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SA65D2 - The mind can be clear only in negation
Saanen, Switzerland - 5 August 1965
Public Discussion 2



0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s second public discussion in Saanen, 1965.
0:10 Krishnamurti: I think we should continue, if we may, where we left off yesterday.
0:35 We were saying yesterday that doing is learning, not that you learn first and then do afterwards.
0:56 If there is the idea first and then action, in that there is contradiction and therefore conflict, but while acting is learning then there is constant process of understanding in which there is no conflict and contradiction whatsoever.
1:41 Then we also said that to learn is to have a silent mind, a silence, a stillness which is not induced, which is not put together by thought in order to acquire silence, but in almost everything that we do, if there is an intensity and an attention, invariably, I think, there comes that quality of silence from which learning and acting take place.
2:58 And we said also that it is very essential… it is essential to understand contradiction.
3:23 And contradiction within ourselves will always exist as long as there is a centre, the censor, the observer, who is judging, evaluating, creating images and so on.
3:54 And we were inquiring into what is that centre, the whole structure of so-called positive, directive activity of a centre that’s always guiding, shaping, controlling, changing.
4:16 And from there we’ll proceed this morning. I think that’s where we left off, if I remember rightly. (Pause) Questioner: I think we went a little further by trying to say that we had reached a state of negation and that out of that state of negation we put off trying to find an answer.
5:16 K: We would not find...?
5:22 Q: Trying to find answers.
5:30 K: Ah, yes. (Pause) Q: Krishnaji, are you going to answer… (inaudible)?
5:47 K: No, sir; he just was reminding me where we were yesterday.
5:56 Q: So it’s not a question; right.
5:58 K: It was not a question. Right.
6:00 Q: Then this state of silence that seems to be a precondition to everything, could you please describe that in terms of what you do not mean by the word, what kind of activity you do not mean, what is not meant by silence?
6:20 (Inaudible)… approach it that way.
6:24 K: Ahah. He wants to… the questioner wants know what we mean by silence, and could we describe it by saying what is not silence.
7:04 I wonder if we can’t approach the whole issue differently.
7:18 I think most of us are aware that we are in state of contradiction - and one hasn’t got to go into the details of that contradiction - and because that contradiction causes pain, various forms of destructive activities, one says to oneself, ‘Is it possible to be free of all contradiction, not only conscious but also unconscious contradictions?’ Now, that is the question, principal question.
8:10 Now, I want to learn about it. Not for you to tell me what silence is or what it’s not, but I want to understand, I want to learn in the very process of observation.
8:42 I observe that I’m in this state of contradiction and also I know very well that as long as there is a centre - any form, whether it’s an image, whether it’s… whatever it is - that will always breed contradiction.
9:06 I think that’s clear. Then what is the mind to do? How is it to learn about contradiction without creating another centre which will also become a source of contradiction?
9:37 And I see to learn I must have a certain passive, quiet, still awareness, and that passive awareness is not a thing which I can cultivate, because in understanding contradiction I have… the mind has come to the point when it says to understand anything the mind must be passive.
10:24 Right? To understand this vast stream of life which is myself with my various centres - business, spiritual, family and other forms of centres - it sees that to learn about it is the act of silence itself.
10:54 Right? Is this…? That’s what we were talking yesterday. And then we said: what is this silence? Please, we’re not going to cultivate it by listening to me, getting a pattern of silence or what is not silence and then working in it and capturing the silence.
11:20 You will never do it, obviously. So what is this silence? Can it be described? And if it is described - please listen carefully - if it is described either positively or negatively, there is still an observer, there is still a centre which looks at it as silence, and therefore that centre creates contradiction and says, ‘How am I to cultivate that silence?’ Right?
11:59 First of all, are we clear that the mind must be somewhat quiet?
12:25 If it would listen to that stream, if it would look at a tree, if it would look at another’s face, to look, to listen, to learn there must be a certain quiet, negative state of mind; not a blankness, not a determined quietness nor a cultivated quietness, but one sees that to listen, to look, to learn there must be a certain passive attention.
13:22 If that is clear - not what that silence is, not what that quietness is, then you’re…
13:32 that becomes too infantile and we’ll invent images, symbols, words, which become the centre then.
13:40 Right? Is that…? So we said to ourselves: what is this quietness? What is its nature and its structure?
13:59 Not the structure of words which describe the silence, but the silence itself.
14:06 What is its nature and what is its structure? Right? Now, we are going into that this morning. Please, again, let’s be very clear that you are not listening to me, trying to understand me, the speaker.
14:31 He is not at all important. What is important is to understand the nature and the structure of the mind which is quiet, and out of that quietness, learns, acts.
14:53 The learning is the acting. Right? So we are going to go into that. So we’ve used two words or three words: silence… stillness/silence, passive attention and negation.
15:30 Right? Now, what do we mean by a passive mind?
15:47 And to understand what is the nature of that passive mind, we must understand, mustn’t we, what we consider to be positive.
16:00 Right? Not as a contrast or a contradiction to the passive.
16:14 Right? Is the negative, passive state an opposite to the positive?
16:28 If it is the opposite to the positive then it is a contradiction and therefore it is not passive nor negative.
16:46 You are…? This is clear? Is this too highbrow?
16:53 Q: (Inaudible).
16:55 K: We are following each other?
16:57 Q: (Inaudible).
16:58 K: So I must be very clear what we mean by positive, and also I must be very attentive: the passive or the negative is not a contradiction, not the opposite.
17:17 So I must find out what is positive first. Right? What constitutes or what is the structure, what is the nature of a mind that is always functioning in the positive?
17:41 Right?
17:50 We mean by the positive, don’t we… Now, wait a minute; all right.
18:03 Shall we describe all the things that constitute the positive, or shall we come to the essence of it?
18:20 You’re following?
18:28 Q: (Inaudible).
18:35 Q: I do not know what the positive is but perhaps we find it so difficult and so rare to be in that state of a still mind due to the deep-down fear, some kind of fear... (inaudible).
18:55 K: No, madame; no, madame. No, we are trying to find out, aren’t we, not what the silent awareness…
19:05 I hate to use these words; they become pattern.
19:07 Q: (Inaudible)… I think that the ordinary meaning of positive mind is the state of a mind that goes from one image to another... (inaudible) thinks every moment of the day… (inaudible) from one image to another image.
20:13 I think, I may be wrong…
20:14 K: Yes sir; yes sir. Now, wait a minute. I asked a second question. We can in detail describe the positive, the positive mind that follows, that accepts, that obeys, that creates authority and therefore fear, that’s always looking for somebody to tell what it should do, that lives and has its being in experience as knowledge.
21:08 Right? And I… we can go on adding more to that. Shall we do… shall we go through all that…?
21:18 Q: No.
21:19 K: Wait, wait, please don’t… You know, you’re so impatient, which means you haven’t really understood the thing.
21:30 Shall we go through all the detailed description of what is a positive mind - and it may be necessary because we haven’t really understood what positive mind is - or shall we come to the essence of what a positive mind is?
22:00 Don’t say, ‘Yes… get to that as quickly as possible.’ If you say that - let’s consider the essence - you will not have understood the nature and the structure of a positive mind.
22:21 You’re following all…? But if you understood, examined, approached, learnt about the positive mind then you would put to yourself the question: what is the essence of it - right? - the essence of it, not all the peripheral descriptions?
22:49 So I’m afraid one must go through all the peripheral description before you come to the essence.
22:57 You know, our minds, our brain, our whole organism is the result of time; and during that course of time it has established certain patterns of behaviour, conduct, thought, activity; and the pattern, the formula, is the positive.
23:31 Right? Are we…? This is so, isn’t it?
23:43 Are we all going…? Are you finding it out, or am I finding it out and then you afterwards accept it?
23:56 We are working together, aren’t we? Or I am working and you are listening and then accepting.
24:08 So we are working together and therefore it is a learning together about what we call a positive mind, a mind which is aggressive, which is assertive, which is dominating, which, because it dominates, it accepts to be dominated - you…? - it functions within the pattern of knowledge because it wants to be sure.
24:50 Right? Listen carefully what is coming out of this.
24:58 So the essence of a positive mind is a mind that demands security at any price, not only outwardly but very deeply inwardly, to be completely secure, to be completely… find something which will give it a permanency.
25:22 If there was no permanency inwardly, no security, then there is no positive pursuit.
25:34 Right? I wonder if you’re getting all this.
25:42 I… You see - you understand? – I’ve just learnt about it. I’ve just learnt, the mind has just learnt that as long as the mind is seeking a permanency, seeking and therefore finding permanency, security, certainty in relationship, in activity, in anything, a permanency which means a security, which means certainty, then the search is to find, and the finding and the seeking is the essence of positive mind.
26:43 Right? By golly, I’ve got something, haven’t you?
27:00 Q: (Inaudible).
27:04 K: (French 28:38).
27:10 Q: (Inaudible).
27:14 Q: Is there a way to suppress contradiction in the positive mind… (inaudible).
27:24 K: Is there a way to suppress contradiction in the positive mind. My God.
27:30 Q: (Inaudible).
27:31 K: Sir, you’re not even listening.
27:32 Q: Sir, is the positive mind… (inaudible)… the state of… (inaudible) the thinker and the thought or the experiencer and the experience, and it is not experiencing?
28:24 Maybe it can be explained that there is not such… (inaudible) that it therefore creates the thinker and the thought, that they are not one.
28:26 K: Sir…
28:27 Q: If they are not one.
28:28 K: Look, please, I understand what you’re saying, sir. I’m not trying to deviate from it. I’m trying to find… we’re trying to find out and learn. In the very finding is the learning, not that I find and then act. We are trying to learn about the nature and the structure of a positive mind.
28:54 And we… after examining the details I see… - I may be wrong. You follow? Don’t accept what we are talking about as the final oracle that speaks or the authority – we… this mind finds that as long as there is a seeking which means finding, that state of seeking and finding is the positive mind.
29:37 Which does not mean the opposite, which does not mean that a negative mind is… does not seek, does not find, does not do.
29:50 You are getting this?
29:56 Q: (Inaudible).
29:59 K: Yes, madame, we’re coming...
30:07 You see, you are… Please, you’re not answering me. We are trying to think it out together. Don’t make any positive statement.
30:23 Q: (Inaudible).
30:25 K: Is it not thinking - that is a positive statement.
30:36 Look, sir, this is…
30:42 Q: Excuse me, sir, while we are in the present state… (inaudible) present level of consciousness, can we ask any question…
30:56 (inaudible)?
30:57 K: That’s what… we are coming to that. The gentleman asked… the questioner asked: given our present state of consciousness, any question that we ask is positive question.
31:16 You see…
31:23 Now, what is wrong or why shouldn’t we think, function positive?
31:36 Right? If we find it is not worthwhile, if we find that does not clear up our confusion, we’ll then look for something else.
31:54 But if we accept this positive way of life, which is ‘I will’, ‘I will not’, ‘I will’, according to my pleasure, the image which has been created through pleasure, which means the avoidance of pain, though the cultivation of pleasure breeds pain; from that I determine to be or not to be, to do or not to do.
32:34 And this positive, assertive, directive, determined pursuit of seeking and finding, in itself creates contradiction - in itself.
32:57 As long as I don’t learn about it, I will not find the other - not ‘find’ - I won’t come upon the other.
33:05 You see how one has to be so awfully careful of words? Is…have we gone thus far?
33:18 Is it fairly clear?
33:25 Q: I think that when we look at the world with a positive mind we divide what we look at.
33:46 K: Ahah. You see, that’s most extraordinary. The questioner says when we look at the positive… with positive outlook, with a positive mind at life, we divide life as the me and the ‘not me.’ Now, the positive approach to life breeds competition - right? - because the positive approach inherently is to seek and to find, and therefore there must be competition, aggressiveness.
34:49 And a positive mind, can it know what affection is, love is?
35:00 Or am I jumping too quickly? Look, sir, a positive mind demands experience.
35:15 Because it’s tired of all the experiences it has had, it wants more experience - right?
35:30 - so it takes… it seeks out experiences. When they are not sufficiently acute, strong, then it, through imagination creates experiences, visions; and if that too does not satisfy it then it takes to drugs, not only marijuana but stronger forms of drugs - opium and the derivatives of opium, LSD.
36:12 So it is always positive. Though it is… it reduces through these drugs a negative state of mind which has certain experiences through stimulation, such a mind is still a positive mind seeking experience.
36:35 Oh, lordy. All right?
36:39 Q: (Inaudible).
36:40 K: You might say, ‘What is wrong with having wider and deeper and stronger experiences?’ What’s wrong with it?
36:58 Either self-created experiences, projections from one’s own conditioned mind - longing, seeking, searching, wanting - you know?
37:15 - what’s wrong with that? That’s the way we live. When we live that way, there is not only a dependence on drugs - you’re following all this? - whether the drug be a drink, sex, amusement, going to the church, attending the mass - you know? - all the rituals and all that, but also a mind that is seeking must invariably be in a conflict with the past which has been cultivated through experience and wanting to escape from the past into the future as a new experience, and therefore a mind that is seeking, experiencing, wanting experience is always in a state of contradiction.
38:31 That’s fairly clear.
38:38 Need we go…?
38:46 So we see the nature and the structure of a positive mind: being dissatisfied with what it has found and wanting more and seeking and therefore finding, seeking from… and the principle of image and expanding in its discovery is pleasure.
39:28 So we know that. If you don’t actually know that, I’m sorry; I can’t go on and on and on infinitely.
39:38 So I see a positive mind which is not only aggressive, competitive, jealous, vain, superstitious, ambitious, in despair and all the rest of it, but behind all that the positive mind is always seeking more, comparing because it wants to reach a certain point of eminence or excellence where it shall be undisturbed and certain.
40:21 Right? Bene? And our concern is, is it not, to find out if the mind can be, not temporarily, not for a certain period, but completely free from contradiction.
40:50 It is only then there can be clarity.
40:59 And clarity is not something to be found. I don’t know if… Therefore I am discovering that a mind that is seeking may find a clarity which is merely self-created and therefore within itself inherently contradictory, such an activity is… only produce more contradiction and therefore it sees only a mind that is completely negative that can be in a state of non-contradiction.
41:41 I have learnt this. Nobody has told me.
41:52 I haven’t read a book. I haven’t been to a philosopher. I’ve no gurus, teachers and all that silly nonsense. I have… in doing I have learnt, the mind has learnt.
42:12 So negative mind… that negative state is not a contradiction of the other – ah, this is very important to understand it - is not the opposite of the positive.
42:29 Look, I can deny, reject, and you… and if I may use the word, self-sacrifice, reject property, money.
42:49 Listen to this. I may reject that, property, money, fame. I reject it because I want to find God, I want to find truth, I want to find a bliss in… whatever that is, so it is not really a rejection, but I reject this because I want something more, therefore it is not a rejection, it is part of the same movement.
43:27 Right? So when the mind rejects the positive, it rejects not because it wants to find the negative, but in rejecting, the other thing is being learnt.
43:40 You’re following? In rejecting, the other thing is learnt and therefore doing. I wonder if you’re coming... Right?
43:46 Q: (Inaudible)… I observe something and I get an experience…
43:56 (inaudible).
43:58 K: Yes sir.
44:04 Q: (inaudible). Is that still a mind that is positive?
44:23 K: Yes sir; yes sir; surely. The question is: I look at something - a face, the movement of the river, the mountain, the tree - I look at something and by that… through that very observation I… there is an experiencing.
44:47 Is that still a positive mind? I say it is. So – you’re going to discover something if you pursue it - that is, as long as there is an experiencing for whatever cause, it is within the field of the positive.
45:08 Ah, no, no, don’t… This is the most….
45:14 Q: But I wonder how to get that silence.
45:23 K: What, sir?
45:24 Q: How we can get it… (inaudible)?
45:27 K: I don’t… (Laughter) K: I have very carefully explained that you can’t get it.
45:36 Q: But how to create it… (inaudible)?
45:38 K: You can’t create it. Sir, look, when you understand that snake is a poisonous snake, you have understood the whole thing, haven’t you?
45:53 You move away from it. Right? Don’t you? Or are you… is this too…? (Laughter) K: When you see poison, you don’t drink it, do you, because you see it is destructive.
46:14 So in understanding the positive, which is very complex; it isn’t just saying, ‘Well, I’ve got it’ - it is a tremendous understanding.
46:29 Which means a mind that has no authority - you are following? - and therefore no experiencing as recognition.
46:41 Right? Are you coming? Look, I haven’t… I see that; I see a beautiful face and I experience a pleasure.
47:03 That pleasure has arisen through recognition of what I consider to be beautiful.
47:12 That is, the experience is through stimulation of a pleasure which I have established as beauty.
47:23 I don’t know if you’re following all this.
47:32 So by understanding the whole nature and the structure of the positive mind, as I understand poison, I move… the mind has totally moved away from it.
47:49 The mind hasn’t got to do anything about it. If you do, you are in a contradiction therefore effort.
47:59 By understanding the poisonous nature of the positive, the mind has moved away into the so-called negative.
48:09 Right?
48:10 Q: Therefore it is an experience in the negative.
48:19 K: Ah… Never. It has no experience of the negative. It has the experience only within the field of the positive. Sir, this is… please, this requires tremendous understanding. Don’t agree or disagree, you know?
48:42 There is a whole school of…
48:49 I’ve been told, in Buddhism which is based on negation and there have been people who have worked it for all their lives to find out what this negation is.
49:09 And you, for giving half a day or an hour, and you’re trying to say, ‘Well, I agree’ or disagree.
49:19 So you have to understand a most profound thing which is: is it possible for a mind to be in a state where it is so clear?
49:35 And it can only be clear in negation so that it has no experience at all.
49:42 No, sirs, you haven’t…
49:43 Q: Can I ask a… (inaudible) experience? For instance, I do in asking and there is an answer.
49:53 In this process is experience. Or… but there is an energy in my asking and is it possible to stay all the time in an asking position without an answer?
50:09 K: I’m coming... You’re quite right, sir. The question is: we ask questions because there is a challenge and response; and the response is always according to the background, according to our experience, according to our knowledge, therefore the answer is always within the question.
50:40 Right? And the questioner says: is it possible to remain only with the question, not find… not seek an answer? Why do you ask a question?
51:07 Q: I am in conflict because I have to… (inaudible).
51:13 K: Yes, that is, he says he asks questions to renew, renovate, add to the storage as experience, as knowledge, which he has, and from that storage, from that knowledge, from that past you experience, you act; and that action, that experiencing is a… creates contradiction.
51:47 Right?
51:48 Q: Doesn’t it create contradiction also because when we ask a question we ask a question only about a part of something… (inaudible)?
52:12 K: That’s right. Obviously. We only ask questions in… we ask questions fragmentarily. Now wait, wait. She has suggested something. Please listen to this. Please listen, because you’re all… somebody is talking.
52:30 I’m going to ask… (inaudible). Only when the mind is functioning in fragments it asks questions.
52:50 Right? Now, when it is functioning as a whole is there any need to ask questions?
53:10 And the whole is not the positive but the negative.
53:27 The positive question is a fragmentary question within the field of the positive because it’s functioning fragmentarily - right? - and therefore contradictorily.
53:53 When we understand the nature of that positive structure and the understanding is the learning and the doing, you have moved away.
54:06 The mind has moved away as it moves away from poison. And when that movement which is negation, is there any question?
54:26 Oh, no, this requires tremendous…
54:32 Q: (Inaudible)… self-assertion.
54:42 K: Self-assertion… (inaudible).
54:51 The desire for fame, wanting to self-express, be somebody - you know? - a great writer, a painter, all that silly stuff is still within that. Don’t…
54:58 Q: But the question was… sorry, the lady said: does self-assertion come with questioning?
55:08 K: Does self-assertion come with questioning? I can question without self-assertion surely. I can ask you, ‘What is love? What is death? What is life?’ not because I’m self-assertive. I live a miserable, sordid life within the field of fame and success and all the rest of it and I say, ‘By Jove, there must be something else.’ That is not self-assertive.
55:44 But it becomes self-assertive if the positive tries to find, seeks and find it.
55:52 I don’t know… You understand what we are saying?
56:06 That all religions have said ‘Seek and ye shall find.’ My…
56:14 You understand? And we are cutting at the root of all that. How can you accept it? I don’t know. (Laughter) Q: We cannot be conscious of the negative state of mind.
56:45 K: The gentleman, the questioner asked: can we be conscious of the negative state of mind?
56:52 Oh, obviously not. So, look, so we have to find out what we mean by that word consciousness.
57:06 You’re following? What do we mean by it? When are we conscious? There is that aeroplane making noise and I want to listen to you and I feel disturbed; then I become conscious.
57:27 I suffer - then I become conscious. I’m frustrated; I want to be famous and become a great big man and I’m frustrated.
57:37 In that frustration there is pain and I become conscious. I become conscious either through the demand and the continuity of pleasure or the avoidance and the pushing away of pain.
57:56 Sir, look, when I do something as a function, as a journalist, as an engineer, as a… function, as an artist, which are all functions, is there any… is there consciousness as being a functionary?
58:35 You become conscious as being a functionary only when you are seeking out of that function a status.
58:48 Right? So through function you may be a good writer or something else and through that function you are seeking fame - then begins all the mischief.
59:08 Q: But what to say is that when there is experience there is consciousness and this consciousness is similar to… (inaudible).
59:31 K: All right, all right, all right. I have said it and you have said it. Then where are we?
59:39 Q: The consciousness seems to be synonymous with awareness or… (inaudible).
59:41 K: Yes sir. Consciousness is synonymous with words, with symbols, with experience, with the… with deriving status from function, ambition, greed, struggle, effort, all that.
59:56 Oh, this is clear. And what we are talking about is understanding the whole positive, learning about it, there comes… the very learning is the new movement.
1:00:14 Not ‘How I am to live without experience? Won’t I die?’ I say, ‘Of course you’ll die.’ Anyhow we are already dead so it doesn’t very much matter.
1:00:26 (Laughter) K: So such questions have no meaning. But if we see what the nature and the structure of consciousness, understand, learn, and the very learning is the doing and the doing is the movement that comes, which is not related to that.
1:00:46 Q: You say that in seeking there is no understanding.
1:01:11 How about without seeking, is there understanding? (Laughter) K: The questioner says: you’re saying, are you not? - he asks - in seeking there is no understanding, but if you do not seek is there understanding?
1:01:23 I’m… we are saying: why do you seek? Not that you mustn’t or must. Why do we seek?
1:01:33 Q: Sir, is there a difference between seeking and empowering… (inaudible)?
1:01:41 K: Oh, yes, surely. It all depends what you inquire, what you... Sir, don’t complicate it. Take one thing after another. Seeking - why do I seek? I am unhappy, I’m miserable; my life is shoddy, petty, small, though I have a big name and a lot of words.
1:02:05 My life is ugly and I say… and I’m struggling.
1:02:12 I want to get away from it to find something more.
1:02:21 And also I am so dissatisfied with everything I have touched, dissatisfied with my family, with my wife, with myself, with the world, with everything I’m dissatisfied with, and I… out of that flame of dissatisfaction I want to find something.
1:02:49 And I generally do. I either become a communist, a socialist, a Roman Catholic or become a Zen or whatever it is.
1:03:07 So can I, can the mind - please listen - can the mind which has lived on experience and adding more and more to itself, expanding itself through knowledge, through fame, through aggression and finding all that empty, giving significance to life?
1:03:41 That’s what it does. So a mind… can that mind which is outcome of time and therefore a tremendous positive process - you understand?
1:03:57 - ‘I will, I must; I… this isn’t right, this is wrong; this is the line across which nobody is going to cross’ - can such a mind which has been brought up for centuries upon centuries on positive, competitive, aggressive seeking and finding mind, can that mind understand this whole thing and move away by learning about the positive?
1:04:30 You understand? If I don’t… if the mind doesn’t move away from the positive, it will always remain in conflict.
1:04:44 And if you derive pleasure in conflict, go on.
1:04:55 Don’t say ‘I want the other’ and yet swallowing this poison.
1:05:01 Q: Sir, isn’t that dissatisfaction with what you call contradictions also a loaded term which leads people to seek for what you call the negative state?
1:05:20 K: Ah, you… Yes, sir. You see, I don’t… dissatisfaction, I was trying to explain, is so easily satisfied.
1:05:30 And being easily satisfied is to find the negative state.
1:05:37 So, before, I found pleasure in the positive, now I’m going to find pleasure in the negative, but the mind is still the rotten, little, stupid mind which has functioned within the positive and now going to function with the negative.
1:05:59 It’s the same mind wanting fame, wanting success, wanting to find, wanting to experience, only it says, ‘I’m negative.’ (Inaudible).
1:06:12 Q: But all our energy is here… (inaudible)…
1:06:20 K: But this…
1:06:23 Q: …conditioned; and that’s why we’re attracted by one purpose and another because…
1:06:36 (inaudible).
1:06:37 K: Sir, we have to live in this world.
1:06:40 Q: What?
1:06:42 K: We have to live in this world.
1:06:44 Q: Yes, we are attracted by… (inaudible).
1:06:49 K: We are saying exactly the same thing as you are saying. We have to live in this world. We are influenced, we have our jobs, we have our families, we have our beliefs, dogmas, fears, anxieties, quarrels, jealousies, ambitions - that’s our world.
1:07:10 And that is the world of a positive state in which we live, kicking each other, killing each other, doing everything in that state.
1:07:21 That’s what we call life. Please listen to the end of it. If you say, ‘That’s good enough for me,’ carry on, with your gods, with your superstitions, with your leaders, with your gurus, with your saviours, priests… or the… whatever it is, carry on.
1:07:45 But if you say, ‘Look, is there a way of ending contradiction and living totally differently, not the opposite of this?’ then you must understand this whole business, living in this world.
1:08:08 Q: We are trying to do this.
1:08:24 We are so occupied in this world with our professional and family life and so on. We are so busy.
1:08:29 K: The gentleman, the questioner says, ‘We are so busy with the family life, job - you know? - children and all the rest of it. Can we do this actually, really, not some vague, idealistically Utopian way?
1:08:41 Can we actually do this in life?’ Right? You have asked the question. Are you waiting me… waiting for me to answer it?
1:08:57 I say you… if you wait for an answer, I say, ‘Yes, you can do,’ then what?
1:09:04 Where are you? But if you say, ‘Look, let me understand this whole structure, let me look at it, let me understand this… the mind that is this way, that way,’ give ten minutes, then you will see that you can live in this world totally differently.
1:09:34 If you cannot live totally differently in this world then it’s not worth it.
1:09:41 Throw it in the garbage. Therefore one must be clear, ruthless with the understanding of the structure.
1:10:06 You see, then we can go into what is this state of mind that lives and has its being in negation.
1:10:32 You understand? But if you have not understood the positive, you can never go into the other; you can never flow into the other.
1:10:46 Take the question of beauty.
1:10:53 What is beauty? Look, we’ll go into this.
1:11:04 It’s time to stop. I’ll stop now. We’ll pick it up tomorrow. It is tomorrow, isn’t it? Yes, tomorrow. You ask that question or I ask you that question.
1:11:24 How do you answer it? Volumes have been written about it by professional artists, professional theoreticians, what beauty is: the beauty according to the East and the beauty according to the West, the Greek idea, the Egyptian idea and so on and on; they have…
1:12:01 How do you find out?
1:12:08 If you answer it from knowledge then it’s the answer of a petty mind for all knowledge is within the petty mind.
1:12:32 Right? Does that mean you’ll ask not to have any knowledge?
1:12:41 So when we are asked that question, we…
1:12:49 Now, wait a minute; I’m asking you. Are you going to seek an answer?
1:13:00 And if you seek an answer and find an answer, it will in terms of what you already know, as the objective painters, as the new type of poetry, this, that and all the rest of it.
1:13:23 But if you listen to that question and had no answer then what is your response?
1:13:41 Not ‘I don’t know’ but what is your response to that question which is to find out what beauty is.
1:13:54 I think we’d better stop, don’t you?
1:13:56 Q: May I add one question… (inaudible)?
1:13:59 K: Yes sir?
1:14:00 Q: In this particular individual for whom the state of negation has come into being… (inaudible) the quality of mind, and if this individual goes into the mountains this afternoon here… (inaudible) out of this state of negation, is he permitted when he returns home to the city of New York, as an example… (inaudible) and picks up the telephone, has he then a different aspect or discipline of thought, and therefore positive… (inaudible)?
1:14:53 K: We have just answered that question, sir. I can go into the mountains this afternoon, come back home and pick up the telephone.
1:15:05 Either I have understood and therefore learnt and act and therefore there is a movement which is not of the positive.
1:15:20 I can pick up that telephone and answer and say, ‘Will you come to dinner tonight?’ I’ll answer what is suitable at that moment.
1:15:35 I don’t want to or I want to. That is the end of it. You see, you are… Sir, that demands something else. One has to understand what it is to be alone, because beauty is aloneness.
1:16:10 We’ll go into it tomorrow, sorry.