OJ66T3 - Giving complete attention to pleasure
Ojai, California - 5 November 1966
Public Talk 3
0:00 | This is J. Krishnamurti’s third public talk in Ojai, California, 1966. |
0:09 | Krishnamurti: We will continue with what we have talking about when we last met here, |
0:18 | last Saturday and Sunday. |
0:29 | We were saying how very important it is |
0:36 | to bring about in the human mind a radical revolution. |
0:44 | The crisis – and there are always crises in the world – |
0:51 | especially now, it’s seem to me, is a crisis in consciousness, |
1:05 | a crisis that cannot anymore |
1:13 | accept the old norms, the old patterns, the ancient traditions, |
1:24 | a particular way of life, whether it is the American way or the European way or the Asiatic way. |
1:34 | And considering what the world is now |
1:41 | with all the misery, conflict destructive brutality, aggression, |
1:50 | tremendous advancement in technology, and so on, |
1:57 | it seems to me, though man has cultivated the external world |
2:06 | and has more or less mastered it, inwardly he is still as he was; |
2:17 | there’s a great deal of animal in him, he’s still brutal, violent, aggressive, acquisitive, competitive |
2:29 | and he has built a society along these lines. |
2:38 | And the more one observes, |
2:44 | and I think almost everyone, unless he is totally blind, deaf and dumb, |
2:53 | is aware of the extraordinary contradictions of human beings, |
3:03 | of the great demands, |
3:08 | intellectual as well as a demand at a different level, |
3:17 | a demand which is not emotional, |
3:25 | not built on enthusiasm, not sentimental but factual, |
3:37 | and therefore the factual |
3:43 | – which is neither intellectual nor emotional – |
3:48 | to understand it there must be a great deal of passion, |
3:57 | and for most of us, passion is merely mental or physical gratification, |
4:14 | which soon fades and has to be renewed. |
4:20 | All passions, generally, are evoked by external circumstances |
4:28 | or by our own particular temperament, idiosyncrasy and appetite; |
4:37 | such a passion soon withers away. |
4:43 | Any passion with a motive is bound to come to an end. |
4:51 | And to understand this extraordinary complex problem of existence |
4:57 | one must have tremendous passion, |
5:03 | which cannot possibly be supplied by the intellect |
5:09 | or by casual sentiment or emotionalism, |
5:18 | or the passion aroused by committing oneself to a particular course of action |
5:27 | or belonging to a particular political or religious group. |
5:33 | That does give certain quality of intensity, |
5:39 | a certain elan, a certain drive, but we are talking about a passion that is not easily come by, |
5:58 | because any passion for any action must be without motive. |
6:11 | And as most of us seek gratification |
6:18 | – intellectual, emotional, physical, various forms of comfort, |
6:26 | ideologically or psychologically – |
6:33 | we demand this gratification, and as long as there is this gratification fulfilled, |
6:42 | that arouses certain quality of intensity. |
6:50 | But that intensity soon fades away and it has to be renewed, stimulated, pushed, driven, |
7:01 | and hence we’re always seeking a certain perpetuated... |
7:09 | certain continuity of passion. |
7:19 | A life without this intense drive, passion has no meaning at all. |
7:32 | Generally, one seeks an idea, a concept, a formula |
7:42 | to which one can give oneself over to, and that… from that there is a certain intensity, certain passion, |
7:55 | but through it all there is the demand for gratification, for pleasure. |
8:06 | And it seems to me, a society, of which we are as human beings – |
8:14 | and the society is not different from the human being, psychologically they are one. |
8:22 | The whole structure of society, with its morality, with its gods, |
8:28 | with its culture, with its entertainment, |
8:36 | is based on pleasure. There may be a rare occasion |
8:45 | when mind functions without a motive and the… |
8:51 | without the demand for gratification, but most of our life and our conduct is based on the demand |
9:04 | and the search and the continuity of pleasure. |
9:16 | I hope when one is listening to this talk or to the various other talks that are coming, |
9:28 | one hears lot of words |
9:35 | and hearing many words is not listening. |
9:43 | It’s like a noise among the leaves, soon passes away. |
9:53 | When you all hear, we either accept or reject, |
10:00 | or we translate what we hear according to our knowledge, our background, |
10:10 | or we compare what is being said to what is already known, |
10:22 | or we oppose one idea by another. |
10:30 | All these characteristics of hearing denies the act of listening. |
10:41 | The act of listening is entirely different. |
10:47 | When one listens there is no comparison, there is no acceptance or rejection. |
11:00 | The quality of listening is attention. |
11:06 | And when you attend totally with your whole mind, with your heart, with your nerves, |
11:15 | with your eyes and ears completely, in that state of attention there is the act of listening, |
11:29 | and that act of listening puts away anything that is not true. |
11:41 | When you give your whole attention to something, |
11:53 | that is, when you are completely listening, |
12:00 | you listen to the totality of the thing. |
12:06 | When you attend, there is no borders of inattention. |
12:18 | When you so intensely listen, you are listening to the birds, |
12:27 | to the wind, to the breeze among the leaves; you listen to the slightest whisper that’s about you. |
12:40 | So in the same way, when one listens, |
12:46 | that very act of listening |
12:53 | brings about a total attention in which you see the totality |
13:01 | and the whole significance and structure of what is being said. |
13:06 | Not only what the speaker is saying, |
13:12 | but also when you are listening to your wife, to your husband, to your children, to the politician, |
13:18 | to the priest, to everything about you. |
13:28 | Then there is no choice; then there is only clarity. |
13:35 | There is no confusion, but right perception. |
13:44 | So I hope… we hope that you will so listen to what is being said, |
13:52 | not hear a lot of words, to a lot of ideas |
13:59 | because idea and words are not the fact. |
14:04 | Ideas and words never bring about a radical revolution, a mutation in the mind. |
14:14 | So I’m not dealing with ideas and opinions and judgement. |
14:19 | What we are concerned is |
14:25 | with bringing about a radical revolution in the mind, |
14:34 | and that revolution must take place without effort |
14:42 | because all effort has behind it a motive, |
14:50 | and a revolution with a motive is not a revolution at all. |
14:56 | A change becomes merely a modified continuity when there is a motive. |
15:16 | But a mutation, a radical transformation of the mind |
15:22 | can only take place when there is no motive |
15:28 | and when we begin to understand the psychological structure of not only of society of which we are, which is part of us, |
15:38 | and to understand it there must be the act of listening; |
15:43 | not listening to the speaker, but listening to what is actually taking place in ourselves. |
15:54 | So it is a responsibility, if I can use that word, |
16:03 | not only on the part of the listener, |
16:12 | but also how you all listen |
16:21 | because we are taking a journey together |
16:26 | – I hope you don’t mind if I take my coat off – we are taking a journey together |
16:34 | into the whole psychological structure of man, |
16:45 | because in the understanding of that structure and the meaning of it, we can then perhaps bring about a change in society, |
16:58 | and society, God knows, needs a total change, |
17:06 | a total revolution. |
17:15 | So as we were saying earlier, our whole concept, |
17:25 | action and urges |
17:32 | are based on pleasure, |
17:38 | and until one understands the nature and the structure of pleasure |
17:45 | there will always be fear, |
17:53 | fear not only in our relationships with each other, but fear of all life, the totality of existence. |
18:08 | So without understanding pleasure there can be no freedom from fear. |
18:20 | And we are not denying pleasure, we are not advocating puritanical way of life, |
18:32 | a suppression of pleasure or a substitution of pleasure, |
18:39 | or the denial of that thing that we call great satisfaction. |
18:46 | We are examining it, and in examination there must be freedom from opinion, |
18:56 | otherwise you can’t examine. |
19:01 | You can’t say, ‘Well, what will… how will I live if there is no pleasure?’ and you are, but… |
19:08 | when you assert that one cannot or can live without pleasure |
19:14 | you’re already blocking all examination and therefore all discovery, all understanding of something... |
19:20 | understanding of the problem totally anew. |
19:25 | So we are examining pleasure, we are not condemning it. |
19:32 | And without really radically, seriously understanding that pleasure principle in man – as in the animal – |
19:43 | we shall live within the borders of fear always, |
19:50 | which is fairly obvious. |
20:07 | First of all, |
20:13 | pleasure is an extraordinary thing to understand. |
20:20 | It needs a great deal of attention, |
20:25 | a swiftness of mind, a subtle perception. |
20:34 | There is pleasure in aggression, |
20:42 | there is pleasure in violence, |
20:48 | there is pleasure in ambition, in self-fulfilment, |
20:58 | in domination, in assertion, in pursuing any gratification – |
21:12 | the various forms of pleasure into which we don’t have to go in detail, |
21:19 | but one can see the totality of our deep thinking, feeling |
21:28 | is based on this extraordinary principle of pleasure. |
21:37 | Our relationships are based on it |
21:43 | and our morality and the gods that the mind through fear has invented, |
21:52 | the saviours, the masters, the leaders, and so on. It’s essentially based on that pleasure which gives gratification. |
22:06 | The assertion of will is part of that pleasure, |
22:14 | and the denial, the sacrifice is also based on pleasure. |
22:25 | So one has to understand it, and to understand it, there must be neither withholding nor denying |
22:34 | that quality, that principle of pleasure, |
22:40 | and that’s very difficult to do because we are so heavily conditioned |
22:50 | to accept and to function with the motive of pleasure, |
22:58 | with gratification, |
23:03 | and therefore we are always limiting our total attention. |
23:18 | We would… we look at life in fragments – |
23:27 | as a businessman, as an artist, as a psychologist, as a scientist, as a politician, as a priest, as a housewife, |
23:35 | as a this professor, and so on and so on and so on, all in fragments, |
23:42 | and we try to relate one fragment to the totality of other fragments, |
23:50 | which is called identification. |
23:59 | And as long as the particular fragmentation exists, |
24:04 | one cannot possibly see the totality. If one says, ‘I must have a certain pleasure |
24:13 | and I’m going to hold on to it at any price’, then we will not comprehend or see the total pattern of pleasure. |
24:29 | And we are concerned with seeing the totality of pleasure, |
24:35 | what is involved in it: |
24:40 | the pain, the frustration, the agony, |
24:51 | the remorse, the ache of loneliness |
24:58 | when all pleasure is denied, |
25:05 | and naturally escape from all that through various forms, |
25:12 | which again is the continuation of pleasure. |
25:27 | And a mind that is caught, that is conditioned by this principle of pleasure |
25:34 | cannot, obviously, see what is true, |
25:43 | cannot think clearly and therefore it has no passion. |
25:53 | It translates passion as sexual or achieving some fragmentary activity |
26:03 | and fulfilment in that fragment. |
26:12 | So where there is no understanding of pleasure, |
26:20 | there is only enthusiasm, sentimentality, |
26:25 | which evokes brutality and callousness, and all the rest of it. |
26:32 | So what is pleasure? Because without understanding pleasure there is no love. |
26:44 | Love is not pleasure, love is not desire, love is not memory, |
27:06 | and pleasure denies love |
27:17 | and therefore, it seems to me, it is important to understand this principle. |
27:28 | Surely, pleasure is desire. |
27:38 | Desire, which comes into being very naturally, |
27:49 | when you see something which gives you a stimulation, a sensation, |
27:59 | and from that sensation there is desire. |
28:06 | And the continuation of that desire is pleasure, |
28:16 | and that pleasure is sustained by thought. |
28:22 | I see something and in that contact with it there is a sensation. |
28:33 | The sensation is the desire sustained by thought. |
28:40 | Please, you can see this in yourself. You’re not listening to something extraordinary; |
28:45 | this is an obvious daily fact. You see a beautiful car, a nice house, a beautiful face |
29:00 | and there is the sensation, there is contact: contact, sensation and desire. |
29:11 | Then thought comes in |
29:17 | because thought is the response of memory, |
29:23 | that memory is based on other experiences of pleasure and pain, |
29:30 | and the thought gives to that desire the sustenance, |
29:37 | the quality of pursuit and fulfilment. |
29:47 | One can see this in oneself very simply. One doesn’t… one hasn’t got to read psychological books about all this. |
29:58 | I don’t know why one reads psychological books anyhow |
30:04 | or goes to analysts, and so on. |
30:12 | It’s all, if one observes, it’s all there in front of you. |
30:21 | And the quality of observation cannot be taught by another; |
30:32 | and if you are taught how to observe, you cease to observe; |
30:39 | then you have merely the technique of observation, |
30:45 | which prevents you from actually seeing. |
30:52 | So this whole concept of going to somebody |
30:58 | to be taught, to be analysed, |
31:05 | to be psychologically informed about yourself seems to me so utterly immature. |
31:16 | I know what we are saying goes contrary to all the present fashion, |
31:21 | but if one observes – |
31:30 | not somebody else, but yourself, for yourself is the whole of mankind, |
31:39 | with all the aches and the miseries, with the solitude and loneliness, despair, |
31:48 | the utter loneliness of existence, meaninglessness of it all. |
31:59 | But in that observation you’re so anxious to resolve everything quickly. |
32:07 | We haven’t the patience nor the intention to observe clearly. |
32:18 | And when you do so observe, it unfolds endlessly, |
32:24 | which is life itself. Then you’re not dependent on anybody, |
32:34 | on any psychologist, on any theologian, or any priest, or any dogma. |
32:45 | Then you are looking at this movement of life which is yourself. |
32:58 | But unfortunately, we cannot look with clarity because we are driven by this principle of pleasure. |
33:10 | So to understand pleasure one has to understand the structure of thinking, |
33:28 | because it’s thought that gives continuity to pleasure. |
33:38 | I have had an experience of pleasure yesterday, |
33:47 | of different kinds, and thought thinks about that pleasure |
34:00 | and demands its continuity, |
34:08 | so memory of that pleasure of yesterday |
34:14 | is reacting, demanding that it be renewed through thought. |
34:30 | And thought is time. |
34:40 | I hope all this is not becoming too difficult and abstract. |
34:45 | I don’t think it’s abstract, but it may be rather complex, |
34:53 | but it’s not even, really. If you’re actually following, |
35:00 | not what the speaker is saying so much but what is actually taking place in yourself. |
35:08 | After all, what the speaker is saying is a mirror in which you are looking at yourself. |
35:22 | And when you do look, you see that this pleasure is sustained by thought, |
35:32 | thinking about the past pleasure, past gratification, yesterday’s delight and enjoyment, |
35:43 | and that thought demands its continuity now. |
35:52 | And thought projects the tomorrow’s pleasure. |
36:03 | And thought creates the past, the present and the future, which is time. |
36:14 | There is time by the clock, chronological time – |
36:19 | we’re not concerned with that. If you have to keep an appointment, and so on, |
36:28 | you must have the chronological time of yesterday, today and tomorrow, |
36:35 | but we’re talking about the psychological time, which thought has bred, |
36:43 | and that time is the product of thought. |
36:52 | ‘I have had that pleasure, I am going to have it and I shall have it’. |
37:02 | This time quality is created by thought, bred, put together by thought. |
37:12 | And thought is time and it is time that creates fear. |
37:27 | And without probing into this time, |
37:36 | pleasure, thought, we are always bound by time, |
37:47 | and therefore time has never a stop. |
37:53 | It’s only when there is an end to time there is something totally new, |
38:00 | otherwise it’s merely a continuity what has been, modified through the present and conditioned by the future. |
38:16 | As one can observe, love is not of time, |
38:25 | it has nothing to do with memory, |
38:35 | and pleasure denies love, |
38:51 | and when there is love you can do what you will. |
39:00 | And it’s only pleasure that is destructive. |
39:10 | So for a human being to be free of fear, |
39:16 | fear about the future, fear about… |
39:21 | there are so… dozen fears that human beings have, |
39:27 | conscious or undiscovered fears: |
39:33 | fears of the neighbour, fears of death, fear of being lonely, |
39:40 | insecure, uncertain, fear of being confused, |
39:45 | fear of being stupid and not trying to become very clever – you know? – fear. |
39:51 | Fear is always in relation to something; |
39:56 | it doesn’t exist by itself. |
40:02 | And to be totally free of fear |
40:07 | – not partially, not a fragment of that totality of what is considered fear – |
40:15 | to be totally, that is, psychologically to be completely be free of fear, |
40:27 | one must understand thought, time and pleasure. |
40:37 | And this understanding is not intellectual or emotional. |
40:45 | Understanding can only come when there is total attention, when you give your complete attention to pleasure, |
40:55 | how it comes into being; what is time, time which thought has created – |
41:05 | ‘I was, I will be, I am. |
41:12 | I must change this into that’. |
41:18 | This idea of gradual process, |
41:24 | this idea of gradual psychological evolution of man, |
41:32 | and that’s very gratifying – ‘We’ll gradually, all of us, become extraordinarily kindly. |
41:42 | We shall gradually lose all our violence, aggression. |
41:49 | We’ll all be brotherly at one time, much later’. |
41:59 | This gradual concept, which is generally called evolution, psychologically, |
42:08 | seems to me so utterly false. |
42:14 | I’m not… we are not offering an opinion; this is a fact. |
42:24 | Because when you give your attention to something completely, there is no time at all. |
42:34 | You don’t say, ‘I will do it tomorrow’. |
42:39 | In that state of attention, there is neither yesterday, today or tomorrow, therefore time has come to an end. |
42:48 | But that ending of time cannot possibly be when there is the centre as the principle of pleasure. |
43:01 | Pleasure has in it pain. |
43:07 | The two things cannot be separated. Pleasure is pain, if you have observed. |
43:22 | So you cannot possibly psychologically avoid pain |
43:27 | if you are pursuing psychologically pleasure. |
43:34 | We want the one but we don’t want the other. |
43:41 | This demand for the continuation of a certain pleasure |
43:48 | is the centre from which we think, function and act, |
43:54 | and therefore that centre – call it the ego, the me, the... doesn’t matter what it is – |
44:05 | where there is a centre, there is always the space round the centre |
44:12 | in which there is action of fear and pleasure. |
44:19 | I hope we are somewhat following all this. |
44:24 | If not, it doesn’t matter. |
44:33 | Because probably most of us have not given total attention for a long… |
44:41 | for a period of time, for ten minutes or half an hour. |
44:50 | We function emotionally, |
44:55 | of want and not want, and when deep issues, fundamental problems are concerned |
45:08 | and to give your mind totally to it |
45:13 | is rather difficult when all your life has been dissipated, |
45:20 | dissipated in fragmentary action. |
45:29 | And when we do act totally, we only do it when there is a crisis. |
45:38 | Then you wake up and give your whole attention. |
45:45 | And this is a crisis. A talk of this kind is a crisis, is a challenge. |
45:53 | You can’t just push it aside, |
46:01 | and therefore it may be rather difficult, |
46:14 | may be perhaps arduous to follow all this, |
46:19 | but it won’t be arduous if you are following your own state of mind. |
46:30 | You know, it’s like sitting on the bank of a river and watching the river... waters go by, |
46:41 | and when you so watch, there is neither the observer nor the observed. |
46:53 | There is only a movement, |
46:58 | but that... to observe that there must be no fear, |
47:05 | no time, no sense of pleasure and the demand for gratification. |
47:20 | Then in that state you can observe the whole movement of life, |
47:29 | the movement of life which is agony, despair, |
47:35 | the ache of meaningless existence, |
47:41 | the routine, the boredom, the great fears as of death, |
47:52 | which we’ll talk about another day. So you can watch all this, |
47:58 | and when you so observe, the observer is that which is observing, |
48:05 | and then you can go beyond all this. |
48:12 | And the mutation can only take place in the mind |
48:17 | when time, pleasure and fear have come to an end |
48:25 | and therefore there is a certain dimension of quality which cannot be approached through thought. |
48:48 | Perhaps you can ask some questions |
48:55 | with what we have talked about… about what we have talked and see if we can’t go into these questions. |
49:08 | Please, would you mind making the questions short? Don’t get up please. |
49:16 | Questioner: I’m confused about what you said about pleasure because I don’t see the distinction |
49:21 | between pleasure and the desire for gratification. |
49:27 | I’d like to know what is the sensation that you get when you look at a painting, because I would define that as pleasure without desire |
49:36 | and that’s a good kind of pleasure. Pleasure is good. |
49:45 | K: The questioner says, ‘Pleasure is good’. |
49:51 | When you look at a picture, when you look at a sunset, when you look at a beautiful face with a lovely smile. |
50:03 | ‘Pleasure’, the questioner says, ‘is gratification. |
50:12 | I don’t see the difference between gratification and pleasure’. |
50:18 | Q: I’m sorry. I didn’t see your distinction between the two. I saw… I thought you were equating the two of them |
50:27 |
and I was saying that desire for gratification is something very different from pleasure. K: Yes, that’s right. The questioner says |
50:33 | pleasure and gratification are two different things. |
50:40 |
Not disagreeing with what the speaker has said, isn’t that it? Q: No. K: Oh, I beg your pardon. |
50:50 |
Q: Pleasure is love. That kind of pleasure brings love. K: That kind of pleasure brings love – is that it? Right. |
51:00 | Now, |
51:08 | you see, when we are examining something of this kind, don’t come to any conclusion. |
51:19 | Don’t say, ‘Pleasure is love or not love’. We’re examining, |
51:26 | and if you have a conclusion or if you have come to a conclusion |
51:32 | and start to examine the question from a conclusion, then the question is already answered by your conclusion. |
51:40 |
Q: I beg your pardon. K: No, don’t beg my pardon, please. |
51:48 | We are… what we are trying to do is to examine, and to examine, there must be freedom from any conclusion, |
51:56 | from any knowledge, from any demand, otherwise you can’t look, you can’t examine. |
52:09 | And that’s one of the most difficult things in life to do, |
52:15 | because we’ve all… we’ve got opinions, dozens of them and we are so willing to offer opinions. |
52:24 | You know, it’s only a fools who offer opinions; |
52:29 | the wise man has no opinions. |
52:37 | So... You see, it’s a very difficult question to answer this. |
52:51 | You know, when you look at a sunset, |
52:59 | it gives you great pleasure, a delight. |
53:04 | That delight at that moment is intense and your mind and your whole being is absorbed by the beauty of it. |
53:18 | Then that experience remains, stored up, |
53:27 | and next evening you demand that same experience to be repeated. |
53:38 | It’s like taking an LSD, that drug, |
53:44 | it gives you extraordinary experience, and that experience is a great delight, |
53:55 | but when that’s gone, you are back to yourself with your tawdry little mind, |
54:04 | and you take another dose and so you keep that going till you become cuckoo. |
54:13 | No, no, don’t laugh. Please, just a minute. We’ll go into that at another time. |
54:20 | So there is this cultivation of memory |
54:27 | which is sustained by thought, or thought sustains itself. Like yesterday, I saw a beautiful sunset, marvellous colours, |
54:38 | the extraordinary tranquillity that comes of an evening at the time of sunset. |
54:47 | The light is entirely different, and all that I have retained. |
54:55 | The mind has taken it in, and next day in an office or in a school |
55:05 | or in the kitchen or when I’m by myself, |
55:10 | I want… I look to that delight, it comes up in me naturally, |
55:16 | and I look out of the window hoping to see that again, but it never happens again, |
55:24 | because the mind looks at the new sunset with the old mind, with old memories, |
55:32 | but if one can die to this sunset of yesterday totally, |
55:37 | then you can look at the new sunset. Then it is no longer this cloying gratification of pleasure. |
55:55 |
Yes, sir? Q: I’m curious about the difference between pleasure and joy. |
56:02 | Could you speak about joy and tell us how this is like and unlike pleasure...? |
56:10 | K: Sir, ‘What is the difference’, the questioner says, ‘between joy and pleasure?’ |
56:16 | I’m afraid you have to make the question short, brief, as I have to repeat it. |
56:22 | What’s the difference between pleasure and joy? |
56:28 | Don’t we know it? |
56:34 | Pleasure has a continuity, joy has not. |
56:43 | When you say, ‘I am joyful’, it’s already finished. |
56:54 | But pleasure you can continue, |
57:03 | therefore pleasure is a continuity of that |
57:09 | which gave you gratification or pleasure yesterday and that, through thought, |
57:17 | you can continue today, tomorrow and sustain it. Whereas joy is something that comes immediately, naturally |
57:26 | and goes away naturally, but if you cling to it, it’s already become a memory, a pleasure. |
57:32 | It’s finished. |
57:45 | Q: Isn’t life painful in any case… |
57:54 | K: Isn’t life painful in any case. It all depends, if you have a bad liver, it is. |
58:07 | If you have pain, a continuous pain, physical pain, it is. |
58:14 | If you have psychological pains of being hurt, being lonely, |
58:24 | having no fulfilment, unloved, and so on and so on and so on, |
58:30 | life does become a torture. |
58:36 | Going to the office daily for the next ten years, forty years is a dreadful torture. |
58:46 | But that you put up with because that brings you money, comfort, more... and so on and so on so. |
58:56 | That you don’t call torture. |
59:04 |
Q: But not going to the office is… K: A moment, sir; we have not finished that question yet. |
59:13 | Sirs, please this is not an entertainment, please. Please, sir, I am finishing that question. |
59:21 | Please, this is not an entertainment. |
59:28 |
Q: Well, how do you...? K: Wait a minute, madame, un instant. Wait a minute, I’m trying to… |
59:36 | You know, if we understand one question rightly, |
59:42 | all questions are answered. |
59:51 | But we don’t know how to ask the right question, |
59:59 | and to ask the right question demands a great deal of intelligence and sensitivity. |
1:00:11 | Here is a question, a fundamental question: Is life a torture? It is as it is. |
1:00:21 | And man has lived in this torture centuries upon centuries, |
1:00:28 | from ancient history to the present day, in agony, in despair, in sorrow, |
1:00:40 | and he doesn’t find a way out of it, |
1:00:46 | therefore he invents gods, churches... – you know? – all the rituals, and all that nonsense, |
1:00:57 | or escapes in different ways. What we are trying during all these discussions and talks here |
1:01:06 | is to see if we cannot radically bring about a transformation of the mind. |
1:01:14 | Not accept things as they are nor revolt against it. |
1:01:20 | Revolt doesn’t answer a thing. But to understand it, to go into it, to examine it, |
1:01:28 | give your heart and your mind with everything that you have to find out a way of living differently. |
1:01:40 | But that depends on you and not somebody else |
1:01:48 | because in this there is no teacher, no pupil, there is no leader, there’s no guru, |
1:01:56 | there’s no master, no saviour. You have to… you yourself are the teacher and the pupil, |
1:02:01 | you are the master, you are the guru, you are the leader, you are everything. |
1:02:16 | And to understand is to transform what is. I think that’ll be enough, won’t it? |