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RV78DT5 - What is our responsibility as educators and human beings?
Rishi Valley, India - 10 December 1978
Discussion with Teachers 5



0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s fifth discussion with teachers at Rishi Valley, 1978.
0:10 Krishnamurti (K): What shall we talk about?
0:19 Questioner (Q): Could we discuss what it means to be serious?
0:27 K: Could we discuss what it means to be serious.
0:40 About something, or serious, or have the quality of seriousness in itself, not about something.
0:55 Madame, come in.
1:02 Do you want to discuss that?—Come and sit here. We have more room for the others.—Or do you want to discuss something else?
1:26 Q: Yesterday you said, sir, about the clamour, the divisiveness, and you said you are going to continue the talk today, how to, in our mind, how to see through that, see beyond that.
2:00 K: How to go beyond the clamour of so many opinions, judgements, evaluations and conclusions that exists around us, politically, religiously, economically, socially and so on.
2:26 How to go beyond all the noise that human beings make.
2:35 Is that the question, sir? Do you want to discuss that?
2:46 Q: Sir, you said yesterday something about an insight in listening which does not discriminate.
3:07 Would you please go into that?
3:17 K: Perhaps if we tackle the question of responsibility, we can come upon all this, both, what you ask, sir, about going beyond the fury of man’s thought, man’s conclusions and opinions, prejudices and so on, and also what is the quality of insight.
3:51 Could we begin with talking about responsibility? That may include seriousness. So shall we begin with that? May we? As educators, as teachers, as human beings—probably first human beings, then teachers, educators—as human beings, what is our responsibility?
4:28 And to whom are we responsible, and for what? I don’t know if you’re—Sir, discuss, please, it’s a dialogue.
4:40 Come on, what’s your—and the others, it’s a dialogue, a conversation between two people—friendly, who want to discuss, talk over together amicably their problems, their troubles, their worries, their griefs, their pains and so on.
5:04 Like two intimate friends who say, look, let’s talk this over. And I hope we are in that relationship. Not that I am talking, seated on a not very high platform.
5:19 I remember once a guru came to see me in Bombay, one of the big gurus with a stick.
5:26 And we were all sitting on a little mattress, like this, and out of politeness we got up, several of us, and asked him to sit on the mattress.
5:34 Immediately, he put his stick, then he became the guru because of that little height of that mattress.
5:44 I don’t know if you see the joke of it. [Laughter] So I would like to discuss this question: As human beings, what are we responsible for, towards whom, and what is the quality of responsibility?
6:16 In exploring that question we will come upon this quality of seriousness.
6:23 Are we responsible?
6:30 Responsible to what we undertake whether it is bad, good or indifferent, responsible towards our students, towards our society, towards nature and so on, to the universe round us, the world around us, the people around us, our children, our husbands, family and so on.
7:03 What do we mean by responsibility?
7:17 Is responsibility a burden?
7:20 Q: It’s a caring.
7:23 K: Beg your pardon?
7:26 Q: It’s a caring.
7:29 K: Uh?
7:31 Q: Caring.
7:32 K: First, when you are responsible—I am asking—what is involved in that?
7:39 Obviously, responsibility involves seriousness. One can’t be slack in responsibility; one can’t be indifferent.
7:55 There is no sense of being negligent in our responsibility.
8:04 Responsibility implies diligent application. I don’t know if you see the difference between negligence and diligence—to neglect, and to be diligent in application.
8:29 That involves responsibility. That involves seriousness. One is not serious when one is negligent. And one is really serious when you are diligent.
8:48 So, if one may ask, what does responsibility mean to each one of us?
9:15 Mr. Naidu undertakes to look after the estate. He has undertaken a great responsibility—to look after the estate, the people, the whole land, the trees and so on.
9:38 That is, responsible for something. We are not saying for something, about something, but the quality of responsibility. Let’s discuss this. Because I think this is important. Because in that, many other things are included.
10:07 If one is responsible, one cares infinitely. Pupul Jayakar (PJ): Out of what does it arise?
10:18 K: Responsibility.
10:27 Answer her, please. Out of what does it arise.
10:42 Q: Out of interest?
10:44 K: It is more than interest, isn’t it?
10:47 Q: Care?
10:48 Q: Concern?
10:49 Q: Care?
10:50 K: It is more than concern, isn’t it?
10:53 Q: Sense of dedication?
10:56 K: Uh?
10:57 Q: A sense of dedication?
11:01 K: The social worker is dedicated. The missionary is dedicated.
11:10 The propagandist is dedicated. The guru is dedicated. The man who does rituals is dedicated, and the man who says, this is my life and I am doing it.
11:32 That’s only a very small part. I am asking, Mrs. Jayakar, Pupulji asked from what does this quality of responsibility arise.
11:44 Q: Is it love, sir?
11:47 K: Uh?
11:49 Q: Love?
11:50 K: Now, sir, either you are theory, theoretically discussing it, or actually seeing that the bed out of which responsibility comes naturally—the field, the soil, if you say it is love, and I say it is.
12:19 To me, without that quality of love, one is negligent, irresponsible, there is no diligent application, there is not infinite care.
12:38 And from that there is abundance of energy and so on.
12:45 You say, sir, it’s love.
12:54 Why? Why do you say that? It is a discussion, sir, you understand? I am not doubting what you say, but we are enquiring.
13:07 PJ: If you substitute a word that it arises out of love, then you will go again to, from what does love arise.
13:20 My question, my question to you, sir, is, can responsibility arise other than from the matrix of self-knowing?
13:38 I am putting it to you.
13:43 K: Are you saying that out of self-knowing responsibility arises naturally.
13:53 PJ: As the very movement of self-knowing...
13:57 K: ...brings responsibility.
13:59 PJ: ...creates a being in which responsibility is.
14:07 K: Do we know ourselves?
14:15 Do you know yourself? Please, sir, this...
14:23 Q: He says in certain pockets.
14:33 K: Uh?
14:36 Q: Only in pockets.
14:38 K: No, only little bits. Is that it? Is it possible to know the whole movement of yourself? [Pause] All right, sir, let’s begin.
15:08 [Laughs] I want to know myself.
15:15 What is involved in that? Because, I see if I don’t know myself, I am really at the mercy of others.
15:31 I am also, if I don’t know myself, under the pressure of society, under the pressure of institutions, organizations, the gurus, you know, the whole world of pressure.
15:54 And so it becomes very important to know oneself. If you see that, can we discuss that? Because out of that may come responsibility, out of that may come the quality of love and the sense of extraordinary seriousness, not shoddy little enthusiasm about something or other.
16:24 So can we discuss this, sirs? Now I can discuss it, I don’t know if you want to discuss it. [Laughs] Because after all if you are teaching history, that is the story of man.
16:42 The story of man is himself. Right? So I want to know the story of myself.
16:56 It is a very, very ancient story. To find the roots of that timeless state, I must begin where I am.
17:11 Right? I wonder if you... [Laughs] Am I talking...? Are you interested in all this, as teachers—as human beings and then teachers.
17:25 I must begin very near to go very far. I can’t go very far and say, well I’ll go out there, but not begin here.
17:36 So I must begin very near, which is myself, to go very far.
17:43 So what am I, apart from what the psychologists, the Shankaras, the Buddhas, the—all the propagandists, the priests and everybody says—putting all that aside, because then if I say I am that, I am just copying what the others say.
18:07 But discarding all that, I must begin near, which is myself, and I begin to find out what am I.
18:19 The story, perhaps without a beginning and perhaps with an end, I must find out myself.
18:32 Because out of that may come a great sense of seriousness, responsibility and love.
18:44 And, am I prepared to give time to this?
18:56 As I do yoga, as I do mathematics, as I do various other things, am I also giving time to this.
19:07 Go on, sir. [Laughs] Are you giving time to this? Because you are teachers of history and history is the story of man.
19:29 The story of man is you. And to understand the you, you must give time as much as you give time to cricket, basketball, anything.
19:42 Q: Sir, the story of myself is very uninteresting.
19:52 K: It is very uninteresting?
19:53 Q: Very uninteresting.
19:54 K: Is it?
19:55 Q: Yes. It’s trivial.
19:59 K: I am not sure.
20:06 It all depends how you regard, what is your approach to this question.
20:22 I can say to myself, myself is a very small affair, rather boring, rather obvious, and—what of it?
20:26 Q: I am saying that it’s not different from the story of anyone else.
20:37 K: Beg your pardon?
20:44 Q: I am saying that it’s not different from the story of anyone else.
20:48 K: So in the study of myself I understand the study of man. I am learning the story of man and therefore I should have thought that would be of tremendous vital interest.
21:05 If we are merely studying my own little backyard reactions, my own little worries and petty little ambitions, then I am putting a very small—I am enclosing myself into a very, very small area, and that is infinitely boring.
21:27 But when I see I am the world and I am the representative of all mankind, then it becomes something extraordinary.
21:37 PJ: Sir, this I will have to discuss with you, because this is not...
21:43 K: Delighted!
21:44 PJ: How do you study that you, how do you see, see in the sense that you see the triviality or the movement of the self.
21:59 How do you see that you are mankind?
22:02 K: I am going to go into it little bit. I was going to go into that.
22:06 PJ: One says it, but how does one see it?
22:10 K: I am going to go into that.
22:12 PJ: One sees only the triviality and in seeing the triviality, the nature of mankind is discovered.
22:22 K: Is trivial. If I may, let’s talk about it. Sir, do I, do you—this is a challenge, not you must answer it, you can’t just say, ah—go to sleep over it.
22:43 It’s a challenge. Are you separate from all the mankind?
22:54 Mankind being his sorrow, his pain, his anxiety, his griefs, his pleasures, sexual and otherwise, his various deceptive, cunning, all that, you know, which every human being goes through, or is caught in that.
23:22 So obviously, you are that.
23:29 No? You are part of that or you are that.
23:34 PJ: Sir, factually I would say, no. Conceptually you are.
23:40 K: Ah, conceptually, I am not talking of...
23:44 PJ: Factually you consider your pain, your sorrow, your...
23:49 K: Of course, of course, of course, of course.
23:52 PJ: ...as unique.
23:53 K: That’s one of our peculiarities. I understand that.
23:57 PJ: That is factual. And the conceptual is that my sorrow is the sorrow of mankind.
24:03 K: I know that, Pupulji. Therefore we must distinguish between a concept and actual.
24:14 Vatsala Nityananda (VN): Sir, isn’t there any—some quality of affection that makes you see that other people are really like you, if not completely factually, that some feeling which gives you, say a sense of responsibility?
24:32 K: No, Vatsala. Listen to it carefully. We all live with conclusions, right?, with concepts, right?
24:48 Concepts, conclusions are not the actual thing that’s happening, right?
24:59 Why do human beings live in concepts, in conclusions, in ideals?
25:06 Why? Why do you do it, sir? Don’t go to sleep, for god’s sake!
25:13 VN: It’s a kind of escapism.
25:16 K: Escapism from what?
25:19 VN: From the actuality. We know we cannot actually talk about or think about the others’ suffering in the same measure as it should be done.
25:30 So we prefer to theorise and have concepts about them.
25:32 K: No, do listen carefully. Do you live in concepts, ideals, conclusions?
25:40 VN: Isn’t man doing this?
25:43 K: Uh?
25:44 VN: Aren’t we all doing that?
25:49 K: I am asking you.
25:51 Q: Sir, I think I do. I’ve done that.
25:56 K: Wait, please go slowly. All you gentlemen who are so desperately silent, don’t you live in concepts? Why? Let’s go into it little bit.
26:18 Why? Is it that you cannot face the facts...
26:31 VN: As you would like to.
26:34 K: Watch it. You cannot face the fact and you don’t know what the fact is, so you are mentally, psychologically indifferent to the fact, and therefore from that draw a conclusion, which is what?
26:55 Go slowly, please, this is very important, if you are interested in this kind of thing. Achyut Patwardhan (AP): Sir, would it not be that our perception of facts, the horizon of facts, is so conflicted that our life and the life around us, that is the life of man, is like an incomplete story.
27:26 We are not able to see, we are not able to comprehend, and so the only security we can get is through concepts.
27:39 We make a concept as a substitute for our ability to have clarity.
27:49 K: To?
27:50 AP: Have clarity. With regard to the whole.
27:55 PJ: Have we got clarity with regard to the part? G. Narayan (GN): Achyutji, I think the whole theory of concept is that you can work with a concept.
28:06 That’s what you are saying. And you are also saying, you can work with a concept and concept is a substitute for your inability to see the whole.
28:21 AP: Yes. This is what I was saying.
28:25 GN: Yes, you were saying that. This is true in the field of science, mathematics, technical subjects, facts that concepts help to do work. With the help of concepts, true concepts you can work. It’s a tool. But do you think that concept is a good tool in the field of living or in the field of the mind.
28:45 It’s a very interesting question.
28:50 K: I question whether even in science you can work with concepts.
28:54 GN: Yes. Concepts I mean, is a means of communication.
28:58 K: No, no. We must be clear what we mean by concepts—to conceive, begin, to conceive.
29:11 Concept—it’s really born out of conception.
29:19 GN: Yes, that’s true. In fact a concept is a crystallisation of something which you have seen...
29:30 K: No, no, go slowly, Narayan, I am not sure you are being accurate. Why do I want a concept at all?
29:43 There is only fact. Why do we make of the fact into a concept, into a conception, into an idea?
29:56 You follow what I am saying? Why?
30:00 AP: May I say, sir, that I see a railway line on a horizon.
30:07 I see a part of it. Part of it is obstructed. I again see the railway line, again it is obstructed. Again I see that railway line or it may be a river which I see in the same fashion.
30:19 Now, the portions that are obstructed I rebuild in my mind. I am saying that concept is an approximation to a fact which I do not perceive.
30:29 K: I don’t—I am sorry. Mary Zimbalist (MZ): Sir, I think what Achyutji is saying, in the instant when one looks at oneself, one sees instances of what—anger, triviality, different things.
30:57 One sees that instant. The moment you look beyond that particular flash in oneself, it seems to me a concept comes in to say I am angry, I am trivial, I am all these things.
31:23 You immediately move into the area of a concept. And when you speak of seeing the whole of something in oneself, there is the difficulty in that because we perceive just the flashes of ourselves and never the whole.
31:37 K: I understand what you are saying, but I am not sure. We have explained the process of making concepts.
31:40 Q: Facts are unpalatable, though we...
31:41 K: No, no, unpalatable. I question—you come to the fact with already a conclusion: that is unpalatable, or that is pleasurable.
31:49 Therefore you are still thinking in terms of concepts.
31:53 Q: Do we see the fact at all?
31:56 K: Uh?
31:57 Q: Do we really see the fact?
31:58 K: That’s what I want to get at. If you have patience, go into it.
32:04 GN: Yes. Generally in science, a concept arises in a certain way. If you ask me in mathematics, there is a certain sequence, there is an order, out of that there is a pattern, design, the whole thing is a flow and then out of that there is a logic, mathematical logic at one end.
32:24 The other end is a formula, which is a concept. Right? The formula is the crystallisation of this whole flow, which is slowness, sequence...
32:33 K: ...order.
32:34 GN: ...order...
32:35 K: ...pattern.
32:36 GN: ...pattern and design. At one end you make a formula of it as a ready reckoner.
32:44 It works. But people can know a formula and not know the whole sequence and the flow, the pattern.
32:51 K: Yes, yes.
32:52 PJ: I would like to ask one question. Is a concept and a symbol exactly the same?
32:58 GN: Pardon me?
32:59 PJ: Is a concept and a symbol exactly the same?
33:04 GN: No, I am just thinking of a scientific concept.
33:07 PJ: No, I am just putting it to you.
33:10 GN: No, I think symbol has a different meaning from a concept.
33:16 Q: But if you say a formula crystallises, a whole movement...
33:18 GN: A formula is a working hypothesis which is...
33:19 Q: Which you...
33:20 GN: ...which is short-hand, concise form...
33:21 Q: In other words...
33:22 GN: ...for a whole process of understanding.
33:25 Q: Yes. It stands as a symbol for the whole process.
33:29 Q: Makes for easy communication.
33:30 GN: It’s a ready reckoner. You can work with it, but it does not show you the whole flow of clarity or sequence.
33:39 It doesn’t show you. But it’s one end. It’s a dead end.
33:43 Q: Could be. But according to what Mrs. Jayakar just said, they ultimately mean the same. Then it stands for the whole thing.
33:53 GN: It doesn’t stand, it doesn’t stand for the whole thing. It could never stand. The formula—if you teach mathematics through a formula, you give some memory techniques. There is no understanding. It can never stand for the whole thing, the formula. Even in scientific subjects it never stands for the whole, but you can work with it. If some chap doesn’t understand the whole mathematical thinking, you can give him the formula and he will calculate with it. But it is not mathematics.
34:16 PJ: I would like to see the dictionary meaning of concept and symbol together. But I do, one can really go into it just now.
34:25 Q: Number two, is not a fact. Numeral two is a symbol.
34:30 PJ: What did you say? Numeral two is a symbol.
34:33 Q: It is always related to something you can sort of feel about it.
34:38 PJ: May I ask something? Number two is a symbol because of number one?
34:42 GN: No, no. What I am saying is, number two is a concept, numeral two is a symbol.
34:49 PJ: Aha, ha, ha, ha...
34:50 GN: Symbol again, you are crystallising much more, when you come to a symbol—the dead end of it, the very dead end of crystallization.
35:00 PJ: I see that.
35:01 AP: Very clear.
35:06 K: Where are we at the end of it? [Laughter]. I am not being sarcastic. I want to know where we are at the end of this.
35:15 GN: Even in scientific thought, a formula, which is a concept...
35:19 K: Is an end.
35:20 GN: It’s a dead end.
35:21 K: Dead end.
35:22 GN: It does not show the whole process of understanding.
35:24 K: Yes. So, why do you have a concept? After all this explanation of two, symbol—I understand all that—just a minute, Narayan, why do you have a concept in life?
35:37 GN: Because I think we work through dead ends.
35:42 K: So, why? Scott Forbes (SF): For many things, concepts are important, they are necessary.
35:52 And possibly we have concepts in the wrong field, because we carry it through because of habit or because of laziness.
36:01 But for many things it is necessary.
36:03 K: Look, Scott, Narayan is saying it’s a dead end. And we live with dead ends.
36:11 SF: And yet for working purposes, concepts are absolutely necessary.
36:16 K: I wonder.
36:17 SF: Well, could I give you an example. I have been thinking of something I noticed the other day when I was working. There was something that was broken, I needed to repair it. I formed an idea and then I checked the idea with the fact I probed, the idea was wrong.
36:39 I dropped it. I had to form another idea. I probed,. and that looked like it checked out. So then I continued to probe. Now, without the idea I wouldn’t have known how to probe or where to probe. I had to keep checking it with the facts, but I had to have an idea in order to work.
36:59 GN: Are you saying that because of concepts you can proceed with trial and error?
37:07 SF: No, it is more than trial and error, because with concepts you know where you can begin to look.
37:16 To see...
37:17 K: I wonder, if you had no concepts, Scott, idea, and you looked without a concept, what would have happened?
37:26 Go slow. No, no, no.
37:28 SF: Because if you see it’s electricity, Krishnaji, something like that, you see. So, you have to have certain knowledge of how that works, and be able to form ideas of how it works.
37:39 K: So you are saying it is necessary in the field of mechanics...
37:43 SF: Yes.
37:44 K: Uh?
37:45 SF: Yes. K So our minds have become mechanical...
37:50 SF: And we carry that...
37:51 K: Just a minute, look. In the field of mechanics concepts are necessary.
38:01 SF: Yes.
38:02 K: That is, concepts help you to find mechanical solutions.
38:10 And our minds have become mechanical.
38:14 SF: Yes.
38:17 K: Repetitive, habitual, routine, following one thing after—repeating, repeating, repeating.
38:25 So it has become mechanical. And because it is mechanical, concepts have become necessary.
38:35 Or, concepts help to oil the machinery of mechanical thinking.
38:44 SF: I was trying to say that concepts are necessary for mechanical things and that we mistakenly carry it into psychological things.
38:57 K: Yes, that’s what I want to get at, I am moving it from the, I see...
39:00 MZ: It’s the—little true in what Scott said. He continually checked against the reality which he found how a machine worked. Now, Narayan spoke of a dead end. Is it that we make a concept and then we go drifting off into concepts, never coming back to check, or to be close to the fact itself.
39:22 K: Quite right. Quite, quite.
39:24 AP: I want to come to the story of man and bring this concept to that. I say, there is the science of anthropology.
39:33 Now the science of anthropology has really been built up in fabricating a pattern of concepts concerning the story of man.
39:41 So I am saying that it is a tool of knowing.
39:43 GN: That’s what most people say. That’s the classical definition of concepts—a tool for knowing.
39:54 PJ: We started with this that how do you see the fact that you are the history of man.
40:11 How do you see the fact, which is seeing it as a movement in consciousness.
40:20 K: Aha, aha.
40:22 PJ: Then how do you see it as a concept?
40:24 K: That’s why I am questioning from the beginning, why do you have a concept at all.
40:30 PJ: But we have brought in history of mankind, sir.
40:34 K: I am coming to that later, Pupulji. First I must be clear why I make concepts. When I hear a statement that you are the world, I have already made a conclusion of it, made an idea of it.
40:54 Why? That’s my whole...
40:58 Q: The whole structure of knowledge is based on concepts, sir.
41:07 K: Sir, you have a concept, haven’t you?
41:11 Q: Yes, sir.
41:13 K: Why? You don’t ask that question. You ask yourself.
41:17 Q: Generally we have concepts because we lack perception. Or we are not ready to go into it.
41:25 K: No, sir, don’t reduce it to that. Find out why you, I, have concepts, ideas, away from the fact.
41:35 Q: Because my entire knowledge is based on that concept, sir.
41:39 K: Yes, sir.
41:40 Q: All action is based on those concepts, sir.
41:43 K: Uh?
41:44 Q: All action is based on those concepts.
41:47 K: That’s right.
41:48 Q: And since one has to act, one keeps those concepts.
41:50 K: Look, I make a statement—just listen to it, please!—I make a statement that you are the world.
42:05 How do you listen to it, and when you do listen to it, why do you make a concept of it?
42:13 Why don’t you remain with the fact and go into the fact, not with the help of a concept.
42:22 I wonder if you are...
42:25 Q: With concept I am very sure that I know it.
42:30 K: No, sir!, concept is the most deceptive thing. Sir, when I say to you I love you, do you make a concept of it?
42:48 Uh? Uh? You must be—I won’t use strong words. [Laughter] When a man, somebody says I love you, it is not a concept!
43:01 AP: Sir, the fact is that you say that word is not the thing and everybody understands.
43:08 I say the concept also is only a near approximation and not the thing. That’s a fact.
43:15 K: Therefore why do I create it! Why do I have it?
43:17 Q: It’s a habit, sir.
43:19 K: Uh?
43:20 Q: It’s a habit.
43:23 K: Habit. Which means what?
43:31 That your mind, your thought is caught in a habit. Whatever you hear, you make into a habit.
43:38 MZ: Sir, but by habit you..., thinking is only in images.
43:48 It’s a concept that only goes into your brain because of thought process which is mechanical, you think in these images.
43:52 K: I think it is, if I may point out, it’s the quality—you are missing the actual fact of hearing.
44:07 When you tell me I am the world, I listen to it without any conclusion, without any concept, without any idea.
44:20 I just listen to it so that it enters, like a seed that enters into me.
44:31 Do you listen that way? Because you don’t listen that way, you make a concept of it.
44:39 MZ: Krishnaji, could you describe it a little more.
44:48 One hears the statement. It registers in the brain...
44:54 K: Wait. It is registered in the brain, the brain has become mechanical, habitual, routine, and says conclusion.
45:03 MZ: If that isn’t happening, what is the action of the brain on hearing the statement?
45:12 K: The actual function of the brain, as it is now—I am not an expert on the brain, but you can—this is simple enough—is to register.
45:23 That’s its function. Right?
45:26 AP: I want to ask one question, sir. Is this recording an impediment to hearing?
45:41 K: Are you saying, is recording an impediment? Now, just a minute, sir. Wait a minute. You’ve put me a question, how do I listen to that. How do you listen to it? Is the process of recording, which is the function of the brain, is that necessary, he is asking.
46:09 How do you listen to that? [Pause] Go on, sir, how do you listen to it?
46:30 Q: We listen through our memories.
46:35 K: Uh?
46:37 Q: We listen through our memories.
46:42 K: Yes, sir. Which means what? Achyutji makes a statement, which is a question: is recording necessary?
46:57 I hear that very carefully. I have no conclusion, I have no answer, I don’t come up with what some professor says about it, I listen to it.
47:16 And I see clearly, recording is necessary.
47:23 Otherwise I wouldn’t recognize you. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to talk to you in English. I wouldn’t be able to know where the room is. So recording apparently is necessary, right? Right, sir? But I am asking, is that my whole life?: The name, the form, the language, to remember how to drive a car and so on, so on, is that...
48:04 AP: I am asking a slightly different question.
48:11 I am saying there is listening and learning. And there is listening and recording, but no learning.
48:19 K: I don’t record. That’s what I want to get at.
48:21 AP: I am pointing out to you that there may be a recording without learning. And is it possible that there is a listening, and learning, and no recording or recording?
48:30 K: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I wonder if the others are following all this. Are you interested in all this sort of...?
48:36 MZ: Isn’t that a question of what is done with the recording. The recording it will seem to be a neurological fact. It happens instantaneously without any volition or acceptance.
48:50 PJ: Isn’t it a question of a listening in which there is an involuntary reflex, or a listening in which there is no reflex?
49:00 MZ: Would that be a listening in which the recording, it’s like a book, it just seems to be put away on a shelf, and listening...
49:10 PJ: I wouldn’t even state that. I say there is a listening in which there is no movement.
49:19 And there is a listening in which there is an immediate reflex.
49:31 Now the immediate reflex is the brain cells responding from registration, registering and reacting. In the other I do not know, but there is no reflex.
49:40 MZ: Would you say that the brain records, but the listening continues without the reflection of that fact just stored in the brain; it moves forward without even following.
49:56 PJ: Without it, out of that registration, creating, if I may put it, another ripple.
49:58 MZ: Yes.
49:59 GN: May I put the question Achyutji said in a different way? You were implying, Achyutji, there is a listening and there is a learning.
50:08 You were also saying there is a listening and a recording but no learning.
50:21 AP: That’s right.
50:22 GN: Now, what I am saying...
50:23 K: Ah, ha, moment you record you have already learnt.
50:27 GN: No, he is saying...
50:29 K: Ah, ha, just stop, Narayan, stop there and listen to it carefully. Recording and learning, recording is learning.
50:34 GN: Yes.
50:35 K: You can’t separate the two.
50:39 GN: Recording is factual.
50:40 K: Recording is learning.
50:43 GN: Yes, if it is factual.
50:46 K: Recording is learning. Don’t say ‘if’.
50:49 GN: Yes. That I wanted to...
50:51 AP: I question that, sir.
50:52 K: Uh?
50:53 AP: I question that.
50:55 K: Sir, why does the brain record?
50:58 PJ: Sir, I would like to ask you a question.
51:05 You have been discussing. You have been listening. You can reproduce what has been said because it is a logical thing which is going on. In that sense your brain has recorded, because otherwise it could not have reproduced.
51:24 K: Granted, granted, granted. D’accord.
51:26 PJ: The only difference between that listening of yours and the listening which is here, is, that your listening has recorded and then been stable.
51:41 It records and it’s total. While in us the listening and the recording immediately sends forward other ripples.
51:53 Otherwise how can you say that you do not record? You do record, because you would not remember.
52:01 K: No. No. I’ll explain little bit. Let me explain. Let me go into it little bit more closely. You’re interested in all this? Uh? Yes?
52:14 Q: Yes.
52:18 K: What is the purpose of recording?
52:25 I want to find out. Why does the brain record? Obviously, from the ancient of days, it has recorded danger, right?
52:39 I am going very, very slowly. Don’t be impatient. My ancestors, million years ago recorded the danger of an animal, right?, the danger of a precipice—danger.
52:59 And the recording of that danger is to find security, is to avoid danger, which is, seeking security.
53:11 So the brain is recording to be secure and avoid any kind of danger, any kind of mishap, any kind of hurt.
53:26 That is, having pain last week has been recorded, right?
53:39 Right? You are following this? Has been recorded. And the record continues and says I might have that pain again, and therefore fear is brought into being.
53:57 Now, question is, the pain of yesterday, can that be not registered at all, so as not to continue so as to create fear.
54:17 You follow what I am talking about? That is, I sat on a dentist’s chair—I am talking about myself—for four hours.
54:30 He went at it. [Laughs] And when he finished, there was absolutely no recording of it.
54:48 Wait. Why? Go on, sir, enquire. That is, we have pain, and record, and the record continues, inviting fear that you might have it again.
55:09 Now, can you have pain today—finish with it.
55:18 You understand what I am...? Not carry it over. Wait. So the carrying it over is the problem.
55:22 MZ: Sir, may I just ask you. Supposing one drove along a road and at a turn the car skid. Would you not, driving that road again in wet weather, say to the driver, ‘Be careful’?
55:41 K: I would be careful. I would be careful. I would be careful.
55:45 Q: Yes, but is that not recording of the brain?
55:49 K: No. No. That is—let’s go into it very carefully. I want this—please understand this. The reason for recording is for self-preservation. Right? That’s obvious. Now, there is the physical preservation and the psychological preservation.
56:14 Right? The physical preservation is absolutely necessary. Otherwise you—Now I am questioning whether psychological preservation is not an illusion, a fiction carried over from the physical preservation into the psychological field.
56:36 AP: With due respect if I may ask you, I wanted to ask this question directly after that dentist’s experience. It is this: that when you said there is no recording after four hours, is it the psychological recording that is not there, or the factual recording?
56:53 Factual memory is there that I sat and...
56:57 K: No, no. Ah, don’t bother about me, I function differently.
56:59 AP: No, no, I am not talking about you, sir. Pardon me, didn’t mean to be personal.
57:02 PJ: He is right, sir, the factual memory of sitting in that chair, the drill going into your tooth...
57:09 K: No, I have no record of it.
57:11 PJ: No? Even the factual memory?
57:13 K: No.
57:14 PJ: Then you couldn’t repeat it today.
57:15 K: I did it! The repetition is merely a verbal statement of what has been. It is not recording.
57:25 PJ: Even if it is a verbal statement of what has been...
57:30 K: I know what you are trying to—I am as clever as you people. [Laughter] Q: What is the difference between a verbal statement and a recording?
57:55 K: What is the difference between a verbal statement and a recording.
58:06 If you will believe me, there is no recording of that pain.
58:13 I don’t want you to believe me, but I am just stating a fact.
58:22 Wait, wait. But what else is there?
58:29 PJ: You see, sir, if I may pursue it a little bit with you. There appear to be two things: the brain by its very nature will record fact—that you sat in that...
58:45 K: No, not only fact, but the conclusions about the fact.
58:52 PJ: I am coming to that. The fact that you sat in the chair, the fact that the drill took place...
58:57 K: I wish I hadn’t brought it up. [Laughs] [Laughter] PJ: ...the fact that there was pain. But there is in pain the factual statement that there was pain and the psychological, emotional content of that pain being reborn in one.
59:17 Now, that is what there is no registration of. It is not a registration if I may say. It is a, there is a part of the brain which stores emotional, psychological responses.
59:35 GN: May I say something?
59:39 K: You are answering her?
59:43 GN: Yes.
59:45 K: Yes.
59:46 GN: The physical that is carried over to the psychological, is so instantaneous that I think that needs to be looked into.
1:00:00 PJ: I mean, I would question whether it is the physical which is carried over into the psychological.
1:00:08 GN: No, no. The attitude to the physical is so instantaneously carried over to the psychological, and I think that creates lot of confusion.
1:00:17 Q: I feel, sir, if we become one with the pain, we don’t have registration.
1:00:26 K: Not, you don’t become one with the pain.
1:00:34 You see that’s the whole thing, Pupulji. I would like to go into this rather directly, if you don’t mind.
1:00:47 There is no self.
1:00:50 PJ: There is no danger.
1:00:56 K: No, no. There is no self. Therefore there is neither danger nor the other.
1:01:07 This is—No, don’t accept, please. I am talking about a cuckoo. [Laughter] MZ: Sir, may one ask if there is...
1:01:20 K: No, it’s very important. This is really—if you go into it, it’s extraordinary. That is, there is no recording when the mind is not concerned with the danger or not danger, pleasure or fear, reward or punishment.
1:01:45 I wonder if I have—Have I made this somewhat clear?
1:01:55 There is no centre of the experiencer.
1:02:06 There is no experiencer. Does this mean anything? T.K. Parchure (TKP): This means such a body is incapable of having a self-preservation instinct.
1:02:33 K: No, no. No, no. Of course we have. I wouldn’t go run—jump out of that window!
1:02:48 I am not cuckoo. I am not neurotic.
1:02:51 AP: I was just saying, sir, in a surgical operation, at a certain degree of anaesthesia, the muscle still retains its reflexes and at a deeper level of anaesthesia, the muscle even loses that.
1:03:09 I would like to be corrected by Dr. Parchure.
1:03:12 K: Of course, sir, one has been operated.
1:03:15 AP: So, what I see, that these are physical facts, I don’t want to...
1:03:22 K: Sir, you are missing the point. When there is no centre of the ‘me’, the registration is so trivial, it’s not existent.
1:03:36 PJ: Sir, we started with responsibility.
1:03:44 What is the question of responsibility in relation to what you have said just now?
1:03:49 K: It is total responsibility.
1:03:58 I don’t know—are you interested in all this?, for God’s sake, I don’t know.
1:04:16 I’ll go—Suppose you have no problems, no problems at all—physical, psychological, super-consciousness—no problems at all.
1:04:31 What is the state of your mind?
1:04:43 Come on, sir, answer it. You have financial problems, psychological problems, problems of sex, problems of loneliness, problems—there’s ten different things.
1:05:01 And you carry them day after day, day after day, day after day, which obviously destroys the mind, brain.
1:05:10 It is like having tremendous burden on it. Now if you have no problem, and I mean no problem, neither carrying it over, if a problem arises, solve it instantly.
1:05:28 Then what is the state of your mind? Now, then you go to the dentist, sit for several hours there—is that a problem?
1:05:55 You follow this? The problem arises only when the dentist says, come back next week for three hours.
1:06:08 And you say, my god!
1:06:17 Right? First see the quality of it. The brain has no centre from which it is acting: a conclusion, a principle, an ideal, all the rest of it.
1:06:41 First of all is that possible? I may say yes, it’s possible and you say, oh, please. But is that possible, to you?
1:06:56 To live a life without a single problem.
1:07:04 And a problem arises, resolve it instantly. Don’t allow a time-interval.
1:07:13 Q: It is advocated that we stay with a problem in order to solve it.
1:07:21 What do you say?
1:07:22 K: Yes. Stay with it instantly. Which means no conclusions, no desire to solve it.
1:07:31 You follow? The avoidance, running away from it is the problem. I wonder if you see. In itself it has no problem. So, let’s come back to the question.
1:07:56 I am an educator—sorry. [Laughs] How am I to help the student and therefore help myself, both of us being in the same boat—how am I to help him to register the least amount, and not register any psychological problem.
1:08:32 You have understood? Ah, sir, you understand?, this gives you tremendous creative door.
1:08:44 PJ: Sir, I would like to ask you a question. Can you do that with the student without awakening this process of self-knowing?
1:08:59 K: What?
1:09:00 PJ: Without awakening in the student this process of self-knowing? Can you do it, what you are saying?
1:09:03 K: It is impossible. Poor little chap, he won’t even know what I am talking about.
1:09:06 PJ: Then how, then if you do not, if that is not the way, then how does he see?
1:09:15 AP: Sir, I think this is not quite a correct question because, this is a new process of learning.
1:09:25 This is a new process of learning. You can’t say the student doesn’t know anything, he has no self-knowing.
1:09:33 K: Quite right, sir.
1:09:34 AP: I am merely saying that we are with a group of students.
1:09:42 And I say to the students, wait, there is somebody else saying something to you, and they are all silent.
1:09:53 And there is the whisper in the leaves, and I say, you get it? Now, there is no recording in this, but I do think it is possible to start at the youngest age and without any theory of self-knowing to set the process of learning, which is itself the ground of self-knowing.
1:10:09 PJ: I question that, sir. This I would question very greatly. I question whether learning is possible without the perceptive state of self-knowing.
1:10:33 K: No, Pupulji, I am...
1:10:35 PJ: I really would like to discuss this.
1:10:37 K: I want him to—I am concerned with this as a teacher, as an educator. There is that student. I want him—not want him—my responsibility is that neither he nor I function from a centre.
1:11:05 That’s all, right?
1:11:12 So I am going to find out a way, learn a way of teaching him this.
1:11:18 PJ: Yes, but we have talked about it, sir. We have talked about it endlessly. It does not happen.
1:11:26 K: Why?
1:11:27 PJ: And therefore...
1:11:28 K: No, why doesn’t it happen?
1:11:30 PJ: Because I say, I am saying—I mean I may be wrong. I have no answer. I have failed, that I don’t know. But I say, because of our incapacity to awaken within ourselves and within the child this perceptive process.
1:11:49 I won’t even use the word self-knowing.
1:11:51 K: No, because you don’t feel totally responsible.
1:11:54 PJ: But one is linked to the other, you cannot—you’re using...
1:12:00 K: No. No. Sir, look, are you responsible for the students? Oh, for god’s sake!
1:12:17 Are you responsible for him? P.Y. Deshpande (PYD): Sir, everybody is responsible in a limited way.
1:12:29 K: No, sir. Responsible means total responsibility. He is under your charge! PYD: That’s what you say, but what happens is, everybody feels responsible in a limited way: This is my responsibility. Beyond that I have no responsibility.
1:12:39 K: Then I say go and jump in the lake. There is no lake here. PYD: That is a fact. That’s what happens in every school.
1:12:48 K: I know, sir. Here, we are asking, we want a special kind of school, because a new generation must come out of this, not the dead old people, right?
1:12:59 And why don’t you feel totally responsible?
1:13:10 Amma, do you feel totally responsible?
1:13:15 Q: I feel responsible.
1:13:18 K: Nah, ah, ah! I am not... Don’t quibble...
1:13:24 Q: Sir, you can’t feel total responsibility within an organisation.
1:13:27 K: Why not?
1:13:28 Q: How can we? It’s all laid down.
1:13:30 K: What is an organisation?
1:13:32 Q: There is a set of responsibilities laid down for every person almost.
1:13:39 K: No, if you feel totally responsible what will be your action?
1:13:45 Q: To hell with the organisation.
1:13:48 K: No, you wouldn’t say hell with it. You would put it in the right place. Right?
1:13:53 Q: Sir, it’s just one person.
1:13:57 K: Ah, ah! One person creates.
1:14:02 PJ: No, sir, as I think—forgive me for saying so—one has one’s child. Let alone the school, one is totally responsible—does one do it with one’s child?
1:14:12 K: Of course not.
1:14:13 Q: You don’t, that’s what I am saying.
1:14:18 PJ: Then where is the organisation there?
1:14:19 Q: No, that’s again, it’s another family. You are hemmed down. You can’t really have this contract approach.
1:14:22 GN: I think there is some confusion about what total responsibility implies. I think one could have a child, one’s own child, and it doesn’t necessarily mean you are totally responsible.
1:14:34 I would like to take on what Achyutji was saying in relation to education.
1:14:41 When you present a certain thing in the right way to the child, he is capable of looking, he is capable of listening and sometimes I am beginning to feel, that the child is more honest about this than the adult, because his energies are not twisted yet in many ways, as with adults.
1:15:05 And I think one has to be very careful before one says, can the child be perceptive.
1:15:12 I think many of the children—if you see some of the children here, are very, very perceptive.
1:15:19 And also I think their energies are all intact. Whether the educator has the insight, depth, and ways of communicating it—that’s a different question.
1:15:31 I wouldn’t say that the child has no perceptivity.
1:15:32 PJ: I am not talking of the role of the child who is here.
1:15:39 Please. I am talking of the role of the educator.
1:15:43 GN: Yes. No, I am talking about the child. If the educator has the insight and relationship and the way of communicating, I think there is something happening.
1:15:53 PJ: This is inevitable, Narayan.
1:15:55 K: Of course.
1:15:56 GN: This is not—it’s a valid thing. You cannot say that the adult through self-knowing has come to direct perception and the child is denied or hasn’t got...
1:16:09 PJ: No, no. I think you are mistaking what I said. I am not saying that...
1:16:13 GN: No, I am saying this. One has to be very careful here.
1:16:15 PJ: No, no. I am not saying that at all. When one talks of total responsibility with regard to a child, what does it mean in actuality?
1:16:28 K: Wait, I’ll tell you. Mr. Naidu feels, don’t you, sir?, totally responsible for the whole estate. Mr. Naidu: Yes.
1:16:37 K: Yes. What does that imply? Your watching over the trees, the workmen, the water, the grain—you are embracing the whole thing.
1:16:50 Right? And you feel tremendously responsible in your embrace. Right? Right? Pramila Rajan (PR): Sir, I don’t agree, sir. Because if he is responsible for the estate, it concerns him vitally to be interested, responsible for the crops and things like...
1:17:11 K: He is.
1:17:12 PR: Is he totally responsible for each and every worker on the estate? Does not total responsibility entail every aspect of it?
1:17:19 K: Of course. Of course.
1:17:21 PR: Then? It would be in a muted sense, isn’t it?
1:17:23 K: Ask him.
1:17:24 PR: That’s what I am trying to put across, sir, that I don’t think any one of us is really totally responsible.
1:17:32 We have pockets of responsibilities.
1:17:33 Q: When you are responsible for something in a limited way, what is involved is comparison, conflicts and fear.
1:17:42 PR: That’s what comes through often.
1:17:44 K: Ah, ha, ha.
1:17:45 Q: It seems that if there is responsibility, it doesn’t work in units, in pockets, it’s like there is action.
1:17:54 You don’t go out and say I am going to do it here and there and here.
1:17:57 PR: No, you don’t say it, but the fact still remains that you are doing only a limited amount.
1:18:01 K: Now, now...
1:18:02 Q: How can responsibility be limited? If there is responsibility it is...
1:18:06 K: It is.
1:18:07 PR: We are still dealing with concepts then. We are only having a concept of the total responsibility. We are not dealing with it in fact.
1:18:15 Q: Why should Mr. Naidu be responsible only for the estate? He must be responsible for the whole of Rishi Valley, is it not?
1:18:21 GN: May I say something? Supposing you are teaching biology and I am teaching mathematics, how does that deny responsibility? You know biology, you are teaching biology. I know mathematics, I teach mathematics. That does not come in the way. It is only a convenient arrangement. I don’t know biology and you don’t know mathematics. But if you say that functional division makes for irresponsibility, that would be the wrong approach.
1:18:45 PR: No, I am not saying that it makes for irresponsibility. All I am trying to bring out is, we are limited in our responsibility. However, whatever subject you might handle, whatever facet you might look after, the fact still remains we are dealing with the concept of total responsibility, but in actuality we are only having limited responsibility.
1:19:06 GN: What I said was very simple, you see. I am not thinking of total responsibility. If you teach biology and my teaching mathematics does not come in the way of our being responsible in a wider sense.
1:19:17 PR: It doesn’t come in the way of being responsible in the wider sense.
1:19:19 GN: In fact it is a functional convenience, it helps.
1:19:21 Q: Can we not function with total responsibility?
1:19:22 PR: Are we functioning? That’s what I am asking.
1:19:24 Q: No, it may be a limited thing, but in that way...
1:19:26 PR: The moment you say may be it’s limited, you are accepting that it is limited, isn’t it? That is exactly what I am trying to say.
1:19:33 K: Would you...
1:19:34 Q: Physically, biologically we will be at one place, but at the same time the feeling is not limited.
1:19:39 Q: May I say something?
1:19:42 PR: I am afraid I don’t agree.
1:19:44 Q: May I say something?
1:19:45 PR: Yes.
1:19:46 Q: He said total responsibility for the educator and the child to learn without a centre. It can be done at all times. Isn’t it? And that becomes total responsibility.
1:19:57 PR: But are we really doing that?
1:20:01 GN: Are we means, are you asking the other person to do it?
1:20:07 PR: I mean, I would like to know. Since I don’t know how to go about it, I would like to hear.
1:20:15 K: No, look, look Mrs. Major ...
1:20:16 PR: Maybe he knows about it, you see.
1:20:17 K: May I chip in?
1:20:18 PR: Yes. [Laughter] K: I am asking total responsibility implies—implies, you may not have it, you may have it—but the content of total responsibility is love.
1:20:36 Right? It’s the feeling of real, you know, the quality of it.
1:20:45 Would you say that quality is limited in operation?
1:20:58 If the quality is limited, the operation will be limited. But if the quality is that sense of abundant something, then it’s operating wherever you are.
1:21:11 You may teach mathematics. The thing is, because it is that, total, you don’t call it limited.
1:21:22 I wonder if you see...
1:21:25 PR: No. When you make it synonymous with love...
1:21:30 K: Obviously. I said so. We have, at least in our discussion, we said total responsibility implies abundance of this quality.
1:21:46 You see that is what we are missing, therefore we are playing around all these things.
1:22:10 How do you have that?
1:22:19 [Pause] We haven’t got it and the child hasn’t got it.
1:22:39 What shall we do? You see, that’s—it isn’t a problem, and you’ve got to solve it.
1:22:53 We are just going round and round and round. You see, this is the central issue. Total responsibility implies this quality of great affection, you know all that. I don’t like to use the word all the time. It spoils it. Why haven’t you got it?
1:23:26 Uh? Why? Why, sir?
1:23:32 Q: Love is not flowing towards them.
1:23:37 K: Uh?
1:23:39 Q: The love is not flowing towards the children.
1:23:43 K: No. It is the water, sir. You can drink. Whether the child drinks it or—it’s water flowing.
1:23:48 MZ: Sir, isn’t the reason that there isn’t, in most people, is again the self. As long as one is in this zone...
1:23:56 K: So, you see, you don’t say now, this is the thing I must resolve, and hold it, work at it.
1:24:18 You spend an hour in yoga, you spend an hour in mathematics, everything but this.
1:24:31 So I say, if that is missing here, as an educator, then what the dickens are we doing?
1:24:51 I won’t accept that you are missing it. I don’t think you have worked at it. You haven’t said this is as important as your blasted mathematics, and you have studied, you have gone into mathematics, you have passed examination, taken degrees and all the rest of it, and you haven’t given ten minutes to the other.
1:25:28 So I don’t think it is a lack of time, lack of interest.
1:25:38 I don’t think you have put your energies in that direction to find out.
1:25:56 Do we meet next weekend?
1:25:57 GN: Yes, sir.
1:25:58 K: Good. We can harangue each other.