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RV80DS2 - Are you aware of what is happening in the technological world?
Rishi Valley, India - 13 December 1980
Discussion with Students 2



0:23 Krishnamurti: What shall we talk about? Do you want to sit quietly and not talk? All right, I'll talk. I wonder if you are aware of what is happening in the technological world. You know about computers, probably. Computers can almost do anything that man can do. Man learns through experience which becomes knowledge, then stored up in the brain, memory, and thought. That's the operation we go through. Experience, from that experience learn, which becomes knowledge, then that knowledge is stored in the brain as memory, and from that memory thought springs. This is a fact. If you observe yourself, you might have an incident, pleasant or unpleasant, from that incident you learn, which becomes the knowledge, and that knowledge is retained in the memory, recorded in the brain, and memory, thought. The computers can do this exactly. They play with a master chess player, you know what a master chess player is. You know what chess is, don't you?
3:04 Students: Yes, sir.

K: At last. The computer plays with a master chess player, The master chess player beats him – beats the computer – and the computer learns from the moves that the master has made and plays with him. So he plays with him two or three times, and learning all the time, experiencing all the time, until the computer beats the master chess player. You understand what I am saying? The computer does exactly what the human brain does, experience, learn, knowledge, memory, act. You understand this? This is what the computers are doing. Probably in a few years it will do almost anything which the human mind can do. And also they are developing robots.
4:24 K: You know what robots are?

S: Yes, sir.
4:26 K: You do? By Jove. You don't or you do? Yes? Good. Now in Japan – you read all about it in Time magazine probably – in Japan, there are more robots working than in any other part of the world, putting together cars, welding the cars and so on. The robots can do this, which is, in the robot is implanted the computer, and the computer then tells the robot what to do. You understand all this? So gradually, in about ten years or fifteen years and more, the whole mechanical labour problem will be solved. You understand this problem? In the factories, probably even in the kitchen, everywhere the robot and the computers are going to take over. This probably will happen within your life, long before you end your life. Within ten years, fifteen years this will happen. So, please listen to this. What's going to happen to man? You understand my question? If the robots and the computers are going to take over all the operation of man: going to the factory, keeping accounts, inventing new things, there will be no factory workers. All that will be taken over by the computer and the robot. Then man, you, man throughout the world, will have leisure. Are you listening to all this? Does it mean anything to you? You will have leisure. Society is going to be changed completely. And you will have more and more leisure. What will you do with that leisure? That is a central problem that's being raised. You understand my question? You will see, if you read in the magazines, there are ten thousand robots in Japan doing the mechanical works which human beings have been doing, putting cars together, polishing them, welding them, all that. And West Germany has 850 robots. And so gradually the whole world is going to be run by robots and computers. You understand all this, or you are all asleep? So what's going to happen to you? You understand the question? What's going to happen to man when he has an enormous amount of leisure? Either he will seek entertainment, football, cinema, rugby, you know, the whole entertainment world, which includes also the entertainment sustained by religions. You understand this? The entertainment of football, the entertainment of religion, or man will have to turn to something else entirely. You are following all this? Look, instead of my going to the office every day for the next fifty years from 9 to 5, the robot and the computer will take over my work. Who is going to pay me, to live? I shall have no work. So what's going to happen to me?
10:27 S: We won't have any money, so the people will not get any money, only the robots will do the work for us.
10:36 Narayan: He says we won't get any money if the robots do the work.
10:40 K: That's just it. If the robots and the computers are going to work you won't get any money. Just listen to it first, question me afterwards. Social structure is going to be changed. Now, you go to the office or to the factory, to build a bridge and so on. The robots and the computers are going to do all that. And what is the nature of the society when you will have very little work. Then the government has to pay you. Then how will the government get money, you follow? This is a tremendous problem. A new social structure has to come into being, and how will you use your leisure. What's going to happen to man who is going to have immense leisure? You understand my question? What's going to happen? I said, either you go to entertainment of every kind – temples, churches, mosques – either that, or you have to do something entirely different. You are following all this? What will you do? Robots and computers can dig a well, can plant trees. I have seen a tractor in California planting tomatoes. There are hundreds of acres. A machine does it. Digs a hole, plants the tomato plant, waters it, and goes on. I wonder if you grasp the significance of this. Do they?
13:27 S: As we are now, at present, we have to have something to occupy our minds, some sort of thoughts.
13:38 K: Quite right. So what will you do with your mind when you have no problems?
13:51 S: If we are going to the office, a job like that is very routine and mechanical. So if a job like that is taken over and you are given leisure time, then perhaps you can really investigate into what you really want to do, which you don't have time to do now because you have to work in an office.
14:19 K: You may want to be a poet, you may want to write books but the computer can do that.
14:32 S: Then man will stop thinking for himself. All the work the robots will do.
14:39 N: He says when the computers take over, man will stop thinking for himself because the work is over, and he has no work to do.
14:47 K: So, man will also become a robot? No, please follow carefully. I wonder if you understand the problem involved in all this. Are your brains working, the older people, the older group? Are you thinking with me? Look, the computer is programmed. That is, you tell the computer what to do. It records, holds it and then does what you tell it. And we human beings are also programmed. We are Hindus, we are Buddhists, we must go to the office, this is right, this is wrong, we are programmed as the computers are. Do you understand what I am saying?
15:53 S: Yes.
15:54 K: You are a Muslim because you have been told you are a Muslim. You are a Catholic because you have been told you are a Catholic, for generations, as the Hindus. So you are programmed as the computer is and when the computer takes all that over, what has happened to your brain? What is going to happen to your mind?
16:28 S: It will think only of money.
16:33 N: He says it will think only of money.
16:38 K: Is that all? You are all supposed to be educated.
16:46 S: It starts being more destructive, it will begin to be more destructive.
16:53 K: Yes.
16:57 S: It will start thinking of making better robots because it's getting more leisure time.
17:11 K: Look, let me put it this way: you are free to do what you like, because everything is done by machinery, computer, robot, and you are free. What will you do? Please reply to my question.
17:56 S: After the robots start doing the work for you, naturally you will forget all about work and start enjoying pleasures.
18:05 K: All right. How will you enjoy, in what way?
18:13 N: He says he will enjoy pleasures.
18:15 K: Yes, I know, I want him to go on with it. How will you enjoy?
18:22 S: Don't do work unless you want to.
18:25 K: You can't do any work. What will you do? You can't go to the office, you can't go to the factory.
18:39 S: We will all become lazy.
18:44 K: Then what will you do, just die? Become more and more lazy, more and more slack, more and more nothing to do, gradually wither away?
18:57 S: You start noticing all the things you haven't noticed all the while.
19:01 N: You'll start noticing things which you didn't notice before.
19:08 K: All right, begin with that. Will leisure give you time to watch things, will it? Follow it up, sir. You can watch the trees, the mountains, the rocks, the river.
19:31 S: Yes, because you can't keep enjoying the pleasures as he says, the material pleasures, like entertainment and all. After some time you will stop, you will notice all the things around.
19:47 K: All right then, you have looked at the world, the world of trees, rivers, the earth, the beauty of the earth, the glory of the mountains and so on. After you have looked at it for some time, you get rather tired, then where else will you look?
20:15 S: At yourself.
20:18 N: You'll look at yourself.
20:20 K: Now, begin. That's what I want you to begin with. You look at yourself, right? Where, in the mirror? Which you are doing now. How will you look at yourself? Go on, use your brain.
20:48 S: I think you have to be aware of what you are doing all the time.
20:52 N: You have to be aware of what you are doing all the time,
21:00 S: Maybe you will look at yourself thinking of the things that you used to do and you don't do anymore...
21:11 K: Forgive me to interrupt you. Are you answering my question?
21:16 S: How I look at myself?
21:17 K: Yes, are you looking at yourself in the mirror. How do you look at yourself?
21:24 S: In the mirror, or otherwise? Maybe I will look at myself through things that I didn't do. That I am not doing now, which I used to do when there were no robots.
21:42 K: So you look at yourself through your actions, right? Go slowly. What are your actions based on?
21:55 S: On what I think.
21:57 K: No, carefully think it out, Don't depend on my thinking it out and telling you. Think it out. What are your actions based on?
22:09 S: Experiences, your past experiences.
22:12 K: That is what? Go slowly, learn.
22:19 S: Memory.
22:23 S: You said, you have an experience and then it is stored in your brain.
22:29 K: Are you repeating me?
22:31 S: No, but it is thought.
22:35 K: Look, stop a minute. Have you learned this from me – listen carefully – or have you discovered it for yourself?
22:51 S: From what you think of. You think it and then do it.
22:56 K: What, sir?
22:58 S: You think of something, and then you act.
23:05 N: He says you first think and then act.
23:10 K: I am asking you, how do you look at yourself. And that lady, that girl said, through action. What is your action based on? Carefully think it out. Have you watched a dog? Wait, listen. Have you watched a dog? If you give him something which he likes and keep on doing that, he will follow you, he will obey you, but if you don't give him something and punish him, he also learns. You are following this? Do you understand this?
24:17 K: Which means what?
24:21 S: Punishment.

K: No, watch it, think it out. You reward him, you punish him, which means what? He learns through reward and punishment. Don't you do the same?
24:47 S: Yes. According to the result.
24:51 K: The results must be based on reward and punishment. So you are programmed – you understand what I mean by programmed? – like the computer, to act according to reward and punishment. Do you understand this? Go on, think it out. So how do you look at yourself? You have found that your life, your way of thinking is based on reward and punishment, fear and pleasure, right? Do you understand this? Gosh, your brains have not been cultivated. I'm going to talk to Mr Narayan about it. You are just like machines. You learn to repeat, repeat, repeat, and you don't think about it. Now, let's come back. You have found that you act according to punishment and reward. Do you see that? So you have learned how to look at yourself. You are beginning to look at yourself, through your action. Now, what is action?
26:43 S: Action is a thing that we do. My actions are the things that I do.
26:50 N: Action is a thing we do.
26:52 K: I know. Good Lord.
27:03 S: You can say that action is an expression of my thought.
27:09 K: Right. What are your thoughts based on? What is your thought, how does the thought arise? Think it out, go slowly.
27:23 S: Whatever I've stored up from my memory, whatever I've experienced, so everything is stored up and my thought comes from that.
27:30 K: Yes, is that what you have learned this morning?
27:35 S: Before that, even before that I found it.
27:38 K: Yes, good, then proceed. How do you look at yourself then?
27:44 S: I just look at what I am doing. That's all I do. And even then, it always happens that after I finish doing something, I notice it. I never notice what I'm doing as I'm doing it.
27:56 K: Then what is 'you' who are doing it?
27:59 S: Who else?
28:00 K: Wait, you haven't listened. Who are you who is doing it?
28:12 S: It is me.

K: Who is me?
28:15 Questioner: You.
28:19 K: What is that?
28:24 Q: Excuse me, I shouldn't have spoken, I'm not a student. Excuse me, I am told I shouldn't have spoken.
28:40 N: He is not a student here.
28:45 K: Only students, if you don't mind. You say, 'I am doing this', who is you?
28:59 S: When you are acting, there is nothing like 'you' at that moment.
29:03 K: Quite right. At the moment of action there is no you. Wait, have you discovered that?
29:13 S: Yes. While I was listening to you, I was just listening, I was not aware of listening at that moment.
29:24 N: He says he's listening but he's not aware that he's listening.
29:33 K: So, then what are you? No, I am asking, please listen to my question, kindly.
29:46 S: Your question was, what are you.
29:48 K: Yes. Who are you?

S: What my thoughts tell I am.
29:54 N: He is what his thoughts tell he is.
29:58 K: So, are you saying – listen carefully – are you saying you are what you think?
30:09 S: Yes.
30:11 K: You are quite sure?

S: I'm quite sure.
30:14 S: We do not know who we are, but we know when people tell us who we are really.
30:19 K: Yes, you are told you are my daughter, your name is this, and you're Hindu, Buddhist, whatever it is, so you accept all that. And also you are saying you are what you think you are.
30:42 K: Are you quite sure?

S: Yes, I am.
30:47 K: Be quite sure.
31:03 S: When you are what you think you are, you are actually programming yourself to be what your thoughts ask you to be.
31:12 K: Have you discovered that for yourself?
31:15 S: Yes, I have.
31:18 K: So you are speaking first hand, not second hand.
31:22 S: Yes.
31:29 K: So you have discovered that you are what you think. Right? What do you think?
31:42 S: I think what my likes and dislikes...
31:45 K: So begin, go on, explore. Don't stop there.
31:56 S: My thought arises from my past experiences, which means I think from the past, all the time.
32:06 K: So, go on.
32:08 S: So, if I am what I think, then I am thought.
32:14 K: Now, quite right, you have discovered something, haven't you? You are the past. Have you discovered that? Be honest. Have you discovered for yourself that you are the past.
32:36 S: I have noticed it as I am living.
32:39 K: Yes, so you have noticed it and learned that you are the past. You are the result of other people's knowledge, other people's tradition, what they have told you, your own experience, all that says you are the past. Right? So what does that mean?
33:30 S: That means you are not acting... what action is, but you are acting according to some old programming.
33:41 K: Yes, which means what? Go on, think it out.
33:47 S: Your past actions are causing your present actions.
33:54 K: That is, your life is the past, you are living in the past. Right? Do you agree? Do you see that? Please, be sceptical about what I am saying. Don't accept what I am saying, but find out. Have you found out for yourself that you are living in the past, which is a great discovery, you understand? That you are the result of the past. Your thinking is based on the past. The past is knowledge. You understand this? I wonder if they understand any of this. So what is happening to your mind? If you are living all the time in the past, what is happening to your mind?
35:29 S: The mind is becoming slowly dead.
35:32 K: So what does that mean, are you slowly dying? Be careful, think it out.
35:42 S: It's not finding anything new.
35:49 K: So you say, if you are all the time living in the past, you can find nothing new, right?
35:58 S: Yes.
36:00 K: Is that so to you?
36:03 S: A bit.
36:05 K: What do you mean a bit?
36:13 S: When sometimes I am doing something and I'm not fully aware of it, and I am thinking of something else, at that moment I feel that I am not doing the past but I am learning something new. Like sometimes I never know that I am walking in a certain way.
36:36 K: Come over here. What were you saying, sir?
36:52 S: Sometimes when I am not watching myself I never know that I am walking in a certain way, and I only know it when someone says, 'hey, you are walking in a funny way.'
37:03 K: That's right, which means what?
37:06 S: Which means that I am a bit conditioned.
37:09 K: Go on. What does that mean? Explain to me what conditioning is.
37:14 S: Like it's as if I am a computer and I have been programmed what to do.
37:18 K: Don't repeat what I said, old boy. You see what you all are doing? You are just repeating what somebody else says. So you are all second hand people. There is nothing new in you. So find out what you are doing. So I am asking you, ladies and gentlemen, how do you look at yourself? Because that's the only thing you will have left. When the robots and the computers are going to take over, unless you spend your life in mere entertainment, – some of you will do that inevitably – there will be some who'll say, look, I have nothing to do, I have looked at the earth, the green leaves, the beauty of the sky, and you say I must look at myself. And I've said how do you look at yourself? How do you look? I know how you look in the mirror. Is that what you are, just the surface? Light, dark, narrow eyes, short eyes, all that? Are you something more than that?
38:56 S: You are comparing yourself with others.
39:01 N: He says you know yourself by comparing yourself with others.
39:11 K: All right. You know yourself by comparing yourself with others. Right, sir? You've said that. What do you mean by comparing?
39:31 S: See what they have done, and what you are doing.
39:40 K: Aren't you being compared in your class? Somebody gets more marks, or better than you. Aren't you always being compared? Would you kindly, the educator, answer me?
40:09 S: We are compared.
40:11 K: You are comparing. Now when you compare A with B, what happens to A?
40:22 S: A is better. If A gets more marks, A feels superior to B. Or if B gets more marks, A feels inferior. That way you are affecting A psychologically.
40:35 K: You are being compared – just wait a minute – you are being compared with him. He is much cleverer. So what happens to you?
40:47 S: We try to be more clever than that person.
40:52 K: So what does that mean?
40:58 S: You are not trying to be yourself.
41:03 K: Answer me, don't repeat.
41:07 S: You start hating him.
41:10 K: Look, I compare myself with him. He is cleverer, more beautiful, more intelligent, gets better marks and so on. What happens to me?
41:24 S: You become jealous of him. You become jealous of him because he is better than you.
41:30 K: So I become jealous. Then what else? I can't hear.
41:44 S: You estimate the value of yourself. You see how much you compare.
41:57 S: Somehow you try to make yourself more clever to the others.
42:05 K: Yes, I compare myself with you. You are much cleverer, more beautiful and so on. So in comparing myself with you – listen carefully – what happens to me?
42:22 S: You keep studying and studying to become more clever than him. You keep studying.
42:30 K: Wait, I'll go into it step by step, you will see it. I compare myself with you. You are more clever, more nice looking, etc. What happens to me? And in comparing myself with you, I say I am dull, I am not beautiful, I wish I were like you. So what is happening to me?
43:00 S: You develop a complex.
43:06 K: Do you?
43:10 S: You try to imitate him, in which case you are not yourself.
43:16 S: You could be better than that person in something else...
43:20 K: What do you mean better? You see, my God. Would you kindly, the teachers, answer my question? When you compare one boy with another boy which I am sure you do...
43:40 Teacher: We destroy both of them.
43:45 N: He says we destroy both of them.
43:47 K: Quite right. At last. Have you realised that? You don't become better, you are destroying yourself by comparing with somebody else. I wonder if they can understand this. You understand what we are saying? Your whole government is based on that. Your whole economic system is based on this. That you are comparing yourself all the time with somebody else. So gradually you are destroying your own capacity, your own vitality, your own strength. You are merely imitating. You are following this? I wonder.
44:54 S: Let's go into it step by step. Let's see, when you compare yourself with another person, you try to act in such a way that you get more marks than him.
45:07 K: Yes, wait. Go ahead.
45:12 S: So, what happens is that you try to act through your past. You have a certain method. If you follow that, you can get more marks than him. So you do that, you follow that old method and try to become better than that chap in getting marks. So you are not acting as you would like to act, but you are acting in some way which is dictated by the past.
45:42 K: Yes, go on. So what happens to you when you are always competing with him, trying to get better marks, this constant struggle, you follow?
46:03 S: You are not acting out of something new, but you are acting out of something which is finished.
46:10 K: So can you work, study, without comparison.
46:25 S: I have learnt that when you compare you are trying to be someone else, and so you are not what you are. So you are destroying yourself. So, if you do not compare, you said how will you study without comparing.
46:42 K: That's right.
46:44 S: I will study for myself not to be something else or anything else.
46:51 K: So can you study without competition.
47:01 S: It is essential that we study with competition.
47:07 K: What's that?
47:08 N: He said it's essential to study with competition.
47:11 S: For it kind of goads you to do more things. If you are doing something for yourself, you don't have the same...
47:18 K: I wonder if you understand what those people said. You say, you can only study when you are compelled, when you are competing.
47:30 S: Yes, it tells you where you are on the ladder, on what step, by comparing. It's a kind of milestone.
47:40 K: It's kind of measure. Now wait a minute. Without measure can't you study?
47:49 S: I've never tried.
47:51 K: Find out. This is what you are programmed to do, to compete, to compare, to do something better and so on. Now, can you find a different way of studying without this. I would like to talk this over with your educators, because if you can study without comparing, you put more energy into it, you understand?
48:34 S: I think I can. I think I can study without competition. If I'm interested in it, and I want to learn about it, I will learn about it.
48:47 K: Wait a minute. What do you mean by learning? Now you are learning under pressure, you are learning to pass somebody else. So, your learning is a constant process of struggle, whether it's mathematics, history, biology, whatever it is. Now, see what happens. If you are under pressure your energy is limited. You get this? Is it too philosophical, all this?
49:39 N: May I say something?
49:44 K: Say it loud.
49:45 N: When you are comparing yourself with someone else, or when there is pressure, a lot of energy is wasted on that. That energy is not available for observation and study.
49:57 K: Now, Mr Principal, will you see to it? Ah, don't talk.
50:04 N: Do some of you see it? When you study, supposing you are comparing yourself with someone else, or you are being pushed through pressure, you create your own pressure, and you are studying with that pressure, you don't have full energy to do what you are doing. It's very simple.
50:22 K: Very simple, and Mr Principal, will you see that this is done? Wait, I am asking Mr Narayan. I am putting him on the spot.
50:38 S: But, what can Mr Narayan do?
50:41 N: I will do it. I will do it, but you must also listen to me, you must cooperate with me, you must see the beauty of this.
50:50 K: Now, will the other teachers, the other educators agree to this? What do you say? I see you sitting there, in a blue shirt. What do you say?
51:06 T: We are not comparing at all. We are not comparing the students at all.
51:12 N: He's saying we are not comparing the students.
51:15 S: I am not doing that, anyway.
51:17 K: Don't you give them marks?

T: No.
51:22 N: In the junior school we don't give marks.
51:24 K: Ah, in the junior school. Are you playing tricks with me, sir?
51:42 T: No sir, not at all.
51:43 K: Then, you have said we don't do it. So you are doing it with the higher students.
51:50 T: I am not doing it.

N: He is in the junior school.
51:56 K: You see how our mind works? I am just asking you, Mr Principal and the educators, will you see that they can study without any pressure, any comparison. Mr Narayan explained very carefully, which is, when you are under pressure your energy is limited but when the pressure is taken away you have got your energy to study.
52:30 K: Have you listened to that? Have you listened to what I said? You didn't. Did you? What?
52:48 S: When you study under pressure, you use most of your energy on that direction than absorbing learning.
52:53 K: Yes, which is, you are repeating. You see what you have all done? You have become mechanical. You are repeating, repeating, repeating.
53:13 S: It may be possible in the school, but once you go outside, you'll have to face the pressure.
53:23 K: You hear what he said? It may be all right here, but when you go outside you are under pressure. Will you yield to that pressure?
53:40 S: From what I've heard from the old students, they've all said they tried not yielding to the pressure.
53:48 K: What is that?
53:50 N: He has heard from the old students that – what is it?
53:53 S: They've tried not yielding to the pressure but some of them had to.
53:58 N: Some of the old students have reported to him that they've tried not to yield to the pressure when they go out, but ultimately they have to.
54:08 K: So, you are saying that the old students who have left here resist pressure and gradually give in, is that it?
54:19 S: Not gradually, they try, very hard.
54:21 K: That's what I mean. Of course. They try very hard not to be under pressure, but give it up.
54:28 S: They don't give it up, they are forced to give it up.
54:33 K: Wait a minute. Who forces them?
54:39 S: Society, the people around them.
54:41 K: Yes, that means what? Wait, let him finish. I am educated here, and when I leave this place I enter in the university, college and so on, and they are putting pressure on me all the time. And I try to resist it, I try to go against it, but the other pressure is so strong that I gradually yield to it. Now, why? Think it out. Why? Wait sir, I must stick to him.
55:34 S: It is possible that I notice that the other people are doing better when they are forced.
55:39 K: Which means what? More money?
55:45 S: Ya.

K: Ya. More power. So, I have really not understood pressure, but I'm attracted to money.
56:05 S: I think first, we should not have external motivation to even study.
56:15 K: Look, will you do this?
56:19 S: I will.
56:20 K: That you will study without pressure. Will the educators here, the teachers here help in this? Really help, see the importance of it. Personally, I have never been under pressure. I won't have pressure on me. I don't care about money or anything. I won't have pressure. You understand what I am saying? Because if I am under pressure, I limit my energy. My energy becomes very small. But when I am free, my energy is enormous. I wonder if they understand this principle.
57:17 S: When we are not compared we will not know in which position we are, and we think we are quite good, and we might go from bad to worse.
57:27 K: What's that?
57:28 N: He says when we are not compared we will not know where we are, and we may go from bad to worse.
57:37 K: Poor devils.
57:42 S: When you apply for a job and many people assemble when an advertisement is given and many people...
57:52 K: Blue jeans.
57:59 S: When an advertisement is given and many people apply for a job and only three people are going to be picked up, naturally, people who really want to make money have to do better than the others. Otherwise they won't get a job.
58:18 K: He is quite right. They are all monkeys. You are thinking like them. Right?
58:34 S: Quite right. But how will you survive outside if you don't have competition?
58:45 K: Now, stick to that question. How will you survive if you don't compete with the rest of them. Right? Is that what you asked?

S: Yes.
58:59 K: Now, what do you mean survive?
59:04 S: How will you fend for yourself? How will you fend? How will you live?
59:10 K: Have you found out? Listen carefully. You say I don't compete here, but the moment I go outside in the world I have to compete to survive. Survive according to their standard. Right? Which is what, money.

S: Power.
59:37 K: That's all. If you have money and power, money gives you power. So their standard is money. And is that what you want? Don't be shy, be honest.

S: Yes.
59:56 K: Then it's all right. If that's what you want, go for it.
1:00:01 S: But money is the main object nowadays, you can't live without money, you've got to compete for money.
1:00:06 K: Yes, my darling sir, I know that. So what will you do, become like the rest of them?
1:00:17 S: Is there a way to do it without becoming like the rest of them?
1:00:21 N: Is there a way of doing it without becoming like the rest of them.
1:00:26 K: Become a gardener. Become a carpenter. But you are always wanting to be BAs and MAs, money.
1:00:39 S: But supposing you have a family...
1:00:42 K: Have you got a family?

S: No, sir.
1:00:54 K: Don't talk about somebody else. Talk about yourself, what you will do. Then you will be more honest. You understand?
1:01:02 S: Yes.
1:01:06 S: Usually, at least for me, I find that what I want to do is not something like a carpenter or something else, carpenter or a gardener. I want to become something else, I want to become somebody.
1:01:19 K: Then go on, become somebody.
1:01:23 S: Sir, but a carpenter...
1:01:25 K: Wait. You are nobody if you are a carpenter.
1:01:29 S: It's not that.

K: But that means that.
1:01:36 S: Even in carpentry, there are many people who are more knowledgeable than me. I may not become very well.
1:01:46 N: He is saying I may have no talent in carpentry, I may not become a good carpenter.
1:01:56 Mary Zimbalist: Even among carpenters there is a difference.
1:01:59 K: There is the master carpenter, the apprentice and the middle man. You see, that's what I am saying: it's all based on competition. The guru with his disciples, he is competing with the other guru who has got more disciples. I remember a guru came to see me, a very well-known guru. He said, I started out with ten disciples, now I have got ten thousand disciples. You understand? He is just like you. Only, to him, disciples is the coin.
1:02:58 S: Surely, if I really learn how to learn and how to do something excellently then I wouldn't worry about competition, worry about survival, because I would be excellent in whatever I did.
1:03:14 K: That's right. Therefore you have to find out – look, listen carefully – you have to find out what you mean by learning. Learning from books, learning from experience, learning from others? You are following this? So what happens when you are doing this? Learning from books, learning from what others have told you, or others are saying, learn from your experience – what is happening there? Learning from books, learning from your professor, learning from your experience, what is happening? They are all the same, aren't they? Which is, you are accumulating knowledge, and according to that knowledge you are going to act. So, that's mechanical. Do you see that? So is there a way of learning which is not mechanical? You've understood my question? Find out. Ask your teachers, challenge them: Sir, I know the way, which is from you, from books, from my experience, are all the same, which is accumulating knowledge, which gradually becomes mechanical.
1:05:04 S: But how is learning from experience being mechanical? You are learning something for yourself, you are finding out.
1:05:13 K: Yes. You haven't understood. You experience, from that experience you learn, which becomes the knowledge.
1:05:25 S: All of them come out of the same place.
1:05:27 K: Of course. You get it? Do you understand this? So, you are always accumulating knowledge and acting. Therefore it becomes gradually mechanical. So, find out for yourself – I'll help you – if there is a different way of learning.
1:05:54 S: But again you will be going through the same steps.
1:06:01 K: All this: experience, learning from books, learning from another, is accumulating knowledge and acting according to that. That makes it mechanical – understood? Now, find out if there is a different way of learning.
1:06:28 S: Can it be by just looking at it?
1:06:32 N: Can it be by just looking.
1:06:35 K: That's what I am getting at. You're slowly learning, come on. I'll help you in this, I'll show it to you if you want. It's nearly quarter to eleven, we better stop, because your Principal has to go to meet the Collector who is going to arrange things for Mrs Gandhi. So we better stop now, right? We'll continue with this next time. Do you want to do this?
1:07:15 S: Yes, sir.
1:07:22 S: Without comparison the world can't go on, sir
1:07:27 K: Without comparison... This is your junior! He says without comparison the world can't go on. Look, at that age he is repeating this thing. You see, this is what we are doing, in the school.
1:07:58 S: But if you take up a job without comparing, which doesn't contain pressure, you have to like it, you can't do it without liking it. Any job you take must be to your liking. You may not like gardening but because you do not want pressure you are taking it up, but it is not exactly to your liking. Then also you won't enjoy the job.
1:08:19 K: So what will you do?
1:08:21 S: Try to find something that is to your liking.
1:08:23 K: What will you like to do?
1:08:25 S: Right now there are so many things I would like to do.
1:08:28 K: Find out what's the dominant interest. Go on. I know, you will end up earning money. Right?

S: Yes, sir.
1:08:51 K: Don't do it, sir. Think differently.
1:08:53 S: But does it mean in earning that you're liking pressure?
1:09:00 K: I know you can talk like this when you are very young, but when you reach a certain age you will be caught in the same groove, right?
1:09:08 S: Yes, sir.
1:09:11 K: So your talking now means nothing. But good to talk, right? All right, shall we sit quietly for a few minutes? All right, sirs.