Krishnamurti - Observation is partial when you identify with a group

Krishnamurti Subtitles

OJ77DT4 - Observation is partial when you identify with a group
Ojai, California - 27 March 1977
Discussion with Teachers 4

0:34	Krishnamurti: What shall we talk about?
0:44	Questioner: Let's continue what we were discussing. Continue with what was going on yesterday?
0:49	Q: Yes.
0:54	Q: Could we specifically talk about what transformation means?
0:59	K: Not now...
1:01	Q: Within the framework of education.
1:04	K: Let's talk about education. That is a very complex problem. What were we talking about yesterday?
1:18	Q: We were talking about leisure.
1:20	K: Leisure, learning. Leisure, as we said, be free from the mind being occupied with some problem, some thought, something or other. If I was a parent and you are all the educators, what is my attitude or responsibility to the school, to the parents, and to the children? Shall we go into that a little bit? May I? Would it be worthwhile?
2:24	Q: Sure, yes.
2:27	K: If I am a parent, how do I regard other parents in the school? What is my relationship to the teachers and to the other parents? Can we go into this question? Mark Lee, do you think it is worth it, this question? What do you all say?
3:14	Q: Yes.
3:31	K: I have a certain responsibility as a parent to earn a livelihood, to have a job, and I go off five days of the week, and I have Saturday and Sunday fairly free, and I come to help you, to work with you and so on. Is there any relationship between me and you, or is it all very, very superficial? Am I really concerned, not only with my children but with other people's children? Am I really concerned what the teachers are teaching, how they teach? And can I help the teachers, or work with the teachers along a different line altogether? That is, what is teaching and what is learning? May we go into this? Teaching implies I have gathered some information as an educator, in mathematics or whatever it is, and I try to inform the student with my knowledge, with my mathematical knowledge. How do I do it, as a teacher, and the student who is going to learn? How do I convey mathematics or history to the student in a different kind of mode of teaching? I wonder if I am conveying something. Am I, sir? That is, I am a teacher of history – let's take that – or mathematics. How do I teach history in a totally different way? Does this interest you? How do I teach mathematics or history? Let's take these two. How do I teach them? I know history because I have taken that as my subject – college, university, I have got a degree, if I have a degree – and I want to teach the student history in a global way, not the American history alone. I would teach him American history but the greater significance of history is the evolution of man. Could we go into it? Fritz Wilhelm: And also that the evolution is not something which has happened outside of him but which is still going on and also is inside.
8:20	K: I will go into that. I am a historian. I want to teach the students history. From what point of view do I teach history? As an American or an Englishman, a German or a Russian, how do I teach history? History in the sense, what is happening to man during the ten thousand years, how man or woman – please excuse me if I use 'man', I also include women, don't let's fight over the ad lib. So, how has man grown or has not grown? What does history mean? What does history mean, sir? That is, the study of man really, at a different level, isn't it? Would I teach him or help him to understand history from an American point of view? Though he must know American history or English history or French and so on, but would I teach him from that narrow, limited point of view, or would I take the history of mankind, man, whether he is in India, Japan, Russia, Europe or America, or Australia or whatever, Japan – let's include all. And if I wanted to teach him, help him to understand historically the story of man – history means the story of man – how do I set about it? You understand my problem? I want to teach in a totally different way, not just tell him the dates of kings and wars, and all the rest of the blah blah, all that stuff. So how would I set about teaching or helping to learn the history of man, the story of man? I think in Italian 'storia' means history. You understand my problems? How do I approach it? He must know, learn, about American history, but also history of man. How do I set about it?
11:47	Q: Sir, do you want to just talk now or can we?
11:50	K: Go ahead, sir.
11:53	Q: You said yesterday you didn't know the answer to these problems and that we are working on them together. Taking history, when one comes with the children, one may want to teach history that day or have an idea, but the first thing is that you have to see what the children want to do. You may show up wanting to teach history but that may not be what the children want at that time.
12:25	K: What do the children want, basically? To have a good time, to enjoy themselves, to run about, you know.
12:36	Q: No, I don't think that is right. I mean, let's go into this. You come to the children. Now, the first thing in teaching history is that situations may arise where there is a strong desire on some of the children to know history, from the circumstances of that day. And then I think that is the proper time to teach history.
13:03	K: Are you saying that children must choose their own subject?
13:13	Q: Yes.
13:15	K: Are you really? Q: Yes, sure.
13:19	K: Like saying children must eat what they like. Q: No.
13:25	K: Why not?
13:27	Q: No, but I think it is very serious and you are saying it is a dialogue...
13:33	K: Sir, I am not preventing having a dialogue. Let's have a good dialogue. On the contrary. You are saying, let the children choose their own subjects when they like. Yes, when they like, and so on.
13:55	Q: You say, I want to do some mathematics and history, some physical exercise, and you have the whole day, – going back to this incident, a child may be concerned about what they ate and the effect it is having on them, and it is that time they are very interested in knowing about blood and nutrition. Or they hold up their hand to a flashlight and they see the blood, and other children see the blood, and if that day you wanted to talk about anatomy that is the natural... What I am saying is that at some point during the week some of the children have a strong desire for history. That is one point. Second, if you are teaching history from a global view, which is what you are saying, I don't know history from a global view and most of us have learned it in a specific way, so maybe there are a few very great historians who know it from a global view, but they are probably not at the school, so if they want to learn it from a global view, the teacher is not going to know it from that view, so you have to start learning it together, that way.
14:59	K: Sir, I haven't quite finished it, the global view. I'd like to go into it because I am examining, we are investigating how to teach, not only American history – not when to teach, not at a particular period or in the morning, in the afternoon or when it is suitable and so on, but we are trying to find out – history has been taught, so far, according to the English, according to the Russians, French, Italian, American, as though they were separate human beings. I thought, if I had to teach history, I wouldn't approach it that way at all. Naturally, they must know American history if I was in America, or in Russia or in England. But perhaps there may be a different way of not only teaching American history but the history of man, the whole of mankind. Right? We are talking – not when to teach.
16:34	Q: Yes, I agree with that. Don't teach the history from a specific viewpoint of a specific country.
16:40	K: Yes, very narrow, limited point of view. So how do I set about it? You understand? I want to include the history of man, which means man: Indian man, European man, Chinese – man. How do I set about it? Because I am bored with teaching history as an American man and saying, well, learn about it. Or European – it is so trivial. So how do I go about teaching, not only a particular evolution of a group? And I want to include the whole world in it because then it becomes much more exciting. Right? David Moody: We have done this in the school. As a first step we have studied the origin of the planet itself, the development of life on the planet, and the development of man, first of all as a biological creature, evolving. Getting then to what seemed to us the first critical question, which was: what change took place which marked the beginning of man? What is it that happened in pre-history or early history that marked the emergence of man? What are the essential characteristics of man? Is it tool making, is it language, is it thought, is it culture?
18:45	K: You are not meeting my point. Or I am not meeting your point. Mark Lee: I think what we were trying to do is to introduce the children with an overview of the genesis of man, and to present the thing as a whole, and work into it in that way rather than from the segments.
19:08	K: I understand that. How do you relate the student to the whole of history? You follow what I am saying? Not how man has grown from apes, etc., but what is his relationship, the student's relationship to the whole of mankind, which is history? You understand? FW: Well, how can I convey to the student that he is the result of history and he has basically the same movement in himself, and he can observe in himself the same movement which he can observe in history?
19:59	K: Sir, we are talking of mankind, aren't we? Mankind is that child. FW: That is right.
20:05	K: Mankind is you and me. As a teacher of history I want that student to be the representative of all of mankind. Right? ML: So you are saying that rather than presuming, say, an anthropological progression, K: Which we have done, etc. ML: which may be part of it at some point. But rather that the focus of the study of mankind is the child. Is the child, yes. So it comes out of him.
20:47	K: What do you say to that? DM: Yes, I see that.
20:51	Q: I didn't understand that.
20:54	DM: Well, it is precisely as Mark said, that the focus of the study becomes neither the superficial facts of kings and wars, nor even some of the more important facts of genesis, but the focus of the study of history is the child, because he is the product of history and the development of history.
21:13	Q: I understand the words there, I understand the idea. Is it to point out the temporary insecurity of nationalism and wars?
21:19	K: No. Q: Then I didn't understand that at all.
21:22	DM: The study of history is the study of man. Q: Okay.
21:25	DM: The child is man. K: Yes, that is right, the child is the man. FW: Right. But you see, just as an example, two children are fighting over some toys. You tell them – you see, you are fighting over this toy. Why are you fighting over it? This is exactly how a war comes to be. And you can show them that this is just in the whole and he is the little one doing just the same thing.
21:58	K: Understood? That is, history, we say, is mankind. Mankind is that child. Right? So in understanding mankind you must understand yourself. Right? Not 'Okay.'
22:35	Q: No, the question still remains.
22:39	K: I am just palpitating into it, touching it. That is, if I study myself as a human being I have the whole of the history of man in me. Anthropologically, as he pointed out, I might learn about it, but in essence, in studying myself I am studying man, the whole of mankind, because I am that human being. Right? DM: Yes.
23:31	K: So how am I, knowing that, feeling that, seeing the truth of that to help the child to understand himself? You understand the problem? Now how do we set about it? If we agree to this – not 'agree' – if we see that the child or the 'me' or I is the history of mankind, psychologically. Anthropologically we can see how man has come – etc. That I have to study, that I must know. But as history is of man, of mankind, and I am that man, and the child is that man, how am I as an educator to help him to understand himself who is the total summation of mankind? You have got it, sir? Right? Now, how shall I set about it? ML: That study also will include psychology, sociology...
25:10	K: Everything will come into it, let's begin slowly. I realise the truth that in the study of man, which is me, and the child, I learn the whole history of man – not the historical dates and wars, etc., but the whole psychological structure of man. Right? DM: Yes.
25:48	K: Now, how will you help the child to learn this, to study himself? Not me opposed to the rest. Not me as an individual apart from the rest. Because I am mankind. I don't know if you see...
26:13	DM: Yes, I do.
26:17	K: Right? Now, how shall I help him to study himself, not as Joe or Bill, but as the representative of man? I don't have to labour that point. Now, how shall I start it? Does this interest you?
26:53	Q: I have a suggestion. K: How?
26:56	Q: If one is starting from the point of view of history, one can start with monarchy, that is, kingship, or one can start with anything in the realm of the understanding of history, and then what will come of it would be to say, or to understand that it might not have been that way but it is an invention. Kingship is an invention, and that within one there is kingship, there is subservience, there is domination or domineering...
27:23	K: No, don't come back, don't go into detail, let's grasp the principle of it first. That is, in studying myself I am studying mankind. I am not studying me. Q: Yes.
27:44	K: I wonder if you see that.
27:48	Q: The whole is present everywhere. K: No, just listen to it first. My name is J.K., I am not studying J.K. I am studying myself who is mankind. The whole thing is changed. I can do it because I am older, I can be aware, I know how to do that, study myself. Not according to Lloyd – not Frank Lloyd but who is the other? Freud and Adler or Jung or one of the latest, Spiller, or whatever it is – I am not going to study them and then apply what they say to me but I am going to study myself, who is Freud. I wonder if you get this point. Now, I want to help that child to understand this, who is in essence the history. Right? Now what shall I do? How shall I set about it? To study himself as mankind and not as – what is your boy's name, Bill?
29:40	Q: Yes. K: Bill. How shall I set about it? If you see the truth of this, the fact of this, how shall I set about it? I think this becomes extraordinary, doesn't it? I don't know if you see this.
30:07	Q: How about asking them how to set about it?
30:09	K: Poor chaps, they wouldn't know. They wouldn't know. They are too young.
30:14	Q: Maybe when you see him being Napoleon or Julius Caesar you could say, 'Oh, you are Napoleon then, tell me what Napoleon is, show me what it is you are doing.'
30:24	K: Sir, I have got thirty students in front of me. I have talked to them about history this way and they say to me, all right, I see your point. I think it is a very good point. It eliminates the egocentric activity, etc. He doesn't see all that, but he says, it is a very good point. How do you help me to study myself? That is the problem. I have got thirty boys and girls in front of me – what shall I do?
31:04	Q: Isn't the whole of history just trying to get that security?
31:11	K: No, not security – I want to help him to understand, study himself, to look at himself, to learn about himself.
31:32	Q: Can he learn if I already know the answer? Mustn't it also be a real question?
31:38	K: This is a real question to him.
31:41	Q: Yes, but if I know the answer, then he can't learn. If I know the answer... K: Please, no, I want to teach him or help him to study himself. That's all. Now what shall I do?
32:05	Q: Mustn't I also ask me?
32:07	K: No, I am the teacher, please, with thirty students in front of me. I am teaching history. Anthropologically I have gone through that, how man – etc. – and I have come to the point where I say, look, you are the mankind. Not an American or an Englishman, that is just a label. You are mankind. In studying yourself you will understand the whole movement of man. They say, yes, I see that. They ask me, help me to study myself, nothing else. That is the first question he asks me.
33:09	Q: So let's go further and talk about study. What does it mean that he studies himself in the middle of my studying myself?
33:18	K: So, you are saying, are you, what do you mean by study? Just stick to it, go slowly. What do you mean by study myself? I have learnt to study about myself by reading a book.
33:40	Q: That is what I learn when I begin to study.
33:42	K: Wait, see it. I know how to study myself because somebody has pointed out to me how to do it – Freud, Jung, all the rest of the gang. So I say that is their interpretation, that is their conditioning, their prejudices, which is you also. So if you study yourself, you go beyond Freud and all the rest of them. I wonder if you get it. So how shall I, one of the boys asks, help me to study myself. And he says, what do you mean by study? I know how to study a book, learn, look at the pages, swot it up, memorise and hold it. I know how, I have learnt that. But here you are saying something entirely different. Study myself – what does it mean?
35:00	Q: Can I study myself at all? I question myself, is there a way in which my powerful brain can go through activities in which I can study myself?
35:11	K: Why not, sir?
35:13	Q: I already have done looking at Freud and I learned nothing.
35:17	K: No, will you give me two minutes, sir? I want to find out what it means to study first, which means learn, learn about myself. Right? Learn about yourself. What does it mean to learn? ML: To observe is the first step, perhaps.
35:47	K: What does it mean to learn? Learn.
35:55	Q: Just be open to the principles of things. As when you said a moment ago, let us get the principle before we go into the details.
36:06	K: Sir, please. I tell the student, the boy or the girl, I say, learn about yourself. He says, what do you mean by learn about myself? Wait – he asks that.
36:26	Q: Does he ask it of me as well? Am I the teacher? K: No, I am the teacher. There are thirty boys in front of me. One of the boys says to me, what do you mean, learn about myself? And he says, the word 'learn', what does it mean? I have learned about Napoleon, his wars, etc. Are you telling me to learn about myself in the same way?
37:09	Q: You say no. K: Listen, sir.
37:14	K: Are you asking me to learn the same way as I learn about Napoleon? Which is, learn from a book or from a teacher. As there are no books, no teachers how am I to learn about myself? I am used to that kind of learning. Here there is no book. Right? How am I to learn? I don't know if you see the point of this. You understand? Wait, I haven't finished. What do you mean by learning? I have learned from books before. Now, there are no books about me. About me, the boy says, there are no books, because you have said, Freud, Jung, the latest...
38:40	Q: R. D. Laing. K: Yes, latest psychologist, you say they are all included in you. Right? So how am I to learn. I don't know if you see this. Don't you ask this question as a boy? I am asking as a boy. And I say, as you know that kind of learning, which means memorising, storing up what you have learnt in memory, in the brain, and then use it skilfully or not skilfully, here you are going to learn about yourself, who is the mankind, who is the rest of the human struggle, happiness, pain, anxiety, all that. You are all that. And you are going to learn about yourself. He says, sorry, I don't understand.
40:01	Q: I will tell my daughter – learn about yourself. But don't carry everything that you see, don't carry it with you all time, be always new. Every time you are learning something else. Don't carry this old view of yourself.
40:14	K: No, please, would you listen to what I am saying, not what you think? You are familiar with your own thoughts, with your own experience, with your own study and so on, but you are listening to another man, so put aside what you have learnt and find out what the poor chap is saying. Right? So, I am going to help him to understand the meaning of learning. What it means to learn, apart from storing up from memory.
41:05	K: Right? Q: Right.
41:09	K: Are you with us? Q: Yeah.
41:12	K: Not 'yeah' – are you? So I am going to help him to learn. Learn what? You understand? Learn what? Go on, discuss this.
41:47	Q: But the kind of learning that you are now talking about as compared with the learning about dates or personages is the learning of no thing in particular, and that is the first difference.
41:58	K: No, I know what learning is.
42:04	Q: Yes, memorising. Right.
42:10	K: But here you are learning about – what?
42:17	Q: Yourself. K: Yourself, who is the mankind.
42:23	Q: About which there are no books. K: Wait. Mankind. So are you going to apply what you have learnt from books to yourself and say, yes, I am going to study about myself through a book, or do you come to me and say, books will not reveal the study of myself, so I put aside all books, all authority? No, see the importance. I put aside all books, all authority, so I am free – to do what?
43:15	Q: Observe.
43:18	K: Now, I say, free to observe. Observe what? Q: Yourself. Q: Mankind.
43:25	K: Please, don't be quick.
43:31	Q: Okay. K: No, don't answer. Please don't answer. Please, I beg of you, this is tremendously complicated. Observe what?
43:48	Q: What is there to observe? Q: Mankind.
43:52	K: No, sir. He says observe – right? What do you mean by observe? We take for granted the meaning. Observe – what does it mean? What am I to observe? Go on, tell me.
44:26	Q: As we said, it does not mean to go out and get it from books. It does not mean to use my eye and ear and go...
44:35	K: Why not?
44:38	Q: Because I am not talking about seeing yet...
44:42	K: I observe. We are trying to understand what the meaning of that word is. What does it mean to observe?
44:52	Q: To watch? K: No, please, don't use another word. What does it mean to observe – the word?
45:05	Q: To see without the eye.
45:08	Q: To see 'what is', what actually is.
45:10	K: I see with the eyes – the trees...
45:13	Q: No, I said without the eye, without that study...
45:16	K: No, please just listen. I observe. I observe all this around me: the snow on the mountains, the trees, the shadow, the depth of light – I observe all the beauty of nature.
45:40	Q: That is what you call observing. K: Wait. I observe.
45:48	Q: You are looking at one thing.
45:51	K: I am observing the whole of nature. Which is the mountains, the trees, the hills, the orange orchards, the lack of water – I observe outwardly. So do I observe outwardly, each thing clearly or it is all a mass, a mixture? You understand? We say to the boy, observe, and he says, what do you mean by that word, to observe? It means to look, to see. Do you see all the nature around you? Do you see, observe what is happening in Europe, what man is doing to himself?
46:54	Q: Do you actually see it? K: Do you actually see it when you walk down the street, do you see what is happening?
47:07	Q: No, when I am looking with an eye which is disturbed with all the noise around me, I am not seeing. I may be looking.
47:17	K: No, we are trying to understand – please, forgive me – to understand the meaning of that word, to 'observe'. Not only observe outwardly but also observe inwardly. It implies both. Right? Do I observe outwardly the movement of that branch in the wind? No, do you observe it? Or do you say, 'Yes...' – you are already off? Or do you observe everything? Or is it all a slur? You understand my question? If I know how to observe every little thing around there, around me, then I know how to study myself. Because I have paid attention to that movement of that tree, of that branch in the wind, watched it very carefully, I have learned to watch, which is, watch myself, watch my thoughts, my behaviour. No? Now, proceed from there. So I tell him, observe. When you look out of the window while I am talking, what you see, look at it in complete detail. Don't say, I must listen to you, and get contradiction but when you look out of the window while I am talking, look. You understand? See the curve of that roof, see how the nails are driven in – you follow? Learn to observe, then learn to observe yourself. So he says, right. Now, what is myself? You say I am the history of mankind. I am the whole history, the whole essence of man, which is so – how am I to study this enormous movement of myself? You understand? That is your problem, now discuss it with me.
50:23	Q: So can I look at myself like I am looking out the window and see not that there are trees there, not that there are flowers there, but can I see the entire thing as I can see that? Can I turn inward, or while I am looking and already seeing out there, have I already turned inward?
50:44	K: So, I can't actually see what is behind me because my eyes can only go that far – I can't actually see behind me. Right? No, this is very important, just listen to it. So I can only see what is happening up to that point in that half a circle, outwardly. And I am asking myself: can I see the whole of myself, or do I only see part of myself? Physically, I can't see what is going on behind me. Right? Does that same principle apply to the study of myself? Or can I look at myself completely? You understand? I wonder if you are getting what I am saying. Are you? Haven't you done all this? I see. What do you say now? You understand now?
52:27	DM: I understand the question. K: No. You understand the question – have you gone beyond it, penetrated the question?
52:36	DM: No.
52:41	K: Why not? You are my student, you are Bill, and I say to you, learn about yourself. And you say, what do you mean by learn about myself. Right? Is that learning the same as learning from a book? And I say, no, it is not like that. Up to that point, clear.
53:11	K: Right? DM: Yes.
53:13	K: Then what do you mean by learning? If that is not according to a book, then what do you mean by learning? Learning about what? Right? Clear up to that point.
53:27	DM: Quite.
53:30	K: Learning about yourself. About yourself there is no book, so you can't learn about yourself the way you have learned about books. Right? DM: Yes.
53:52	K: Therefore there is a new way of learning. What is that new way?
54:05	DM: Observing.
54:06	K: So you say: observe. Observe what?
54:14	DM: Outside first.
54:17	K: Outside first. Because I see that car, I see that hill, the wave of that roof and the door opening and you all – I observe. And that is only a partial observation.
54:31	DM: Because I can't see behind me.
54:34	K: Some people can – I have tried that – that is a different matter. No, don't laugh, it is quite a different thing, not an amusing thing. So are you applying the same kind of observing, partially, to yourself? Because you are studying yourself. Is it a partial observation all the time or is it a total perception? You ask me. You are not asking me those questions. You understand up to that point?
55:27	DM: Quite. K: Clear? DM: Clear. K: Bien. And you say to me, I am used to that kind of partial learning, because as I can't see behind my back, in the same way I can't see the whole of myself. Because my brain is trained to observe parts.
56:04	DM: Even within the field that I can see outside, even within that visual field, I observe partially.
56:10	K: Always a part. I am doing the same thing this way, because my brain has been educated that way. Right? So this boy, Bill asks me, how can I see the whole of myself when I have been for centuries upon centuries conditioned to look partially? You understand?
56:51	K: Are you so far with us? Q: Yes. K: Right.
56:56	K: So you say to Bill, that is a reality, you have gone so far. Can you break through this conditioning of observing the little parts, separate, fragmentary? Are you following all this? Does this interest you? I don't know. Now, can you break through? If you cannot break through, observing parts, then you are studying history according to America, etc.
57:49	K: You follow? Q: Yes.
57:51	K: Which means you are so conditioned by American history, because you have identified yourself with this country called America, and in that identification you feel secure, therefore you are conditioned to observe only partially. Right? And I say, as long as you are so conditioned you never see the whole field of life. So he says to me, how am I to break that? Right? DM: Right.
58:46	Q: Outwardly, when I look at the outer, when I am looking at you I can only focus on you, I can't see... K: Oh yes you can.
58:59	K: I am looking at him, I can see these people.
59:02	Q: But not clearly.
59:04	K: Therefore it is partial – we have said that.
59:08	Q: But is it possible for me to see you and see David Moody clearly?
59:13	K: No, physically it may not be possible. This is obvious. Right? Let's move.
59:25	Q: So it is this conditioning. What do I do with my conditioning? I think that was the point...
59:30	K: That is all – I have come to that point with Bill. I said, Bill, look what you have done. You have travelled a long distance. First, you have never looked at history from this point. Now you are looking at it as though you were the whole of history. And you are going to study that history, which is yourself. Which means learn about yourself. Which means observe yourself. But as you physically cannot see the whole of the horizon, you only see part of the horizon. Because you are conditioned that way you are also conditioned to look at yourself as an American, Russian, Chinese, whatever it is. So you are conditioned. And can you break that conditioning? He says, in studying myself I have come to that point. That is fairly simple. Now, he says, can I break that conditioning? Right? What is your answer? I must take a rest, I have been at this. Go on, what is your answer? Sorry.
1:01:10	Q: There were two questions: breaking the conditioning about being an American and viewing history from that view, I can see how that can be broken. But this total observation of yourself...
1:01:22	K: No, sir. No, you haven't listened. Forgive me. My brain is conditioned from childhood to identify myself with a particular group of people. American group, Russian group or Chinese group or Indian, and so on – conditioned. Because it is so conditioned I can't see the whole.
1:02:01	Q: You are asking how to break through.
1:02:03	K: Do you see the fact of that, first? Q: Yes.
1:02:09	K: If you see the fact then you naturally ask – naturally ask – how do I see the whole, if I am always conditioned that way? The next question is: can you break down that conditioning, can you wash away that conditioning, dissolve it?
1:02:32	Q: Yes. But then this other issue that came up, where you said: how do you totally observe yourself?
1:02:40	K: I am coming to that, I am coming to that.
1:02:42	Q: Yes, I see how one can dissolve the conditioning of identifying with a particular nation in history.
1:02:48	K: Yes. Q: That I understand.
1:02:50	K: Now, have you done it? I ask Bill, have you really done this? Or you just say, yes, let's get on with it. Have you really learnt up to this point? Bill says, yes, I have learnt it, I am no longer a Czech, a Bulgarian – nothing. I see that, outwardly. But I have this conditioning. So can I break through, can I dissolve this conditioning? It is fairly easy to say, well, I am no longer an American – that is fairly simple. But the identifying process with a group, with a person, that is the principle that makes it partial.
1:03:55	DM: You're saying the identification of oneself with a group.
1:03:57	K: With a group, with an idea, with a church, with a Catholic, with a Protestant...
1:04:02	DM: This is the groundwork for fragmentary perception.
1:04:07	K: That is right. Because you are seeking safety, you are seeking security in Catholicism, in Protestantism, in a group, in an idea, in a country, in a nation. Right?
1:04:29	DM: Yes, and in that belief that I am one with that group...
1:04:36	K: Not 'belief' – you do. Because you are seeking security. Therefore you identify. In doing that, you act fragmentarily, you think fragmentarily, you live fragmentarily. Right? DM: Yes.
1:05:12	K: I won't move till you see it rightly, because there is no point in my going on.
1:05:16	Q: Is it that when one makes himself something by a group he puts that behind him, so to speak, outside of his field?
1:05:23	K: No, look, when I identify myself with a group called Indians, Hindus, that gives me great security.
1:05:35	Q: But I don't see the connection there, between that security of it and thereafter not being able to see wholly.
1:05:42	K: I am showing you, sir. As I cannot see the whole of the horizon, in the same way I cannot see the whole of myself because my brain has been conditioned through centuries upon centuries to belong to something – Hindu, Brahmin, American and so on. This conditioning, can it be broken through, can you go beyond this conditioning? It is only possible when you see for yourself – you are learning, Bill – when you learn that you cannot see the whole because you have identified yourself with a group, with a particular church – Catholic, Protestant, whatever. Right? And you identify yourself because it gives you security. Sir, it is an obvious fact. When you go Italy, go to a communist country, if you are not a communist, life becomes difficult. So you are forced to identify. Right? You identify because you want to be secure, both physically, earning a job, and also psychologically, it gives you safety, you feel safe. So as long as you are identifying with a group which gives you satisfaction, which gives you security, you will always see partially. That is simple, logical. DM: Yes, it is.
1:08:02	K: Right? And I say, Bill, do you see it, not agree with words, do you actually see what you are doing? He says, no, I like the flag, because that helps me. If I say I am not an American, with a lot of boys, they'll kick me. So I am frightened. Right? Don't you know all this, for God's sake? So I will go into that. So Bill is becoming as intelligent as I. You follow? I want Bill to be supremely intelligent, capable of arguing, reason, logic, and seeing the truth of this, from which follows logic. We will come to that a little later. So I say to Bill: Bill, are you quite sure that you do not want to identify yourself with a group? And for the first time he realises how scared he is if he is not identified. And that is part of history. So I say, Bill, you have travelled a long distance to come to a very simple fact – that fear. Right? DM: Yes.
1:10:08	K: That is the history of mankind. So Bill says to me, how am I to get over this fear? I want to play with all the boys who call themselves Americans, who stand up and wave flags and all the rest of it, and I see what you are saying is right, but that is too enticing. That is, I can't, I am too feeble. I want to play with them. If I say that is all rot, they will kick me. So what am I to do? Yes, sir! So Bill says that to me. Which means he hasn't got the energy, the vitality, the strength to say, all right, I don't mind. Right? Standing alone. You can't ask that of a student, can you? Little boys that come – poor chap, he wants to play with the others. So what do you do? How do you help him to see that the truth of perception is much stronger. Which means in that there is no fear. In the other there is fear. You understand? Q: Yes.
1:12:08	K: How do you help him to do that? Go on, that is your job.
1:12:19	Q: I have come to the point with him, with Bill, that here we are, conditioned. You have this fear. You identify with it. And what I would say, not only to him but together with him,
1:12:34	is: look, this identification, what does this really mean, that you identify with this? Is it a separate thing which identifies?
1:12:46	K: Identify, because that is much stronger, more pleasurable. Sir, as I have told you, if I am not a communist and I talk against communism in Russia, I am kicked out, I become a terrible entity, put in prison, all the rest of it. You know all about it. So I say, yes, right, I am a communist. And you are asking that boy or that girl to stand alone? You follow?
1:13:23	Q: Well I am not asking him to stand alone but I am asking him to look at this thing.
1:13:28	K: Yes, he has looked at it. He says, I want to play with those boys. I can't play by myself.
1:13:40	Q: Isn't the critical point that by going with the group you will have fear? Here is what is being said: by going with the group, the one that goes with the group will have fear.
1:13:56	K: No fear. Q: No, by going with the group.
1:13:59	K: Of course you have no fear.
1:14:00	Q: Please let me say. By going with the group, by identifying, though it immediately is easier or whatever, it looks easier, but the point is that you have fear stemming from that activity. Whereby not identifying you don't have fear. That is what is being said.
1:14:20	K: No, sir. That is not what is being said. Sorry you agree – it is not what is being said. As long as you are identified with the group there is no fear.
1:14:35	Q: No, you identify because you...
1:14:37	K: No, you are missing the whole point!
1:14:40	Q: Okay.
1:14:42	K: Gee willikins, I have to start it all over again.
1:14:51	Q: Be clear.
1:14:54	K: We will make it perfectly clear, because I want you to understand this.
1:15:00	Q: Sure. And I want to understand it.
1:15:02	K: Because you are studying yourself. You are Bill. And I want Bill to be a different human being. So I am talking – you are the Bill. So I say: Bill, you can't see. Your brain has been conditioned to see partially, as an American. I am not against American, or rather I am not against America, the country, the beauty of the country, but the people, well, that is another matter. I say, Bill, as you cannot see the whole horizon, so your brain is conditioned to always see parts, fragments. You are conditioned to see fragments because – listen carefully – because in that small group you feel safe.
1:16:19	Q: Okay.
1:16:21	K: Feeling safe, there is no fear. If I say, well, I am an American, there is no fear. There are other kind of fears. Just a minute – there are other kind of fears.
1:16:35	Q: But, that statement's puzzling – temporarily there is no fear?
1:16:40	K: Look sir, when I, living in Czechoslovakia or Hungary or whatever it is, or in Russia, if I don't join the whole group, I am terrified.
1:16:54	Q: Okay.
1:16:56	K: But if I say, I am also like you, I feel safe, though inwardly I may be quivering. You follow? That is a different matter. I feel safe, physically at least. So when you identify yourself with a group you feel safe and therefore in that there is no fear. Fear arises only when you step out of that group. This is simple – no?
1:17:29	Q: No, sir. Because you are talking about this inward...
1:17:37	K: No, I am not talking of inward.
1:17:39	Q: Well, we've got two fears. If you identify with a group, you feel safe.
1:17:44	K: That is a fact.
1:17:49	Q: Identify with a group. Well, let's be careful about the facts. If you run around and identify with groups it temporarily feels better. 'Safe' is too strong a word.
1:18:00	K: All right. Feel better, feel more assured.
1:18:03	Q: Right. You won't be kicked at that minute.
1:18:07	K: It is only when you step out of it you feel uncomfortable, you feel insecure – which is fear and so on. Right. Asha Lee: Is it that you identify with a group because of fear?
1:18:23	K: No, please, I don't want to go into all that. I have explained it. I am tired. You are going round and round and I want to go on. And Bill, who is 10 or 9, 5, he says, all right, I have understood this so far but I want to go and play with those boys. Which means what? I identify myself with those boys. But you are telling me: when you identify with a group your whole observation is partial. But yet I want to go and play with them. You don't see this. Poor boys, no wonder you have got... If you don't see it, how in the name of heavens are you going to make those boys, your children, see this?
1:19:40	Q: I am not, until I see it.
1:19:52	K: You understand this?
1:19:54	DM: I understand what you are saying, but I also understand why he is puzzled.
1:19:58	K: I am not dumb either. But I am asking you something else: do you see this?
1:20:05	DM: I see the point that you are making.
1:20:06	K: Then how do you help that boy, Bill, who says, I must... You understand my question? Q: Yes.
1:20:19	K: What will you do with him? How do you deal with this problem. When he wants to go out and play with the other boys, go to the drugstore, ice cream, drink, drugs, later on – you follow? The whole movement of identifying with a group, follow the flag, imitate the Jones's next door, the whole movement. Which is this, the beginning of this. Right? DM: Yes.
1:20:56	K: Now, how will you help that boy who is 9, 10, whatever it is, who says, I want to do all that and yet I see your point? You understand? And you don't want him to have a conflict. Moment he has conflict you have lost him. Because a conflict will make him go there, rather than this. I wonder if you understand. Move, sir.
1:21:34	Q: The only thing I can do is not to say, or to say to myself: I do not know what to do in that case.
1:21:44	K: You have got Bill in front of you.
1:21:45	Q: Yes, and I will act. But I won't say, go there and do it. I have done with him together, his attention was there up to that point.
1:21:56	K: No, what will you do with Bill who says, I want to go and play with those boys, go with them for ice cream?
1:22:06	Q: Give him the strength to stand alone.
1:22:09	K: How do you help that boy of 10 to stand alone?
1:22:12	Q: Forgiveness. K: What are you all talking about?
1:22:15	Q: Isn't that what the school is about? You create a school, you create that environment so that that child...
1:22:23	K: What? That means you put barbed wire around here?
1:22:27	Q: No, I am talking about the school.
1:22:30	K: You are not answering my question! As a parent, as an educator, you have got a boy who has understood this.
1:22:40	Q: It seems like you can't leave it at fear.
1:22:43	K: I give up. Q: No, don't give up.
1:22:50	K: Because you don't see this thing yourself. No, please, not you – I am talking of all of you. Don't say, I'm not afraid. I am saying something, please listen. You have got this boy, 10, or girl, who wants to do what the others do.
1:23:18	Q: How do you do it?
1:23:20	K: Don't ask me, first put yourself in that position of that boy, feel for him.
1:23:35	Q: So you can't let him play with the others – that is out of the question.
1:23:40	K: Then do you isolate him? What a terrible thing to do. Well, you see the problem? You are going to have this problem. You have it. ML: We have it.
1:24:05	K: So what are you going to do?
1:24:11	Q: We have gone this far with him, understanding with him...
1:24:21	K: Sir, you are Bill. No, wait. You are Bill, and don't you want to do what the others are doing?
1:24:34	Q: Maybe I do. Maybe I want to go out and play with the others.
1:24:38	K: Don't you want...
1:24:40	Q: Sorry, I didn't understand the question.
1:24:41	K: Don't you want to do many of the things other people are doing? Drinking, all that is happening around you? Not all of it, partially. Of course. So what are you to do with that boy?
1:25:06	Q: That is what I was about to say.
1:25:07	K: What?
1:25:09	Q: In that place, in that circumstance I would do nothing, but with the understanding of that situation which evolved to what it evolved to, that is, the boy's understanding of what we have been talking about, I would let – what we talked about several days ago – love and intelligence on my part, take the action.
1:25:36	K: No, sir, you are missing the point. You have got these boys and girls. You meet them Monday morning. Tomorrow morning they are all going to meet here. And you have explained all this to them very, very carefully, over a period of time. And they come to the point when they say: I see your point very clearly, but I want to go out there. He is broken up, wanting to do what you want to, what should be done, and also play with the others, go on with the others. Don't you know this?
1:26:20	Q: What about giving the groups that they see it as the total?
1:26:23	K: How can I convince all the group?
1:26:25	Q: But I mean, the school. This is a school now. Bill is one of a class of six others, or twenty others, you say thirty. What about the feeling of that the whole group meeting...
1:26:38	K: There are 100 out there. Oh, you don't see the point.
1:26:48	Q: Must we be able to stand alone? Must we meet that point? No, must we? Must we as the teachers?
1:26:56	K: What do you do? You are Bill, grown-up Bill.
1:26:59	Q: I feel that way, as a matter of fact. The description of Bill is where I am standing.
1:27:04	K: What are you going to do? Q: About myself?
1:27:07	K: Bill. You are Bill.
1:27:10	Q: If I am Bill and I am afraid to stand alone? I don't know what to do about that right now. That is where I am right now.
1:27:16	K: No, you haven't understood what I am saying. You are Bill. Q: I am Bill.
1:27:22	K: And you are faced with this fact. You want to do this and you want to do that.
1:27:28	Q: Yes, divided. K: Divided.
1:27:31	K: What are you going to do about it?
1:27:37	Q: You are going to do the easiest thing, probably.
1:27:40	K: When you are divided like that, what happens to you? You are torn, you are in conflict. You become neurotic.
1:27:56	K: So what will you do? Q: Other than become neurotic?
1:28:03	K: What will you do?
1:28:06	Q: You can't do anything. There is nothing you can do.
1:28:13	K: I will show you. Really? You understand? Bill is divided. Poor chap. A little boy, already divided, already broken up, by the parents. You understand? Q: Yes.
1:28:42	K: And you say, I can't do anything, oh, he must do this, I will leave him alone, I am full of compassion. You have those boys in front of you tomorrow morning. What will you do? You are one of the educators here – what are you going to do? Knowing this breaking up, divided life, is the most hideous form of living, leading to all kinds of mischief, violence, all kinds of things going on. Right? As an educator, you have got ten boys in front of you – what are you going to do? Well, Mark Lee, what are you all going to do? Tomorrow morning, you are going to face this. Well, sir?
1:30:13	Q: You have said that Bill is not to be expected to stand alone.
1:30:19	K: Poor Bill, 10, for God's sake!
1:30:23	Q: So is that the first thing we do, maybe not have those expectations? Because we can't have the expectations.
1:30:31	K: I don't want him to have a broken life, divided life. What are you going to do?
1:30:41	Q: Treat division as a fact. K: We have agreed, it is a fact.
1:30:46	Q: Well, we don't often agree about that. It is not the case that we agree about that. That comes very late in our lives. In fact, it might come as of this morning. In other words, what you said about expectation.
1:30:56	K: I am not expecting anything.
1:30:59	Q: Gee willikers indeed! I do not attribute to you an expectation. I said: you said to us, one ought not expect the child to stand alone, he is too young, poor chap. K: Yes.
1:31:13	Q: But, dear sir, we oftentimes do expect just that. Now, perhaps that is the first move, to stop those expectations.
1:31:21	K: No, We have gone a little bit further than that.
1:31:26	Q: Well, count me out as a 'we'.
1:31:29	K: Bill is leading a broken life, a divided life, and I see the dangers of that. Q: Yes.
1:31:40	K: Real dangers of it, profound dangers of it. And I want to prevent that. He is going through that, through that misery. And as an educator you have those boys in front of you tomorrow morning, you realise that, and what are you going to do?
1:32:05	Q: Is it any different than any conflict in our life where you have anger or anything else? If you feel something, you really feel it and you say, I shouldn't feel that way, or try to stop it in some way, there is always the same conflict.
1:32:20	K: All right. You feel one way and you act another way.
1:32:30	Q: Or you feel like you shouldn't feel that...
1:32:33	K: Same thing – divided. How will you prevent, as an educator here?
1:32:42	Q: I don't know. It seems like this is the way it happens. I don't know what we should do...
1:32:50	K: Madame, you haven't faced this problem. None of you have faced this problem.
1:33:01	Q: True.
1:33:02	Q: Well that means that we do not know.
1:33:06	K: You have not faced it.
1:33:09	Q: But I don't know. I have done wrong...
1:33:11	K: No, please, not done wrong or right. You have not basically, fundamentally faced this problem. This is the first time you are being forced to face this problem. You might have said, this is bad to divide life, and go on, but you never said, look, it is right in front of me. It is my life. So when you face it, what are you going to do? Carry on the old way?
1:33:52	Q: No. K: No, please, don't answer me because you don't know the meaning of all this. Sorry, I am not irritated – I want to go on. Now what shall I do? Mark Lee, come. You face the problem, don't you? Right? ML: Right now.
1:34:21	K: What are you going to do about it? Wanting this and wanting that. Which is the broken life of Bill. Divided life, not broken life. Broken life is a divided life. So what are you going to do?
1:34:45	Q: When you see all that and you really face it...
1:34:48	K: I am asking you to face it now, sir!
1:34:51	Q: I do. And I do have the answer then. Once I face it then I admit I do not know. The answer is there, sir.
1:34:59	K: What is the answer? Q: Nothing verbal, but the problem itself goes away at the time when one sees it.
1:35:09	K: Sir, may I go into it a little bit? I will stop in five minutes, because we can't carry on endlessly. As grown-up people we can go into this question. Why is there a divided life? Right? In our life why is there this division? ML: Because we want security. K: No – why is there this division? Look, division exists only when you don't understand the one first. Right? Division exists when A and B are divided. Division is A and B. B exists when you don't understand A completely. Right? See the point. If I understand A completely, B is not. B only exists when I haven't looked at A completely. When I don't know what to do about A, I go to B. Have you got this? Q: Yes. K: You are sure?
1:36:49	K: Reason? Logic? Q: Yes.
1:36:58	K: So, the opposite is created when there is no comprehension of A. So if you understand A, look at it, not think in terms of opposite, there is no opposite, only A. Say for instance, I want to play golf. I have played, I used to be very, very good at it, if I may say so. And I gave it up because there was no struggle, because the other thing is more important, the other thing interested me far more than golf. I wonder if you understand something. Therefore there was no conflict. So how am I to convey to Bill – not standing alone, not playing – convey to Bill that there is only that which is, not the opposite? You understand? Do you really understand what I am saying? A fact has no opposite. Goodness has no opposite, therefore it flowers. So I am going to convey to Bill, go out and play, but learn this: there is no opposite. You understand? Do you understand this? No, I must stop. The whole problem of chastity, chastity is not opposite to the other. I wonder if you understand all this. So, I have got this problem. I understand this very clearly in myself, that there is no opposite. Therefore if I want to drink I will drink. Right? Alcohol. But I see the whole movement of it, what is involved in it, therefore it is finished. Therefore there is no struggle. So what do I do with the boy, with Bill? For grown-up people to understand this is immensely difficult, h+ow am I going to put that in the boy? You understand? The boy is used to good-bad, do this, don't do that, this is right, this is wrong, you will be punished or you will be rewarded – you follow? Reward and punishment, reward and punishment – that is all he knows. And so I would remove from his mind this reward and punishment, I say, get out of that. Heaven and hell, the whole historical process of it, the religions, everything. There is no reward or punishment. Right? See how you have transformed your relationship with that boy, with Bill? When you yourself feel no reward and punishment and you are telling that boy, see what has happened. Right? If you removed this idea of reward and punishment then what is action? Oh, I don't want to go into all this. Sir, when there is no left or right, you walk straight. That is all. Right? I am going to convey that to that boy. I am going to spend my life conveying this thing to him. I have spent this but few understand this, I will talk about this from morning till he gets this – there is no left or right, only that, therefore that is right action. Well, sirs, I must stop because it is ten o'clock.
1:44:24	Q: Can I share something before you go? What you are talking about now, I kind of did this with my son about one week ago, where I just kind of wiped this out, this reward and punishment thing, and I just experienced a tremendous change in him and I and a kind of peace that happened inside of him. It seemed to just give him a kind of a feeling of relaxing, I think.
1:44:54	K: You see what a tremendous change has taken place?
1:44:59	Q: Yes.
1:45:02	K: No, please, much more is involved in it, sir. Just see what has taken place in the brain when there is no left or right, when I have been thinking always in terms of left and right, good and bad, hell and heaven, reward and punishment. And when you remove all that, what has happened inside you?