Students Discussion 2, Paris, 16 April 1969
Krishnamurti: Shall I start or will you start?
Questioner: I think it’s better that you start, and we can come in afterwards.
K: I should think it must be a great concern, specially when one is very young, seeing what the world is — confused, wars, bureaucratic governments, and so much confusion, misery — what is the right thing to do among all this mess? What should one do? How should one act, behave? Marriage, no marriage, girlfriend, boyfriend, set up a family, enter a bureaucratic world, join the army or not the army, which profession to take, what kind of job, whether to be completely materialistic, or little bit spiritual and mostly materialistic, or very spiritual and very little materialistic. It must be a tremendous problem. For the old, it’s more or less settled — they are finished. They are on their way out. And for the young it must be a really agonizing problem, if they are at all serious. So, would you like to discuss that?
Audience: Yes.
Q: Mr Krishnamurti, do you understand my bad English?
K: Yes sir, speak in French. It doesn’t matter.
Q: (In French)
K: We will go into that, sir. May we go tomorrow evening into that?
Q: Tomorrow?
K: Tomorrow evening, I am going to talk, we will go into that, because we must continue with the question of fear tomorrow afternoon.
Q: If we could continue with what you started today, sir.
K: Could we go on with what we started today?
Q: Yes.
K: Personally, I have had no choice in the matter. I have always done what I think is the right thing to do, which is what I am doing now. There has been no question of family, money, wanting to be famous, popular, right or not right, speak — I just do what I want to do. And it hasn’t become a profession, because I have also stopped talking, to test for myself whether I relied on talking, having an audience in front of me. I lived a great deal alone, wandered about in the mountains by myself, I played all kinds of diet… tricks on dietary.
So, seeing all that, I wonder what you are all going to do, what one does in life. How do we approach this problem? Fragmentarily? Or take the whole content of life, which is, one has to earn a livelihood, one may have or may not have family, there is the question of sex, one has to have money, one has to live in a place, have a house or a room with a bath or no bath. How do we approach this thing as a whole? Or do you want to approach it fragmentarily? Job first and everything else afterwards? Or family first and everything else separate? Or is it a thing to be approached all round? You know what I mean? Totally..
Q: I think we’re obliged to approach it totally.
K: I wonder if we do see the thing totally. That is, I mean, do we see it fragmentarily or totally? And is it possible to see it totally when one is young? Totally means, you know what I mean, there is the whole question of religion, the religious feeling, the feeling of dedication to something real, not just phoney invention of a church or a priest, something for oneself, which is true; if it is true for me, it is true for everybody else. And there is the question of sex. What importance has it in life? Little or much, or is the only that matters? Then there is the question of love, death. There is this immense map of life. Will I take one part of that map and say, ‘Well, I am going to devote my life,’ whether it is science, mathematics, archaeology, or theoretical physics? Or do you want to take the whole map of this life and say, ‘Well, if I can understand the whole of it, then if I do take a little part, it’s all right.’ The little is contained in the whole. I should think this must be a tremendous thing, tremendous problem.
So, how do you — from that question arises: how can one see the whole of it? Not job, love, separately, you know, but a total perspective of this thing. And I think if one could see the whole thing in prospectively, then whatever we do will be right.
Q: Is it a question of harmony?
K: No, sir, it isn’t harmony. Look, sir…
Q: (In French)
K: No, no. You and I, sir, you and I. Let’s forget what people say. I mean, if I was 30, 20, that would be my problem, or even 40. That would be my problem. To become a communist? No I wouldn’t do that because I see the game of it, I see the fallacy of it. Or become religious, catholic or protestant or a social worker or Peace Corps (laughs), or enter a particular job, and inwardly there is the problem of sex, problem of living with oneself peacefully, the question of what love is, whether one can love, the loneliness, the misery, all that going on, battling inside one. And there is the environment which says do this, don’t do that, this is right, this is wrong. You follow?
Can I see this whole thing as a map? And then I, from the map I know which road to take, where the rives are, where the towns are, all the rest of it — how to walk, where to climb, where to be quiet, look in the forest, you know — I will know. Can we look at this whole complex thing called life that way? And if we can’t, then mere choosing a fragment is most disastrous. It’s like a scientist who is only concerned with a particular little field, or an engineer, you know? So, can we go into this? Not you madame. Can we go into this?
So the first question I would ask is how can I not only see this whole thing, visually, but also have a feeling for this whole map? Because the feeling matters much more than the intellectual perception of it, because the feelings are going to dictate my life, whether reasonable, unreasonable, they are the power, the drive, the energy.
Q: Sir, I think we are too anxious to find out. We are too anxious to find out the solution of all the little details, the little problems. If you can’t have this look at the whole, this global kind of approaching the matter — we are too…
K: You mean there are too immediate problems to be solved?
Q: Yes, sir, I think.
K: And so we can’t see the whole design of this existence, is that it?
Q: I think that is preventing us.
K: There is immediate problems of livelihood, immediate problems of the urges, the biological urges of sex, and immediate problem of food — is that what is preventing us? Which prevents, which stops us from looking at this whole design, this whole contour of this life? Is that so? Is that actually so?
Q: May be not the question of food. In this country it is not so…
K: …pressing.
Q: We are wanting for ourself a kind of security. We are seeking always…
K: That’s it. Is that the one thing that is so important, security, that you want to neglect the rest? That prevents you from seeing the rest? Bread and butter — security, job, which is actually preventing each of one us seeing this whole map? I wonder if it is so.
Q: (In French)
K: No, I don’t think so, sir. I think security is the primary thing that’s driving us.
Q: I think we don’t like suffering.
K: We don’t like suffering.
Q: We don’t like insecurity.
Q: He says, we don’t want to be insecure.
K: Insecure — is that the thing? Please listen to my question. Is that the thing, insecurity, preventing you from seeing the whole?
Q: (In French)
K: Can’t I? Though I may want security, is that preventing me seeing the whole map of life?
Q: Could be.
K: But is it?
Q: Well…
K: Because if that was my problem, I want to find an answer, not ‘could be’, ‘may be’, ‘should be’. I say, what am I to do in this world? I have no time to sit down and say could be, may be, whatever it might be. I say, here is the question: what am I to do?
Q: (In French)
K: No, I am afraid we are not understanding each other. Is it a particular fear that prevents the perception of the whole? Because I must have food, clothes and shelter — I must have it. And is that the thing that’s preventing me from seeing this, the whole existence of life, in which I have to live and act? Why should I choose one segment of it, like I must have security?
Q: (In French)
K: No, sir, I am afraid we are not understanding each other.
Q: (In French)
Q: We are all individuals and we are all referring to things for ourselves, and because we are doing this we can’t see.
K: No. Don’t you want to find out what to do?
Q: Yes.
K: All right. If you want to find out what to do in this world, how do you begin? Listen: there is security, insecurity, there is this question of family, sex, love, there is the whole religious question, which you may say, ‘That’s nonsense,’ but it is there. You can’t say, ‘Well, it’s nonsense’ — it is there. There is the question of death. What to do? Say, ‘Go and kill for the country.’ You follow, sir? The world is so confused and I am part of that world, and I say, ‘What am I to do?’
Q: What’s the meaning for you, ‘to do’?
K: What does it mean for me to do, to act.
Q: Act, yes.
K: For me, the action must touch every part of my life, not just one segment of it. And that action must be complete in everything I touch — intellectually, emotionally, sexually, religiously. You follow what I mean?
Q: Yes.
K: Everything I touch must be complete in action, not fragmentary. Otherwise, it will be broken up, I shall be contradictory, miserable.
Q: And you don’t think that’s a question of harmony?
K: No, no. If you say ‘harmony’, sir, that’s a difficult word, that’s why I am hesitating.
Q: Yes.
K: That’s what for me action is. Let’s keep to that word for the moment as we understand it. An action that will be complete in whatever I am doing. And therefore it must be related to everything. I can’t say, ‘Well, I will devote my whole life to science.’ I mean, that will be absurd. Or I must become an astrophysicist. So, an action that will be complete in everything I do. That for me is action, in which there is no contradiction. If I have sex, it won’t be contradictory to the religious life. You follow, sir? If I have money, it won’t be in contradiction to something else. So, it must be a life of action that will be not contradictory, not fragmentary, not creating difficulties in itself. So, it will be a happy life. Now, how are you…
Q: Reaction is inevitable, that we will do some action…
K: Of course, we will do some action but that’s…
Q: Once you make the action in one direction, taking for granted you are going in a right direction, you are searching for something, and once you’ve made an action, doesn’t it mean that you put the comprehension that you are capable of into that action?
K: No, sir, no, sir, no. Wait a minute, sir, we are not meeting each other. Is it comprehension first and action afterwards? Or comprehension is action.
Q: Comprehension about what, sir? The actions are in different fields. What would be the nature of such a comprehension that would act in every field?
K: Intelligence. Wait a minute. That word is a very difficult word. I may be terribly intelligent in mathematics or in getting a very good job and making the very best of it, but I might lead a shoddy little life (laughs) elsewhere. You know what I mean. So, if I have… if there is an intelligence, it must be operative in every way, in every act I do.
Are you interested in all this?
A: Yes.
Q: I think we haven’t understood the meaning of love.
K: Now, we haven’t understood the meaning of love. Is that what is preventing us from seeing the whole, an act which will be complete in everything I do? Because I have no love? Then what does love mean? Is love sex, pleasure, desire, jealousy, the drive for ambition, of success?
Q: Comprehension.
K: What? Love an abstract comprehension?
Q: Sir, as you spoke of your own life, it appears to me that when we want to lead this kind of life, there first must be a terrible silence…
K: Sir, I understand that, sir. Forget my life — I was just telling you.
Q: It’s in my life I am speaking now. We have to pass through a silence, for we don’t know at all how to act, so we have to start with the silence. We have to understand, and I think we are afraid of this silence…
K: Sir, look, sir. Please, sir, don’t introduce factors which you don’t know. Then you get lost, then we get theoretical. Here are facts. Facts, you know, not something I can theorise about. Here is a fact — fact that I have to live in this world, fact of sex, fact of ambition, fact of sorrow, fear, the uncertainty — these are all facts. Right? And what am I to do with them? Because I am those facts — I am uncertain, I want sex, I want home, I want love, (laughs) I want to be a great man, I want to be… plenty of money. You follow?
Q: We have energy to start with. In someway we want to do an action with it, or without even comprehension, which when we were younger than perhaps we are now, we inevitably make an action of some direction, even by pushed by our parents, or society or…
K: Yes, and therefore it becomes what? Such action, I am pushed by environment, I do something. Then it will be a contradiction to something else.
Q: I didn’t get that.
K: I am pushed by environment to do certain act. That action will be in contradiction to something else I want to do.
Q: Exactly, it could be.
K: It generally is. So, I live like that way — I am pushed in this direction and I am pulled in another. And at the end of my life I am just shot to pieces. It’s a destructive way of living. So I say to myself, what am I to do? Which will be true, which will be complete in everything I touch.
Q: I think the reason of doing is love and not ideas. When you do…
K: Sir, that becomes a theory. I don’t want to indulge in theory.
Q: Yes.
K: I don’t know what love is. Most of us don’t know what love is.
Q: I think people have ideas of love
K: Therefore, those are mere theories.
Q: Yes.
K: And I say we are dealing with facts and not with ideas.
Q: Yes, that’s bad to deal with ideas, because your idea is not the idea of a neighbour, and when you impose your idea to somebody it’s bad.
K: Of course, sir, of course, that’s understood.
Q: Yes.
K: So, that is my question: what is one to do? (Laughs) I repeat it again, given all these facts, how am I to live?
Q: It must be a choice. There must be a choice with an aim.
K: There must be choice or a purpose or an aim in life — he says that. Watch that. There must be choice, purpose, a principle in life that will be… I keep that in front of my eye.
Q: Not treat it in principle but something you want to reach at the end.
K: Yes. Leave out ‘a principle’ — a choice. Right? Let’s take that word ‘choice’. How am I to chose amongst all this?
Q: He said, sir, something, a goal you want to reach at the end.
K: A goal you want to reach at the end. That goal may be projected by my own desire. You understand? Because I am unhappy, torn to pieces, I don’t know, and my goal is enlightenment — you follow? — something marvellous. That becomes an idea. And therefore I don’t want to deal with ideas. I mean, I am hungry and you give me food in words. I say, ‘Please take your words, ideas away, I want food.’
Q: (In French)
Q: What is real understanding beyond words.
K: Yes, I understood, sir.
Q: (In French)
K: Wait, wait. So, then what am I — look, sir — then what am I to do? What is communication if I don’t…
Q: (In French)
Q: (In French)
K: Sir, comprehension is in oneself. I can’t give it to you and you can’t give it to me. What we can do is to look at this, look at this immense problem of living and find out how to live.
If I may ask, what is the difficulty?
Q: (In French)
K: Sir, aren’t you faced with this problem, apart from words, aren’t you faced with this?
Q: Yes, very much, but I find it difficult to place the question or to place any answer, because…
K: No, no, aren’t you first faced with this problem?
Q: Very much.
K: All right. Wait, wait, wait. You are faced with this problem — right? — all of us. Now, how do you respond to it? What is your reaction to it? Natural, not forced, not invented, not something that is convenient for this moment. What is your response when you are confronted with this thing? Do you say, ‘Well, I like that and I don’t like this’? ‘I will go after that and not all this’? Will you exclude all this because you want one thing?
Q: I am confused because I don’t know the tradition which is influencing me and I don’t know where to begin.
K: I don’t know where to begin because I am caught in the tradition. If one is caught in tradition, sir, and you are aware of it, you throw it, you get rid of the beastly thing.
Q: But I still find it influencing me. I don’t get rid of this so easily.
K: You can’t get rid of it so easily. Is that what is preventing me, you and another, tradition, from understanding or finding out what to do when confronted with all this? You see how you are answer me? You are answering in little bits. You say tradition, you say uncertainty, another says insecurity, I must understand, I have no love. You follow? Those are all little bits. So the little bits prevent you from understanding. Right?
Q: Yes.
K: So, you begin to say, by Jove, look what I am doing. I want to understand, look at this whole phenomenon and I am taking little bits of it. So can I not take little? I want to absorb the whole thing.
(Pause)
Q: I think there is a lack of real interest.
K: I think so, sir. That’s just it. I think there is a lack — I am not criticizing please — I think there is a lack of not only interest but the urge. You know, life in France or in America or in Europe generally is fairly comfortable. Fairly, I don’t say very. So, you say, avanti, let’s go, laissez, allez.
So, let’s begin then, the other way round. Discontent is necessary, isn’t it?
Q: It exists.
K: Last May, all those students burnt up, nearly, Paris. Discontent — are you discontented? Not discontented with the goal, with the establishment, new set of rules — please listen to my question first — discontent, not with something, but the flame of discontent.
Q: Yes.
K: Wait, wait, sir. Don’t so quickly answer me, please. Just go little by little. You know, it’s very easy to be discontented with the little room I am living in, because I want a bigger room. I want more space. Or I am discontented with my wife. I want better wife. I am discontented with my ideas — they are stupid ideas, I want better ideas, more intellectual, this or that. So, there is discontentment with something. That is, I don’t like the environment I am living in, therefore I am discontent. That discontent is entirely different from discontent. Not with anything, but the flame of discontent. You understand what I mean?
Q: Yes.
K: Now which is it? Are you discontented with something, or discontent? Because if you are discontented with something, you will soon find something and you will be satisfied — better house — you’ll find a better house, perhaps better wife or better girl or something else, and you will be satisfied at the end of a year and there you are, finished. And you have destroyed the discontent, smothered it. So, I am not talking of that kind of discontent. I am talking of a fire that cannot be put out — by the goal, by the police (laughs) — you follow? — by nobody.
Q: Sir, if you see that you have the other discontent, the ‘discontent with’ and that you don’t know this discontent, which is ‘without’, what is the approach?
K: Wait, quite right. Quite right, sir. The question is: most of us are discontented with something. Now, how is a mind that is discontented with something to become discontented in itself? Right? Now, look what takes place. Look at the question. It’s very interesting, do follow that question. How am I, who am discontented with something, how is that discontent to change into the other? Right? Now, if see, not verbally, intellectually, but actually see the absurdity of discontentment with something, the other is there. I will never be satisfied with anything. You understand? I wonder if have conveyed it. Because discontentment with something means I want satisfaction. Right? I want to be satisfied, I want to be gratified with the environment, with this, with that. My drive there is not discontent but the search for satisfaction. Right? In the other, there is no satisfaction at any time.
Q: Sir, if somebody asked what is the value or what is the point of this other discontent, if one listens with great critical…
K: Yes. What is the point…
Q: Why should I be discontent?
K: I will show you. What is the point of such a discontent, he is asking. Right? What is the point of it? What do you think is the point having such flame? One is mediocrity — right? — the complete, the essence of bourgeoisism, the other is not. The other… I mean, with that, one creates, one moves, one lives, one changes. You follow?
Q: Sir, what is the difference between that discontent and restlessness?
K: Restlessness is fairly simple. Sir, no, don’t let’s introduce something is fairly clear — restlessness. You know, restlessness is not discontent, it has nothing to do with discontent. If I am restless, I take a pill and, you know, find out a way to be quiet. But we are talking, sir, why are we not consumed with a flame? You know, like an artist, he paints a picture and he gets some money, he goes along — thoroughly happy, sometimes dissatisfied, discontent, but he is putting out from that discontent. He will soon find contentment. He becomes a very famous man, or he is not a good painter, becomes a second rate painter and he says, ‘My god, how can I ever be…’ and so he fights a little battle with himself. But we are talking of a discontent that never finds a satisfaction. It’s a fire that’s always burning. Now, which is it we have? The discontent with something?
Q: We have the discontent of something and the idea of the other.
K: Other — quite right, sir. Discontent with. I mean, seeking satisfaction, which we call discontent, and an idea of the other. We say, ‘By Jove, I wish I could have the other.’ You can’t have the other (laughs). You follow? If you want satisfaction, you can’t have the other. Satisfaction being gratification, fulfilment, the becoming somebody famous permanently — you follow? All that is satisfaction, gratification. And that’s very cheap stuff; you can very easily get it. So if the mind is seeking satisfaction, it cannot possibly have the other. So is that what’s the matter with us?
Q: Why should satisfaction prevent us from having that other discontent?
K: Oh, it’s fairly clear, isn’t it? If my mind is always seeking satisfaction — in marriage, in relationship, in job, in — I don’t know — all the time seeking satisfaction, how can such a mind have the other, which is, no satisfaction at all? Please, understand what we are talking about. What do we mean by satisfaction?
Q: I think if the thing we have got is somewhere… (inaudible) We have an idea, an ideal, and when we get something which is not too far from it, then we are satisfied.
K: No, what does the word ‘satisfaction’ mean in itself, sir? The meaning of it, the feeling of that word, to be ‘satisfied’.
Q: ‘Satis’ means enough, ‘action’ means making.
K: Enough, yes.
Q: In other words, to make oneself fulfilled.
K: Yes, that’s… I used the word ‘fulfil’.
Q: When we think we have done enough…
K: When I say, ‘Well, I want a house first,’ little house, it doesn’t matter, but a little bigger house later; little money, more money. Why does the mind seek satisfaction?
Q: It can go to sleep afterwards.
K: I wonder, are you following all this? Does it mean anything? Why do we want satisfaction?
Q: It is pleasure of some kind.
K: Pleasure of some kind.
Q: The pain of discontentment.
K: No, sir, look: is there such thing as ever being satisfied? I want more and more and more and more — right? — not less and less and less. Is there, can the mind be ever satisfied? Is there such thing as permanent satisfaction?
Q: We realise that we are not going to get satisfaction out of what exactly we are doing, or our house or our children or family and so on. We will never get that satisfaction out of…
K: So, then what do you do? So, don’t you question by saying, ‘Is there at any time complete satisfaction?’ If there isn’t, why should I pursue that?
Q: That’s as far as I get. (Laughter)
Q: We don’t see it in the moment of creation of discontentment. For instance, if we answer wrongly to a challenge there is a pain, so there is the desire to fulfil, to change that pain into contentment. At that time we don’t see that we can never stop seeking fulfilment and finding satisfaction. Theoretically, when we are cool, yes, we can see it, but in the moment of action we don’t see.
K: So, why do you separate action from… (laughs) You see, sir?
Q: Satisfaction is something constructed by the mind.
K: No, sir. Find out, sirs. Watch yourself. Don’t you want to be satisfied? Having a good job, doing something which will give you satisfaction, sex satisfaction — you follow? — the mind is doing this all to be… Why? I study at the Sorbonne, get a degree and that will give me a job and I am satisfied. Or I say to myself, I will retire from everything and look at myself and find enlightenment through myself, and at the end of it I am awfully delighted with it. Why? I will become a communist and — you know all the rest of it — it’s the same thing. Why does the mind want satisfaction? It wants it and it has never questioned whether there is any permanent satisfaction. If there is no permanent satisfaction, then why seek it?
Q: (In French)
K: Oui, but, sir… (In French) What for? No, you’re not facing…
Q: Sir, it’s very subtle and obscure. It isn’t that one says, ‘I am going to go after this to get satisfaction.’ There is a certain sort of drive which is perhaps not wholly visible and different drives of this kind make us do all the actions of life. So, it’s very difficult to say this is the seeking for satisfaction and that isn’t…
K: No, sir.
Q: …and so I do this but I don’t do that.
K: No, no. I said, the mind deeply, most of us seek satisfaction. I don’t say, ‘Well, this is not…’ The demand…
Q: …which is coloured with the desire for satisfaction.
K: Satisfaction. And I am… I mean, most of us want that.
Q: Yes, but we don’t… it’s not isolated.
K: No, no. I said…
Q: For the contingencies of life.
K: No, no, that’s… All the time there is the urge to be satisfied.
Q: But there are other things too, mixed up with it.
K: Of course, but the major — sir, I began this evening by asking: what is one to do. Right?
Q: Faced with all…
K: …faced with all this.
Q: …the complexities of life.
K: Faced with this, what am I to do? Is my action based on satisfaction? You follow now? And if it is based on satisfaction, will that satisfaction endure right through life? I find something to do in one thing and I am satisfied with that, and is that the end of my life? Or everything is doing something, influencing, strained, stress, to break up that little satisfaction. ‘I am satisfied with my wife’ — right? — she is nice and all the rest of it. And one good morning, she looks at somebody else and I am completely lost, jealous — you know, there it is! I have a job and somebody is going ahead of me — I am finished, I am lost, I am miserable. I am not as intellectually clever as you are and I am unhappy. So this goes on. Right? So I say, ‘Why, if there is nothing complete in satisfaction, why pursue it?’
Q: (In French)
K: (In French) (Laughs)
Q: It is for sure we are… (inaudible) …that is why we are always…
K: No, sir. No, no.
Q: That’s like saying, ‘Well, I’m gonna die anyway, why should I eat?’
K: I am going to die?
Q: What you said is like… it’s like saying, ‘Well, I will die someday anyway, why should I eat…?’
K: Oh no! No madame. It isn’t like that, is it? I am not putting that question at all. I am saying something entirely different.
Q: (In French)
Q: But, sir, in every action we do, like gardening, driving a car, there is a certain sort of pleasure from a job well done. Isn’t this in a way satisfaction?
K: No, sir…
Q: If we go around denying satisfaction…
K: No, no, no, you see, you are…
Q: Is there any kind of action at all which will be sufficient?
K: Sir, you are misunderstanding my statement. Let’s make it clear; let’s begin again. We said discontentment with something is the search for satisfaction — right? That’s very clear. And I am satisfied one day with this, and the next day I am dissatisfied with that, I want something else. So my life is a constant battle of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Right? That’s my life, one’s life. Wanting and not wanting — battle.
Q: Yes.
K: And, in that state, whatever I do is, and must be confusing. Of course, of course. No? One day I do something that’s very satisfying and next day I see how absurd it is. ‘What a silly ass I have been to do that.’ So there is a battle going on, and I say, an action based on this kind of background of battle, satisfaction and dissatisfaction must inevitably lead to misery — right? — must inevitably lead to confusion. And that’s our life. Right? And I ask myself, is there a different way of living, acting, and not seeking satisfaction, which becomes dissatisfaction a week later. I don’t know, I think I’ve made myself clear now.
Q: Why can’t we just live without giving names?
K: I know, that sounds — sorry — that sounds very nice, but we do. I mean, he asked me, ‘What are you wanting?’ I said, ‘Nothing.’ And I really mean nothing. From nothingness one can act, and that’s the greatest action, but we won’t go into that, that’s a very complex thing. So, when one is young, one wants so many things, and quite rightly, you see?
Q: But how is it possible to act when you want nothing?
K: I am sorry, that requires a great deal of going into. Sir, what is love? Is love something? Is love my wife, love my sex, love my pleasure? Is love jealousy? Now when you have removed — not my wife, my pleasure, my satisfaction, my jealousy — then what is love? You don’t know. Mustn’t one be nothing, to love? If you are something, can you love? Can you love if you are ambitious? If you are a big politician, can you love? Or a big financier? Or a big actor? No, sir, that’s why one has to, you know, you can’t play with words. It’s only when you are absolutely nothing, love is.
Q: There is no definition for love…
K: Ah! I am not defining, sir. I am not defining. You can look, for the definition you can look in the dictionary, but I don’t want to define it. Definition of words of what love is, is not love. It’s like describing the… what kind of food you get at Tour d’Argent or in (inaudible) and say, ‘Well…’ describe it, and I am hungry — that doesn’t satisfy me.
Q: (Inaudible)
K: Ah, no! No. Remove jealousy, free, be… have no jealousy, no envy, no ambition. Because I see an ambitious man can never love, because he is concerned with himself, whether he is an artist, whether he is a poet, whether he is an engineer, or the ordinary man, if he is concerned with himself first, he has… there is no love.
Q: (Inaudible)
K: Yes, sir. To be nothing is to love. Which doesn’t mean I become a doormat, that anybody can walk over me. (Laughs) To have no ideal at all, but only facts. No idea. So, I won’t go into all that, really that’s quite a different thing. So, let’s come back to what we are talking about.
Q: Yes. Which is the movement to nothingness?
K: Which is the movement to nothingness — I will tell you. Which is the movement to nothingness, he is asking. Nothingness.
Q: That means no jealousy, no…
K: There is no way to it. Sir, this… (laughter)
Sir, let us… You have not answered my question, or we haven’t gone into it. What am I to do in this life? I have got this whole life in front of me. Not… I won’t go into that for the moment. What am I to do in this life so that I live and act without any contradiction? Otherwise, I don’t live at all, I live in contradictions. And that is, I live in misery. So can I live without satisfaction? And so act all the time, whether I am choosing a shoe, pair of shoes or going for a walk — you follow? — no sense of being… wanting to be satisfied.
Q: What do you think about hate? Is it instinctive?
K: What do you think about hate. Is it instinctive. What is hate, sir? Do you hate if you have no fear?
Q: I think I hate, but I… (inaudible).
K: No, no. Wait, sir. Do you hate when there is no resistance?
Q: Do I hate when there is no resistance? Never.
K: That’s it. Exactly.
Q: When there is a resistance…
K: …there is hate. No? We haven’t understood, sir. I resist you, because you want my property, or my wife. You impose your ideas against mine, or you threaten my ideas, or my belief, my position, my prestige, then I hate you. You take away something which is mine, I feel which is mine — right? — my wife, my property, my this or that. I hate you then.
Q: When you hate somebody who hates you, you do the same game.
K: Of course, of course, you play the same game.
Q: (In French)
K: (In French) So, the question is: is there hate if there is no resistance, if there is no arrogance, if there is no aggression?
Q: Sir, are there not things that one should resist? If my manager wants to run…
K: If my manager…
Q: If I write books, and the editor tells me what to write.
K: If my manager, or if my wife, or if the editor or the man who buys my picture — shall I conform to what they want? Certainly not.
Q: Then you resisted.
K: No. That’s not resistance. So, what does resistance mean? What does resistance mean? I resist anything that threatens me — me, my wife, my property, my furniture, my belief, my god, my country, my investment in the country — right? — my investment in my wife or her investment in me — anything that threatens me, me identified with so many things.
Q: So many people have told me, sir, ‘I eat meat because I don’t want to resist my wife, she servers meat so I eat it.’ Isn’t this…
K: No, no, because my wife eats meat, I must also eat meat?
Q: Otherwise I am resisting her, if I insist on not eating meat.
K: My wife believes in — what? — Catholicism or communism, I don’t. And must I yield to my wife? And if I don’t yield is that resisting my wife? Good God!
Q: (Inaudible)
K: Ah! No, sir, no, no.
Q: It’s impossible.
K: No. I said, any form… Look, sir, I said anything that threatens me — me identified with my property, with my belief, with my God, with my job, with my wife, with my — you follow? — me, with all its identification, when that is threatened, I resist.
Q: I have to resist.
K: Not ‘have to’ — you do.
Q: I do it.
K: Yes, you do it.
Q: Yes.
K: But if there is no ‘me’ identified with a thousand things, I have no resistance.
Q: So I let someone take my house then.
K: Certainly not, sir. But if my wife says…
Q: My house.
K: Wait, wait, if my wife…
Q: ‘I want your house,’ and I am threatened because I’ll be out on the street. So I say I won’t resist him — I see that I am resisting because I am being threatened. Therefore I won’t…
K: No, wait. Wait a minute. I also need a shelter. When I’ll be thrown out, I’ll be exactly in the same position as he was. So, I want to perhaps change the whole economic, social structure of society, which will provide the man with a house and property.
Q: He has got five other houses but he also wants mine.
K: I am sorry, you go and live in the other five houses.
Q: No but he has some sort of way of taking my house.
K: Then I have to resist — I go to a lawyer, clever lawyer or no clever lawyer, I find out how to battle with the bird. (Laughter)
Q: Then you are…
K: No, no, no, sir. No, that’s entirely different.
Q: (Inaudible)
K: No, sir, no, wait, don’t go from one thing to the other. Stick to one thing. You want my house. I have one house, I haven’t got ten houses. I have one house. I have to live in it. If you throw me out, I will be exactly in the same position as you were when without a house. So I say, my concern is not just to yield a house, but I want to change the social, economic, the mentality of mankind so that everybody will have a house. I haven’t a house, fortunately. So, that’s one thing. But if somebody says, if my wife says, ‘I want to leave you and go with another man,’ I say, ‘All right.’ Why should I be jealous? Why should I be angry, frightened, resist? Psychologically, that’s much more than the other.
Right, sir, we’d better stop.
Q: Sir, one question: you spoke of a state in which you are no longer seeking satisfaction, in which there’s no discontent. How are we to avoid setting this up as an ideal to reach?
Q: How are we to avoid making an ideal out of this flame that you were talking about?
K: How am I to avoid an ideal… making an ideal of the flame which I am talking about. It is not an ideal.
Q: But for us it’s… (inaudible)
K: Throw it out. What is important is the fact. The fact is that I am discontented with something, which is my desire for satisfaction, and I find that soon evaporates, disappears and I want more satisfaction in something else — in that I am caught. Right? That is a fact. Then I ask myself, ‘That’s a stupid way of living. Is there a different way of living?’ I question, I breakthrough that. I don’t make the other flame into an ideal that becomes another idea.
I think we’d better stop, don’t you? Sorry.