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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?