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MA79S2 - As a human being caught in the structure of society what is right action?
Madras (Chennai), India - 26 December 1979
Seminar 2



0:24 Achyut Patwardhan: We came to a very interesting point this morning, sir.
0:29 K: What was that, sir?
0:33 AP: About time, about the past.
0:38 K: I don’t know if you want to discuss that kind of thing.
0:43 AP: I think, Professor Anantamurti is a writer, he’s a novelist and a writer. I thought we had come to a point which brought us to the matrix of the field of creativity, because really, if you can be free from the past...
1:16 K: Sir, aren’t we, if I may begin again, aren’t we concerned with the total change of consciousness? In which is included action, or the whole gamut of human existence with all its varieties and complexities. And we are asking ourselves if that complexity could be changed, mutated, transformed whatever word you like to use. Is that possible? Or must we go on, in the same old way we have been going, with certain modifications taking place, minor changes in the structure of society, and so on? I don’t know how you regard all this. Do we enquire into the necessity and the immediacy — because it’s fairly urgent, considering what is happening all over the world, the rapidity with which everything is moving, technologically, in every direction almost, except human beings. Is it possible to bring about a deep psychological revolution? That’s the point we’ve reached. Right, Achyutji?
3:04 AP: Yes, sir.
3:06 K: And what is the action or non-action with regard to it?
3:29 Pupul Jayakar: In what are we trying to bring about a change? In values, in relationships? In what are we trying to bring about a change when you talk of a deep change at the heart of consciousness?
3:50 K: Not just a change from the known, this area, this ground of consciousness, to another known, and if you change it to another known, will it not be, more or less, the same pattern repeated? You follow what I am saying? Can this consciousness of humanity, of which I am... I won’t use the word ‘representative.’ Where’s that chap? Gone. With all the complexity of it, can there be a change, in itself, not from this to that? Right? Am I answering your question?
4:52 PJ: Yes, in a sense you are, but when you say change in itself...
5:03 K: My exploitation of another man — I’m taking that. My cruelty to another man.
5:15 PJ: You mean the capacity to exploit undergoes change?
5:21 K: The capacity to... No.
5:26 PJ: It ceases. That which is in me, which demands or urges me to exploit another in order for self-interest, in order to sustain the self, that is ended?
5:44 K: Come here, sir, because you’re in the way of the camera. There’s plenty of room here, sir. Thank God, I’m getting all the platform. Historically this idea of exploitation has existed right through ages.
6:15 PJ: So when you say a change in the depth of consciousness, what are you talking about, what is it exactly like?
6:23 K: One’s consciousness is made up of all its content, if you agree to that.

PJ: Yes.
6:35 K: My consciousness, not as K, as a human being, its content is the action, non-action, jealousy, hatred, violence, brutality, anxiety, guilt and exploitation, to use another word, exploitation, authority of knowledge, authority of position, authority of money, all that is my consciousness. The contradictions, the aspirations, the desire to move forward, all that is the content of one’s consciousness. And can that consciousness undergo a radical change? That’s all I’m asking. If we don’t, we’ll be going in circles — better circles, better structure and so on. But the phenomenon of the varieties of content will continue. It may modify, it may change, it may subtract and so on, but the matrix of it will continue. Throw in a spanner, sir.
8:20 Q: This is certainly one issue but I think you can only discuss this meaningfully if you take up another issue. Which is, there is exploitation in the structure of society. It has nothing to do with one’s own consciousness. A person can have a very pure consciousness, and still be an exploiter. I don’t have to explain this in very great detail, but the way society is organised, the way capital accumulates, the way exploitation takes ...(inaudible) This has an organisational tendency. If you work on internalising it, saying it’s only in my consciousness, I think you’re missing a point, not to say that what you say is not valid. It is valid, I’m not saying this, but you should also say that there is an external aspect of exploitation. If you think there is not, I’d like you to say so and explain.
9:22 K: I think my consciousness is like the sea, like the tide going out and coming in. There’s constant in and out movement. Interrelationship with the outer and with the inner. I don’t divide consciousness as the ‘out’ and the ‘in,’ it’s like a tide going out, tide coming in. In that process, we have created great many things. A great many structures, great many artistic... and so on.
9:58 AP: I would like you to examine this point, that during the last fifty years a big change has come over us. When I began fifty years ago in the study of socialism, we believed in the possibility of creating a system in which these external forces of exploitation of man caused by the structure, by the system, could be radically transformed by changing the system. We have tried changing systems for the last fifty years, and we have found every single system again produces exploitation, and the throttling of man’s freedom, so that we have come to a point of sophistication where we say we can no more depend upon systems to cope with the problems of external orderliness, because external order is inseparable from order within. So long as man remains unchanged, whatever system he creates, it will be tainted with the taint of gain. So, we have now come to a point of telling every system, ‘We have looked at you, and we know you can’t deliver the goods.’ I feel that this advance in the thought process of man, has closed certain avenues where he hoped he may be able to find a way out. There is no room for hope, because we have seen that there are only different labels of gangsters, that through political power we’re not going to create an order for man where he can have a fair deal, therefore we are thrown back, as it were, on the problem of consciousness. It is not becoming subjective, but a demand that unless there is a change in the psyche of man, all these systems are self-defeating exercises, self-deceptive exercises, perhaps fraudulent exercises, for the deception of the unborn.
12:36 K: Sir, I am not the Chairman. We’re all the Chairman.
12:39 Q: I don’t follow this either-or formulation. You’re saying either it should be a change in man or change in system. One can attempt both, as Gandhi did, in the non-cooperation movement.
12:55 AP: And what we have produced is this.
12:57 Q: That is because of the Gandhians, not of Gandhi himself. He did try to say at every point that you have to change man, the means are as important as the end, but he also was a political animal. He wanted to change the system. He wanted to do both. So, I don’t understand your either-or dilemma in which you seem to have put yourself.
13:19 AP: I have not put myself in any dilemma. I’ve seen that society has created for itself certain postulates.
13:34 Q: Which society?
13:37 AP: Indian society, Russian society, American society — human society, man, the world over, China. Each of us had our own pet dream world. We said, ‘This can happen somewhere else but it cannot happen here.’ What we have discovered, during the last forty, fifty years, we have seen that each society has its own unnamed Stalin, because it was Khrushchev who first started by accepting that his predecessor had killed fifteen million people in cold blood. When we had heard of this before, we said, ‘This is an American lie. This is a Capitalist lie.’ But it was the successor of Stalin who came and made that statement quite seriously. We couldn’t just brush him off as the enemy of the Soviet regime, though they managed to get rid of him subsequently, for speaking the truth.
14:47 K: May I ask a question? Who creates the structure? The bureaucrats, the philosophers, the saints, the guru, who creates this structure?
15:06 Q: One does not have to create the structure, it gets created by human beings living in society.
15:11 K: That’s all. Human beings in interrelationship have created this society. Now, we are asking, can that interrelationship, which has created this monstrous society, immoral, all that, can that interrelationship be transformed? That’s all we’re asking. Because if human beings remain as they are, more or less, the structure will be more or less the same, whether it’s communist, socialist or whatever.
15:48 AP: But there is also, sir, I feel, one point which I want to make, that a large part of my energies have gone in the fabrication of models of social engineering. We felt if we could organise human beings in a particular way, then we may create a material base which may help man to transform. And today, we have to give that up, to say that this posturing has proved itself to be untenable. This calls for an act of renouncing something on which we had invested very heavily.
16:46 K: Would you say, sir, thought has created the structure?
16:55 Q: Thought, yes. But I would not say that the structure is a figment of thought.
17:04 K: No, no, no. Not figment of thought.
17:08 Q: But one thing leads to another so I had to stop you...
17:11 K: You’re quite right, sir. I hope you’re not saying that.

K: I understand, sir. I’m not saying thought alone created this. I include in thought, desires, sensations, thought dominates these in the interrelationship between human beings who have created the society. So, thought is very dominant, in the total sense, not in a particular illusory sense.
17:57 K: Wait, sir. Wait, sir. Don’t be content, because we’ve got to break it up. I’m saying, can that thought be transformed? Which has created in its interrelationship with human beings this society which has brought about exploitation, war, you know the whole business.
18:25 Q: Can I put another question, pursue this in the form of a question? You speak of thought so much. Here there is a distribution of assets... Distribution of assets, something very vulgar with money, nothing to do with thought.

K: Ah, wait, sir.
18:55 K: Tax, money, money, money, paper, coin — money.
19:01 Q: Nothing exciting. Bank balance.
19:04 K: That is the coin of exchange between human beings.
19:08 Q: Yes, but it has accumulated in one man’s hand.
19:14 K: Yes, we know, sir, you go back to the same old problem.
19:18 Q: Yes, sir, I have to, just as you have to.
19:19 K: I agree. Then what happens?
19:23 Q: I will go back to my problem.
19:24 K: How will you change the system which is called Capitalist system? Wait, sir. Wait, sir. I used to know many Communists.
19:36 Q: No, sir, I’m not a Communist.

K: I’m not saying you’re Communist.
19:41 Q: Or a terrorist.
19:45 K: I’m just saying, sir, how will you change that? Either through revolution. Right, sir?
19:53 Q: Maybe.

K: Either, I said, either, which means physical revolution, or through propaganda, or through various forms of pressures, one pressure against the other pressure, the stronger pressure overcoming the other pressure. Who is going to create this pressure?
20:24 AP: Could we also put one more question? Just as you talked of the accumulation of wealth, have you noticed a new phenomenon of the concentration of economic and monetary power, the monopoly of all economic controls and all political power in the hands of a single caucus and this caucus claims to be acting in the name of social well-being. Actually, what it accumulates in the form of atomic stockpiling etc., is none of our business. That surely is not a philanthropic activity, you will concede. Have you noticed that we are oversimplifying the problem by saying let us be concrete, let us not bring in thought, let us be material, let us be on the earth. If we are, then we have to see all the criminality that has come to the surface in this well-meaning postulate of creating a system
21:50 PJ: No but if I may say, we talked of money. Money is a very tangible thing. My relationship, psychological response to money is what causes an accumulation. I am a rich man, I want to get richer. The wanting to get richer is a psychological response to money, because money and what it can buy has no meaning left. It’s a sense of power which comes with an accumulation of more and more. No-one can deny that you need money to live, but the moment it goes beyond the level of wanting money to live, you enter the field of the psychological and the response of the psyche to this very material fact — which is a symbol — of money.
22:52 Q: I’m sorry, I’m not interested in this moral issue of greed or anything.
22:56 Sunanda Patwardhan: You have to listen to her.
22:58 PJ: Basically, isn’t that the issue?
23:02 Q: When you say isn’t that ‘the issue,’ is it your issue?
23:07 K: No, no, I have no issue.
23:11 PJ: No, I would say it is certainly my issue.
23:15 Q: I’m raising another issue, which is a totally ungreedy, absolutely moral Capitalist, who just happens to have a lot of money. He’s not avaricious, he is not greedy, but by the very processes of society, money accumulates.
23:33 PJ: He would give it away if he was not greedy. The very fact that he does not take the money and hand it over, is a fact that there is some sense of power, some sense of the very accumulation of that which is bolstering the self within him.
23:52 Q: If you wish to say that — this I understand was roughly Gandhi’s idea of trusteeship — by changing the consciousness of a Capitalist, he could give away the money or become a trustee.
24:06 PJ: Someone else will become a Capitalist, then. As long as that instinct of the more remains, the other man will become the Capitalist.
24:16 AP: He may be completely innocent, and say, ‘I am not a Capitalist, I will use this money for my own power, as an agent of the state.’
24:26 Q: This could be the reason why the Capitalist is not giving away money.
24:30 AP: No, I’m saying that you can change the labels but the facts won’t change. The fact is that the accumulation of money is used to exploit man, and a system cannot change that.
24:45 Prof. Sanjeevi: Madam, I have a question from what you said.
24:50 K: Sir, I am not the Chairman.
24:53 PS: What is it that makes the human mind so soiled and spoilt? Can we go into that question itself?
25:05 K: That gentleman doesn’t want to do that, he says money is the factor in our life.
25:10 PS: I’m making a comment on madam’s statement, that it is the whole psychology that manipulates this money. Accepting that, for a moment, I’m asking, can we look into the root of the question, why the human mind gets affected or is so crazy about money.
25:35 PJ: It can be money, it can be power, you can substitute one for the other. There are twenty things you can substitute, but the mind wants to continually bolster up something within itself.
25:51 PS: How can it escape when you have got the onslaught of money power, when you have got the temptation of money power? Till yesterday a poor man, today in politics becomes a very rich man, and with his riches he exploits the society. Democracy, for which Achyutji fought, allows it. Then what is it?

K: It may not be money. It may be power. It may be status. It may be various forms of authoritarian rule. Right? But money has become important because that is there. Why not also add to that power, status, all that gradation of hierarchical authority, whether money, knowledge, power, status, they’re all on the same line. Agree?

PS: Yes, sir.
26:59 K: We are saying, how can all this be transformed? Money means power, that’s all. Money means pleasure. Money will produce status, a Cadillac, a Rolls Royce, even Brezhnev. Taking all that, if you’re at all serious about the whole matter, how do we transform all that, so that human beings are not pursuing power instead of money, instead of money, status.
27:46 Q: There is the apparatus of power in the fiscal world, because there is an urge to dominate in me.
27:56 Q: There is the apparatus of power, on the one hand and the urge to dominate on the other.
28:06 Q: There are two factors, the root factor and the psychical factor. These two must be seen apart.
28:12 K: I don’t quite follow this division.
28:14 Q: There is the apparatus of power in society and that apparatus of power is used by man, but man, as a human being has the urge to dominate.
28:28 Q: There are two factors, sir.
28:29 PJ: You can add the urge to dominate, you can keep on adding to this.
28:33 K: Yes, I don’t see the point of this.
28:35 PJ: I don’t think we are facing the central issue. With this movement of trying to tackle the problem of power, the problem of money, the problem of domination, is it going to be possible to bring about a deep change within man and within society, or is there a totally different movement which is necessary? I think it’s basically that problem. We can keep on adding to it, we can go round in circles. Does the answer and solution to man... And I have always felt that this... Basically, I am in pain, I am in sorrow, I suffer, and I want to be free of sorrow and suffering.
29:30 K: Poverty, all that, lack of food.
29:34 PJ: As it expresses itself in me, poverty of the human spirit. I want to be free of that.
29:42 K: Wait, I agree. Then the man says — not you, sir — somebody says, food first. Right, sir?
29:56 Q: I am only speaking for myself. Mrs Jayakar says that her priority is to be free of personal sorrow, I’m saying my priority is to see that nobody is starved of food. I would put that in first place.
30:11 K: All right, sir, what shall we do? Sir, what shall we do, we say these things.
30:27 PS: Has not human society done something towards this through the millennia of years, whether it is perfect or not that’s a different thing. That has to be decided only in relationship to an alternative, otherwise there is no point in decrying what progress the human society has achieved through its trial-error method.

AP: Professor Sanjeevi, The ten million people who are starving in Kampuchea, are starving not because there is no actual food available in the world, but we have created a system in which we have conspired to see that millions will starve and not a dog will bark.
31:16 PS: Change that system.
31:20 AP: If you make changing the systems the central mission of your life, that is a self-defeating exercise.
31:32 K: Who will change the system of society?
31:34 PS: We.
31:36 K: Will we?

Q: Why not?
31:39 K: Wait, I’m asking, sir, who will change the system?
31:43 Q: People.

K: Who?
31:45 PS: We, sir. We the people, who else?
31:51 K: Who are the people who are going to change the system?
31:59 Q: Are you expecting me to name the people?
32:01 K: No, no, no, no. I’m not so stupid as all that, sir. Take it for granted I have a little intelligence. I’m asking, who are the people, not the names, the mind? Mind, in the sense, who are the human beings, who have been caught in a system, who are Capitalist, Socialist, who are caught in a system, and those very people are going to change that? Change a new system?
32:39 Q: That’s what’s happened repeatedly in history.
32:42 K: So, what happens?

Q: The exploited, the proletariat, landless labourers...
32:47 K: Yes, sir, we know all that.
32:48 Q: You asked who, so please don’t be impatient.
32:58 Q: You asked who is going to change the system. I am saying these are them.

K: Which are the people?
33:06 Q: The exploited people.
33:08 K: The exploited people are going to change the system? Which means what?

Q: It’s not a prediction. I am saying that change must come from those people.
33:22 K: Answer it, sirs. This is most extraordinary.
33:32 Q: I’m just using one shorthand word.
33:34 K: Yes, sir, so am I. They are going to change the system?
33:40 Q: It is them who have to change the system.
33:42 K: Will they? Or because of their conditioning, they will produce a system according to their conditioning.
33:52 Q: Yes, but when they produce a system according to their conditioning — this point is quite familiar — we’ll have to change that system, also.
34:05 K: That’s all.
34:08 AP: It has been found to be a self-defeating exercise during the last fifty years.
34:14 SP: If they don’t feel there is something wrong with it, there’s no exploration as far as that person is concerned.
34:24 AP: All that I’m trying to say is, that we have a certain postulate and the consequences arising from that postulate historically before us, and as scientific men we must take cognisance of those facts. We can’t run in the face of facts.
34:49 Q: But if there’s a belief in constant revolution...
34:58 K: What are we arguing about?
35:00 Q: I don’t think you can convince anybody.
35:04 K: I’m not joining in this game but what are the rules?
35:08 S: We’re all discussing together. Let us not blame one group.
35:13 AP: It is not a question of groups, Professor Sanjeevi. What I’m saying is that we should look at the lessons of history.
35:24 PS: Why do you take a decision that this is a self-defeating process, as if you have seen all eternity in its entirety?
35:35 AP: I said during the last fifty years.
35:36 PS: How can you measure with that little yardstick? Even with that little yardstick have you not found good things, progressive things, changing things, improving things? Is it so totally black?
35:48 Rajesh Dalal: Professor Sanjeevi, could I just meet that contention? I think any society whether it’s now or 100 years ago or 500 years ago, was divided, in the sense that those who created the system — a few powerful people, the system always came to an advantage for them. The rest, whose desires were not fulfilled, a time came when the system could not contain these forces, those people became stronger, and a new structure which fulfilled another set of desires came into existence. But still that other structure is bound to be in contradiction because now some other desires are not fulfilled. Man continues to change structures after structures with some desire becoming powerful. Just now you were saying the proletariat will change the structure. They will change the structure to suit their desire. At this moment they cannot do it because the other is more powerful. So in order to gain power, so that they can fulfil their desire, which means to bring about a structure of that kind, they’ll go through propaganda, killing, through everything. At the end of all this effort, what? Create a new structure which will suit another fixed set of desires?
37:11 K: That’s the whole point, sir.
37:13 RD: Then we have not changed. What Krishnaji is saying is...
37:17 K: No, no, they are changing. The proletariat created a structure, and the other proletariat will create the new structure. This is the idea, a progressive, constant change of structures.
37:38 Radhika Herzberger: But, sir, meanwhile the world is in danger.
37:41 K: The world is going to pieces, my house is burning, but I’m creating a new structure.
37:51 RD: Aren’t you suggesting, or aren’t we asking, at least, that can this battlefield that we have made this world into...
37:59 K: Stop.

RD:...ever come to an end?
38:02 PS: Why not the battlefield continue? If that is to be the nature.

K: Oh, yes, sir. Quite right.
38:08 PS: Continue, why not?
38:10 K: He's not saying, ‘why not?’ If that is the human way of fighting each other — lower, higher and the higher become the lower, and keep on. What’s going to happen, sir?
38:32 PJ: Does one put an investigation into thought in contradiction always with something outside you?
38:40 S: What is wrong in that?

K: Nothing.
38:42 PJ: I say, ‘Is it necessary?’
38:44 AP: I am asking, is this a device...
38:47 PS: Wrong and right — according to your knowledge.
38:50 AP: Professor Sanjeevi, I have a question directly to ask. Is this a device to postpone forever an examination of the source of all this mischief, namely, how human thought originates?
39:08 PS: What is your authority and what is your knowledge to say, ‘Let this battle end here and now’? How do you know the nature of human society?
39:17 RD: We want to find whether it can end.
39:20 PS: I am not accepting it, I’m questioning it.
39:23 RD: What are you questioning?
39:26 PS: He says that this change of system should end. I’m asking why should it end, why should it not continue?
39:35 PJ: I don’t think he’s asking that.

AP: I did not say that. I said we can start at another end. Can we start investigating the processes of thought as an alternative to this process which seems to have no beginning and no end?
39:53 PS: That alternative must be taken first, explained in detail, then we should give up this.

AP: No, don’t give up anything.
40:02 PS: We cannot give up the present thing for some anticipated thing about which we have no knowledge.
40:08 Q: I don’t think anybody’s conducting propaganda to ask you to give up something.
40:12 PS: Why do you introduce the word ‘propaganda’? Did I say that?
40:15 RD: No, I’m saying it.
40:17 PS: You are causing an insinuation.
40:21 Q: All right, conversion, if that word is better.
40:24 PS: No question of conversion. We are trying to find out what is the best, what is the right action.
40:32 K: Just a minute, sir. Forgive me. Are you trying to find out what is right action? Knowing, this whole business continuing...
40:40 PS: I think everybody is trying to find that.
40:42 Q: I think, sir, we are all very serious.
40:46 K: So, are we trying to find right action so that this cycle doesn’t go on and on and on?
40:55 Q: Well, you have defined it as a cycle.
40:59 K: No, all right, I don’t call it cycle.
41:01 Q: You’ve introduced the word ‘cycle.’ I reject that word.
41:06 K: All right, sir, reject it.

Q: I think it is an improvement.
41:10 K: Give me another word, sir.

Q: I don’t think it’s a cycle. I do not think Socialism is a cycle. I think it’s an evolution.
41:19 K: All right, doesn’t matter. I’ll accept your word, sir. Don’t let’s fight over it. Proletariat becoming the top.

Q: No, it’s not the top.
41:31 K: System. Top, in the sense...
41:37 Q: Because you’re thinking of something rotating.
41:39 K: No, no, I’m not.
41:40 Q: It’s continuous, shall we say?
41:48 Q: A classless society. So nobody is on top.
41:54 K: That’s what... We say that.
41:56 Q: No, sir, that’s the ideal. Just as you have an ideal.
41:59 K: I don’t have an ideal.

Q: There is an implicit ideal.
42:03 K: Forgive me, I’m talking for myself. I have no ideals, no beliefs. So I say, must this go on forever and ever and ever?
42:17 Q: What is ‘this,’ sir?
42:22 K: This change of structure by the lower which will again introduce the lower.
42:29 Q: Why do you say so?
42:31 K: Because human mind, human ambition, human desire, it wants power. Right? Position.
42:40 Q: But then at that stage, the fight will have to be against power.
42:52 Q: But at each stage an improvement, not a cycle.
42:57 K: No, don’t repeat the word, we withdrew that word, sir. So, it means a gradual process of evolution.
43:08 Q: Permanent revolution, if you want.
43:13 Q: That’s just a phrase. Some people like it.
43:15 K: I don’t like it, any more than you like it, but you used it. So, we are saying that this movement will go on. Then what is the question? If that is inevitable. Hm?
43:35 Q: I’m saying it is also necessary.
43:37 K: Yes, sir, inevitable, necessary, etc. What are we talking about?
43:44 Q: Maybe the word ‘revolution’ isn’t a good one because it means go around,
43:52 K: I didn’t want to contradict him. Don’t let’s be clever, sir, please! It’s not a question of being clever in this matter. I want to find out, as a human being, caught in this structure, Capitalist, Socialist whatever it’s going to be, what is my right action? Not mine, human, because we’ve been through that. What is right action?
44:22 PS: Sir, may I say what I feel about it? The moment you say right action, a choice is there. Then we have to discuss that first.

K: Wait, sir, we are going to.
44:42 PS: You say something is the right action, as against something as a wrong action.
44:47 K: No, I don’t.

PS: Then that must be explained.
44:49 K: We’ll explain it, sir, we’ll go into it. That’s if, that is what you want. Why do we have to depend on time, which is evolution? Right, sir?

Q: Society lives in time.
45:15 K: Please don’t tell me all these things, I know this, sir! You’re making obvious remarks.
45:20 Q: You’re asking an obvious question.
45:23 K: I know this, sir, let’s go a little bit further than that. I said, this means time. Will time really solve the human issue? Interrelationship between human beings, which creates whatever society, whatever structure? Will evolution bring that about? A correct, happy, all the rest of it, relationship between human beings.
46:07 Q: Maybe.
46:09 K: Maybe, that means time, distance will produce this thing.
46:16 Q: Maybe.

K: Maybe.
46:18 Q: We don’t know.

K: Wait, sir. Perhaps somebody says, ‘It may not. Time will not produce it.’
46:25 Q: Sir, it is time which has produced this situation. So time could also produce its ending.
46:33 K: That’s same thing, sir. Time. My Lordy! We are quibbling over words, sir. Time is evolution. That evolution, we say, is inevitable.
46:48 Q: Has taken place.

K: Taking place. Now I say to myself, will time, that is from here to there, a movement, will that time dissolve all these human problems?
47:06 Q: Not time alone.

K: Wait, sir, please, sir. Time means — I needn’t go into all the details, must I? Will time, which includes everything else. If you want me to go into all that, I will. I want to cut it short and say ‘time.’ Will time bring about the change of man? We’ve been through that this morning. That’s all my question.
47:44 PJ: But there is no other movement available.
47:48 K: Yes. So, what are we to do?
47:52 PJ: Except the movement which we know which is time.
47:55 K: So what are we to do? If that is the only movement we know, why don’t we begin to enquire if there is another movement? I’m not saying there is or there is not. Our minds are conditioned to this evolution, and I say is there a different approach to this problem? You understand? That’s all.
48:28 PS: We can examine that, sir, very well and we should examine. We have an open mind but we should also be convinced of that alternate.
48:42 K: It’s not alternate.

PS: What else, sir? Already there is something as a fact, as you used to say.
48:48 K: I still say, sir.

PS: You are saying something which to us or to many millions is a non-fact.
48:58 K: This is a fact. Evolution.

PS: Time, evolution.
49:04 K: That’s a fact.

PS: Yes.
49:06 K: That has not changed man.
49:09 PS: Or it changes slowly.

K: Slow. I mean! Right, sir, slowly, we suffer, we go through agonies, slowly, and I’m just asking, is there another way?
49:26 PS: We can ask.

K: That’s all I’m asking. Right, sir? I ask not as an intellectual thing. I say is there a process by which I can jump in a different direction?
49:49 Q: No, sir, I don’t follow. Are you putting this question to somebody else or to yourself?
49:55 K: To God.

Q: God.
50:02 K: And God doesn’t answer.
50:04 Q: No, sir, I’m not able to follow unless you answer this. What is alternative to time?
50:14 PJ: But have we ever asked oneself that question?
50:17 PS: That doesn’t arise at all, madam.

PJ: It does arise.
50:21 K: I’m challenging it.

PS: In order to conserve time, it is not a question of reading the history of the human race.
50:28 PJ: He has asked a question. He said, ‘I am challenging you.’
50:31 Q: Straight away we can try to find an answer. Why should we pose a question whether people have thought about it or not?
50:39 PJ: I’m not asking you that. I’m saying he’s posing a challenge. Is it possible to find another way? Now, I don’t know that way. But the challenge is posed. There has to be a state of mind which can inquire into a challenge without knowing its response.
51:04 PS: Please repeat that sentence.
51:06 PJ: There has to be a way of investigating a challenge without knowing the response. If you know the response, there’s no challenge.
51:15 PS: Nobody disputes that.
51:17 PJ: So let us go into whether one can be in a state where one can investigate without knowing how to investigate.
51:28 PS: There is no dispute. Only when you raised the question, can we answer the question why it is not thought before.
51:35 PJ: Sorry, I didn’t say that at all.

PS: Then all right.
51:42 K: So, what is the problem, sir, after all this?
51:47 PJ: Sir, what is this movement.

PS: We have no problem at all.
51:50 PJ: I’m asking, Krishnaji, what is this movement?
51:52 K: I get lost.
51:54 PJ: What is this movement?
51:57 K: No, I am asking, Pupulji, a very simple thing. We have been conditioned, our way of thinking is time, evolution not revolution, circle, cycle, they’re all the same. Will that change man? You say, ‘Yes, gradually. Perhaps.’ I challenge that and naturally, being fairly alive, I say is there a different approach to this problem? Not the traditional time, the traditional, slow process of killing each other, war after war, war after war, war after war. Is there an end to all this? That’s all my question. I don’t say there is, or there is not. I say, instead of always thinking in this linear line, is there, let’s inquire in a different direction. That’s all. So I said, time is movement. From here to there, both physically and psychologically. Can this movement — go slowly, sir — can this movement, which is the movement of thought, thought, desire, sensation. These are the three things.
54:07 RH: Ideals and models.
54:12 K: Oh, yes. Sensation, desire, thought. On which we live. The sensation of hunger, of sex, sensation of — various sensations, from that arises desire, position, power, then thought creates the image. This is the line according to which we have lived. Right, sir? May I proceed?

Q: Yes, sir.
54:49 K: No, not just you wait till you catch me out.
54:56 Q: I would like to see where this leads to.
54:59 K: This leads nowhere. You are waiting to see where it leads. What does that mean? Waiting verbally to be convinced.
55:14 Q: No.

K: Intellectually.
55:16 K: Then how are you meeting me? What is our relationship, in communication?
55:31 Q: Two people discussing.

K: What do you mean discuss? We are having dialogues, aren’t we? Not discussion. Discussion implies offering one opinion against another, trying to find, in opinions, the truth.
55:45 Q: No, I am not...

K: Just a minute, sir. Let me finish, sir. Discussion means that. Dialogue means, you know what the Latin word is. ‘Di’ two, ‘logos’ words. Exchange between two people, conversation, who want to find out how to act, how to live, all that business, in a world that’s catastrophic. That’s what we are having, now, as far as I’m concerned. Two friends — if we can call each other friends — can have a dialogue so that they come to not mere verbal conclusions, but the feeling that there must be some enquiry to find a different way of living. That’s all. If you have a definite opinion and I do too, we’re not friends.
56:57 Q: No, I don’t think I have definite opinions. I’ve not come here with definite opinions.
57:03 K: That’s right, sir, don’t let’s go through all that, pulling words out and changing words and all that. I’m just asking, there may be a different way in which time, as a means of evolution, doesn’t exist. May be. We know this — proletariat, the whole business of it. I’m asking, is there a different approach to all this problem? Approach. Am I accepting time and sticking to that, or can I let that conditioning of time as a means of change, can I drop that, and say, ‘Let’s both of us be free of our opinions, our judgements and let’s enquire. Right, sir?
58:19 PJ: I think it’s time for you to stop, sir.
58:21 K: Already?

PJ: It’s very late.
58:28 K: What have we done in an hour, just pulled out words?
58:33 PJ: We haven’t really started, have we?
58:38 K: We haven’t even started, no. Could we do that, sir? Not play.
58:51 Q: Sir, when you keep saying, ‘Don’t play,’ I’m not playing.
58:57 K: Please don’t misunderstand me.
58:59 Q: But if you keep saying, ‘Don’t play, don’t speak words’...
59:03 K: Please, sir. Two friends.
59:06 Q: Yes. Should I just participate...?
59:07 K: Wait, sir. Two friends. He can use any word. Friends.

Q: Yes.
59:13 K: Use any words, they understand each other very quickly. Right?
59:24 PJ: Tomorrow morning, sir.
59:27 K: Can we come to this point, not begin all over again?
59:32 Q: Same to you, sir. Don’t begin all over again. Just proceed with the same question.
59:38 K: Yes, don’t let’s go through all this, start from this point. That can we investigate as two friends — I mean friends, not opposition camps, arguments, all the rest of it. Can two friends who are serious, who intend to find a different approach to this problem. Right, sir? Right? That’s all. It’s one of the most difficult things for two people to think together. Right, sir?
1:00:36 Q: Both will have to try — two people have to think together. Both will have to try.
1:00:43 K: Yes, sir, I’m saying that, sir, for two people, for you and me to think together. We can think together about something. Right, sir? But to think together, not about. It’s quite a different movement. That’s all I’m saying. Right, sir?
1:01:14 PS: But there has to be explaining, sir.
1:01:18 K: I’ll explain it, sir. It’s very simple. We think together when there is a crisis. In a tremendous crisis, like a war, we’re all together, in our hate, in our patriotism, all that, blah, nonsense. That is thinking about. Right? I’m asking, let us think together, not about something.
1:01:52 PS: How is that, sir, not to think about something but to think together?
1:02:06 K: Must I explain it, sir?
1:02:09 Q: I also feel the same difficulties.

K: I understand.
1:02:14 Q: You are obligated. Today we are thinking about again. You are not listening. We had a subject, you see.

K: That’s what I’m objecting to.
1:02:27 Q: Yes, but you started with the subject.
1:02:30 K: I know. I know. I’m asking, sir, please, we are both — give and take. We are used to thinking about something together, that’s our common way of agreement, disagreement, deny or say, ‘Agree’ — about something. I’m asking, is there a way of thinking which is not about something? You understand?
1:03:02 Q: I am willing to try.
1:03:06 K: Not willing to try, sir.
1:03:07 PS: I want to understand it first of all, then maybe try.
1:03:12 K: Sir, have you understood? Please explain to that gentleman. Sir, in our relationship, do we ever meet?
1:03:38 PS: What does that mean, sir? No, I want to be very frank. Don’t think I’m annoying you, sir, I am asking.
1:03:46 K: Please, sir. Please, sir. I’m not saying...
1:03:49 PS: I don’t want to be a hypocrite.
1:03:52 K: I’m just saying, two people, husband and wife, or two friends, can they ever meet about anything?
1:04:03 PS: On some things they do, and other things they don’t meet.
1:04:08 K: Yes, sir, I know this. Yes. When they agree about something they meet, when they don’t agree, they don’t meet. That’s obvious, sir. I’m asking, do they ever meet at all?
1:04:23 PS: I said, sir, on some points.

K: I agree, sir, don’t go back.
1:04:27 PS: If you ask the question whether they 100% totally agree...
1:04:30 K: Of course, sir. That is, that is meeting.
1:04:35 PS: That depends upon the connotation that you give to it.
1:04:38 K: I have made that clear, sir. Sometimes we meet, sometimes we don’t. We agree, we disagree, but is there a meeting point, where there is whole meeting, complete meeting?
1:04:52 PS: If you mean that, then that’s different.
1:04:59 K: Do we meet, a wife or husband, completely, in our relationship? Right? That’s all. I’m saying, can we, here, serious people — which doesn’t mean you’re not serious — meet?
1:05:30 PS: Do you want to pose that as a condition?
1:05:37 PS: Sorry, sir, if I am asking you a wrong question, please pardon me. I’m interested, I’m trying.
1:05:43 K: I’ve made it clear, sir. Can I meet a friend, completely, or only at certain times — agreement, disagreement, all that? That’s all. There’s no trick behind it. You and I, sir, can we meet? Not at the verbal level, at the argumental level, not saying, this is right, this is wrong,
1:06:25 Q: Can you explain this word ‘meet’?

K: ‘Meet’ means, sir, love. You might spit on that word.
1:06:37 PS: No, sir, here again...

K: Sir, sir, sir, sir!
1:06:46 Q: I thought we were in a state of love all the time. There is no disagreement about that.
1:06:53 K: Now, sir, let’s be clear. I wonder what we mean by ‘love.’
1:07:01 Q: That we were engaged in the same activity.
1:07:06 K: Is that what you call love?
1:07:09 Q: One attempt at answering.
1:07:11 K: Is that what you call love?
1:07:20 Q: No, let’s come back to ‘meet.’
1:07:22 K: To meet. Two minds, two hearts, two people meeting. Not sexually. They only meet there, but I’m not talking that.
1:07:35 Q: No, I’m extremely clear you’re not talking about that.
1:07:44 K: If we love each other, where shall we meet? Not at Mylapore. What is our meeting place? Where do we...? If there is love, there is no meeting place, is there? We are there. Am I being sentimental, romantic, blah and all the rest of it?
1:08:19 Q: You might be, sir.

K: Quite right, sir. I am criticising... I’m looking ahead of you. Is my love merely sentimental, romantic, an escapism, avoidance?
1:08:37 Q: We came for a discussion of a subject.
1:08:43 K: No, no, sir, that’s what I’m trying to find out. How to discuss or have a dialogue about something like if there is a different approach to this problem — what is the quality of our minds, yours and mine and his and hers, which meets, which can enquire into this? You understand my question? Two friends.

Q: I understand this question, but I don’t see the connection between this and love.
1:09:33 K: What is the connection between love and this? What do you think the connection is? Wait, wait, sir.

Q: You made the connection yourself. Don’t put this on me.
1:09:57 K: We are two friends. Don’t say, ‘Put it on me.’ No, sir, I won’t admit that. Two friends. Don’t brush it out. We are two friends. I start on that approach. We are two friends, and I say, we start with that — friends, which means affection, empathy, love. Of course, I’m not your friend if you hate me, or if you’re jealous of me, or if I’m seeking power. So, we start on that. That is the basis of friendship, real friendship, not just convenience. Real friendship is that.
1:10:59 Q: That’s what I meant by saying we were having it all the time. Let’s proceed with the discussion.
1:11:10 K: I question it. I question whether this kind of love, which I’m talking about is there all the time I don’t say you’re not right. Don’t let’s fist fight. I say, ‘I wonder.’ Not the love of Jesus and love of God and all that. Love in which there’s no jealousy, no antagonism, no division, as ‘me’ and ‘you.’ What do you say, sir?
1:12:03 Q: I thought that what you were meaning is resonating together. The question of mutual exploration of an idea often happens very nicely when like two tuning forks, once struck, then they resonate, but you can resonate at different frequencies. I was just wondering whether that was what you meant.
1:12:37 K: You and I are friends, with all the deep meaning of that word. I have a problem. I come to you. We discuss it, we talk about it. You help me and I help you to resolve the problem. That’s what we are doing. If that is the basis of our dialogue, then we can advance, but if that friendship, And the gentleman says, it is there all the time. Which means, sir, we are not seeking power at any time, not here. There is no jealousy, no desire for position — that is out. If that’s what we consider love and you say it’s all the time there, you’re a happy man. You have solved the problems. The proletariat, the revolution. You have solved the problem.
1:14:13 Q: How does that follow?
1:14:14 Q: Sir, if I may ask. It’s somewhat at a tangent, I have a question whether this love or meeting that you’re talking about comes during an exploration of this, or does it have to be there before you even start?
1:14:34 K: No, we meet as two friends. Otherwise, how can I have a dialogue with you, if you are not interested in the dialogue?
1:14:46 Q: It is possible for people to be interested in the dialogue and still have ownership of ideas.

K: That’s what I am saying.
1:14:56 K: Of course!
1:15:00 RD: The very nature of this dialogue is to understand that ownership. If you say, ‘If you have ownership of ideas, you can have no dialogue,’ then we can’t sit.

K: No, no. He asked a different meaning. He understood. You explain it, sir.
1:15:17 RD: I’m willing to look at ownership. I am open to the dialogue. There may be ownership, which I may not know about.
1:15:24 Q: But there’s still a willingness. Rajesh, the point is that there’s letting down of defences to start with.
1:15:31 RD: Quite right.

K: That’s all.
1:15:34 RD: There are no defences. Sir, we brought in one thing. Where one lives in time, in thought, there’s no love.
1:15:57 K: Thought isn’t love. Right, sir?
1:16:09 RD: Sir, then you say is there another approach.
1:16:12 K: Rajesh, let’s be clear. Let’s stop this. It’s late. We have come to a point when we say, is there another approach to this problem? Leave love alone and all that. I brought it in, forgive me for bringing it in. Is there a different approach to the traditional problem, which is, you know, revolution, cycle, all the rest of it? Can we start it from there, tomorrow morning?