Krishnamurti - Consciousness and learning

Krishnamurti Subtitles

OJ81S2.2 - Consciousness and learning
Ojai, California - 4 April 1981
Seminar 2.2

0:01	This is the second seminar with J. Krishnamurti in Ojai, California, 1981.
0:11	Krishnamurti: As you weren’t here yesterday, sir, I hope you have been made au courant with all the other... what we have been discussing.
0:24	You know about what we have said? (Pause) From what you know, Dr Shainberg, how would you approach this problem of the crisis in consciousness?
0:54	By not inventing a super-consciousness and all that kind of stuff, but facing the crisis America and the rest of the world is in – which is really a crisis in consciousness, not in economics, in political or religious – how would you approach it?
1:20	As a psychiatrist, as an analyser who lived a great deal in New York, that dreadful city...
1:36	(Laughter) So how would you... how would you approach it? David Shainberg: Put everybody in New York, so they can see what the thing is really like. (Laughter) DS: I don’t know how to answer the question, really, or how to approach it other than to raise the issue of looking at the movement of the high speed, sporadic, almost rapid-fire nature of consciousness, so that there’s almost a tendency to take the rapidity with which consciousness works and to get caught on the various knots that appear in its...
2:42	I’m beginning to feel it has a lot to do with this kind of tempo of consciousness — if there was some way to slow that down, because I think that that the greed that we’ve talked about or the movement that consciousness itself is a kind of greed and it provides like adhesive tape that is always allowing places to get stuck, but if there was some way to slow it down, that might be one way to begin.
3:13	K: No. I was really asking, if I may, what is your approach; not to the problem, how do you approach a problem?
3:27	Not to the problem itself. How do you come to it? How do you approach it? How do you tackle it?
3:38	DS: I think by trying to discover what the approach is...
3:43	K: What is your...?
3:44	DS: ...that I’ve been using.
3:45	K: That’s what... that’s what I was asking, if I may. What is your approach to a problem?
3:53	DS: Well, I think mostly my approach has been to... has been two fold: one is watching the behaviour of others and watching the movement of my own consciousness — that has been my approach.
4:25	It’s been an attempt to watch it and to try to... and I guess what you’re coming...
4:32	it’s in some way to see what the... how the movement goes — that has been my approach.
4:40	What has been... what is the nature of this movement?
4:45	K: Is it a free approach? Or is it an approach already seeking an answer to the problem?
4:54	DS: Seeking an answer; mostly, it’s seeking an answer. Not free.
5:00	K: So really you’re not approaching it.
5:01	DS: No, because by approaching it I’m all ready annoyed with the condition in some way.
5:07	K: I’m... Sorry, join us, won’t you, I mean. (Laughs) Are we...? Is the...?
5:14	Q: You’re an analyst, right? Well, you’ve already defined the problem and the approach.
5:26	DS: How do you say that?
5:29	Q: I’m very anti analysts. (Laughter) DS: That’s an approach. (Laughter) Q: No, I’m joking, but you have a system and you have the problem, not defined but, so to speak, stated.
5:53	DS: I mean, what is your image of how I’m approaching it?
6:02	That’s what I mean.
6:07	K: I have no image of how you’re approaching it.
6:14	But, if I may ask, is the answer more important than the problem?
6:22	DS: Yes. It’s not, but I feel it is. I mean, that’s two levels of answering you.
6:27	K: So... – that’s it – so the answer is in the problem, not away from the problem.
6:34	So how do you approach it when you’re not seeking an answer to the problem?
6:42	DS: I really don’t know that. I don’t think I really know how to approach a problem without seeking an answer.
6:53	K: That’s right.
6:58	Q: Gertrude Stein did.
7:01	DS: Only at the last minute. (Laughter) K: This is a problem: the crisis in consciousness, whether it is rapid, slow, or whether it is extensive or narrow, it is the problem.
7:22	Do we approach it freely – that is, let the problem tell the story – or rather we tell the story to the... about the problem?
7:37	I don’t know if I’m conveying it properly. There is this problem: the crisis in consciousness. Not that there is super-consciousness, which is another invention of thought, but there’s the human consciousness that is in turmoil, and let the turmoil of consciousness unravel itself; let it show itself completely.
8:22	It cannot, if I’m... if one is seeking an answer to it.
8:34	Could we do that? I don’t know if I’m making myself clear on this point.
8:40	DS: I think, one... the first thing that occurs to me in response to that is that often times, or more often than not, consciousness itself seems to be a crisis situation.
8:55	In other words, consciousness itself is a crisis.
9:00	K: That’s right. We’ve said that yesterday. Sorry! (Laughs) Consciousness itself is the problem. Unless I approach it without any prejudice, without any system, without any kind of subtle seeking an answer out of it, I don’t understand the problem itself.
9:41	Right? So can I... can we approach the problem without... freely?
9:51	That is, have an insight into the whole complex structure of the problem... of the crisis — an insight into it, not the analytical approach or the theoretical approach, or traditional approach, which is to invent a superior consciousness and try to say, ‘We live in all that’ – you know all that...
10:32	You know all that. So could we look at [it] that way?
10:46	DS: How are we going to get around the fact that we’ve already established, in a way, a framework by saying that the problem has to do with consciousness?
10:57	Q: Ah...
10:59	K: No. No. We discussed this yesterday, sir, had a dialogue about it. The crisis is not in the world: economic, social, political, or in this orthodox religious business, but the crisis is in oneself.
11:19	Right? The crisis is the me: my egocentric activity, my... the constant struggle to become something, psychologically.
11:48	I can become a good driver – it takes time, learning – but psychologically, we are always attempting, wanting to become something more and more and more.
12:04	There is the crisis.
12:12	I can analyse it, very, very carefully, but the analyser is the analysed.
12:21	DS: But again, I mean, the question comes up: how am I going to get around the fact that, by approaching the problem, I really want to become better because I want to get out of the crisis?
12:36	K: Ah...! I don’t.
12:38	Q: Ah!
12:39	K: (Laughs) I don’t. I want to understand the crisis, not go beyond it.
12:46	Q: When the self is abandoned, illusion becomes the same as nirvana.
12:59	K: I don’t know... (laughs). There’s a... There are various definitions of nirvana. What the Buddha meant was the ending, not becoming some... or entering into...
13:15	Q: That’s what I mean.
13:18	K: As far as I understand, talking to some Buddhists.
13:25	Q: But when the self is abandoned...
13:32	K: That’s the problem.
13:33	Q: ...the problem disappears.
13:36	K: Yes. How am...? How is one... – not ‘how’ – in what manner does the self disappear? What is one to do or not to do? If there is a system, what is that system? That system is invented by thought and therefore it is part of the problem.
14:01	So all that. So if we put aside all that, if you can, the approach is totally free to observe, without the observer, just to... pure observation.
14:28	I don’t know if [that] makes any sense.
14:38	(Pause) Aren’t you...?
14:44	Q: This is what love is.
14:48	K: Yes sir. But again that word is... (laughs) Q: Oh, I know; it has been very dirtied, that’s why...
14:56	K: Dragged in the gutter. David Bohm: (Laughs) Well, yes, I think that you’re saying we have to observe without any presuppositions, and the difficulty is, I think – as David has been saying – that presuppositions come in without our knowing it – you know? – that we are very fast; that’s why I...
15:16	K: As he pointed out, it’s very rapid.
15:18	DB: Yes. And that seems to be one of the principle blockages; you can’t just simply choose to abandon the self.
15:26	That would be the same thing. If you choose, the choice comes out of the presupposition that the self has to be abandoned, you see.
15:44	K: So, this is my problem; suppose I have this problem.
15:51	In what manner do I approach it, do I perceive it, apprehend it, observe it?
15:58	DS: Well, you’ve already set it up in a difficult way for yourself, by calling it a problem...
16:08	K: Ah, no.
16:09	DS: ...because a problem implies looking for a solution.
16:13	K: No. No.
16:15	DS: (Inaudible) K: It is a crisis, let’s call it, not a problem – that’s why I moved away. It’s not a problem: something to be resolved. Our mind is trained to solve problems.
16:26	DS: Right.
16:27	K: Political, religious, technological; it is trained for... to solve...
16:33	DS: To solve problems? Right.
16:35	K: ...solving problems. This is... I’m saying, we are saying something quite different.
16:41	DS: Well, then, the first question that comes up is: how do I experience crisis?
16:48	In the Chinese thing... the hexagram of... I mean, the picture of crisis is both danger and opportunity in it, so in a way, that’s exactly how I experience a crisis, as a danger.
17:02	K: I mean, the violence in the world – right? – the degeneration in the world, the morality in the world, the wars, the superstitions, the atrophying of the mind, of the brain, by constant repetition of a belief: ‘I’m a Catholic.
17:27	Jesus is the only saviour.’ By their constant repetition, the brain becomes atrophied, obviously.
17:41	Not the Pope’s. (Laughs) Q: Or the death of a parent.
17:46	K: Beg your pardon?
17:48	Q: The death of a parent, frustration at work.
17:50	K: Yes sir. Any specialised work does atrophy the mind, the brain. I don’t know if you will accept all this.
18:01	Q: Is it looking at consciousness as what it is, without trying to restrict it by any thought?
18:09	K: But consciousness is the result of thought. Thought has put it together: greed...
18:16	Q: Without... If I say it is... try to leave it as what it is, without the intervention of thought or without taking recourse to thought.
18:28	K: How will you do it?
18:30	Q: Just allowing the consciousness to flow as what it is.
18:35	K: Oh. Who is allowing it?
18:38	Q: Without raising the question of who?
18:42	K: Ah... (Laughs) That’s just a verbal exchange, but that doesn’t help one.
18:48	Q: Diving deep into it.
18:51	K: Who is to dive into it, sir? That means you are separating yourself from that consciousness.
18:57	Q: Can you not get rid of the who, and dive as you observe it?
19:04	K: I don’t... That has... I don’t understand your question, sir.
19:11	Q: It is a continuity of seeing or observing, if it is like that, without stopping it by any kind of... (inaudible) ...activity or thought activity.
19:20	K: Then what is observation?
19:22	Q: It’s finding it, leaving it.
19:27	K: What?
19:29	Q: Finding as what it is.
19:33	K: Ah... (Laughs) Q: And leaving also.
19:40	K: Giving?
19:41	Q: Leaving, leaving.
19:42	K: Leaving what?
19:43	Q: Leaving as what it is; just pursuing it.
19:44	K: Who is the pursuer? Is the pursuer different from the pursued?
19:54	Q: No.
19:55	K: Therefore what...?
19:56	Q: Without the... without raising that question.
19:58	DS: Still, I think the question is how to observe, really, without...
20:11	K: That is the...
20:16	DS: ...choking it.
20:20	K: That’s the real point, sir.
20:23	DS: That’s the hardest point, yes.
20:25	K: Without the word, without the recollections of the past, without the past interfering, without the theories thought has conceived, all that impinging, can one be free of all that to observe?
20:43	That’s the real point. If I believe that consciousness of God is part of my consciousness, if I believe in that, then that’s another invention of thought, and so I play tricks with myself all day long.
21:10	But if I... if there is an observation... when there is an observation without the interference of the past, which is the observer...
21:22	DS: But, you know, this is where we always come to...
21:27	K: Yes, I know.
21:28	DS: ...right here. How does that... in other words, where does that begin the... not where, but how does the observation begin without the observer somehow or other intending to observe?
21:42	I say, ‘I’m going to now... okay, we’ll talk about observation, now I’m going to observe.’ K: Ah... that doesn’t work that way.
22:05	DS: Right.
22:07	Q: But that seems to me to be a problem of describing the observation afterwards, but I think when an observation is first made it is an experience, out of which you later abstract the idea of an observer observing something.
22:38	So the problem seems to me to arise when you try to describe it.
22:49	But I think any observation, when you first have it, has not made the division; that’s a division that you make after you try to rationalise the observation.
23:13	Does that make any sense?
23:19	K: Yes sir.
23:22	DS: Yes.
23:25	Q: That seems to me to be... the problem is that you’re trying to describe the observation and then you have to bring in the idea of the observer and the observed.
23:49	The experience doesn’t necessarily have those two ends.
23:50	DS: Well, that raises an interesting question, is that: how to observe without describing.
23:51	K: Which means the word.
23:53	DS: Right.
23:54	K: How to observe without the word. Oh, that’s fairly... You can observe that flower without the word. The tree...
23:58	DS: But that’s easy, you see, because that stays still; this keeps going.
23:59	K: (Laughs) So...
24:00	Q: Does it, or is that an illusion?
24:01	DS: Well, illusion or not, I’m hooked. (Laughter) K: Could we look at why we are so occupied? Why is our brain, our mind constantly occupied with something or other? Primarily with oneself and then occupied, if I’m a carpenter, how to... occupied; if I’m a housewife, cleaning.
24:12	You follow? This constant, perpetual occupation. What’s the cause of it, analytically?
24:18	Q: Grasping.
24:21	K: Is that...?
24:22	DS: Also...
24:23	K: Is that the cause of it, sir?
24:24	DS: Well, as long as you stay... as long as it stays occupied with things which you know about, then you can’t be surprised by something unknown happening.
24:32	In other words, if you keep it busy with what you...
24:35	K: And also...
24:36	DS: ...think about, what you’re preoccupied with...
24:37	K: Yes. And also I’m occupied with something about the future.
24:39	DS: Yes, well, it’s...
24:40	K: The unknown, as well as the known.
24:44	DS: But it’s your projection of the future.
24:47	K: Of course, of course. So why are we occupied? From the moment we wake up, till we sleep; during the sleep it is occupied; wake up it’s occupied.
25:16	It’s endless occupation. Why? (Pause) Go on, sir. Play the ball. It’s in your court. (Laughter) DS: Well, I think there are a lot of reasons. I mean, biologically, I think one reason is that the brain is always solving problems, like you said, so there’s always this edge between the operation that the brain is making connections inside a changing situation.
25:51	K: Why? You’re not answering my question. You’re expanding the question. But why is... why are you or me or x constantly occupied with something or other?
26:07	If I’m a gardener, I’m occupied with the flowers, with – you know? If I’m a teacher, professor, a scientist... the brain is moving all the time.
26:19	Why?
26:20	DS: Well, I have two answers: one is there’s a level of movement that is continual kinds of connecting.
26:30	There’s a level of occupation – the one that you’re talking about – whereby there’s an effort to keep this self together...
26:37	K: No sir.
26:38	DS: ...constant effort to make this self something stable in a moving situation, a static entity in a momentum.
26:47	K: I understand that. I understand. A little further, let’s explore a little more. Why?
26:56	DS: Well, I think that thought itself creates a kind of static position, an entity which is non-moving; in other words, there’s some continuity in this kind of changing situation, and if you want to keep...
27:13	I mean, and it provides like a nub which will sustain a permanence within uncertainty.
27:20	K: Yes sir.
27:21	DS: And uncertainty is...
27:22	K: But if you push still deeper; push it: why is my mind – your mind, my mind, x’s mind – so constantly occupied with something or other?
27:32	DS: I mean, I just repeat myself always.
27:41	K: Don’t... don’t repeat, look into it.
27:51	Q: Isn’t it fear?
27:57	K: If I’m attached to a person or to an idea or to an ideal, I’m always churning over it.
28:14	And dreaming is part of that world. Psychiatrist; come on, sir. (Laughs) (Laughter) DS: You always hit low when you get... (inaudible) (Laughs) (Laughter) K: We have known each other for many years.
28:46	Q: Well, the self is not an event, it’s the creation of memory.
28:59	K: Creation of thought, memory — quite.
29:02	Q: Yes. And memory projects forward to an illusory future.
29:14	This we call grasping...
29:15	K: Yes, but from the past, the past meeting the present modifying itself and going on.
29:23	This is the process...
29:24	Q: Yes, but the whole process is illusory.
29:27	K: Ah... (laughs) By saying illusory it doesn’t solve the problem. It is there.
29:39	Many people, especially in the east, have said, ‘The whole world is illusory.’ Q: Yes.
29:47	K: ‘It is pretty rotten, don’t touch it,’ going off into some wilderness to meditate and so on, but that doesn’t...
29:57	that’s an escape from the reality of life. So I am asking, we are asking each other, why is the mind, the brain so insistent on being occupied, insisting?
30:19	Come on, sir; you won’t go... Avanti.
30:24	DS: If you’re a carpenter, you want to work.
30:25	K: Yes.
30:26	DS: Right? And I think in some way that’s one of the answers: the brain considers that that its duty, to keep occupied. It’s almost as if...
30:35	K: So is the housewife, says, ‘I must be occupied with the house,’ so is the lawyer, so is the surgeon, so is the astrophysicist and so on, so on, so on.
30:50	Why?
30:51	Q: Yes, but these individuals must learn to be so occupied with the instrument as emptiness.
31:06	K: Sir, you have stated emptiness; then my mind says, ‘Now...’ it’s occupied with that: ‘Is there such emptiness, world as it is, and can I achieve it?’ blah, blah, blah, keeps on chattering to itself.
31:24	Q: I’m speaking of a mood...
31:31	K: I know, I know; I don’t want to go into that, just.. I understand that, sir, but I want to ask you why?
31:39	Q: I’m afraid.
31:41	K: Afraid of what?
31:43	Q: Of not being something.
31:45	K: So occupation is being, is it?
31:50	Q: That’s what I think.
31:55	K: Then I am occupied with polishing that table, that’s me; that’s being polishing the table.
32:07	Right?
32:08	DS: But it works the other way; in other words, you get to the table from a state that is non-occupied.
32:16	You’re in the state of non-occupied, now you get over to the table. How did you get to the table?
32:22	K: But I have other occupations, also.
32:25	DS: Okay, I mean... Yes. (Laughs) K: (Laughs) Table is one of the occupations. When I’ve finished with that, I go off to cooking; when I’ve finished cooking, I go off to washing dishes and so on, so on, so on.
32:45	DS: Why?
32:46	K: Why?
32:47	DS: Why do you get up in the morning? (Laughter) Q: To wash dishes.
32:56	DS: To eat...
32:57	K: Getting up in the morning is not an occupation.
33:02	DS: For you it isn’t, but it is for me. (Laughter) K: No, for anybody.
33:13	No, go into it; let’s go into it, sir.
33:21	Is it afraid...? Or let me put it this way: it’s a habit. Right?
33:32	DS: Right.
33:34	K: Like a drug, like a drink, it’s a habit to be occupied.
33:42	What’s a habit?
33:48	DS: It’s reassuring. It’s... I know it.
33:51	K: It’s repetition.
33:53	DS: It’s reassuring.
33:54	K: No, go into it further, sir — it’s repetition. Which means what? Is the mind mechanical, the brain mechanical? Therefore it is repeating; therefore it’s occupied, occupied, occupied.
34:10	DS: Then it’s reassured. There’s a reassurance from that.
34:13	K: Then, of course, that follows that. In occupation there is security. Doing something mechanically is quite sure; there is no danger in it.
34:30	So the brain is seeking security in occupation.
34:38	DS: True.
34:40	K: (Laughs) Right? Why?
34:55	Why is the brain seeking security in the mechanical process, which is occupied with this, that, the other thing?
35:04	If it is not worldly things, I’m occupied about God, about the saviour, about... oh, God knows what.
35:11	(Laughs) Yes sir. Why?
35:14	DS: Well, I have one temptation to scream at you and say, ‘Well, what’s it going to do if it doesn’t do that?’ K: I’ll show it to you.
35:27	(Laughter) But you must take the journey with me; you can’t just sit down and say, ‘Show it to me.’ (Laughter) If you want to climb the Everest, you have to do... actually do certain things.
35:49	You can’t just say, ‘I’ll climb,’ and carry all your household... (laughs) all the rest of the stuff.
35:55	DS: Still, it does come down to the feeling of it’s occupied in order to get security, and...
36:09	K: Why is the brain seeking security?
36:16	All the time, in everything. I write, I talk – you follow? – everything is pursuing that.
36:31	Why? Why? Attachment is a form of security and where there is attachment there is corruption, whether it’s God, whether it’s a belief, whether it’s my wife or my house, it’s... corruption begins there.
36:53	Now, I know all that. (Laughs) We agree, but to let go.
37:00	DS: No, no, no, no, no. There’s where we part company. We can only say that we... I’m not ready to let go. I see it, but so what?
37:14	K: Ah! No, no. That’s purely an analytical, intellectual, verbal examination, which has no value.
37:22	DS: I... We see the security movement – the movement towards security – and the corruption...
37:25	K: Now, wait sir. Wait, wait, wait. Stop there for a minute.
37:41	Do you see it? Or do you think you see it? Of course...
37:49	DS: That’s...
37:50	K: Don’t play the game. Come on, sir. (Laughs) DS: Okay.
38:08	Q: So if you’ve really seen it, like relation, you’ve let it go.
38:14	K: No. No. Not you let it go. Just see, sir, what happens.
38:18	DS: It’s really the issue of seeing it, not letting it go. That’s where we...
38:24	K: Of course... Who is to let it go?
38:26	DS: Right.
38:27	Q: Yes.
38:28	Q: But there isn’t any difference, if the self is abandoned.
38:34	DS: Yes, but that... Really, I find... You don’t like analysts, I find contingency thinking obnoxious.
38:41	K: (Laughs) DS: If. If the king had been born without balls, he’d have been queen.
38:52	(Laughter) Q: (Inaudible) Q: When the self is abandoned, it functions...
39:00	DS: When is the sneaky... that’s philosophically, say, ‘When...’ No. Krishnamurti and I have argued this point. I really say security, if we... that seeing security hunting is one thing, then if letting go occurs, that’s another.
39:14	Q: I let it go.
39:16	DS: Then it’s not letting go, it happens.
39:17	K: No, I am not letting it go.
39:18	DS: Right.
39:19	K: I’m not saying, ‘I must let it go. Who is to let go?’ I hear you tell me, ‘Occupation is a form of security’ – we have gone into it – do I hear it sensually, sensory ears, or do I see the truth of it?
39:45	You understand the difference? If I see the truth of it, like seeing danger, it’s finished.
40:04	So one asks, why does the brain make an abstraction of fact? You follow, sir? Why? Oh, this... (laughs) DS: Well, one thing is it has to die...
40:19	I mean, you know, you’re always saying to me, ‘Do you see it, now?’ It has to die at that minute, or it hasn’t seen it.
40:33	K: Of course. But why don’t you see it? Is it a danger?
40:43	DS: Well, if I see it right now...
40:44	K: Ah...
40:45	DS: Seeing it right now puts you and me in contact in a certain way that embarrasses me in front of the rest of the people. I mean, in other words, there’s a kind of intimacy.
40:52	K: Okay...
40:53	Q: Well, we’re with you, just as intimately. We’re just as intimate with you.
40:56	DS: But, you see, that’s what I think holds us up, is that there’s a kind of... You say, ‘Do I see it now?’ then there’s a death right at that minute, of the very thing we’re talking about.
41:04	K: No sir, we’re not playing games. Right?
41:07	DS: That’s right.
41:09	K: We are very serious people. At least... So when you’re faced with a problem, you have to find some way out of it, or the problem doesn’t exist.
41:27	The brain is seeking security. From childhood, the baby wants security and so on, so on, so on.
41:36	Why? And it knows there is no security in occupation.
41:48	And it keeps on going. That knowing there is no security is an abstraction. Not reality. Reality is this. Then why? Why doesn’t it say, ‘God’s sake!’?
42:11	(Laughs) You understand? (Pause) Q: Could we go into this fear that is there, that if one would go this way the social order would fall apart – that is what the people fear – my family would fall apart, my job would disappear.
42:40	K: All right. All right.
42:44	Q: That’s what we’re calling the crisis of humanity.
42:49	Q: That’s right.
42:52	K: Is this what we are frightened of?
42:55	Q: Have you any idea how ridiculous this world is?
43:00	K: (Laughs) DS: Yes.
43:03	Q: Get into some kind of authoritarian institution, like a hospital or an army or something like that, it’s full of nonsense from end to end.
43:18	(Inaudible) Get on the board of directors, what do you think they talk about? Mostly, they tell dirty jokes... (inaudible) ...most of the stuff they talk about is nonsense.
43:28	Q: So...
43:31	Q: And on the board of directors, there’ll be not a single person who is an economist.
43:40	Q: So what gets in the way of seeing is seeing, because it isn’t a question of abandoning the self or any of that.
43:49	K: No.
43:50	Q: Once one sees it, one is with it. Well, not one — just seeing.
43:57	K: Sir, when you see a precipice or a rattlesnake, there is instant reaction.
44:04	Why?
44:05	Q: No thought, just...
44:07	K: Oh yes, there is. Inquire into it.
44:11	Q: Well, there’s thought. It’s dangerous; I know it.
44:15	K: Which means you have been conditioned – right? – to the rattler, to danger and so on.
44:26	So I have also been conditioned to: the occupation is security. I don’t know if I am conveying this.
44:37	Q: Yes. So this... so I think that’s the precipice.
44:40	K: No. No. We are... no. To the rattler we are conditioned: that is danger.
44:52	And also we are conditioned, too, that occupation is total security.
44:59	As we are conditioned there, we are conditioned to this.
45:04	DB: And also that non-occupation is dangerous. I think that’s another precipice, I think.
45:14	K: Oh, of course, that is the ultimate danger.
45:20	DB: Yes.
45:21	Q: But we look at occupation only from the front side, so we see the reward and that seduces us and we don’t see that the same reward is that fear of you lose your position, you lose your family...
45:34	K: So what is... why... what is it we are frightened of?
45:41	What is it... – let’s put the question differently – is there security in occupation?
45:43	Q: No.
45:44	K: You say, ‘No,’ but yet you are occupied.
45:47	Q: I’m not occupied. (Laughs) But I’m occupied in thinking and in identifying myself...
45:55	K: Thinking.
45:57	Q: ...and constantly saying who I am and what I’m going to do.
46:00	K: Yes sir, occupation of some kind or another.
46:03	Q: Yes.
46:05	K: Why? You haven’t got... (laughs) We were discussing the other day – with Dr Bohm and the other chap – all that thought can do, the computer can do.
46:25	It can learn, it can correct itself; after being programmed to mathematics and so on, it can invent new theorems which man has not invented.
46:42	You understand? So all that thought can do, it can do. It can beat a grand chess master, after three or four games.
46:56	It’s unbeatable after that (laughs) because it has learned, programmed.
47:03	Our minds are also programmed. Programmed to this occupied. Be occupied. And the mind, brain – unlike the computer – it won’t learn.
47:23	I don’t know if you follow.
47:27	Q: Why not stop?
47:29	K: Ah sir... but stopping is the difficulty. Because I’m occupied; I’ve been programmed to this blasted thing.
47:42	If I am a Catholic, I’m... two thousand years of being programmed, part of my brain is atrophied.
47:56	Right? Keeps on repeating. You’ve heard the Pope, you have heard the bishops, you have heard the priests... You follow? And we are atrophied when we say, ‘Occupation.’ I don’t know if you follow. We are not learning from that. We don’t say... – you know? – like learn from... it’s the... move. I don’t know if I’m conveying anything.
48:28	DS: Well, are you suggesting that one of the fears that occupying is solving is to prevent us from learning?
48:38	K: Yes.
48:40	Q: Prevent us from loving.
48:46	DS: So what’s so terrible, why not learn? In other words, what is the terror of learning?
48:56	K: No sir, what is learning?
49:04	(Pause) DS: I could answer it in all kinds of ways; I could say... but it feels...
49:11	I think the feeling of learning is the freshness of it.
49:13	K: No, what is... what is... No, no. What is the state of brain that’s learning? Like a boy, student goes to a teacher, if he is curious, interested, if he’s... he can... he learns: mathematics, whatever it is, learns.
49:38	And then he accumulates that information, then he stops.
49:45	Right? Whereas the computer doesn’t. Because the other computer is telling it, ‘Learn!’ programming it, so it keeps on learning, learning, learning.
50:02	Q: What a ghastly thought.
50:05	K: Yes sir, but that’s happening, sir.
50:08	Q: I know it is, but think of two hundred years hence...
50:12	K: Oh, don’t; I mean...
50:13	Q: ...when all these machines doing nothing but accumulating, ad infinitum...
50:18	K: But... so what is man then? If thought can do... if the computer can do everything that thought can do, what is man, or woman or whatever it is, nothing but... what?
50:36	Oh, you haven’t gone into it.
50:38	Q: Now, you said a word, and it passed, and it sounded a little like learning, but it wasn’t learning, it was loving.
50:45	K: No. Yes. Sir, I want to find out: what is learning?
50:55	We are not learning from each other. Right? You are stating something and I’m not stating anything; I say, let’s look.
51:12	You are fully informed about... analytically, the whole business, and you’re there; you don’t move out of that cycle.
51:26	Like a Catholic, like a Protestant, like the Hindus, like the Muslims. I don’t know if you have noticed something odd. Those religions which are based on a book – the Bible, the Koran – are the most dogmatic people.
51:48	Whereas, in India there are a dozen books (laughs) so you can choose, play around.
52:00	I don’t know if...
52:04	Q: Now, Buddhism is based only on words.
52:08	K: Yes sir...
52:09	Q: Spoken words.
52:10	K: Yes. You follow, sir? So we are all... we have stopped learning.
52:15	DS: I wonder what would happen if we were learning from each other.
52:29	K: Ah! Do you know what we would do, what would happen to us?
52:37	You wouldn’t be an analyst, I wouldn’t be a religious crook. (Laughter) We’d be together, creating, moving, living, a totally different kind of relationship we’d have.
52:52	(Pause) So let’s go on. Why have I stopped learning?
53:03	DS: I don’t know; I’ve fallen into patterns, occupied yourself... (inaudible) K: Yes sir.
53:18	See the... see what’s happening to us.
53:21	DS: It’s your fault. (Laughs) (Laughter) K: How?
53:30	DS: Well, I mean, if we have... if we... how can we learn from each other? It’s your fault, because you fall into your pattern and then I follow you, or I fall into my pattern and you follow...
53:39	K: I have no pattern.
53:40	Q: Yes, notoriously he has no pattern. I mean, you haven’t read him?
53:43	K: He knows it, very well.
53:47	Q: I know.
53:48	K: He’s trying to protect himself. (Laughs) (Laughter) Q: This is the great virtue of Krishnaji’s.
53:57	K: Sir, why don’t we learn?
54:02	DS: Well, I don’t know; my first response is: because you’re not telling me what you’re really feeling or I’m not telling you what you’re...
54:20	K: No, no. The act of learning, not telling each other.
54:23	DS: Right. So that’s what I’m saying — I don’t know.
54:28	K: No, don’t say... Let’s find out.
54:32	DS: Well, we’re doing the same thing.
54:36	K: No. If I, as a Hindu – which I’m not – suppose I am a Hindu and I have firm belief, I’ve stopped learning.
54:52	If I treat the world as a rotten egg, I’ve stopped learning. If I say, ‘There is God and nothing else’ – you follow? – all these are patterns into which the brain has fallen, conditioned, in which there is security – right? – and stop there.
55:14	I don’t say, ‘Throw it all out,’ let’s begin.
55:22	(Laughs) So I’m just asking, if I may, what is the state of the brain that’s learning?
55:35	First, isn’t it not knowing? (Laughs) But we all know. Right? We are full of knowledge of other people’s books and our own... you know.
56:00	We never say, ‘I don’t know.’ If you say that, you will lose your job.
56:15	(Pause) I can say that because I’ve no home, I’ve no...
56:23	No. I could have had it, but I don’t want it You follow, sir? I’m just going into it: why do we not learn?
56:36	This is really very serious, that’s why we are... this problem arises, the crisis in the world, man is destroying himself and so on.
56:46	Why don’t we learn, after five thousand years of war, to stop war?
56:55	We are mad.
57:11	(Pause) Is it, one of the factors, we hold on to any kind of experience, to any memory which is pleasant?
57:22	DS: Then you can’t learn because you’re not prepared to move forward with...
57:30	K: And our whole culture is now based on amusement.
57:41	DS: That’s the same problem we were talking about: occupation, amusement, occupation of...
57:55	(inaudible) K: The whole thing, sir.
58:00	Q: To learn, one must live in a void.
58:08	K: Yes sir. But I don’t know what that void is. I’ve heard you say it, I’ve heard the ancient Greeks say it, the Buddha said it differently, and Nagarjuna, who was the chief exponent of Buddhism – 6th century, I believe – he was the most... he denied everything.
58:37	Q: Nagarjuna.
58:39	K: Everything, Nagarjuna. Analytically, cleverly; and at the end of it, we are just where we are.
58:51	Q: I think that, behind that void, if it is not resistant, comes that thing we call love.
59:18	K: Yes sir, but you see, you...
59:22	Q: But I don’t want to hypostatise it.
59:23	K: No. You may feel it and I may feel it, but they say, ‘All right, what value has it in a world that is rotting, in a world that’s disintegrating?’ When I, living in a city is the most dangerous thing now, becoming.
59:42	So I – you follow? – I... so what am I to do, sir? Come on, let’s move. Show me. I know nothing about... my mind is occupied and therefore it doesn’t learn.
1:00:02	It learns about what it is occupied with, but not learning.
1:00:11	Right? Help me to learn. (Pause) So that I drop my occupation; I want to learn, move.
1:00:34	So I go... I’ve got to go very, very deeply into the brain that has become so mechanical.
1:00:53	There is the root of it. I don’t know if you follow what I mean.
1:01:05	Everything we touch becomes mechanical. (Pause) Is it our brains are pleasure-oriented? Sex, drugs, church, mass – you follow?
1:01:21	Q: Me, alcohol.
1:01:24	K: Me. Of course, the whole works. (Laughter) DS: Well, I don’t think...
1:01:36	I would maybe raise an issue there. It’s not so much the pleasure orientation, as it’s the security orientation...
1:01:46	K: Of course, sir.
1:01:47	DS: ...which makes pleasure serve security.
1:01:50	K: Of course. Put it in...
1:01:53	DS: The secure pleasures of...
1:01:55	K: All right, security; I’m only approaching it differently. What shall I...? Teach me; I’m eager to learn. Teach me to move out of this. (Pause) I won’t accept analysis, that just...
1:02:15	Forgive me, you would analyse, I can analyse, very cleverly; at the end of it, I’m left with what I have.
1:02:25	So I... No, I discard. (Laughs) I won’t analyse. It has no meaning to me, because the analyser is the analysed, so I... and involve time and all that.
1:02:41	So I put it aside, completely. (Pause) And I have no belief, no theories, no sense of being attached to some ideal, all that.
1:02:58	I know that prevents learning. Right? Those are...
1:03:02	DS: How about occupation?
1:03:04	K: Ah, the same... that’s all mechanical. Thought is mechanical, which the computers can do better than me. (Pause) DS: You see, you snuck something in there.
1:03:24	So the computer can do it better than you, still you have your occupation; which you have... you don’t have because... you don’t want to be better than the computer.
1:03:35	K: No. I can’t.
1:03:37	DS: You have your occupation simply because you have it.
1:03:40	K: No. No, that’s the difference: I see the computer can do everything, almost, that I can think... what thought can do. It can invent God, it can call... everything. As I am like... programmed like me. So there isn’t much difference between the... Is that what is a human being?
1:04:07	(Pause) Q: If you say thought, by knowing what it is, is committing suicide.
1:04:19	K: What sir?
1:04:20	Q: Thought, by knowing what it is, is committing suicide.
1:04:26	K: Yes, call it anything you like.
1:04:29	Q: So... so... so...
1:04:30	K: Does...?
1:04:31	Q: So it gives you this insight...
1:04:34	K: Oh no.
1:04:37	Q: ...to abandon it.
1:04:39	K: Oh no. Sir, do you...?
1:04:44	Q: And then come back to your continuity of consciousness.
1:04:48	K: I never talked about continuity of consciousness.
1:04:50	Q: Which is basic and sustaining experience.
1:04:52	K: No, no. Oh no. There is no continuity of consciousness if the me doesn’t exist.
1:04:59	Q: No. If it is not me, why shall we confuse it with entitative consciousness?
1:05:07	It’s not an entity that I am thinking, I am only just thinking of the process.
1:05:11	K: What is the process of my consciousness?
1:05:14	Q: Process, sir, in continuity; that is the spirit.
1:05:17	K: No sir.
1:05:18	Q: That is the spirit, the inspiring spirit, that leads us to live; live the life as it is.
1:05:28	K: Life, as it is, is pretty rotten.
1:05:29	Q: How do you know that? Because...
1:05:32	K: Ah... how...
1:05:33	Q: ...we are not thinking, we are abandoning the thought process now.
1:05:36	K: No sir.
1:05:37	Q: So we are not projecting anything.
1:05:39	K: I am talking of daily living. In a city or in the country, in India, here or anywhere, it is a constant battle.
1:05:51	Q: I realise that. So after having realised that, I stop that process.
1:05:57	K: Have you? Or is it...?
1:06:00	Q: And sink back to the depth.
1:06:01	K: Or is it a just a theory that I’ve stopped it?
1:06:05	Q: Unless you say that is a theory, but if you admit it, it is an experience; then it is what it is.
1:06:13	K: No sir. I mean, we went into it yesterday. Life is a relationship, whether it is with a particular person or with many people, life is a movement in relationship, otherwise there is no life.
1:06:33	Q: In that spirit of oneness.
1:06:35	K: No, there is no... I’m not talking of oneness. You see...
1:06:40	Q: As you raised the question yesterday, you were saying that consciousness is universal, so from that point of view...
1:06:48	K: No sir... no, no.
1:06:49	Q: ...can you not say that we are all linked-up in the basic consciousness?
1:06:54	K: That’s... that’s all just... Sir, my consciousness, human consciousness, is common.
1:07:01	Q: It’s non-different, if I put it that way.
1:07:06	K: Oh no; please sir; please, would you kindly listen to what I say, and then either you look at it or you don’t look at it.
1:07:22	It doesn’t matter; I’m not asking you to do it.
1:07:29	Human consciousness is travail, misery, confusion, anxiety, endless sorrow. That’s the human consciousness. Right sir?
1:07:33	Q: If it is thought-oriented then, otherwise not.
1:07:35	K: No. Look sir, please, just... Thought has put all that together, and thought is not finite and therefore thought has created this confusion, misery and so on.
1:07:54	That is common to all mankind; that’s all we have said.
1:08:01	And there is no super-consciousness; that’s another invention, like God.
1:08:09	The fact is this. And that’s only... that is what we are dealing with — the fact, not with suppositions. That’s all.
1:08:19	Q: Then we are in... shall we say that we are in a wilderness?
1:08:27	K: Oh no. People are living in wilderness; I haven’t said...
1:08:35	no. (Laughs) Q: Then what is our inspiration, if we... just raise the question of inspiration?
1:08:47	K: Sir, I can go to the church and be inspired; that’s a... (inaudible) Q: Not by going to the church, but without the church.
1:08:57	K: I can be... just a minute, sir. Church, take a drink, drugs, meet somebody who is marvellous and you can get inspired.
1:09:07	I don’t want to be inspired. I want to look at things as they are and out of that move, and... so that you come to something totally different, which is not invented by thought.
1:09:23	That’s all we are saying.
1:09:26	Q: So then it is living as it is.
1:09:30	K: Oh no.
1:09:31	Q: Then, what? (Laughs) K: We went into that too, yesterday. Observing what is, changes what is.
1:09:40	DS: But can we learn...? I’m still intrigued with this question: how can we learn from each other?
1:09:47	K: We are not, sir.
1:09:48	DS: We are not learning from each other.
1:09:49	K: That’s what I...
1:09:50	DS: You keep... we keep going over the same thing of what gets in the way of learning from each other.
1:09:54	K: One’s conditioning, one’s... We have known each other for ten years, fifteen years, twenty years, have you learnt anything from me?
1:10:06	Learnt?
1:10:08	DS: We can put it that way first. (Laughs) Right?
1:10:12	K: Don’t be clever. (Laughs) DS: No, I’m not, but learning implies... I think that’s one of the issues, when we... if I learn from you, you learn from me.
1:10:24	K: No.
1:10:25	DS: We both learn from each other; it’s learning.
1:10:27	K: No, no, no, no. Are we both in the state of learning?
1:10:31	DS: So then it’s not learning something from you. Ah, okay.
1:10:36	K: Ah! No, no. I am not teaching you...
1:10:39	DS: Right.
1:10:40	K: ...so you are learning.
1:10:41	DS: Oh, good.
1:10:42	K: I’m not doing that.
1:10:43	DS: So then I never learn anything from you?
1:10:45	K: Sir, there is no question of learning from somebody. There is no teacher and disciple. Ah, if you get that once, it’s finished.
1:10:59	DS: So...
1:11:01	K: Therefore, we are both in a state, in the act of learning; that means you must let your analytical... your past in abeyance..
1:11:17	DS: And vice versa.
1:11:19	K: Of course; learning means that.
1:11:22	DS: Right. Right. Right.
1:11:25	K: I’m willing to let go, because I’ve nothing to lose. (Laughs) DS: So... let’s go on.
1:11:33	K: Yes. Now, shall we... you and I, the rest of us, are we learning; not from each other, which means learning through not only sensory hearing, but hearing inwardly, too, beyond the word?
1:11:56	Are we doing that? Ask me; I will ask you. Question.
1:12:03	DS: Well, my question is... I wonder how to... It would be, are we... I don’t like... It’s like, it seems to me it has to be said, what we’re learning. Is that right? No?
1:12:19	K: Ah! No. First learning, which is to hear. Right?
1:12:25	DS: But am I going to...? Do you...?
1:12:30	K: Wait, wait; let me finish. Hearing, not only with the sensory ear, hearing, seeing, learning — those three go together.
1:12:46	Right? That means, am I listening to you completely? Or you... am I.... or am I listening to you completely? Or do I say, ‘Well, Dr Shainberg, I’ve known thirty years and I know exactly what he’s going to say,’ and I stop listening, or I translate what you’re saying to suit me?
1:13:11	DS: Now, I can feel right now your passion in telling me that.
1:13:15	K: Yes.
1:13:16	DS: Now, there I’ve learned, in the sense that you’re... in learning.
1:13:20	K: Ah! I am only concerned with learning, not having learnt.
1:13:23	Q: Okay, all right. That’s what I’m trying to do... I guess I’m trying to concretise it in some way, or bring it...
1:13:32	K: Don’t... We’ll come to it a little later. That means you and I, and all of us, are free from our preconceptions.
1:13:50	Right? Free. Not just say I am... I think I’m... Down the drain, flush it out. (Laughs) DS: You know, I think that would mean you would have to tell me, or I would have to tell you, where exactly I feel you’re not doing that with me.
1:14:11	K: We’ll come to that a little later, but first let us learn the art of listening.
1:14:19	DS: But I think that’s it though, I think the art...
1:14:26	K: You’re not... you are already ahead of me. (Laughs) (Laughter) DS: Okay, well, we’ll go together.
1:14:35	K: Ah, I don’t know the art of listening. Do I actually know?
1:14:37	DS: No, but you can’t stop it with learning the art... Listening is the learning of the art of listening.
1:14:42	K: No. No. I want... Sir, I want to learn, not mathematics, books, nothing; I want to find out what it means to learn, the mind that’s capable of capturing something totally new, totally fresh.
1:15:01	DS: But do you want to stop right there or do you want to do it now?
1:15:07	K: I’m doing it now.
1:15:09	DS: Okay, so then that’s the point, but then we’re beyond... we’re in the act of doing then all the time.
1:15:15	Q: Remaining silent.
1:15:17	DS: No, I...
1:15:18	Q: Can I say something?
1:15:21	K: Yes sir.
1:15:23	Q: I think, since my adolescence, I’ve read... You write an awful lot of books.
1:15:29	K: Who?
1:15:30	Q: You.
1:15:31	K: I didn’t.
1:15:32	Q: Little pamphlets. (Laughter) Q: This is the book. The books evolve, and I read these things and I read the things that Krishnamurti said, and I thought, ‘This is absolute nonsense’ – you know?
1:15:46	– ‘This man’s crazy.’ And then I became more and more open to them.
1:15:59	And I think that I can honestly say that I have learned, but I could never make a précis of one of these books.
1:16:09	K: No sir. We’re not talking about making précis or the resumé of any of these things, I just ask myself: am I... is there a learning or I’ve fallen into a rut, into a groove?
1:16:33	That’s all. At Brockwood, a very educated man came up to me and he said, after I’d talked, ‘You’re a beautiful old man, but you’re stuck in a rut.’ So I went up to my room, sat down, I said, ‘Am I in a rut?’ I went into it all very, very carefully.
1:17:01	By his challenging me, I was open to learn.
1:17:08	You follow what...? Now, let’s go on, sir. I’m getting... somebody else talk.
1:17:24	(Laughs) (Pause) You see, a painter who becomes a success has stopped learning.
1:17:36	He may invent new... put the nose over there and the eye over there...
1:17:44	(Laughter) but he has stopped learning. Right? Right? No, no; don’t say that. (Laughs) DS: No, it’s not always the case. I mean, it happens more often than not that the successful person becomes infatuated with his image and therefore stops learning.
1:18:11	K: Yes. So are we together learning? Not exposing myself, group therapy and all that kind of stuff; that’s silly.
1:18:25	Am I... do I know or am I aware that I have no point from which to start.
1:18:35	I have no tether. I am not tethered to anything. I’m willing to be criticised, torn to pieces, because I’ve no... – you follow?
1:18:57	– I am not tethered. Now, you are also not tethered. Right? If we suppose that: both of us are not tethered.
1:19:11	DS: (Laughs) Okay, go ahead.
1:19:13	K: (Laughs) No, I’m not trying to be cunning...
1:19:16	DS: Right, right, right.
1:19:17	K: ...not being sarcastic or anything; I’m not... please, I’m not that kind of person. Now, together what is it we are learning?
1:19:29	DS: What is it, or are we in a state of learning?
1:19:34	K: No, no. Listen quietly. Together we are learning; you have dropped your anchor, anchorages, you are free of the anchor, so am I. Together – right? – we are learning. Just a minute. What is it we are learning?
1:19:44	DS: What? (Pause) K: Nothing. If you have dropped all that, there is nothing to learn.
1:19:55	That is intelligence, that is insight.
1:20:09	Right sir? I’m getting excited, I must stop all this.
1:20:20	(Laughter) DS: Good, go ahead.
1:20:25	Q: No, that’s where... (inaudible) ...that is what...
1:20:34	K: You see, the whole [of] mankind has been searching for experience: greater and greater and greater.
1:20:56	DS: For what?
1:20:57	K: But they never realised the experiencer is the experience. Right? They are caught in that. But you and some of us are not in that category, so we look at it.
1:21:09	I say, learning. You see what happens? A strange phenomenon takes place, sir, if you let it happen: that is, the act of learning is a mind which is free from any bondage, any blockage.
1:21:31	(Pause) I mean, like Beethoven, he had his personal misery – you know, all his private life – but he was completely free to learn.
1:21:53	But we are not talking learning a technique, we are talking about learning the whole of life.
1:22:01	I must stop; I can’t go on like this. (Pause) DB: 12:30.
1:22:04	K: 12:30?
1:22:05	DB: Yes. (Pause) K: Did you have a nice journey, coming from New York? What is the city like?
1:22:32	(Laughter) DS: (Inaudible) ...nosy.
1:23:05	Noisier.
1:23:13	K: Terrible, is it?
1:23:29	DS: Well... (inaudible) ...know what it’s like.
1:23:32	K: Sir, if I may ask a totally different question, what’s happening to this country?
1:23:43	DS: I don’t know, but somebody told me a story the other day that sort of got to me a lot.
1:24:00	They were saying that – I don’t know how much of these assassination pictures you saw – but they were commenting on the fact that when Reagan walked out and he was waving like this, all the secret service men were watching Reagan, not the public.
1:24:25	K: I saw that.
1:24:26	DS: They were completely turned...
1:24:28	K: I know, I saw that.
1:24:30	Q: Just another form of... (inaudible) I’ve known a couple of...
1:24:34	DS: Yes, but I mean, the point is that they were so drawn to this image...
1:24:40	K: No. What? No, I am asking, what’s happening to this country? It is on the decline before it is matured. Why? What has happened?
1:24:50	Q: We are living in, at the present moment, in the age of Diocletian.
1:24:59	K: Diocletian, I know. (Pause) DS: They deserve Reagan, right? They deserve what they’re going to get.
1:25:14	K: No, but that’s so...
1:25:17	DS: True, though.
1:25:20	K: Terrible. You see, this is spreading all through the world. America has become the standard. I don’t know if you... Really sir, you don’t know... This is happening in India, all over the world. I mean, if I... as an American living here, I would be tremendously concerned.
1:25:50	Nobody seems to...
1:25:51	DS: It’s out of hand. I don’t think anybody knows what to do about it.
1:25:53	K: Oh no. They know what to do about it, sir. You know what to do about it. Don’t say nobody knows what to do about it.
1:26:02	DS: Well, they won’t.
1:26:03	K: But we are not concerned. Well, that’s enough.
1:26:08	Q: They have no fear of consequence.
1:26:15	DS: That’s true, but what would it take to inject the fear of consequence? I mean, what is a fear of consequence?
1:26:25	Q: Well, my wife, I said to her one time, ‘You know, I cannot understand the unbelievable moral collapse of the Moscow trials.
1:26:39	I can’t understand this. I mean, there’s no... the Russians are human beings just like us, and this is going to spread across the world.
1:26:52	It’s not going to be confined to Russia; it’s going to be a pandemic. But I can’t understand Bukharin’s speech; I can’t understand these things. How can this come about?’ And she said, ‘The lack of a fear of hell fire.’ K: No sir. Lenin said, ‘Human beings are vermin. It doesn’t matter if you kill them.’ Right sir? You’ve...
1:27:12	DB: Well, I don’t know, maybe...
1:27:15	K: That’s what Solzhenitsyn said.
1:27:19	DB: Ah, Solzhenitsyn said. Yes, well, he was very ruthless anyway. He felt that a better society would come by being ruthless.
1:27:30	K: Ruthless.
1:27:31	DB: And I think his aim was to create a good society, right?
1:27:34	K: Yes. Yes. They have created a marvellous society.
1:27:39	DB: Well, terrible.
1:27:41	Q: Well, Solzhenitsyn is considerably to the right of the tsars, so he’s not... (laughs) (inaudible) But it’s true, I mean, external discipline applied from outside holds up the society, and when that external discipline and the system of sanctions disappears, then the society undergoes a radical change or collapses.
1:28:25	K: Sir, the Brahmanical culture in India, which existed for probably three to four thousand years, they were moral, very strict, they wouldn’t touch this – you know, all the Brahmanical feeling – the whole world was untouchable (laughs).
1:28:54	And over night it has disappeared.
1:28:57	Q: I know, I’ve been there.
1:29:00	K: Completely. You follow? Completely gone. Why? Is it economics, is it...? You follow? This is what’s happening here.
1:29:07	DB: I think the new developments have made people doubt the value of the old system, that religion has been undermined by science...
1:29:24	K: Of course, sir.
1:29:25	DB: ...and industry has undermined all the old customs and culture, so that the people... life has lost its meaning for most people.
1:29:30	K: How can it be destroyed by... if I’m really cultured – you follow what I mean?
1:29:37	DS: But if you’re not really cultured...
1:29:39	DB: Most people are not, you know.
1:29:41	K: After three thousand years, sir, don’t...
1:29:43	DB: But, I mean, it’s mechanical by that time.
1:29:46	K: Therefore, that’s all I’m saying.
1:29:48	Q: They don’t even doubt it.
1:29:50	K: Yes sir.
1:29:51	Q: They don’t know about it.
1:29:52	DB: No, but underneath they don’t sense the value. You see, if you have inflation, for example, it’s not worth saving money. Now, that already undercuts a large part of our society, that if people don’t feel they can count on money then it dissolves part of our structure.
1:30:10	Q: But the change in the society in India has even been forgotten; they don’t know anything about it.
1:30:18	They’d put Tarak Nath Das on a postage stamp and you ask the average college graduate student, ‘Who is this?’ and he won’t know.
1:30:27	He won’t know who it is!
1:30:29	DB: Well, I think the Indians have felt that the west, with its prosperity, they want to imitate it; they want to give up their old culture.
1:30:38	K: Yes sir.
1:30:39	DB: But at the very time the west is losing the prosperity. (Laughs) K: When I went back – I’m not being personal, I’m just indicating – when I went back after twenty years from Europe and... to India, the father was alive, so we went... my brother and I went to see him.
1:31:02	The custom is to touch his feet, as a show of respect. We touched his feet; he immediately went to the bathroom, had a bath, changed clothes, and when he came out he stood there and we stood here.
1:31:19	No, no. See... no. His idea... We are his sons. He had affection, but the tradition said, ‘You have broken caste.’ DB: Any culture that’s that rigid is not going to be able to do anything.
1:31:45	K: I’m just... show something, sir.
1:31:47	DB: Yes, but still, that’s one of the reasons it’s gone because...
1:31:51	K: No. Ah, that’s one... but it’s much deeper than that.
1:31:53	DB: What?
1:31:54	K: Probably, they had just words; they lived on words.
1:31:57	DB: They lived on words. Yes, right. But then when conditions changed they couldn’t hold it.
1:32:04	K: That’s it. And like talking about God – you follow? – they... Oh, I don’t want to go into all that, but...
1:32:14	DS: What you say they’re not concerned, there’s no concern, but that’s part of the whole situation: the lack of concern.
1:32:22	K: Yes sir. Concern.
1:32:24	DS: That’s the essence of it.
1:32:26	K: We were talking to the sociologist and he was saying the America is going through a phase of me first and nothing matters.
1:32:39	I am what I want, what I wish, what I desire is the only thing that matters.
1:32:48	DS: Well, you could make an argument for the fact that one of the reasons that has happened is because of... up until now, you did have things like you just described in India: rigid sorts of systems that did not allow for any...
1:33:01	Yes, just held up and had no sense of connection. So this could be seen as a positive movement. In other words the me comes in so there can be some reconnection with the self, which then could eventually move beyond.
1:33:17	It may be a necessary phase.
1:33:20	K: But America goes through so many phases every year. (Laughs) DS: Well, this one’s been going on quite a while. (Laughs) Q: I think it’s external. You know, at Stanford, somebody put one of these large pens of white rats under a pylon, a high-tension wire – right? – and pretty soon they began to do all the things that the people do in New York.
1:33:54	They began to eat each others tails, they began to steal... eat each other’s food...
1:34:00	K: Of course, of course.
1:34:05	Q: ...they began to practice homosexuality.
1:34:07	K: Everything.
1:34:08	Q: I have a terrible suspicion.
1:34:10	DS: We just had it over with the...
1:34:11	Q: Have you any idea how much new vibration goes through the world?
1:34:14	K: Yes sir.
1:34:17	Q: What do you them, cooker...?
1:34:21	DS: Microwave.
1:34:22	K: Yes.
1:34:24	Q: Microwave cooker is flooding us, here in this room, if it’s over there. And the air is full of...