Krishnamurti Subtitles home


ND67T4 - Intelligence creates its own austerity
New Delhi - 30 November 1967
Public Talk 4



0:01 This is J. Krishnamurti’s fourth public talk in New Dehli, 1967.
0:10 If I may, I would like to talk about something this evening which I think is rather important.
0:31 It is concerned with human existence, not of any particular human being, not as a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Christian, a Muslim, or a communist.
0:50 It is concerned with a problem that I am sure most of us are also worried about.
1:03 It is the question of how a small mind, a mediocre mind, which seems to be so powerful in the world, how such a mind can become something totally different.
1:38 It seems to me, most of us live on words. Words have become extraordinarily important: words are used to cover up deceit, words are used to befuddle another, words are used to convey meaning, which may have a double meaning, words are used in a political world where autocracy exists and is supposed to be democratic, and so on.
2:33 To us, words have become extraordinarily important, like the word ‘Hindu’, a ‘communist’, a ‘Sikh’ – they are just words.
2:49 And to us these words are loaded with great deal of significance and tradition.
3:00 So the problem is, amongst many other problems, how to empty the mind of all words, because we are actually slave to words.
3:26 When you mention to a patriotic human being – and I am sorry there are such human beings – ‘India’, to them that word is an intoxication – or the word ‘god’.
3:48 And our question is, for this evening, whether it is at all possible for a mind which is so filled with thought, endless varieties and contradictions of thought, worries, problems, issues that cannot possibly be solved, whether such a mind can find out for itself whether there is a state in which the word does not interfere.
4:52 Because the word ‘meditation’ means a great deal to many people, and a petty little mind, a shallow, narrow, little mind, a mind that is heavily conditioned, such a mind can repeat words and think it will experience some fantastic mysterious experiences.
5:38 And it seems to me, a word – words must be used to communicate, but is there thinking without the word?
6:01 And we are going to find out this evening, if we can, together, what that word ‘meditation’ actually means.
6:25 Not the word that is used by the Hindu, the Muslim the Christian or by the yogis, mahatmas and all the rest of them, but we are going to find out for ourselves what is implied in that word.
6:51 Because they are taking various forms of drugs, psychedelic drugs, which, by using them, it is hoped to expand one’s mind and thereby live in a different world, a different…
7:16 have different experiences. Now we are going to go into it very carefully.
7:32 But if you already have an opinion of what meditation is, or what you think should be meditation, then I am afraid you and I will have very little to say to each other.
7:54 But if you are going to enquire into this extraordinarily interesting issue then we must both be free to enquire, to find out, and not be committed to any particular form or system of meditation.
8:18 First of all, there must not only be freedom from the word but also there must be austerity.
8:40 That word ‘austere’, ‘austerity’, comes from a Greek word which means ‘harsh’, ‘dried up’.
8:54 And most of the people who practise austerity – the saints, the yogis, the mahatmas, the so-called spiritual people who have one meal a day, or have one thought, or one principle, or one idea and practise it deliberately day after day, suppressing, controlling – such minds obviously are a harsh mind – they soon become dry inwardly.
9:38 So what is austerity? Again, to examine that word and the meaning of that word, we must put aside all formulas that we have, or concepts we have about that word.
9:58 In India the saints, the teachers have established a pattern which they think, which has been said that if you practise certain austerities you will arrive at a certain level.
10:20 And there are thousands of people who practise austerity, hoping thereby to come to some extraordinary experience.
10:35 Now, experiencing – that word means to ‘go through’, to go through a problem; to experience means to go through till you have finished with it.
11:01 But most of us when we have experiences, we do not go through them – they leave a mark on the mind, and therefore there is never an ending to experience.
11:23 And the experiencing of austerity needs a very close examination by each one of us.
11:35 First of all we must doubt every saint, every yogi, every mahatma, all the books that you have read about the state of mind that is austere or the practice of austerity which will ultimately lead man to some reality.
12:11 Because to understand austerity needs intelligence.
12:21 Intelligence creates its own austerity.
12:29 And you will ask, what is intelligence, what do you mean by that word? Now if you ask the meaning of that word or the explanation of that word, you can look it up in a dictionary – it will tell you the origin, it will tell you from what Greek or Latin word it came, the root of it.
13:02 But we can more or less investigate for ourselves what is true intelligence.
13:10 Intelligence is not opinion.
13:21 Intelligence is not a state of mind that is always comparing, not a mind that is measuring; a mind that can see very clearly, dealing only with facts, with ‘what is’ and not with ideals.
13:56 That is, intelligence can come about through the negation of what it is not, not what the positive state of intelligence is, but rather by the denial of what it is not, you come upon intelligence.
14:26 That is, one observes throughout the world that… how human beings are conditioned: the communist in his way, the religious person in his way.
14:56 If you are a Hindu you are conditioned according to that pattern, to that tradition, to that culture – or a Sikh, or a Musalmaan, or a Christian.
15:10 And these divisions of human beings into categories of religious, political, geographical groups, obviously is a state of non-intelligence.
15:27 So a mind which denies this religious, political, national division is really an intelligent mind.
15:44 Not denying verbally but actually, inwardly, psychologically it is not attached to any country.
15:55 And a mind that calls itself nationalistic, is a Hindu and so on, is not an intelligent mind.
16:04 So through negation of what is not intelligent one can be in a state of intelligence.
16:17 That is, to find out what is not, you need highly sensitive mind – right?
16:29 – not a dogmatic mind, not a dialectical mind, a mind that is seeking truth through opinions, which is dialecticism.
16:46 To be sensitive is to be intelligent. The greater the sensitivity, the greater intelligence.
16:58 And you cannot be sensitive if you are bigoted, narrow, petty, shallow. A man who is only concerned with his own problems, totally unaware of the problems of others, is obviously not a sensitive mind.
17:27 A mind that is unaware of its environment, of the squalor, the dirt, the sloppiness, such a mind is not a sensitive mind.
17:47 Please, all this is very important when we are going to explore what is meditation, because I feel without understanding that quality of a mind that is meditative, life has really very little meaning.
18:09 So in enquiring into what is meditation we are going to find out what it is to be sensitive, which means to be intelligence.
18:27 That is, whether you observe, in your daily life, not theoretically but actually, the things that you talk about, the endless useless chatter, the thoughts, the opinions, the judgements, the condemnations that you have about others or about yourself.
18:59 If you are not aware of it, obviously you are not sensitive, you are asleep.
19:08 And if you have any belief whatever, political, religious, obviously such a mind, being tethered to a particular formula or an ideology, is not an intelligent mind.
19:27 So, to find out what it is to be austere – and one must be austere.
19:38 Not outwardly, few clothes or few… one meal a day – those are all exhibitionism – but to find out what inward austerity means one must have a very sharp mind, a mind that sees very clearly.
20:10 And what is it to be austere? Obviously not suppressing any desire – please follow this very carefully – nor indulging in any desire, but understanding desire.
20:37 One can suppress a desire, a want, control it – that is fairly easy – but to understand desire – to understand it, which means not intellectually, not as a fragment, but as a total way of life – which most of us indulge in – to understand desire needs not only intelligence but also that quality of austerity, to look at the thing as it is, not as you wish it to be.
21:31 You know, to look is to act.
21:43 To see is to do. When you see danger you are acting.
21:56 So the seeing is the doing, and to see there must be tremendous attention, which brings its own austerity.
22:11 To see the whole structure of desire and the nature of desire, how it comes into being, examine it, which means being aware of your desires and to look at them without condemning, without judging, without saying it is right or wrong, or indulging in any desire, but just to look.
22:44 That demands a discipline which is completely different from the discipline of suppression.
23:02 You are listening, I hope not merely to words but actually examining your own minds, your own lives, not the lives of somebody else, but actually your life.
23:33 So, this austerity means order, means precise thinking, and there can be no austerity, which is order, if there is no awareness, not only of things outwardly but also psychologically, inwardly.
24:23 Most of us live in disorder both outwardly as well as inwardly.
24:31 Disorder is a state of mind in which there is conflict, and conflict exists because of contradiction, both outwardly and inwardly.
24:55 And there is contradiction between two desires, between two demands, and hence there is conflict.
25:14 And without understanding the nature and the structure of desire, merely to suppress desire is the most unintelligent thing to do, because what you suppress festers, and will explode in some neurotic way.
25:44 So, the understanding of desire is fairly simple.
25:53 To look at desire, how it arises. It arises through the process of thought. I see something pleasant, and I think about it.
26:09 The thinking about it is the cultivation of desire as pleasure.
26:17 It is – right? – is that somewhat clear?
26:26 So, intelligence brings about its own austerity, its own order.
26:40 Not the order which anybody has established or the order of any society – the order of any particular society, community, is disorder.
26:57 Please, these are not dogmatic statements – you can watch it.
27:07 Any society wants order, and talks about a great deal about establishing order – politically, outwardly, religiously.
27:24 It has established morality but its morality is disorder.
27:32 You can be greedy, envious, seeking power, position, prestige, and yet be so-called orderly.
27:42 You cannot. You are cultivating disorder when you are envious, greedy, jealous, obsessed by ambition.
27:55 So, order is virtue, and order is a living thing, as virtue is.
28:11 It is not an idea, a practice which you establish day by day by practising it. It is something alive, active, not a mechanical thing.
28:29 And order can only come about when there is intelligence, and intelligence comes when there is the understanding of disorder and the denial in oneself of that disorder.
28:45 And this denial is not suppression but observation, seeing actually how you are creating in yourself disorder.
28:56 So, to understand meditation, of which we are going to talk, first there must be order in oneself.
29:14 Not order according to a formula, according to a pattern, but order which you have brought about in yourself through your own intelligence, not the intelligence of the Gita or the Koran or any other book.
29:36 One has lived on these printed words that have no meaning anymore.
29:45 So you have to, if you would understand meditation, there must be order in yourself, which is virtue.
29:58 And that virtue is not according to any pattern or any society, because society says be as greedy, envious, ambitious as you like – which is the very essence of disorder.
30:17 So virtue, austerity, order, intelligence is necessary to understand what is meditation.
30:35 Without that you cannot possibly go into this question, which is of immense significance.
30:49 Because you can repeat words – Raam Raam, or Jesus, or Coca Cola would do just as well – a dozen times, hundred times, and put yourself in a state of hypnosis, but that is not meditation.
31:20 Without going through all that you can take a drug and put yourself to sleep.
31:30 And a petty mind repeating a word over and over and over again can repeat that word till it dies.
31:44 So, repetition of any experience or of any word, inwardly, whether it is Aum, Amen – any word, such a repetition creates a mechanical process of thought, an established formula, system, and therefore your mind becomes narrow, shallow, dull.
32:27 So one has to understand this process and put away that repetitive process.
32:35 Right? And to understand meditation one needs a very clear, sharp mind, a mind that can reason, be logical, not sentimental, emotional, because sentimentality, emotionalism has nothing whatsoever to do with love.
33:15 As we said the other evening, love is not desire or pleasure, but to understand that love, one has to understand what desire and pleasure are.
33:36 So meditation is something which demands a very alert mind.
33:55 That is, a mind that is aware, aware of things about outside as well as inside.
34:13 We are aware of things that give us pleasure and we are aware of things that cause pain.
34:25 We avoid the one and want to pursue the other.
34:32 And to be aware of both of them. And to be aware of both of them demands a mind that is without choice.
34:43 Please follow all this. You know, just listen, don’t bother, because most of you won’t do any of this, because this is much too quick and sharp and clear; a driving energy, and most people haven’t got it.
35:16 But if you merely listen, just listen, do nothing, don’t say, ‘How am I to do it?’ or, ‘What am I to do?’, ‘Tell me what to do’, don’t, then you are not listening.
35:32 But if you just listen quietly, without effort, easily, without any strain, then the thing will happen to you.
35:49 But a petty little mind enquiring about an enormous thing cannot possibly understand it.
35:58 But if that petty little mind is quiet, actually listens, then perhaps it will be lucky enough to come upon something that cannot be put into words.
36:20 So if I may suggest, just listen, don’t ask how to, or investigate, just listen with your mind, with your heart, so that you completely give your attention.
36:43 As we were saying, to be aware, easily, without choice.
36:54 Because it is only the confused mind that has choice.
37:03 A mind that sees clearly has no choice whatsoever.
37:11 It is only the confused that are always asking, seeking, demanding, looking, searching.
37:26 And a confused mind can only choose, and its choice will invariably lead to further confusion.
37:43 To be aware. To be aware of the squalor on the road, the inefficiency in the office, the utter callousness of people, the politicians with their greed, ambition, not caring one pin for the people – to be aware of all that.
38:10 To be aware of the beauty of the sunset, to be aware of the light on the water, to be aware of the bird on the wing – just to look without any choice, without any condemnation.
38:38 If you can do that outwardly, then turn inwardly and be aware of yourself, without condemning, without judging, without saying, ‘This is ugly’, ‘This is wrong’, ‘This is right’, ‘This is good’, ‘This is bad’ – just look, look at yourself.
39:05 Then out of that choiceless awareness comes attention.
39:14 You know, there is a great deal of difference between attention and concentration.
39:30 Concentration is an exclusive process.
39:38 Just listen, don’t accept or deny, just listen.
39:46 When you concentrate, your mind is fixed on one thing, one idea, one image, or a symbol, or the meaning of a phrase, it is concentrated, which means you are excluding every other thought, every other movement.
40:11 Right? When you concentrate, it is a process of exclusion.
40:24 But when you are aware, when there is attention, there is no exclusion whatsoever.
40:35 You are aware of the world, the ugliness, the brutality, the violence, the hideous callousness, the cruelty to animals, and so on – you are aware of all that outwardly.
40:53 In that there is no condemnation. Inwardly, also, be aware, and you will see, out of that awareness, you become tremendously attentive, without any compulsion, without any force, without any effort.
41:21 That is, you can only be attentive when there is complete abandonment, when there is complete abandonment of the observer, when the observer abandons himself totally.
41:53 Then you will see, if you have gone that far, that because there is abandonment, self, not forgetfulness – the centre, which is memory, experience, knowledge, the everlasting strife and sorrow, which is the essence of the observer, when that is not, then there is total, complete attention.
42:34 Now, in that attention, being no observer, there is space.
42:51 Is this all becoming too difficult?
42:58 You know what space is? There is space between you and me. There is space outside the tent and inside the tent.
43:21 And the mind has very little space.
43:28 Specially in crowded cities human beings are put into cages, having very, very little space to live in – they live in flats.
43:44 And because of an urban civilization, living in these crowded cities, that crowded lack of space does produce great many… great deal of violence, neurotic conditions and so on.
44:06 So man must have space, and as space is being denied outwardly, one must have space inwardly.
44:24 So one has to find out what that space is, inwardly.
44:41 Space, that is, both time and distance between the observer and the observed.
44:54 Look, sirs, let’s make it simple.
45:03 When you look at a tree or the sky or a bird, or the face of your wife or husband, there is space between you two.
45:19 There is space between the people, between objects, and there is space because there is an observer, the centre from which one is looking.
45:37 When you look at the tree or the sky or at another person, the centre is looking – isn’t there? – the centre which is memory, which is experience, which is knowledge, which is striving, demanding, which seeks to fulfil, which is seeking success, and so on, so on, so on – that is the centre, the self, the ego, the ‘me’, and from that centre, from that entity, the observer, you look at something, and so there is a space between the observer and the observed, between the experiencer and the experienced, or the thinker and the thought.
46:35 When he says, ‘I must be’ or, ‘I must not be’ – so there is space, a time interval.
46:49 Now, when there is the observer, observer who creates space round himself, he may expand that space – through drugs, through various forms of so-called repetition, words, and so on, so on – he may expand the space, but there is always the centre, and therefore his expansion of space is the expansion of a prison.
47:22 Are you understanding all this? No, I said just listen.
47:38 So our minds are crowded with words, with chatter, with experience, with memories, with the whole human sorrow of the past.
48:00 And that is the centre from which we look at life. Now, that space is very limited, is very narrow, confining, it is like a prison.
48:19 And is it possible to free the mind of its own centre which it has built up?
48:38 And it is possible only when you can look at the tree, at the bird, at the face of your wife or husband, at the face of your boss, and so on, when you can look without the image.
48:58 You know, can you look at your wife or your husband without the image which you have about him or her – just to look without the image.
49:13 Have you ever tried? Probably you have never.
49:23 Because you may then, if you do, you may shatter your relationship, because what we are related to is the image, one image to the other, one memory, one experience to another.
49:52 So when one becomes aware of this image, relationship becomes entirely different.
50:03 There may be no so-called actual relationship as it exists now.
50:13 So, the point is, can the mind empty itself of the image, of the centre?
50:29 Then you will find space is limitless.
50:45 And that is part of meditation. Not having visions, because that is fairly simple, to explain visions.
50:56 If you are born, conditioned in a Catholic world or a Christian world, and you are a so-called religious person, obviously you will have Christian visions.
51:10 If you are born in this country with all its superstitions, saints, heroes and gods and goddesses, innumerable entities, obviously you are conditioned and you will have experience according to your conditioning.
51:27 But they are not realities. What is real can never be experienced by the experiencer. You know, when you love – actually love with your heart, not with your mind – when you totally abandon yourself in that love, there is not the other.
52:04 And meditation then is emptying the mind of the past.
52:18 Not as an idea, not as an ideology which you are going to practise day after day to empty the mind of the past, because the man or the entity who empties the mind of the past, that entity is the result of the past.
52:38 But if you understand this whole structure of the mind, which is the result of the past, and to empty the mind of the past demands a deep awareness of the past – your conditioning, your way of talking, the gestures, the callousness, the brutality, the violence – to be aware of it, just to be aware without condemning it.
53:14 Then out of that awareness comes the state of mind which is completely quiet.
53:22 You know, to understand this quietness, this silence of the mind, you must understand sorrow.
53:38 Because most of us live in sorrow, whether we are aware of it or not.
53:49 We have never put an end to sorrow. It is like our shadow, it is with us night and day.
54:02 And sorrow is not only the loss of somebody whom you think you like – I won’t use the word ‘love’ – when you lose somebody whom you like, you shed tears.
54:22 Are those tears for yourself or for the one that is dead?
54:30 In sorrow there is a great deal of self-pity, concern with one’s own loneliness, emptiness, and when one becomes aware of that emptiness, loneliness, there is self-pity, and that self-pity we call sorrow.
54:58 So as long as there is sorrow, conscious or unconscious, within the mind, there is no quietness of the mind, there is no stillness of the mind.
55:13 The stillness of the mind comes where there is beauty and love.
55:21 You cannot separate beauty from love. Beauty is not an ornament or good taste, it doesn’t lie in the perfect line of the hills or the beauty of architecture, the building.
55:52 There is beauty when you know what love is, and you cannot possibly know what love is, or beauty, when there is no intelligence, austerity and order.
56:12 And nobody can give this to you – no saint, no god, no mahatma – nobody.
56:22 No authority in the world can give it to you. You as a human being have to understand this whole structure, the structure and the nature of your life of every day – what you do, what you think, what your motives are, how you behave, how you are caught in your own conclusions, in your own conditioning.
56:57 It must begin there, in daily life, and if you cannot alter that totally, completely, bring about a total mutation in yourself, you will never know that still mind.
57:21 And it is only the still mind that can find out, it is only the still mind that knows what truth is.
57:29 Because then that still mind has no imagination, it does not project its desires – it is a still mind.
57:46 And it is only then there is the bliss of something that cannot be put into words.
57:54 Questioner: (Inaudible) Krishnamurti: Just a minute, sir, just a minute, sir, do sit down.
58:09 Sir, just take a breather.
58:16 Sit still, quietly for a minute. I know we have many questions, many problems.
58:30 Life is a torture, life is a boredom, a routine, an agony, and we have to understand that, not the speaker, not what the speaker says.
58:52 What the speaker says has very little value. You will forget it the moment you leave the tent, but what will remain outside the tent is yourself, your life, your pettiness, your shallowness, your brutality, your violence, your greed, your ambition, your endless sorrow.
59:17 That is what you have to understand, and nobody on earth or in heaven is going to save you from it.
59:30 Therefore to ask a question is to ask the question of yourself, to question yourself, not the speaker.
59:51 What the speaker has said is very little important. You can throw it out, and you will, or you will repeat certain phrases and you’ll think you have understood it – you won’t.
1:00:08 Or you will compare what you have heard with the Gita, with some other book, but you will not face your own life.
1:00:25 That is what matters – your daily agony, your daily despair and the hopeless misery that one lives in.
1:00:38 You may have an occasional joy, but that joy becomes a memory and begins again the battle to capture that which has been.
1:00:51 So when you ask questions, please remember you are asking the question of yourself and not of the speaker.
1:01:03 And when you do ask, listen – listen to the question which you are putting and also listen to the speaker.
1:01:16 Which means not respect to the speaker or to yourself or to another, but you are listening to understand.
1:01:29 It doesn’t matter who asks the question, doesn’t matter how silly the question is.
1:01:40 You are listening to find out – not the other’s silliness but one’s own silliness.
1:01:51 Because life demands enormous observation.
1:02:00 Life is a movement, endless movement, and we want out of that movement a corner of security, and there is no security in life, none whatever.
1:02:16 Inwardly, I am talking, psychologically. You must have security outwardly – food, clothes, shelter.
1:02:27 Every human being must have that, and that can only come about through world planning, a world state, not India planning for herself or another country planning for itself.
1:02:46 The food, clothes and shelter, everyone can have if we forget our own nationalities, religions, divisions and become human beings without label.
1:03:01 So, sir, if you are going to ask questions, please bear in mind that you have to listen to your own question first and also listen to the speaker’s reply or explanation or investigation.
1:03:23 Q: Sir, this enormous observation, it implies part of the mind watching the rest of it, which creates another contradiction… (inaudible) K: To observe – I must repeat the question, if I repeat the question wrongly please correct me – to observe, one part of the mind must observe the other part of the mind, and that observation is destructive.
1:04:10 That’s what the questioner says. One fragment of the mind looking at the other fragment and hence a contradiction, hence conflict, and the question is: is it possible to look totally?
1:04:33 Right, sir? That’s the question, isn’t it? You understand the question? We live in fragments. You are a politician: you are one thing in politics, at home different.
1:04:56 You may talk liberal, you may talk about democracy and in your heart you are autocratic, brutal, violent, ambitious.
1:05:10 That is one part looking, working separately from the other part.
1:05:22 You talk about loving the neighbour, and then in the office kill him.
1:05:33 So these are… we function, live in fragments and each fragment is looking at the other fragment.
1:05:47 Right? That is fairly simple. So the question is: is it possible to live without any fragment, to be a total human being, to look at everything completely, totally?
1:06:08 Isn’t that right, sir? That is the question. Now, whom are you asking this? Are you asking the speaker, or, are you asking because you are aware of your own fragments?
1:06:37 You are aware of your life: one thing in the office, another thing on the street, one thing tremendously respectful to the boss, and kick the servant.
1:06:53 Which is to act fragmentarily. Are you aware of this fragmentary existence in yourself, and therefore you are asking whether it is possible not to function in fragments, but wholly?
1:07:14 Or do you want the speaker to tell you how to live wholly?
1:07:21 Please follow this carefully. Right? For the speaker to tell you how to live completely, totally, without fragments – if he were foolish enough to tell you, would you live it that way?
1:07:40 Being, functioning in fragments, you would not.
1:07:48 And it is only the fools that give advice. But if you looked at your fragments, not condemning, not identifying with one fragment that is pleasurable, that gives you delight, but be aware of each fragment – to be aware of my fragment: how I think politically and something entirely different religiously, how I treat my wife, my husband in a different – and so on – to be aware of these fragments without identifying oneself with any fragment.
1:08:42 Then you will ask: who is the observer? Is not the observer also a fragment which looks at other fragments?
1:08:55 Then become aware of that fragment which looks at other fragments, so you become, one becomes totally aware of every fragment, and also the observer who is the result of a fragment.
1:09:11 So you will find, when you are so aware, that there is no fragmentation at all.
1:09:19 Yes, sir, you asked a question. Right, sir.
1:09:25 Q: Would you kindly tell us how to think about the processes of learning, knowing, remembering and understanding. (Inaudible) …I would like you to tell us how do we get around people who have right values in the sense that you have been describing in meditation.
1:09:37 I take it from your own chapter on meditation in your work and what you have explained…
1:09:58 (inaudible) …how do we get together people who are meditating in the sense that you have explained and… (inaudible) Krishnamurti: How do you get people together who are meditating rightly.
1:10:06 That is one of the questions. I don’t know why you want to get people together who are meditating rightly.
1:10:19 If you are meditating rightly, in the way we have talked about, you are with the people.
1:10:26 Right? It is only when you do not know what is right meditation, then you want to collect people, do propaganda.
1:10:37 Any other questions, sirs?
1:10:39 Q: I have a question, sir, on learning, knowing, remembering and understanding.
1:10:47 I want you to make a response to me.
1:10:52 K: I will, sir. The question is: what is learning, what is knowledge, and what is…
1:11:04 Q: …remembering and…
1:11:06 K: Yes, sir, what is remembering, what is learning and what is knowledge – that’s enough for the time being.
1:11:16 Q: And understanding.
1:11:21 K: All right. (Laughter) What is understanding. Now just take that one thing: what is understanding? When do you understand? Is understanding intellectual? When you read a book or a phrase and say, ‘I understand it’, what do you mean by that word ‘understand’?
1:11:53 Do you understand it intellectually, like understanding a mechanical problem?
1:12:04 You can study a machine and you say, ‘Yes, I know how it functions, how it works.
1:12:14 I have understood it’. And when we use that word, ‘I understand you’ – listen to this please – ‘I understand you’.
1:12:23 Wife says to the husband, ‘I understand you’ – what does that mean? What does she understand, or he understand?
1:12:39 Something she has said, her complex, and so on. So, is it intellectual, or is it emotional, or merely sentimental?
1:12:55 Can you understand something, can you understand another, or can you understand yourself if you are sentimental, if you look at yourself fragmentarily?
1:13:09 When you look at yourself with an ideology, with a formula which is intellectual, do you understand yourself?
1:13:19 You understand yourself when you look without the formula, to see actually as you are.
1:13:26 So understanding comes only when the mind is quiet.
1:13:33 You understand, sir? When I look at you and you look at me, when your mind is chattering, is elsewhere, comparing, judging, evaluating, and you are listening, then you won’t understand.
1:13:54 But if you listen with attention then that attention is not fragmentary, it is a total process, and out of that quiet attention comes understanding.
1:14:11 The other question is: what is learning? Are you tired? You are not tired?
1:14:21 Q: Go ahead.
1:14:24 K: Go ahead? So typical! That means you’ll hear and I do all the work.
1:14:40 You don’t work. You want to be spoon-fed. That is what you have… been done, that is what they have… how they have treated you. For centuries you have been spoon-fed by your teachers, by your authorities, by your books, by your saints.
1:15:03 You don’t want to work. You say, ‘Tell me all about it, what lies beyond the hills and the mountains and the earth’, and I am satisfied with the description.
1:15:21 That means you live on words, so your life is shallow and empty.
1:15:28 So, to understand you have to work.
1:15:36 You haven’t worked this evening – the speaker has worked.
1:15:43 If you had worked a little, you would have taken the journey and gone on.
1:15:55 Learning is one of the most complex things.
1:16:08 To learn a language is one thing, to learn a technique is one thing, to become a first-class engineer, acquire a technique, knowledge, whether that knowledge is your experience or the experiences of thousands of others, that is knowledge: scientific knowledge, technological knowledge, knowledge of language, knowledge which you acquire through criticism, comparison and so on – all that is knowledge, stored up.
1:17:00 But knowledge is not learning. Learning is always active present; knowledge is always of the past, and as we live on the past and are satisfied with the past, to us knowledge becomes extraordinarily important.
1:17:26 And that is why you worship the erudite, the clever, the cunning.
1:17:35 But if you are learning, that is, learning all the time, which is an active present, learning every minute, learning by watching and listening, learning by seeing and doing, then you will see that learning is a constant movement without the past, whereas knowledge is always of the past.
1:18:15 I have known, it is my knowledge, my remembrance, my memory – the past.
1:18:30 And we are saying a mind that is burdened with the past is a sorrowful mind, and to understand sorrow is the beginning of enlightenment.
1:18:49 And when you end sorrow there is bliss. Right, sirs.