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RV85DT3 - If you stand alone you are related
Rishi Valley, India - 9 December 1985
Discussion with Teachers 3



0:51 Krishnamurti: What shall we have a conversation about? The other day, we were talking about why do we turn out mice instead of lions? May we talk about that, a little? We seem to spend a great deal of energy and capacity on these students. Their parents, obviously, want them to be safe, well-educated, to have a good job, settle down in life, marry, children – the whole business of it. And we spend enormous energy in educating them to fill in that gap, or that slot, or that space – as an engineer, as a philosopher, an academician, and scientist and so on. Is that all that we can do? Come on, sirs, it’s in your lap, in your court. Like Kabir is experimenting, organising some kind of educational structure, or non-structure. He must spend a great deal of energy in thinking it out, with the others. Talk to the parents, talk to the students and yet they remain mice – tame, domestic mice. And we seem to be satisfied with that. There are nearly 350 students here – 340 or 350, it doesn’t matter – and the same number of students in Rajghat, and about 250 or so, in Madras, in Bangalore, 150. And out of this lot, about a thousand – I don’t have to conclude the sentence. So, what shall we do? Apparently, some of them go abroad, if they are unlucky enough, and they get swallowed up by American technology, by girls, by the marvellous beauty of the land. And they are lost there. Some of them are in the IBM, some invent something new. They seem to flower in the technological world in America. At least, some of them do. And of course, nobody goes to England anymore. Perhaps, some of them go to Germany. They apparently do extraordinarily well in the technological, mechanical world. They have got fairly good memories, fairly good brains, and they slip into that rut. And here we are, nearly 1,000 students in our schools, and we don’t seem to be able to produce one gazelle, or one lion, or even a big elephant. Why is this? I am asking you. Please, you are the educators. Is there something wrong in our approach to all this? Rajghat and this school, Rishi Valley, have existed for nearly 60 years or more, and when you consider the enormous energy that we have put into it – incalculable energy – building, making the land fertile, digging wells, and yesterday there was the collector here for lunch. He said he was going to build more dams and all the rest of it. Environment seems to help us, enormously – the trees, the land, those enormous rocks and the extraordinary beauty of this land. But somehow, all that becomes insignificant, when we, as educators, are incapable of doing something marvellous. I believe both, especially Rishi Valley, has got a good reputation. It’s fairly well-known. May I tell you a joke? The other day I was going somewhere by air. Somebody asked me, ‘From where are you?’ ‘Oh’, I said, ‘somewhere’. He said, ‘Actually, where are you from? Are you Turkish? Are you Persian? Are you from the Muslim world?’ I said, ‘No, no, no’. ‘Where are you from?’ I said, ‘I am from the Valley of the Rishis’. Rather a good name for this place. He said, ‘Where is that?’ I said, ‘You won’t find it’. So, what shall we do together? To do, or not do something extraordinarily alive, vital. Not let the students fall into the same old rut, business or army or this and that. Please, I would like your advice and discussion.
10:10 Radhika Herzberger: Sir, if may I say something. Perhaps, I’m just paraphrasing you. But, I feel we fail because we deal with the problem you’re posing, when we talk to our children, when we try to do something, we constantly make a problem of it.
10:33 K: Without making a problem of it, what is amiss? What is not correct? What is it that we should or should not do to bring about a totally different human being? I don’t know if you are interested in this.
10:55 RH: Perhaps, the question shouldn’t be posed in the way you’re posing it.
11:00 K: Then, let us pose it, differently. What is it I want my daughter or my son, when I send them here, knowing that they will get very good academic knowledge? And the parents are not really concerned about the other. Right?
11:31 RH: But then some ways...
11:34 K: Yes, some, but it’s such a drop in a bucket. You see the fruit of it all. Right? So, what shall we do together? Please, I’m putting these questions to all of you. What shall we do? Come on, sir, what shall we do? I don’t want you to experiment on my children. Right? Kabir Jaithirtha: Yes, sir.
12:16 K: I’d say what the hell are you doing with my children, experimenting, like animals, pigs?

KJ: Sir, we are not. It is a very wrong notion that we’re experimenting.
12:27 K: I don’t care. Are you experimenting with them? Are you trying something new on them? Or are you trying to bring a different quality of a human being?
12:44 KJ: I would say we’re trying to do the latter.
12:50 K: You can’t. All right, sir. In what way? Sorry, I’m going to examine you, now that you’re close. In what way are you trying to bring about a different quality of a human being? He’s one of the – where is the other chap? Lord, they all hide here. There he is, yes. These two are supposed to run the Bangalore school. You would have stayed there, you and (inaudible), last night, but they were here, so you couldn’t. When did you leave this morning?
13:43 Q: 5:15.

K: 5:15? Good Lord! I hope you had a nice journey. Beautiful… Right. Sir, you tell me. Your way may be the right way or the wrong way. I don’t know. So, you tell me. I’ve sent my daughter and son to you. I want them – please, I’m a fairly educated human being, I’ve seen different parts of the world, a little, not too much, I’m fairly knowledgeable, and I send these two children to you. I’ve a feeling, or rather, a wishing, longing that you would do something different from the usual run of the schools. I would like them to be academically excellent, because that is part of life, part of earning a beastly livelihood, with all the boredom of it. And also, I would like them to be – if I may use the word, most delicately – religious. Not the usual temple and all that nonsense. I send them to you. For 9 months you have to be in charge of them. Proceed. Tell me what you would do. What will you do? Not, ‘We hope’. Not, ‘We will try’. Not, ‘We’ll do our best’. Because that all sounds silly to me. So, what will you do, sir? This is a question to all of you.
16:25 JR: Sir, may I respond to this? Why are we assuming that anything can be done?
16:36 K: Sir, I will tell you.
16:41 JR: These schools have been going for 60 years...
16:43 K: I know all that, sir.
16:45 JR: …and nothing extraordinary has happened yet. Why do we assume, is there any evidence that anything can be done in the school?
16:54 K: I’ll tell you. We started this school – and Rajghat in the North. I used to sleep on the floor here. No water, no electricity, the toilet was all this open field. We thought we would educate them differently. We thought. I still think it can be done. You may say, ‘You’re rather odd in your head. Nothing can be done’. You might say that. I say, sorry, since you have educated man in that direction – commercialism, technology, job, good life – all that. Since you have done that, man can do something else, too.
17:58 JR: Why do we assume that?

K: Why not? If you have gone that way, why can’t he go the other way?
18:07 JR: Because maybe it can’t be taught.
18:12 K: Why not? Maybe. You assume it may not.
18:15 JR: I don’t know.

K: Therefore, let’s find out. You may take 50 years, 100 years – I hope not. There must be another direction, too. The Jesuits have done it. Right, sir? The Jesuits.
18:40 JR: Have they produced extraordinary individuals that you’re talking about? The Jesuits, have they produced…?
18:50 K: Oh, yes! They have produced what they wanted to produce. The Communist cells were based on Jesuit cells. They took a great deal from Loyola. So, you can’t say human beings cannot go some other way, too. So, what shall we do – you and I, and the rest of us – to see if we can bring something tremendous out of these places?
19:37 KJ: Krishnaji, obviously it cannot be experimenting, in the sense of groping around. It cannot be, ‘I hope I will do my best’.
19:52 K: I don’t want you to do your best, which would be nothing. To me, to do your best, is nothing. So, what will you, as a human being, create, build? You have built the Pyramids, the Sphinx, the Parthenon. You’ve built the most extraordinary things in life. Why can’t we do this?
20:25 RH: One of the prerequisites is that one should be very self-critical, not satisfied with what we have done, what we are doing.
20:43 K: You mean self-critical?

RH: Of what we have done so far.
20:48 K: That’s what I’m saying. What have we done so far?
20:57 Q: Maybe our attention is in the wrong place. If we give attention to the children, yes, but it’s what we are that we give to the children.
21:15 K: Just a minute. The parents want their children to be safe, secure. To be secure in this society, you must have a degree, and examination, study, all that. The parents also want their children to be married and settle down. Have a job, marry and settle down. ‘For God’s sake, get on with it’. Breed like hell and carry on. Is it the parents, or is it ourselves, or is it we are caught up in a system, in a whirlpool that cannot but carry us along, in its old way? You understand my question? I cannot admit that. To me, that’s defeatism, to be defeated by a theory. So, what shall we do? Please, come on, sir.
22:54 Rajesh Dalal: Sir, the Jesuits and the Communists, they rally their energy, all the people put all their energy onto a common goal. It gives them a tremendous sense of energy. We are seeing that kind of energy is the same thing. It is still isolation.

K: Yes.
23:22 RD: Our question is, when we see this, we’re lost.
23:30 K: No, Rajesh. Just a minute. What are you trying to tell me? If all of us have a certain goal, a certain purpose, certain definite, delineated shape, idea, or a principle or a pattern, then we can put all our energy into it. Can we? Can we all agree, all of us in this room, agree that we need a different kind of brain, a different kind of outlook on life, a different way of living, of feeling and so on? Could we all agree on that?
24:33 RD: I think many of us are agreed.

K: Ah, no!
24:37 RH: We may agree, but what is the content of that agreement?
24:40 K: That’s what I’m coming to. Agree we should build the Sphinx, and we know we can’t do it. So, can we all agree, profoundly, on something together? Not superficially, not say, ‘Yes. Let’s get on with it’. Can we have the same vision – I’m using the word ‘vision’, not in the world of psychiatry but in the world on earth – can we all together have one vision? Or is that impossible? Come, sir.
25:41 RH: Sir, it may be possible but the same vision can be accompanied by fanaticism, zealousness. You don’t want all that.

K: No. no.
25:53 RD: What is the quality of that vision, the nature of it?
25:58 K: I’ll tell you in a minute. That’s not the point. The question is, can we all come together about something? Not purpose, goal, God and all that, but the feeling that we are together, first.
26:22 RD: About something?

K: No!
26:25 RD: Sir, you said that.

K: No, I didn’t say that. I’m asking, can we all feel that we are together doing something. Not, ‘What’?
26:40 RH: That’s very different.

K: Ah, that’s what I’m saying. Come on, sirs. If we all want to build a house, that’s fairly simple. Because we all have a common goal, we all want so many windows, so many bathrooms, so many sitting rooms, that’s fairly simple. Then we say, ‘Good idea, let’s all work together’. That is, you’re working for a purpose, for a goal, for an end. But we are saying, first what is important is not the building, not the shape of the house, the windows, the bathrooms, but the feeling that we are together. Don’t go to sleep, please. If we have that feeling, we can do anything.
28:03 JR: Sir, what would bring about this feeling of togetherness, if it’s not some kind of a conscious goal?
28:11 K: Sir, we can’t do anything in the world by ourselves. Right? Nothing! The Parthenon was not built by one man putting stones. It was a feeling, for Athena, I won’t go into that story, and putting it all together, with tremendous intelligence. Right? Can’t we do the same here?
28:46 JR: But there’s a goal there.
28:48 K: No, no, no. The feeling for the goddess. You understand? Goddess of wisdom, Athena. The feeling of it, I’m talking about, not the Goddess. That came later.
29:09 KJ: Do you mean being together in the feeling for the religious quality?
29:15 K: I’m saying, sir, do we have that feeling, first?
29:20 KJ: Of being together.

K: Of being together. You cannot do anything by yourself in the world. You need my help, you need his help, you need your wife, you need someone. You can’t live by yourself, unless you trot off to the Himalayas. There, too, somebody comes and feeds you. The sense of isolation, which separates, that’s all I’m objecting to.
29:56 RH: Isn’t that inevitable if you rally around a goal?
30:02 K: I’m not talking about a goal, purpose, end, or a goddess. The feeling, ‘I can’t live by myself’. The feeling…
30:16 SP: I feel we get this feeling of togetherness for a while, but then our own idiosyncrasies, our own tendencies come to the fore, then somehow, that feeling gets lost.
30:30 K: No, you can’t lose it, if you have that feeling in one’s... I don’t think we are talking of the same thing.
30:40 KJ: If it is an emotional...
30:43 K: Not emotional, sir. Even intellectually you can’t do anything.
30:48 KJ: I agree, intellectually, one can say that one can’t do a thing alone.
30:53 K: You can’t. To have a child, a woman and a man is necessary. It may be in a tube, but a man is necessary. This idea, ‘Leave us alone, we will do it by ourselves’, is impossible. We are together in this. I don’t think you get that feeling. I don’t think you have that feeling. To have that feeling implies that you sit down, if there’s any misunderstanding, wipe it out the next second.
31:51 RD: Sir, can you explore a bit more into this?
31:53 K: What? Into what?

RD: Into this whole question. You made the statement, ‘You cannot do this alone’. No one person can do this. It is absolutely clear.
32:07 K: Except in parliament, or a dictator.
32:12 RD: One person can only bully the rest.
32:14 K: Yes, we’re not talking of that.

RD: Or he can influence the rest.
32:20 K: The feeling that we are not separate, the feeling that you cannot, that you’re utterly responsible for whatever you do. Right? I walk down that road. I see a branch fallen on it. I pick it up. I’m responsible. Not say, ‘The gardener will come and pick it up’. If there is this feeling of responsibility, then you’re together. I don’t know if I’m conveying it. Please, sir, let’s discuss it, don’t let me talk.
33:42 RD: Sir, there is this tendency to isolate.
33:47 K: Don’t bring in all that. I know that but what will you do, Rajesh? Don’t talk about these things. What are you doing?
33:57 RD: When you watch it, sometimes you’re not able to end it. It has its own force.

K: What? What?
34:03 RD: At times.

K: Not at times. Now.
34:07 RD: Now, I see what you are saying.
34:10 K: What do you say? Can we work together? Or you shirk responsibility and I do all the work? And you come along, then criticise. Suppose this happens. I say, ‘What the hell do you mean? You and I are involved in this thing. Not that you’re superior, I’m inferior. You take the spade’. I’ve taken the spade, dug a hole. You do the same. Don’t tell me, ‘I’ll improve the hole’.
34:50 RD: No, but if you feel that, you will keep digging holes, there’s nothing in those holes, you don’t want to do it.
34:58 K: I will plant a tree in those holes. What are you talking about? I dig a hole for an orange tree, and I see it’s the proper depth, soil, compost, all kinds of stuff in it – and then I plant it. But my responsibility is for the whole thing. I want Rishi Valley to be the most beautiful place on earth, so I work. What are you people doing? You don’t come and supervise me and tell me what to do. No, sir. You dig. You plant, because you care for the whole place.
35:51 RD: Sir, you don’t know what that means. You want to find out what it means to care for the whole place. You don’t want to just fragmentarily plant a tree, and go on.
36:01 K: No, I’ll tell you. Do you really want me to tell you what it means? Sir, there’s a particular hill, in Saanen, going up towards a certain other little town called Schonreid. We were driving up that steep slope, and a girl on a bicycle, sees a piece of paper on the road, gets down, picks up that piece of paper and trundles up the hill. There is a bin at the corner. She drops it in there. A little girl of fifteen, twelve, or whatever – yes, sir.
36:55 RD: You say that that is caring for the whole?
36:58 K: Jesus!
37:00 RD: No, I’m not going to let you make that statement and...
37:05 K: Sir, in the sense, she was responsible for that piece of paper, responsible to see that road was kept clean.
37:15 RD: So, each one of us here must be doing that – several times a day.
37:20 K: Rajnesh… Rajesh. Sir, I’m talking about the feeling of responsibility, not for a particular thing, but the feeling of responsibility. If you feel that, you do everything.
37:52 RH: Then there is no feeling of ‘my vision’, and ‘your vision’.
38:00 K: That’s why I’m asking you all, gentlemen and ladies, what shall we do? Knowing that you cannot build anything by yourself. Impossible, sir. What will you do? Tell me, please. You like to discuss, talk. Tell me what to do – not a verbal statement, not theoretically, tell me, I’ve come here as one of you, as a worker – worker, not a theoretician – and I say, ‘Rajesh, please tell me’, or Kabir or X, Y, Z – tell me what I am to do – please, listen to what I’m saying – not to bring about a larger mouse, but something tremendously different. And if you want me to explain, I’ll explain what is the difference. So, how will you manage this, how will you bring this about? It’s your responsibility, because you are the educator here, you have lived here, worked here, shaken hands with others, you have drunk the same water, eaten the same bread. Tell me, sirs, please. What shall I do? Look, sir, K happened to dissolve the organisation, a tremendous organisation. He was the head of it – ‘Close it’. And he did the same with other things. Recently, he said no more talks at Saanen, because he was alone there, and he decided. Here, we have to deal with 500 people. Right? He can’t say, ‘Let’s do this, don’t do that’. We are all together, here. Living in the same valley, eating the same food, etc. So, I can’t say, ‘Do this, do that’. I couldn’t do it, personally. I’m asking you, gentlemen, ladies, what shall we do, together? For God’s sake, wake up. Mr Kumaraswamy, what shall we do? Sir, this is a challenge to you. You have to answer it. You can’t just neglect it. Well, sir? Come on, sir. You are full of energy, aggressive action, tell me what to do. I’m one of your – what do you call them? – one of your… colleagues. You are not my boss. You’re not my educator. I’m one of your colleagues. And I say, ‘Sir, what shall we do?’ That is, you and I talk it over. You don’t lay it down, say, ‘Do this’. I won’t. I have come to you on a different footing, on a different understanding, that we’re colleagues, working together. You start, and tell me what to do – not that I will accept what you tell me, but I’ll discuss it with you.
43:15 KJ: I don’t know where to start answering this question, Krishnaji. One doesn’t know where to start answering. There is the obvious need for the sense of togetherness. And there are a 100 things that come out of it.
43:45 K: You tell me one that’s the key to it. That key may open vast vistas, vast rooms or something, but you tell me the key to it. Come on, please, don’t go to sleep. Rajesh, tell me the key to it.
44:08 RD: What’s the point if I can’t end it? What is the point of saying what the key is, verbally?
44:15 K: No, I want you to tell me. Not verbally. If you ask me – you’re all waking up? – if you ask me, I would first ask you, before you ask me, ‘Why are you talking to me?’ What’s your relationship with me?
45:03 KJ: Supposing I say we’re working together.
45:05 K: Ah, that’s all bananas.
45:09 KJ: You’re in the school...

K: I’m not talking about schools. I’m asking, what’s your relationship with another human being? You’re a human being. You’re not a principal, Akbar, no, Kabir – you might be Akbar’s reincarnation. I say, first, ‘What’s your relationship to me?’ I have to answer that question. What’s your relationship, ladies and gentlemen, with me? That stumps you. Kabir, I mean Rajesh, tell me what’s your relationship with K? You have to be very honest in this. You’re going to marry me. Or I’m going to marry you. What’s your relationship?
46:27 RD: Shall I honestly answer it?

K: Oh! For God’s sake.
46:31 RD: But don’t pounce on me. Give me time. If you pounce, I can’t answer it.
46:43 K: I’m asking this question because we are going to establish a relationship, first. Right? If we have no relationship, we can’t work together. Right? So, I’m asking you, not personally, what’s your relationship with K? Have you any relationship with him? Don’t say, ‘What do you mean by the word ‘relationship’?’. I will tell you.

RD: But I won’t ask you. Unless you wish to still...
47:32 K: No, tell me what your relationship is, or have you no relationship with anybody? I’m asking this of all of us.
47:51 RD: Sir, that, perhaps, is a very true statement, that one has no relationship.

K: I’m asking you. Don’t... What’s your relationship to K?
48:06 RD: K has stirred...
48:09 K: Careful, careful, careful!
48:13 RD: You’re too quick, sir. You won’t allow me to...
48:18 K: What is your relationship with Mrs… with Radhikaji, what’s your relationship with her? Or with Mrs Thomas? Or with Kabir? Or with somebody else? What’s your relationship? Don’t go off.
48:48 RD: My relationship is based on my experience of them. You’ve asked me, I’ll tell you.
48:53 K: I’m asking you what’s your relationship? Is it a friend?

RD: Yes.
49:01 K: Is it your boss?
49:04 RD: No.

K: Wait!
49:05 RD: Go ahead.
49:07 K: Is it your constant companion, because you see her every day? You talk to her everyday, pour out your troubles, or whatever. Is she listening to you? Considering you? Trying to understand you? And you are trying to understand her? Why she does this, that, that and the other thing? Or, you have kept to yourself. The same thing, what’s your relation with him, or him, or her? You see, you don’t answer these questions. Or you have no relationship at all. – I’m not saying you have, or haven’t – because you have no relationship, you moon along. So, I’m asking you, unless we establish a real relationship, we can’t work together. A genuine one, not ideological, romantic, sexual or otherwise. I am saying, do you, who have lived here, for so many years, have any kind of relationship with any of these people, here?
51:01 RD: If you ask me very deeply, I would say, ‘No’. Very deeply, no.

K: Good! Therefore, you can’t work with others.
51:13 RD: Exactly. That’s what is going on.
51:17 K: Don’t say what’s going on. I know what’s going on. I’m not blind.
51:23 RD: You’re right, sir. We’ve no relationship, in that sense. In that sense.

K: Of course. Is that so with all of us?
51:32 RD: Yes.

K: Don’t you answer.
51:34 RD: Sorry.
51:39 K: Is that so with all of us? I’m asking. Don’t answer anything else. Because from that stems everything. It’s the fountain. If that fountain is not flowing, you can’t work together, you can’t build together.
52:20 RD: Sir, why is one frightened of ‘breaking the bottle’? You used an analogy last time, ‘to break the bottle’.
52:29 K: Yes, break the bottle.
52:30 RD: Why is one frightened to break the bottle?
52:33 K: Sir, do you want a good relationship with me?
52:38 RD: Good relationship?

K: You didn’t hear what I said? Really good relationship with another, with whom you can talk, expose, feel all, tell all your troubles, you know, a friend. For God’s sake!
52:57 RD: That kind of relationship I have with many people.
53:00 K: Gee!

RD: If you say a friend...
53:03 K: I’m asking you, do you have a relationship with another, so that you don’t have to talk, you can be quiet, but there is an inter-flow.

RD: There is. I have. I have.
53:27 K: How many?
53:28 RD: A person opens up to me, I open up to them, there is no fear.
53:32 K: Oh, no, no, no. I am asking you, do you have the feeling of being related? It doesn’t matter with whom.

RD: No. No.
53:49 K: So, how can you work with another who has that feeling – suppose?
53:55 RD: I know, sir. That is what has been happening.
53:58 K: So, what will you do? Ah! No. Don’t throw up your shoulders.
54:06 RD: Cry?

K: Do. Cry.
54:09 RD: I have done, sir.

K: All right, if you’ve cried, after that, wipe your tears and get on with it. Then, what? I’m not bullying you, sir. I’m not being personal, I’m just asking, how can we work together, build together, think together, if we have no relationship with each other? Not sexual, not, ‘I lean on you, you lean on me’, ‘I scratch your back, you scratch mine’. I don’t mean that kind of relationship. If you stand alone, you’re related. I don’t know if you understand what I mean. If you’re dependent, you’re not related. Sir, that’s my job, to go on like this. So, you tell me, some of you, what shall we do together to bring about a different quality of human being, for whom we are responsible. The parents have put their children here, paying an awful lot of money. All the bother of it, train journey back and forth, and here you don’t eat meat, there they eat meat, smoke, all that. Here you have them for nine months, what will you do with them? Apart from academics. How does it feel to be in India? Strange country. We’ll talk over it, later. Come on, sirs. What’s the good of being silent? Would you work under authority? Don’t say, ‘No’, sir. Be careful. Careful, don’t say, ‘No’.
57:31 RD: I would fight it.

K: Don’t say ‘fight’, don’t answer yet, because you haven’t gone into it. Would you, if I became the authority here – God forbid…
57:45 RD: I would leave this place.

K: You wouldn’t!
57:48 RD: I bet sir, I would.

K: I’ll tell you why...
57:50 RD: If you were an authority, I would not have lived in this place.
57:53 K: He won’t even listen, that boy. Do you know what I would do? I would cajole, play with you, I would say, ‘Come on, Old Boy’. Now, would you work under authority? It’s a very serious question, sir. Don’t just say, ‘I won’t’. It may be the authority of a committee, it may be the authority of half a dozen people. It may be the authority of some entity called KFI. Is it that there is no no feeling that we are together in this? I can’t build a house by myself. Impossible. I must have a carpenter, a man who deals with glass, all that, electricity and so on. So, I want to co-operate, I want to say, ‘Please, let’s do it all together’. Have you that feeling? I’m not asking you. Have you got that feeling?
59:40 RH: I’m sorry I interrupted. May I ask a different round-about question? We earlier said that there is no such thing as ‘my vision’ and ‘your vision’ – that’s fragmenting. Is there, perhaps, a vision, if we work together, an inevitable vision...?
1:00:03 K: I don’t follow.
1:00:05 RH: Not a fragmented vision of different people but if we co-operate, when we co-operate, is there a vision that is almost organic?
1:00:15 K: Yes. I think there is. I understand that.
1:00:26 RH: And it is our business to discover it. And in co-operation perhaps, it can be discovered.
1:00:34 K: Radhikaji, you are not answering my question.
1:00:37 RH: What is that, sir?
1:00:39 K: What shall we do together? Not to bring about bigger mice but a lion, something... outrageous! Not outrageous, you understand.
1:01:02 RH: I don’t know what to do, if you pose the question that way.
1:01:09 K: Suppose you don’t know, how will you then start? ‘I don’t know. Not knowing, how will you begin?
1:01:27 RH: It must begin that way.

K: You understood what I said?
1:01:33 RH: Yes.
1:01:34 K: Not knowing, you begin.
1:01:38 RH: Yes.

K: Not experiment. You begin. I wonder if you understand what I am saying. Is it that we all know and therefore, we do nothing?
1:01:57 RH: And bully each other.
1:02:03 K: I am not being clever. This is not being astute or cunning. Somehow, I feel we’re all striving after something that we inwardly feel is important. You understand? Therefore, we never start with saying, ‘I really don’t know. Let’s move, together’.
1:02:35 KJ: Isn’t it that in not knowing you do move together...?

K: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So, start with yourself. Do you…? You start with knowing – I’m not being personal – and you botch up the whole thing. I come along or he comes along and says, ‘Sorry, I really don’t know how to build this house. I don’t know anything. Let’s talk, together’. You’re not instructing me. I am not instructing you. Let’s see what not knowing really means. What is the content of not knowing? Is there any content to not knowing? Is that a different quality of the brain? You understand? Because we say, ‘Yes, I know about this. I know about that, and God, of course’. We know every damn thing. So, you and I start with not knowing. That is an immense thing. I don’t know if you follow. It is not you are experimenting on me or I am experimenting on you, but I don’t know. I am not weak. You understand? I’m not weak. On the contrary, I’m full of this extraordinary energy, which is free from knowing. So, we talk over not knowing, what’s the content of not knowing. And we have to eat food, two hours later. You follow, sir? I don’t know if you follow. Won’t some of you say something? Is it time? It is time, I know. Aren’t you tired after your long journey?
1:04:50 Teacher: Not yet.
1:05:02 K: This is the last...

RH: Teacher’s talk, yes.
1:05:11 RD: It seems the mind is knowing. Knowing is the very nature of things.
1:05:15 K: The nature of the brain. Knowing.
1:05:19 RD: So, when you say, ‘I don’t know, let us find out’. You will find out in talking over, but it will still be knowing.
1:05:31 K: When you say, ‘I don’t know’, if you really say it to yourself, what takes place? Don’t conjecture up things. What actually takes place when you say, ‘I really don’t know’? I really don’t know what’s on the other side of the mountain. I have never taken the trouble to climb. I won’t imagine. I won’t – etc. I want to find out what it means to look over the mountain. I’ll climb the mountain, if I can, or I can’t. But there is something still on the outside, beyond the mountain.
1:06:30 RD: How do you know? Why do ask that question?
1:06:34 K: What question am I asking?
1:06:37 RD: When you ask this question...

K: What question?
1:06:39 RD: That there is something else.
1:06:42 K: ‘Maybe’, I said. You didn’t listen. There may be something beyond the mountain. Right? To find that out, either I have to climb the mountain to find out or say, ‘Sorry, I don’t know what is beyond it’. Right? You understand? What is the difficulty, Old Boy? The mountain suddenly – drop. Maybe. So, to find out I have to climb it. But I can’t climb the mountain. I’m too old or too young or too inexperienced. I can’t. And I won’t imagine what is on the other side of the mountain. So, I say, ‘I don’t know what is on the other side of the mountain’. Right? It may a sheer precipice or it may be the most beautiful of valleys. I don’t know. I won’t pretend. I won’t imagine. I won’t get emotional about it. I don’t know. If you go up there and see, don’t tell me. Your description won’t satisfy me. Shall we stop? It is time.