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ML70DSG1 - Living with a sustained seriousness
Malibu, California - 21 February 1970
Discussion with Small Group 1



0:00 This is the first small group discussion with J. Krishnamurti’s in Malibu, California, 1970.
0:10 Krishnamurti: What should we talk about? May I begin with something and then we can go around it. May I?
0:21 Questioner: Yes.
0:24 K: You know what’s happening in the world – terrible mess, great violence, murder, and every kind of mischief is afloat, and amidst all this chaos what is a man to do and what is he to do seriously? And what does it mean to be serious? Can we discuss that? What it means to be serious in the context of this complete destruction, complete meaningless existence. Can we go into that? Would that be worthwhile?
1:31 Q: Yes.
1:35 K: What does it mean to be serious? Not momentarily serious but a sustained, continuous, passionate seriousness. What does that word mean to most of us? Because most of us jump from one thing to another, from one personal impetus or personal inclination, from one attraction to another, from one entertainment to another, philosophical, religious or personal pleasures and so on. What does that word mean to most of us? I wonder what it means to me.
3:14 (Pause) Does it mean exclusion and dedication to one particular direction, to one particular activity, to a particular ideology? Or is it the total denial, turning one’s back completely on society? I don’t mean organised society, the society with its establishments and so on. I don’t mean that. Inwardly, psychologically, turn our back onto all that man stands for, has built him… made himself into. For me, that is serious, to be serious – to turn my back on what man has made himself into and what he stands for, as he actually is – not an ideological, mythological entity but actually as he is – his vanities, his absurdities, his angers and viciousness and brutality, all that. I would consider that – I am speaking for myself – for me that is to be serious. (Pause) And can one live that way? Not according to one’s mood or occasionally, but with sustained intensity. Shall we discuss? Would that be of any value to discuss it?
7:23 (Pause) We can put the question differently. We believe in progress, don’t we, or self-improvement. Do we? Progress, the obvious progress of a society, of the computer, you know, progress, evolution, I mean, technological growth and so on. And is there progress at all in any other direction? Becoming better. Do you want to be serious about all this? To really deny the becoming.
9:23 Q: I’m not sure we see that we can’t become.
9:39 K: I mean, becoming implies comparison, progress, time, the tomorrow, from what I have been I shall be. Which means really to be free of the word ‘to be’ in which is implied progress, becoming, moving from one level to another and so on – you know the whole… That word has conditioned us.
10:43 (Pause) And to be free of the implications of that verb and all the things involved in it. Which means complete denial of self-improvement.
11:18 (Pause) It doesn’t mean that one becomes static, one remains where one is, but to approach where one is without making it better. I don’t know if I’m conveying. It’s not that one is inferior or superior, the inferior trying to become the superior, or accepting the inferior and remaining in that state of inferiority, but to be out of that imbalance. Is this all too much?
13:04 Q: Doesn’t that imply accepting ‘what is’, accepting as conditions are?
13:11 K: No, no. Does it imply accepting ‘what is’? Or does it imply a quality of mind that is free of comparison and therefore sees ‘what is’ without comparing?
13:44 (Pause) Q: I don’t know if we know how to see without comparing.
14:08 K: Shall we discuss it, go into it, why our minds have been so conditioned by that verb and the whole structure of human psychological endeavour to become something?
15:08 (Pause) I mean, must one always live in comparison – bigger car, bigger house, bigger bathroom, bigger, more beautiful – you follow? – which means everlasting struggle. And the denial of that doesn’t mean accepting the status quo, but the mind that sees the futility of it. A mind becoming less angry or less detached or more affectionate, which are all comparative, which are all progressive in that sense, and the word… You see, the difficulty is the word ‘being’ implies ‘to be’, in which there is no comparison or sense of change. I wonder if you understand what I’m talking about.
17:37 Q: Are you saying that one throw out the whole concept of progression?
17:43 K: How can I throw out the mechanical progress, mechanical perfection – better car – you know what I mean? But inwardly, psychologically, the freedom from becoming, the feeling of no more. I don’t know...
18:09 Q: Are you talking about desire? Is that the fuel?
18:14 K: That’s part of it. That’s only a small part of desire. Desire is a very small, little affair. I mean, look, look at all the religious activities of man, whether in India or Europe or here, it is the same movement of psychological achievement and progressive realisation or enlightenment or understanding of truth and so on, gradual. I’m pretty sure the Brahmins, with all their mischief, invented this idea of gradual enlightenment. Because it suited them. They were the masters to give enlightenment to others. And they could achieve, they were there already, the Brahmins, and the poor other fellows gradually came up to their level. It is the same in Christianity – the layman gradually becoming the saint. This exists throughout.
19:49 Q: Doesn’t it serve some function, that slow progress?
19:56 K: Function in what, sir?
20:00 Q: That it achieves an end for some individuals.
20:07 K: No, if it is poison to one it must be poison to all. Either it is true or it is not true. It’s really extraordinarily interesting to go into this, into oneself, to find out why we accept, I accept or you accept, the idea of progress inwardly, self-improvement. Let’s stick to that word, ‘self-improvement’, which is a terrible thing. What is there to improve?
21:06 Q: It’s such a natural impulse. When someone tells you that you’re stupid, that you want to work...
21:21 K: Why? Why? It may be a natural instinct or it may be a conditioned response through education, through culture, through society and so on, but why do we accept it?
21:34 Q: Because we think it’s a natural instinct.
21:37 K: No. Therefore let us tear it to pieces and find out.
21:40 Q: We accept it too because we’re not satisfied with what we are.
21:44 K: No, sir, that again… You see, all this seems so small, doesn’t it? We all moving in small circles. I don’t know if you follow what I mean. ‘I’m satisfied, I’ll be more satisfied, I’ll be less satisfied, I’ve this desire, I wish I hadn’t that desire, I wish I was...’ You follow what I mean? It’s such a small, little field of action.
22:14 Q: It does make us feel better though.
22:16 K: I know, but that ‘feeling better’ is also a petty little affair. Putting on a new shirt, clean shirt, feels… (laughs) But can’t we move out of that small circle? Not form another bigger circle – move out of that circle entirely. I mean, a priest, leaving the Church, Catholic Church, getting married, and so on, so on – you know what is happening. It all seems so extraordinarily small when compared to the enormous thing that’s going on in the world.
23:24 (Pause) I mean, it’s like looking at those marvellous, beautiful mountains and saying, ‘Well, let’s go and have tea.’ (Laughs) You know what I mean ?
23:45 Q: It seems to be a preoccupation with our sorrows, because when I’ll think of myself as no longer concerned with becoming anything then I seem no longer concerned with myself. And yet I’m not revolving in that small area.
24:22 K: How do we get out of the small area? Not bit by bit. You follow what I mean? That’s progressive, that is self-improvement. Here I am, caught, conditioned by that verb, and my whole activity inwardly, psychologically and in my mind, is to evolve round there, in that little cage. I know that very well, what it feels like, the pettiness, the shoddiness of the little business. Occasionally bursting out, you know, like a porcupine with quills and hurting somebody, and so on. But to break away completely from it.
25:45 (Pause) Shall we discuss it?
25:55 Q: Yes.
25:57 K: How do we do this? Knowing my life – life includes pleasure, you know, life – sex, love, everything is so petty, small, degrading. How do I completely let all that go? Is it one instant action, to shatter the walls, as it were, explode from within? And if that is so, how does it happen? Or is it a matter of the intensification of pressure from outside? I don’t know if… Circumstances, environment, political activity, the upheavals – you know, all that, the immense pressure from outside – social revolution and so on, so on. What brings about this explosive quality that breaks all this down?
28:03 Q: The explosive quality must contain urgency.
28:08 K: All right, sir. Yes, urgency, intensity, eagerness, passion, all that – how does it happen?
28:18 Q: I don’t understand what’s going to be broken in the explosion.
28:31 K: Look, sir, I live in a very small house. My walls are very thin or they’re very thick by my own thought. And I move and live and survive within that very small house, adding an occasional room to it. And I suddenly realise how petty it all is. And somehow that very realisation doesn’t do anything. You know what I mean? It doesn’t shatter the walls. How does this happen? And in that house I grow old and die. That’s the end of it. Now, sir, what shall we do? Shall we discuss that?
29:59 Q: Yes.
30:01 K: Go ahead, sir, discuss it. (Laughter)
30:06 Q: If I have a state of mind or a quality of mind which does not make comparisons then how can I see sex and the pleasures of every day as being petty?
30:26 K: No, but why do you compare, sir? Not the question put the other way around. Put it. Why do you compare at all? What is the root of this business of comparing? What is behind it?
30:55 Q: Self-gratification, it seems.
30:59 K: Is that it?
31:06 Q: Is it our insecurities, desire to protect?
31:08 K: Sir, look, if you say something it must be true. Don’t guess. Let’s investigate. You follow what I mean? Why do I compare myself with you or with somebody else? Why do I have examples at all? Why? You understand? Why this comparative spirit, attitude, action?
31:50 Q: The fear of not being the same as other people.
31:58 K: Is that all? Who cares? Not being like Mrs Jones. Heavens! No, please press it a bit more. Why do you compare?
32:21 Q: When I compare myself with somebody else and through my own thinking I find that I’m better than the other person then it makes me feel good in some way.
32:34 K: Is that the complete answer, sir?
32:37 Q: It’s a partial answer.
32:40 K: No. By putting parts together doesn’t make the whole. What is the complete answer to that? And because it’s complete it will be true always. You follow what I mean? Why do you compare? What would happen if you didn’t compare, if you had no example, no hero, no ideal, no saying, ‘I will be something different tomorrow,’ if you didn’t compare at all? What would happen? Is comparison an escape from yourself? And yourself not knowing what yourself is? I don’t know if you follow. Because I don’t know myself, I compare. If I know myself, what is the need to compare?
34:24 Q: We’re constantly defining ourselves with the outside.
34:29 K: Therefore I have to understand what it is to know myself. Because I think Nixon is better – sorry! (laughter) – I want to be like him. Why? God forbid, but why? (Laughter) Or Jesus or somebody else, doesn’t matter who it is – why? Better writer – you follow? – the whole series of comparative values which I have established for myself, which I pursue consciously or unconsciously. Why am I doing this? Now, to go into it completely, to the very end of it, is to be serious. Because to go into it, I mean to explore into it, one needs a great deal of energy, intensity, passion – you follow? – everything to go. That gives you an extraordinary quality of seriousness. And to explore together is to communicate. Shall we go now? Shall we go into it? Why? Why do I compare myself with anybody? Is it the word? Because I live with words and I say I’m not intelligent, whereas you are intelligent. Intelligence has certain value – moral, ethical, and economic and so on. And by comparison I struggle to be like you, because it’s profitable. That’s one. Why am I doing all this, all my life? Comparing, comparing – why? (Pause)
37:33 Q: Because my life is so dull, not interesting.
37:50 K: Look, sir, you’re doing it out of dullness? How do you know you are dull, if you didn’t compare?
38:00 Q: How do you know yourself?
38:02 K: No, do look at it. How do you know you’re dull if you didn’t compare?
38:07 Q: Because everybody else tells me.
38:09 K: Then we are back again.
38:11 Q: Can you notice…
38:18 K: No. I beg your pardon.
38:22 Q: No, I’ll wait.
38:23 K: I’m interested not what people tell me, that I am dull or stupid or enlightened, I’m interested to find out why I compare.
38:30 Q: I think we are tied together.
38:44 K: Have you ever tried not to compare?
38:49 Q: Yes.
38:52 K: No, no, don’t make it easy or hard. Say, ‘No comparison.’
39:01 Q: We’ve been conditioned to think otherwise.
39:08 K: Break down that conditioning immediately and say, ‘I won’t compare.’
39:13 Q: But it’s one thing to say…
39:15 K: Do it, sir. I mean, the action is… the proof is in the doing of it. The twisting out of that fact is the doing of it. Can I, can the mind which has been trained, conditioned, shaped to compare, inquire into not comparative activity? Can I do it?
39:51 Q: Can one inquire into oneself without any terminology at all? Without any… What is the examination, the awareness without any concept?
40:06 K: Examination is the observation of what is going on non-comparatively, non-linguistically, non-putting what you see into words and translating, giving significance to those words, and then saying this is right, this is wrong, this should be, this should not be.
40:24 Q: How do you do it without words, Krishnaji? How can you possibly see something without...
40:28 K: Oh yes, surely. Surely that’s possible, isn’t it?
40:31 Q: Without any vocabulary at all?
40:32 K: Yes, surely.
40:33 Q: When I don’t compare then I don’t make a barrier between myself and what I’m looking at or thinking, or whatever it is. There seems no barrier.
40:53 K: Yes, sir. Go ahead, sir, don’t ask me.
40:56 Q: Sir, you asked why do we compare, and we didn’t get to the end of that question. Then you asked: can we not compare? But we don’t really know why we should not compare. We haven’t yet seen why we should not compare. And we haven’t seen why we do compare.
41:10 K: I think it’s fairly clear, sir, why we compare. Why do I compare? You answer me, sir, go ahead.
41:21 Q: It’s loneliness. It would be very lonely.
41:23 K: Why? No, madame écoutez. I mean, look, why do you compare?
41:26 Q: Because we’re afraid.
41:28 K: You’re afraid?
41:29 Q: I think so.
41:30 Q: Isn’t it a process of using certain tools in the mind which we do from birth onwards so that…
41:39 K: I mean you have certain implements, certain instruments which you are using. Is that it? To cultivate the mind?
41:47 Q: No.
41:48 Q: We compare in order to become, as you said at the beginning, sir. It’s part of that becoming.
41:50 Q: To protect yourself from the facts.
41:58 Q: That fulfilment.
42:04 Q: In order to become, I think you mean in order to form a conclusion. Compare so we can come to a conclusion.
42:16 K: No. Would you try something? Listen. First, listen to the question. Listen, not interpret it. It has to be put verbally because otherwise no communication is possible. So someone is asking me: why do you compare? I have no answer. I don’t jump into the question and say, ‘I compare because I’m frightened.’ I listen first. Right? I am really listening. I really don’t know why I’m comparing, just I’ve done it. Now why am I doing it? I’ve put the question: why do I compare? I’ve also said: why am I doing it? I am listening to the question why I’m doing it. Right? I’m listening to it. Which means I am listening very carefully to the answer. I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t know if you’re following what I mean. I am very carefully listening why I’m comparing. Is the listening a verbal state? Is the listening… am I listening to a word that’s going to answer the question? Am I making myself clear? I have put to myself the question: why do I compare? Now, I’m listening to that. Am I listening to the word that is going to explain why I’m doing it? The word then being… the word is the result of thinking. Right? And so on. Thinking then is the past, and so on. So, am I listening when I put the question, why do I compare, for a verbal answer which will come out of the past? Or am I listening without the past. I don’t know if you capture what I’m trying to explain.
45:20 Q: In other words we have to see this moment exactly why we compare.
45:29 K: No, no. No, no, I’ve moved away for the moment, sir – to come to this. I’ve put myself that question – right? – why do I compare? Now am I listening to the answer with my ears turned to the past, which is thinking, or am I listening non-verbally?
45:55 Q: It would appear you’re groping for some sort of nostalgic orientation. You are looking to the past for guidance.
46:09 K: I haven’t got it.
46:11 Q: In other words, when you reach into the past it’s like looking into the rear view mirror to see all the situations which have gone before.
46:26 Q: He says when we look to the past we are nostalgic.
46:39 K: Sir, I put the question, which is, why do I compare? How do I listen to that question? Non-verbally or verbally? I don’t know if there’s any meaning in that.
47:23 Q: I think most of us are incapable of listening to it verbally.
47:31 K: Most of us are...
47:34 Q: ...incapable of listening to it verbally.
47:38 K: Why?
47:40 Q: Because that’s how we are conditioned.
47:44 K: Ah!
47:45 Q: We’re listening with anticipation.
47:46 K: That is not an answer, madame.
47:50 Q: The question seems to raise some sort of anxiety and finding an answer for it seems to momentarily displace this.
48:00 K: Anxiety. Why should there be anxiety?
48:03 Q: We anticipate something. We anticipate an answer and we don’t see.
48:09 K: Sir, look, I have put to you the question. I don’t know. You follow? Why should I be anxious about it? I don’t know. I’m going to find out. Why should I have fear? Fear will come after I’ve found out what to do about it.
48:43 (Pause) You see, this is a very good mental discipline in the sense not conformity and discipline, but the mind that is inquiring is learning, and therefore very attentive. I don’t know if you…
49:01 Q: If I always compare, doesn’t it mean that I always want to give myself a choice?
49:09 K: A choice.
49:11 Q: A choice, that I always want to say to myself: this or that, today or yesterday?
49:17 K: Yes, why? Why do you want choice? Why do you have to choose at all? If you see something very clearly, what’s the need of choice?
49:28 Q: If I see something very clearly. If I don’t see it then I need to choose.
49:33 K: Then why don’t you? No, find out, sir, go into it. Why don’t we see things clearly? Why don’t we see very clearly what is implied in comparison?
49:51 Q: We don’t see it clearly because we always see it in relation to something else, and that’s not clear.
50:01 Q: We only see a part of it.
50:05 Q: We never look at it without desiring an answer to the question. We never look at anything without some desire interplaying and interfering with it. So you don’t really look at it at all. If you have any desire to find an answer in it, or to make some judgement on it, then there’s no way of seeing because the barrier is there. You’re already caught.
50:34 K: Sir, but look, we are investigating, we are exploring. In exploring, any form of desire, fear distorts the process of exploring. You go off in another direction. But here we’re exploring, therefore that can’t enter into it. Your motive, your desire, your fear doesn’t enter when I’m saying let’s find out what the microphone is made of. In the same way, we are trying to inquire into this thing: why do I compare? Is it choice? If it is choice then what is the necessity to choose? I choose because I’m confused. I don’t know whether to go there or there. But if I see very clearly where to go, there’s no choice. So why don’t I see clearly? It may be because I’m comparing – what Jesus said, what Nixon said, what somebody said, this and that. So I am confused.
52:09 (Pause) You do compare, don’t you? Why? Go in, explore. You don’t go, sir. Explore.
52:25 Q: Are we comparing with the image which we have?
52:39 K: Because you have an image about yourself and you want to improve that image?
52:46 Q: If we kind of hold on to the image.
52:49 K: If you hold on to the image there is no need to compare. If I hold on to something I don’t compare.
53:01 Q: Falling short of the image.
53:04 K: It’s only when I want to improve the image or cut it down or do something about it.
53:11 Q: Or conform to it.
53:15 K: Yes, yes, yes. You’re not answering: why do you compare? None of you. You see, sir, you don’t work at this.
53:24 Q: I compare because I feel I have to know.
53:34 K: You mean to say you know through comparison?
53:38 Q: No. Yes and no.
53:40 K: Wait, wait, wait. Take that statement. You know through comparison.
53:45 Q: I think I do.
53:46 K: Is that a fact?
53:48 Q: I’m cheating myself.
53:50 K: No, no! Don’t say you’re cheating. Is that a fact?
53:55 Q: We do at an everyday level. We do in the normal course of life.
54:02 K: Ah, yes. Don’t bring in the normal… I compare this carpet to something else. There it is necessary, and so on. But we’re talking at the psychological level where the operation of thought is always in action. When I choose this carpet after comparing with half a dozen carpets, it’s finished. But my life isn’t the carpet. My life is this constant inward activity of comparison – you have got a better… you look better, you’re more intelligent, you’re more spiritual, you’ve got more money, your eyes are beautiful, mine isn’t, you’re tall, you’re short, I wish I could have more sex, less sex. You follow? Back and forth. This is what I’m talking about, this endless chattering, comparative work, activity that’s going on. I say to myself: why am I doing this?
55:22 Q: To survive the society.
55:31 K: No, that’s surely… Survive in this society? I am surviving.
55:45 Q: To avoid seeing because we don’t like the way it is, to avoid seeing the fact?
56:09 K: Sir, I can go on, but you don’t explore together, you see? After all, sir, communication means understanding together, working together, sharing together. Communication means that. The verb ‘communicate’ means that. The very word means that. But here someone else is talking and you’re all quiet.
56:38 Q: Can we go back three spaces, sir, to a statement you made before about waiting for an answer, and if in fact that the answer was a verbal answer we were waiting for or non-verbal answer. I got a little lost after that. And we never really did answer that question. If I were to be asked it again, I would say that I would probably be waiting for a verbal answer because that is how I function.
57:19 K: You see, take that, sir. You’re waiting for a verbal answer. Which means what?
57:23 Q: Which means if I am thinking, if I ask myself a question, I must answer myself verbally.
57:32 K: Verbally. Which means what? Go into it. Which means...
57:37 Q: Which means that I...
57:38 K: …thought is thinking it out.
57:41 Q: Yes.
57:42 K: Watch it, sir. Thought says, ‘By Jove, why am I comparing?’ Now thought is exploring.
57:50 Q: Yes.
57:52 K: And thought is the past.
57:55 Q: Yes.
57:57 K: With the instrument of the past you are exploring something which is into the unknown. Because you don’t know why you are comparing. So thought has no value there. So a verbal answer to that is no answer.
58:17 Q: But what is the quality of non-verbal?
58:20 K: We’re going to… I’m doing it.
58:22 Q: How can that be?
58:24 K: I am doing it. We are doing it. To see that thought cannot explore this question. I can give innumerable reasons, which would be very thoughtful, thoughtfully intelligent, thoughtfully true, but it’s still the activity of thought.
58:47 Q: But even that recognition or even that insight is a verbal thing, when you are seeing something.
58:55 K: I am only explaining it through words, a state non-verbal.
58:59 Q: The words are just the letter. The thing itself is something different.
59:07 Q: I understand that but I’m wondering what is actually a non-verbal...
59:11 K: We will do it in a minute. Have patience.
59:15 Q: I have to tell someone…
59:17 K: Have patience. Have a little patience. You will see it for yourself. I have put the question to myself in all… really, because I want to find out. You follow? It isn’t a superficial question, it’s a tremendously important question to me. Because the whole of my life is going to depend on that question, how I shall live in the future. I put that question very… tremendously seriously. And how do I answer the question? Am I going to answer verbally? Therefore the inquiry is an activity of thought? Right? If it is the activity of thought, therefore verbal, therefore it is an inquiring with an instrument which is already dead – right? – which is already old. It has not got a sharp precision in it. Therefore I say no, that’s value at all to me. Therefore that’s out. So I’m not using thought. Thought is not in operation. Therefore non-verbal. Right? Now, that means what? My mind is completely free of the word and the thought.
1:00:48 Q: Which means it’s free of the question.
1:00:53 K: You come to that point, old boy, don’t…
1:01:05 (Pause) In that state am I comparing? So it means what? Thought is always the activity of comparison. Thought is the past. The past is always comparing. I am. I was. I am today. I will be tomorrow. I was unhappy yesterday, I will be happy today. I was not intelligent, I will be intelligent. Thought is operating all the time. There’s our complete answer. Now, can I live without comparing, and yet thought function? Right, sir? Somebody? Moving or am I your old… moving? (Laughs)
1:02:34 Q: It seems rather contradictory then, doesn’t it?
1:02:38 K: Ah, no.
1:02:40 Q: Can you live without comparing and yet thought function?
1:02:43 K: Yes, sir. Can I live… living is different from thinking. Ah! Right?
1:02:51 Q: Well, because some actions in thought may be necessary in daily life.
1:02:57 K: Then I use thought.
1:02:59 Q: Yes.
1:03:00 Q: With the carpet.
1:03:01 K: With the carpet I use it.
1:03:02 Q: But one must make the decision as to when to do one and when to do the other. Is that a conscious decision that you’re making, when to use thought?
1:03:13 K: Ah! Why do you need decision at all, sir? Except in the carpet – you follow? – why do you need any other form of decision?
1:03:27 Q: My point is, sir, that – again, I must refer to a day to day existence. In my day to day existence I must use thought in order to solve certain day-to-day problems.
1:03:39 K: Obviously you will, sir. But will you use thought and therefore decision with regard to self-improvement, with regard to analysis of yourself, with regard to observation of yourself?
1:03:57 Q: I think most of us do, but I can see the error or fallacy in it.
1:04:06 K: If you see the error of it, it’s finished!
1:04:12 Q: But I have to keep reminding myself.
1:04:14 K: Oh no!
1:04:15 Q: There is the point. It seems like we experience this but then something comes up and it’s all through and we fall into the old pattern.
1:04:26 K: No, sir. No, sir. You can never fall into the old pattern of comparison if you see what comparison does. Comparison is dangerous, full stop.
1:04:38 Q: So is smoking but we still smoke.
1:04:42 K: That’s stupid. No, no, but please don’t… You see, if you see something why don’t you do it? If I see – what? – I am comparing, and see all the implications in it – conflict, choice and therefore further conflict, uncertainty and an evasion of myself – you follow? – running away from myself because I think he’s noble, I’m ignoble, I’m inferior, and so on, so on. If I see what the implications of that are, not only all the implications but see the falseness – you follow? – what it does to one. Carrying somebody else’s burden. Why should I carry the burden of what society has said – you must live this way?
1:05:46 Q: But how do we prevent this insight we have gained from falling to the old comparison?
1:05:58 K: You won’t, sir. You won’t. The moment you see the danger of it, how will you fall back? If you see the danger of a precipice, will you fall back?
1:06:07 Q: Well it depends on how we see it.
1:06:10 K: Either you see it or don’t see it – not how we see it.
1:06:16 Q: Can we go back to the verbal and non-verbal? Say that one is able to see the wrongness or the inefficiency of a verbal examination. If one then has a non-verbal awareness don’t we have to translate it back onto a verbal level to know… to have it meaningful to us, and therefore aren’t we back in the same old trap? What is the quality of a non-verbal perception? Unless we somehow...
1:08:35 K: The quality of non-verbal perception, the quality...
1:08:41 Q: How do we know what we are if we cannot use the tool of words? I don’t mean that the words can help us see. Somehow we can be free of that. But once having seen something positively, directly, don’t we then have to retranslate it to ourselves on a verbal level to know?
1:09:15 K: No, madame, once you see the futility, the danger of comparison, it’s finished.
1:09:16 Q: To me, comparison is a secondary thing. If you’re saying we must see things on a non-verbal level…
1:09:18 K: Let’s stick to that. Let’s stick to that. Leave comparison then.
1:09:21 Q: (Inaudible)
1:09:22 K: Yes.
1:09:23 Q: Just to see. Say about myself. Am I greedy, or whatever it is? If I am to see without the conditioned notion of greed and all the things about myself, if I try to see outside of that, non-verbally, how am I seeing that without words?
1:09:28 Q: If it’s all with words it would again be a verbal thing.
1:09:29 Q: I know, but supposing I see – whatever it is – something non-verbally, how then do I...
1:09:31 Q: You’ve got your glasses in your hand.
1:09:32 Q: Yes.
1:09:33 Q: You don’t see that verbally. You may speak afterwards and say, ‘I’ve got my glasses in my hand.’
1:09:35 Q: Well, when I was aware of it I would be aware of it in the terms of the glasses.
1:09:36 Q: Must we call the ocean ‘ocean’ in order to see it or remember it?
1:09:37 K: Are you asking, if I may ask, what it is to see non-verbally?
1:09:38 Q: Yes, I am. I am asking that. But I am trying to answer without saying that you have to see with the...
1:09:41 K: No, you are asking what is it to see non-verbally?
1:09:42 Q: Yes.
1:09:43 K: Do you see verbally? Do you see the word first and through the words see?
1:09:45 Q: Sometimes.
1:09:46 K: No, no, no, please, not ‘sometimes’. Just look at it carefully. Let’s go into it. Do you see me or him or her, or the tree or the mountain, through the word, which means through the image? You have an image of me and through that image you see me? Which is verbal?
1:09:53 Q: I think I understand that step. What I’m trying to disentangle is the after-step. If I see you or the ocean or the tree or whatever it is without the image, which I think I understand, I do, there is an after-step which is to translate it back into a concept.
1:10:10 K: Wait, no. Wait, we’ll come to that. First, take step-by-step. Do I see you verbally? Verbally being the image, the word, the incident, the experience, the insult, the flattery, the nagging, this or that. Do I see you through the image which I have built about you, about the mountain, sea, whatever it is. Do I see you through the word?
1:10:44 Q: Yes.
1:10:46 K: Do you?
1:10:48 Q: Very often.
1:10:49 K: Don’t use ‘very often’.
1:10:50 Q: When you look at a person you don’t always say, ‘I see that person but I see an African or I see a Swedish person.’ You translate that person through the concept of their nationality or their particular physical appearance.
1:11:06 K: So you see through concepts.
1:11:07 Q: When you say ‘word’, sir, are you saying all thinking, prejudice, association, memory, judgement? Because perhaps we didn’t understand that. When you said ‘word’, it seemed like a little thing.
1:11:24 K: Of course, I mean that. No, no but it contains the whole universe.
1:11:30 Q: The meaning, opinion and association.
1:11:32 K: Of course, of course. I mean after all, the image is the prejudice.
1:11:40 Q: But ‘word’ is sometimes just a name.
1:11:44 K: We’re talking in the context of now, because...
1:11:48 Q: The context of past experiencing and association.
1:11:53 K: Of course. Do I? Is this a fact that you look at me through the image you have about me?
1:12:03 Q: I’ve tried to describe something a little bit different which I… I can look at the ocean without any thought or image about the ocean but something is... (inaudible)
1:12:25 K: No, I want, first, Madame, I want to find out: do I look at people through images? I meet you. You’re a technician. And the technician, and so on, I have an image of you as a technician, therefore use you as a technician and employ you as a technician and so on. That’s one thing. And the other is: I have an image about you as my husband, wife, child, neighbour, God – a formula – and through that formula look at you? Is this a fact? Or I just look at you not interested at all?
1:13:10 Q: The first one is a fact.
1:13:18 K: That you look at people through formulas?
1:13:21 Q: Yes.
1:13:22 K: Wait, sir. Wait, wait, wait.
1:13:24 Q: Through formulas. Now that’s a new word.
1:13:26 K: The same thing – through an image. Through an image. Same thing, sir – a formula, a prejudice, experience. Is that what you do? Is that so?
1:13:36 Q: I think so.
1:13:37 K: No, wait, sir.
1:13:38 Look at it. Very carefully look at it.
1:13:40 Q: Well, I know that when I see someone, for example, if I am an individual who has an aversion to people with red hair, a red-headed person were to walk into the room, my opinion of them would – no pun intended – be coloured by his red hair, on an unconscious level, on a level that I might not be aware of, but it could happen. He might be wearing a sweater that...
1:14:04 K: ...you don’t like.
1:14:05 Q: I don’t like. I’m not aware of the fact that my brain is recording all these little things.
1:14:10 K: No, that’s one thing, sir. That’s very casual, isn’t it? I mean, I see you’ve got a blue coat and I say, ‘It’s very nice,’ but it’s very superficial, very casual. It doesn’t affect your whole being, affect your way of life. Yes, you’ve got an ugly sweater – all right.
1:14:31 Q: Well in a sense it does though, because if you’re going to be minutely affected by little things like that, then they all add up to a giant thing.
1:14:47 K: Follow it up. So you have an image, and through that image you look. Whether that image has been put together little by little for twenty years is irrelevant. There is the image that you have. And is this what you do every day of your life? Or the image comes only when there is a crisis, when there is something that brings it up and you have to – you follow? Or the rest of your life you’re very casual, put up with things.
1:15:38 Q: Doesn’t that then become a relative thing?
1:15:47 K: Relative, yes, sir, but the image-forming is going on all the time.
1:15:53 Q: Constantly, yes. So we are not aware of it except perhaps…
1:15:58 K: That’s all my point. The moment you become aware of it, it has got quite a different meaning, quite a different significance than casually saying, ‘I don’t like that coat.’ But ‘I don’t like that coat’ is being added – you follow? It’s thickening. The image is thickening.
1:16:20 Q: When we’re surprised we don’t see with an image, it’s only in time. Then, when we’re surprised, when something just pops, we don’t see, but then in less than a second, then it starts happening.
1:16:34 K: That’s right, sir. That’s right.
1:16:36 Q: But it’s only when we’re surprised.
1:16:38 K: No. The image acts only when there is something that is demanded. I don’t like you because you insulted me. You follow? There is an immediate… puts in your way. But if I don’t like your shirt because you… The image is formed when it becomes inimical or dangerous or pleasant. Right? And on that we act. Not on casual like or dislike. You know what I mean? I don’t like your shirt but I put up with it. I don’t make a lot of fuss about it. But when that shirt becomes important in my pleasure then I’m against you. So am I looking at the world or at you through my image? Or am I looking at the world and at everybody else very casually? I’m not really interested in looking at you at all. I look at you only when you interfere with that little enclave, that little enclosure. Right? So am I looking through words? Am I looking through a formula – if I may use it, now change it – at this question: why do I compare? Am I looking at that question with a formula of any kind?
1:19:10 Q: If I’m thinking about it.
1:19:18 K: What is the need to think about it when you are challenged?
1:19:26 Q: Is it because it’s put verbally in the first place? It’s in words.
1:19:32 K: Sir, that’s a matter of communication. I put it to you. After all this, spending and hour, I say: look, why do you compare? Do you still answer verbally? Do you still respond in a formula of words? So how do you respond to that question?
1:19:57 Q: Reactions.
1:19:58 K: No, no. Watch it, sir. How do you respond to that question? If you don’t respond with a formula, how do you respond to it?
1:20:07 Q: Wouldn’t we face the fact we don’t know?
1:20:08 Q: We look at the question. When we don’t have a formula, we look at the question. We look at it.
1:20:28 K: Are you looking at it?
1:20:31 Q: Yes.
1:20:32 K: And what is your answer? Because it needs an answer. You can’t say… What’s your answer?
1:20:48 Q: My answer would be a formula again.
1:20:54 K: No. The putting of it may be in a formula. You follow, sir? The communication of it in words may be a formula – it is so and so – but the feeling behind the formula. I don’t know if I’m…
1:21:17 Q: Which is non-verbal.
1:21:20 K: Yes, sir. Let’s begin again. I really want to find out most earnestly why I compare. And all the promptings of thought, that I’m afraid, that I’m secure, that it is instinctive, it is conditioning – you follow? – that’s all too silly. I mean stupid little answers to an enormous question. So I am not going to be side-tracked by a stupid answer. So I brush all that aside. Then I say: now why do I compare? Wait a minute. See the answer is coming out. Why do I compare? Because I’m still comparing because of my pettiness. Right? No? I have brushed aside fear – say it’s too petty – to an enormous question. The enormity of it is that man has always compared. And I brush this aside. Fear, that’s not the answer. So in pushing aside all the stupid answers, this question becomes enormously stupid, no?
1:23:11 Q: But why does the idea of comparison occur to me at all?
1:23:25 K: Because I’m stupid! If I don’t compare I am not stupid. Finished! I’ve answered my stupid question – you follow what I mean? – by stupid answers. So I’ve discovered that an intelligent mind doesn’t compare at all. And it is intelligent because it doesn’t compare. I mean, if I compared myself with the Buddha or Christ or Saint Francis of Assisi, or this or that, because I want to be like them, it’s the most stupid thing to do. Because how do I know what they were? And why should I want to be like them? You follow, sir? Those are all stupid answers, aren’t they? And so the very question why I compare myself is part of the stupidity.
1:24:43 Q: It’s already a comparison.
1:24:49 K: Yes, yes.
1:24:54 So I say, ‘By Jove, I can live without comparison.’ And that is living, not in comparing I’m trying to be somebody which I’m not. Oh, it opens up a lot of things. You see, that means I’m really a happy man, (laughs) because I have no… It doesn’t mean I’m satisfied with what I am. That’s part of the stupidity.
1:25:42 Q: That’s the person.
1:25:51 (Pause) Q: What happens the first time your boss says, ‘Be like me or you lose your job’?
1:26:00 K: That’s a totally different matter, isn’t it? Of course, I mean if I have no job I become unhappy. I have no food, I have no house, I have no clothes. But my treatment of not having a house, clothes is entirely different when I’m not comparing. Oh yes, sir. And I don’t compare because I’ve become intelligent, happy. I’ll find something to do. Then I’m not lost. I’ll be a cook or a gardener or whatever it is. Because I’m a bottle-washer, (laughs) then I say I must be a manager – and begins the mischief. You follow, sir? The other way round, not the…
1:27:07 Q: It seems that no matter what kind of job you have, if you don’t conform to certain…
1:27:14 K: I do conform. All right, I’ll conform. What of it? But I’ve not got the spirit of comparison. If the man says, ‘Wash the dishes this way,’ it’s all right, for God’s sake, I’ll wash that way. I may invent a better technique of washing dishes. I mean, the point is: can the mind live completely without comparison? And see the beauty of it. You follow? Then I have broken down society. Right? Then I have turned my back completely on society, which is based on hierarchy, bureaucratic and religions and the whole business of it. Right.
1:28:49 Is it time to stop?
1:28:51 Q: It’s half past five.
1:28:54 K: Oh, by Jove! Do we meet tomorrow morning at eleven?
1:29:00 Q: Yes.
1:29:01 K: Eleven, isn’t it?
1:29:02 Q: Eleven.