Krishnamurti - Can the brain look at the present without time?

Krishnamurti Subtitles

MA73D3 - Can the brain look at the present without time?
Madras (Chennai), India - 20 December 1973
Public Discussion 3

0:00	This is J Krishnamurti’s third public discussion in Madras, 1973.
0:11	Krishnamurti: What do we discuss or talk over together this morning? Questioner: …observer and the observed...
0:19	K: Sir, do you want this? What is this? Q: Sir, recording. K: Who has asked you to record, sir? Q: Recording for myself.
0:28	K: No, sorry. It is distracting, sir, for people and for myself, please.
0:37	Q: May I go on? K: Just a minute, sir. Q: May I go on, sir? K: Yes, please.
0:42	Q: Sir, we were talking about the observer and the observed the other day, and when I look at myself, what takes place within myself, take envy, the observer without any abstraction I can very well understand – I am envy.
1:01	Therefore it is applicable in other fields of activities which are external. That is, I now listen to you, I am now listening to you; how can I, the observer, be you, the observed? Or may I put it more explicitly: I observe a microphone; how can I, the observer, be the observed, the microphone?
1:25	K: What were you going to say, sir? Q: Sir, can we discuss sleep, healing process, and whether sleep can convert us into meditation so that one can be ever fresh, as you are, sir?
1:44	Q: Sir, you point out that one should put the right question to get the right answer. What is the right question?
1:54	Q: All violence stems from man having to do jobs.
2:10	K: Why is man forced to do work.
2:17	Q: No, sir, all violence stems from seeking jobs, the competition in jobs. K: Right – all violence springs from the competition of jobs.
2:30	Q: From doing jobs… K: Yes, sir, I understand. Q: Sir, one who is in the absolute, that means one with the passive choiceless awareness, can he jump out of the field of depression at the same time? If not, then why…
2:50	Q: Occupation of mind.
3:01	Q: The speaker has been suggesting that enquiry into… …total attention which will release immense energy, and also…
3:25	Q: Sir, it seems the nature of language
3:35	how to use language even in introspection?
3:41	Q: Sir, you spoke about the transformation of the mind. Now, the transformed mind sees with great clarity and accuracy all the suffering and agony of the world, and it can see this without distortion, but it is not at peace as long as there is this. What can we do? K: I understand, sir.
4:05	Q: One more question, sir. What is the point of mutation where you see the world as
4:16	so that we don’t miss it. We seem to miss it all the time, at least I do.
4:23	Q: Sir, what is the right question? K: Just a minute, sir. Q: During your talk the other day, sir, you said that if I would seriously face the world, it is myself.
4:36	I must free myself from the accumulated knowledge that is the experience of the past. You further said that I must observe the present, which is the observed, without the past that is the observer.
4:56	K: Right, sir. Q: Then I must function outside the field of thought.
5:04	That is, I must go beyond the thought, because thought has created the past.
5:11	Well, sir, my question is: if I must observe the observed without the observer, then the observer becomes the observed, and when the observer becomes the observed there is nothing to observe, sir… K: I understand, sir.
5:31	Q: Is that not meditation which the Upanishads speak of? K: No. I give up!
5:41	May I, amongst all these questions, take one question that will involve all the others?
5:53	Q: What is the nature of the mind, sir – real nature of human beings? K: What is the real nature of human beings.
6:00	May I… Q: What is the difference between animal and the human being?
6:23	K: Right, sir, you have had your say, now let’s get on with it. May I take one question that will cover all the rest of the other questions? May I do that? Q: Yes.
6:42	K: You wanted to know whether during sleep, meditation is possible.
6:55	And also you asked, if I may repeat, what is the observer and the observed, and is the observer when he is not the observed, what is the observed, and so on. So shall we take that one question – I think will cover the rest – in understanding what is the observer and the observed? Shall we do that? Q: Yes.
7:29	K: If it interests you and if you are serious about it, let’s go into it.
7:44	How do you hear a word?
7:52	Word like ‘violence’, like ‘love’, like ‘beauty’, how do you listen to those three words? The word ‘beauty’, you hear that word and what is your response to it?
8:26	Go on, sirs. Q: Obviously it depends on whatever I have…
8:37	K: No, sir, please listen to my…
8:44	What is your response to a word like ‘beauty’?
8:51	Do you respond with your background, with your knowledge, with your experience of what you consider beauty, or do you really listen to the word?
9:11	Q: We respond with the background, sir. K: Sir, do take a little time to consider what the speaker is saying.
9:22	The speaker is asking, do you respond to that word with your particular opinion, judgement, evaluation and experience, or do you just listen to the word without all your reactions coming into it?
9:56	You understand my question, sir? I hear that word ‘beauty’ and I have no response to that word according to my experience.
10:11	I want to understand what that word means, not only verbally, intellectually, what it means deeply.
10:35	K: All right, I’ll take another word – ‘violence’. What does it mean to you?
10:48	Hate, you like it or don’t like it, or you enjoy violence – what is the significance of the word itself?
10:59	Where does it touch you? You understand? Where does that word…
11:09	what is the penetration of that word into your mind? Q: I feel power, sir.
11:19	Q: It doesn’t touch me because it’s just a word. I don’t feel violence, I don’t sense violence. It doesn’t touch me, it’s just a word.
11:32	Q: Why don’t you take the word ‘god’? K: God, right, take the word ‘god’. You love that word, don’t you? Which means absolutely nothing, but doesn’t matter. Take the word ‘god’, what does it mean to you? The word, not all the significance you give to the word. Is there a difference between the word and the connotation of that word without all the translation, interpretation that is awakened when you hear that word?
12:15	It is fairly simple what I am asking, or am I asking rather a silly question?
12:23	Q: The word by itself, it can’t mean anything.
12:29	K: The word by itself doesn’t mean anything – is that so?
12:37	Q: No, sir. K: Do please give it a chance.
12:48	Q: Sir, you asked whether you were asking a silly question. You are not asking a silly question but you are not asking a simple question.
12:59	K: Why shouldn’t it be a simple question, sir? I am asking at least what to me is fairly clear, and I may not be able to convey it to you. The word ‘god’…
13:15	Q: Sir, may I say… K: Not yet, sir. The word ‘god’, each one will interpret it according to his particular inclination, according to his desires, fears, pleasures and experiences, tradition.
13:38	Now, can I listen to that word without all the background of that word? And when I hear that word without that background, where does that word enter into my mind?
14:00	Am I… would somebody help me out of this?
14:15	Pupul Jayakar: Sir, can I raise one point, sir? You used three words: ‘beauty’, ‘violence’ and ‘god’.
14:25	Each of those words has a certain and vague meaning according to…
14:33	Each of those words…
14:42	As long as you are using language, the response from that storehouse of memory which contains that word is simultaneous. K: That’s what we are saying, yes.
14:59	PJ: So the responses will necessarily be different. It may come from the same storehouse of memory but the three responses will be different, because…
15:10	K: I understand, I understand. PJ: So when you say, how do you listen to those three words, you seem to be postulating a state where the source from which the response arises, or whether it does not arise, is this storehouse of memory and has nothing to do with the word.
15:42	K: All right, I understand the question. You have understood what she said? Q: Yes.
15:47	K: Now, let’s forget what I have said. When you hear the word ‘god’, what is your response to that word?
16:02	Q: Love. K: Love.
16:15	Q: Some power beyond me that cares. That is my full response to it: some power beyond me that cares, not only for me but for the whole world. K: That is your response, is it, sir?
16:29	Q: No, that has been the response all over the ages, through all the world.
16:37	K: Is that your response, sir? Q: Yes, sir. K: Not man’s general response – I asked what’s your response when you hear the word ‘god’.
16:51	Q: Yes, sir…
16:56	K: What is your response, sir? Q: My response is a power beyond me that cares, for me and for the whole world. K: So to you the word ‘god’ means something beyond me and for the whole world, something great. Q: And that cares.
17:21	In desperation, we always say, as you know, ‘Who cares?’ whenever we see something going wrong.
17:27	K: I am not interested in all the details of that word, sir. I am asking what is your response.
17:39	When you hear the word ‘god’, what is your response?
17:48	That gentleman says he understands it. Q: I don’t understand it…
18:11	K: Isn’t your response from your conditioning?
18:18	Wait, isn’t it? Q: It is the response of conditioning.
18:23	K: Isn’t it, sir? That gentleman is rather hesitant. Q: I am not able to escape…
18:30	K: Sir, we are not trying to escape. Do please stick to something. What is your response to the word ‘god’? Is it the response of your conditioning? Q: Mostly. K: Please, sir.
18:53	I am asking, sir… You are dodging the question. Q: No.
18:58	K: I am asking you what is your response to the word ‘god’ – is it from your background, from your conditioning? Q: Yes… K: Obviously, sir.
19:12	Why do we hesitate about it? If you are born in Russia and educated in Russia according to communist tenets and ideology, you would say, ‘Don’t ask such a silly question, there is no such thing!’ Q: But conditioning is a part of everybody’s thought.
19:30	K: You have invented all this. So you are responding according to your conditioning.
19:40	Therefore you are not listening to the meaning of the word and its significance in itself without the background.
19:56	I want to listen to the word ‘god’. I know nothing about it. Right? Don’t let’s pretend because you believe in god, you love god, that you know something about the poor word – you don’t. Right, sir? So, when I listen to that word ‘god’ I say, what does it mean? I don’t know.
20:27	That would be my response. So my mind is open to find out.
20:36	But when I respond according to my background, I have shut it off. I have blocked. So you’ve stopped inquiring. That’s all my point.
20:54	Like the word ‘beauty’, what does it mean?
21:01	Let’s forget ‘god’ – you know nothing about it. You will just have a lot of belief, …and all the rest of it.
21:09	But actually, you know nothing about god, and you live on a lot of words and tradition, and do the rest…
21:17	mischief the rest of the day. Now, what does ‘beauty’ mean to you?
21:34	See how you are stuck? ‘God’ you will discuss.
21:49	Q: Sometimes it is a sudden experience. K: What does beauty mean to you?
22:01	Q: I see a kind of… Sometimes when it comes up, a rhythm or a...
22:13	Sometimes I find it suddenly… K: No, sir. Please, sir, I am asking you now.
22:21	What does that word mean to you? Q: Sir, something which is in me…
22:31	Q: It doesn’t mean anything to me, sir… K: I am asking now, sir, not when it has happened, now, at the present moment, you sitting there and I sitting here, what does that word mean to you? Q: At present, nothing.
22:51	K: Nothing – that’s good. Now, please, what does it mean to you?
22:57	Q: To me it means something… …respond to.
23:09	Q: It’s a sensation.
23:16	Q: Is it not like the word ‘god’, meaning according to my background, according to my education?
23:24	K: So you are saying again, sir, beauty to us is the response of our education, background, experience – is that it? Q: Yes.
23:37	K: All right. ‘Violence’, what does that mean? Again, translated according to the background.
23:45	Is that it? Q: Yes, sir. K: So ‘violence’, ‘beauty’, ‘god’ is interpreted or responded to according to our background. Right? Q: Even if these words were non-existent, the same thing would be there.
24:10	K: Now, if I want to find out what beauty is, must I respond always according to my background? I want to find out, sir, what ‘god’ is.
24:30	I am taking that word as good as any other word – ‘love’, ‘anger’ – I don’t place ‘god’ at a higher level and ‘anger’ at a lower level – they are all words.
24:44	Now, I want to find out what is love. Q: Or what is violence. K: Or violence, let’s stick to that.
24:51	I want to find out what is violence. If I respond according to my background, I have already understood it intellectually. I’ve already responded to that word and it is nothing new, it is a response from the past. Right? So that response from the past merely gives a continuity to the meaning or significance of the word which the past has given to it.
25:27	I see that very clearly. Now, I want to find out what real violence is, without the background.
25:38	Right, sir? Can I do that? Is it possible for me to look at violence without the background?
25:51	Q: No, sir. K: No. Q: Is there such a thing without the background?
26:00	K: We are going to find out, sir – is there such a thing without the background. I want to see violence afresh.
26:14	Do you understand, sir? As though I’ve never seen it before. If I see it always according to my background, there is nothing new in the world. Right?
26:28	Love, god, sex, whatever you like – there is nothing new in the world. I want to see if it is possible to look at violence as though for the first time in my life.
26:43	You understand, sir? Now, is that possible?
26:55	If I have explained my question properly, and I hope I have, then is it possible for my mind to look at that violence afresh, as though I had never seen it before? Which means I must understand the whole problem of the present.
27:30	Right? Q: It’s not possible. K: I give up!
27:38	Sir, I’m violent now, and I want to understand it.
27:45	I look at it as though an extraordinary thing happening in me. Right? Right, sir? As though for the first time I realise the strange phenomenon called violence.
28:03	I have not named it, I have not given a significance, there is this feeling of wanting to hurt somebody, and I look at it.
28:19	Can I look at it without the background? Right, sir?
28:27	That means, can I look at it as though the present is the ground in which violence has risen?
28:43	Right? The present. So, to me, then, problem is, what is the present?
28:51	You understand what I’m…? Not violence, but the ground in which violence at the moment takes place.
28:59	Am I conveying anything or am I introducing something extraneous?
29:09	Ah, you are all asleep… Q: Yes, sir.
29:14	K: So I have to understand what is the present. Right, sir? So can my mind be free from all the accumulated past?
29:34	And is the present free from the past?
29:41	And what is the present, which has no time?
29:54	Have you…? Am I conveying something? No.
30:01	Marvellous – I’ve found something! What is time? Apart from the watch and today, tomorrow and yesterday, what is time? Q: It’s an interval between two experiences.
30:28	K: An interval between two experiences – is that time?
30:38	Q: That is chronological time, sir. An interval between two experiences is chronological time, time to the watch.
30:44	K: We’ve said that, sir, don’t go back to it. We are asking, what is time?
30:50	Q: A movement. K: That’s right. Time…
30:57	Is this what you have read somewhere or is it your own?
31:05	You see, people repeat that which they have not experienced directly and therefore it is valueless.
31:17	Time is movement, isn’t it? To go from here to there, both physically and psychologically – a movement. Right?
31:30	Movement is from a fixed point to another fixed point.
31:39	Right? Come on, sir. Q: Yes, sir. K: Right, sir.
31:46	And this movement is the past, through the present, becoming modified in the future.
32:01	Right? Madame, that’s fairly simple.
32:08	Q: It’s not, sir. Is there… K: The cause – let me put it this way, perhaps you’ll – the cause, with its effect, the cause and the movement of the cause, which becomes the effect, and the effect becomes the cause, that’s a movement.
32:34	The past is moving through the present.
32:44	Q: It is moving through the present back again to the past. K: Wait, sir. The movement of the past through the present.
32:51	The tradition is the past, moves through the present, slightly becomes modified, and tomorrow that tradition is still a movement.
33:03	So it is a movement from the past through the present to the future. This whole movement is time. Right?
33:16	We know this very well. This is all our whole life – from the beginning to the end this is our movement, from the known, the past, through the present, which is not known, which becomes modified, to the future.
33:35	Now, that is time. The whole movement is time.
33:43	Right? This movement is thought. Of course.
33:53	Thought which is the response of experience, knowledge, which is the past, modifies itself in the present, through environment, through certain influences, through incidents, accidents, and so on, and that thought being modified is the future thought.
34:16	So this whole movement is time.
34:26	Now, is there a present which is not of time?
34:35	Otherwise, my brain is always moving from known to the known to the known. Right? Therefore the brain can never be fresh, young, look at something totally new. Right?
34:56	So I am asking whether the mind, the brain, can be free of the past and the future, which is time, and only look at the present without time?
35:14	No, don’t please agree to this or disagree – you know nothing about it.
35:23	You see, my problem is this, sir – it is your problem not mine – your problem is a mind – no, let’s stick to the brain – the brain is conditioned.
35:39	The brain functions in the tradition, in which there is security. Right? That’s simple.
35:50	The brain can only function effectively when there is security, complete security, whether in the complete security in the worship of an image, or the worship of a State, or the worship of some kind of neurological belief, and so on.
36:10	Are you following all this or am I just going on? So the brain can only function within the field of the known.
36:26	‘God? Yes, I know god. He is universal love and he created the world, he is my father, he is my godmother’, so tradition gives to the brain complete sense of security, and keep on repeating that, modified in the present and so in the future.
36:55	So the brain is always functioning within the field of the known.
37:04	The movement is within that field, which is time.
37:12	Now, as long as that brain is functioning that way, there is nothing new – your gods, your goddesses, your prayers, your communist society, etc., etc. – there is nothing new, it is not basically revolutionary. Q: Do you include scientific thought, also?
37:32	K: Sir, I am going to explain. Q: No, no, no. K: Of course, sir. The scientific knowledge is the accumulation of the known.
37:41	Q: No, no, no. K: Wait, sir, wait, sir, listen to what I am saying first before you disagree.
37:48	The scientist when he examines something through a microscope, whatever he does, at that moment he is just observing.
38:02	Then he translates what he observes into the known. Of course.
38:09	Q: No, no. How do you say about the new discoveries like Einstein’s and… K: Wait.
38:16	Q: I am just explaining myself. I am not interrupting. K: So, sir…
38:28	That means, sir, there must be freedom from the known for something new to take place. Obviously. Q: The fourth dimension… K: I don’t know anything about fourth dimension.
38:42	I refuse to enter into... Q: You might refuse, sir, but the fact is... K: I am explaining, sir. Which is, there must be an interval between… there must be a long gap between the known and the known.
39:01	Q: Correct. There is a gap. K: In that gap, in that interval, in that lag of time, something takes place, which is Einstein, any theory, whatever you like.
39:15	So I am asking, can the mind, brain, see the present without time?
39:45	Sir, put aside what I have said – it may be rubbish! Now, what is the present to you?
39:57	What is the present to you, now? Q: Unable to express.
40:06	Q: The present is movement.
40:27	K: So what is the present to you? You are sitting there you are sitting there and I am asking you a question, a very serious question – it is not a flippant or a useless question, because on your response what the present is, the whole movement of time is involved.
40:57	So, what is the present to you? Q: Attention.
41:03	K: Attention? Are you attentive? Or just the word ‘attention’?
41:13	Q: Stillness. K: Stillness.
41:18	Q: Perhaps an expectation of what is going to happen. K: Perhaps expectation of what is going to happen.
41:26	Q: The control of movement. K: Control of movement.
41:37	Wouldn’t it be right to say, ‘I really don’t know’?
41:44	Would it be more right to say that? Q: Then when you are seeking… K: Just a minute, sir. Have the courtesy to listen to what I… Q: I am sorry. K: I am asking you… Q: I have a question…
41:58	K: …I am asking you, what is the present? Would it be right on your part to say, ‘I really don’t know’?
42:08	Q: Yes, sir. K: Just listen, sir, you’ll… Let me finish speaking.
42:17	I am asking you, would it be right to say, ‘I never really thought about it? I really don’t know.
42:27	I have never questioned that problem, what is the present’.
42:36	I can interpret what the present is, invent a lot of theories, and so on, but actually I never thought it. What is the present?
42:54	Now, so now you please think about it: what is the present to you?
43:02	The present – you understand? – neither the past nor the future, the present.
43:10	The active verb of the…
43:19	the active word of the movement which has no past or the future, just the present.
43:56	Look, when you ask me… Q: The present is myself, sir. K: …when you ask me, ‘What is the present to you?’…
44:12	When you ask me, ‘What is…’ When you ask me, ‘What is the present to you?’, my response would be, ‘I really don’t know’. Right?
44:34	That is my response: I really don’t know. I know the past, I know through the past the present is dominated or adulterated, or what is going to happen tomorrow, but actually I really don’t know what the present is.
44:58	Right? That would be my response. ‘Know’ in the sense, I have never put my teeth into it. I have never entered into that quality of the present.
45:17	So I want to find out what that is. But you are not doing that. You say, ‘Yes, what does the scientist do, what is the…’, ‘Present is this, that, the other thing’. You are… Which is all traditional response.
45:36	Whereas, I say to myself I really don’t know. I don’t know god. It is silly to think you know god.
45:44	Your petty little minds! So I don’t know what god is… I mean what the present is, so I am going to find out. Right? Right, sir? Now, how do I find out?
46:03	Is my brain capable of finding it?
46:10	Because my brain is only used to functioning within the field of the known.
46:17	And when a new question of that kind is put to it, it resorts to the old, responds from the old.
46:26	And I see that, I say, ‘Steady, old boy, steady’. Don’t operate always in that routine, hold it.
46:39	So, to the brain, a new question means a challenge which it is incapable of answering.
46:51	You follow, sir? Therefore, can the brain answer this question?
47:00	Or, is there another part of the brain which can answer the question?
47:12	Won’t somebody help me out in this? No, you can’t. All that you will do is respond from your own basket.
47:23	Look, sir, have you ever looked at yourself?
47:33	Have you looked at yourself thinking? Have you looked at yourself saying, ‘Yes, I know’ or, ‘I don’t know’?
47:47	All those are responses from your conditioning. The brain is conditioned – certain parts of the brain. I am not a brain specialist; I watch the operation of the brain in myself.
48:07	And it is presented with a new question: what is the present? Is there such thing as the present?
48:22	Or, is it a movement of the past, always operating through the present to the future? Right? So can that movement come to an end?
48:38	You follow? Can that movement stop involuntarily, not voluntarily?
48:52	I don’t know if you follow all this. If it is stopped voluntarily, then there is an effort made in order to find the new, but the discovery of the new is still the old, because the brain is still in operation.
49:11	I don’t know if you follow all this. Right, sir? So can that… to find out what the present is, time must have a stop.
49:26	Right? Are you stuck with this? I hope you are.
49:51	Yes, but now I am asking you, madame, can this brain which is always in movement, responding according to the background, according to its conditioning, can that brain, that movement of the known, stop?
50:15	Involuntarily, not forced.
50:22	Otherwise, I can’t find what is the present. I invent what is the present. I will describe in words which I think is the present, but actually that is not the present.
50:36	So to find out what the present is, can this movement of the known to the known, the direction, all that come to an end to see what the present is?
51:01	Q: Sir, you are saying that time must stop. K: I’m not saying it. Sir, if I want to… if the mind wants to see something new – new – you understand? – nothing which existed before, the movement of the known must come to an end, obviously.
51:25	Q: Then it becomes death.
51:36	K: Death? I give up!
51:51	K: Just look at it, sir, take your so-called India, it has lived on tradition for the last 3000 years, or more.
52:05	You have discovered nothing new – socially, economically, religiously, morally, nothing new – you just repeat, repeat, repeat. You have become machines.
52:22	And don’t you want to find out – out of love, out of compassion, out of the misery of India – don’t you want to find out a way of looking at all this in a new way, so that a new organisation, a new structure is built?
52:53	Nobody answers, you see. That’s just it. So, sir, I am very interested to see what the present is – I really don’t know. So, the first response is: I don’t know. Right?
53:16	That requires humility. But you all know!
53:25	What you know is the old.
53:33	So can you look at life in the present?
53:44	Neither tomorrow nor yesterday.
53:52	Well, sir? Now you see, you are waiting for me to tell you what the present is.
54:03	And then that will become the idea, the formula, the new tradition, and you will repeat it. And you will think you have jolly well understood it.
54:21	Q: Sir, when I say, ‘I don’t know’, then I begin to look. Right, sir?
54:27	K: Yes, sir. But first, do you say you really don’t know? Q: Yes. K: That means, sir, not up here only, but in your heart, in your blood, in that real great sense of a man who says, ‘I really don’t know, sir’. You know what it does to you, sir, when you say, ‘I don’t know’, in that deep sense?
54:54	No, no! You are already describing it. You know what it means to say, ‘I really don’t know’?
55:07	Q: Doesn’t that mean a willingness to know something new, in that state?
55:15	K: Can you say, ‘I don’t know about god’ – can you?
55:21	Q: Sir, I’m not worried about god… K: Throw the bird out, sir. Sir, I am bringing that word – this gentleman brought that word and gave tremendous meaning to it – wait, sir – gave tremendous meaning to it – words, words, words, words. But do you know anything about god?
55:43	What, sir? Q: I don’t know…
55:49	K: You see, listen to it carefully, his voice, the words he uses – he says, ‘I really don’t know’.
56:01	Do you really say, ‘I don’t know’? Do you really say you don’t know your wife?
56:16	You daren’t! Sir, I am telling you, sir, don’t…
56:24	Do you know your wife, or your husband? Do you? Come on, sir, articulate.
56:37	You are pretty good at articulating. Do you know your wife?
56:45	I am asking that gentleman, sir.
56:51	Q: I keep trying to know, sir. K: You see, listen to the words: ‘I keep trying’.
57:01	He is covering up his... Q: No, no. K: ‘I really know her, but I’m trying not to know her’.
57:10	But, sir, do be serious, this is not a game you are playing with me. When you say, ‘I know somebody’, do you know somebody?
57:27	So, sir, when you are faced with reality, you can’t answer.
57:44	So, to say, ‘I don’t know what the present is’, what takes place in the mind that says, ‘I really don’t know?’ Sir, just don’t throw words – look at your mind, sir!
58:12	When you really say, ‘I don’t know my wife, my daughter, my husband, I really don’t know what god is, I really don’t know what beauty is’, the quality of a mind that says, ‘I don’t know’.
58:39	Sir, when you say you don’t know, what has happened inwardly to the mind?
58:47	Q: Silence…
58:57	K: Sir, please, sir, don’t use words that you don’t know! Don’t.
59:07	Sir, if it is first-hand, repeat it, otherwise don’t say it.
59:14	You are just repeating something what you have read, or what you think you should say. I am asking you: what is the state of the mind that says, ‘I really don’t know’?
59:27	Q: It’s a mutation. K: You can’t even listen for two seconds.
59:45	Sir, look: a cup is useful only if it is empty. Right?
59:53	A cup – you know – is useful when it is empty, then you can put something into it.
1:00:00	But your brains are already full – right? – thoughts, opinions, judgements, what you have read, what you haven’t read – it is so full that it is never empty to find out.
1:00:18	I don’t know my wife. I really don’t know my wife. I have an image about her, but that image is not the wife. So, my mind must be empty of the image which I have about my wife. And then only I can say, ‘I really don’t know’.
1:00:43	And that’s the most blessed state. You understand? To say, ‘I don’t know’, is the most holy state, because then you are really humble, you are really… say, ‘Tell me, I want to find out’, or I will look.
1:01:13	So can your mind say… can you really say from your heart that you don’t know what the present is?
1:01:32	If you can say, ‘I don’t know’, then what takes place in the mind?
1:01:43	And from that, action. Not just vague theory. ‘I don’t know,’ and act. You follow, sir? I wonder if you understand what I mean. We always act from the known. Right? An engineer building a bridge, he functions according to the mechanical processes of knowledge, and that is generally called action.
1:02:16	Now, we are asking for an action which is totally new. It must be new because – take your country, this unfortunate country of yours – politics have failed, religion has failed, your tradition has failed, all the books on economics, social structure, sociology, everything has broken down – corruption, everything is going on. And you have to create a new society; a new action must take place. Not the old repetition of the politicians and the religious people, the Right and the Left and the Centre, extreme Right and extreme Left, and all that, but a totally new action, so that human beings can live differently.
1:03:17	And to do that, you must find out whether the mind can ever be free from tradition, from yesterday’s tradition or 10,000 year’s tradition, so that it can see something new and act according to that.
1:03:43	You understand, sir? Now, let’s come back. What is the present? You know what the past is. Do you know what the past is?
1:03:57	Don’t say, ‘I don’t know’. What is the past?
1:04:05	What is your past, sir? Don’t go back to a past life, just begin from now. What is your life, what’s your past? Educated, capable of speaking English, Brahman, non-Brahman, and all the rest of it, profession, tradition, and what your parents and your grandparents… name, and so on – all that is your past experience. Right? That’s simple.
1:04:37	And from that past you are looking at this chaos in the world, and the particular chaos in India. Right?
1:04:46	How can you build anything new out of that?
1:04:56	You see, the communists started a revolution in 1918 according to Lenin, Trotsky, Marx.
1:05:10	They had the plan – you follow? – all systematized, and worked it out. There is nothing new in that. They haven’t solved a single problem of human living.
1:05:26	And here in this country everything is disintegrating.
1:05:33	You have no longer tradition, you just repeat. You are no longer really educated, in the deep sense of the word.
1:05:43	So, to create something new you must come to it as though your mind…
1:05:50	Your mind must be empty to create.
1:05:56	Q: Are you asking us to be totally innocent?
1:06:06	K: No... Do you know what that word means, ‘innocence’? Comes from Latin, and so on – it means a mind that is incapable of being hurt.
1:06:24	Right? A mind that is incapable of being hurt.
1:06:33	Is your mind incapable of being hurt?
1:06:40	Is it? You’re full of hurts, aren’t you, sir? From childhood we are hurt – at school and the house, college, university, job – everywhere we are being hurt, hurt, hurt.
1:07:00	And out of that hurt we respond in violence or escape to some kind of beastly little guru.
1:07:10	So we are hurt. Now, take that – can the mind, which has been hurt, be free of all hurts?
1:07:20	Q: Sir, one thing. K: Oh, sir, sir, I am asking a question, do please listen, sir.
1:07:29	You are all so… Your mind is hurt, isn’t it, sir? Now, can that mind which has been hurt, deeply bruised, kicked around, can that mind be free of all the hurts, so that it is never… can never be hurt? Which doesn’t mean that you have build a wall round it.
1:07:56	Answer that question, sir. Q: No. K: What do you mean, no?
1:08:06	It cannot be free from hurts? Q: No. K: That’s all. So what will you do, keep the hurts?
1:08:19	So what will you do, sirs? You have been hurt from childhood, through schools, college, if you can get a job, hurt in the office, in the factory – inside, brutalized, you are hurt.
1:08:48	Can you, can the mind be free of all those hurts?
1:08:55	Otherwise, how can you love? For god’s sake!
1:09:08	My wife hurt me, my husband hurt me, because he slept with another woman, or chasing another man, I am hurt, I get angry, I get violent, I am jealous, I’m furious, I’m bitter, frightened.
1:09:37	Can that hurt be wiped away so that it leaves no mark?
1:09:47	Work at it, sir, find out!
1:09:58	Q: …cannot be hurt, then you say can the hurt be wiped away, therefore you are just… K: No, sir, no, sir, no, sir, I’m not. God!
1:10:15	Sir, you have been hurt, haven’t you? Q: Yes, sir. K: What do you do?
1:10:31	So your mind is innocent, is it, sir? Q: Yes. K: I don’t know – you may be right, sir, I don’t know.
1:10:45	Sir, this is a great problem, sir. We are human beings who are terribly hurt, deeply wounded.
1:10:58	Unless those wounds and hurts have been wiped away, we can never be sane, we can never be rational, healthy, both physically as well as morally. And in a country like this, you need people who are sane, healthy, moral.
1:11:24	And you cannot have love if your background is that of hurt.
1:11:33	So how will you wipe away those hurts?
1:11:43	Well, sir, tell me. You were so eager to talk about god; how do you wipe away your hurts, if you have any?
1:11:59	Q: There can be no sense of ego.
1:12:04	K: Then how do you wipe out the ego? Q: The ego is built up of past memory. K: Yes, sir, yes, sir, yes, sir, I know all the…
1:12:12	How do you wipe away the ego?
1:12:21	Q: Surrender to god. K: Surrender… …surrender to god.
1:12:31	Which god – the Christian god, the Muslim god? Q: No, sir, I understand god as ‘consciousness’.
1:12:39	K: That is your consciousness? Q: No. K: Then where is that consciousness? Q: Consciousness removed from the condition.
1:12:46	Consciousness unconditioned.
1:12:51	K: Sir, do please… I am asking you a very simple thing, sir – we must stop – I am asking you a very serious and a very simple question, which you must answer. You must find how… you must wipe away this hurt, otherwise you are not a human being. Because from that hurt you will react, whether that hurt is conscious or unconscious.
1:13:30	So, find out for yourself, if you are serious, whether the mind can have no hurt at all.
1:13:41	Hurt – you understand? Q: What can we do, sir? Hurt is rooted in the subconscious.
1:13:53	K: How do you know, sir? Is this what you have read from some book or some philosopher? Q: Thought out, sir.
1:14:08	K: Thought out – what have you thought out? That your thoughts are rooted in the unconscious?
1:14:18	Q: In the subconscious. K: Subconscious – a little lower down. All right.
1:14:26	Sir, do please face this problem, look at it.
1:14:37	A mind that is hurt is incapable of love, compassion. A mind that has been hurt, by the wife, husband, society, by your boss, by the foreman, by somebody in the street, such a mind is incapable of seeing anything clearly.
1:15:03	Such a mind cannot be sane, and we need sanity.
1:15:11	So find out for yourself, please, I beg of you, for your own sake, for the sake of everything around you, whether your mind can be free from hurts and never be hurt again.
1:15:30	This doesn’t mean it builds a wall around itself.
1:15:48	How can my mind, which has been hurt, be free of the hurts?
1:15:56	Shall I show it to you, sirs? Q: Yes, sir.
1:16:05	K: You are so eager for me to tell you what you should do.
1:16:13	And then you think you have done it! But if you yourself applied your attention
1:16:24	if you yourself applied attention to find out what to do, you’ll have the answer very simply.
1:16:34	Q: If the mind is constantly occupied by the present, there will be no past.
1:16:39	K: If the mind is constantly occupied with the present, there will be no thought. Q: No past.
1:16:55	K: They are just words! If I were only rich, if I were only the Prime Minister, if I were only god, if I were only the Queen of England – but I am not, I am a man. So you are always saying ‘if’.
1:17:20	You never stick, face the fact. You are hurt and trying to find what to do with the hurts.
1:17:42	Q: Discrimination…
1:17:54	K: Discriminate what? Between the various hurts? Q: Yes.
1:18:07	K: Sir, look, sir. Look, sir, I don’t have to discriminate, I don’t have to describe, I don’t have to explain, I don’t have to put into words. Somebody calls me a fool, and I get hurt.
1:18:20	Somebody calls me an idiot, I get hurt.
1:18:28	Somebody says to me, ‘You are not doing your work properly’ – I get hurt. Somebody tells me, ‘You are a blasted little mind’ – I get hurt.
1:18:41	This is happening all the time round you. I go home and my wife says to me, ‘You’re an ass!’ Don’t laugh, sir – you’re all so silly!
1:18:59	Q: Never allow this to colour your brain, sir...
1:19:06	K: Do you do it, sir?
1:19:13	Just say ‘never allow’ – how do you never allow?
1:19:24	You are really living in ideas. You don’t live. You live somewhere in ideas.
1:19:31	We know what hurt is, we don’t have to describe it. Every child and human being has been through this. And can the mind be free of all the hurts? You see, you have never put that question even. You accept hurts, you live with them, you get brutalised with them, but whereas I say to myself, ‘Can I be without a single hurt?’ Q: Sir, when you said that, that the people say that to you… …it occurs to me that I can only be hurt if I have the opposite idea of myself.
1:20:36	I don’t know if I am making myself clear. K: I understand very clearly, madame. If you have an image about yourself, you will be hurt.
1:20:46	Can you be without an image about yourself? It comes to the same thing. Can you be…?
1:20:55	Sir, look, we must stop. This is the last discussion. But go into this for yourself. It is very important to understand this – much more important than finding out god or enlightenment, much more important than the sex appetite, because if you are hurt, life has no meaning anymore.
1:21:25	So you have got to find out. There is no book that will tell you what to do, but if you give attention to this, give your mind, your heart to this problem: what is hurt? Why is there a hurt?
1:21:50	Why does the image in you about yourself exist? Does the image exist because… as a self-protection?
1:21:59	And so on – as long as that image and its movement goes on, you will be hurt. Right, sirs.