Public Discussion 1, London, 5 May 1963

Krishnamurti: I wonder how we can start this so-called discussions. We ought to keep it quite informal. And I think it would be a good idea if we could establish between each other the right relationship. I mean by that that we… that I am not here to teach, but rather together we’re going to explore, not verbally nor emotionally, sentimentally but actually, taking fact by fact and going into it very deeply.

If we could – I don’t know how it’s going to be done; perhaps we’ll do it – if we could establish that relationship, that, if I may point out, you’re not learning something from me, nor am I teaching you something. I don’t think these things can be taught; they have to be discovered by each one. And if you at all put me on a platform ideologically and try to learn something from the speaker, I’m afraid we will fail. But if we could sanely, hesitantly examine together every problem, explore the hidden parts of our mind, then I think these discussions, or whatever one may call it, will be worthwhile. At least that’s what I would like to do. I don’t know how you want it done, but I think if we could approach it that way, perhaps we shall discover for ourselves what is true; something that is not put together by the mind, by our clever, cunning brain.

And I think it would be eminently worthwhile, as there are so few of us, fortunately or unfortunately, if we could seriously and earnestly really explore, not take anything for granted, nothing, and perhaps then we shall be able to find out for ourselves, without always looking to somebody, to explore, to uncover the depths of one’s own being. If you agree to that, if that is our relationship, then what shall we explore or talk over? Because one thing will lead to another; one fact, if we could examine it rightly, intelligently, I think will open the door to wider perceptions and comprehension.

After all, what is it together we can do? If you went to an analyst – I wonder if you do – you do all the work. He’ll put you at your ease – you know? — all the things that one does, that they do, and let you talk, uncover, go into yourself, and he will perhaps be able to help you. But I don’t think we’re going to do that. On the contrary, by talking things over together we shan’t fit, probably, into society at all. I mean psychologically and not outwardly. It doesn’t mean that we shall become abnormal, psychotic, but I think we shall become revolutionaries in the right sense of the word, and therefore be able to see beyond the obvious, the thing that the brain can conclude and decide. At least that’s what I would very much like, with a small group like this, to really bring about, if we can within ourselves, a tremendous psychological revolution so that inwardly we are totally different human beings.

Well, I’ve said my say, so what shall we begin with?

Questioner: Sir, I would like to discuss the question of seeing something in its totality. In your India talks you referred to this, you said it’s like seeing the riverness of all rivers; now, this confused me, because it seems to go to the past to learn the riverness of all rivers, and yet on other occasions you have said that it is wrong to see through the past. So if we could discuss this question…

K: Sir, may I say… ask something? May I suggest something? That you don’t refer to what I have said at all. Scrap all that. It’s as though we are beginning anew. At least that’s the way I feel. That’s the way I feel each time I talk, and I really mean it. I don’t… it isn’t as though I was… I’d thought it all out and trot it out. Actually, for me, it is something new. And if you refer to something which was said in Bombay or in New York, I’m completely lost, and I really mean it. So can’t we begin as though we haven’t read anything that I have said or somebody else has said and begin to find out what it is that we all are seeking or wanting or burning up with, and start from there?

Q: Could we talk about our relationship with one another? I seem to be very cut off from everybody.

K: Shall we discuss that? Shall we take that?

Q: Yes.

K: Sir, why shouldn’t we be cut off from everybody, including my wife and my children? Why this fear – I’m not saying you’re afraid – why this fear of being cut off? Is it that we accept the tradition of a relationship that is always tied to something or tied to a person? I wonder what we mean by relationship – to be related to something, to be in contact not only physically, but emotionally, intellectually. To be in contact with somebody totally, at the same time, wholly — is that possible? After all, that’s life, isn’t it, to be in relationship, in contact with someone completely: intellectually, verbally, physically, at the same time – you know? — that feeling, not divided, broken up. Is that what we mean by relationship?

Perhaps we may occasionally feel that extraordinary sense of not being there as a person tied to somebody, not being so terribly self-centred, worried about everything in life, but we may occasionally feel this extraordinary sense of being without a centre, and yet be in complete contact with everything. Is that what we mean by relationship? And is it possible to be so extraordinarily alive and be in contact with everything – with trees, with people – you know? – with the world, with the agonies, despairs, anxieties, be in contact with it? And is it possible to be so intensely alive without always feeling alive from a centre? I hope I’m making myself clear, am I? Is that what we mean by relationship?

Perhaps that relationship does exist when there is complete self-forgetfulness, when the *me* is absent. The *me* is absent generally, isn’t it, through some form of identification with something. Am I… please stop me if I talk too much, will you? We are discussing, and I don’t want to take the… all the words.

Is there any moment in our relationship with anything – with a tree, with a woman, with a man, with a child, with the boss, with the bus conductor – it doesn’t matter who it is – is there any moment, is there any second when, without identification, there is no separation, no division? You know what I mean? After all, that’s what we mean by relationship, don’t we? Not the relationship of a man and a woman… or somebody everlastingly nagging, quarrelling, suspecting – you know? — wanting, be attached, be fearful, and all the rest of it.

Q: But that’s the only relationship we know… (inaudible) that relationship of complete dependence. I doubt really if any of us… (inaudible) speak for myself… (inaudible) know any relationship that isn’t bounded by fear…(inaudible) all the anxieties. That is our life. But when you speak of the possibility of… (inaudible).

K: No, no… So… I was just examining what we mean by relationship. I do think we do… we have moments of this extraordinary feeling of not being isolated, not being separate, not being… — not emotion; I don’t mean sentimentally; that’s dreadful – I mean the factually, when the mind is… when the brain is completely without thought, without a reaction. When you see a tree, there is only the tree, not you looking at it. Probably that’s a very rare thing, but what Miss Pratt says, which is, that for most of us relationship is a strain, a burden, an anxiety, a fear, attachment, jealousy – you know? – all the turmoil of relationship. That’s the actual fact, isn’t it? Or not – I don’t know.

Q: Not always.

K: Now, wait a minute. Now, the lady says, ‘Not always.’ Now, what do we mean by ‘not always’?

Q: It seems to vary from day to day.

K: Yes, the tensions are less: less jealousy… You follow what I mean? It is…

Q: There’s the other side too, there’s the happy side… (inaudible).

K: Yes sir; yes sir; of course. There’s the happy side, there is a pleasurable side, there is the… all that; that’s understood. The pleasure, the pain, the anxiety, the joy – it’s all there.

Q: I think, sir… (inaudible) the ideal relationship is more difficult with a grown-up person than with a child. I think it’s possible with a child.

K: Ah, sir, with a child it’s fairly simple because we don’t demand anything of a child. It’s like being extraordinarily open to… with a dog; completely – you know? – adoring it.

Q: But this relationship can come in the middle of something that is unpleasant… (inaudible).

K: No, you… No, please… I understand. That lady said something which we ought to stick to, which we ought to go into. She said, ‘Not always.’ I think we ought to examine this thing called ‘always’.

Q: Isn’t it also… I said from day to day, which didn’t really express it, but in in a relationship even with a single person there are phases in it; there might be a phase of years of what you said, what you mentioned just now… (inaudible)… not nagging and suspicion and jealousy, irritation, but such phases can pass…

K: You see…

Q: …with a deeper understanding the relationship… (inaudible) altered. I think… (inaudible) .

K: That means we are…

Q: Has it anything to do with relationship… (inaudible)?

K: Beg your pardon?

Q: I can’t see that it has anything to do with relationship… (inaudible). It’s part of living with people, perhaps, but not with your deep relationship with… (inaudible).

K: You know, it’s like… I understand that but… You see, I don’t… Should we deal with phases, time, all this, or be something, if I may use that word, all the time — it’s not all the… — be something so that there… it has no phases? You follow?

Q: Well, I think this probably comes back to the answer you gave to my husband about what is gone is in the past, and if each moment is new, then each relationship has to be new, too, and you can’t talk about *always* in that context.

K: You see, I’m trying to analyze that word *always*.

Q: Well, is there anything that is *always*?

K: No, but we think in those terms. We have… one day we are in a certain mood, next day we have changed from that mood to something else, and so on and on and on and on. And this change: one day jealous, one day… — you know? – is our life, and from that we establish a relationship, or that establishes a relationship. No? No? You don’t agree?

Let’s go back. Let’s begin again. Let’s begin and see what we mean by relationship. To be related to, to be in contact with, to have connection with, or are we only connected with each other at points, not totally – you follow what I…? — never totally, completely, each other, but it’s like two spheres touching. Is that what we mean by relationship? (Pause) Ah?

Q: A relationship may be very short and passing, although it’s intense.

Q: May I say something? That the question of relationship is only there when you can’t be alone, so the moment we need no relationship, there is a possibility of seeing what relationship is. We use people and our relationship is accordingly from that motive.

K: Utilitarian.

Q: Yes. Whether it is deep relationship or superficial relationship, it is always from that utilitarian background. We don’t admit it. We say we love, but it is, without our knowledge, utilitarian. We want to expand our ego, our self. So it’s only possible, I should say, really not to want anything from life, from the others, from anybody, from anything, to understand if we can have right… — well, I use the word *right relationship* — if we can be in contact with the others by being alone, completely alone, without any need psychologically of the other.

K: Sir… Yes sir, but most of us do depend on others psychologically. We are incapable of being alone in that deep sense of the word you are using. But most of us, we want friendship, we want to commune with somebody, we want to hold somebody’s hand, we want to… You know?

Q: But unfortunately, because of that…

K: Ah, no, it is… Sir… You see, what are we dealing with, facts or suppositions? The fact is my relationship with another — generally; not mine, because I’m… – our relationship with another is generally based on some kind of reciprocity, anxiety, jealousy, pleasure and all the rest of it. Those are the facts, aren’t they? No?

Q: (Inaudible).

K: And that we call relationship. And when that is shut off or cut off, we feel terribly lonely, isolated, and we plunge into another relationship which establishes the same pattern.

Q: You see, you can link up what the lady said about ‘always’, going from there. We can only talk about ‘always’ when we want a relationship to adjust itself. We feel at a certain moment in a relationship in a… we think it is an unselfish relationship, but we want to have that as relationship because it satisfies us.

K: Yes sir, but we… You see… Are we discussing, are we looking at facts or suppositions? And why do we crave to be related with somebody — it doesn’t matter what it is – to be identified with something — why?

Q: Well, I think it’s because of the fear that we… (inaudible).

K: No, not… So we must examine all this, not you think and I think, and somebody… agrees and disagrees.

Q: Well, it’s difficult to say. One can only talk about what one experiences for oneself, and in my case it’s certainly this fear, a feeling of insecurity, which one hopes to solve or resolve through this relationship with another. But l think behind the relationship and the pleasure that’s involved is this fear.

K: You see, that gentleman started out by asking: he feels so cut off; and it may be behind that there is an anxiety to be related. And I’m asking myself, why shouldn’t one be cut off? Why should one have this sense of constant contact, constant relationship with something or other? Why this anxiety? And are we ever related to anybody? I’m married, I have a wife, I have children – am I really related? Or each one lives in a world of his own – you know? – and we meet sexually, as a family, this or that, but in a world isolated, self-centred, and come into contact when it is merely a matter of adjustment, necessity, a demand, an attachment? You follow what I mean? I think if we could find out for ourselves or explore together this anxiety, this demand to be related; the incapacity to stand completely alone.

Q: Is it possible not to want to be related at all?

K: We are going to find out; we are going to examine it.

Q: (Inaudible).

K: It may be out of fear, it may be out of anxiety… be the sense of loneliness. Is… – now, wait a minute. I don’t want to go too much unless… — is love…- may I venture a little bit? — is love relationship, as we understand it? When I love somebody, when one loves somebody, what does it mean, generally? You know, the whole thing involved, not just one or two things, not just pleasure or… but the whole weight of it – the beauty, the pleasure, the pain, the jealousy, the anxiety, the fear, the…. — you know? — the… – all that. That’s what we call relationship. And I’m asking myself, can love have any relationship in the sense that we understand it? Or am I saying too much all… asking too much?

Q: One aspect of love is being a desire to protect and to make it easy… (inaudible).

K: Ah… ‘One aspect,’ the gentleman says, ‘of love is to protect, to guide, to be friendly, to…’ — you know? – all the rest of it. I wonder. No, you see, sir, I think we ought to go a little bit slowly into this matter and not… Let’s begin again. When we talk about relationship, what do we mean? What do we actually mean? What is the actual fact? All that we have described is the actual fact: fear of death, fear of loneliness, pleasure, sex – you know? — companionship, communication, the desire to protect and the boredom of the same person – you know? – all that; the quarrels, the memories, the injuries, the … all that is what we call relationship, don’t we? No? No?

Many: Yes.

K: But somebody says, ‘No.’

Q: (Inaudible).

K: No?

Q: (Inaudible).

K: You don’t think that is it?

Q: I don’t think that’s a relationship.

K: Ah, no, but I said that is the actual fact.

Q: That’s what we think of it.

K: Ah, that’s… No, not what we think of it, that is the actual fact in our daily life. I don’t… I may think about it, I may regard it that, but the fact is that I do regard it that way. I don’t quite see the hesitancy about this. Now, if… I mean, that’s a fact; I mean, we can’t get round it. That being the fact, is it possible to have relationship without all this smoke and all the mess and the confusion and the agony and the… — you know? – all the rest of it, involved in it — is it possible? That is really the question, isn’t it? Is it possible to live with another or with a community or whatever it is, without all this smoke, without the confusion, the travail, the anxiety, the bitterness, the memory? You…?

Q: But in order to come to that we must really go into it and see that we choose our relationships; we want something for us…

K: Yes sir; yes sir, but…

Q: …to feel satisfaction; only in the function of that we choose. There is absolutely no question of someone, a child… if the mother doesn’t satisfy the child, the child is not… actually hasn’t got a relationship to the mother because says, ‘You do not give me something I want’, and we say the same thing too, without saying it verbally to any person, to any… We do not choose a painting if we don’t like it; we do not choose a person to be a friend with if that friend doesn’t share our prejudices and thinks like we do. We would like to choose our relationships, so it is again something in us that chooses all the time.

K: Yes sir; yes sir, that’s the point. You see, the fact is, sir, our relationship is a confusion of pleasure and pain. Now… and unconsciously this pleasure and pain gradually drives me to isolation, and from that isolation I try to establish relationships which I hope will not have all this mess round it. And each time I try to establish a relationship from there, it produces the same results. I divorce one… (inaudible).

Q: There’s a reaction.

K: …I go on, keep on messing around. Now, the gentleman, he asked… what he asked was he finds himself in isolation in relationships, which is, this constant battle of pleasure and pain has driven one into a corner — you follow what I mean? — into a psychological corner from which there is no escape. And so the more you are driven the more… the further you go away, the further you isolate yourself. And is it possible to be… That is the fact, first; that is the fact, isn’t it? Psychologically this goes on all the time. You say something hard to me, I’m already finished — you follow? — withdrawal. You give me a pleasure, I’m with you. And so we keep this game going all the time. Now, that is a fact. Now, is it possible to live in relationship without that, without this isolating process taking place? Isn’t that the question, sir?

Q: Yes. But maybe that relationship is the wrong word because relationship means all these things you’ve been talking about. It’s like a lot of billiard balls running about.

K: Running about. Quite.

Q: Yes.

Q: Do you think there’s some danger of trying to avoid all these things… (inaudible)?

K: Ah, no, we can’t avoid it.

Q: I mean, isn’t it part of it that one condemns it and…?

K: No, one can’t avoid it, can one?

Q: No.

K: You fall in love, you… your mother, your child, your brother… you live in a society, you can’t avoid it, but we want to avoid it.

Q: And is it… (inaudible) this wanting… (inaudible)?

K: No, we try to avoid it, and that leads to all kinds of psychological problems. So, you see… can’t we see the fact first, the fact that the so-called relationship is this, and is it possible to be related to you without all this billiard balls meeting in the darkness and making a lot of noise? Is it possible? And if it is possible, how is one to set about it — you follow what I mean? – not keep on repeating that, ‘One isn’t this… it’s pleasure and pain, and I…’ How is it possible to break through this?

Q: Well, is it…it must be something which comes… it’s possible for a person to be related, regardless of the other person… (inaudible) it’s regardless of the outside world.

K: No, don’t begin in supposing.

Q: (Inaudible).

K: Ah, you see, that’s what I… First of all, is it possible for a mind, for a brain, for a person to be related to another without all this messy, chaotic business: changing, adjusting – you know? — is it possible?

Q: You mean without any hard work at all.

Q: (Inaudible).

K: Beg your pardon?

Q: You mean without any work at all on the relationship, to build it.

K: I don’t quite follow.

Q: Without any work.

Q: Is it possible to have a relationship without working at all? Just go in and there it is.

K: In a way I’m trying to get at that.

Q: But the fact surely is that we are separate. The conflict only arises because in relationship we’re trying to prove the opposite.

K: Yes, quite right.

Q: I think it is sufficient if one goes so far to see the so-called relationship for what it is, and see it clearly that it is not… I mean, that it is a relationship that we don’t meet.

K: No, sir… You see, sir, I see my relationship — wait a minute – I see in my relationship the fact of pleasure, pain and all the rest of it; I see it. Now, how am I to break away from it instantly? That’s my problem.

Q: Well, it’s precisely at that moment I do not want… (inaudible).

K: No… No, don’t say, ‘I want.’ I don’t know what to do. I’m caught in this. You follow, sir? How am I to come out of it like a fresh person?

Q: Immediately.

K: It must be fairly immediate, otherwise I’ll be dead.

Q: You mean a moment of about fifty years or so or do you mean a moment of a second?

K: I can’t take time over it.

Q: Why not?

K: I can’t take… Wait a minute, sir. Look, I’m jealous — take ten years to get over jealousy?

Q: Ten minutes, or a day, or ten hours… (inaudible).

K: I mean, in getting rid of it…Sir, these are all human problems; you can’t…

Q: Well, surely we just have to try and overcome them all.

K: Ah, no… You see, that means again — what? Resistance, conflict, giving in sometimes, and straining one… All that’s involved. No? Lord, you…

Q: But that’s not life, is it, without conflict at all?

K: Ah, wait a minute; wait a minute. That’s it. You say life and conflict are inevitable.

Q: Yes.

K: I don’t think so. I know we are trained from childhood through education, through… — you know? – the whole business, to live in conflict. I don’t want conflict.

Q: You’ve got it.

K: I… Now, wait a minute.

(Laughter)

K: I want to find out what we mean by… Of course we have got it, up to our necks.

Q: (Inaudible).

K: I know we have got it.

Q: One person… Really it’s impossible to… (inaudible).

K: I don’t… Sir, we don’t know what it means to live without conflict. First let’s find out that our life is conflict. Everything we do is conflict. There is a series of self-contradictions. You see, we… Wait a minute. I don’t want to go into that now, for the moment, conflict, but that may come out of this inquiry into relationship. But is it possible to live in this world without having all this pleasure, pain… — you know? – all that? And is it possible to live… is it possible to break away from this thing immediately?

Q: I realize the possibility of a good relationship and I’m always struggling to have it, to make it feel better, but although I realize it I’m still caught in… (inaudible).

K: Then how is one, sir, how… what is one to do? I’m caught in the whole… in this mess, and yet I want to get out of it, and I don’t seem to be able to get out of it. What is one to do?

Q: Just keep trying.

K: Keep trying?

Q: Yes.

K: Oh, for God’s sake.

(Laughter)

K: That’s what we do for the rest of our life…

Q: Yes.

K: So when… and we die, keep trying. No, no, that isn’t good enough.

Q: I feel that this problem is this ‘immediately’. We see a conflict, or we see through a relationship, we see it isn’t what we would feel it ought to be, but it’s always a partial adjustment we make, we don’t see the total problem and… or very seldom do we see the total problem. If we are able to see the total problem, then I think perhaps it is this ‘immediately’; but it does seem to get back to this time problem. We feel, as so many of us do, I feel that we have this thing of keep trying…

K: No, you see, madame, I will… you see, I won’t accept, I will not have… I will not live in a… within myself in conflict. I will not be jealous. I’m taking…

Q: You can’t just say to yourself, ‘I will not be jealous.’

K: No, no, no, no, no. You accept jealousy. As that gentleman says, ‘I accept conflict as inevitable;’ and he points out, ‘I slip back into the old.’ I want to find… I don’t want to slip back. You follow? I refuse to enter into that slipping back and back, and going forward and backwards, and therefore not moving at all. I don’t… You…

Q: The intention is not to slip back.

K: No, no, I want… I do not want to be in a state of conflict, full stop. I must find a way. I won’t accept it. You follow? I don’t…

Q: You’re in conflict then.

K: Ah?

Q: You’re in conflict now, not accepting conflict.

K: No, no, no. Ah, you see… No, this requires a great deal of inquiry. That’s what I’m… I’m explaining something, sir. First wait a minute. Don’t jump down my… yet. Wait. You see, you accept, which means that you will try not to be jealous. I’m taking that as an example. You accept jealousy as inevitable. Ah?

Q: Not inevitable.

K: But otherwise you would…

Q: But it’s there.

K: If it is there…

Q: It exists.

K: It exists. Can you cut it off immediately?

Q: I can’t cut it off immediately… (inaudible).

K: Ah, wait. Don’t…. You see, when you say you can’t, you have accepted it.

Q: No, I have not done so up to now…. (inaudible).

K: Because you have not found a way of doing it.

Q: Precisely; yes.

K: Now, let’s find a way. You follow what I mean? If you found a way of cutting it off immediately, you would do it. But you will not find a way if you say, ‘I’ll try, I will try, I will….’ You follow? You resist it; you say, ‘This is the inevitable. This is what happens in our daily life,’ and so on and on and on.

Q: But you can’t find anything unless you look for it, unless you keep on going… (inaudible).

K: You see…

Q: You can’t just arrive with it.

K: I’m… we’re going to discuss it; we’re going to find out if there…

Q: (Inaudible).

K: What, sir?

Q: I mean to say, it does happen sometimes of its own accord, so it shows it does happen without one trying, sometimes, for a moment.

K: Yes; yes.

Q: We think we can do something about it, and that’s our difficulty… (inaudible).

K: Yes sir. Wait a minute; wait a minute, let’s come to… You see, the fact is… the fact our relationship is confused — right? — pleasure and pain and all the rest of it. Now, is it possible at one stroke, as it were, to break away from that? That’s what we’ve come to up to now, haven’t we? Right?

Q: Can we know if it’s possible unless we actually do it… (inaudible)?

K: We’re going to find out, madame. *Attendez*. We’re going to see. First of all, what is the first thing that is absolutely necessary?

Q: That we should see why that conflict arises.

K: Yes; yes sir, but why again…? Look, that is, you discover a cause of something, the cause of my jealousy. I discover the cause, but the discovery of the cause, does it get rid of the jealousy? It generally doesn’t. It goes on happily.

Q: Only if we are sufficiently alert and aware all the time.

K: Ah, you see, that’s what I mean… Now you’re introducing the conditional clause, *if*. No, you see… I wish we could somehow think of this differently, which is, not to introduce time element into it at all. The trying, ‘If I do this, that will happen’; the analytical process, the psychoanalysis, the examination – you know? – all that involves time, doesn’t it? Now, is it possible – this is it – not to think in terms of time at all?

Q: Is it thinking in terms of time if you love without demanding anything in return?

K: Ah, no… No, I’m not talking of love… Here I am, sir – just a minute – I’m jealous. Is it possible for me not to say, ‘I won’t be jealous. I will discipline myself not to be jealous, I will try not to be…’ — you follow? — introducing time quality into it; time quality: will, determination, suppression, substitution, trying to get over it, finding explanations, analyzing so that I find the cause of my jealousy, and so on and so on and so on – all that implies time; not only chronological time, but psychological time, doesn’t it? All that implies time. Now… I wonder if I’m…

You see, I can analyze jealousy very carefully. I’m… We’re all pretty good at it. I can analyze step by step, go into it very, very carefully, step by step. At the end of it I’m still jealous. And I see the futility of such an examination, analysis. Then what am I to do? Is it possible, after analyzing, to see the futility of it? And is it possible not to think in terms of time at all? That is, not to think at all about it – you follow what I mean? — because thought is time.

Q: Do you mean that one should perceive it and leave it at that?

K: Yes sir, I’ve got… Yes. I mean a little more than that. Look, sir, I’m jealous. I’ve made every effort, I’ve thought about it, I’ve analyzed it, I’ve gone into it, I’ve examined it, I’ve thought, I’ve… thought has been expended on it. Right? Now, I see thought doesn’t dissolve it. Right? You’re following what I’m saying? Thought doesn’t resolve it. So can I stop thinking about it, but look at it?

Q: You take out the time when you take out the recognition… (inaudible).

K: That’s… I’m… That’s right, sir. It is thought that has made me jealous. You follow? You are more clever than I am and I want to be like you. It’s a process of thinking, comparison. So thought has created this envy. And thought is time. I don’t know… Perhaps we’ll come to that a little later. And I’ve used thought to bring about jealousy, and I’m using thought to get… destroy it, and I can’t destroy it by thought. Intellectually I can’t destroy it, nor emotionally, nor in any way. I can’t destroy it. So I say to myself, ‘Is it possible not to… to look at something without time?’ You follow? Am I making myself clear or is it…?

Q: (Inaudible).

K: To look at jealousy without…. — please don’t misunderstand — without thought. And I think that is the real problem: to look at my relationship, with all the pleasure, pain… all that, that relationship which is the product of time, which is the product of thought, to look at it without this process of thinking. To look at a fact — wait a minute — to look at a fact without having an opinion, an idea, a judgment about the fact.

Q: You’re still left with the feeling… (inaudible).

K: I don’t know. I don’t know. You may not have any feeling at all. Sir, wait a minute, this is really a tremendous problem, tremendous question, and we’re trying to answer it in a couple of words, but it isn’t as… You see, to look at something without thought implies a tremendous lot of… implies a tremendous lot. First of all, to look at something, to look at a fact, implies a complete quietness of the nerves… of nerves, doesn’t it? Which means the brain must be completely quiet – nerves being the brain — that must be completely quiet, without any reaction, but yet alive. You follow?

You see, a problem like jealousy: all our nerves, our brain, our… everything is involved in it. We are battling with it. I mean, to look at something without time implies a tremendous lot of understanding, looking, examining, not trying to get rid of jealousy – that’s… – I’m not concerned about trying to get rid of jealousy; that will come by itself. But how… is it possible to look without the activity and the reaction of the brain without all the pressures which the brain has collected and is collecting? You follow what I mean? I don’t know if I’m…

Q: Isn’t that relationship?

K: Ah, it may be something entirely different. (Pause) I mean, to look at jealousy without agitation. To look at anger without giving all the labels, all the do’s and don’ts; to look at it, to be aware of it, without all the time element involved in it. I don’t know…

You know the communist idea… – oh it’s not communist; that’s a very old idea, but it doesn’t matter – of thesis and antithesis and synthesis. The antithesis is the reaction to the fact, and through that reaction you come to a synthesis, which again will produce an antithesis, which again will have… which will again produce a thesis, which again will have an antithesis and so on and on and on and on. You know this; I mean, we are… some of… Either that is the way of life and that is the way of life which we have accepted, accepting the thesis and the antithesis as a reaction to the thesis, hoping thereby to bring about a synthesis. If we accept that way of life, then you must have conflict, you must have time, you must have… the whole thing as we have it now, our life. If you don’t accept it – not verbally, intellectually – I mean, if you deny that way of life, and you can only deny that way of life if you see what is implied entirely in that way of life. You…?

I mean, thesis and antithesis implies conflict, obviously, and through conflict, of class conflict, racial conflict, capitalism against socialism and… out of that struggle, conflict and reaction there’ll be some… a new society will come in, which again will have its own reactions and conflicts, and which will produce another society, and so on and on and on and on, everlastingly living in conflict. We accept that way of life. That’s our way of life. Now, if you are capable of really denying it…

Q: You can’t deny it… (inaudible).

K: Ah?

Q: You can’t deny it for that… you are denying history… (inaudible).

K: Yes sir, I am… I don’t want to live that way.

Q: But that’s impossible.

K: Ah, we’ll find… Then it’s finished. If you say there is no way out of this circle, then there is nothing more to be said.

Q: That’s proved by the centuries.

K: Ah… centuries have proved something, centuries have… I don’t… You follow? If that is not… if there is no way out of that, I’ll accept it, live that way — you follow? — I will live in conflict, everlastingly in battle within myself, within outside – you know? — battle, battle, battle, battle. I don’t…There may be a different way. I don’t say there is. There may be. I say there is. You may say, ‘You are… poor fellow, you’re a little bit touched.’ All right.

(Laughter)

K: But I say there is a different way of living. So before I can find out a different way of living, I must deny that, I must turn my back on it. You see, most of us don’t turn our back on it. We don’t even think about it. We have accepted it. It has become a habit and we keep on repeating it. To break that habit and look in a different direction – there may be a different direction. But you can’t look in a different direction unless you break it.

Q: Doesn’t ‘other direction’ seem too abstract?

K: No; no. What do you mean, too abstract?

Q: Like you take something that exists as a material thing. For instance, take this chair; it’s a chair, and you say, ‘Well, it can exist something what is not chair; not chair.’

K: I don’t know. I don’t say that.

Q: You can’t find a definition of that what is not chair.

K: I don’t know that, sir. Wait a… I’m not defining it. Please do… I am not defining the chair. I say conflict, the way we live – you know? – thesis, antithesis, duality, that way of existence, either accept it totally and live in it, perpetually living in a prison. And if I want to live a different way, a free way or whatever you like to call it, I must look somewhere, I must… I can’t theorize about it, I can’t have an idea about it, because I haven’t got it. My ideas will be a reaction to this. Right? So first I must deny this, and I can only deny it if I have no reaction to it. I say yes, that’s the fact… centuries upon centuries man has lived that way, and let’s see if there is a different way of living, different way of acting. There may not be; but this is… this I will not have. I may be cuckoo, I may be anything, but this I won’t touch. Surely that’s logical, sane.

So I say let us look at it. This is a fact. I can’t escape from it. But to deny it, to say, ‘This is not the way,’ I must know the whole content of it, mustn’t I? I can’t just… ‘Well, I must look at a new way’ – too silly, that would be. Therefore I must look at myself, which is that. You follow, sir? I am that. My consciousness, my way of thinking, my attitudes, my evaluations, psychologically I am that. So I have to understand that, and then I can deny that. I don’t have to deny; the moment I understand… it is finished. So if you… if I accept conflict as inevitable, as part of life, history from… since the birth of man, then I won’t look any other direction, obviously. I’m so conditioned by history, by the centuries of knowledge, of conflict, I say, ‘There is no other way.’ So I have to uncondition myself to look the other way. (Pause)

That’s why one has to first see the fact and know all the inwardness of that fact, and to know the inwardness of that fact, need you have time? Must I study all the history of man’s struggle, endeavour to change, every revolution? – you know? — or is it possible for me to see it instantly, the whole anatomy of conflict? You follow? If I can see it instantly, then there is a possibility of breaking it immediately. And I say that’s the only way to break it. A revolution brought about through ideas is not a revolution at all, it’s merely a reaction – as has been proved: French, communist, every other thing, is a reaction, and therefore a modified continuity of what has been. Oh, well, I don’t…

So this is what I would really, if I may – we must stop now – I would really like to go into this, an immediate break, an immediate transformation: to see jealousy and to be immediately free of jealousy. Shall we discuss that next time we meet, on Tuesday? Right, sir? Will that help the question of relationship? I think it will.

Next time… when is… Tuesday? I think an hour and twenty-five minutes is enough, isn’t it?

Q: Yes.