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RV82DS1 - Have you noticed how your brain is conditioned?
Rishi Valley, India - 8 December 1982
Discussion with Students 1



0:01 This is J. Krishnamurti’s first discussion with students at Rishi Valley, 1982.
0:11 What shall we talk about?
0:19 What would you like me to talk about?
0:26 Jumping over the moon? No, you don’t know what that means. Well, sirs, girls, boys, what would you like me to talk about?
0:49 All right then, if you have no suggestions I’ll carry on, shall I? May I? Questioner: Yes, sir. Krishnamurti: Of course, that’s the easiest, isn’t it?
1:07 If I was married, which I am not, and if I had children, which I haven’t, what would I want my son or daughter to be, to become, to be in life?
1:30 Do you understand my question? Suppose I have a son or a daughter – hay fever, I am not crying; not because I haven’t a son or married – I would like my son and daughter, perhaps one of you is my son and daughter, I would like first of all that they should be highly sensitive.
2:16 You know what that word means – sensitive – to have all your senses, your touch, your seeing, hearing, highly developed.
2:33 You understand that? Because unless one becomes very, very sensitive when you touch, feel, see, your brain will not be greatly active.
2:56 The senses – part of the brain. Is this too difficult? Could I go on like that? May I? Oh, I forgot! I forgot something. The Foundation has appointed as the Secretary of the Executive committee, and the Director of Studies, Radhikaji – there she is sitting over there.
3:36 She is going to be executive secretary and Director of Studies.
3:49 Probably some of you know her already. She has an MA in Sanskrit, MA in Philosophy, and PhD.
4:00 And that’s enough about her! Right? As I was saying, if I had a son and a daughter here, what would I want them to be, to become, to flower into?
4:25 Q: A great man.
4:29 K: A great mind.
4:32 Q: A great man.
4:33 K: A great man. I don’t know what you mean by a great man. A great man may be a cricketeer, a swimmer, a man who runs one kilometre in two seconds (laughter), and so on.
4:53 I don’t know what you mean by ‘great man’. Either he is a great scientist, great archaeologist, or a great professor – I don’t know what you mean by ‘great’.
5:11 Do you mean by great national hero?
5:14 Q: Yes.
5:15 K: I thought so. (Laughter). A national hero is the last person to be great.
5:29 Right? You don’t understand it, do you? So I would like a boy or a girl for whom I am responsible, I would like to have them highly sensitive.
5:50 I’ll go into that presently.
5:57 So that his brain – because that’s the only instrument we have, an instrument which is capable of extraordinary things.
6:11 What it has done in the technological world, extraordinarily capable.
6:21 And to be sensitive and to have a brain that is highly active, not suffocated, atrophied by so-called modern education.
6:38 Sorry! Do you understand what I am saying?
6:46 Do you understand what I am talking about?
6:54 Am I boring you?
6:56 Q: No, sir.
6:57 K: I am?
6:59 Q: No, sir.
7:01 K: What does that mean?
7:08 Yes? No? Why? (Laughs) And I would have, that boy or girl, to have an excellent body, a very healthy body – pliable, swift, strong, eating the right food, right exercise, clothed properly with good taste.
7:42 Do you understand this? No response! All right. And to have a good mind, good brain.
8:04 You know, we have an extraordinary body. It has evolved through thousands upon thousands of years.
8:17 It is an extraordinary instrument if we don’t abuse it, if we don’t overeat, over exercise, over indulge, then it can last for a very, very long time, over a hundred years.
8:47 And to have a good body is essential. Right? You agree to all this? Right? Will you have a good body? Eat right food, exercise, walk so that your body becomes extraordinarily alive, not just a lot of lumpy flesh.
9:19 Is this all too much? Do you understand what I am talking about? All of you understand English? Yes?
9:31 Q: Yes.
9:32 K: I don’t speak Tamil, Telegu, Hindi or any other Indian language, but I know French – you know what French is?
9:46 Q: Yes, sir.
9:48 K: I know Italian, I used to know Spanish, but I am beginning to forget most of them.
9:57 My mother tongue has become English. So I am afraid I have to speak in English so I hope you will understand it.
10:11 And one must have a very good brain. So let’s talk about that. Apart from the body, apart from having good sensitive appreciation of nature – you know all the trees around you.
10:35 Have you ever looked at any of the trees, have you? Come on, answer me. Have you looked at trees or have you pulled the branches off?
10:52 Q: We did both. (Inaudible) Q: He says, sometimes he looks at them and also pulls out a few leaves.
11:12 K: I know. It is like pulling your hair out. (Laughter) The tree doesn’t like it. But have you looked at it quietly? Look at it one day after you leave here. Look at a tree, how extraordinarily beautiful it is, so symmetrical, the last highest leaf has extraordinary vitality.
11:42 Look at it and don’t do anything to harm the tree.
11:49 Have you ever looked at the heavens, at the sky?
11:57 Have you? Have you looked at it, not just casually look at it and go off and do something else, but actually take time to look at the sky, the clouds, the light in the clouds and the shape of the clouds and the moving clouds, how they cast shadows on the hills and how the shadows move.
12:30 Have you watched all this? Have you?
12:37 Q: Yes sir.
12:38 K: No. I am afraid you haven’t. Probably you are too busy pulling somebody’s hair, too busy talking, chattering, and so never have time to look at the extraordinary world we live in, the beauty of this valley, the ancient hills and the dried river, the stream.
13:06 Have you looked at all this, every day, as though you are looking at it for the first time?
13:17 You can’t look at it as though it was the first time if you say, well, that’s a stream, dead.
13:25 The moment you name it, it is not new. I wonder if you understand this? So, I would have that child, that boy, or girl, highly sensitive, and that helps the brain to be also very alive, sensitive, active.
13:58 You know modern education right throughout the world is making the brain dull because it is stuffed with a lot of knowledge, information, specialised career as an engineer, as a doctor, as a chemist, or devoting his time to research so that your brain becomes conditioned, shaped by the study you do.
14:52 Right? Are you understanding some of all this?
15:01 Don’t you discuss with me, can’t you talk?
15:10 Have you noticed how your brain is conditioned?
15:18 You call yourself a Hindu. That’s a conditioning. You call yourself a Muslim. That is conditioning. Or a Christian or a Communist or a Marxist. You understand? Our brain is programmed as a computer. I wonder if you understand all this.
15:48 Aren’t you programmed, aren’t you being told from when you were little that you are a Hindu, that you have your own gods, that you have your own particular rituals?
16:04 Haven’t you been told all that? So by constant repetition of that: you are a Hindu, you are a Christian, you are a Muslim and so on, your brain gradually becomes conditioned, shaped, and all the rest of your life, you say I am a Muslim, I am a Hindu, I am a Christian, I am Catholic, I am this or that.
16:29 That is conditioning, isn’t it.
16:40 Am I talking to a lot of dead people, not thinking people?
16:49 Are you all cynical up there?
16:53 Q: Excuse me but this conditioning, whatever we do, don’t we in some way or the other be conditioned?
17:05 I mean, aren’t we conditioned? In the way you mean, you look at a tree, you look at something without naming it, otherwise it seems we become conditioned.
17:19 If we learn to look in that way too aren’t we being conditioned anyway?
17:30 K: Sir, suppose I want to be a good carpenter. None of you do that, of course – you all want to be lawyers, engineers.
17:43 Right? But none of you want to be a good master carpenter. I watched one of them in California. He was really a most extraordinarily skilled person. Now, if I want to be a carpenter, I have to study the nature of the wood – right?
18:07 – I have to study the nature of the implements – right? – and the grain of this wood and so on.
18:16 I have to familiarise myself with the various types of wood. Right? And also the instruments I use I must handle them properly. Right? Now, that actually makes my brain somewhat conditioned in a particular direction as a carpenter.
18:42 If I want to be an engineer, the same thing happens. Right? Or a scientist or a philosopher or a religious maniac.
18:56 Right? So does – please listen to this – does knowledge condition the brain?
19:06 Q: Yes.
19:08 K: No, don’t say, yes immediately. Think of it, let’s talk it over. Let’s talk it over. I go to school, pass examinations if I am lucky or if I am fairly brainy – not brainy – fairly good at memorising.
19:37 Then go to college, university and then a career.
19:44 Right? Now, I have acquired knowledge about mathematics.
19:52 Right? That knowledge, is it conditioning my brain?
20:03 Enquire into it. Let us talk about it. Don’t keep silent.
20:08 Q: Conditioning will mean…
20:10 K: Don’t say anything, just step by step go into it.
20:20 Q: I am just trying to understand it.
20:27 Conditioning will mean your thought process is being directed in a particular direction.
20:28 K: Yes. So, if I specialise in one subject – right? – does that condition my brain, the brain?
20:39 Apparently it does. A surgeon, a very good top surgeon, he has had ten years or fifteen years of medical study, got a degree, practises till be becomes a top surgeon.
21:00 And such a surgeon obviously being specialised, his brain is conditioned.
21:08 Right? Some of you are going to be engineers – and god knows why – some of you are going to be lawyers and so on.
21:21 Your brain is already being conditioned by the idea that you will be an engineer, a doctor and so on.
21:32 Is that right? Would you agree to that? Now, is knowledge, which is that, I have a great deal of knowledge as a surgeon – right?
21:44 – a great deal of experience, I have operated on the heart dozens and dozens of times, and my hands are skilful, I know the precise instrument to use and so on, so my brain is conditioned.
22:08 So we are asking a further question which is, does knowledge condition the brain?
22:16 Go on sir, answer it.
22:24 That’s what you – you are acquiring knowledge in this school, getting a lot of information and you are memorising it, it is stored up in the brain.
22:43 In the very brain cells, your study, your mathematics, whatever you are studying, is stored there as memory.
22:53 That memory of a particular subject does condition the brain. Right? You agree to that? Not ‘agree’, do you see the fact of it?
23:05 Q: I see, but my question now is that you just said, sometime back, look at anything without naming it, otherwise you become conditioned.
23:18 K: Go ahead sir, what?
23:22 Q: So what I am asking is: isn’t that too a kind of gaining of knowledge?
23:33 Q: He said even when I look at something as you are asking us to look, in that process also he says we are getting conditioned.
23:47 K: Now, when you look at a tree, do you name the tree?
23:54 Q: I don’t, because I don’t know the name.
23:56 K: So, you don’t know the name. So you look at it. Right? When you look at it without using the word ‘tree’ or a special kind of tree, then you are looking at something very alive.
24:15 Does that condition you? Obviously not. The moment you name it, the moment you recognise it as a particular species, then with that conditioning you are looking at the tree.
24:36 You understand the difference? Right? Go into it further. Can you look at your friend without the word, without the picture that you have built about the friend, without the image that you have carefully gathered – without the image, without the picture, without the word, can you look at your friend?
25:12 The word, the picture, the image is the conditioning.
25:20 You are following this? So, can you look at something, look at your friend, or look at the speaker, the me, without the image, without the picture you have built about him or the name, or the word – just look.
25:47 Can you do that? Because if you name it, have an image about it, or the picture you have constructed or put together or put together through reputation, then that is your conditioning.
26:10 But if you have no picture, then there is no conditioning.
26:21 Clear? You follow that?
26:24 Q: (Inaudible) Q: He says he follows it, but how do you do it?
26:34 K: Now wait a minute, wait. That’s an excellent question, ‘how do you do it?’ Why do you ask that?
26:49 Q: Because I am interested.
26:55 K: You want to achieve that, you want to have that kind of look.
27:02 Q: Yes.
27:05 K: Yes. So you are asking, how. Now watch your brain, how it operates. When you ask the ‘how’ you want a system.
27:20 Q: (Inaudible) K: That’s your conditioning. You understand? The ‘how’ is your conditioning, but to see the fact, to see the truth that conditioning operates only when there is the naming, the picture, the image that you have built about her or him.
27:51 That is your conditioning. Right? Just be aware of that, don’t say how am I to get out of it.
28:01 Just be aware of this fact. You understand? Aware. Are you aware of all the trees round you, of the hills, of the shape of the hills, the rocks?
28:22 Are you aware of all that?
28:29 If you are not aware of all that, it is very, very difficult to be aware of your conditioning and to see how that conditioning acts.
28:42 Right? So one has to be aware of the whole environment around you.
28:52 Q: How do you get along with him, with that person, if you don’t have a name, or image of him?
29:20 K: If I have no image, picture, or the idea about him, what is my relationship with him – is that it?
29:36 Q: Yes.
29:37 K: Have you tried it? Then why do you ask that question?
29:48 Do tell me please, I am not being impudent.
29:52 Q: I cannot try it.
29:59 K: Why can’t you? Look, how many years have you spent in a school or in college or a university?
30:13 Years. Right? And to do this you do not even spend half an hour at it, investigating it.
30:23 You don’t spend even ten minutes to find out whether it is possible or not. So your brain is conditioned by your slackness – right? – by your laziness.
30:46 Sorry! Right? The moment you pay attention it becomes alive. Yes sir?
30:55 Q: Doesn’t our brain itself naturally seek conditioning and permanence that way?
31:07 K: What?
31:09 Q: He says the brain naturally seeks the conditioning, it can’t help it.
31:22 K: Sir, our brain has evolved from the ape and so on, till man, which is about 40,000 years ago – that is what the scientists say.
31:42 It has passed through every kind of experience, every kind of incident.
31:49 Right? Right, sir? So it has gathered enormous information, experience and the brain itself is conditioned.
32:03 Right? Because it has, in the very nature of growth, it has become conditioned. Now, we are saying the conditioning is the word, the picture, the memory, the accumulated information stored in the brain as memory.
32:25 These are the factors that condition the brain, and more, other factors – there isn’t time to go into – there are various other factors like fear, greed, pain and so on.
32:44 All these are the contributory causes of conditioning.
32:52 So we must ask the question: is it possible to uncondition the brain?
33:01 You understand my question? There are many scholars, many professors and writers like the existentialists and so on – they say it cannot be unconditioned.
33:17 Are you following this? Yes, sir? It cannot be unconditioned, only it can be modified.
33:27 Q: Logically speaking, these people who say you can’t uncondition are right.
33:40 Logically speaking.
33:42 K: Maybe, but I have to find out. Why should I accept it?
33:49 Q: No, you yourself said that we have evolved…
33:53 K: I said that sir. It has evolved from the ape till now, and there is a very great deal of ape in us.
34:07 Right? Now the factor is it is conditioned.
34:20 Is it possible to free that conditioning? Otherwise evolution has no meaning. You understand? If I am violent from the ape till now, I will be violent till the very end of all time.
34:45 So is it possible to change the whole psychological structure of the brain?
35:02 Is it possible for you to be completely free of fear?
35:09 Because that is one of the factors of conditioning.
35:19 Q: That’s awesome, the prospect.
35:23 K: Of course it is awesome. Why do you call it awesome?
35:30 Q: Because you want to decondition the brain. Right? You’ve got a whole lot of things that you’ve got to get rid of.
35:40 K: The young fellows are getting rather restive. We ought to discuss this very carefully, step by step go into it.
35:55 Do you want to do that? Not just with words, not just intellectually spin along, but actually step by step go into it, as you take each step finish with it, so that at the end there is total freedom from fear.
36:18 Will you do that?
36:36 So – next question is: our knowledge which we are acquiring through books, through conversation, through dialogues, through reading various books, is making our brains full of knowledge without having an original experience.
37:18 You understand what I am talking about?
37:25 Vous avez compris? Sorry – do you understand what I’m saying?
37:35 I happened to know a very great writer, a literary man. He is dead now, he was a great friend of mine. One day he told me – because I knew him very well; we were great friends – on a walk in the hills, he told me, he said: ‘Look, I can speak about science, I can speak about painting, piano, music, I can talk about Vedanta, I can talk about Buddhism’, because he has studied it, ‘Tao, all that, I am full of knowledge, my brain has studied, acquired knowledge about so many things – encyclopaedic knowledge.
38:26 And I wonder if I will ever have an original experience’.
38:38 You understand what I said? You understand what I said? So your brains are now over-loaded and you will never have, unless you understand the nature of conditioning, never have something totally original.
39:03 Then you are just a mediocre human being. You understand? You know what that word ‘mediocre’ means? According to the dictionary, which is the common usage of English language – if it is an English dictionary – it means ‘going up the hill half way’, never reaching the top but always going just a few steps up.
39:34 That’s what it means to be mediocre. And most of us are mediocre. We never go to the very end of anything. Right? So look what is happening to you all: you are being educated to be mediocre – right?
40:05 – to have a job, to get married, children and for the rest of your life, for fifty, sixty years – work, work, work.
40:16 Go to the office or to the factory or tilling the land.
40:26 You understand all this? Then you will say, ‘How am I to earn money, I must have food and clothes and shelter’. Naturally.
40:36 Q: Do you mean to say we must reach the top of the hill?
40:53 Aren’t we ambitious then?
40:57 K: No. To reach the human excellence, that’s the top of the – beyond Everest.
41:10 You understand? That doesn’t need ambition. Ambition destroys love. No, you don’t know all this.
41:24 But to have a brain that is excellent, that means say exactly what you mean and not have double meaning – you understand?
41:48 – not to be cynical, not to be bitter, not to hate.
42:01 Are you interested in all this? Or is it just another talk on a weary morning when we ought to be out in the sun, with the green leaves and the beauty of the earth?
42:16 You are bored with this, are you? If you are bored, and perhaps you are, what would you like to do?
42:35 Not just sit there and look at the speaker, that’s not fun.
42:38 Q: If I may go back, as you said knowledge leads to conditioning.
42:46 K: I said, does knowledge lead to conditioning? I asked a question. Sir, just a minute. I asked a question. I didn’t say… I want you to find out.
42:57 Q: As I have seen, knowledge does lead to conditioning, but knowledge is important in life.
43:06 K: Of course.
43:07 Q: So where do we draw the line?
43:09 K: Find out. Do you want me to draw the line and then you accept it? Look: I drive a car. To drive a car I must be taught. Right? Right? That means I must drive with a good driver beside me to tell me what to do, how to change gears, how to put on the brake, the accelerator and so on.
43:41 I learn. Through learning about driving I become a good driver or a bad driver. Right? That is, I have acquired knowledge to drive a car, I have acquired knowledge to speak English or Hindi, or whatever it is, I acquire knowledge to be a good carpenter – I prefer to be a carpenter than an engineer.
44:07 You understand, I prefer that – not that I am a carpenter, I’m not.
44:16 So knowledge is necessary, otherwise you can’t live.
44:24 So find out for yourself where knowledge is necessary and where knowledge is not necessary.
44:39 May I help you in this?
44:41 Q: Yes, sir.
44:42 K: Don’t say, yes sir and then relax and go to sleep.
44:51 But find out where knowledge is essential, where it is necessary, where it is important, and also find out where it is not important at all.
45:04 So, you have got this problem. Right? Now, what is a problem? Sorry! You know the meaning of that word ‘problem’? It means ‘something thrown at you’, that’s what problem means. The actual meaning, the etymological meaning of that word means ‘something thrown at you’, something you are challenged.
45:35 Q: No, but that’s my problem sir, no one has thrown it to me.
45:45 K: Oh yes, I have thrown it at you.
45:49 Q: No, but distinction between the validity of knowledge and the… (inaudible) K: I have said, sir, find out where knowledge is necessary and where knowledge is not necessary.
46:07 Right? Find out. And I added to that: may I help you to find out? Not direct you to find out. You understand the difference? By talking together, having a dialogue together, let us enquire into it.
46:35 Will you accept that? Right? Then, knowledge is necessary, isn’t it? Physical knowledge – how to ride a bicycle, how to drive a car, how to write, what to do if I am an engineer, carpenter – there it is necessary.
46:57 That is the way the whole social structure is built now, that I must work to earn a livelihood.
47:07 To work I must have knowledge about whatever I do. Now where is it not necessary? Probably you have never asked this question. Right? You never. Now I am asking you where is it not necessary? Come on sirs. You have all studied, you are good at – clever, come on sir.
47:45 Q: Excuse me sir. Do you have fear?
47:48 K: Do I have fear? You or me?
47:50 Q: You.
47:51 K: (Laughter) I am glad it is a direct question at last.
48:03 Do I have fear?
48:10 What do you mean by fear? Passing exams, a snake biting me, fear of something?
48:24 Now, fear – either it is physical fear – you know, fear – which is, I walk in the dark, I may be bitten by a snake.
48:35 Right? And therefore I have to be careful where I walk. And there is the other kind of fear, which is, I might not succeed in my career.
48:49 Right? I want to be a good doctor, but I may not be capable of being a good doctor, and I am afraid of that.
48:59 Right? So when you ask me, are you frightened, have you fear, I say to you in humility that I have no inward fear of any kind.
49:22 You understand what I’ve said? I am not afraid of – what? – my reputation, I am not afraid – you understand? – what people say about me, I don’t care. Right? What else? I am not afraid to die.
49:49 Right? I am not afraid – what are you afraid of? Of your wife, of your husband, of your father, mother?
50:05 As I have no father and no mother, nor a wife, I am not frightened of family. (Laughs) You understand? No, this is too difficult. Now sir, we have got ten minutes more so let’s finish the subject you have raised.
50:32 Are you interested in this? Tell me.
50:45 You understand, this is important for you to find out. You may become an engineer, you have to find out, you have to learn, so learn about this also – where knowledge is necessary, important, essential.
51:12 To go from here to Madras you must know the road – you follow? – you must have knowledge. Now where is knowledge an impediment?
51:22 Q: Thought.
51:25 K: Knowledge is… Oh lord, I don’t want to go into all that.
51:44 What do you mean by thought?
51:45 Q: What I mean by thought is like now you asked us a certain question….
51:51 K: Yes, which means what?
51:54 Q: I am always bounded, I mean I’ve got a certain area in which to move.
52:06 K: Within which to live.
52:07 Q: No, to move, in my thought…
52:09 K: Yes.
52:10 Q: …my thought processes. You provoke my thought. And I am limited by knowledge, by what I know.
52:17 K: That’s all. Agreed. We agree to that. I am asking a different question, sir. We agree that we must have knowledge – right? – to go from here to Delhi you need knowledge, to write a book – knowledge, to drive a car – right? – to become a good chemist, good scientist you must have a great deal of knowledge.
52:50 Now we are asking a question, where knowledge is not necessary.
53:00 Is there any place where knowledge is an impediment?
53:16 Q: Knowledge is not necessary when you want to be considerate to others.
53:27 K: Are you saying where there is love, knowledge is not necessary?
53:39 Have you heard what I asked? Are you saying that where there is affection, care, love, compassion, knowledge is not necessary?
54:01 Look, sir, I will indicate some things for you to pursue it or not as you wish.
54:17 Knowledge is not necessary in relationship.
54:24 If I am married, I have a wife, and I have built an image about her – are you following this? – and she has built an picture about me.
54:42 Don’t you know all this?
54:49 You are not married but you have got a teacher, haven’t you? An educator, you have a picture about him, haven’t you? Right sir? Don’t be shy.
55:03 Q: Right, sir.
55:06 K: Good. You have a picture about him. So your picture you have built since you have been here, about him.
55:18 Right? So your picture, your image about him is not the actual him.
55:29 He may be different. He may have contributed to that picture. So we are saying – this requires much more investigation, I can’t go into it now – I am pointing out if I may, that in relationship knowledge is a detriment.
55:53 Knowledge is what divides people, man, woman and all the rest of it.
56:02 It is knowledge that is dividing the Hindu and the Muslim. Agree? Agree? No, you don’t… It is the knowledge that says, I am a Jew, you are an Arab, and because of this division, we kill each other.
56:41 Is that enough this morning? Is that enough? Yes? Yes sir? Is that enough? Well, General, is that enough?
57:08 Now before we go, would you sit quietly for a few minutes? That is, if you want to. Sit very quietly, close your eyes and see what your thoughts are doing.
57:33 Will you do that?
57:46 (Pause) Goodbye sirs, till we meet next time, goodbye.