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MA79CPJ - Is there a way which will make man free of suffering?
Madras (Chennai), India - 19 December 1979
Conversation with Pupul Jayakar



0:00 This is a dialogue between J. Krishnamurti and Pupul Jayakar in Madras, 1979.
0:10 Pupul Jayakar (PJ): Krishnaji, man finds himself in a total state of despair.
0:24 The pressures of outer circumstances and his incapacity to deal with them leaves him in anguish.
0:42 He tries to find ways and they only add to his confusion.
0:52 There has to be a way for him to discover something which will make him free of this load or burden of suffering which he has carried through the centuries.
1:17 What is that way? Krishnamurti (K): Are you asking, a system, a method, a pattern to be followed, to free man from this utter confusion?
1:40 PJ: I wouldn’t say a pattern or a method, Krishnaji, because most people who have tried patterns and methods have found that they in turn leave him confused and in despair.
1:57 K: I know, but I am…
1:59 PJ: I am not asking therefore for a pattern or a method, but still inherent in my question is—I will use the word a process—there must be some way, some door, some instrument which he has to use to find out the cause of his suffering and enable him to be free of it.
2:30 K: I am not at all sure that people are not looking, even the most intellectual, the intellectuals, others are not looking for a different kind of organization, different kind of leaders, different kind of philosophers who will help them to steer through this confusion.
3:13 I am not at all sure the average or even the so-called educated people actually realize that any form of organization, any form of intellectual ideals or patterns will solve the problem.
3:45 I question that.
3:47 PJ: No. I am not saying that man is not seeking an alternative pattern or a leader or a guru; I am not saying that.
4:02 But I am in confusion and I come to you.
4:09 I am not going to others.
4:10 K: Right. Which means…
4:12 PJ: I am coming to you.
4:13 K: I understand. Which means that you have really abandoned, put aside, realizing the futility of organizations, futility of ideals, the worthlessness of these gurus and leaders and so on.
4:33 That must be taken for granted if you want to discuss with me.
4:39 PJ: Is it necessary to totally take that for granted?
4:43 K: Of course.
4:44 PJ: Let me ask you, sir. When I first come to you, I come in confusion. The confusion is all that.
4:55 K: So, to understand this confusion, will you begin to question, inquire or examine the futility of organizations, which have caused the confusion?
5:09 Or do you say ‘I am confused’, but I still look to an organization, to a guru, to a system?
5:21 PJ: Sir, I would like to find out. I don’t know what I am confused about.
5:34 I know I am confused, but the confusion is darkness. I have never moved into the darkness, I have never discovered the nature of it. I have never discovered what it is that…
5:47 K: …causes confusion.
5:50 PJ: Therefore I ask you, ‘Show me the way. Where do I start?’ K: All right. If that is what your question really is, that you are not concerned with the outer world at all, but with the removal or clarification of this confusion.
6:16 PJ: Yes. How do I start?
6:21 K: Wait. Let’s begin. How does one begin to inquire into the cause of confusion?
6:32 PJ: And the cause of suffering.
6:34 K: Of course. That’s ultimately. That comes little later. But what is the reason, what is the process of this confusion?
6:45 Who has created it? The outer world, or I, being part of the outer world, part of this society which is in confusion, to which one has contributed to it, so you say the confusion out there and here are similar, though modified slightly, variable, and so on.
7:17 The confusion out there is caused by man.
7:21 PJ: Yes.
7:22 K: And man says, ‘I must clear up that confusion out there.’ But he doesn’t say the confusion is brought about by each one of us.
7:39 PJ: That is so, sir. But I say there is confusion outside. But I am also aware of the tremendous confusion within me. I do not know what this confusion is, but I feel unhappy, in despair, in pain, in suffering and I say…
8:01 K: …contradictions and so on.
8:03 PJ: …I say I want to be free of that.
8:10 K: All right. When we use the word confusion, how do you realize that you are confused?
8:23 This is not a superficial question, but when you say, ‘I am confused’, who is the ‘I’ that recognizes its own confusion?
8:39 You follow what I am saying? Or I am confused, but there is a part of me which is not confused. If I could get to that part and from there operate on confusion, then that confusion will go.
8:56 You follow what I am saying?
8:58 PJ: Yes, I start by saying I am confused.
9:01 K: Yes, go step by step. When you say, ‘I am confused’, what does that mean? Confusion in comparison to non-confusion?
9:11 PJ: No, they are contradictory movements in me.
9:15 K: That is, just hold on to it, contradictory movements. That is opposing desires.
9:21 PJ: Opposing desires.
9:24 K: Opposing wants.
9:26 PJ: Opposing wants.
9:28 K: Opposing, contradictory thoughts, feelings.
9:32 PJ: Yes.
9:34 K: All that—this contradiction, this breaking up of desires into different categories…
9:46 PJ: Yes.
9:47 K: …brings, you say, confusion.
9:49 PJ: Yes, confusion. Krishnaji.
9:52 K: All right. All right. That is what? Confusion exists when there is division…
9:58 PJ: Yes.
10:00 K: …between wanting this and not wanting it.
10:04 PJ: Yes.
10:05 K: Thinking one thing, saying another thing.
10:07 PJ: Yes.
10:08 K: And doing something else according to an ideal and never coming up to the ideal.
10:15 So there is always this self-contradictory process going on.
10:20 PJ: Yes. But if I may say, Krishnaji, I have a general idea about it.
10:29 I have a general idea because of the pain it is bringing me, the sorrow I feel, that there is something which is not right.
10:36 K: That is, in this sorrow and this pain, you are trying to escape from it.
10:41 PJ: Yes. So as I say, that this sorrow and pain arises out of this generalized feeling of contradiction, I say it.
10:51 Now, I don’t know, I don’t know what it is. I have never seen it. I am not aware of it.
11:00 K: I see you are not conscious or recognize or aware that there is this division.
11:06 PJ: No. I have a generalized feeling that there is a division because I am in pain and sorrow.
11:11 K: No, no, actually. Now let’s come to actuality. That is, is one aware, conscious, know or sensitive enough to see this contradiction within oneself?
11:24 Don’t say it is a generalized perception or generalized concept, but actually to face this contradiction.
11:34 PJ: Now, this is what I want to ask you. How does one start facing this contradiction? At what point? What is the first step whereby one faces this contradiction?
11:47 K: Perhaps, if I say first step is the last step, perhaps you will laugh at that.
11:52 PJ: No, but it doesn’t take me further.
11:54 K: It doesn’t take you further. I agree. But that is the truth also.
12:00 PJ: Now show me the first step.
12:02 K: All right. The first step to what?
12:07 PJ: The first step to see…
12:10 K: Do be very clear.
12:11 PJ: The first step to see actually what I am.
12:15 K: First step to see what you actually are.
12:19 PJ: Yes.
12:20 K: You actually are this contradiction.
12:23 PJ: Yes, but how do I see it?
12:26 K: Now, how do you see it? You see it in your relationship with your wife, with your husband, with your …or whatever it is, that there is contradiction.
12:38 PJ: I think there is contradiction, definitely.
12:42 K: No, do you see it? The reactions are not… you think you see it. When you have pain you don’t say, ‘I think I have pain.’ One has pain.
12:54 PJ: In pain you know you have pain.
12:56 K: Yes. Are we saying that our minds are not educated—for the moment I am using the word…
13:06 PJ: Yes.
13:07 K: …to actually recognize the reaction…
13:12 PJ: Yes.
13:15 K: …which comes out of this contradiction?
13:20 PJ: You see, as I see you, is it possible to see the reaction which arises out of this contradiction?
13:32 K: Absolutely.
13:33 PJ: Now, how?
13:34 K: After all, relationship is a mirror in which I see myself or one sees oneself.
13:43 In that mirror you recognize all your reactions.
13:46 PJ: When you talk of relationship, do you mean to another human being, or is relationship more than just a relationship to a human being, it is a relationship to an idea?
14:01 K: I am coming to that. First, the perception or the recognition that relationship is a mirror in which I perceive my reactions.
14:15 I am related to you as a wife or mother or whatever it is, and in that relationship there are all kinds of contradictions.
14:25 PJ: Which manifest themselves as certain thought patterns.
14:30 K: Yes. Will one see it clearly in that mirror?
14:36 PJ: Now, do I see it in terms of the thought patterns?
14:42 K: In terms of?
14:43 PJ: The thought pattern which arises out of it…
14:45 K: Yes.
14:46 PJ: …or do I see it independent of the thought pattern?
14:49 K: Now that becomes very complex. Don’t make it too complex…
14:52 PJ: That’s why I wanted to…
14:54 K: …if you want to begin.
14:55 PJ: No, let me ask you another question.
14:59 K: I think it’s very simple, Pupulji. I am related to my brother or my husband or my wife or distantly to some neighbour and, if I am alert, if I am watchful, I want to see what my reactions are, whether they are contradictory, whether they are harmonious, whether they are imposed by tradition, by education, by fear, and so on and so on.
15:39 PJ: But you now are making it too simple, sir.
15:42 K: I want to make it simple.
15:45 PJ: Because in that attention which you are talking about, I don’t know what attention is.
15:50 K: I am not talking of attention.
15:51 PJ: No, you said ‘in that attention’.
15:53 K: In that perception, in that seeing, seeing in that mirror my reactions.
16:01 PJ: But when it comes to a reaction of relationship, you don’t see in a mirror as you see your own face; it is clouded.
16:12 K: Why not?
16:13 PJ: Because it is clouded by your prejudices, your desires, your thoughts.
16:16 K: So you begin to discover that in your relationship with another the mirror is clouded.
16:25 PJ: Mirror is clouded.
16:27 K: Wait a minute. Why? Go step by step. Why is the mirror, if we first acknowledge that relationship is a mirror in which both parties observe themselves as they are, if you grant that, then go step by step.
16:52 PJ: You asked, ‘What is it that makes it clouded?’ K: Yes, you asked…
16:59 PJ: I said it is clouded…
17:01 K: Yes. It is clouded.
17:03 PJ: …and therefore I never see clearly.
17:04 K: So what makes the mirror clouded? Go slowly, you will get at it slowly if you go.
17:14 PJ: The mirror is clouded because of the past reactions.
17:23 K: Which is what?
17:28 PJ: My previous experiences of this relationship enter into my seeing of the image.
17:39 K: Wait, Pupulji, if we both recognize relationship is a mirror in which we see each other actually as we are…
17:51 PJ: Yes.
17:52 K: …and then we see that that mirror is clouded…
17:55 PJ: Yes.
17:57 K: …Why is it clouded? By my prejudice, by my conclusions, by my hopes, and so on, so on, so on, that mirror is clouded.
18:11 PJ: Yes.
18:12 K: It is the same mirror in which you and I see. So can we be free of our prejudice? I have been married to my wife for the last thirty, forty, fifty or a number of years, and I have accumulated a lot of experiences in that relationship—of prejudice, of annoyance, of sex, and all the rest of it.
18:42 And with those memories I look at the mirror…
18:48 PJ: Yes.
18:49 K: …and the mirror, I say, then is clouded. Now, can I begin to work on freeing the mind, the observer, the thing that is looking into the mirror, free the prejudices?
19:12 Begin with that.
19:14 PJ: Sir, now what is the first step to free the observer of the prejudices?
19:27 How do I move into it?
19:31 K: Either you move in to it because of the pain in relationship, or you move into it because you see one cannot go on living in this fashion.
19:47 PJ: You usually move into it because of pain.
19:52 K: Because of fear.
19:53 PJ: Pain, fear.
19:54 K: Pain, fear, and sorrow. Now, therefore, pain, fear, sorrow, are the factors that cloud the mirror.
20:05 PJ: Yes, but they are also the factors which make me take the first step to see.
20:14 You see, they are not only that which clouds; they are also that which makes me inquire.
20:19 K: What is the first step?
20:22 PJ: I am asking you…
20:25 K: Either a crisis…
20:27 PJ: Yes, sir, all this is crisis. I wouldn’t ask this question unless crisis was there.
20:32 K: No, I know. I am using the word crisis as a challenge, not crisis in the sense I want to solve it…
20:41 PJ: I know, no, as a challenge. Something very tremendous takes place, there is a great crisis, everything within me is made unsure, and I ask this question.
20:53 K: Wait, Pupulji. Is it a deep shocking crisis or just a crisis like, you know, stock market, like somebody getting run over, or some idiotic politician talking about nonsense?
21:15 Is it a real shock to find out that one is confused?
21:19 PJ: No, sir, the shock…
21:21 K: Wait, I am asking.
21:22 PJ: …the shock is not to find that one is confused. The shock is because sorrow has arisen.
21:29 K: I know. Which means what?
21:32 PJ: That means I find I cannot take this sorrow. My body is unable, mind and body is unable to take this sorrow, and in this sorrow I ask, ‘Show me a way.’ And you have said the starting point is the question of seeing relationship as one sees in the mirror, and I find that I cannot see.
21:57 And therefore I ask, ‘Show me the way to see.’ K: So let’s see now. There’s seeing either…
22:11 PJ: What am I?
22:15 K: Ah, if you are asking that, that’s a different question altogether.
22:20 PJ: But isn’t this at the core of this whole thing?
22:22 K: It is.
22:23 PJ: What am I?
22:24 K: If you ask that question ‘What am I?’ then the response will be quite different. Not the mirror.
22:32 PJ: But that is what I really want to ask you: what am I?
22:38 K: Right. What am I? Your question has arisen from this perception of confusion…
22:46 PJ: Yes.
22:48 K: …seeing relationship is a mirror in which you can see yourself actually as you are, and from that you say this mirror is confused, clouded over, and you say: From all that I say, what am I?
23:08 PJ: What am I?
23:09 K: Is the question independent? That’s all I want to clear.
23:13 PJ: No, sir. I say, after having gone with you into this, I ask that question: what am I?
23:22 K: What are you?
23:27 PJ: And how do I find out?
23:30 K: Wait, wait, slowly let’s go. What am I? What are you? You are the result of million years, million grandparents, million humanities, million human beings, with their experiences, with their sorrows, with their miseries, confusion, pleasures, sex; your whole brain is the result of million years of experience, saying, ‘I am God, I am not God, I am Brahman, I am not Brahman.’ All the rest of it is handed down to you after million years of human existence.
24:18 PJ: Sir, if the ‘I’ is the million years of human experience…
24:24 K: See that. First see whether it is factual or not. Don’t accept it or deny it, but investigate it, because if you understand that, then you are not separate from the rest of mankind.
24:44 PJ: The second thing I don’t understand, sir. But let us take the first thing that I am the million years of my past.
24:54 K: Which means what, Pupulji? Go into it little slowly.
24:57 PJ: No, sir, I want to ask you something. With the million years of mankind as my past, why am I confused?
25:07 K: No!
25:08 PJ: That million years should be able to face this confusion.
25:11 K: No, no. Because you don’t first see the million years of human evolution as the brain, this worm of separateness has come into being.
25:30 PJ: Are you saying that we do not operate as the million years, but a fragment of a million years?
25:40 K: Yes. That is me and you, we and they, as two separate divided entities.
25:48 If you first—please let’s go slowly—when one realizes that you are really, you have inherited million years of human existence and you are the world and the world is you, if you realize that then you wipe away altogether the psychological sense of the individual, the ‘me’, who is the essence of this confusion.
26:30 PJ: You see, sir, you are asking for a major perception.
26:35 K: Not a major, logical. It is not major, if you accept it.
26:40 PJ: Logic doesn’t give you the perception of it.
26:42 K: Logic doesn’t give it.
26:44 PJ: So I say you are asking for something which is so total that I am incapable of seeing it.
26:51 Therefore…
26:52 K: Either you want to get rid of confusion totally or partially.
26:55 PJ: But show me, sir, show me actually, how do I move…
26:59 K: I am doing it, I am doing.
27:01 PJ: …how do I move from where I am?
27:02 K: I am doing it, Pupulji. We started by asking, I as a human being living in this world, I am confused, right?
27:16 PJ: Yes.
27:17 K: And around me also everything is confused. The society is confused, the gurus, the priests, the politicians, the economists, they are all confused basically.
27:30 Right? Except you’ve got some technological knowledge and you have become an engineer. Then you are doomed. Sorry. So you are saying the world and me are confused.
27:51 This confusion has arisen because we have never looked at the mirror of relationship.
27:58 That is the first thing—to look.
28:04 PJ: What is this looking?
28:06 K: Looking is like, I look at that tree, at that palm tree, and do I look at it non-verbally?
28:17 Do you understand what I mean?
28:20 PJ: No.
28:21 K: Ah, all right. Do I look at it and say, ‘This is a palm tree’ immediately?
28:27 PJ: Yes.
28:28 K: Or do I look at it without the word, the name, springing up immediately?
28:35 Look, wait, I can do that fairly easily. Can I do that with one’s relationship, with one’s wife, husband, children, to look at them without the naming, without the recognition that they are mine—to look at them?
28:58 PJ: How can I look at them, like free of name?
29:03 K: You cannot… Look. That is, if you want to clear up this confusion you must.
29:08 PJ: But show me the way.
29:10 K: What? All right. Can you look at this microphone? Just look at it without saying it is a microphone.
29:22 PJ: Sir, when you say look, can you look at the microphone…
29:27 K: Visually, optically.
29:29 PJ: …I can look.
29:31 K: Wait. Can you look in the same way at yourself?
29:40 To see actually what you are. Actually means that which is taking place now.
29:48 PJ: When I actually look at what I am, I see a movement of thought, I see…
30:03 K: Thought is part of you.
30:06 PJ: Yes, thought is part of me.
30:08 K: Yes.
30:09 PJ: Part of me.
30:10 K: Emotions are part of you.
30:12 PJ: Part of me.
30:13 K: Your senses.
30:14 PJ: But how do I look at it, sir? When I try to look, then I just can’t feel it. How do I come in contact with it?
30:24 K: No. You can’t come into contact with it unless you see it in the mirror as a reaction.
30:34 PJ: The mirror is my mind. See it, sir.
30:40 K: No, no.
30:41 PJ: Where is the mirror?
30:42 K: No, no.
30:43 PJ: There is a thought in my mind, which is the reaction.
30:45 K: No, just a minute.
30:46 PJ: Where is the mirror?
30:47 K: Look, the mirror is in this relationship between man and woman, generally speaking, man and woman, their interactions, their interrelationships, their sexual responses, their images about each other—to see this, to observe this taking place.
31:13 PJ: Yes, but when you talk of observing it as you see in a mirror, the mirror is the mind, the reaction emerges in the mind.
31:22 And therefore…
31:23 K: So, wait, wait, go slowly. You say it arises in the mind.
31:27 PJ: In the mind.
31:29 K: Which is what?
31:31 PJ: After all there is…
31:33 K: Go slowly… Which is what? The reactions which arises in the mind.
31:39 PJ: The reactions which arises in the mind.
31:41 K: Slowly. The reactions.
31:43 PJ: Yes.
31:44 K: Those reactions spring from your memories, your accumulated knowledge about her or about him.
31:55 PJ: Yes.
31:56 K: Go slowly. That is, in this relationship between human beings, each one has created the image about the other.
32:07 That is a fact.
32:09 PJ: Yes.
32:10 K: And from these images arises the reactions. Now, do you see that you as a human being have an image about the other human being, see it in the sense it is so?
32:30 PJ: Yes, I see that, sir.
32:31 K: It is a logical thing.
32:33 PJ: No, I see that. I have reactions about human beings.
32:36 K: You see that. Now wait, wait, wait. Then you see your reactions arise from that image.
32:43 PJ: Yes.
32:45 K: Now wait, wait. And so what happens? She or he have various images about each other, and from these images reactions arise.
32:59 PJ: That is not how my mind responds. I see a reaction, and I am not happy with the reaction.
33:08 K: No.
33:09 PJ: So I want to change the reaction.
33:12 K: Change the reaction!
33:13 PJ: I want to change the reaction.
33:16 K: No, you want to end the images.
33:19 PJ: I have not gone to that stage. I want to change the reaction. Now, if I change the reaction…
33:34 K: Just see, how can you change the reactions?
33:37 PJ: But that is what the…
33:41 K: How can you change the reactions if the cause of those reactions is always there?
33:49 The reactions may change, may modify themselves, but the root of it is always there.
33:57 PJ: What is the root?
33:59 K: The image.
34:00 PJ: Who creates the image?
34:02 K: A series of responses, a series of incidents, pleasure or unpleasurable, a series of irritations and so on between the two.
34:21 So gradually there is the accumulation of memory, and from that memory springs thought, about my wife, husband, children, whatever it is.
34:39 PJ: Yes. Now, what is it that has to be seen?
34:43 K: This whole process.
34:45 PJ: You see, what is visible is only the reaction, not the whole process.
34:58 K: I understand.
34:59 PJ: What emerges in my mind is the reaction.
35:01 K: I understand, reaction. And you realize the reactions spring from memory.
35:07 PJ: And the reaction springs from memory.
35:10 K: The memory has been the result of thousand days of experience with each other.
35:18 PJ: Yes.
35:20 K: Now, either you take one reaction after the other, examine it; that’s an endless process.
35:33 Have I jumped?
35:35 PJ: You are jumping.
35:37 K: All right.
35:38 PJ: It is difficult enough for me to see that one reaction.
35:42 K: Now, can we look at that reaction and see that reaction contains all the reactions?
36:02 PJ: How can you say that the reaction of hate…
36:09 K: No. Take the reaction of jealousy. Take that reaction, which is the jealousy which has arisen out of possessiveness, dependency.
36:26 See what is happening actually now.
36:34 A sense of loss, therefore I must hold and so on.
36:43 Out of all this arises jealousy. The very dependence implies in that dependence the quality of jealousy.
36:53 Now, can I look at that one response and so investigate that one response which is jealousy and see the whole category of responses?
37:11 PJ: What is this investigation? What is this investigation into that one response?
37:20 K: I’ll show you. I’ll show you.
37:22 PJ: And what do I investigate?
37:23 K: I will show you. We will go into it if you are interested. That is, one is jealous. What is the cause of it? Not how to resolve it, right? Not how to get over jealousy.
37:41 PJ: Surely that is the first step in which …
37:43 K: No, no, I say that is a wrong step. Because you are only concerned then to escape from what is.
37:51 PJ: Now you are talking something, sir, which I would like to ask you: what is this what is?
38:04 K: Ah, what is. The actual is that which is happening. That is what we said. The actual is the feeling of an enormous jealousy.
38:20 Jealousy the word has been used to recognize a certain reaction and that word—just go into that word—that word contains condemnation, that word is associated with a tremendous tradition and so on.
38:43 So the word itself contains such an enormous weight of the past.
38:51 PJ: I was just going to say that—that in the word itself is the…
39:04 K: …tremendous weight of the past.
39:07 PJ: Which wants to change.
39:08 K: No. I know this. I am tremendously alert to this. I said, look, Pupulji, you are going round and round if you are not careful. I said let us take the reaction of jealousy, jealousy between two human beings.
39:28 The causation of that is possessiveness, dependency, fear of loneliness, the pleasure of companionship, the talking to each other, sex; all that is involved in this relationship…
39:46 PJ: Yes.
39:47 K: …and out of that melange of all this arises jealousy. I am taking jealousy or anger doesn’t matter. Now, what is the root of it? I cannot resolve it unless I understand it.
40:06 PJ: Yes.
40:08 K: I can’t say, ‘Well, tell me how to get rid of jealousy.’ That is too childish.
40:11 PJ: No, no, I cannot resolve it, unless I understand it.
40:13 K: That is too childish.
40:14 PJ: No, I understand that.
40:16 K: So I say, ‘What is the nature of this structure which brings about this jealousy?’ PJ: Now, sir, here is where I…
40:30 How does one inquire into this structure?
40:32 K: We are doing it now.
40:34 PJ: Tell me what is the next step.
40:37 K: Next step, we are doing it now. Not tell you, we are doing it together now, exploring this whole field of relationship in which all this has existed, and out of that field a thing like a weed comes up or a flower, or whatever you may call it—jealousy.
40:57 And I have examined it.
40:59 PJ: Yes.
41:00 K: I am not just saying jealousy.
41:01 PJ: No?
41:02 K: I have examined, I have looked into it—jealousy. Now, what is the cause of it? Because the approach to my investigation is much more important than the solution of the problem.
41:16 PJ: The approach to the problem is more important…
41:21 K: …much more important…
41:22 PJ: …than the solution.
41:23 K: …than the solution to it, because in the problem is the solution, not outside the problem.
41:35 Can I laugh and … [Laughter] Go on.
41:45 PJ: This inquiry, sir, into the approach. Now, you say the approach is more important than the solution.
41:55 K: Absolutely.
41:56 PJ: Because the solution is in the problem.
41:58 K: …problem. Of course.
42:00 PJ: Therefore I must be able to see the problem.
42:02 K: Now, wait a minute. There is jealousy; how do I come to it? How do I say, what is my attitude, what is my feeling, what is my desire, what is my resolution of the problem?
42:20 Am I wanting to escape from it, am I wanting to resolve it, am I wanting to say, ‘For God’s sake, tell me how to get rid of this beastly thing’?
42:29 PJ: All this arises in the mind.
42:32 K: No, no, don’t say ‘in the mind’. It arises.
42:36 PJ: Yes, it arises.
42:38 K: Therefore my approach to the problem is an avoidance of it because I want to find a solution.
42:48 PJ: Yes, my approach to it is avoidance because I am trying to…
42:50 K: Yes. So my approach is important because if I want to escape from it, I haven’t solved the problem.
43:00 I have a disease. If I have a disease, I want to escape from it. But the doctor says, ‘Let’s go into it. See you have eaten this, you have smoked, you have drunk, this, this, this, you have heart failure’, and so on.
43:17 He points out, you don’t do this.
43:20 PJ: There must be an approach, a way of stripping the problem, of approaching away from the problem.
43:34 K: So I must recognize any movement away from the problem is an escape.
43:43 So my approach must be not to evade.
43:46 PJ: Yes, but suppose there is evasion.
43:49 K: Then I say, all right, then I take up that question: why do I evade?
43:58 Because I don’t know how to resolve it, or I am lazy, or I say, ‘What does it matter if I am jealous?’ You follow?
44:06 PJ: Obviously.
44:07 K: ‘Carry on, we have lived with jealousy for million years, what difference does it make?’ and so on, so on—excuses for indolence, excuses for thoughtlessness, and essentially an excuse not to find what love is.
44:28 Right? So my approach is merely, either it is superficial or it is an avoidance, and I recognize that.
44:43 So I say very clearly: if I escape, the problem is always there. Right?
44:49 PJ: Yes.
44:50 K: So it is important that I mustn’t escape, which means I must remain with what is without the movement of escape—verbal, emotional, or intellectual.
45:06 Just observe my jealousy.
45:13 So my approach is very clear: absolutely no escape. Right?
45:19 PJ: Yes.
45:20 K: Then what happens? Then I am facing the fact as it is. The fact as it is, is all this relationship which is really, actually, non-relationship in which there is fear, possessiveness, loneliness, pleasure of companionship, pleasure of sex, all the remembrance of the past.
45:49 Out of that ground comes up this thing called jealousy. Right? So I say, ‘Now, what is this thing?’ Is it a word with all the thousand years of its association, or is it actually I am feeling that jealousy, the feeling, without using the word?
46:18 Has the word aroused it? Go slowly, I am going step by step. Has the word aroused this feeling or the feeling has arisen and the past association with that feeling and so using the word jealousy?
46:41 You understand what I am saying?
46:44 PJ: Yes.
46:45 K: Which is it? The word arousing the feeling, or the feeling is there and the recognition of that feeling through the word.
46:53 PJ: The word arouses the feeling.
46:56 K: That’s it. So we are discovering something: how we live with words, on words.
47:05 Right?
47:06 PJ: Yes.
47:07 K: And you can’t live on it because it is like living—what?—without having actual food, you live on words.
47:18 So we have discovered something. That is, our mind is full of words. Is our action, are my feelings towards my friend, wife, husband, whatever it is, just on the verbal level?
47:44 So I begin to discover that I am living in a world of ideas and words.
47:59 Or am I actually living with what is going on—both out there and here?
48:23 PJ: What is the approach to living out there and within?
48:35 I mean, what is the state of consciousness which can…
48:42 K: You see, we have said the world is different from me.
48:49 PJ: Yes.
48:50 K: World being social structure—I am taking social structure—in which economics, business, politics gurus, religion, the whole society as it is, which is utterly immoral, corrupt, degenerating.
49:12 Now, that society is created by human beings; it doesn’t exist by itself. Though it is a living thing, it has been created by human beings…
49:25 PJ: Yes.
49:26 K: …human beings who are corrupt, who are jealous, who are seeking power, position, money, want to be successful, greedy—human beings have created that.
49:38 And we say that can be changed through new systems, new revolutions, new organizations, but the man remains the same, who has created this.
49:54 A new system, however good, beneficial, all the rest of it, will be distorted by the man because the man himself is corrupt, degenerating, immoral.
50:10 PJ: This would indicate that a transformation of the man itself is essential.
50:19 K: Yes, that is the only solution. You can’t…
50:22 PJ: Now, this transformation, as I have understood you, comes about when man grows aware…
50:31 K: …that he is not different from the world; he is the world.
50:37 PJ: And that is revealed to him in the mirror of relationship…
50:40 K: …and all the rest of it.
50:43 PJ: Sir, all the rest of it is not so easy. [K laughs] All the rest of it is the problem.
50:51 K: All the rest of it is: we have banished all together from our relationship with the world and in ourselves this quality of love.
51:04 Right?
51:05 PJ: Yes. We will have to discuss this later because this is a…But I had asked you a question before you brought up this question of ‘I am the world’.
51:30 You had talked of a state where the outer and the inner were both thought of one movement.
51:44 K: Yes, the sea goes out, the ebbing out, the ebbing in.
51:53 PJ: Now, we divide it.
51:55 K: Why?
51:56 PJ: I am telling you the…
51:58 K: I don’t divide.
51:59 PJ: We divide—the outer and the inner. I am asking you: if this approach to seeing the actuality of what is is in this capacity to see the outer and inner…
52:26 K: …as one?
52:27 PJ: …as one.
52:28 K: That is the whole thing. We refuse to see that, because partly our education, partly our self, greatly our tremendous egotism.
52:40 PJ: Our tremendous egotism.
52:41 K: Saying ‘I’, my success, my family, my contrary, my opinions, my evaluations, my convictions, my guru, and all that silly nonsense.
52:59 PJ: Isn’t that the central factor of…
53:03 K: Of course, of confusion.
53:05 PJ: Now, how do we see that it has been put together by the mind of man, by thought?
53:22 K: By not only by the mind of man, by this tremendous centuries of experience as ‘me’, ‘them’ from the rest, from the world…
53:33 PJ: Is there a way of dissolving that?
53:36 K: Absolutely. Otherwise you cannot create a new society, you cannot bring about good society.
53:43 PJ: You mean you can be totally free…
53:46 K: Absolutely.
53:48 PJ: ….of the observer, the one who directs, the one who controls, the one who…
53:54 K: I am telling you. This is possible, I assert it—completely free of the self.
54:03 PJ: And yet it would be possible for us…
54:05 K: …to live in the world?
54:06 PJ: …to live in the world.
54:07 K: Surely. That means in the riddance or in the freedom of the self there is intelligence.
54:19 Not cleverness, intelligence, an integrity, a sense of fearlessness. Then you can live in the world anywhere and transform the world.
54:32 PJ: Seeing the fact of delusion in the mirror of relationship…
54:43 K: Ah, there is no delusion.
54:47 PJ: There is no delusion?
54:49 K: When I look in the mirror, I see my face when I shave or comb.
54:56 Why should I distort what I see?
55:03 PJ: But my eyes have a veil.
55:04 K: No.
55:05 PJ: I see it through a veil.
55:07 K: No. I want the face to be different from what it is, which is I see that I am jealous or whatever it is, and I want that jealousy to leave.
55:18 PJ: But that is the whole impetus of mankind.
55:20 K: That is because we have been trained from childhood, we are educated to compete, to change, to move away from what is.
55:32 PJ: Becoming is the very texture of our mind.
55:36 K: I know it is the texture because one has accepted that texture.
55:42 PJ: But can one not accept it? It is there.
55:45 K: It is there and dissolve it, dissolve it. Don’t say, ‘Well, it is my centuries of, million years of the result of it’, but dissolve it.
55:57 PJ: It is the very core of the ‘I’ process, sir. It is the ‘I’ functioning.
56:01 K: Of course it is the ‘I’. So what shall we do?
56:07 PJ: We will have to explore this further because you have not yet shown me…
56:14 You have shown me the first step, but you have not…
56:19 K: Now if you say, I have shown the first step, then the door is open infinitely, to infinity it is open.
56:30 PJ: You mean to say, without the eye which can see, the first step is not possible and the opening of the door is not possible?
56:41 K: Only the first step, I say, is possible. If you make the first step, then everything flows easy. But we are refusing to stay with what is. The what is is the actual fact of what is going on, in me and out there.
57:07 And out there is ‘me’. The confusion, the corruption, the chicanery, the immorality, the wickedness that is going on, the cruelty, because we have all these germs in us, and we want to change that and not this.
57:38 And there are million people wanting to do something. And it is much easier to do something out there than to say, ‘Look I am going to become sane, rational, have love, affection, care.’ That is much more difficult than saying, ‘I will do something out there.’ PJ: Thank you, sir.
58:02 K: Is that enough?
58:04 PJ: Thank you. We’ll probably proceed with it.