K School – Students Talk, Ojai, California, 7 November 1966

Mr George N. Jaidar, Headmaster: We’re the very fortunate beneficiaries of weather and the magnanimity of Mr Krishnamurti, we will be able to hear him here at Happy Valley School where he has been many times before. I think most of you have already heard him. I need say no more but to introduce him and let him use his time in the best way possible.

Krishnamurti: That’s rather a short introduction, and I feel a little bit shy, because I’m… you know, one is shy generally. (Pause) I don’t know what you want me to talk about. If you have nothing special for me to talk about, I shall talk about something in which I’m interested in and perhaps after the talk we can ask questions and explore together a little more.

In ancient India they had no schools. I’m talking of a period before Buddha, that is, 500 BC. But there were teachers, and the teachers had half a dozen boys or … I think mostly boys with them. The boys lived with them, lived with the teacher, did everything in the household, and were instructed by the teacher. And the teacher was a Brahmin, and the children were also Brahmins. You know what Brahmins are?

Questioner: No.

K: It’s a long history, but I won’t go into it very deeply. They were the people who came from the north – I don’t know at what period, probably 5,000 or 6,000 BC. One group went to Mesopotamia, Iraq, Syria, and all that, Sumeria. Another group came into India. They considered themselves as Brahmins, Aryans, and they established a rule, a conduct, a way of life which is still going on now in India, but it’s slowly breaking up. These teachers, from what I have been told – I’m not a scholar, I don’t read books, but I meet a great many people, both scholars and scientists and so on, we, they talk… we talk over a great many things together. These people created quite a different class, or a group of people in India, totally different from the people who lived there. There were already people, the aborigines, the original people. They were much more dark-skinned, not so highly intellectually, probably, developed as the Aryans, and they were the Brahmins. This group of people laid the foundation for the whole moral, ethical, religious, social structure of India.

To give an example: a man in India who gives up the world, that means doesn’t go into business, not married, leads so-called a holy life. Even now, he puts on a certain robe, saffron robe, and he’s by tradition fed all over India, in any village, and he’s looked after. He’s given clothes, sheltered and cared for. And the original Brahmins established all this. They were extraordinary people, they must have been, because they were outside society, they had no power over society, they were not politicians. They were really teachers, moral, ethical teachers, and what they said, generally the kings, the princes, the merchants and the labourers accepted, because of the way they lived, and by their conduct, by their behaviour, by their outlook on life. They were the originators – as far as I know, perhaps I may be wrong, but I don’t think I am – they were the originators of this whole religious spirit in India. And pretty soon after that, even at the period of the Buddha, it had already declined, that group. They were already corrupt, and so on. But they were the nucleus, they were the centre of an extraordinary civilization, because the whole sociological structure was based on a psychological process of living, which I won’t go into. But they created the nucleus, and that nucleus exploded much more over the whole of Asia than the Greeks exploded over Europe. They were the most… I mean, they went to China, Japan, all over Southeast Asia, and they planted these religious ideas.

And when you come from Europe, and when one comes from India, one sees an extraordinary sense of prosperity in Europe — well-fed, well-clothed. And when you come to America, as we did recently, one gets quite a shock, because I haven’t been here for some time. You see much more prosperity here. Of course, there is poverty in this country, but prosperity dominates: marvellous roads, everybody well-fed, well-clothed, strong, well-built. And one asks: where is the nucleus, a group of people who will bring about a totally different civilization, a culture not based only on physical welfare and material success and so on, but much more deeply, because that is the only thing that endures, not only technology. So we have talked to a great many people in New York and other places, Harvard and so on, and we’ve asked them: where is a centre in America, where is there a group of people who are really concerned, not with politics, not with economic success and prosperity and all that, but who are concerned with the whole world, with the total human being? Because those are the people that are going to create a new world, not the business man, nor the scientist, not the economist, not the philosopher; but a people who are concerned with the total welfare of the total man; not only his physical welfare, food, clothes and shelter, but also his mental state, his emotional understanding of life, not always seeking a job, a success, two cars and better houses, and so on and so on and so on, but a quality of mind that is not merely the product of social, circumstantial compulsion.

And it seems to me a school of this kind, and I hope the directors won’t mind my putting it this way, a school of this kind has an extraordinary importance in a world that is so utterly mundane, that is always seeking success, more money, more pleasure, that wants entertainment, either in the church or in the football field. I saw the other day a picture of people dancing, rock’n’roll, in a church. And I repeat that to you, and you’re not amused by it, you’re not even shocked by it. But in Italy, where I often go, to them that would be the highest form of sacrilege. They would be horrified. And in India, of course, they would say, ‘Well, what do you expect of a people who are not really civilized?’ Here, you take it for granted. Because the churches are empty, nobody believes in all that business, so to attract people they dance, they have bands, and all the rest of it, amusement and Jesus, and all the rest of it, thrown in.

So a school of this kind, as far as I feel, has an extraordinary importance. Because I was somewhat connected with it, little; the former director, Mrs Rosalind Rajagopal — sorry, I call her Rosalind… (inaudible) — and we used to discuss a little, off and on, what is it all about, and as my memory is not very clear about those matters because I don’t think about past events very much, and Mr Huxley, who used to be a great friend of ours, we used to — last I saw him it was in Rome — we used to walk every morning in the Villa Borghese. That’s just in the centre of town. It’s a large park with a lot of trees. And we used to casually discuss a little bit about Happy Valley, about LSD, and what is happening in the world. And from that I feel that a school of this nature has an essential place in a society that’s already in the decline. I mean by decline where morality has no place. They talk a great deal about morality, ethics and righteousness, right conduct, but it has very little place. A society that’s concerned mainly with success, with amassing wealth, and a society that’s constantly, everlastingly seeking entertainment, and such a society cannot obviously produce a new culture, a new mind, a new civilization, a new society. And a school here becomes extraordinarily vital, extraordinarily important in a world that is so… completely gone mad, because there are wars, race riots, whole of Asia, including India, over-populated, with very little to eat, of which you know nothing, of the poverty; it’s something incredible in India. And here you have immense prosperity.

So I feel — I’m not foisting this what I feel on the directors, or on the foundation members, I’m just an outsider — what I feel is, here is a *foyer,* a hearth, a centre that can produce most marvellous human beings, and must, otherwise it has no significance at all. A human being who is not merely concerned with technology, with getting a job, with having a family, success, and making money, and dying like a rat in a trap, but a human being that has something totally different, a human being that’s capable of real thinking, rational, clear, unemotionally looking at life, not from his particular idiosyncrasy, particular fancy, his particular inclination, not compelled by circumstances, which most of us are. And therefore the educator — again, I introduce it hesitatingly — the educator has an immense responsibility.

As in the old days of India, the educator was a dedicated person. He wasn’t concerned with the world at all, he was outside society. But what he was concerned was not only knowledge, but the way you live right through life, not just for a period of two or three years, right through life. How you live, how you behave, what you thought, how you worshipped, how you treated people, so that you are a human being with an extraordinary feeling of life and affection, love, thought, and the feeling of religion — not the phony religion of going to a church, or worshipping somebody, but the religious feeling. And I feel a school here must produce that, and it’s the responsibility of the teachers. And it’s not only their responsibility, but also it’s the responsibility of the parents. Most parents right through the world don’t care about all this. They want their children to have a good job, make a success of life, be completely secure, have a family, a good house and so on. But they don’t care. Because I go to two schools in India. I go there every… I spend there, one in the north a month, and a month in the south, two schools. And I happen to be connected with it a little, and the parents, because of the immense poverty, great explosion of over-population, are not concerned about anything except the boy pass, or the girl pass an examination, get a technique, and get a job, and get married, and begin, and nothing else matters. And that kind of education, with those types of parents, is hardly education at all. It’s merely stuffing information, which is called knowledge, into their brain, and helping them to pass a Ph. D., or M.A., or B.A., or whatever it is, and then get a job, and then be swallowed up.

Here, unless one is astonishingly awake, and know not only the current history, current events, but also be aware of all that is happening in the world, and the historical tendencies, and go beyond all that, because man doesn’t live by historical events, by statistics, by politics. He lives on something much deeper, much more vital, and unless that is given a field in which it can grow, one becomes just like a million other human beings caught in a trap. And most human beings are caught in a trap, and to escape… and they see they cannot escape from it, because they have families, children, responsibilities, and they don’t know what to do, and they get frustrated, old, die, or they take to various forms of drugs, LSD and all the rest of it, to escape from the monotony, from the boredom, from the routine of daily existence. They have nothing in their own hearts, in their own life which is really potentially great.

So it seems to me here, in this rather nice place, both the teachers and the good educators and the students, have an extraordinary opportunity to create a different human being who will in turn bring about a new culture, a new way of life, a new way of looking at life. And how to do it, how to bring it about, is quite a different problem, because one has not only to learn technological information and knowledge, the know-how in order to get a job, but also to flower in goodness, to be gentle, not to have any violence, not to hurt people, hurt animals. You know, there is in South India, the Brahmin is one of the few people as a group of… as a community, that never kill animals. They are strict vegetarians, because to them to kill is to be violent; and because they believe that you’ll pay next life if you do not behave properly, if you’re harmful, you will suffer for it next life, and various other reasons, climatic, hygienic reasons, they don’t kill. They won’t kill a human being, they won’t accept war as the way of life. Here one has. The whole of West, all Europe, including Russia, and China, and America, have accepted war as the way of life. I do not know if you have read, or have been told that from historic times, which is 5,000 or 500BC there have been nearly fifteen thousand wars. And here education seems to me to bring about a mind that refuses to be violent, to get angry, to kill another for whatever reason, for one’s country, and so on and so on and so on.

To live peacefully is one of the most difficult things to do when you’re surrounded by people who are competitive, angry, brutal, jealous, aggressive. I do not know if you have not noticed, the most pacific animal is the most… can only survive. The only human being that is, really lives peacefully inwardly and therefore outwardly, that he survives. And here in this school, it seems to me, that is the function of education, right education, not only to cultivate knowledge, but also to cultivate in goodness, in beauty, which is quite a different problem, and therefore in peace. Then perhaps such group, or such a community, can really create a society in which the religious spirit exists.

Perhaps you would ask me some questions and we can…

Q: (Inaudible).

K: Yes?

Q: (Inaudible)… much about what the educators, the teachers can do. What can I do, what can each of the students here in this school do to make so we don’t get caught in this trap?

K: ‘What can one do,’ the questioner asks, ‘not to get caught in the trap?’ First of all, you must know what the trap is — right? — both the outward trap, and also one gets caught in the trap because one wants to conform to that particular kind of trap. When one sees a nice looking car, one wants it. One wants success, one wants recognition, fame, and that way lies the… you’re caught in that trap. But if you don’t want fame, and you don’t care whether you make a success of life or not, but you do what you think is really right — you follow? — then you’re not caught in a trap at all. But that needs tremendous intelligence. It isn’t just a revolt. And one has to be very sensitive to see what the trap is, not only inwardly, but also inside the skin.

Q: (Inaudible)… you come to a certain realisation about what living is or what your society, the confines of the society… (inaudible) can you actually escape… (inaudible) are very much a part of you, almost so much a part of you that they’re indivisible from yourself.

K: After all, you know the Beatles in England, the beatniks in this country, and they are called teddy boys, and they have got different names in France, in Italy, and all over the place. They are in revolt against society, and they express that revolt by growing long hair, and in various ways they express it. But that is not out of the trap. One has to be tremendously awake to find out what the trap is and not be caught in it.

Q: (Inaudible)… of people that they repeatedly have shown… (inaudible) to be almost incapable of achieving.

K: Ah… and that’s why a school of this kind is immensely important. Of course they don’t succeed, they don’t escape from the trap, because they have created, by their desires, by their demand for entertainment, pleasure, and all the rest of it, the trap. They trap isn’t something that you and I haven’t created. We have created it.

Q: But what I’m saying is that aren’t the things that you’re asking… (inaudible) to release innate in being human?

K: I don’t know anything about being innate. I don’t think there is anything innate in us. But, after all, aggression is part of the animal in us, and being intelligent, why should we be aggressive? Why can’t we live peacefully? But to live peacefully requires right education. You see, when you say very, very few people escape from it, you’re throwing up the sponge, aren’t you? Of course, very, very few people do come out this trap. If there is not a community, a group of people that have really left the trap, American civilization will just go to pot, wither away. And that may be what’s going to happen, because civilizations have come and gone. Perhaps Indian civilization and Chinese have continued, oh, for five, six, seven thousand years, because principally, one of the main reasons, was the Himalayan border as a frontier, and also because there was this innate… this sense of religious spirit, not to hurt, not to kill, be kind, be gentle. You know, Ashoka, who was the emperor, I believe 250 BC, he was conquering India from the north, and he became a Buddhist, and in Buddhism, which was really originated in India, which was part of Hindu reformation and all that, he became a Buddhist and he said, ‘I won’t kill any more. Stop killing. Stop wars.’ But that’s….

Q: There’s a question over there.

Q: Within our society, if you don’t… (inaudible) and you don’t rebel… (inaudible) the status quo, where does that leave you as an individual? Do you become a member of the society… (inaudible)?

K: If you don’t rebel, sir… Let us be clear of what we mean by rebelling, revolt, and with understanding break away. There are three things involved in it, isn’t it? Either I revolt against society by doing extravagant things, which becomes the pattern of my own revolt. You understand, sir? Either I do that, or I understand the whole implication of this trap, of this society, not only intellectually, emotionally, I see the whole map of that structure, and the meaning of that, and with understanding I leave it. It’s only those people that can possibly create something new.

Q: You’ve left… where does this leave you within the society, within the structure of society?

K: Where is the..?

Q: When you’ve… when…

K: What is the place of the individual?

Q: Yes.

K: When he leaves?

Q: Yes.

K: Ah, I think that’s a question that one has to answer when you have left the society. How can one answer it? You can answer what will happen when you revolt. When you revolt, you are revolting against the condition which makes you conform to a particular pattern. And when you revolt, you create your own patterns, like the beatniks – you know? – all that. So they are… both are caught in patterns. Whereas if you understand this whole… the structure and the nature of this society, then you will act when you’re out of it, you will know what to do. You may become a gardener, you may… you’ll do…

Q: I feel that although this… (inaudible) to gain being… (inaudible) change, you feel that the people wanting to rebel, wanting to change and… (inaudible) like war and all these things, although they’re not doing it necessarily maybe in the proper way, maybe they’re creating their own society, but you feel that this is a step in the right direction, with people wanting to change.

K: (Inaudible)… people do want to change. There is the old establishment in England, and they want to break away from it. But that’s not the total answer. In America too they want to break away, but that’s not the answer. The answer lies in a totally different direction. You know, people who are very intellectual, very sensitive, they don’t find the answer, and so they take to drugs, they want to escape from life. I don’t know if I’m answering your question. Probably not.

Q: Well, it’s sort of not very clear at the moment.

K: Perhaps you will put your question a little more clearly, if you don’t mind.

Q: Well, I was wondering if the fact that the people nowadays seem to be more or less feeling, more people against or more people appear to be wanting for change and I was wondering if you felt that although these people don’t know how necessarily… (inaudible).

K: Ah, I see, I see, I see. People do want to change, most of us want change, but what do we mean by that word? And how are we going to bring about the thing which we consider is the right change? And who is going to help you to change? First, what do we mean by change, and if you want it, who is going to help you? Somebody outside? Politician, the church, the scientist, the circumstances? Or one has to do it oneself? And to do it oneself one must have right kind of awareness, right kind of intelligence, right kind of – you know? — looking at things. And that is right education.

Q: I would like to ask one question on the same line. You said that the people that are beatniks, and like that, that are revolting with their long hair and such, I… well, my opinion on them is that they don’t think they can change the entire populace of the nation or the world, so they cause their own society with their own rules which they feel is right. I don’t think they are rebelling against the total idea… (inaudible) rules and like that. I just think that they know… (inaudible) the entire set of rules… (inaudible).

K: Ah, no, I quite agree, sir. I agree with you. They are not concerned with the whole society, or bringing about a complete revolution.

Q: And the people that… the scholars — I forgot exactly what you said — but you said a lot of people turn to drugs, and you mentioned LSD… (inaudible) the thing I feel that I know a lot of people who have taken it and I’ve heard that Aldous Huxley himself had taken it…

K: Yes, yes, I know.

Q: …before he died. And I think that people that take it — this is my impression. I’d like you to correct me if I’m wrong — they take it just to find, or see what they are potentially like… (inaudible) because it is…. (inaudible).

K: Yes sir, yes sir, I know. I know a great many people, including the great bishops of… or the popes of LSD, I’ve… we’ve talked with them. They think by through LSD they are going to change the mentality of America.

Q: Is that their opinion?

K: Oh, yes, definitely.

Q: Well, the people I’ve talked to who have taken it, and they have seen an example of what they can be like… (inaudible).

K: Ah, wait, sir, wait, wait. Wait. It’s very… Look, look; go into it very carefully.

Q: Yes.

K: You see, first of all, this taking drugs is a very, very old custom. It existed in India about three, four thousand years ago, called soma. They used to take it, it’s a particular form… — was; I don’t know… a particular form of leaf or something, which they took in order to get an extraordinary sensitivity so that they could see something more, not their potentiality. Wait. Now, and the so-called religious people of that period, they said, ‘Don’t touch it, because that is not the real thing.’ I don’t want to quote Mr Huxley because he’s dead, and I’ve talked it over. He said to me, when we’re all… with Mr Rajagopal and we’re all there, and he said: ‘This form of taking drugs is the nearest thing to reality.’ You understand? The nearest experience to reality. I said: ‘Certainly not, it can never be. This is a trick.’ You understand? You take something, and you suddenly become enlightened. Good God.

(Laughter)

Q: (Inaudible).

K: Wait, wait, I haven’t finished, sir. If enlightenment, if one can discover the potentiality of oneself through a little LSD, it is a trick, I mean, it’s finished. I don’t think it works that way, logically or rationally. Because people who have taken it have told me, they said: ‘After we have taken it, we come back to ourselves, and we know what we are. We are frightened, petty little human beings, and it doesn’t solve a thing.’ And these other people who have taken it, not you and me. I’ve never touched the damned… I mean, the thing.

(Laughter)

Q: Yes, but, you see, that’s just the… (inaudible) I was trying to say; they saw what — you know? — they are potentially, and a lot of people that I know it have worked in – you know? — through meditation and… (inaudible).

K: Ah, no… Sir, don’t let’s confuse two things.

Q: Okay, I know, but they find the same experience and the same insight without… (inaudible).

K: They cannot, sir. Meditation is something entirely different. On the contrary, meditation demands tremendous activity, emotional, mental activity, not just taking a drug and getting an experience. Sorry, I know you may not agree, but… I have talked, sir, to people in India who have taken, not soma, not LSD, but they have their own forms of drugs, hashish, bhang, there are several things which they take, and they say, ‘This is a most marvellous thing, because… we get the real experience.’ What they get is the projection, sensitized, of their own background. A priest took it, and he had the most extraordinary vision of Christ and that brought about an immense — at least he says so — a great change in his life. But he is conditioned by his own society in which he lived, and that projection of that picture he thought was so marvellous, it’s going to alter his whole life. There are others who have taken that drug — I’ve never taken it and I talk as though I’d taken it — I’ve talked with many of them, and they say, oh, they get an extraordinary experience. They see… I know an Italian who took it with two doctors standing by him with a tape-recorder, and he had a vase of flowers in front of him, and at a certain moment he saw there was no distance between the flower and himself. You understand? There wasn’t the man who was looking at it; there was an extraordinary feeling of intense closeness to things. And he came out of it, because the doctors told him, ‘Don’t ever touch it again, because it’s a deadly thing, it will affect your brain, don’t touch it.’ And, sir, this is a well-known phenomenon which has existed through centuries. They had it in Egypt, they had it in… everywhere they had it. This is not something new. Only in India the poorer, the uneducated class take it. You follow? Yes sir?

Q: Do you think that reading philosophy, or reading methods for meditating, and then trying to meditate and this sort of thing, do you think this helps to get the right education?

K: Look, sir. First of all, meditation is one of the most difficult things to do, right meditation. There are all kinds of phony meditations. And to go into… to find out what is right meditation – one cannot discuss it now, because it requires a great deal of exploration and explanation of words and meaning… all that one has to go into. And reading of a philosophy may be helpful, not to meditate; to know the various forms of thought that man has cultivated throughout the centuries — the Indian philosophy… and so on and so on. But that study of philosophy does not necessarily give you the capacity to meditate.

Q: Does it help bring about the right education?

K: It does — right meditation.

Q: I mean right education, not right meditation.

K: You see, that’s why, if one… the educator and the student knew, both of them knew what meditation meant – right meditation; there’s a whole field of wrong meditations. I happen to know some of it, and to me all that, like Zen, is too crude. So both the educator and the student should know what right meditation is. Then it obviously has a tremendous significance in education.

Q: You said a minute ago that the man… (inaudible) and there was nothing new, but it was new to him, and he may or may not have experienced it at all without the… that drug.

K: Again, sir… You see, when a man recognizes an experience as an experience, then it’s already the old.

Q: But it’s the first time he’s ever experienced it.

K: Ah, no, no. It is not the first time. Don’t… Look, that’s what I’m telling you, it is not the first time. Look, I recognize you because I met you, otherwise I wouldn’t recognize you. I’ve seen your face, we’ve met, we’ve talked together, you have been introduced to me, or I’ve been introduced to you, we know each other… (inaudible) name. I recognize you in the street — right? — because I met you yesterday or this afternoon, and so I already know who you are. Right? Know in the sense, I recognize you outwardly. Now, to recognize an experience means I’ve already experienced it, otherwise I can’t recognize it.

Q: But you may not have recognized it.

K: Ah, no They said they…no, no. Now, wait, wait. The people who have taken all these drugs, they say, ‘We know what that is.’ Like one of them, one of the gurus, one of the masters, one of the archbishops who take these drugs goes to Modern Museum in New York, takes a drug in order to see clearly the pictures. (Inaudible). No sir, I mean, first of all, sir, if I may say so, don’t trust people who say they have had some marvellous experience. Be sceptical about everything till you, by your intelligence, by your reason, carefully examine. Don’t accept because somebody says so. Yes sir?

Q: I’m not sure if I can… (inaudible) what I want to say by my words, but I think that there are a lot of people around who see a possibility of not entrapping themselves with their minds, which I suppose would be perhaps right meditation, to be able to watch your mind without being entrapped in it. Is that what you…?

K: Sir, I mean, to go into the question of meditation, what is meditation, it can’t be done in two minutes. You understand? It requires, first of all… No, it can’t be; sorry. Perhaps next Saturday, when the sun comes out, I hope it will, we can discuss this question of meditation.

Q: Well, the one thing I did want to say was that I think there are a lot of people around who are ready and to go into that question.

K: Yes sir, I know they are. I know. I was going to discuss, I was going to talk about it, if the weather permits, next Saturday.

Q: (Inaudible).

Q: Do you have a question?

Q: (Inaudible). I was just musing on what Pete said a moment ago, and I can recall talking to somebody who took LSD and found that it was simply an intensification of something that was very familiar to him.

K: I know, I know.

Q: And this was… it wasn’t… he didn’t take it for a purpose or for a reason. He changed his attitude towards it, actually…

K: Would you take it if you were really very healthy mentally, physically, emotionally, and you saw things very clearly, would you touch it?

Q: I don’t… (inaudible).

K: (Inaudible).

(Laughter)

Q: That depends on whether or not… (inaudible).

K: A happy man, a man who is very intelligent, very alive and — you know? — full of something, clear, you mean to say he is going to touch these idiotic outside stimulants? Like take a drink? Of course he wouldn’t.

Q: No, but it’s not like that.

K: Of course it’s not like that.

Q: No, it’s that there is something that you feel and know is right and good and it’s in the earth and it’s in you and you know it. And this is something that produces the same thing, only intensified. Wouldn’t you be curious to try it?

K: Me, no. I wouldn’t touch the…

Q: And what if there was something that you… when you… when you have… you hear that there is another person, that other people when they are under the influence of it, even if it is only for a moment, have some of this very same feelings that you feel… (inaudible)?

K: Ah, sorry… It is an imitation. It’s like a symbol, not the real. Please, this is a question I have discussed with people who have really gone into it, who have taken it, and I mean, it is not… it is just like… I don’t know. Not even… I don’t… Please, I don’t understand why you’re all so tremendously interested in LSD.

(Laughter)

K: Yes sir?

Q: It sounds like something…

K: Yes sir?

Q: I think that, from talking to many of the students who are involved in this and other people not here at the school, there is such a keen desire for something… (inaudible).

K: Ah, that’s a different matter, sir.

Q: And this gives an illusion of a value.

K: Quite right, I agree with you. This is an illusion of the real value.

Q: Could I say that the way I… that the culture… (inaudible) of more money, and we made more money and we wanted more cars and we made more cars, because we’re looking for something of value and we get all this and there is no value, so they make LSD and… (inaudible).

K: That’s right, sir. Probably that… That’s it; probably.

Q: (Inaudible).

K: That’s probably… You see, sir, look, I was told by a doctor that about a million people have taken LSD, and those… majority of that million are very intelligent young men and women, very sensitive. And they don’t see a way out, and therefore they take it.

Q: And still don’t see a way out.

K: Exactly.

Q: Sure.

Q: Yes, but what if there was somebody who doesn’t need a way out?

K: Therefore right education is to help a student to find the right way. Yes, madame?

Q: Well, you speak about education and you speak of the relationship between the mentor and a student, or the scholar and the student kind of relationship…

K: I’m sorry, I can’t hear. I’m not used to American…

Q: I’m sorry. I said you speak of people having relationship of the scholar to… or the mentor to the student, or the pupils who are a scholar, but essentially I think a drastic change would come inside you of having a revision or a new approach to building a relationships in their…

K: Of course, of course, that’s…Yes.

Q: …in their beginnings, in the origin, in the relationship of that other individual to his family and the relationship of a child to its mother at a very early age. And the child’s perceptions of the society are such that he relates to it later in a more beneficial and perhaps with a more benign attitude.

K: Perhaps.

Q: And I think what we’re dealing with now is a group of people that are caught almost in a web or a labyrinth of past myths that they have incorporated or sucked to themselves, or holding or clasping to themselves, and I don’t see how those things can be let go. You can certainly let go of perhaps what’s inside of you, but then there’s a vacuum, and in that vacuity what… (inaudible)? What do you draw inside of yourself to redirect yourself?

K: No, madame. I mean… As I said, it depends a great deal how you let go. If you have a motive for your letting go, then there is an emptiness, a vacuity. But if you let go because you understand it, because you see the thing very clearly, then out of that clarity there is a totally different kind of action. It is not a vacuum.

Q: Krishnaji, can’t some people receive the same result by strong usage of their mind beside… — you know? — parts of their brain, as LSD can do that?

K: What? I can’t understand, sorry.

Q: Can’t certain people reach the same result as if they were on drugs by using other parts of their mind?

K: I haven’t caught it. Did you understand, sir, what he…? Yes, please, sir.

Q: I think perhaps he’s asking the question, is it not possible — you were talking about wrong meditation; I don’t know if this is what you mean — but is it not possible through mental effort to hallucinate and to do all the things which occur from these artificial stimulants? In other words, can’t the mind intoxicate itself just as easily? (Inaudible).

K: Oh, yes, of course, of course, sir, of course. That’s one of the easiest thing to do, create an illusion and worship that illusion.

Q: Well, not necessarily the illusion, but the real way out.

K: Ah, that… then, if you’ve… if you’re out of the trap, then that very action that brings you out of the trap is the right mind. You don’t have to get into… talk about illusion and LSD and all the rest of it.

Q: Do you think that organized religion, like church (inaudible) religion is the (inaudible) that people who would think that God, or whoever it is will pull them through whatever dilemma they seem to have?

K: Sir, how can any organized belief, any organized, whether it’s in India, China, as communists, or Catholics and so on, how can it be anything but propaganda? I mean, to find if there is a God, one must be free of fear and go into it tremendously. It isn’t just an acceptance of a belief.

Q: Can it be, instead of a propaganda thing, can it be sort of the personification or example of the people wanting so much something of value that they create and then all… (inaudible)?

K: Of course, of course. That’s right; that’s right. And also life is such a miserable affair they want to escape through a symbol.

Q: Why do you say that all the time?

K: (Inaudible).

Q: Oh, but you’re always saying life is such a miserable affair.

K: Ah, no, no; no, no. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Do you think the man who goes forty years to his office every day, isn’t he… do you think he’s sane? Yes sir?

Q: You spoke of the brain a minute ago, and you’re leaving… creating quite a conflict in mine. In one frame I find you a man, or a human, with a healthy attitude, with a strong belief in fellow human. You mentioned in earlier talks there is no teacher; you believe that in one’s being there is no need for Christ, or there is no need for a better person, there’s no need for confession, and that sort of thing. Marvellous. On the contrary, when this human that you invest so much faith in…

K: I have no faith.

Q: Whatever you want to call it.

K: Yes.

Q: That your trust for the other person have created this, to my mental thought, build a church, you put an image in there, Christ, or whatever he has, I find your attitude quite different.

K: Sir, again, you see, why do we need an external authority, as a saviour, as a master and so on and so on, when you can find in yourself the whole meaning and the real thing in yourself? How can…? You…?

Q: I agree there, but what I’m talking about is these images that a person created in which he may excel, find a peace of mind, whether it’s religious, philosophical, athletic, or whatever. I am not referring to any external power… (inaudible).

K: Yes, but…

Q: This is man’s creation… (inaudible) before even church came into existence.

K: Of course, man has created it, obviously, through his fear, through his hope, through demanding some kind of release from this conflict.

Q: But I feel a man has a full right to look around for… not escapes, but for… to try out, whereas… how can he eliminate this fear?

K: Ah, that’s different question. How… whether you can eliminate fear altogether is a different question. If you can eliminate fear totally, then something else comes into being. My lord. Yes?

Q: You said we’re trapped and we must get out of this trap, and you were discussing how people want to take these various drugs to free themselves from their mind and look at themselves.

K: Yes; yes.

Q: Now, how can you do this, without the use of drugs? How can you get… step out of… (inaudible).

K: That, please, look at yourself in the mirror first.

Q: (Inaudible).

K: Look at yourself in the mirror, you see very clearly how you look.

Q: (Inaudible).

K: Wait, wait, wait, wait. Then you look at yourself inwardly, all your reactions, your thoughts, the insults, the flatteries, what you actually are. Understand all that and go beyond all that.

Q: But doesn’t… when you look at yourself… I mean, maybe… I don’t know, I’ve never taken anything or really been able to discuss very deeply with someone who has but isn’t it difficult to just look at yourself without getting your own… (inaudible) hung up?

K: That’s just it. Of course, of course. Therefore to look at yourself without condemnation, justification, comparison — just to look at yourself, and that’s very… that needs a great deal of – you know? – working. Yes sir?

Q: What is essential towards the formation of such a school?

K: Oh, my lord. We have just discussed it.

Q: No, I mean, we… it’s very difficult to… for a group of people to come together with a common intention.

K: Ah, no, sir, sir…

Q: And we have the whole society that is constantly, year after year, coming as new students, perhaps as new teachers….

K: Sir, one has to go into the question of what is co-operation. One can’t co-operate around an idea. Then it’s not co-operation. The idea attracts you, me, and somebody else, but there is no relationship between us three. The idea is around which we’ve come together, and with that we generally call co-operation. But if you and I and another sees the thing very clearly and that’s what we should do, we will naturally co-operate.

Q: The LSD and marijuana all readily available to any member of our society now that… (inaudible).

K: I know, I know.

Q: You don’t find it’s producing a change in the culture.

K: What’s your next…? I didn’t follow… As it is possible..?

Q: These drugs are being consumed now by… well, by children to…

K: Yes sir, yes.

Q: … and you don’t find this… (inaudible) a change… (inaudible)?

K: Ah, I don’t see how it can… How can a drug, though a chemical, bring about a radical change in the mind? You understand? Like…

Q: Over a long-term period of time?

K: On the contrary, there are many people who say that it affects the mind, it makes the mind… it is not… it becomes very confused. I know several people who have taken it, and after taking it they are terribly depressed, which they have never been before.

Q: Quite a few go cuckoo, too.

K: Ah, that’s part of the game.

Q: I think some people might explain this interest in LSD, and maybe you could comment on it, is there seems to be, of course, some part of all people this age the need for values, the need for identity — you know? — ‘Who am I? What am I here for and what is it all about?’ And of course they live in a society which is pledged to efficiency and to work-saving devices and to taking the short-cut whenever possible and we value them very highly.

K: Yes… quite.

Q: Now, why, then, if we take short-cuts in everything else, why not try it here? I think this is the question.

K: All right. I know; that is the question, sir. First of all, is there a short-cut? Of course there is a short-cut between here and Ojai, short-cut in various… but in psychological matters, is there a short-cut at all? I mean, one of them, one of these gurus or masters or bishops of LSD said this is a short-cut, I said short-cut to what? ‘Ah, to real experience.’ He has already posited that there is a short-cut, that there is a real experience through LSD. He takes that for granted and therefore he says, ‘That’s the real value, the real value through short-cut when you take LSD.’ But I say… but we questioned him and we say is that real value, or you think it is real value? Because you find, after your short-cut, you’re back where you are, you are frightened – you know? – all the rest of it, therefore it is just a trick to get into a certain peculiar state of experience which you think will give you the real value, and when that experience fades away, you’re back where you are. And they all admit that. Yes madame? (Inaudible)

Q: You mentioned something a minute ago about the real experience. Well, what is an unreal experience?

K: To me, every experience — forgive me — is unreal. Why do you demand experience? But you want experience. Have you ever questioned why this craze for experience? Whether you go in an airplane, or take LSD, or…experience… — why, why? And what does that word *experience* mean? The word itself means to go through something, to go through something to reach something else. It’s like the word… — well, you know better than I… — and it means propel, expel, go through, and also something that’s thrown at you as a challenge. If you meet the challenge rightly, then there is no conflict; you’ve answered it totally. But most of us don’t answer the challenge completely, and hence the conflict. And to escape from that conflict, we take short-cuts. And so we’re always demanding more and more experiences. We never say to ourself, why do I want experience? Which doesn’t mean I become dull.

Q: What happens when one ceases to experience?

K: Either you cease to experience because you’re paralyzed, or you see everything very clearly and you don’t want any experience. It’s only the confused man wants experience in order to escape from confusions. But if you’re not confused, if you see everything very clearly, you’re not confused, and therefore why do you want experience? No, this requires… this isn’t just a trick of words; one has to go into it a great deal.

Q: You said that the values are, while you’re under the influence, are there, but when you get back that it’s all gone, but your memory still retains it, and so you have like a filing cabinet of all these things.

K: I know, therefore one has to burn all the filing cabinet.

Q: And what you and she were talking about, but I wouldn’t call it an experience, it’s just a recognition of something. Surely you’ve looked at a flower before, but you… if you didn’t recognize it as the flower, as that’s what it really was before.

K: You see, sir, to look at a flower is one of the most difficult things to do — right? — because we look at it through botanical knowledge, and therefore that knowledge prevents you, very often, from looking at that flower. And can you look at that flower without all this background? Then you will really look at the flower. Take for instance, a Russian who is a communist, you say, ‘Oh, he’s a communist’; you’ve finished with him. But if you really want to look at him, you have to remove the label.

Isn’t it time, sir?