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OJ74D2 - Meditation, energy and regeneration in consciousness
Ojai, California - 7 April 1974
Public Discussion 2



0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s second public discussion in Ojai, California, 1974.
0:10 Krishnamurti: If I may, I will talk for a little while and then perhaps we can discuss or ask questions and go further into them.
0:32 In this rather chaotic world, it is becoming more and more urgent that there must be some kind of order, the order brought about by intelligence, not the order of the dictators, not the order of the corrupt politicians, not the order of superstitious beliefs of religions, but rather, the order of intelligence.
1:23 And to understand the meaning of that word and to go into that word more fully, the word ‘intelligence’, one has to comprehend, it seems to me, the meaning of consciousness.
1:45 It means to be aware, to be able to reason, not to be guided merely by sentiment, emotionalism, or superstition or belief.
2:03 It means an awareness, a total gathering of energy to observe.
2:17 One cannot observe if one’s thought is not clear, is not objective and capable of its own limitations and its divisive activity.
2:45 That is, thought is actually – when one observes – breaks up, divides and thereby brings about conflict both outwardly and inwardly.
3:07 And what is the place of thought and its relationship to intelligence, and what is its… whether thought can bring about order.
3:29 These are the problems I want to talk over this morning, if you will, which is, what is the relationship of thought, intelligence, mind and consciousness?
3:45 They are all interrelated, obviously. And in this chaotic world, in this really very, very destructive, immoral, violent world, order is necessary, absolute order.
4:15 I mean not relative order depending on personal inclination, but total mathematical order, both outwardly and inwardly.
4:28 And that is only possible if we can understand the relationship of these things – intelligence, mind, thought and consciousness.
4:43 As we said, thought is divisive – dividing, breaking up, and bringing about conflict – as one observes in the division of nationalities, division of religions, divisions of political activity, business, and so on.
5:10 And also within oneself, thought has created this dualistic, conflicting activity – the ‘me’ and the ‘not me’, the conflicting desires, the drives of various appetites.
5:37 And when one observes, most of our culture is based on thought, and what is its relationship to intelligence.
5:53 And what is intelligence? The word in itself, according to the dictionary, means to be able to discern, to be able to observe intelligently in the sense without personal prejudices, self-centred activity, and not driven in any particular direction.
6:46 And also it means to be able to read between the lines – intelegere.
6:55 So that is intelligence – the capacity to observe without projecting one’s own personal idiosyncrasy, tendency, beliefs, personal desires, to be able to observe clearly.
7:23 And that observation brings about its own action, the action of intelligence.
7:34 And what is the relationship of thought, mind and intelligence?
7:43 What is the mind? Please, because one has to go into all this, as it becomes so urgently necessary for human beings to change, radically, for human beings who have created this society, the culture in which we live, which has become so corrupt, so violent and utterly meaningless.
8:21 To bring about a change in that, it is obviously necessary for each individual to bring about this radical, revolutionary, psychological change.
8:38 And to bring that change one must understand this whole structure of consciousness, in which is involved thought, knowledge and the action of thought and the action of our own self-interest.
9:08 And therefore one has to go into this question of what is consciousness.
9:15 Please, this is rather a serious gathering, not given to entertainment, not given to any kind of speculative debate or theoretical, intellectual amusement, but rather, actually be concerned with this consciousness – that is, our human consciousness in which we are all involved, with all the conflicts, the miseries, the suffering, the pain, the violence, the brutality, and so on – with which we are all concerned.
10:07 And to bring about a change in that consciousness, of which we are, one has to understand it.
10:22 One must give, if you are at all serious – what is involved in bringing about the change in consciousness?
10:43 That is, there is not only individual, personal consciousness, but also the communal, the national, the rational, the consciousness of human beings – not only the individual but also the collective.
11:06 Are we different from the collective, from the mass, from the average American, or European, or Indian?
11:29 Are you different basically from your neighbour, whether he is next door or a thousand miles away?
11:46 You have your problems, pain, suffering, violence, security, personal interest, self-centred activities, and it is the same with your neighbour, miles away or near.
12:04 And in individual consciousness there are idiosyncrasies and peculiarities which are the response, if you can observe it closely, response of our conditioning.
12:23 You will translate your conditioning in one way, and another in another, but that conditioning is more or less the same.
12:34 That conditioning comes about through religious activities and propaganda and belief and superstitions and fears, and through education – through everlasting propaganda.
12:55 That is, the whole of consciousness, in which is involved the mind, thought, and whether intelligence is outside this consciousness.
13:23 I hope we are sharing this thing together, not merely verbally, in which words are necessary to communicate, but sharing together the content of what is being said.
13:45 One can only share if you are interested in what is being put forward.
13:53 You can only share if the thing that is being said is worthwhile, if it has any meaning.
14:09 You can only share something if you are hungry.
14:19 And so this sharing demands not only affection, care, but great deal of attention.
14:28 And to bring about this change in one’s consciousness, meditation becomes extraordinarily important.
14:53 You know, they have imported this word, unfortunately, into this country – the yogis, the swamis, the Tom, Dick, and Harrys, and professors, and they have brought this word from the East, especially from India and from Japan – Zen.
15:36 Meditation has lost its meaning, except in the dictionary, which means to consider, to ponder over, to delve into, to fathom out the significance of living, and so on.
15:58 But unfortunately it has become, not only in India, and those people who practise Zen, a form of tradition, a form of repetition, practice, a routine, daily routine – and tradition in matters of the spirit has no place at all.
16:41 For tradition means handing down what past generations or ancient people have discovered, something or other – they pass it down through their disciples and so on – and tradition destroys.
17:08 Tradition also means the continuance of knowledge – knowledge being technical knowledge, scientific knowledge, and so on – there you must have a tradition which is a continuity handed down – but also tradition means betrayal, to betray, betray the present.
17:52 And those who practise meditation according to a particular system are following a tradition – sitting in a certain position, with your hands out – you know all those things are going on in this country – they are just repetitive nonsense.
18:19 Perhaps it may be better than crawling from pub to pub, but it has no meaning.
18:28 [Laughter] You may sit like that for ten thousand years, breathing rightly, holding yourself erect, sitting in a certain posture, repeating certain words, all that, you may sit like that for ten thousand years and it has no meaning, because meditation is something entirely different.
18:58 And to bring about this change in consciousness, which is what we are talking about, not only is it necessary for each human being, but also it does radically affect the human consciousness.
19:27 Because after all, consciousness implies not only the actual conscious activity of daily, of every day, but also unconscious activity, which is in consciousness, the active consciousness, and the unconscious activity.
19:55 In the whole of that consciousness, unless there is basic radical change, not to something that we know already, which is not a change at all, but a total comprehension of it.
20:17 And that is only possible through real meditation.
20:29 And therefore one must understand in meditation what is the place of thought.
20:40 Not the controlling of thought, which is what all the traditional people say, including the Zen – control of thought, subjugating thought, and the everlasting battle between the controller and the controlled.
21:06 Thought has divided itself into the controller and the controlled, but it is still thought.
21:20 And what place has knowledge – knowledge not only that one has acquired from books, the accumulation of various scientific facts, and the knowledge of technology and so on – what place has knowledge, which is the product of thought as experience, as knowledge, in meditation.
22:06 Has it any place at all? Or knowledge is important in function.
22:20 I hope you are all following all this.
22:27 Without knowledge you cannot go to your house.
22:37 Without knowledge you cannot speak any language or communicate verbally.
22:44 Without knowledge you cannot function – cannot write, read, ride a bicycle or drive a car, or what you will, which is the activity in the field of the known, which is always the function of thought.
23:12 Right? And what place has thought in meditation?
23:26 You see, this has been a problem with all the people who have started out to find out if there is a reality which is not based on thought, or the product of thought.
23:50 So they said control thought, don’t let it wander all over the place as it does, chattering everlastingly, but control it.
24:04 And you can only control through the action of will. Will implies direction, and where there is a direction set by thought there must be time.
24:28 I wonder if you understand all this. So what place has thought, time and direction in meditation?
24:42 Because, if you observe, our civilization is based on thought, time and direction.
24:56 And direction implies the will in a particular… towards a particular goal, towards a particular purpose.
25:09 Please bear in mind, if you will, that we are talking about the transformation or the regeneration of the human consciousness, your consciousness, which is the neighbour’s, which is the consciousness of all human beings.
25:39 And in that consciousness, culture, civilization has brought about violence, brutality, personal selfish activity, desire to be completely secure, and so on.
26:00 And unless we human beings fundamentally change you cannot possibly bring about a different society, a different morality, a different culture, and therefore it becomes extraordinarily important – the question of meditation, in which alone the transformation or the regeneration of human consciousness can take place.
26:37 Thought is never free. Thought is never new, because thought is the response of the known, which is the past.
26:57 And as long as thought is functioning within the field of the known, there is no freedom.
27:09 Logically see this, which is, if you go into it with reason, you will see that thought can never bring about the quality of freedom which is necessary for regeneration, because thought is old, because thought is the response of memory.
27:47 Memory is based on past experience, past knowledge, therefore thought can never be free.
27:55 It can imagine freedom, it can imagine that it is free when it chooses, but thought intrinsically, in itself, is incapable of freedom.
28:15 We’ll have time to discuss this.
28:28 And so, since all our culture, all our activity, both self-centred and the social activity is based on thought, and a change can only be brought about when we understand the place of thought.
28:57 Thought can only function within the field of the known. It can project the antithesis and think it will bring about a synthesis, but it is still within the field of the known.
29:17 So, in meditation, the understanding of thought, its limitation, its factual place, becomes tremendously urgent.
29:43 And we live in a world of so-called progress.
29:58 We have never questioned towards what, we always say ‘progressing’.
30:05 The word ‘progress’ used to mean at one time, ‘entering the enemy’s country fully armed.’ You understand the meaning of that word?
30:24 Entering the enemy’s country fully armed used to be the meaning of the word ‘progress’.
30:34 And probably that is what we are doing, that is, advancing towards what? – for better cars, better physical comforts, and so on, at certain limits – but if we don’t understand the meaning and the significance of the word ‘progress’, we are going to destroy ourselves.
31:06 Which is what is happening.
31:15 And progress implies a direction, doesn’t it?
31:22 Direction towards what? Towards a better society – better in the sense of what has not been but will be, which means better relationship between human beings, because that is the essence of progress, whether human beings, who have brought about this extraordinary confusion in this world, misery in their relationship, if they do not understand that relationship between each other, inevitably that relationship will bring about chaos.
32:19 Is progress towards a better relationship?
32:28 I hope you are following all this. Or is progress only in the technological sense? Is there a progress in relationship when there is love?
32:51 And when there is no love, the better relationship means something which has been projected by thought.
33:02 I hope you are following. And is thought love?
33:11 Is thought… can thought cultivate love, or does it come about naturally and inevitably when we understand the meaning of relationship?
33:35 The meaning, not invented by thought but actually observing what relationship is now and transforming that relationship.
33:54 And all that is part of our meditation, which means, if there is no order in our relationship – order can only come about through affection, care, love, not the order invented by thought – then meditation becomes important.
34:29 And meditation also implies a mind that is completely quiet – not made quiet, which is artificial – that is what you are all trying to do, making the mind quiet by drilling it, by controlling it, by practising some idiocy.
34:56 That is not quiet mind. It is like a soldier drilled day after day, day after day to stand still – of course he does, poor devil, he can’t help it.
35:12 So a mind in meditation is to have a real, total, complete silent mind.
35:27 And to understand that silence, one has to investigate what is consciousness. You are following? Consciousness is its content.
35:43 Whatever consciousness contains, makes up consciousness.
35:52 If you are violent, if you are greedy, if you are attached, if you are identified with your family, house, furniture, money, name, all that is part of your consciousness.
36:10 And to bring about, for that consciousness to be completely quiet, you have to understand its content – your daily activity, your daily attachments, your daily pursuits, the criminal activities, the brutalities, the crookedness, the hypocrisy, say one thing do another, all that – to empty all that.
36:50 And it is out of that emptying comes this extraordinary quality of intelligence.
37:01 And if you proceed much further, then in that silence there is no experiencing at all, because you cannot experience silence.
37:18 If you experience silence it is not silence, it is the invention of the desire to be silent.
37:31 And in that quality of silence comes a different energy, a thing that thought has never been able to put together, something timeless.
37:50 Now, all that is part of meditation.
37:58 And meditation gives that energy to bring about regeneration in consciousness. Right, now, you accept what I wanted to say, or you can ask questions.
38:13 Yes, sir. Sir, please don’t take too long – brief. Questioner: Only two minutes, please.
38:24 K: No, sir, not two minutes – a question is a question, not a discourse.
38:33 Q: I want to contribute something. Last Sunday you said thought creates the thinker. And if thought creates the thinker then thought, the image comes always first, then the thinker comes second.
38:45 But if thought creates the thinker, we can also see that there is no such thing as the image maker.
38:53 It is also said that the thinker gives out an image which he likes and he clings to it and he brings himself up on it.
39:02 K: Sir, what are you saying, sir? Please, don’t… What you are trying to say, sir?
39:14 Q: The image maker is misconcept in a word.
39:23 There is no image maker because thought makes the image. The image makes the image maker – there is no image maker.
39:28 K: I don’t quite understand. Sir, what are you saying?
39:30 Q: Only that we are really nothing, because if you go further…
39:36 K: The gentleman says we are nothing. Right? Right?
39:39 Q: Well, thought is impermanent and it can only create something impermanent, so the permanency of the thinker is an illusion, and we are nothing, psychologically.
39:43 K: We are nothing.
39:44 Q: [Inaudible] K: Right, sir. Yes. Please sit down. I understand. We are nothing, we are only a series of words, ideas, and so on.
39:59 We are nothing. Now, is that so, is that an actual fact or merely a description?
40:08 Q: Psychologically.
40:10 K: Yes, psychologically. A description – are you nothing?
40:14 Q: I am energy.
40:17 K: Oh, sir, that is just an idea. You are ambitious, greedy – not you personally, you may be something else – violent, reactionary, self-centred – and we say, doing all that, we pretend that we are nothing.
40:45 Sir, what becomes… what is necessary is to face facts.
41:03 What is the fact? The fact, the word ‘fact’ means to do, or having done, or what is being done.
41:20 To observe that is factual. Now, what is actually taking place in us, not speculatively, theoretically or idealistically, but actually?
41:38 Are we nothing? Or just say, ‘I am only energy.’ When your energy is attacked, you get violent.
41:55 When your belief is questioned, you begin to get angry, hateful.
42:04 So, what is important, it seems to me, is to face facts – actually what we are in our daily life.
42:22 What we are is fairly obvious – fundamentally we want, we pursue pleasure at any price, whether the pleasure of seeking God, as you call it, or the sexual pleasure, or the pleasure of power, position, and therefore fear – you know, multiple forms.
42:56 That is what we actually are. Out of that, we conceive beliefs, God, saviours, masters, all that.
43:12 Therefore what becomes important is not what we like to be, but what we are, and to face it.
43:30 Face it in the sense be that, find out what is involved in it. Look, sir, human beings, unfortunately, have become extraordinarily violent.
43:52 They are incapable of facing that fact. They will give a thousand explanations for being violent – which we need not go into because it’s fairly obvious, those reasons.
44:11 But the fact is that we are violent.
44:19 And instead of going into it, resolving it, we escape through explanations of why we are violent, why it is necessary we should be violent, and escape into a non-factual idea of non-violence.
44:46 So can the mind look at this violence, remain with it, not escape?
45:01 And therefore when you remain with something you then look at it, care for it, give attention to it, then you can go beyond it.
45:10 Yes, sir.
45:11 Q: Two parts to the question: one is the state of my confusion in my relationships, if there is really is a need for love and support, and the difference between that and my fear of loneliness.
45:32 K: I will come to that question, sir, I will answer. Would you mind? Each one is concerned with his own question, with his own problem, therefore he won’t listen to the other question or the other problem.
45:51 Right? We are discussing, sir, look, violence. Wait a minute, sir. Please, sir. Would you please listen to the first question, which that gentleman raised. He said we are nothing, we are only an image which thought has created, but behind that thought we are nothing.
46:24 And I said, is that it so? If we are nothing, we wouldn’t hurt each other, we will be extraordinarily peaceful people, we wouldn’t destroy nature, there would be no wars, we would bring our children, educate them totally differently.
46:56 But the fact… the idea that we are nothing is just an idea, it has no reality.
47:05 So, what is reality is what is actually going on in our life daily, and to face it.
47:18 And therefore in observing what we are daily, to observe it without the observer who is the past, who dictates what you should see, and so on, that becomes an enormously complex problem.
47:39 And we are not willing to give our time to find out – we rather escape into some ideas.
47:46 Right. That question, sir, please…
47:49 Q: Yes, sir. Sorry. OK, my question, I want to say two things: the first part, I feel some confusion in realising the difference between if there is actual need, a need in relationship for love, for support, and I feel some confusion between the difference between that, or if there is a difference, between that and my fear of being alone.
48:25 K: Ah, I understand. I have got your question. There is the fear of being alone, being lonely.
48:35 The fear of being lonely and the need for affection, for love.
48:46 That is the question. That is the question for most people, sir, it is not only your question. It is the question for all human beings. Which is, the fear of being lonely. Please, this is important to go into this, so let us give attention.
49:07 Do sit down, sir, you will get your chance. Do sit down, sir.
49:15 Q: [Inaudible] …something new.
49:20 K: Sir, I am answering this gentleman’s question.
49:28 Q: I’ll wait.
49:31 K: We have a problem, which is the fear of loneliness, and the craving the need, the hunger for love.
49:56 What is loneliness?
50:04 Is it not having companionships, not being able to communicate with others?
50:19 Is it a sense of complete isolation? Please, inquire with me.
50:32 When you say I feel terribly lonely, and in that involve this great sadness, suffering, the sense of isolation – what does it mean?
50:55 How does it come about?
51:02 Is it the product of our daily activity?
51:16 The daily activity being self-centred – please follow this, sirs – I am ambitious, greedy, seeking power, position, asserting, aggressive, violent – which are all the expressions of self-centred action.
51:49 Expression of the ‘me’ opposed to you.
51:56 That activity builds around me a resistance.
52:04 That resistance creates isolation – I am much more important than you.
52:19 And that constant concern with myself, my desires, my fulfilments, my looks, my this, that – this occupation with myself everlastingly brings about this isolation.
52:43 I suddenly realise it one day, this feeling of loneliness. I may live with my family, ride in a crowded bus or among friends, and suddenly there is a realisation, there is an astonishing sense of loneliness, which has been very carefully, consciously or unconsciously, cultivated, and I am afraid of it.
53:15 And being afraid of it, I run away from it. Run away through dependence, depending on somebody, man, woman, depending on something, depending on a belief, depending on possessions, depending on sex, depending on the things I have acquired.
53:48 So, where there is an escape from the actual fact that there is this sense of great loneliness with its pain, mere escape is not an answer – whether you escape through meditation, through going to churches, drink – none of that has any meaning.
54:17 But this loneliness disappears completely, I assure you, totally it disappears when you understand that as long as there is self-centred activity, the ‘me’ first, there must be loneliness, and the fear of that and the sadness of it.
54:57 That is the description, but the description is not the described which is the fact.
55:04 So, can one live in this world, in this world of chaos, suffering, stupidity, can one live without being so enormously self-concerned, concerned about oneself.
55:31 And if one is not concerned about oneself then one does social work – you follow? – that becomes the other concern, or following some ugly guru, or occupied with some meditation – you know how we escape.
55:53 So to be aware of all this, to be aware with care, with attention, with affection, then you will see it for yourself that loneliness is a state of an uncivilised man.
56:22 The next question is the demand, the need for affection, and the need for love.
56:37 Why do you need love?
56:46 And what do you mean by love? Go on, sirs, what do you mean by love?
57:00 Is it pleasure?
57:07 Is it something that you get through reward or punishment?
57:19 You say, ‘I need love’ – what do you mean by that?
57:28 Why should you need it? Would you say, ‘I need it,’ if you had love? [Church bell] You understand? When you say, ‘I need love,’ in that is implied…
57:50 Shall we let the church bell ring?
57:58 Let’s wait till it is over.
58:29 [Long pause] [Church bell] We are always complaining about…
59:25 [Church bell] [Laughter] [Long pause] Q: We get the full treatment today!
59:53 K: It is a lovely morning. [Long pause] All right, we’ll go on.
1:00:32 We are always complaining about not having love, from others or in oneself.
1:00:48 I wonder why. And what does it mean to love? What does it mean, that word, the meaning of that word, which has been so corrupt, made corrupt, so spoiled, so trodden down.
1:01:08 What does that word mean? Love, sexual love, in which is involved pleasure, sensation, sensuality, the images, the desire of the senses for tomorrow – all that is called also, in the present culture, love – which is sensuous pleasure.
1:01:54 And there is the love of God, which means the love of what?
1:02:04 God which you have projected yourself. God hasn’t made you into his image, but you have made God in your image.
1:02:16 Right? And you love that God, which is yourself, because it is your projection.
1:02:28 And your projection therefore is different from the projection of another, and therefore you are willing to fight him, kill him, destroy him.
1:02:41 The religions have done this. And there is the love of one’s country, for which you are willing to kill people.
1:02:55 Love of the country being your bank account, your securities, your pleasures, your undisturbed idiotic bourgeois life that you are leading.
1:03:08 You don’t want that to be disturbed, and for that you are willing to kill all the world.
1:03:20 And that you call love of country. And the love of power, position.
1:03:30 And there is the love of poetry, love of the beauty, love of a mountain that is clear of an evening against the setting sun.
1:03:44 When we talk about love what do we mean by that word?
1:03:54 Mostly and unfortunately it’s a love of pleasure, love of desire.
1:04:04 And when that pleasure and desire is not fulfilled then there is violence, hatred and enmity.
1:04:15 And we need love because in ourselves we are so empty.
1:04:29 In ourselves we have nothing and we hope by having that love we’ll be enriched.
1:04:43 So, has love anything to do with self-interest, or is love something which is not contaminated by thought, by jealousy, by all the experiences that one has had?
1:05:16 Do think about it, sirs, go into it, give your time to find out when you say, ‘I need love.’ Why should you need love?
1:05:25 Who are you to get love? You follow? Find out, give your time, care, attention to this question, because perhaps that is the one factor that may bring about a revolution, psychological revolution in life – to really know what it means to love – not to forgive.
1:05:58 And how can love exist when we are attached to something, or to a person?
1:06:06 Where there is dependency, there is fear. And can dependency indicate love?
1:06:19 Or does it indicate one’s own insufficiency, emptiness, shallowness, and so on.
1:06:35 And this concern for love is another form of self-centred activity.
1:06:46 To see all this, sir, just see it, as you would see on a map the various roads and lanes and towns, just see this and it will tell you a lot of things.
1:07:05 And then in the very listening to what is being told, what you see, perhaps that beauty may come into being.
1:07:19 Yes, sir?
1:07:21 Q: Sir, not in any way trying to make less of any of the things that you’ve said, and not in any way meaning that what you say is bad, and in that respect I would say that the solution of thought, the understanding that you bring is in itself not new, and it was given long ago, and that if you intend to give a change of consciousness, progress, that obviously this way has failed, and that for something new to occur this statement must also be new.
1:08:11 Now, the view of what is wrong has always been the same, looking down in the bourgeoisie position, which has its obvious limitation…
1:08:26 K: Sir, sir, make the question...
1:08:30 Q: I want to say, there is a way to widen the statement, and that is to have another view, another statement of what really is this bourgeoisie thing, besides this limitation…
1:08:44 K: Sir, I understand.
1:08:47 Q: Thought is not to be perceived only as something that creates images, but it can be seen as something which has a positive value which has not yet been discovered.
1:09:01 And this is before…
1:09:02 K: I have understood your question, sir. Please sit down, sir.
1:09:11 The gentleman says, what you are saying is not new, it has been said ten times before, and what is necessary is something new to take place, and all the politeness round it.
1:09:38 Sir, you see that leaf of that oak, and probably you have seen it a hundred times before, and you have passed it by.
1:09:53 But that leaf is new, if you have the eyes to see it. But we are too careless, too indifferent, because we are so accustomed to words, to everyday speech, and therefore gradually we don’t hear at all.
1:10:16 And when we do hear, we say yes that is very old stuff, I have heard that ten times before.
1:10:25 A thing of beauty is not old or new.
1:10:34 And if you have the ears and the eyes to see it then you will never talk about something new.
1:10:43 What is the matter with us is our eyes are dull, our ears are plugged up by our own opinions, judgments, and values and words.
1:10:57 Q: For twenty-five hundred years, sir, this has been known, and yet humanity goes on with this...
1:11:04 K: Sir, just a minute, sir. For twenty-five hundred years – it has been known for much longer than that, long before Christianity came into being.
1:11:15 Q: [Inaudible] ...without taking away the beauty that is there, granting the beauty, granting the power, there is another statement that has not been made yet in humanity.
1:11:27 Humanity’s not…
1:11:28 K: Sir, I understand what you are saying, sir. It is all very simple.
1:11:31 Q: Humanity is not used to looking kindly on the ugly. That has not been discussed, examined, to a way which can be presented to those who have never looked at something like that. We keep getting the other beautiful message, which we all still have to learn, but this is what I meant last week by real synthesis.
1:11:52 Real synthesis is a simultaneity of consciousness which has to…
1:11:59 K: Sir, please, I understand. Why do you limit it all to two thousand five hundred?
1:12:05 Q: It’s all right, maybe two million.
1:12:07 K: Oh, no, no, no, it’s your mind. You limit it because you think only the religion, the recent two thousand five hundred or two thousand years…
1:12:19 Q: [Inaudible] K: They have talked about this, sir, many thousands of years before Christianity came into being.
1:12:30 They said, listen, look at the world, don’t be selfish, love your neighbour.
1:12:44 You know, some time ago, there was conference of all the religions.
1:12:52 And one of the Christian bishops got up and said, ‘Before Jesus, we never knew what love was.’ And there was a Buddhist there and he said, ‘Sir, I am afraid you are very much mistaken.
1:13:16 There was a time when the Buddha spoke and said hatred ceases not by hatred but by love.’ And before that there were others, so don’t limit it to your particular conditioning, but observe the whole thing, this phenomenon of lack of love.
1:13:45 And that is what… Look at it, sir, it is not that it’s something new or old, it is a matter of drinking at the fountain, fresh waters of that fountain everyday.
1:14:01 Q: No, sir, there is one…
1:14:02 K: No, sir, please let me finish. I know what you are going to… it’s all…
1:14:07 Q: Now you must be giving expansion in its own right, and without getting stuck in it. And if you keep on going away from it – and I said twenty-five hundred years because I respect the [inaudible] of these people…
1:14:43 [Slow clapping] Q: Why don’t you give a speech next Sunday?
1:14:45 Q: Could you stand up near the mic because I’d like to hear you talk.
1:14:46 Q: I said twenty-five hundred years because I have a respect for the… [inaudible]. It’s all right, but it only makes my argument larger. I am saying that this will not do, that we have to give the mind a certain ability that we have not given it.
1:14:52 K: Sir, wait, sir. On the contrary, what I am talking about is to give you new ability to look.
1:15:03 You said you need a new ability – quite right, you need it.
1:15:10 Therefore have it. Here it is – somebody says look. Yes, sir?
1:15:16 Q: I wondered what the role of education has in consciousness, in this whole movement of consciousness.
1:15:30 K: What is the place of education.
1:15:37 May I put the question differently? Why are we all being educated – for what? To become engineers? To become scientists, businessmen, go to the moon, make the science of war more perfect so it can kill more people?
1:16:08 What are we being educated for? To be more violent? So what does it mean to be educated? What does it mean to be civilised? What does it mean to be related to each other?
1:16:34 You have got… probably in America everybody knows how to read and write. And then what? To conform to the pattern that exists? That’s what they are doing in China, Russia and in this country, to conform the mind, to make the mind conform to the existing pattern.
1:17:06 Is that education? Just to comply, just to be… continue in the old ambitious, violent ways, or is education something totally different?
1:17:29 To bring a child who is very disturbed – I wonder if you have noticed in the present age, all throughout the world, how children are disturbed, how troubled they are, how many neurotic children there are, and therefore neurotic parents?
1:17:56 So when you consider all this, the immorality of the society, the wars, the violence, the division of various careers and the quarrels and the economic warfare, and all that – what are we educated for, why are we being educated?
1:18:31 Is it not the cultivation of a mind that is capable of dealing with all these problems intelligently?
1:18:41 The word ‘intelligence’ we went into – I am not going to describe it now, again.
1:18:49 So that we are not animals but human beings, so that we abolish all wars, not to destroy nature, not pollute the earth, and so on, so on, so on.
1:19:11 So apparently, that is not what education is bringing about. Right, sir.
1:19:16 Q: Sir? You talk about being aware, to the extent that when one watches his every movement, sitting on a bus, walking, talking, the entire day, and just constantly observing without condemning this or justifying it.
1:19:38 May I ask you who is the observer that is watching this?
1:19:45 K: Who is the observer that is watching the movement of thought, the movement of various activities that we indulge in every day – who is the observer?
1:20:01 Now just a minute. Who is the observer when you look at that tree?
1:20:07 Q: I am.
1:20:10 K: What do you mean ‘I am’?
1:20:19 The ‘I’ who looks at that – not the physical ‘I’, not only the physical ‘I’, the visual perceptual – but when you look at that tree, do you look at it with all the prejudices, knowledge, the ‘me’ who is looking, or do you look at it without the ‘me’?
1:20:43 You understand my question, sir?
1:20:47 Q: Yes.
1:20:48 K: Then when you look at that tree without the ‘me’, with my problems, with my prejudices, with my – all the things that I have battle with or live with – when I look at that tree without the ‘me’, what takes place?
1:21:04 Q: There is just the tree.
1:21:09 K: Not only there is just the tree – you see things much clearer – right?
1:21:16 – much nearer, much more the shape of the leaf, the shape of the branch, the movement – it becomes extraordinarily alive.
1:21:26 Now, can I look at my wife, my friend, in the same way without the ‘me’?
1:21:33 Or do I say, ‘Yes, I know my wife,’ and that is the end of it?
1:21:43 So to observe without the ‘me’ – that means the observer is the observed.
1:21:53 Not the observer when he observes the tree becomes the tree, but to observe without the eyes of the past, without prejudice, without any direction, just to observe.
1:22:13 Sir, look, when you look at a map, when you know you want to go to a certain town or a village or a hamlet, it is very simple – there is the road, you know how many miles, and so on – but to look at the map without direction you have to look at the whole thing, haven’t you?
1:22:38 So to look without direction, then you see enormously.
1:22:47 Right, sirs.