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NY71T1 - To be aware of our past
New York - 17 April 1971
Public Talk 1



0:34 Krishnamurti: Aren't the lights a bit too bright? I can't see you.
1:01 I don't know quite where to begin, because we have so many problems, and the problems seem to be increasing and we human beings seem to be unable to find any kind of solution. We have tried so many methods, systems, philosophies, we have tried to follow spiritual leaders, political leaders, and we are always trying to find a formula, a way out of this utter chaos and misery.
2:11 First of all, I'd like to point out if I may, that we are not offering any kind of philosophy, except philosophy means the love of truth, and truth is something that cannot be described, and what is described is not the thing that is. And this love of truth is not something far away to be grasped after periods of training, following some particular system or accepting any faith, belief, but rather to have the capacity to observe very clearly, without any distortion. Only then it is possible to see what actually is, and 'what is' is the truth, and to go beyond it.
3:45 And so, during these four talks, if one may, we are going to go into this question of observing, learning, and seeing actually what is, and see if our minds and our hearts can go beyond all the confusion and the misery and the travail which we have created for ourselves.
4:31 Most of you, if I may say, come with certain anticipation, desiring to be stimulated or seeking inspiration, or wanting to follow a new method or system, or because the speaker comes from that far country, India, you have some romantic ideas and hope to find some sentimental solution to all our problems. And the speaker is not an Indian, except in carrying a passport. He has no philosophy, he's not doing any propaganda or making you accept or deny, agreeing or disagreeing. We are going together to examine what is actually going on both outwardly and inwardly. So we are going to share together. Sharing together is communication, and we make a lot of ado about communication. To share together any problem implies that we must be free to examine, free of any prejudice, free of our conditioning as an American, as a Catholic, as a Protestant, as a Hindu, as a politician or a businessman, as a scientist, what you will, free to observe together, share together, partake in the meaning and the significance of the thing together. That's what communication means, sharing. And so, when we are going to examine together, both your mind and the speaker's must be free to look, not to accept or deny but to observe very closely if one can, the whole issue, to observe without any distortion.
7:26 And our minds are distorted, because we live our daily life in fragmentation, we are Catholics or businessmen or scientists or anthropologists, politicians, you know, divide, divide, divide, both outwardly and inwardly we are fragmented human beings. And we look at this whole problem of existence through one fragment, either intellectual or emotional or totally disregard and accept things as they are and carry on. And we hope somehow through time, through outward events, through political action, through organisation, that things will become normal, sane and healthy. But I am afraid they never will, neither through perfect organisation, however beautifully run bureaucratically, or any solutions that the scientists offer will not obviously solve our human problems.
9:05 Whether you live in this country, Europe or India, or in Asia, as human beings our problems are common. Because they're common we can communicate. What is common can be communicated, shared together. Therefore one has to totally disregard all the images that one has built around the speaker, or your own particular image about yourself, so that we can both together observe, really understand, put our hearts into the solution of these many problems.
9:59 And so, from the beginning we should be very clear that we are not offering any kind of solution or telling you what you should do, because that emphasises authority. And where there is authority there must be fear, competitiveness, imitation and conformity, and all that denies examination. And we have to examine very closely and hesitantly the extraordinary problems that we have as human beings, not as scientists, not as a politician or a businessman or a labourer but as human beings.
11:14 Because we must bring about in ourselves, it seems to me, a total revolution in the very psyche, in the very structure of our being. And everybody is talking nowadays about outward revolution, physical revolution, gather all your energy to bring about a social revolution, always thinking in terms of outward changes, changes in the environment.
12:02 Madame, you'll have your turn when you come to ask questions at the end of the talk, so have some patience.
12:21 Questioner: Please get up from the steps now.
12:29 K: May I go on?
12:31 Audience: Yes.
12:36 Q: Please, you can't go on until they get up.
12:44 K: What was that?
12:53 Q: It's the usher, he won't let people sit on the floor.
13:04 K: You know, this is not an entertainment, spiritual or intellectual. This is a very serious thing that we're talking about. And if you are not serious, I don't see why you should be sitting there and I here. I don't mean serious long-face or all the peculiarities that are given to that word. Serious means what it means: to be earnest, to give one's attention, one's heart, one's capacity to find out for ourselves if there is a solution, a way out of all this madness, this violence, this brutality.
14:06 Madame, écoutez.
14:12 So as we were saying, we have human problems, and we are always talking about bringing an outward revolution to change the social structure either through violence or through peaceful means. The problem is much deeper than mere social, environmental change, either in ecology, economy, or in the social morality, because the social morality is immoral. So, we are concerned with our human problems, because what we are actually our society is. The society, the world is us, depending on our relationship, on our behaviour, on our fears and pleasures, on our despairs, and the desire for psychological security and dependence. So this world is us and we are the world. And to bring about a radical revolution in this world we have to change, not merely the environment.
16:05 And more and more books and philosophies and politicians, and I'm afraid also the scientists, are concerned with the changing of the world outside. And apparently very few are concerned with the radical inward revolution. Because if we don't change, if we are corrupt, what's the good of having a perfect social structure, we'll corrupt it. I think that's fairly obvious and logical.
16:53 And we are apt to forget this because we think, change the environment as the communists, others do, change the structure, political, economic, social, and the human being then will adjust himself to the structure, he'll become righteous, he'll become non-violent, he will live peacefully, all these experiments have been tried before, either forcefully or peacefully. But man apparently has remained what he is for millennia, greedy, envious, aggressive, brutal, self-centred, shedding every kind of misery in the world.
18:07 So, the world, both the outer world and the inner world is what we are, we have made that. There is no division between you and the world, and the world and the me. I think that's a basic thing that one must understand radically, that there are not individuals and the community, a society, a world apart from us, we are the world. If you examine yourself you will see what you are is the result of your culture, of your environment which you have created, or your grandfathers, grandmothers have created it. You are the result of the past. And without changing the whole past, the whole structure of our past, we want to change the outward things, better bathrooms, go to the moon to play golf, or plant some ugly flag in the moon, and you think you are technologically tremendously advanced. Probably you are, but its not going to solve our misery, our conflicts, our extraordinary dullness of our minds, and the utter lack of love and compassion. If we could see the reality, not as a theory, not as a speculative thing to which we adjust, but the actual fact that we are the world, we are the result of the culture in which we live and that culture which we have created.
20:29 We are the past. And to live differently, and we must live differently, with a totally different kind of mind and heart, we have to understand ourselves, not according to any philosopher or any psychologist, as actually what we are. And so one has to observe. So, if we could, not theoretically, not intellectually accept the fact that you are the world and the world is you, what you are actually. In your relationship with another you create the culture, you are utterly totally responsible for the wars, for the misery, for the social injustice, for everything that's going on about us, the chaos, the suffering. And apparently we don't want to face that, and that's going to be our difficulty. We have so cleverly and cunningly escaped from ourselves through religion, through philosophy, through entertainment, whether that entertainment be religious or football or whatever it is, we have a network of escapes, and we slip through them so quickly. And because we escape we have many frustrations. And in that frustration, which we almost worship, we produce every kind of literature, drama, art, and all that in no way solves our human, daily existence. And that's what we are concerned with, at least that's what the speaker is concerned with, not only to observe what is happening in ourselves but also bring about in ourselves, both in our minds, in the structure of our brain cells, and also in our heart, a radical, psychological revolution, for that is the only revolution, there is no other revolution. Mere physical revolution is so very primitive, it hurts, destroys people, in the name of bringing about a good society. You kill people in order to bring about a good society, the contradiction, the stupidity of it. And we accept it, either quietly or violently we accept this philosophy, that outwardly we must change first, and then we human beings like so many monkeys will conform to the pattern established by the intellectuals or the economists.
25:12 So I think from the beginning, if I may repeat that over again, one has to realise non-verbally, non-theoretically, actually see it, as you know for yourself when you're hungry, that you are the world and the world is you. Really if you see that, that's the most marvellous thing that can happen to a human being, because then you become totally utterly responsible, not only in your relationship but also in your relationship with nature, the destruction of nature, the killing of animals.
26:20 The other day, one saw on the television baby seals being killed and hearing their cries. And you are the Christian world, loving, kind, talking about peace and killing those poor things, and putting on their fur, or whatever you do with them. And this is the twentieth century and you're supposed to be civilised, intellectual. I leave it with you, all that.
27:07 So when one realises actually what one is, and that realisation has to be observed, you cannot realise something which you have not carefully, closely examined. And to examine, as we were saying, there must be no distortion. And distortion will inevitably come into being when there is fragmentation, when one part of you, which is still a fragment, condones or condemns what you observe. When one part of you observes all the other fragments, and that part assumes the authority to correct the other fragments, that authority remains, or sustains the fragments. So there is contradiction between the one fragment that has assumed the authority of justification, condemnation, or explaining, rationalising. And as long as there is this fragmentation in us, and it does exist, not only at the conscious level but also deep down in the cave of our being, these fragments, fragmentation, which is not only the result of the culture in which we live, in the world of specialisations, but also in ourselves, deeply, we are fragmented human beings. And when one sees the reality that one is the world and the culture in which we live is the culture which we have created by our activity, by our action, by our thought, by our belief, by our nationalities and divisions of religion, when we see this then one has to learn how to observe. Because what we see is not static, it is not something that's fixed, a permanent, dead thing, it is a living thing. And we observe that living thing, which is you, with all the contradictions, confusion, guilt, misery, agony, suffering, it's all a living thing. And we observe that living thing with the eyes of the past. I don't know if you have not observed it yourself. Because we live in the past, we may talk about the eternal present or the now, because that's merely a speculative idea put forward by some clever intellectual person, but actually we live in the past, we are the past. That again is a fact. You are Christians, Hindus, you are the result of thousands of years of propaganda.
31:25 Thank you, sir. That's a good idea.
31:50 As we were saying, we are the result of the propaganda, we are the result of what we have been told from childhood, to believe and not to believe. So we have to understand the past. The past, the present and the future is another fragmentation. And we project as the scientists are doing what the society is going to be in 2,000 years. Not 2,000 years, in 40 years, 50 years or 90 years, what it will be in the future. They have designed perfectly what the future is going to be, technologically. And you jolly well know the future is what you are now. And what you are now is the result of what you have been. And without understanding what you have been and bringing about a radical change in what you have been and what you are, time is not going to solve a thing.
33:19 And that is one of our great deceptions, that time, which is another fragmentation, will somehow through some miraculous action bring about a most extraordinary human being.
33:42 Outwardly, you may have a longer life, you may have a better sewage system, a cleaner city, air not polluted. You can scientifically produce all these things, and time is necessary for that, but is time necessary at all to bring about this immense change, a total revolution in ourselves? And we have to go into this question, and we're going to, whether time, thought, fragmentation, is ever going to change the human mind, the mind that has been conditioned, the brain cells that hold the past, the memory, the experience, and the knowledge of a thousand years. One has to understand all this, and to understand it one must be really dedicated to it.
35:23 It isn't a thing you understand of an afternoon when you have nothing better to do and come and sit here and hope to gather in your fist the whole winds of life. One has to give one's life, one's heart, one's whole being to understand this. Because it's your life, and if we don't understand that, any amount of your searching for nirvana, for ecstasy, for a righteous behaviour has no value whatsoever.
36:18 So that is one of the first questions, which is, whether the mind which is the result of the past, which is the result of a thousand years of time, evolution, confronted with an immense crisis, not only the crisis in the outer world but also crisis in our life, in our relationships, in our way of living, whether that crisis can be answered truly. Not in fragmentation, little by little, but totally, completely, so that we can live without any kind of conflict, without any kind of battle in our life, from the moment we're born until we die, a constant struggle, pain, fear, anxiety and despair.
37:44 So we have to examine, if you will, our minds which is thought, the capacity of intelligence. The intellect, which everyone apparently worships with such ardour, the intellect is the instrument of examination. The intellect, which is the accumulation of knowledge, of experience, of a thousand years of searching a way out of this misery and confusion, that intellect we think will solve, or have the capacity to examine and go beyond. Which is, the intellect is knowledge, used rightly or wrongly. The intellect is the capacity to criticise, to observe, to examine, to rationalise, either sanely or unhealthily, logically or illogically, that intellect is the capacity to observe objectively. But that intellect is only a part of the whole, isn't it? We don't live by the intellect only, we live by our feelings, by our love or pleasures, pains. So when the intellect, as the epitome of thought, takes charge of our life, it brings about great contradiction in our life.
40:41 Our life is a total affair, that is, the psychosomatic responses, the responses of the heart, the mind, and the mind that is seeking something beyond itself, we are all that total human being, not just the intellect or the sentiment, or the denial of the intellect and only live in a kind of emotional sloppiness.
41:29 So, one has to understand this contradiction in ourselves, which is the contradiction of time, yesterday, today and tomorrow, the past, the present and the future, time as a means of solving our thousand problems, and the knowledge which man has accumulated for a thousand years, upon which he depends, which is the past. Now, that is our past, knowledge is the past, there is no knowledge in the present. Are we communicating with each other?
42:39 A: Yes.
42:41 K: I'm not going to ask this over and over again, whether we are communicating with each other, I just want to do it once and then forget it. If you don't communicate with the speaker, and the speaker is not communicating in the sense sharing together the problems that we are talking, its up to you. The speaker will convey it as clearly, as logically, as sanely as possible, and if you are wanting to share that, you share it. And if you don't share it, it's just as well you don't. Because this is not a propaganda, and that's the beauty of it. There is nothing for you to be convinced about or believe in, or take home a new set of ideas. Ideas are the children of barren women. Yes sir, you laugh, but you live with ideas. To you, ideas are the greatest important things in life, ideas being not only words put together but ideas which are thought put together as an idea, as a formula, as a concept. Which is, look what you are doing, you are living in the past, your whole mind, your knowledge, your brain cells, your image, everything is the past and you live in the future, an ideal, a concept, a belief in something. So see how time, which is the past, has divided the past, the present and the future. And you are going towards the future all the time, trying to forget the past. But your roots, your being, your whole process of thinking are rooted in the past. And without understanding those deep roots, which is yourself, you're trying to create a marvellous society in the future.
45:50 You know, the other day they were talking about what will happen, the explosion of technology, how technology is going to create a new society. It is going to create a new society, obviously, but we human beings are what we have been for the last ten thousand years, and if we don't change we're going to be in more contradiction, deeper agonies, and our relationship with each other becomes appalling.
46:38 So, we are together going to look at this question, whether the mind, which has been conditioned through time, conditioned through experience, conditioned by the knowledge it has acquired through that experience, conditioned by religion to believe and not to believe, Catholic, Protestant, and the innumerable divisions in the Protestantism, the Hindu, the Muslim, all that nonsense that goes on in the world, a circus. We are conditioned by the past, by propaganda, we are the result of all that, is one aware of it?
47:40 That's the first question: to be aware of our past, of our conditioning. The word awareness means something very simple, don't complicate it. Don't go to Burma or attend a monastery, spend the rest of your life studying what it means to be aware. Practice awareness, that's one of the jargons, a cliché that you have learned recently. Just to be aware, to be aware of the colour of that rose, to be aware of that man who brought the water, to be aware of your neighbour, of the colour, the proportions of the hall, to be aware of things happening around you, the squalor, the dirt, the poverty, the ugliness that man has created, the brutality of the things around you, to be aware, to be conscious.
49:11 Now begins the difficulty. You can be aware, that's fairly simple, to be aware of your environment as you walk down the street with the dirt, you know what is happening in New York City better than I do. To be aware. Now when you are aware, what takes place? Do please follow this, it's very simple, you can do it easily yourself. We are sharing this thing together, I am not your guru. You understand? I'm sharing, therefore we are walking the journey together. I am not leading you. Thank God you are not my followers, because you would destroy me and I would destroy you. There is no teacher, there is only you: the teacher and the disciple. So you become both the observer and the learner. So with one breath you put away all gurus, all following, all authority in the spiritual sense. Not the authority of the policeman, not the authority of law, because to change law, the law that exists, you must change yourself first. We want to change the outward laws, established by you, by your prejudice, by your greed, by your avarice, by your desire to seek security, and you want to change those laws without changing yourself. You want to have peace in the world, no wars, no more Vietnam, but you all have war in your heart and you're bound to create wars.
51:55 So, to be aware, not only of outward things, of the cloud, of the beauty of a tree and the swift flight of a bird, and the light on the water, to be aware of that is fairly easy because it doesn't touch you at all because it's something outside, far away. But to be aware of oneself, then begins our difficulty. When you are aware of yourself as you are, you say, I don't like that, that's ugly, that's beautiful, this I'll keep, that I won't keep, you're choosing, you're rationalising, you're condemning or justifying, comparing. In that state of comparison, justification, condemnation, your attention is distracted, you're not aware, you are aware of the image which you have brought over from the past, and through that image you're looking at the present, and therefore distorting. Is that clear? I'm sorry, I can't ask if you're clear, its up to you.
53:30 I'll repeat it once more in a different way. When you observe a tree or a bird or the light on a cloud, if you have really observed it, immediately you have words for it, you name it: that's a beautiful cloud. You want to write a poem about it, if you are inclined that way, you want to tell somebody. The verbalisation is a distraction because then you are not looking. The verbalisation is the image of the cloud which you have seen yesterday, and that image projects between you and the actual cloud. Therefore you're looking at that cloud through the screen of words, through the screen of knowledge, through the screen of yesterday's memories. So you are not actually totally aware of that thing. So in the same way, to observe what is going on inwardly, to be aware without any movement of choice. There comes our difficulty because when you observe through the image of the past, you're bringing about a division in your observation as the observer and the thing observed. I hope you are doing this as we are talking. That is, to share. Don't go home and think about it, then you are not doing it. You are doing it actually as you are listening. And that is to share, and that's the beauty of sharing, not take something home in your pocket and then talk about it. That is, to be aware, aware of what is actually going on within yourself, not according to anybody but to observe in this choiceless awareness what actually is. Which means the mind doesn't condemn, doesn't name it, merely observes. That is, I am aware that I'm violent, in all its various forms, sexually, in my speech, in my gesture, in my attitude towards life, violent, separative. And violence also, which is the result of my fear, I am aware of my violence. Now, when I am aware of it I say to myself, I am violent, or I'm jealous or I'm greedy. When you name it or look at it through the word, the word is the past. And so when you look at it through the eyes of the past, you are strengthening what you call violence, because you are relating what is actually taking place to the past, and the past is more or less the firm thing that we have. So, when we name violence, anger, we are strengthening the knowledge which we have acquired about anger. Therefore we are not looking at it anew, afresh, so you are looking at it with the eyes which have been distorted by the past. Shall I go on?
59:23 A: Yes.
59:30 K: So the past, as knowledge, is constantly interfering with the present. You have insulted me or praised me, that leaves a mark on the mind. That's the knowledge. And when I meet you, either you are my friend or you're my enemy, judged by the previous incidents happening. So I am always meeting life, this extraordinary movement of life, with the knowledge which is the past. Knowledge is the past. And yet knowledge is necessary. Otherwise you can't go home from here, otherwise you won't be able to recognise, if you want to, your husband or your wife. You won't be able to talk, read, you won't be able to work, technologically or otherwise. So you must have tremendous knowledge, and yet you see the danger, how this very knowledge divides as the observer and the observed. I'm sorry to constantly be changing words, I must, I can't go on repeating the old stuff. That is, we look at a tree, and in looking at that tree, there is the image, the botanical knowledge of that tree, and the like and the dislike of that tree, or the profit if you're a lumberman, there is the image of that tree. So the image is the dividing factor between you and the tree, which means there is a distance between you and the tree, spatial distance as well as time distance. Now, when there is no image, then you look at the tree in a totally different manner, then you are not identifying yourself with the tree, because you can't become a tree, that would be too absurd, but the spatial difference, the distance between you and the tree disappears and you see the tree as you have never seen the tree in your life before, the beauty of the leaf, the curve of the branch, the lightness, the shape, it becomes extraordinarily vital.
1:03:18 Now, when you look at yourself, not only in the mirror when you comb your hair, but also when you look at yourself, you look at yourself with the knowledge which you have acquired about yourself. The image you have about yourself, I must be, I must not be, I should be, I should not be, I will be something different in the future, the whole movement of becoming is the outcome of knowledge. Out of that knowledge you have the image about yourself. And so when you look at yourself you are looking through the eyes of the image which is the past and therefore you are not actually looking. Now, to be aware without choice is to observe without the observer, which is the past, the image maker. Bene? Shall I go on?
1:04:51 A: Yes.
1:04:53 K: Please listen to this, because if you know how to listen you have done everything, you don't have to do a thing, you don't have to make an effort to listen, you don't have to make an effort to change. We'll go into that if we have time later, the necessity of change and whether it is possible and how it is to be done.
1:05:31 But to listen. I don't think we ever listen because when we do listen we are thinking about something else. Or we say, I don't like what he's saying, or compare what he is saying to something else. Have you ever listened to your wife or your husband? Don't laugh, please, its a waste of time, don't do it. And its a waste of time to clap, waste of your energy, please don't do it. Clap if you must when I'm not here, much better. Have you ever listened, really listened? Which means the past is absent. That is, the past of the wife who has nagged, bullied, or the husband who has dominated, seeking power, etc., which we don't have to go into, this terrible thing called marriage in which all this thing goes on. And to listen without the past. Then you establish a relationship which is totally different. Then your relationship is not between two images, the image of the wife you have or the image which she has about you. The relationship is now between the two images and therefore it's no relationship at all. I don't know if you have gone into the question of relationship, because look what is happening in the world, you go to the office, with all the problems of the office, with your ambition, the insults that you bear from the boss, the fear, you are separated for I don't know how many hours from the wife or the girl, and the woman and the girl have their own problems, their own miseries, their own confusion, their own ambitions, their pettiness, their shoddiness and all the rest of it. And you come home and you go to bed with her and that's your relationship. You are isolated and she is isolated, and you hope to find some kind of relationship in sex, which you call unity - love my family.
1:09:00 Now all that has to be understood because to bring about a different society means a different relationship between human beings, between you and your wife and your neighbour. And if your relationship is based on the past, of your memories, of the insults, of the nagging, the past, the images you have about another, ugly or beautiful, or insane, irrational, distorted, then you have no relationship at all. And to be aware of all this, not just occasionally, but to be aware, so as not to form an image. I'll show you in a minute, I'll go into it. Having formed the image, how to be free of it, and not to form image. You understand my question? Andiamo.
1:10:33 Take a simple fact: you flatter me. That flattery is pleasing and that leaves a mark on the mind, on the brain cells, and an immediate image is formed that you are my friend, I like you, because you flattered me or scratched my back. And you insult me: that also has left a mark. And that has left an image and you are not my friend. This is the fact, isn't it, this actually takes place every minute of the day, I like you, I don't like you, you're beautiful, you're not, you're intelligent, this constant image forming. Now, when I am flattered, at that instant to be totally aware, neither accepting nor rejecting, just to watch it, watch what is happening to my reactions. When you so completely attentively watch, then there is no distortion, then there is no image forming. You do it now as I'm telling you, you will find out. It's very simple phenomenon, don't complicate it. To be attentive, to be aware at the moment of insult or flattery. At that moment there is no choice, therefore there is no image forming. Then you meet afresh each time a person. That is real innocence. That word innocence means a mind that is incapable of being hurt. Because most people have been hurt from childhood, by the mother or father, by the school, by the teacher, being hurt, hurt, hurt. And these hurts are various forms of knowledge. And we carry them until we die, carry them as memories, which is the past. And time isn't going to resolve them, time will only strengthen them, but whereas if you are aware of this whole movement of the past as image and knowledge, then your mind doesn't record any of the insults, any of the hurts. Therefore your relationship with another undergoes a radical revolution. Because we are related with each other, whether that person lives in Vietnam or in India or in Europe or here or in China, we are related to each other because we are human beings. And if we isolate ourselves with our images of hurts, pain, pleasures, fears, and the terrible competitive ambitious drive, which is so encouraged in this unfortunate country, then relationship becomes a torture, then your relationship is not the actual living beautiful moment but the past. So, one has to be aware of this total movement of the past, not only at the conscious level but also at the deeper levels.
1:16:01 May I ask what time it is?
1:16:04 Q: Ten minutes.
1:16:09 K: This is a very complicated problem, because we're living in the past, with the knowledge that we have acquired through centuries. And that very knowledge is destroying us, because that knowledge separates, divides, that knowledge divides the Muslim and the Hindu, the Christian and the rest of it, the Catholic and the Protestant, the division of nationalities, it's all based on the past. And to understand this enormous problem of the past, one has not only, as we have casually and rather briefly examined the knowledge on the surface, but also there is the deep, if one may use the word which is so common, unconscious, the knowledge that has been held down deeply within us, one also has to understand all that. Because one is aware knowledge is essential, absolutely essential, otherwise you can't do anything, but also one is aware that knowledge becomes a factor of distortion in relationship. And relationship is the most important thing in life, otherwise we can't live peacefully, otherwise we will not be able to know what love is. So, to be related, not between two images which are the past, but to be actually related means to have no centre in which the image forming exists.
1:18:52 Now I'm afraid it's too late to go into the question of how to observe the unconscious, how to expose the whole content of the unconscious, not analytically but expose it. One has to go into it very, very carefully. Perhaps we'll do it tomorrow afternoon but not now. So, we have a few minutes left, so if you would like to ask questions.
1:19:30 Do you want to ask questions?
1:19:34 Q: Yes.
1:19:36 K: Now just a minute, before you ask me questions, I would like to say something about asking questions. First of all, why do you ask questions? Not that you must not ask questions, you must, every kind of question, doubt everything. But scepticism must be held on a leash, when to let it go, when to hold it back. And to ask a question, are you expecting the speaker to answer the question or are you asking the question yourselves so that together we answer it? Because the very moment you put the question, the answer is in the question. And if we know how to look at that question, the answer is there. So we have to bear in mind when you ask questions that you must not only ask the right question, which doesn't mean the speaker is preventing you from asking questions, also in asking the right question, there is depth behind that question, because the right question has immense depth. And the shallow question is the wrong question, because it is very superficial. So one has to be aware when you ask a question. And in asking questions you are exposing yourself to yourself. If that is understood, please fire away.
1:21:40 Q: Excuse me, sir. Should a man who does not truly love himself try to help others love themselves, or should anyone try to help anyone?
1:21:54 K: Should anyone help another. I wonder what you mean by helping another. The doctor helps you, if he's a good doctor, a good dietician, the signpost says, tells you how to go to a certain place, they're all help, aren't they? But when you assume that you can help another, you've already taken a position, and therefore that position becomes authoritative and therefore you destroy all sense of humility. Helping is like the scent of a flower on the wayside, it is there, the perfume, the colour, the beauty, the quiet sense of its flowering, it is there, and if you want to smell it, smell it, if you don't, don't. And that is help. If you have something to give, give without knowing that you are giving. Right?
1:23:35 Q: Jiddu, we would like to ask you that, of course, you certainly consider yourself to be a very great man but what is your opinion of Buddha?
1:23:50 K: You consider yourself a great man, of course, how do you consider the Buddha. The Buddha, who was a religious teacher in the 5th century B.C. in India. First, I don't consider myself at all, neither great or small, and I really mean it. And that is an irrelevant question. When you say what do you think about the Buddha, I don't think about the Buddha, because thought doesn't enter into the field of understanding. Thought doesn't exist where love is. When there is love and when there is that state of mind when there is no operation of thought, there is no comparison.
1:25:19 Q: Could we talk about distractions?
1:25:24 K: Could we talk about distraction.
1:25:27 Q: Say that you're listening to someone and there's a sound, and the two sounds conflict. Now, you say there should be no choice, yet doesn't the mind, go toward...
1:25:47 K: Yes, I've understood your question. Distraction. Why do you call it distraction? You want to hear what he's saying, you listen for two minutes or a minute or a second, and your mind wanders off. Why do you call it a distraction? Why do you compare, say this I want to listen and that I don't want to listen? Now, by saying that it is a distraction you're already in a conflict, aren't you? Because I want to listen to you, what you're talking about, I give my attention for a few minutes to you. And my mind cannot sustain that attention and it goes off. I won't call it distraction. I say, all right, it's gone off, I want to find out why it is being pulled away in that direction. I'm interested not in a fixed attention but attention, whether the attention of listening to you or the attention that makes me wander away. I attend to what is called distraction, which is not a distraction. If there is attention there is no distraction. You've got it? It is only the mind that is not attending completely, such a mind wanders off. And then you say, after having been distracted, then you say, how am I to get back to attention? So there is a battle. So, be attentive to what is being said and to when the mind wanders off. The factor is be attentive, and then you don't have conflict. The greatest crime one can commit is to have conflict within oneself, because that conflict expresses itself in the world outside you, as hate, envy, bore, aggression, brutality, killing. And to find out a way of life in which there is no conflict whatsoever is to live a totally different kind of life. We'll go into that perhaps tomorrow.
1:29:04 Q: Sir, I find myself very frightened all the time, like I try to face myself and I try to face what you're saying, try to live more fully, but I find that the past always interferes with me and I'm too frightened to look at myself and my life.
1:29:25 K: I'm afraid I haven't understood the question. Has somebody understood it? Thought interferes, is that it?
1:29:34 Q: Fear makes thought.
1:29:36 K: Fear, thought and fear interferes. You know, these two things, like thought and fear, one has to go very, very deeply into it. We will tomorrow, shall we? Because it isn't a thing that you can just say well, get rid of thought or get rid of fear, that would be too stupid, but one has to understand this whole question of fear. One has to go into this, what is thought, why thought has become so extraordinarily important in life. And what is the place of thought. And that cannot be discussed or talked over in a few minutes now. May we then talk about it tomorrow? Is that all right? I think we'd better stop, don't you? Because I believe you wanted the hall by half-past seven.