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SA62T5 - Seeing the whole mechanism of habit is the essence of freedom
Saanen, Switzerland - 31 July 1962
Public Talk 5



0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s fifth public talk in Saanen, 1962.
0:07 Krishnamurti: We were talking day before yesterday action without idea, because, as I was pointing out, thought is always limited.
0:47 It’s the response of our memory and therefore it is conditioned; and thought can never bring about freedom.
1:09 And I think it is very important to understand this factor psychologically that there can be no freedom at all if the mechanism and the defensive process of thought is not completely and totally understood.
1:30 Because freedom, which is not reaction or the opposite of not-freedom, is essential because it’s only in freedom that one can discover.
1:52 It’s only when the mind is totally free that there can be the perception of what is true.
2:09 And truth is not something which has continuity, which can be maintained through practice, discipline, but it is something that is to be seen in a flash.
2:33 And the perception of truth does not come about through any form of conditioned thinking, and therefore it is not possible for thought to imagine, conceive or formulate what is true.
3:09 And to understand totally what is true there must be freedom.
3:19 And most of us object to that word and also to that feeling of being completely and totally free.
3:34 For most of us freedom is a word or it’s a reaction or it’s merely an intellectual idea, an escape from our bondage, from our sorrow, from our daily boring routine.
4:05 But freedom is not that at all.
4:13 Freedom comes not by seeking it, because you cannot seek freedom; it is not to be found.
4:24 It comes about only when we understand the whole process of the mind which creates its own barriers, its own limitations, its projections from a background that is limited.
4:47 Therefore it is very important for really a religious mind, if it would understand what is beyond the word, beyond the mind, beyond all experience - and there is such a thing, beyond all experience.
5:13 If one would understand that or be with it or see it in great depth in a flash, mind must be free.
5:28 And what we were talking about the other day that idea, concept, pattern, a formulated disciplined outlook, opinion, judgement, prevents this freedom.
5:57 But this freedom brings its own discipline - not the discipline of conformity, not the discipline of suppression, adjustment, but a discipline which is not brought about by thought, not a discipline which is the outcome of a motive.
6:35 And it is - at least it seems to me - extraordinarily urgent in a world that is rather confusing, in which there is so much misery, conflict, to understand that freedom is the primary demand of a human mind.
7:14 Not happiness, not comfort, not a fleeting moment of happiness or the continuity of that happiness, but a total freedom from which alone there can be a happiness.
7:39 For happiness is a by-product; it’s not an end in itself.
7:46 Like virtue, it’s a by-product of freedom. A person who is free is virtuous, but a virtuous man who is merely conforming to the pattern set by society can never know what that freedom is and therefore can never be virtuous.
8:09 And I would like to talk this morning the quality of that freedom and to feel our way into it.
8:29 I do not know how you listen to what is being said, whether you listen to understand, or listen to experience, or listen merely to words that have very little significance.
9:05 But if you would kindly listen, not to the words, not to experience this extraordinary quality of freedom, but listen with that sense of ease, without effort, hear, see without striving.
9:37 But that demands certain attention. I mean by that word to attend, to be completely, totally, all there with all your being, with all your mind, with all your heart; to be there completely.
10:06 And then you will see for yourself, if you so listen, that this freedom is not a thing to be gotten, it’s not a thing to be pursued.
10:20 It is there when there is total attention. It is not there if it is merely the result of thought, the result of emotional, hysterical demand.
10:39 So attention is that quality of mind that has no border, has no frontier, has no limitation, and therefore capable of receiving everything and seeing everything.
11:07 And it can be done; it is not something enormously difficult. Only we are so caught up in habits - and that’s what I would like to talk this morning.
11:33 Not how to free the mind from habits, but rather to be aware, rather to be attentive of habits.
11:44 We have innumerable habits: physical habits of taste, of sight, of personal idiosyncrasies.
12:06 We have habits of thought as believing in this and not believing in that, being patriotic, nationalistic, belonging to certain group of thought and holding on to that particular pattern of thought.
12:30 All these become habits. And our mind likes to live in habit because habits give us certainty, security, feeling…
12:51 a sense of being… having no fear.
13:00 When there is habit the mind seems to function a little more easily, which is really thoughtlessly, unaware.
13:14 And we are aware… we know of all these innumerable habits, habit of words.
13:21 Please do listen, not to my words, but observe, as it were, in a mirror your own mind, how it is caught in habits.
13:47 And habit, which gives a sense of security, only dulls the mind.
14:10 However subtle, however unconscious or conscious that habit be, it invariably darkens the clarity of the mind.
14:28 This is a psychological fact, not whether you accept it or deny it, it is so.
14:37 And being caught in habits, which is part of our education at the school as well as the education which society psychologically imposes on us, our mind functions in habits.
15:03 And we are always struggling to break down, if we are conscious of that habit, if you’re at all aware, if we are at all sensitive, we try to break down the many, many habits that we form.
15:30 We break down one habit and form another habit. There seem to be no moment when the mind is free from habit.
15:45 If you observe yourself you will see how difficult it is to be free from habit.
15:53 Take a very simple habit that many people have of smoking, or a particular habit of taste, how difficult it is to break down.
16:14 Now, when you smoke and when you want to give it up, if you do, there is a resistance to smoking, the idea of creating a resistance against smoking, therefore there is a conflict between the habit and the desire to break that habit.
16:58 And conflict, resistance, does not free the mind from the whole process of forming habits.
17:11 You may break down one habit, but the process, the mechanism of creating habits hasn’t come to an end.
17:24 And what we are talking about is the explosion of all habits, the cessation of creating habits; not only getting rid of habits, being free of habits, but also not... never creating habit.
17:47 Now, if you observe, if you’re aware of the habit of smoking, you will see... aware – by that word I mean aware of every movement, how your hand goes to the pocket, takes out the cigarette, taps it on the nail or whatever it does, then puts it in its mouth, takes out the match, lights it, puts it and takes a few puffs and throws away the match.
18:24 To be aware of all that process without resistance, without denying it, without wanting to be free of that habit, just to be totally aware of every movement.
18:52 Similarly, to be aware of the habit of envy, the habit of acquisitiveness, the habit of fear, just to be aware of it.
19:15 And then you will see, as you observe that particular habit of envy, what is implied in it.
19:31 You begin to observe, see instantly the whole implication of envy.
19:41 But you cannot see the whole implication of envy if there is a time element.
19:50 I’ll explain… we’ll explain what we mean by that time element.
19:59 You know, we think we can get rid of envy gradually; we will try, we make an effort to gradually put away envy.
20:19 That is, introducing into the breaking down of that particular habit of envy the idea of time: ‘I will get rid of it tomorrow, a little later.’ In the meantime I’m envious, but later on I will try to get rid of it.
20:47 The word try and the words in the meantime is the essence of time because you cannot get rid of any habit... there is no freedom from habit if you introduce time.
21:20 Either you break it immediately or not, or it goes on gradually destroying, dulling the mind and creating new habits.
21:38 Please observe your own habits, your own attitudes towards your habits, whether it is the habit of thought, sexual habits - oh, innumerable habits that… of which one is conscious or unconscious.
21:52 Especially it’s more difficult to be aware of the unconscious habits.
22:05 And socially and at colleges and school we are trained in this element of time.
22:36 Our whole psychology is based on time, that we will eventually come to it, that there will eventually be brotherhood, eventually peace, but in the meantime we must go through all the horrors of war.
23:00 Now, is it possible to be free instantly, immediately, of this idea of gradually arriving somewhere, gradually getting rid of something, gradually being free?
23:33 You see, to me there is no time.
23:44 There is no tomorrow to get rid of something or to acquire something.
23:54 And if there is no tomorrow there is no fear.
24:05 If there is only a complete living now, all time has ceased and therefore there is no habit formation.
24:23 I mean by that word now, in the immediate.
24:31 That state of now and the immediacy is not the reaction of the past, is not an avoidance of the future.
24:55 There is only the moment when there is totality of awareness, when all attention is there in the now.
25:14 All existence is in the now. Whether you have immense pleasure or great sorrow, it is only in the immediate.
25:25 But the mind projects it, the mind pushes it forward as though it had gathered it from the past and projects it into the future.
25:40 Please watch… be aware of your own mind; be… see in the mirror of these words how your own mind operates, and then we can go very far together.
26:14 And is it possible to break completely from the past, which is really the essence of habit, to step out completely from the past - the past being all the experiences, the knowledge, the suffering, the insults, the innumerable experiences that we have had individually, racially and collectively - because otherwise there is no freedom.
27:09 And you cannot psychologically, actually, step out of the past if the idea of continuity exists.
27:28 For most of us continuity is extraordinarily important. After all, continuity in relationship is habit.
27:51 Continuity in thought is what sustains the limitations of the mind.
28:08 And is it possible to explode from the past?
28:16 Because otherwise there is no freedom and there is no new mind, a fresh mind, an innocent mind.
28:30 It is the fresh mind, the innocent mind that is free. It has nothing to do with age; it has nothing to do with experience.
28:47 And it seems to me that this question of seeing consciously as well as unconsciously the whole mechanism of habit is the very essence of freedom.
29:25 Not the ending of habit, but seeing totally the structure of habit, how habits are formed, how by denying one habit another set of habits are created.
29:43 By resisting one habit or a series of habits, you fall into other habits.
29:50 But to… merely to be totally conscious of habit.
30:02 If you’re so totally conscious, you will see there is no longer the formation of habit.
30:19 What makes… what gives continuity to habit is to resist it, is to fight it, is to deny it.
30:33 You know, how easily we slip into a habit, if you have already a habit, and you fight that habit, and you… by very fighting that habit you give life to that habit; and in the very fighting of that habit you have created a habit of fighting, resisting.
31:13 But if one is aware, if one is attentive, then you will see you are… there is freedom from habit, and in that freedom a new thing takes place.
31:38 It’s only the sleepy, dull mind that creates and holds to habit.
31:54 And a mind that is attentive - attentive to what it is saying, attentive to the movements of its hands, of its face, attentive of its thoughts, attentive of its feelings – just to be attentive, then in that state of attention you will see that the formation of further habits has come to an end.
32:29 And this is very important to understand because a mind that is breaking down one habit and creating another habit can never be free.
32:51 And obviously a mind that is free can only perceive; it’s only the free mind that can perceive something beyond itself.
33:17 And such a mind is the religious mind; not the mind that repeats prayers, goes to churches, that has dogmas, belongs to certain sect or no sect.
33:33 Such a mind is a stupid mind; it is not a religious mind. And the religious mind is the free mind.
33:47 And it’s the free mind that is in a state of constant explosion.
33:56 And therefore it is… in that state of explosion there is seeing the truth which is not to be caught by words, by thought, by experience.
34:19 Perhaps, if I haven’t stopped too early, we can discuss or ask questions about what we have been talking this morning.
34:42 Questioner: Sir, I will try and keep my question…
34:53 (inaudible).
34:54 K: I hear you, sir. I’ll repeat… I’ll have to repeat your question because the others can’t hear.
35:02 Q: It has been said that the human mind been evolved by the struggle for existence over the years, over the hundreds and thousand of years as an instrument of self-preservation…
35:43 (inaudible). Now, this being so or if this be so it means that those minds… (inaudible) beyond self-preservation, beyond… (inaudible) must be abnormal minds, must be... (inaudible).
35:46 K: I understand, sir. May I repeat your question?
35:48 Q: Just one more thing.
35:49 K: Sir, my difficulty is, sir, - not my… - you have to make the question brief because I have to repeat it.
35:54 Q: Now, just one last… (inaudible).
36:01 K: Right, sir.
36:04 Q: What I was going to say, sir, is it possible that your mind is such a mind, and that the minds of those of us who are listening to you – or the majority of us – are biologically incapable of understanding you?
36:20 K: Right, sir. The question is this: Through centuries the mind has sought self-preservation.
36:33 And a mind that is seeking to protect itself is incapable of seeing what is true.
36:40 It is not the right instrument. And the gentleman adds: Perhaps the speaker’s mind is different from those who hear, therefore what is one to do?
36:57 Right, sir? Now, let’s go into it.
37:13 There is the brain and there is the mind. Please, I am using these words very, very carefully.
37:27 There is the brain, the brain which has been trained to preserve itself through centuries.
37:43 The brain is the result of time; the brain is the result of all the animalistic endeavours.
38:01 The brain is still the animal which preserves itself, which fights, which refuses, which resists, which seeks its own protection, which is the very centre of the me: my property, my wife, my God, my house.
38:31 That we all know.
38:39 And all of us have that brain.
38:47 We have inherited it. There is no-one that can escape from it. Now, the forepart of the brain, there is immense space still left.
39:14 The back part of the brain is the animalistic. I’m using the word animalistic, not in any derogatory sense of that word, but that is the animal brain.
39:28 The forepart of the brain there is space.
39:37 Now, to jump from the animalistic brain into the forepart - you understand what I’m talking about?
39:49 I hope I’m making myself clear; if not, we’ll discuss it - to completely - not deny – to know it is there and to go beyond it; to jump into the fullness of the brain, into the fullness of the mind.
40:20 And to jump, time is not necessary. I don’t know if I’m making myself clear on this point.
40:33 Sir, biologists - not that I’ve read biology - have said - because I have some friends – that the forepart of the brain is still to be developed, is still to be gone into.
40:58 From the animalistic it is going to change into that, into something extraordinarily new.
41:11 And my point is, to arrive at the totality of the mind - the totality of the mind in which the limited brain is included, the totality of the mind which you cannot speculate about, you cannot write about.
41:42 It isn’t a religious idea like God, like the soul, like heaven and all the rest of it.
41:54 To jump from the past, which can be developed through time to the ultimate idea of something complete, total, to jump from the present to the ultimate is the issue.
42:14 You understand, sir? Am I making myself clear? And I say it can be done. And in that explosive denial of the past, which needs tremendous energy of which I’ve been talking about, which is not the result of conformity, not the result of resistance, not the result of conflict, denial – it’s none of that.
42:48 It is that sense of awareness of the totality of the animalistic instincts, pursuits, ambitions, all of that.
43:05 To see the totality, to be attentive of all that.
43:14 Then you will see you denied time as evolution.
43:21 Not that there is not evolution - there is - but you have denied time.
43:28 Time is no longer the means of arriving, the means of… gradual means of achieving the highest form of sublime creation.
43:53 And I say… we say that this explosive realisation of attention makes the brain quiet, makes the brain, though it is very active in acquisition and all the rest of it, it becomes quiet.
44:31 And it must be quiet completely so that it can deny the whole of time.
44:46 You know, the quietening of the brain is part of meditation.
45:01 And I don’t want to discuss that now, this morning; we will in a few days.
45:11 But one must see the importance of quietening the animalistic, the psychological, sociological structure of society, which is the animal.
45:34 Because the social structure, the psychological structure of society is still the animal, which is the… ambitious, greedy, envious, jealous, attached.
45:51 Such a mind does not… such a brain does not know love. It may hug a man; it may be married to a man; it may be… hold the hand of a woman or what you will, but it’s still part of that animal of the past, which is the social, psychological structure of society.
46:17 And the understanding of the whole psychological structure of society is meditation, is part of meditation.
46:30 And you will then see, if one has gone into this that far, that the sense of immensity, the sense of creation - which is not the creation of writing a book, a poem and all the rest of the absurdities and childish demands of a particular society and… which recognises fame and, you know, all that stuff - but creation which is… takes place in the immense, in the immeasurable, and that can only come about when the animalistic, sociological, psychological structure of society is completely denied.
47:45 When the mind… when the brain is no longer ambitious, wanting to fulfil, wanting to be somebody, seeking power, position, attached, dependent.
48:02 Then in that attentive state there is that immensity which is the ultimate of all existence.
48:24 Have I answered your question, sir?
48:27 Q: You have given me something to think about.
48:37 K: The gentleman says, ‘You have given me something to think about.’ Just a minute, sir.
48:45 Don’t think about it, sir. (Laughter)

K: Just a minute, sir. The gentleman said, after I’ve answered the… his… after I have explained his question, the gentleman says: ‘You have given me something to think about.’ Don’t think about it, which admits time: ‘I can’t see it now but I will think about during the day and then I will see it.’ Thought isn’t going to make you see it.
49:29 Time isn’t going to make you see.
49:42 Moment you say, ‘I will think about it,’ you have given the framework of ‘the meantime’ - ‘I will try’ - then you are completely lost.
50:01 But if you have listened - and that’s our difficulty; that is our real difficulty: to listen.
50:20 To listen is to… it demands such extraordinary energy.
50:30 To listen not to what we are… to the speaker but to listen to the truth of what is being said or the falseness of what is being said and to see it for oneself immediately.
50:50 And that’s why it is so extraordinarily difficult to listen.
51:04 And the listening is not in time - ‘In the meantime I will try.’ You either listen or don’t listen.
51:16 If you listen you will have that extraordinary explosion take place on the instant; not tomorrow, not at the end of the day.
51:28 And that’s why I was talking this morning of this extraordinary explosive transformation, change that must take place in the immediate.
51:44 You see, when you think about it, all your protective… your defensive reactions will come in.
52:03 Then you will adjust yourself to the pattern of our daily existence.
52:10 Then you will conform where it is convenient, and where it is not convenient you will deny that pattern.
52:18 That’s all thought can do: go round and round.
52:26 So thought is not the instrument of perception; it’s not the dynamite that explodes the past.
52:40 Only if you give your heart to listening - and I really mean it - give your heart to listen, not mere listen to words, to the intellect.
52:56 One can be terribly clever, spin a lot of words, quote many books, but that doesn’t bring about a miracle.
53:09 The miracle is in listening. Yes, sir?
53:14 Q: Sir, one of your books is entitled ‘The First and Last Freedom.’ What do you mean by ‘The First and Last Freedom’?
53:38 K: Ah. What do I mean by ‘First and Last Freedom’ - I’m afraid you must ask the publisher because he wanted that title. (Laughter) K; Sir, let’s discuss what we talked about this morning because, you see, sirs, we have got so many habits.
54:05 Like that gentleman, if you’ll forgive me, saying, ‘I’ll think about it’ – that’s a habit.
54:12 Q: Technique implies habit. Is there technique or a place for technique in anything?
54:25 K: Yes sir, but… The gentleman asks: technique implies habit. You know, sir, why do you ask that question?
54:44 You know technique implies habit. If I have to learn how to drive a car, I have to learn the technique of how to move the clutch, gears and all the rest of it, freely, easily, without noise, without crashing the gears and so on.
55:07 I have to practise; I have to watch. If I have to learn about electronics, I have to study, I have to get into the feeling of it.
55:18 We are not talking the mechanical habits, but we are talking about the whole formation of habits.
55:28 Q: Could you, sir, could you tell us more about the unconscious habits, about habit?
55:42 K: Unconscious habits. All right, sir, that’s a good question: ‘Would you please talk a little more or explain or discuss our unconscious habits?’ First of all, are we aware of our conscious habits?
56:07 I’m not avoiding the question; I’m going into it. Aware of our conscious habits. You know what I mean by conscious habits.
56:23 If you are not aware of your conscious habits, then you’re already in the unconscious.
56:33 You follow? You have understood?
56:38 Q: Again, please.
56:40 K: No sir, please follow this. Ah, I see. I jumped into it. Most of us are not aware of our habits at all. Our habits have become unconscious. The moment you are aware of your habit, you have pulled it out of the unconscious, haven’t you?
57:08 Look, say if I have a habit of scratching my head, I am unconscious of it, that I’m not aware of it, it has become automatic, habitual, in the unconscious.
57:21 It’s become… I don’t know that I’m doing it. But the moment I am conscious that I’m doing it and I don’t resist it but I merely watch it, then it’s become… it has been pulled out of the unconscious, when I’m fully aware of it.
57:45 Now, most of our habits are unconscious, otherwise we would shatter through them, we’ll explode through them.
57:55 But most of us we are unconscious. We shift the lever of the car gear instinctively into third, fourth, without thinking; or we are unaware of our neighbours as we walk down the street, we push somebody.
58:34 We are unaware. Now, the question is: how to be conscious, how to be aware of all the habits imposed by society, the habits of the animal, the habits… the refined habits which we have cultivated unconsciously, to be aware of all that?
59:08 How is one to be aware of the unconscious habits? Isn’t that right, sir?
59:15 Q: Yes.
59:17 K: Now, how would you set about it?
59:25 I don’t know that my habit as a Hindu…
59:32 I don’t know the habits of the Hindu that is in me, or the habits of you as a German, as a Russian, as a Swiss or an American.
59:48 How are you to be aware of it? I will tell you in minute, but first let your own minds work at it.
1:00:03 How are you to be aware of it? How are you to be aware of the unconscious, in which there is this immense series of unrevealed habits?
1:00:16 Q: The pattern, to be a German... (inaudible).
1:00:21 K: Yes, sir.
1:00:28 How are you to be aware of this pattern which is unconscious, deeply rooted in you? Will you go to an analyst to be pulled out by him, paying fifty dollars or a hundred pounds, whatever you do?
1:00:47 Will that help? Please follow this step by step. Will that help? Or will you analyse yourself?
1:01:03 What is implied in this process of analysis of yourself? Please listen to this. In this process of analysis of yourself there is the observer and the observed.
1:01:19 The observer is as conditioned as the observed. Right? You’re following this? So there is a conflict between the observer and the observed, between the analyser and the analysed.
1:01:35 And if the analyser in examining makes a mistake or interprets it wrongly he emphasises that particular habit or transforms it to suit his own particular idiosyncrasy and so on and on and on.
1:01:57 So that is not the way either. So what will you do? Please bear in mind what we are discussing. We are talking about how to expose the unconscious to the light, how to open up the book with all its content of the unconscious, the book of the unconscious.
1:02:39 Analysis by the professional is not the way, unless you want to play with it, unless you have money, time, leisure and are so dreadfully concerned about yourself and adjusting yourself to society, then you go to that.
1:03:00 Then, introspective analysis also is not the way, and I have explained to you why it is not the way.
1:03:09 Right? Have I made that clear? Then what will you do?
1:03:14 Q: (Inaudible).
1:03:17 K: No, no, no; don’t answer me, sir, please.
1:03:28 Just a minute. Don’t answer me. Don’t guess. If you have really understood the futility of analysis by another or by yourself – understood it – really grasped the whole significance of it and therefore are no longer experimenting or trying and deny it totally – you understand? – then you will put the right question.
1:04:06 If you have not done that you will just mess around in different ways how to analyse.
1:04:17 Have I explained myself clearly?
1:04:20 Q: Yes.
1:04:23 K: If you have understood analysis is not the way then what are you to do?
1:04:34 Q: I mean nothing.
1:04:38 K: The gentleman says, ‘I mean nothing.’ Which means what, sir?
1:04:46 Which means if you have denied, if you are no longer caught in the fallacious idea of analysis then you are in a state where you are… where there is only observation - you understand? – when there is only seeing and not translating what you see.
1:05:19 Right? Just see. That is, I see myself as being ugly, brutal, venomous, hateful, petty, full of vanity – I see that.
1:05:33 But what happens for most of us? When we see that we say, ‘How terrible.’ We get depressed; I want to change it; I want to fiddle about, mess around with it.
1:05:48 Now, the messing round about it, trying to change it, trying to do something about it, is still within the field of analysis.
1:06:01 But if you merely observe – that is, when you observe without choice, when you are negatively watching, then you will see if you are negatively watching completely, then there is no longer a series of analysis of the unconscious.
1:06:26 You are completely out it because you have broken the pattern.
1:06:33 Have I explained the question, sir?
1:06:41 No? Ah, you want a detailed exploration into the unconscious, is that it?
1:06:51 Ah. Just look at it. You want me… you want the speaker to examine in detail – detail - and name every habit, every limitation.
1:07:19 I can do that; that’s fairly simple. Anybody can do that. Racial… You know, sir, that’s fairly simple. If I’m a Hindu, if I’m a Jew, if I’m this, if I’m that, I’ve all the inherited conditioning of my society, of my culture, of my religion, of my past.
1:07:46 Now, I can examine it. I can be aware that I’m a Hindu with all the cultural, historical centuries of tradition and all the rest of it.
1:08:02 At the end of it, where am I? At the end of it have I really exploded the story of myself?
1:08:17 You want me to put into words in details. That is fairly simple, sir, but that is not important. What is important is to break through this weight.
1:08:39 And we think we break through… analysis will break through, analysis by ourselves or by another.
1:08:49 It cannot be done. You can… it can be broken only when you are so completely, choicelessly, negatively aware.
1:09:02 Sir, look, when you look at a mountain with the beauty, the shadow, the immensity, the height and the depth, what can you do about it?
1:09:19 You can’t. You just look, don’t you? You may look at it for a fleeting second and then you say how beautiful it is and you… by that very word beauty you’ve already not seen it, you have turned away from it.
1:09:37 But to look at it; and to look at it your mind becomes very quiet; you’re no longer translating in terms of comparison, denying, judging, saying, ‘This is more beautiful than that.’ You just look.
1:10:03 That’s what I mean by negative looking. And in that look you will see the whole of the unconscious is transformed into a single issue, into a single thing, which by understanding you have shattered the whole thing.
1:10:27 This is not just words. You go at it and you will see for yourself.
1:10:40 Q: The daily life and routine of most people is quite in contradiction to the thoughts or to the expressions or to the commentaries… (inaudible).
1:11:17 Now, the very fact that their daily life, business or whatever they have to do is in total contradiction to a great extent to what we may think or feel or sense, doesn’t that very conflict cause a contradiction in most of us, and for that reason, we are constantly back where we are?
1:11:21 K: I’m sure you’ve all heard that question, haven’t you? Yes? Many: (Inaudible).
1:11:24 K: All right; so I don’t have to repeat it. Sir, why do we create this division between daily life and what you’re listening here?
1:11:34 Don’t answer me, sir. Why do we create this division? What is life, sir? Why do you call our daily life and this life, which is, this life in this tent for a few…
1:11:58 minutes? Why do we separate the two? So what is life? Life is the daily life, the life which is here, to which we are listening, life which is also to… the listening to the trees, to the birds, to this river; life is misery, sorrow.
1:12:22 Everything is life, isn’t it? It’s not just daily life and something else. The whole of that is life. But we divide it; we don’t take all of that, the daily life with its routine, with its boredom, with its conflicts, with its miseries, and also the life which is so fleeting, the life of a joy for a moment, the life that is going on now at this present moment.
1:12:59 Why do we all separate? Why can’t we all look at it totally? Why do we look at life in fragments?
1:13:13 Isn’t that also a habit? We say the life of Wall Street, the life of the city, the life of the hermit, the life of… - you know? - all the rest of it.
1:13:30 That’s what I’ve been talking… what we have been talking about for the last ten years or umpteen years: to deal with life as a whole and not as fragments.
1:13:44 And that can only be done if you… if there is self-knowing, if you know yourself.
1:13:55 And I don’t want to go into that this morning. Unless you know the whole process of yourself you are bound to divide life into fragments and therefore create more conflict, more misery, more effort.
1:14:15 You cannot put the fragments together and make a harmonious whole.
1:14:23 Only through self-knowing, knowing yourself - which we’ll discuss another time, the whole business of it – out of that knowing comes a complete sense of a totality; not fragments put together.
1:14:42 Q: I agree a hundred percent on the validity of what you’re saying.
1:14:51 However, there is this difference: in the routine of our everyday existence we are not in freedom, we are...
1:15:01 K: No, we are not in freedom here either.
1:15:02 Q: All right… (inaudible) and I accept that.
1:15:06 K: No, don’t accept it.
1:15:13 (Laughter)

Q: Well, let me put it this way: we are subject more to the will of others than we are to our own.
1:15:27 K: Right. If we understand this whole business of influence, which we have been talking about, not only of others, of the heroes, of history, of the newspapers, if you understand this whole business of influence then you’ll be out of it.
1:15:43 Sirs, there was a gentleman that… Please.
1:15:45 Q: (Inaudible)… when a problem presents itself we look at the problem and almost in advance you see the solution, but then the mind takes that problem and… (inaudible) step by step the thinking has to be done. Now, while that process goes on, because it has a real application, then you don’t object to the process, very often, because it produces a beneficial result. But then when the mind is not occupied with something real in the present, then… (inaudible) a never-ending train of thought, sequence of thoughts.
1:16:32 K: So what is the question, sir?
1:16:36 Q: The question is: I don’t know how to look at or attack that habit of the train of thought… (inaudible).
1:16:52 K: It’s quarter past twelve. Look, sir, what I’ve been talking about this morning is never to give soil to a problem in the mind.
1:17:16 Giving soil to a problem creates habits. If you have a problem, go into it completely. Don’t escape from it. See… give your whole mind and heart to it immediately, whether it’s business or not business. Why do we divide business on… and spiritual and all the rest of it? You see, the question is really, in all this is: our mind creates the soil to the problem which it has created, and the soil gives its continuity.
1:18:01 Now, to deal with a problem instantly, whether… whatever the habit is, and never to give it soil is the issue.
1:18:16 Just think – not ‘think about’ – sorry. (Laughter)

K: You see, how… if you have listened to what has been just now said, not to give soil to any problem – you understand? – then you have done the whole thing, finished.
1:18:47 The mind creates the problem and the mind gives soil to the problem.
1:18:57 And then the problem arises: how not to give soil? But if you have… if you just listen to it – you know?
1:19:11 - playfully, then you will… if you have understood it then the mind is free to look, to observe and to go beyond itself.