done.
1:01:34 So, what will you do when you realize this fact?
1:01:43 Q: (Inaudible) K: Sir, sir, what do I say, sir?
1:01:50 What do I do, sir? I haven’t understood what you said, sir. What did you say, sir? I generalize...
1:02:03 Q: All the human beings are corrupt and all the human beings are violent.
1:02:15 K: All human beings are violent.
1:02:22 Right. I say, yes. It is not a generalization but observed.
1:02:34 Observe yourself; aren’t you violent? Don’t you get angry? Don’t you want position, competition? Don’t you support your India against Pakistan?
1:02:53 Isn’t that violence? And this is happening the world over. Therefore I am saying human beings for thousands of years have been violent.
1:03:12 Right? It is not as abstract generalization but an actuality.
1:03:20 We are sexually violent, we are violent in our emotions, we are envious, which is a form of violence, and also violence takes place when we live in a crowded city.
1:03:41 You know that, do you? They have experimented, putting rats, animals in a very, very close quarters, not giving them enough space.
1:03:53 When that happens, the animals, the rats and the other animals lose their orientation.
1:04:00 They kill their own babies, they kill their own mothers. They destroy themselves. That’s what we are doing. You understand all this, sirs? Therefore human beings are violent and therefore you have created a world that is violent.
1:04:21 Face that fact, not how to get over violence.
1:04:28 How to get over violence by non-violence is an abstraction. And you have played that, with that game for centuries. But if you face the fact that you are violent, what takes place?
1:04:40 Q: Unless I die to all my accumulated knowledge and experience and live this moment, for this moment itself creating further knowledge and experience, how can you face the fact?
1:04:55 K: Do you really want to know that, an answer to that, sir? Will you pursue it with your life, not with words?
1:05:03 Q: That is the only answer.
1:05:08 K: (Laughs) Will you give your life to find out the truth of it?
1:05:17 Q: Yes, sir.
1:05:19 K: So you are asking the question, how to live in the present totally.
1:05:27 Right?
1:05:28 Q: Without creating an experience or a knowledge of this moment.
1:05:31 K: Therefore you have to enquire into the question of what is learning. Right, sir?
1:05:35 Q: Sir, what is the difference between...
1:05:37 K: Look, sir, look, sir. Wait a minute, sir. That gentleman asked a question. You are asking a question, sir: how am I to live in the present.
1:06:04 We don’t know what it means, therefore you say, ‘I’m going to learn about it’. Right? Learn. Now, what does learn mean, what does learning mean? I learn a language and therefore collect a lot of words, verbs, and learn how to put the words and the verbs together – I learn.
1:06:32 Q: But learning itself is creating an experience, sir.
1:06:37 K: Wait, sir, please, sir. I said there are two meanings to learning. One is to accumulate knowledge – linguistic, mathematic, biological, scientific and so on – there you learn and accumulate knowledge, and that knowledge can be added or taken, and so on.
1:07:01 There is another kind of learning. Will you listen to this? You know this kind of learning. Right? You are brought up from childhood to learn, to know what learning means of that kind.
1:07:19 I am bringing something new, something – think about, look at it. Which is, to learn without accumulating.
1:07:31 Now, to learn without accumulating means to observe afresh each movement of life.
1:07:45 That means I cannot observe the movement of life, thought, feeling, all that, if I come to it with previous knowledge, with previous memories, with previous experiences.
1:08:02 Therefore, can my mind, can my mind learn a language, accumulated, how to ride a bicycle, drive a car and so on, on one hand, and also learn without accumulating.
1:08:22 You understand? Which means I must give tremendous attention to this fact of learning without accumulation.
1:08:33 Therefore it means learning all the time, never a moment of not learning.
1:08:40 The non-learning is the accumulating factor. I wonder if you get all this. The learning is a constant movement. Therefore there is never a moment you say, ‘I know’. You understand, sir? The moment you say, ‘I know’, you have lost all humility.
1:09:06 When your gurus, your teachers, your enlightened whatever they are, tell you, ‘I know’, they have lost everything.
1:09:19 You understand? But a man who is learning, never accumulating, therefore he learns every minute and has humility.
1:09:33 Whereas the man who is learning and accumulating, he uses his knowledge for his vanity, both technologically and psychologically.
1:09:47 So can the mind hold both? You understand, sir? Hold both and function. That requires tremendous inward attention and discipline. You understand? Oh lord! Are you interested in all this? Or merely as a curiosity listening to somebody talking about something about which you know nothing?
1:10:30 Q: We are very serious to learn.
1:10:38 K: Learn from me? You are not learning anything from me. You are learning by observing yourself, and yourself is far more important than me because yourself is the life that you are living.
1:11:00 So you can learn by observing. Sir, look, I’ll show it to you. Listen to it, please do listen to it. I observe myself. The observer is the knower – right? – is the entity who is the past, the knowledge, the experience, the tradition, the entity that said, this is right, this wrong, this is good, this is bad – which is all conditioning of the past.
1:11:47 I observe… when there is observation by the observer then he is observing through a screen of the past.
1:11:59 Right? You understand, sir? Now, can he observe without that screen?
1:12:11 Which means, can he observe without the observer?
1:12:18 An observation in which the observer doesn’t enter at all. Try it, do this and you will find how extraordinary things take place.
1:12:32 Where there is a division between the observer and the observed, there is conflict.
1:12:39 Right? The past and the present. The observed is the present, and when the observer is different from the observed then there is division.
1:12:54 That division brings about conflict. Right? Between Muslim and Hindu. So similarly, when there is an observer watching the observed as though he was separate then there is conflict.
1:13:11 But the observer is the observed. Right? You understand this? No. Anger, at the moment of anger there is no observer, is there?
1:13:28 Later on, the observer comes in and says, ‘I mustn’t be angry’, ‘I was right to be angry’, ‘It was good to be angry’, ‘It was rational to be – righteous anger’.
1:13:41 So, the observer then is different from anger. Right, sir? Are you getting tired?
1:13:48 A: No, sir.
1:13:50 K: So where there is an observer different from the observed there is conflict.
1:13:59 When you say, ‘I am different from the world’, you are in conflict with the world.
1:14:09 But when you realize that you are the world and the world is you, this conflict of division comes to an end, therefore there is action.
1:14:18 I wonder if you see it. Sir, we are endowed with brains. You have expanded that brain capacity in memorizing, in accepting authority, tradition, and therefore you find it terribly difficult to see something new.
1:14:42 But when you see something new, the habit comes over and takes it all to the old, and it becomes a habit, repeat.
1:14:50 But when you look at it, then there is no repetition. It is something new taking place all the time.
1:15:01 So, do you realize in your heart, in your totality of your mind, that you are the world and the world is you?
1:15:22 When you cheat another you are cheating yourself.
1:15:29 When you are jealous the world is jealous, and therefore your jealousy is sustained.
1:15:41 And when you are envious you are part of that world. And then you ask, how am I to live in that world without envy, which is an abstraction because you are envious.
1:15:56 So, when you realize that you are the world, and it is really an extraordinary thing to realize that, not verbally, not as an ideation, idea or a mental concept but as an actuality, it is a tremendous thing.
1:16:18 It breaks all limits of thought. You understand, sir? Come, sir. It breaks down all barriers. It breaks down the very centre of your being, which is the ‘me’. When you say, I am the world and the world is me, there is no me. You understand? So it is a tremendous thing to realize that. Then you will know what compassion is.
1:17:04 We meet on Tuesday afternoon for a talk. I hope it won’t rain.