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OJ72DYP - Questioning everything
Ojai, California - 23 January 1972
Discussion with Young People



0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s discussion with students in Ojai, California, 1972.
0:10 K: What shall we discuss?
0:18 Q: Well, perhaps since we are all young, perhaps we can discuss where youth is going today. What do you think about the direction we seem to be headed?
0:36 K: Where is youth going today. Is that what you want to discuss?
0:45 Q: Well, perhaps just for starters, leading to other things.
0:54 K: Do you think the youth is very serious, or is just playing around? Would you consider, if I may ask, that you are very serious, each one of you, or are you shopping around, going to various things according to your fancy, according to your temperament, inclination, or the pressure of public opinion, pressure of the youth around you? So what would you call yourself, serious? Or partly serious?
2:08 Q: Isn’t shopping around serious?
2:14 K: Is it?
2:16 Q: It’s kind of like a serious need or something but maybe…
2:25 K: Shopping around. Why do you shop around?
2:29 Q: Oh, perhaps different organisations, groups…
2:35 K: Different organisations, groups, different gurus, different methods, systems, you know, the whole gamut of what is being offered, from Fifth Avenue to California. And such people, why are they shopping around? Or is this whole business of shopping around totally wrong? Because you are going to choose, aren’t you, when you shop around? You are going to choose, aren’t you? Right? On what is this choice based on?
3:43 Q: Prior conditioning?
3:52 K: Prior, according to your… You are going to choose according to your conditioning.
4:01 Q: Well, you could also choose if you are fairly evolved, for what is going to benefit yourself and those around you – not necessarily in that order.
4:11 K: But even that choice of benefit and all the rest of it, what is that based on?
4:17 Q: It would have to be based on values.
4:20 K: What are those values based on?
4:24 Q: Previous experience.
4:25 Q: Like or dislike?
4:26 K: Yes, isn’t it? So you choose in your shopping around according to your conditioning, according to your like and dislike, according to what you think the shop has to offer – the guru, the teacher, the organisation has to offer – and you are all pursuing according to your particular pleasure and inclination. Isn’t that so? And are such people serious? Sorry! Take for instance, there are so many organisations, each offering what they consider to be the truth. There are so many gurus, swamis, yogis, saying, ‘We have experienced. We know what truth is. We will give you something of that, if you do this.’ There is the whole Krishna Conscious group – you know probably about it – there is the whole Vedanta group, the theosophical group, you know, multitudinous groups, especially when the world is in chaos. Right? And one comes along and says, ‘Now which is the best of these?’ Right? And how do you choose? How can you choose? How do you know what is the real amidst all these gurus, swamis – you follow? – how do you know? Or you don’t look, you don’t do any shopping at all. I should think that would be the sanest thing to do – no shopping, no choosing, but trying to say, ‘Look, let’s find out for myself.’ I want to find out. I won’t join any group, any sect, any religion, any guru, any offering. I won’t accept a thing from anybody. Not that I’m proud or vain or that I know, but I want to find out. I really want to find out. Not according to Christianity, to Jesus – you know? – I want to find out. Right? Wouldn’t such a person be serious? Such a person would obviously, the first thing would be to discard totally every form of authority. No? The authority of the guru, the authority of those people who say, ‘We know. You listen to us.’ So if you are serious that way, that is, you discard all organisational, all spiritual achievement, their way, all gurus, all organisations which promise heaven – which means you are willing to stand alone to find out what is the real thing. Right, sirs? Are you like that? I’m sorry to throw it back onto you; otherwise our discussion has no meaning. You follow?
9:38 Q: But don’t you think that perhaps various groups, say, while not professing to know the one truth, could offer like a channel or a means to that truth?
9:50 K: Can they? Examine it, sir. I come along and say, ‘Look, I have found a system which will both benefit the outer world and the inner world; a system by which, if you practise it, you will achieve tremendous energy, tremendous knowledge,’ and so on, so on, so on. Right? Now what will you do with my offer? Experiment with it?
10:28 Q: Test it.
10:31 K: Why?
10:32 Q: Because it’s perhaps what you’ve discovered… (inaudible)
10:36 K: Wait, wait. Why? Go into it, sir, go into it. Step by step, find out. Why do you accept what I say? Because I have a following? Because I am supposed to be well-known? Because there is all this 40, 50 years of build-up? Or do you say, ‘Look, let me examine what you are saying. What are you saying?’ You have to exercise your mind, your brain to find out. And I say, ‘Look, I have experienced and I have found,’ whatever it is I have found and I offer it to you. I say, ‘My God, you may be… your experience may be absolutely nothing.’ Why should you accept my experience? Why should you accept any experience, including yours? You follow, sir? So can we this morning start really critically – you follow? – examining everything, tearing everything to pieces to find out. Do you want to do that? I am afraid not quite – is that it? (Laughs)
12:33 Q: We could start from the fact that we are all made of atoms; but that isn’t the starting point either, but that is starting from a basic building block.
12:52 K: Sir, could we start not with any assumption, saying, ‘I really don’t know?’
13:01 Q: That’s the best place to start.
13:05 K: Isn’t that the best place? I don’t know. Let’s find out. Not about biological, physiological things – you can ask that, if you are a student of biology or a physicist or a scientist, you will find all the explanations of the physical organism and how it came into being and all the rest of that, but if you want to go into psychological depths, not into the outer depths but into the deep psychological depths, you must come to it afresh, mustn’t you? You can’t accept either Jung, Freud or the latest psychologist. You say, ‘I really don’t know; let’s find out.’ I should think that would be fun. No?
14:08 Q: What are you trying to find out?
14:12 K: We’ll see. There may be nothing to find out.
14:14 Q: Well, if there’s nothing, a goal or something to find out…
14:19 K: How do you find a… What do you mean by a goal? Some fixed point?
14:24 Q: Yes, something.
14:26 K: Now who is going to fix that point?
14:28 Q: Your frustrations. The frustrations within.
14:32 K: So why are you frustrated? Inquire, sir. Why are you frustrated? I want a house, a nice big house, and I haven’t got it, so I feel frustrated. I feel frustrated because sexually I am not satisfied. I am frustrated. Right? I want to achieve nirvana or heaven or moksha or Krishna Consciousness, or achieve what Jesus talked about, and I can’t – I feel frustrated. Right? So I say why do I have goals at all? (Laughs) You are not revolutionary at all, all of you.
15:25 Q: Can’t you just be frustrated because you don’t have integrity, too?
15:30 K: Wait. Look, why do we feel frustrated? First let’s just begin with that, shall we? Do you want to? Why? What do you mean by frustration? I want to go in that direction; I am blocked. Right? My desire, my purpose, my intention, says I must go there, and I am blocked and I feel frustrated. But I don’t examine before I set my direction why I want to go in that direction. No? Come on, sirs, I am talking. Why am I set to move in that direction?
16:23 Q: An uneasiness with your present condition?
16:27 K: So I have to say… Now before I can fix a goal I must find out in what direction I want to move. Right? Why do I want a direction? You people… Come on, sirs.
16:45 Q: You have a desire.
16:49 K: In order to be better? In order to be honest?
16:53 Q: Well this desire is motivating us towards this goal. We desire…
16:58 K: Desire for what?
17:00 Q: In order to like yourself more.
17:03 K: Like yourself more. In order to like myself more. Do I dislike myself now?
17:10 Q: Probably if you are frustrated.
17:13 K: Why do I dislike myself? Therefore find out. What is myself, to like or dislike? What is myself? Come on, please. (Laughs)
17:25 Q: That might be it, partly, like not knowing the self so you feel incomplete.
17:34 K: No, sir, what is… Look, sir, what is myself? What is yourself?
17:41 Q: I don’t know.
17:42 K: Therefore why do you dislike yourself? (Laughs)
17:44 Q: Maybe if you knew yourself you would like it. You’d like yourself because… (inaudible)
17:49 K: No, before I like or dislike myself I must first find out what is myself, mustn’t I? Now what is myself?
17:57 Q: I think there’s different layers of the self.
18:01 K: Which means… Don’t let’s go off all over the place. Let’s take that one thing and say: now, what is myself?
18:09 Q: Memories and personal experiences.
18:13 K: Are yourselves the conditioning of a particular culture called the American culture? Are you?
18:22 Q: In part I would say yes, we have to be.
18:28 K: So you are part of a culture…
18:32 Q: Insomuch as we choose to participate in that.
18:37 K: So you begin to find out, don’t you? You say, ‘By Jove, I am a Hindu,’ or an American – the Hindu with all the tradition – you follow? – all the myths, all the superstitions. The Hindus said there is God in me, so I am part of that God. You follow? And the Hindus say there is the Atman, the permanent entity in me, and I accept all that – the myth, the tradition, the superstition, the belief, the cultural structure of a society which has been established for three or five thousand years, with all its myth. I am that. No?
19:35 Q: But there is a part of you that rises… (inaudible)
19:40 K: Wait. First let’s begin with the fact.
19:44 Q: Okay. (Laughs)
19:46 K: Don’t let us go off into heaven before… That is what I am. Like a German says, ‘I am a German’ – nationality, culture, the music, the painting, the climate, the food, the wars. You follow? Or the communists say, ‘I am a communist.’ So you are the product of the environment in which you have lived. Obviously. Both physical, biological and spiritual, religious. Right? You are all that. So what is that? Go into it, sir, a little more, go into it. What is that? Are they words? Images? When I say I am a Hindu, Hindu being a Brahmin, what does that all mean? All these things that have been poured into me. (Laughs)
20:54 Q: It’s what we associate ourselves with it.
21:00 K: Who is we? (Laughs)
21:03 Q: Okay, I associate myself with it.
21:04 K: Who is the I that says, ‘I am part of all that’? Are the two different? So if I am serious I say, ‘Look, I must throw all this out, empty the mind of all this,’ and see what happens. I may be just living in a nebulous state of nothingness because I reject all the Hinduism – you follow? – all the things that have been poured into me for the last centuries, and I say, ‘No, that’s all…’ What have they poured into me, what have they told me? Images? Myths? And I have lived according to that myth, which has given me a certain security, socially. I don’t know if you are following all this. Am I going too fast?
22:12 Q: Doesn’t that kind of separate you, though, if you are taking the I and saying you are going to throw out everything else and then look into yourself? It’s like there is two parts of you and one part is doing the watching. Well, how do you know that the I that’s doing the watching isn’t biased, and how do you know… (inaudible)
22:31 K: We are going to find out. We are going to find out. But first I must realise all that I am is the result of my environmental education, the tradition, all that. Right? Now, how is it possible to empty all that without creating a duality? You understand? I don’t know if you are interested in this.
23:01 Q: But if you empty everything then how can you make any…
23:08 K: I am going to find out whether I can empty it. You follow, sir? I must find out what it is that the mind, the brain, is capable of doing. You understand?
23:25 Q: I wonder, though, if you can really do that and still function in whatever part that you have to play in the society?
23:34 K: I am going to find out. I don’t know whether I should play any part in this society. Why should I? You follow, sir? (Laughs)
23:45 Q: In a sense, but if… (inaudible)
23:47 K: I question everything. Right? You tell me I must play a part in this society. Why should I? In this rotten society? Wars – you follow? – all that’s happened – why should I play a part in it? I can only play a part in it when I am very clear.
24:15 Q: Precisely.
24:16 K: And I can’t be clear if I retain all my Indian conditioning and you retain all your Christian conditioning or whatever it is – communist conditioning. So we are divided.
24:32 Q: But can you take what you have learned from your environment, set it aside for the moment and then absorb things from other environments, and then put them together?
24:49 K: Sir, look, is that possible? I have been educated in India, in Europe, in the various kind of cultures. If you examine all the cultures, they are more or less similar – right? – they have got a myth – you know what a myth is? A story, a tradition, an image of some deity, superhuman, handed down through generation, generation, that becomes reality, and that image holds me in my behaviour – you follow? – shapes my behaviour. I must be a good Christian, or a good Hindu, which means I must behave. You are following all this? That gives to society a stability. Right? In America, for example, you have no tradition. Right? Have you?
26:06 Q: Oh, I think we do.
26:09 Q: Sure.
26:10 K: Ah, wait, wait. Go slowly, go slowly, go slowly. Have you a tradition?
26:13 Q: Yes.
26:14 K: What is it?
26:15 Q: All our holidays, things that we celebrate, all of our…
26:20 K: Which is what? Taken over from Europe.
26:24 Q: (Inaudible)
26:25 K: Which is Judaic – you follow? – you brought it all over and you are trying to conform, and yet you are rebelling against all that.
26:37 Q: We have a political tradition, too.
26:40 K: Wait. So, begin to see what it means. You have a political tradition of democracy and you play tricks with all that. You know what is happening, I don’t have to tell you. So, deeply, a group of people like this country, a marvellous world this is – I won’t go into all that – you are now living in a permissive society – you follow? – different communes, anti-war – you follow? – racial and anti-racial – all that is happening in America, the terrible things that are happening. What does that all indicate? Go on, sir, examine it.
27:40 Q: That people are beginning to question.
27:47 K: Which means what? They are questioning the very traditions – you follow? – the very myths…
27:56 Q: The very authority.
27:59 K: So the thing is breaking up.
28:02 Q: Sir, but if one questions, doesn’t one question with the entity that is conditioned or confused, and how can one see what is real?
28:18 K: Of course. That is what we are going to do, sir, just a minute. We are going to find out. There are several things involved in this, aren’t there? Each one is conditioned according to the environment, culture he lives in. That is obvious. Right? Right? Now, that conditioning separates people. You have your conditioning, I have my conditioning – the Muslim, the Hindu, the Christian, the Jew – you follow? – the Arab. So you see where there is division there must be conflict – right? – whether in myself or outwardly. Right? So, if there is to be no conflict in the world there must be freedom from division in myself. Right? Which means there must be not a spark or a touch of the Hindu in me. Right? Now is that possible? Is it possible for the mind which has been conditioned for five thousand years – you follow? – in a certain culture with all its traditions, with its myths, is it possible for that mind to uncondition itself? Go on, sir, examine it.
30:18 Q: Is it possible?
30:21 K: Is it possible?
30:23 Q: That’s what we are here for.
30:26 K: You are here for that? No, you are here to find out how to… if it is possible.
30:32 Q: It’s possible, at least for me, for only a little while, then I find myself… (inaudible)
30:38 K: We are going into that, sir. First see the importance of having a mind free from its conditioning. Is that first of all possible? Or it must be so heavily conditioned – you follow? – so that it will behave. After all, all conditioning is established in order to bring about a pattern of behaviour. No?
31:12 Q: You mean one conditioned enough so that he never questions. He accepts everything just as it is.
31:16 K: Of course.
31:17 Q: But when you reject conditioning…
31:23 K: I don’t reject it; we are examining it.
31:29 Q: Because if you’re trying to free yourself of it, if you…
31:35 K: Madame, I don’t say you must free yourself from it. All that I am saying is, first see the implications of it. Not what to do or how to do, whether it is possible – first see what happens.
31:51 Q: Sort of like you’d say, ‘I am conditioned. Where am I heading towards? What’s going to happen? What are our choices?’
32:04 K: Yes. I am pointing out, sirs, that in this country there is no deep-rooted conditioning. Right? You understand?
32:15 Q: Specific to America?
32:23 K: I am taking this country. There is no deep, established behaviour pattern. It is permissive. It is linguistically, semantically, searching for a pattern. It is searching for a way of life which will be not anti-social, which will include everything; which will not pollute the earth, the sea; to live a way where you yourself are not polluted. But if you are heavily conditioned, you wouldn’t be doing all this. You’d say, ‘Well, what are you talking about? I am established.’ I don’t know if you follow. Right? So, not being totally established, you are seeking.
33:29 Q: What are you established in? I mean, you say you are established but…
33:38 K: In my tradition. As a Hindu I have been brought up in a tradition that says you must not do this, you must do that, you must behave this way, you must not kill. Whether it’s a good pattern or bad, that’s irrelevant.
33:54 Q: But is it possible to just divest yourself of all of that at once and not pick it up again later on? (Inaudible)
34:11 K: So is that possible, sir, for a mind – just examine it, don’t come to any conclusion yet – is it possible for a mind that has been so long conditioned, both superficially and very deeply, what may be called the unconscious – which I personally don’t like to use that word – very deeply, is it possible for the content of consciousness to examine it and put away all the content? Now to pursue that right through – you follow? – is what I call a serious man. But a man who plays around – you follow? – who says, ‘One year I’ll smoke, I’ll take marijuana, next year LSD, third year I’ll go to Vedanta, fourth year I’ll go to…’ – you follow?
35:24 Q: So what you’re saying is completely examine the culture or environment that you have been put in instead of trying to find another one without finishing… (inaudible)
35:44 K: That’s right, sir, that’s right.
35:48 Q: Examine the danger of being arrested by a concept.
35:51 K: Yes, that’s right – danger of being caught in a concept and living according to a concept, whether the concept is religious, sociological, or a mythical concept – the Greeks had it, the Romans – you follow? – the Christian myth, with their Jesus – you follow? – it’s all a myth. I heard on television when I was in England some time ago, last year it was, the Archbishop of Canterbury – you know what that is – was being interviewed and the interviewer asked him, he said, ‘Sir, what do you say about all the various other religions?’ – Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, you know. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘they have all little truths, part truths, and some of them are right, but we have one thing which nobody has.’ And the interviewer said, ‘What is that, sir?’ He said, ‘Jesus Christ.’ Now, look, just listen to it, listen to it. A man who is old, established, who is the head of a church, to say such an immature thing. You follow?
37:23 Q: And yet did he say that that was the best thing, that none of the others had, or he was just stating a fact?
37:34 K: His religion was unique because he had Jesus Christ.
37:38 Q: And yet the others are unique because they have their Buddha or whatever it is. So it’s irrelevant, it doesn’t make any sense.
37:48 K: Exactly. He is conditioned according to the religious – you follow? – and the Buddha said, ‘Please, ours is the…’ – you know? – the Hindu – it’s all so childish. So, let’s proceed step by step. Can the mind, which is your mind, which is the mind of the world – whether they call it Christian, Hindu, Islam, it is the mind of the world, which is conditioned – whether it’s conditioned religiously or socially, which is, you must compete, you must make a success of your life. Success of your life being a big house, cars – you follow? – success. Or you must become famous. Or you must be totally integrated. I don’t know, these are all concepts, you understand, which have been established, which the mind is conditioned to. Right? Now can my mind, your mind look at all this conditioning? Not say, ‘I must get rid of this, I must get rid of that, or keep this or that’ – look at it. Can you look at it?
39:33 Q: I think we can be aware of it.
39:39 K: All right, be aware of it. Can you be aware?
39:41 Q: Just be aware. You can just chuck it out but you can be aware of it all the time. (Inaudible)
39:49 K: Wait, don’t say ‘all the time’. Just go slowly, we’ll find out. Can you be aware of your conditioning?
39:53 Q: Well you look at your conditioning with a mind that has been conditioned.
40:00 K: We are going to find out. Quite right. Which means what? I am looking with a mind at my conditioning – right? – and that mind is also conditioned. Right? So I am looking at myself with my conditioned mind at the various other conditionings. One part, which is conditioned, looks at the various other parts, which are also conditioned. One part says, ‘I am superior to the other conditioning. I must get rid of these, and I keep my…’ You follow? So that is the problem. Right? The problem is: one part says to the other parts, ‘I am better than all of you. I will discard all of you, or I’ll keep some of you.’ So the one part becomes the dominant part. Right? Are you following? And there begins the conflict. Right? One part says, ‘I am dominant. This is what should be done. I am going to control the other parts.’ I don’t know if you… Don’t you do all this?
41:33 Q: You are talking about something so basic that we don’t even realise that we’re doing it.
41:42 K: I mean, sir, either we talk fundamental, basic things, or superficial things. I prefer talking about the basic things. Otherwise we waste time. So there it is. So the Hindus – listen to this thing – the Hindus with their culture say the part that looks at all the other parts is the higher self, the Atman. So he, the Hindu, says there is the Atman which discards all this, has to fight all these various parts. The Christian puts it in a different way. Right? So that is a fact. One part says to the other part: out. Or keep some. And there is conflict between that one major part, which is will – right? – and the other parts which are feeble, or which are constantly in conflict, so there is a battle between the one part and the rest of it. Isn’t that so? Come on, sir.
42:58 Q: It’s habit.
43:01 K: Wait. Habit. So what shall I do?
43:05 Q: Stop just right where you are. Just stop.
43:10 K: I am stopped. I have looked at it. I see what has happened. One part is in battle with the other parts. I’ve stopped and then I say, ‘All right, what shall I do? Is that the way to live? One part in constant battle with other parts?’ One part may be for five years – you follow? – different from others. It’s this battle. What shall I do? Tell me, sirs.
43:47 Q: Perhaps just accept it.
43:51 K: That means I live conflict.
43:54 Q: Well, accept both facts.
43:56 K: I do. But there is always one factor says this is a better way of living, this is a better formula, this is a better concept, this is a better ideal, a greater myth. So there is always a battle going on. And I die battling. Right? So what shall I do? Is that what… Now, just a minute, look at it. That’s what all the religions have offered. Right? That’s what all the gurus offer. The various societies, various organisations say, ‘You must fight, you must battle. The devil is in you, or God is in you; you must battle, battle, battle.’ Right?
44:56 Q: That’s just on the plane of where you are living… (inaudible)
45:02 K: Not only outwardly – inwardly.
45:04 Q: Then one possible way of overcoming that – except that you’d be stuck in the same position, only it’d be a different culture – would be to be born into another culture and then you…
45:17 K: I am here, sir. (Laughs)
45:28 Q: I know, but this…
45:31 Q: It doesn’t solve it.
45:32 Q: Scratch that.
45:33 Q: You’ve still got the same problem whether I go and learn your religion, having rejected mine. It’s just the same problem.
45:37 K: I am a human being, whether I am a communist, a democrat, a republican, a Hindu, Islam, I am a human being. Those are all labels, but the basic fact is there is this battle going on in me.
45:45 Q: Isn’t it only a battle if you do take your conditioning seriously?
45:52 K: I have taken it dreadfully seriously. I have come to a point when I say there is a battle between the conscious and the unconscious, the better myth compared to the old myth, a better concept, better idea – you follow, sir? – battle. Now is there a different way of looking at all this without this conflict? You follow? I see this pattern repeated in India, whether they are the Brahmins, Buddhists, every type; I see this happening in Europe, whether Catholic, Protestant, Baptist, God knows what, and it is the same problem – you understand, sir? – put in different words, different phrases, different concepts. It is the same problem. Yes, sir?
47:04 Q: Isn’t it more difficult when you are talking about concepts and phrases and sentences because we’re so conditioned to take the meaning of the sentence? Why don’t we take each individual word in a sentence and just discard the meaning of each word individually?
47:22 K: Yes, sir, we can do that. We more or less explained the word conditioning. That is, the mind absorbing, through education, through family tradition, through the mother, father, the temple, the church, books – mind is shaped according to the culture in which it lives. Right? And this culture says fight – outwardly and inwardly. You follow? Seek peace in heaven but fight on earth. Don’t kill your neighbour, but kill him all the same. Right, sir? This is the culture we are brought up in. And I say to myself: is there a way of living without any conflict? I don’t say there is or there is not. You follow, sirs? I want to find out. Now how do you set about it?
49:06 Q: You say you have different parts of you battling this, another part and you have one dominant. The only… (inaudible)
49:18 K: (Laughs) That is, sir, one part dominating the rest.
49:22 Q: Right.
49:23 K: The rest, can they be dominated? One part says, ‘I must think only of Jesus,’ or only of this. But the other parts say, ‘Look…’ (Laughs)
49:40 Q: ‘What about me?’
49:41 Q: Well, you never…
49:42 K: I want money, I want position, I want power, I am greedy. You follow?
49:48 Q: If they were totally dominated they wouldn’t be there.
49:50 K: What do you mean? How can one part dominate the others? They can’t. That’s what they have tried.
49:56 Q: I know, that’s what... It can’t dominate it or they wouldn’t be there. These thoughts keep coming back.
50:01 K: So what do you do?
50:04 Q: Find one where there’s nothing.
50:08 K: Wait, no, find… Sir, go into it, don’t reject it. Examine it.
50:13 Q: It would seem, to get rid of the battle you’d have to get rid of that element in your mind that produces the battle, that element which judges and compares various things.
50:26 K: So you begin to say – watch it – which is: where there is comparison there must be conflict.
50:35 Q: Yes.
50:36 K: No, wait, sir. Wait, wait. It’s very difficult, don’t… Comparison.
50:41 Q: When something is better than something, well that’s a comparison.
50:46 K: Of course it’s comparison. I compare myself with you, who are taller, more intelligent, more bright, and I am in battle. Right? I must be like you; I must be like Jesus, like Krishna, like somebody else. I have short hair, I must have long hair. You follow? So comparison implies imitation. No? And our culture is based on imitation. No? So can I live now without comparing? Go on, sir.
51:37 Q: If you don’t compare the choices of what you have to do then… (inaudible)
51:46 K: No, don’t… You find out. Madame, I see the implications of comparing.
51:53 Q: They create the battle.
51:58 K: Battle, imitation, frustration – right? – because I have a concept, an ideal, and I try to imitate that ideal; I compare myself with those who have achieved that ideal. At least, I think they have achieved. And so through comparison I see there must be competition – spiritual – you follow? (laughs) – through comparison I see there must be imitation, and therefore frustration, therefore a battle, and so on. So can I live a life without comparing myself with anybody?
52:47 Q: Only by destroying the ego, it seems to me.
52:54 K: No, wait, don’t… Find out how to live without comparing.
53:01 Q: Living is comparing.
53:07 K: Living is comparing?
53:09 Q: Yes.
53:10 K: That’s what we are used to.
53:11 Q: Is there any way to live without comparing?
53:15 K: Look, I paint. I am a painter. I paint. But I see somebody else getting all the money, all the praise – you know? – and I say, ‘By Jove, I must be better than him.’ Don’t you know all this? I fight. So can I paint without any comparison?
53:44 Q: No, I don’t think you can. You must have a standard.
53:50 K: A standard. What do you mean by a standard?
53:55 Q: Something to compare with.
53:58 K: Why should I compare? Why should I compare with anybody? Not that I am somebody. Why should I compare?
54:04 Q: Well there is a certain lifestyle that one tries to bring your life in conformity with; that’s a comparison.
54:14 K: No, why do I conform? What is conformity? Let us begin again. What is conformity?
54:20 Q: Well, one tries to conform their life with the will of God. There is a standard.
54:28 Q: Do we know?
54:31 K: Do you conform? You have long hair, some of you. Are you conforming?
54:35 Q: I’m trying to. I’m making a little bit of progress.
54:40 K: No, I want to examine it, sir, from the very beginning. I want to find out if I am conforming. I put on blue jeans in this country, or trousers. In India I don’t. Is that conforming? Yes?
54:58 Q: Only to a certain… (inaudible)
55:00 K: Wait, wait. Go into it! Examine it! Don’t say yes or no.
55:06 Q: But wouldn’t that be more of a respect for that environment?
55:10 K: That’s all.
55:13 Q: Well it takes away conflict too. (Inaudible)
55:17 K: Look, I put on trousers because I don’t want to, you know, go around looking like some odd person. (Laughter) I say, ‘For goodness sake, conform’ – if they put on trousers, I put on trousers. But watch it. Watch it. So, I have never eaten meat in my life, and you all eat meat. Would I conform to that? You smoke, you take drugs, and so on, so on, so on. Would I conform to all that? So I begin to find out where is the line between psychological conformity and ordinary physical. I mean, I must conform to… how I drive. You follow, sir, it’s all… So where psychologically do I conform? Inquire, go into it.
56:29 Q: Well each person’s line of conforming would be different.
56:35 K: You will find out, sir, if there is such a thing as different conformities. Or psychologically, if you conform or don’t, there is no different… To find out, to spend some time to see where conformity begins, and where it is easy, natural, and where it becomes deadly.
57:16 Q: Deadly to what?
57:19 K: Why should I imitate anybody?
57:22 Q: But you’re obviously basing it on some judgment.
57:29 K: I said I don’t know. But why should I imitate my guru?
57:34 Q: Yes, I see that.
57:37 K: Why should I have a hero? Why should I have an ideal? Which are all implications of conformity. But if you say this to a communist society or a dictatorial society, they say, ‘What are you talking about? How can you? If each one – you follow? – doesn’t conform, then you will have no communist society at all.’ So they destroy you. Put you in a madhouse or whatever they do. So, you have to find out in yourself how far or how deep this conformity is. And can the mind stand without conforming? Sir, this is real meditation – you understand? – not all that phoney stuff they talk about.
58:45 Q: But how can you just look at all this?
58:48 K: I am going to show you, sir. Go into it. Unless you do this step by step you won’t be able to go further. You see, conflict wastes energy, obviously. Now how am I, how is my mind, this mind, the mind which is the human mind, whether it is born in India or in Europe or here, how is that mind to live without comparing at all? Go on, sir, inquire, do it.
59:53 Q: People think too much. Maintain your awareness but put an end to thought, put an end to conflict. But stop thinking about conflict.
1:00:12 K: You see, you are saying stop thinking, stop comparing. Who is to stop it?
1:00:20 Q: That creates conflict right there. That’s another conflict, in order to stop thinking.
1:00:29 K: You see, I think she means, sir, if I understand rightly, to be aware. I don’t want to go into that at present because the implications are a great many in that. Look, I see very clearly the implications, the meaning, the significance of what it means to compare. Right? Can I live a life without comparing? Which means never use the word better, never feel that you are improving. (Laughs) You understand?
1:01:17 Q: Which would also mean you’re just satisfied with yourself the way you are.
1:01:22 K: Does it? If you don’t compare, does it mean being satisfied?
1:01:31 Q: Well, either that or you’re not interested in improving yourself.
1:01:36 K: Does it? Please examine it. Have you tried not to compare?
1:01:40 Q: It means you don’t think about it.
1:01:42 Q: Or it equates everything on an equal plane, then. Everything is equal so there is no conflict.
1:01:50 K: No, sir, you are just guessing this. (Laughs)
1:01:54 Q: It seems like when I just look at it I can look at it to a certain depth and then it gets to be too much. I can’t, I react, you know?
1:02:06 K: So, next question is: How do you look? Here I am, I realise I am conditioned as a Hindu or a Christian or a Buddhist or Mohammed and all the rest of the stuff, communist and so on. Now, I realise intellectually, verbally that I am conditioned. Conditioned not only at the superficial level of consciousness but deep down. Now how do I look at it, is very important. Right? How do you look at it? Are you looking at the description which I have given, therefore you are looking at the words, and through the words looking at the thing described? You are following this? You have understood what I said? Not quite. I said you are all conditioned. We are conditioned. I have described what it means to be conditioned. Are you looking at your conditioning through the description which I have given? You see the difference? First you learn the description and then apply the description and thereby watch. Can you look without the description?
1:04:01 Q: It has to be new each time that way, then. It has to be totally new each time you look.
1:04:15 K: Wait, wait. You are jumping to a conclusion – don’t do it. Look, sir, I say, ‘What a lovely mountain that is!’ Are you carried out… Do you feel the beauty of it because of the description or the vitality with which I say, or do you actually see the beauty of it? If you actually see the beauty of it, which is entirely different from my description of it, then you are in contact with it. So… (laughs)
1:05:02 Q: You can become… if you’re looking at yourself and you are getting, you know, deeper into yourself and you’re begin to realise your motives and things like that for doing things, you can look at them and they make you feel like they are eating you alive just to look at them, and it’s hard not to turn away or it’s hard not to react.
1:05:20 K: No, I am asking, sir, how you look at them. Do you look at them as a separate entity? Look, when you look at that mountain, you look at it as sitting here and that is different, there. You understand? There is a division.
1:05:42 Q: Look at yourself looking at the mountain. You’re looking at yourself looking at the mountain, and you are saying to yourself that’s a lovely mountain, as you’re looking at yourself looking at it.
1:05:54 K: So can you look at yourself, can you look at the mountain without the word?
1:06:00 Q: Well you’d like to. That’s the hard part.
1:06:09 K: Yes, sir?
1:06:10 Q: Don’t you have to look at your reaction to the mountain in the same way that you look at the mountain itself?
1:06:18 K: That’s what I am saying, sir. Can you look at something without the reaction of your verbal reaction? You follow? There is first a verbal reaction, then your own reaction to the verbal reaction. Then you say, ‘That’s a lovely mountain,’ or whatever it is. So can you look at that mountain without a word, without the image that you have about the mountain?
1:06:51 Q: Is it not true that the moment you introduce the word you introduce the possibility for comparison?
1:07:00 K: Of course, sir, but we are caught in words. The word America, is a word. Right? But we are caught in words, because the words are a symbol, the symbol being a myth. So can you look at something – at that tree, mountain, at your friend, boy, girl – can you look without the word? It’s very… You know this is… Try it.
1:07:37 Q: I can’t.
1:07:38 K: Because the word is the past, isn’t it? And you look through the eyes, through the words which are the past. So you are never looking. I don’t know if you see this.
1:08:02 Q: Well, how can you think without using words?
1:08:06 K: Wait, wait! No, just try it, sir, what I am saying, first. Look at the mountain without the word.
1:08:16 Q: I get other words. I always get other words, like rocks, trees.
1:08:24 K: That’s just it. That means can you look at that without the movement of thought, which is word? I won’t go into all that.
1:08:37 Q: So that is a brand new mountain, in that instant, not a concept.
1:08:48 K: That’s right, sir. Which means that when you have a concept you are living in the past. Wait, put it round another way. I know you because I’ve met you here. I know your name, your face. When I say I know you, I know you as the past. Right? I have an image of you which is the past. So I am looking at you with the image which I have about you – a concept and so on and so on. So I am not really looking at you at all. And our relationship is based on that. Whether you’re a man, woman, child, husband, wife, boy or girl, you have an image about her and she has an image about you. And the two images are looking at each other. No? And that you call relationship. Now can you look without the image? That means, can you look always anew? You follow? Oh, that becomes too difficult. That’s why we ought to start on something very simple, which is, comparison. Can you live a life without comparing? Do you know what it does to you? You throw off such a burden – you understand, sir? – you have no burden at all. So when you are looking at yourself, comparing, how do you look at yourself without the battle, saying, ‘I mustn’t compare’? You follow? The moment you say, ‘I mustn’t compare,’ you are in battle. But if you really understand the implications of comparison – understand it, not verbally, but really understand, you know? – then you observe it without the image that you mustn’t compare. I don’t know. Are you following this? Probably it’s too difficult.
1:11:57 Q: Can you actually do that?
1:12:00 K: Find out. Find out, sir, find out. Spend some time, ten minutes over this question, whether you can live in this world without comparing. You know what it does to you? You will find out. Because then you are terribly honest. You understand? We are dishonest when we are comparing.
1:12:41 Q: By not comparing do you mean just not comparing yourself to something else or just not even comparing different choices that you have to make about equipment?
1:12:58 K: Of course, I choose this – you follow? – there is different… I choose, I compare one material with another material, one shirt with another shirt. I compare. I say this is a bigger mountain than a hill, bigger river than a little river. But I am talking inwardly, psychologically. To live a life without comparing psychologically. Therefore when you do that you become terribly honest. You follow? And can you bear such honesty?
1:13:51 Q: Comparison is then based on past images.
1:14:02 K: And future images.
1:14:04 Q: So then, comparing things, you have to take the past images of each environment as you come to it.
1:14:18 K: No, sir. Look at it this way, if I may suggest. First of all, what is this urge to compare? Why have we this urge to compare?
1:14:28 Q: To conform, I guess.
1:14:31 K: No, begin, sir, find out. It begins at school, doesn’t it?
1:14:38 Q: I think it’s from the very beginning.
1:14:44 K: The mother says, ‘You’re not so bright as John is,’ in the family. In the school you get it – A gets better marks than B. Right? Teacher says, ‘You’re dumb, he is much better,’ etc. So there it is. It begins with childhood, doesn’t it? And we carry that on right through life. So can you understand the root of comparison? Which is, we feel when we are comparing, struggling, fighting – we are alive. Right? When that comparison doesn’t exist, we feel, ‘My God, what am I?’ (Laughs) You follow? We are used to the habit of comparing. That’s part of our conditioning. So psychologically are there any traces in me which are the result of comparison? I watch. I watch how I talk to you, whether you are Governor of this state or whether you are the – you follow? – I watch. And in myself I know when I am comparing, therefore I become very honest – you follow? – I don’t deceive myself.
1:16:48 Q: So we must eliminate unnecessary comparisons?
1:16:59 K: I said, sir, look, I need… I mean, when you live you have to compare, haven’t you? Better gramophone, cheaper gramophone, better car – you follow? – you have to compare. But we are talking of inward comparison; psychologically how it affects not only the outer comparison but also when there is any comparison inwardly there is imitation, conformity, fear, not being like the others, might lose your job – you follow? – the whole thing is involved. So can you find out how to live without comparison? You know that requires, you know, tremendous awareness. Do you compare when you love?
1:18:16 Q: I think love is… (inaudible)
1:18:17 K: Wait, wait. Find out. Find out, sir. You don’t know. Don’t formulate. But you can compare pleasure, can’t you? No? So you say to yourself, ‘I know I can compare yesterday’s pleasure to tomorrow’s pleasure.’ Right? And is pleasure love? Wait! Don’t say yes or no. Find out. Go into it.
1:19:04 Q: Self-love.
1:19:05 K: Of course, self-love and…
1:19:10 Q: But it’s not the type of love that I think we are talking about.
1:19:33 K: I don’t know what type of love it is. But I mean, love God and love man.
1:19:41 Q: Yes.
1:19:43 K: And all the love which every cinema shows.
1:19:48 Q: That…
1:19:49 K: Wait, wait. Take everything – don’t say one and discard the other. The sexual love, the love of… I love you because you give me money, shelter, you protect me. Sir, don’t… It’s not… You follow? I love you because you have given me pleasure. And I love you. Also in that there is jealousy, fear, anxiety. (Laughs)
1:20:30 Q: Isn’t that… (inaudible) …living in the past and projecting into the future?
1:20:40 K: No, this is what we are doing. This is not projection. This is an actual fact of daily life.
1:20:56 Q: Okay… (inaudible)
1:20:59 K: That is, you see this whole pattern of life which man has led – right? – up to now, and it is based… one of the factors of that is comparison. Now, to see the complications of it, the intricacies of it, the beauty of it, what is implied in all that, and see it not as something out there; in here. Because you are part of all that; you are the world. You can’t stop pollution unless you stop pollution here. (Laughs) And it is a pollution to compare myself with somebody else. Not that I am somebody but why should I compare? With Jesus or with anybody. Because it means when I do I want to be something different from what I am. Now what am I? You follow? I can only find out if I stop comparing. What am I? A lot of words? Identification with the furniture? Go on, sir. With my images, with my formulas, with my experiences? I am all that. Right? Which is the past, and projected into the future. I am all that. So what is that? So that me is just non-existence, except verbally.
1:23:15 Q: And that recognition gives one… that acceptance gives one sort of more or less like a victory, doesn’t it?
1:23:37 K: And one lives in chaos. Being chaotic inwardly we want to create beauty around us. Stop pollution, better politics – you follow? – better Nixons, better all the rest of it. (Pause) Is that enough for this morning? Sir, begin – if I may suggest – begin with something very small. Don’t jump over the mountains; begin, something you can get hold of, begin there; like comparison, begin with that and you will see what it… explore, what you will find. It is nearly one o’clock. It is one o’clock. Yes, sir – we’d better stop, don’t you?
1:25:27 Q: Well just one more question: When you learn, aren’t you comparing with the one who is teaching you?
1:25:35 K: Sir, what is learning?
1:25:37 Q: Well it’s a…
1:25:40 K: No, please, sir, it’s a very complex thing, learning. What is learning? Is learning accumulation of knowledge?
1:25:57 Q: I suppose so.
1:26:04 Q: On superficial levels, it is.
1:26:09 K: At any level. Look, I learn a language. You know, I learn a language. Which is, I have accumulated words, how to put the words together, verbs, you know, all that, and that becomes my knowledge. And I use that knowledge to convey to you in Italian, French, whatever it is, Spanish, whatever it is, English. That’s one kind of learning, isn’t it? No? I learn through experience that fire burns. Right? I learn through smoking that I mustn’t smoke. (Laughs) What? I learn after killing a million people that it is unwise to kill people. So, learning is part of experience, isn’t it? Which is the past. So I have accumulated a lot of knowledge: how to go to the moon; and also I’ve accumulated a lot of knowledge, how to live with people, to deceive people, to put on a mask, you know, play with people, how to exploit them, when not to exploit them, when to be quiet, when not to. You follow? I have learned an awful lot through experience. Which is, learning is a form of accumulation of knowledge as experience. So learning in action is to carry out that action, that knowledge in action. No? Isn’t it? Aren’t you following all this? Now, is there a different kind of learning altogether? Which is, as far as I see, learning is accumulating knowledge and using that knowledge as a means of living, as a means of technological progress, as a means of doing things. So as long as I am acting, thinking, feeling in terms of knowledge I am always living in the past. Because knowledge is the past. Right? Now, is there a learning which is always present? Though I must have knowledge of the past – you follow? – otherwise you can’t go from here to your house. So is there a learning where there is not an accumulation? You follow, sir? Play with it, sir. Enjoy it, you’ll find out. You see, the revolutionaries want to create a world socially differently – physical revolution changing the structure of the present established order. They hope through that way to bring a different kind of man – the French revolution, the communist revolution – you follow? They haven’t done it, because inwardly they are not revolutionary. Outwardly they are revolutionary. I don’t know if you follow. Inwardly they are comparing – you follow? – Marx becomes their God, or some other… It is the same thing only a different form. And yet they want to settle everything. (Laughs) So we’d better stop now.