K School – Adults Discussion 3, Brockwood Park, 16 September 1976

Krishnamurti: How shall we start this thing?

So, I’m still concerned, as being a teacher here, how I would transform those children and myself basically. That would be my chief interest. And I would also like to have… them have a first-class intellect and fully developed mind — you know, the whole totality, entity. How am I… in what way am I to proceed in doing that? Transformation of a student psychologically and also academically capable, efficient. Now how shall I set about it as a teacher?

(Pause)

Come on, help me out, please. This is your job, too. If that is really what we want to do, then it’s your responsibility too. Then how — please, as a new teacher I’m here — please help me with it. How am I as a new teacher to do this? How do I approach this whole problem with the student? Knowing that the student is very conditioned, resisting — you know, we have been through all that. So in what manner of approach do I proceed? How do I… what do I do?

Is it possible to transform a human being, not over a length of… a long time but very quickly? We were asking that question, I think, last time we met here. These students come here as conditioned as I am — if I am a teacher here — and in my relationship with him, I’ve come off the pedestal, I’m not taking up any position, I have no clichés to trot out and I see that I’m really, deeply, passionately interested in this. And you have told me no motive — it’s only then we can co-operate — and no self-interest. You have pointed out that to me. And I am going to learn that with your help and with the student, with the students, to lose my self-interest — my desire to dominate and all, which is all forms of self-interest. Can all this be done here, through talking to them, pointing out, exploring together the possibilities of this? And will he be transformed at the end of the term or at the end of whatever it is? When he leaves here, will he be a different human being? I think that’s my… as a new teacher, I would be interested in that tremendously. How do I proceed in this? Come on, sirs, help me out.

(Pause)

Scott Forbes: I left the last meeting wondering how a real interest in learning is created. Because it seemed to me that was at the very crux of the matter. If there was no interest in learning then no learning could take place.

K: How do I bring about that interest in myself, if I haven’t got it, and in the student? What shall I do? What’s wrong with me when I’m not interested? When the world is burning, why am I not interested? What’s wrong? Am I paralysed? Am I mentally — you follow — dead? What’s wrong? Why am I not interested in learning?

Joe Zorskie: It’s not immediately obvious, working here, going in the classroom as a student or a teacher, learning chemistry or learning art, what that has that to do with the burning world. It’s not immediately apparent.

K: Do you think it has nothing to do with it? Learning mathematics and geography, history and all the rest of it, it has nothing to do with learning? Isn’t that part of my learning too? Learning about relationships, learning about fear, this, that, many psychological factors. And also doesn’t all the various human endeavours in different fields — wouldn’t I want to learn about as many things as I can?

JZ: Some of us don’t know the first thing about mathematics or chemistry or physics and it doesn’t seem to have made our lives any worse.

K: So you’re suggesting, are you, sir, don’t bother about all that? Are you really suggesting this or is it just fishing around?

JZ: I mean, if it’s so obvious that it’s important, you know, why don’t people see it and do it? If it’s so obvious that it’s so important, why haven’t all of us done it? Why aren’t people who are experts in those fields, why don’t they have good relationships?

K: So are you suggesting that we should give emphasis to good relationship and all the things involved, primarily, and secondary other subjects? Is that what you’re saying?

JZ: I think so, but it’s not clear to me how to do that. I mean, there are schools who teach…

K: …mathematics — of course.

JZ: I mean, very excellently.

K: Excellent — quite.

JZ: I mean, in fact, if you want to be an excellent mathematician this may not be the place to go.

K: Quite. So you are suggesting, are you, that we should give importance to the psychological factors much more, or completely, rather than emphasise the academic side?

Mary Zimbalist: Why must one make a choice between the two? Why are they being compared, ratio, which is more important than the other? Isn’t it possible to do both?

Dorothy Simmons: I thought that was the very nature of it, that no one thing is isolated but that everything is interrelated. And that through an understanding of ourselves and our behaviour to others perhaps a deeper understanding of the whole world situation and ourselves within it comes about. And the reason we’ve come together here is to say we feel in a like-minded way, or similar, we’re going in the same direction. Let’s be together, because more people — it’s not the ‘more’ of it — but our energies are more than just each one of us separately doing this.

Shakuntala Narayan: We certainly aren’t trying to specialise here in mathematics or physics or whatever. We’re not specialising.

DS: I would have said we were far more taking it in our stride. That we have to be academically educated is necessary, but first we must be educated…

K: Mr Joe said it’s not necessary. Mr Joe said that’s not so essential.

DS: Well, no, I don’t think so. I think I see what he says.

Doris Pratt: I think he said actually that he didn’t see what relation our concern with the mind and that had with the burning world outside. Didn’t you say that? He didn’t see the urgency that we were trying to save the burning world. I thought that was what he said — didn’t you?

K: Not quite. He can translate for himself.

DP: He mentioned the burning world.

SN: But the question is that… has mathematics, physics, English and geography a place in Brockwood? Should it be on the curriculum? Is that the question? Is that the question?

JZ: We talk a lot about excellence but we don’t really mean excellence in academic matters, do we?

DS: Not only.

JZ: I mean, academically…

K: All right, sir, let’s drop the word ‘excellence’.

JZ: Academically, there are many schools that are our equal. That’s the nicest way to put it.

K: Let’s make it much more simple. Do you want them to be academically trained? Academically trained. Trained, you know, in a nice way, not monkeys, but teach them how to… English, English literature — you know, know about it, the various subjects and so on. But you said that it is necessary but let’s give much more emphasis on the other. Not divided, breaking up this or that — all together. It’s like eating salad first. I mean, you are going to have a full meal.

JZ: It seems to me that a person can become excellent in mathematics or whatever without learning anything about relationship.

K: So, that’s what we’re saying.

JZ: But it doesn’t matter — if they get all of that, it has no meaning.

K: I agree. So we agree, do we then, that we should give much… as educators we must give much more emphasis to the other rather than…

JZ: I think so. If they were here for two or three years and got that part of it, when they left they could pick up the academic part in a flash. It would be no problem to them.

K: So, all right, let’s see. If that…

SN: My question is: can you use the academic subjects to convey not merely the dead subject matter but through it something more? Can you awaken a child’s sensitivity through…

K: That’s what I was trying to get at.

SN: …through art, through music? Can you convey order through mathematics? Can you convey the precision and the necessity of using words precisely through language?

DS: And you must have something to hang it on. You can’t just sit around and talk about good behaviour. I mean, you have to behave, and you behave while you’re doing something. And we’ve chosen to do it through education, through educating people in the way that we feel is a sound way or a whole way.

Q: This was the reason why I wonder if the question of emphasis is really relevant, because if academics is the vehicle through which we are endeavouring to make clear the teaching then both are going to be emphasised together.

K: I think that’s what… I think he would agree too, Mr Joe, wouldn’t you? Otherwise would you get students at all here?

SN: Apart from that, they may just go to sleep.

K: And also would the students come? Or no school at all for the students as students, but grown-up people meeting together. Is that what you’re trying to get at?

JZ: Not necessarily grown-up people.

K: Adolescent people — all right.

JZ: You see, what I’m saying perhaps is that in the world the way it is — it has changed tremendously in just the time that I’ve been around — I’m not sure what skills are necessary for survival, for helping out. I mean, maybe thirty, forty, fifty years ago the subjects that we have selected as our structure around which we can meet, maybe those were the right subjects, but I’m not so sure anymore. I mean, I don’t know if I would recommend to anyone to go to university. I mean, a student comes to me and talks, I don’t know whether to… I mean, years ago I would recommend that, but I’m not so sure anymore if…

K: You’re not sure of what, sir? I’m not quite clear — of what?

JZ: We want to prepare, obviously, a person to enter this complex…

K: …society.

JZ: …society that we have, that exists.

K: Yes.

JZ: Now for one thing, there is very little, I feel. At least, we could do a lot more in helping them understand what this society is. Not to indoctrinate them or propagandise our point of view. But we have relatively little… you know, when they come here this is a kind of… you know, it’s a beautiful place. It’s in the middle of here though, and the contact with the world is rather minimal. To one extent it helps us because the pressures from that society are not good, but yet then we fall into, I feel, a kind of a nice… It’s a nice place; people don’t want to leave here, they want to come here. But, you know, the learning, it could be different.

K: Tell me. I want to find out. In what way could it be different?

JZ: Well, I think a lot of students really don’t understand when you talk about the world as burning, you know, when there’s trouble — they don’t know what that means. They have no idea, you know. It could be that, maybe it’s not… (inaudible)

K: So could we explain? Suppose we explain to them.

JZ: Well, how do we go about that? We’re talking about… well, we have our academic subjects in which we do things — you know, there is world affairs and there’s history but not everyone takes that and it’s not by any means a major part. I mean, how do students learn when they come here, how do they learn about the deep intricacies of, you know, the depths of what people will do to be a success, of how complex the human mind has become, how society has become twisted? How do they learn that?

DS: They see it going on all around them.

SN: Yes.

DS: They read the newspapers, they look at their television, they see how people behave to each other, how nations behave to each other.

JZ: I don’t think they see that.

DS: They see a person like Amin. They have got to let the ball land in their lap and say, ‘What is my response to that? What do I feel about that?’

Q: Most of them don’t take that seriously at all.

DS: But why don’t they? Why don’t we get it across to them? That’s the world we’re living in.

Q: It’s occurred to me that once they have been at Brockwood, let’s say a year, and then they go home for two or three months in the summer and then they come back, I think experiences that have happened to them during the summer with other people — seeing people outside of Brockwood and how they behave towards them — has quite an impact on many of them. They actually see it. I think while they’re here it’s very sheltered and in general people here treat them very well, and they see that people get along and make an effort to co-operate. While when they go home…

K: It is quite the contrary.

Q: …they don’t see that.

SN: They see it in Winchester when they go.

Q: Not necessarily.

K: Look, what do you propose then?

Q: It seems that when everyone’s here the world isn’t actually burning. Why should they feel it’s burning when it’s not burning here for them?

JP: But perhaps it is. We aren’t separate from the world or society. It could be just covered over.

MZ: Perhaps the complexity of the world tends to make people withdraw into a very small circumference of their immediate selves, most of all.

K: I’m afraid I don’t quite understand this conversation at all. I don’t know; I’m lost. Would you please enlighten me.

MZ: Joe has said the world is burning — we all recognise that in some way or another — and yet it doesn’t seem to light any fire in the minds of anybody.

K: Is that it?

JZ: Basically, yes.

K: All right, let’s find out.

That can only be a confusion. It will be a confusion if I don’t realise I am the world. Right?

JZ: And to see clearly what the world is, too.

K: And the world, what the world is — the terrorists, the divisions, the Russians, communists, you know, the whole business — what the world is. I am that, because I’m confused, I like — etc., etc. — I am part of that. No?

JZ: Well, we are part of that, but…

K: So I attack that, I go through that.

JZ: John is saying that, you know, that happens here too, but we keep it under.

K: Oh no, bring it out. I’ll bring it out, we’ll bring it out.

MZ: Can this very thing be brought home very immediately in teaching, say, history or current events or whatever it is, in which you just don’t say, ‘Oh well, they’re rioting in such and such a place and there are hijackers there,’ but you say, ‘What’s going on in those people and what’s going on in us that is related to that?’

K: ‘What’s your reaction to all this?’ Well, I mean, I can…

MZ: Relate what’s going on inside each person’s mind to the very objective thing they’re studying in the outside world.

Q: I wonder if it’s even essential to experience or to read and see about these dreadful things that are happening outside this place. Surely there’s enough to learn from, on a different scale maybe, right inside us.

K: Sir, as a teacher, do I realise the world is me? Or is it just words? It is a basic question. Or are we so individually — quotes — ‘individually’ trapped in that individuality — ‘I’m totally separate from everybody else’ — therefore I have to establish my relationship with the rest of the world and therefore I battle? Or do I realise that I am the world? Which is it?

DS: That is what we don’t understand, and we go about it as though we were different. That is where education begins.

K: I’m asking. I’m a teacher here, I’m a new teacher here and I feel that the world is me; that’s one of the most important things I’ve discovered. If I have discovered it, if I feel it. I feel that. I see by Jove, how true that is. Now how am I going to translate that to the student? Do we feel this? You don’t answer.

(Pause)

Philip Brew: Yes, I think that is the basic question because if we don’t feel this then we’re trying always to relate this to that — there’s separation.

K: I don’t know — that’s what I’m asking you, sir. If I am the world, I’ll come off the pedestal, I will do a great many things.

PB: The question doesn’t arise if that’s…

K: That’s what I’m asking you.

Carol Smith: If the realisation that I am the world is the impetus to change… if that realisation is the impetus to change then the change would make one not of the world.

K: No. No, no.

CS: I mean, do you feel that you are of the world, sir?

K: Do you — wait a minute — do you feel that you are the world, and the world is you? With all the implications, not just the world map, but humanity, the whole of humanity with all their miseries, with quarrels and terrors. You follow? What is actually happening is part of me. Do you feel that or is it just a lot of words?

CS: When you say the world ‘feel’… can we use another word than ‘feel’ that?

K: What does — find out — let’s find out what it feels like. Let’s work at it. Let’s see if it is true.

MZ: Can’t we make that vivid and real, not just a statement of fact, to the student and to ourselves in really examining things that are happening?

K: But that… it is so obvious — I can’t understand…

MZ: What would be my relationship? What goes on inside those people and what are similar things that go on in me that would show that I was part of whatever that is, and make it immediate, make it…

Montague Simmons: Isn’t that what one does all the time?

MZ: I wonder.

MS: I should have thought I did.

MZ: Well, perhaps…

K: Every night on the television during the news, ‘We British, we British,’ keeps on repeating. You follow? That is part of me. We say, ‘I am a Hindu, I am a Hindu,’ for the rest of my life.

CS: They place the national news ahead of the international news.

K: Of course, of course — that’s what I’m saying.

JZ: I can take the attitude that I’m doing that.

K: What?

JZ: You know, whatever you say, I’m doing that.

K: Is it so?

JZ: Well, that’s the question.

K: I’m asking you.

JZ: Well, how do we find that out? And if we say, ‘Look, we’re doing that,’ I mean, that’s… (inaudible)

K: No, no. How do you find out. Wait a minute, Mr Joe. How do you find out about anything in yourself? How do we find out?

JZ: Well, that’s why we’re here.

K: I’m asking you now. Now. How do you find out about yourself? You say, ‘I am the world.’ Which is, part of the world is nationality, you know, the whole beastly business of it all. If I am feeling that I can discover it — say, ‘Yes, by Jove, I am a Hindu,’ ‘I’m a blasted Russian,’ or whatever it is. It doesn’t take me very long to discover that.

JZ: No, but we really don’t feel that way here. I mean, most people don’t.

K: I see. Let’s see. Is that so?

JZ: They’re not too attached to Hinduism.

K: Why don’t you? Why don’t you?

CS: Because it’s very easy to see through to how wrong that is.

K: I am asking you. I know, to condemn that’s very easy, but in yourself are you still an American?

CS: I have an American passport.

K: But I’m asking you the whole significance of feeling separate as a, you know, American, English and British and Italian — you know, all the… nationally, geographically, religiously, psychologically, all that. Do you feel that? Or you just say, ‘Well, that’s very simple, nationalities — I’ve only a passport.’ But much deeper than that we are talking.

SN: There are questions that are much deeper than nationalism.

K: Of course, that’s a… nationalism’s such a tawdry affair, anyhow. But Joe asked: how do we find out? I say, look, you’ve got a mirror; look into it.

SF: The fact is I think we do feel separated. You know, we’re not those terrorists that are hijacking that plane and we’re not those people in South Africa that are shooting blacks.

K: Of course not, but…

SF: So we feel separated from them.

K: No. The terrorists — you are not the terrorists, but the terrorists have come into being because of rotten society, rotten world, allowing such a thing to happen.

SN: The question is: is one free of ambition, envy and so on which brings about the confusion in the world?

K: You’re not meeting my point. Joe said, ‘I do not know how to look at myself,’ didn’t you? Sir, come on. What do you… it’s so…

(Pause)

How do you look at yourself, sir? Where is the mirror in which you see yourself, which is the world? If that is so, if you are the world. Somebody says you are the world. If it is so, how do I find that out? It is either false or true. Where is the mirror in which I can see this fact?

Jane Hoare: In my relationships.

K: Yes, my relationship with my wife, my girlfriend, is very nice; we don’t quarrel. We may quarrel occasionally but that is nothing.

MZ: But it’s in the responses, not only in relationship to people but in everything that’s going on.

K: That is, in newspapers, everything I read, every — so it’s not just my wife and me, it’s the whole world of relationship with everything.

MZ: It’s the response that each person gives out of… (inaudible)

K: So there it is. We point that out to Mr Joe. He says, ‘Yes, I see that,’ and stops there — ‘What?’ Come on, sir.

JZ: We look at our relationships here and — well, I’ll speak for myself — things happen, I react.

K: Yes. No, no. No, no. I am asking you… you asked: how do I look into myself? Where is the mirror in which I see myself as the world? That is the question, isn’t it?

JZ: I thought Jane answered that.

K: Yes. Therefore, do you see that? Do you see that is the mirror in which I see?

JZ: I think we do see it, but what we see is… you know, we see people that are not beyond that, that do react, that there is no…

K: Wait. All right, we do react.

JZ: We fall into violence.

K: Yes. So do you want to change that? Is it necessary to change that? Or do you say, ‘Yes, we’ll fall into it, occasionally we do this,’ and just keep on repeating that? Or do you say, ‘By Jove, I see violence and I must break it in myself.’

JZ: That’s why I’m here.

K: Ah! No. I understand that, sir. So how shall we do this? Because we’re all together in this game, in the same boat, and we are taking on the responsibility of sixty students. How shall we… what shall we do, sir? You don’t…

MZ: Krishnaji, isn’t that seeing something that has to constantly go on all the time? It isn’t that you see and say, ‘Yes.’

K: I am not sure.

MZ: It’s a continual…

K: No.

MZ: As one reacts to something, at the same time one sees the reaction.

K: No, I don’t think so. It’s like when once you see some danger, it’s finished.

MZ: If you see it.

K: That’s what I want to get at.

MZ: But isn’t there a danger in saying, ‘Oh yes, I see that nationalism is bad and I’m through with nationalism,’ but then one doesn’t go on and see related things.

K: I am saying something; you are saying something else. I am saying that when you see something is really dangerous you don’t touch it anymore.

JH: But my reactions go on happening continuously.

K: No, not when you see the danger. How can you go on continuously?

JH: But I don’t see the danger.

K: That’s what I’m asking you. Why don’t you? What’s wrong?

JH: It all points down to the illusion of self.

K: No, I don’t… don’t reduce it to one word or two words. But I’m asking you something entirely different, which is, if you see something dangerous you never touch it. Like electric wire, which is, you know, high voltage, you don’t touch it. In the same way, it is finished forever; you don’t touch it ever. And that is instant action. That is transformation. You are… all this is…

MZ: Is it that we see an instance of something and we say, ‘Yes, I see that,’ and you may be through with that instance but you haven’t seen the totality of it? So you’re busy doing… (inaudible)

K: Take one thing, even. Take one thing — violence. Do you see it as a tremendous danger in the world? The world is you. Everything now is, politically and every way, getting… through violence. It’s all what is happening, I don’t have to tell you. Well, sir? Argue with me. Let’s discuss this point.

Harsh Tanka: When we get shocked by the wire and then know that it’s dangerous, then we know what it is that we have to avoid, but we fall into anger and violence.

MS: But we’re not aware of the violence in ourselves, that is what’s going wrong. We are not aware is what’s going wrong. We’re not aware of the violence in ourselves and all these other things. Otherwise we’d be aware that we could quite easily in different circumstances hijack a plane or do something like that because it’s in us. If it isn’t in us then the world is not us. But it is in us we would do the same things under certain circumstances, but there are various controls and so on preventing us. But given that you’ve only got to see people finding themselves landing on the top of the Andes starving, they become cannibals. We know that each of us would become a cannibal if it were a case of survival, however horrifying we might think it, talking about it academically. So when we say the world is us, just look at ourselves and see we are violent and we are this and we are that, otherwise the world wouldn’t be like that.

JZ: But that doesn’t seem to be enough. I mean, are we going to do that for the rest of our lives, just say, ‘We are that’?

K: No, I want to transform that.

JZ: Right.

K: I am that — I agree. I see that as a fact. Therefore, it is important for me as a human being who’s part of the world if I… there must be transformation in myself. Right? I am the world. I am a total human being. And one of the elements of these ugly human beings is violence, and it is a tremendous danger. No?

JZ: It is. (Inaudible)

K: Wait, wait, don’t shrug your shoulders. It is a danger. Do you see it as a danger? As dangerous as touching a high voltage.

JH: But as Harsh says, when it’s a high voltage it’s recognisable. But the violence happens in me…

K: Why don’t you recognise it as dangerous?

JH: I do at that level but the violence happens so subtly in me, I’m not awake enough to see it.

K: Why? Why? Don’t repeat this, ‘I am not, I am not, I am not,’ but find out why you are not.

JH: Well, because I’m afraid.

K: You see, you are afraid, then find out why you are. Go into it and get rid of fear. You see, we move… we have learned the art of cleverly moving from one thing to the other.

(Pause)

So a student comes here — all the students are going to come on the 25th or 26th.

Q: 24th.

K: 24th. And I’m a teacher here. I’m a new teacher here and I hear you talking like this. You are uncertain, you’re not clear and you’re undertaking the responsibility to make those children clear, to be clear. Right? And I say, ‘My God, what are you people doing after six years or two years?’ So I say, ‘Look, if you’re not clear, together let’s get clear.’ Will you do it? Nom d’un chien! Will you say, ‘All right, I am not clear about violence, the world… etc., etc. I’m going to make this thing for myself so clear. I work at it. You follow? I see the world is me and part of that ‘me’ is violence. And I say, ‘Why am I violent?’ Because, you just now suggested, fear. All right. I say, ‘I see I must help those students and myself to completely be free of fear.’ Why don’t you?

JH: I do to the level I see.

K: Ah! Your level may be that much.

JH: Yes.

K: But that’s not good enough.

JH: But that’s what we’re talking about.

K: Ah, that’s not good enough. Why don’t you see the whole tree of fear? Because you may not be interested in it. And probably it is that. That may be the real, basic reason. You’re not interested in getting rid of violence out there, in here — which is the same.

What? I’m a new teacher, please. (Laughs)

So we are taking and undertaking a responsibility to those sixty children — students or children, whatever they are — we make the academic become important because we don’t know how to go inside and clean it up. Right. I’m beginning to find out. Right, sir? Therefore, let’s find out together how to clean the house, this house.

JZ: And do it.

K: And do it. For God’s sake, we’ll not just talk everlastingly about it.

(Long pause)

How am I — I want to go to the root of this thing — how am I as a teacher, new teacher here, to meet these students on the 24th and feel my responsibility for them, if I feel responsible? And also I feel I am the world… if I am the world and the world is me. And I want to help them to be free completely of fear, of violence. Not just a little bit of it — completely free. And in the freeing of violence there is the flowering of intelligence. I want them to have that. I don’t know how it will happen. I want… as I am the new teacher and I realise this, I want… I say to them, ‘Look, I don’t know how to be free of this; let’s talk about it, sit down and spend days, find out together.’ Will you do it? Go to the root of it? Because that’s your responsibility, isn’t it? Apart from mathematics and all the rest of it, this is your responsibility too — much greater.

Now, please, let’s discuss that, talk over. Now, what shall we do together? If we don’t do this, the academic subjects become all-important and then we are lost. So, I’m going to stick to this — I’ve got it. Now, please, how shall we do this together? We must all do it together — right? How shall we do it together? And so all the students together.

Ingrid Porter: It seems we’d have to start with being completely honest with each other.

K: We are being now. I don’t know what honest — no, I won’t go into that for the moment. ‘Honesty’ is the most dangerous word. I am saying, are you interested and responsible to see — if you realise the world is you and you are the world — and one of the factors in this monstrous world, of which you are, is violence — psychological violence, from which breeds external violence. All right. How do you help yourself who are the world and the student to be free of this violence? How shall we go about it together with those people, with those students? You have asked me to get off my pedestal — I have. And so I have established a relationship with the student to say, ‘Look, we are together in this.’ Right? We are together in this. We are going to help each other to be free of violence. Do you feel this? Do you see the necessity of it?

IP: Yes, but before we can convey it to the student we’d have to be clear amongst each other first.

K: You’re not… Oh no, you are… you have had time for seven years, or four years or two years.

IP: So why haven’t we done it with the students? Obviously the time maybe doesn’t come into it. Maybe we’ve been going…

K: That’s just what I’m saying — time may not come into it at all.

IP: So we’ve probably been going about it in the wrong way.

K: Maybe. So we are together now with sixty students — we’re all one body.

IP: Well, we’re together now at the moment without the sixty students.

K: Not now — on the 24th when they all come here, when all of us are together, we are all in the same boat.

IP: Right.

K: Because you have asked me to get off my pedestal and establish a relationship with the student. I cannot establish a relationship with the student as long as I have a pedestal — power, position, all the rest of it. I’ve come off that. And therefore I see it’s why I’m meeting them.

JP: That’s a big step.

K: It is a big step — break it, get down to it, do it.

JP: To be free of violence…

K: Ah, no, just a minute, sir. We are going to discuss together with the students, as we are in the same boat, to be free of violence, to talk it over.

JP: When you step down from the pedestal you’re free of the pedestal. You have no image about yourself.

K: No, I haven’t started that yet. I’m off the pedestal.

JP: But then we deal with violence.

K: I deal with… because I’ve established a relationship in which we’re all together in this question. I’m not sitting on a platform telling them what to do. So I’m altogether in a different position. I don’t know how to be free of violence. I have talked a great deal about it, but I haven’t really… it is not in my blood to be free of violence.

JP: One way of looking at it is that if we see it and understand it, to be free of it means that we won’t come up against it again, but of course we are still part of the world.

K: That ‘part of the world’ is just a statement that I’ve accepted for the time being. I haven’t seen the depth of it, the truth of it, the extraordinary vitality that gives me when I see that I am the world.

JP: But to be free of it does that mean we don’t come in contact with it again in ourselves?

K: No, do you see it? Sir, let’s leave ‘the world and me’ — forget that for the moment.

We are together as a community in the same boat. Right? Right? Do you… Then… Now, all of us feel this violence. We know the nature of it, some of it — a little bit or greatly — and we want, in talking over with the students, getting… and helping each other to be completely free of that violence. That’s all my state, my question.

JH: Can I take it from a different point of view? If I have a relationship which calls forth violence in me and the other person — so I see a mirror of violence in me — I can avoid that relationship and move completely away from it.

K: If you want to.

JH: To relationships which do not…

K: Ah, wait a minute.

JH: …bring forth in me a certain response.

K: Which may mean you still have violence, but…

JH: Yes, but I’m not in contact with it.

K: But you still have violence.

JH: But I don’t see it because it’s not revealed in a form.

K: No, look, if you and I are together and our relationship is violent…

JH: Yes.

K: …going away, breaking away from me and going off somewhere else, you still have the…

JH: I understand that. But now seeing it and staying in that relationship, the only way seems to be to jump into space, to be silent completely. But if I…

K: We are going to… No, you are supposing what should happen. We’ll find out.

JH: Well, I’m speaking about what happens to me.

K: No, you see… I’m sorry, I must get back. You are a teacher here, we’re all teachers here, we are going to meet sixty students, and the students are violent and we are violent. Now we are going to learn together to be completely free of violence. Together. Not say, ‘Well, it doesn’t… I can… This is… I can’t… With this… in this circumstance I am violent and therefore I must escape from it.’ It is not a question of circumstances — you are part of that. So you remain here and say, ‘Let’s work it out.’ Well, sir?

JZ: I think we can do that part.

K: Which part?

JZ: The part where the student comes in and presumably he’s not interested in violence — or he is interested in violence.

K: Don’t tell me. (Laughs)

JZ: He doesn’t see the danger in violence. I think all of us are clear in that we see the danger in violence and we want to get to the root of violence.

K: Will you help him to be free of that?

JK: I think we can get him to see, you know, to be interested in getting to the root of violence.

K: No, tell me. Now, together, all of us together, to help those sixty boys or girls to be free of it.

JZ: I’m not going that far.

K: That’s what I…

JZ: But I think we can and we do work towards that. We can get them to be interested in getting rid of violence, but we’re asking you. I mean, I’m the student now. I’m interested in getting rid of violence — what do you do? What do you say to me?

K: I say to you, ‘Let’s talk it over. Do you want to go into the depth of it or just superficially free of it?’

JZ: I don’t know what ‘depth of it’ means, frankly.

K: First find out — those are two statements — do you want to go deeply or superficially?

JZ: Well, I mean if I’m only on the superficial level, I don’t know what it means…

K: I’m going to help you. We are going to help each other to come off the superficial level. So I must find out, both of us find out, whether we are talking superficially or at depth. If you’re talking superficially, I say why? I may be also talking superficially. So why are we talking superficially? Tell me, sir, why are we?

JZ: Well, I’m not. I mean it.

K: You mean it. Therefore, please help me — now you reverse — please help me not to be superficial. Come on, sir, you say you’re not superficial with regard to violence. So you have found something, and help me to find that. It’s your responsibility. Come on, sir, you… There is the student… I am the student for the moment. I talk with regard to violence. I say things superficially. And you say, ‘Look, old boy, it’s much deeper than that,’ and I say to you, ‘All right, sir, show it to me. Help me to learn that.’

JH: So the first thing is a calling to a very deep energy.

K: I know nothing about — don’t talk about energy. Tell me…

JH: I’m asking you.

K: You’re asking something which is quite — I don’t understand all your words. I know only one thing, what he said. He said, ‘Are you talking superficially or deeply?’ He says, ‘I am not.’ I may be. So please help me to go into the depth of violence.

CS: But what is that? If you say to him, ‘Maybe I am being superficial,’ there must be some feeling or some insight into the fact that you are being superficial.

K: Yes, I know I’m superficial.

CS: So what is that that’s telling you that you are superficial?

K: But I’ve listened to him saying, ‘Look, I’m talking at a deeper level.’ I’ve listened to him. That has… at least that has broken a little thing.

CS: So now you are off the surface…

K: No, I’ve listened to — please listen, follow it step by step. He tells me that he’s not talking about superficial violence. He’s talking about violence at a greater depth. And I listen to that. I’ve listened to it. And I say to myself, ‘Yes, I don’t know what it is, but I realise I’m superficial.’ Now help me to go beyond the superficial. Because that’s what the students are. So help me to go beyond that. It’s your responsibility. It’s my responsibility as a teacher, a new teacher, to say, ‘My God, I realise I’m superficial, tell me… let’s go into it. Teach me, I’m willing to learn. Don’t be silent.’ (Laughs) Mr Joe, you said you have gone into it deeply — show me, teach me how to do this.

JZ: Did I say that? (Laughter)

K: Oh yes, you did. Don’t back out now. For goodness sake, you’re always doing this kind of trick with me.

JZ: But I didn’t say that, really.

DS: Yes, you did.

SN: You did.

JZ: Well, we can play the tape again. (Laughter)

K: No, no, don’t play the tape again.

JZ: If it’s on the tape… (inaudible)

K: Wait a minute. Didn’t you mean what you… when you said, ‘I’ve gone much more deeply into it’?

JZ: No, I said that I don’t know what deeply means. You asked me if I were interested in it superficially or deeply, and I said I don’t know what going into it deeply means.

K: All right. So you want to learn about it.

JZ: I want to. That’s what I said — yes.

K: You want to learn about it. So let’s together learn about it. I’m not teaching you, you’re not teaching me — together we’ll go into it deeply. Right? Right, sir?

JZ: That’s what I’m asking — yes.

K: No — together, not asking. You see? (Laughs)

JZ: We try this — I mean, when I say ‘we try it’, many is the time I sit down alone and I try to go into this, but you reach confusion after a while.

K: I agree. So together we can do it maybe perhaps easier. Right? Let’s grant that anyway. Now together — not I teach you and you teach me — we are learning together how to go into the question of violence deeply. Right? (Laughs) Is there a motive in this question? You have asked me two days ago, ‘Get off… you must have no motive.’ And now I am asking you: is there a motive in wanting to go deeply?

MZ: What do you mean by motive in this instance?

K: Motive, an end in view.

JZ: I see clearly that if life, my life, continues with violence it’s meaningless.

K: I’m not interested… No, you’re going… Stick to it.

JZ: No, unless there is this depth, it’s rather meaningless.

K: Meaningless. So you say, really…

MZ: Is that a motive?

K: We’re going into that. We’re both of us going to learn what it is to have motive and what it is not to have a motive — together. It is not I am telling you — you’re going to do that with the students. So together we’re doing this. Now, have I a motive in this? Have you a motive in this? Motive in the sense a direction so that you will be free of violence deeply. For what? Why?

MZ: Is the very ‘being free from violence’ a motive? You are saying, ‘So that you’ll be free from violence.’ Does that imply a motive…

K: I’m asking you.

MZ: …that you’re moving towards being free?

K: You are not asking me, we are asking each other. Therefore don’t look to me. You see, I am objecting to that. We are learning together. Therefore, have you a motive in this, wanting to be free of violence? Have I a motive in this? Yes, I have.

JH: It hurts.

K: Wait — have you?

JH: I have a motive because it hurts, usually.

K: No, please, you’re going off to something else. I am asking you only one thing, which is, have you a motive wanting to go deeply into this?

JZ: You mean a self-motive.

K: A felt motive, conscious or unconscious motive.

CS: A self-motive.

K: Self-motive. That is, self-interest.

MZ: Is that the only motive you’re asking about, because I think we have to be clear. There’s self-motive, which is one thing. There is also a seeing that violence is destructive, is an impossible way to live, and wanting to resolve that. Is that a motive?

K: No, seeing what the effects of — you know, what violence is — seeing has no motive. You just see it. But when you say, ‘I must go beyond it in order to achieve something or other,’ then there is a motive. Agree?

JZ: Agreed.

K: So have you a motive? Or do you — please, this is really important — or do you see only violence? Not how to be out of it or go beyond it, suppress it and all the rest of it — do you just see what is happening in the world, which is violent, which is in yourself? Do I see that? Which means, can I observe violence without any distortion, which is motive? Right? Right, sir?

Q: Can I observe it if I say I’m going to look for violence?

K: No, no, I don’t have to look — it is there.

Q: But then there’s no arbitrarily choosing just to look at violence; it’s just looking at ‘what is’ then.

K: That’s what I’m saying — just look. Observation has no motive.

MZ: But you’ve directed it at violence.

K: I’m looking at violence.

MZ: Yes, at violence and not at planting trees or something else, you’re looking at violence.

K: I said so.

MZ: It is directed at a particular thing.

K: I am looking at violence, don’t translate it further. Help me to look at it without motive. I realise if I have a motive I’ve already distorted it. Right? Is that right, sir? Would you see that?

JZ: I see it.

K: Now, do you not see it here, mentally, but actually see it? To look at something without a motive?

JZ: When I say I see it, I see that if you have a motive, with the accompanying distortion, then you stop. That’s where you stop. But to see something so clearly…

K: That’s what I’m getting at.

JZ: (inaudible) …say that I see that there is no distortion now. I mean, can you do that? Can you see something so clearly that you can say there is no distortion here?

K: I can, but that’s not important for me. I can answer it but I won’t answer it that way. You and I, we started out by saying, we are in the same boat, we have come off the pedestal, therefore we have no height and depth — right? — superior and the inferior. And so our relationship with the student is not a pedestrian relationship. We have common… we are together in this. Being together implies that I want to… both of us are learning to be free of violence. Are we talking about it superficially or deeply? I have to first… that’s the first question. Right? I’m sorry, I’m repeating — I hope you’re not bored by it. If I am superficial, please help me to go beyond the superficial. Superficial being just verbal acceptance, intellectual agreement and saying, ‘Yes, it’s quite right, quite right,’ and go on my own — you follow? So you point that out to me and I say, ‘Quite right — I see I am superficial.’ Can I observe that superficiality without any motive? Before I go to violence, can I observe my superficiality, my quick way of accepting things, intellectually agreeing, and deeply contrary to all that I’ve agreed to? Can I see the superficiality of acceptance? And if you point out to me that if you have a motive in seeing you have already twisted it, I say, ‘Quite right.’ I stop twisting it. I say, ‘Quite right, I see that.’ So I ask, ‘Please help me, teach me, or we’ll learn together, the observation without a motive.’

SN: But there must be something special in this observing without a motive.

K: We are doing it now.

SN: Because if it’s ‘I’ who is observing that is a distortion itself.

K: We said any distortion prevents observation. Right? So, find out if you’re distorting — your prejudice, your dislike, or you say, ‘My God, this is too difficult, I’d rather leave all this stuff aside,’ — you know, whatever reason. Can you look at this superficiality without any motive and without any distortion?

(Pause)

You can, can’t you?

(Pause)

What do you say, sir?

(Pause)

So I say to the student, ‘My friend, the first thing to learn is to observe. Observe. And whether you observe with a prejudice or without a prejudice.’ Right? So we’re going to learn about a very simple thing. Which is, do you look at me or do you look at the world or look at something with a prejudice? And together we say, ‘Yes, both of us look with prejudices, so let’s talk about prejudices.’ Have you a prejudice? Of course you have.

JH: Excuse me, sir, how does prejudice differ from distortions?

K: No, prejudice distorts.

JH: Yes, so it is a type of distortion.

K: It is a distortion. So we talk about prejudice — can you… what are prejudices and so on — we go into it. And can you be free… can you put away your prejudice? Not for a time — completely away.

MZ: That includes likes and dislikes.

K: Prejudice — find out, go into it, discuss with me, with the student, what it means. Prejudices — oh, long hair, short hair. Prejudice — oh, I must do what I want. You follow? There are a dozen things — prejudices. So we say: can you look at something without a single prejudice? And it’s one of the most difficult things — right? — so I say take time over it. Either you see it instantly and therefore out, or you take time.

MZ: Even if you take time, eventually the seeing will…

K: So can you see this, the fact or the truth that in observation any element of prejudice distorts? Do you see quickly, this? That is, your real interest is in observation, isn’t it, to see things clearly.

JH: Without distortion.

K: I mean, to see things clearly — that’s the main interest, main drive. But that is prevented when you have a motive, which is a factor of distortion. Therefore you must… that’s the danger. When you see the danger, it’s finished. I wonder if you see this.

Stephen Smith: I think living dangerously is the difficulty. The mind doesn’t want to live dangerously in the way that you indicate.

K: So go into it, sir. That is, without… I’m a teacher, I want to help the student — we are all helping each other — with the help of the students and the students with the help of us — to observe.

You see, we have learnt one thing, sir: that it is possible to see things instantly without a distortion when we realise the danger of prejudice. You follow? When you see the danger of it, it’s finished. I wonder if you… So I go into this with the student. I say the prejudice is a danger, your nationalism is a danger. Have you… are you a nationalist, are you… You follow? I’ve got the whole field.

CS: But, sir, it may turn out that when one sees clearly the situation that the proper action may call for a somewhat aggressive action in a sense.

K: Don’t presuppose anything — that’s your prejudice. Ah. It’s like saying, ‘If I climb the mountain I’ll see something beautiful.’ It may be the most horrible thing you might see. So can we stick to this and say, ‘Look, let’s work this out in life’?

JZ: And then what prejudice do we have?

K: I don’t know.

JZ: Now, when we’re looking at the question of our dealing with the students, you know, what’s our prejudice? What are we doing here that we don’t see as a prejudice?

K: All right. I want… when we leave, both the student and I, by the end of the term when we leave, I want them to be intelligent. I want myself and them to be extraordinarily intelligent. Because that intelligence then will operate wherever I am, whether to be a gardener, to be a cook, to be a prime minister, whatever it is. So I say that is my passion, both for him and for me, for us. So that is not a distortion. That’s not an ideal. I see in observing without prejudice I’m already intelligent. Part of that — you follow? To listen to — what? — some minister or some politician without prejudice, listen to him.

JZ: Well, if we were operating without prejudice there wouldn’t be any problem.

K: That’s it. So let’s begin.

JZ: So we have to…

K: That’s what I’m trying. So in our… Can we learn to observe without distortion? Bringing in my personal desire, saying, ‘Yes, yes, I am…’ — you know, all that filthy stuff that one brings in.

Q: I can observe without actually seeing the danger as an actual danger to something.

K: No, no, sir. We said together. Together; you are not learning from me. Together we said that when your interest — major, fundamental interest is to observe — right? — clearly what you are, what the world is. The world is you. So you are observing yourself clearly. And you can observe only when there is no prejudice. So your primary concern is if you have a prejudice, wipe it out. Because that’s a danger which will prevent you from observing yourself — yourself being the world.

JZ: But then do you ask yourself, so to speak, what prejudice do I have? Or do you ask, what is it that prevents me from seeing prejudice?

K: No, see… No, I wouldn’t say that — just see what your prejudices are, not what prevents you. You know what your prejudices are.

JZ: Well, if you see a prejudice then it’s not a prejudice.

K: Yes, that’s all.

JZ: The problem is confusing it with truth or fact.

K: That’s it, that’s it. Prejudice. We use the word ‘prejudice’ — prejudge. Isn’t that the word? Right, sir? Prejudge — to judge previously. And previous judgement you think is the real thing and the rest is non-factual. This is factual, that’s not factual.

JZ: But we don’t see those prejudices.

K: Find out. Let’s learn together to see our prejudices. The students — you see, I would never move away from that one thing — students and me, to see each other’s prejudices. If there were a student: ‘Is it a prejudice, sir, if I wear long hair?’ — he’ll ask you.

JZ: Is it?

K: Is it? Find out.

JZ: If I’m a student…

K: Find out, let’s learn. Is it prejudice or is it habit? You follow? It’s a habit… it may be like smoking, it’s become a habit. So at school or because you’re following the gang which have long hair, therefore you say, ‘Yes, it is not prejudice.’ You follow? It may be habit.

Q: Are you distinguishing between prejudice and habit? In what way is habit different than prejudice?

K: It’s the mechanical acceptance of what other people are doing. Everybody goes about with long hair nowadays so you say, ‘I’m part of that.’ That’s not a prejudice — you’re just imitating.

JZ: Certainly if you look at the photographs of men over the ages, in drawings too, for the most part men have had hair below their shoulders.

K: Of course — in India, good Lord, don’t…

JZ: So that the short hair seems to be a relatively short innovation.

K: When I first came to England I had long hair and whenever I went out they used to shout at me, ‘Get your hair cut.’ That’s all.

CS: Well, the question is more: are you attached to your long hair? Does it mean some sort of instinct that you have?

K: No, no, no. Please, find out whether it is a habit or prejudice.

PB: Or neither. Or perhaps neither.

K: Or may be — find out.

PB: Perhaps we are prejudiced against long hair.

K: Therefore, let’s find out together if it is a habit, a prejudice or total indifference.

Tony Rose: I can’t see the distinction between habit and prejudice. If one has a habit — you said imitating — it assumes one thinks the habit is good, is the right way, therefore it is a prejudice.

K: Therefore, is habit good? Is habit mechanical? Therefore you’re making your mind mechanical all the time. You follow?

So, is your prejudice a habit? You follow, sir? Or you just copy like everybody, ‘Yes, all communists are ugly, all British people are lovely.’ You follow? It’s just… That may be… prejudice may be a habit.

MZ: But what of our own requirements that hair be a certain length? Is that not…

K: It may be.

MZ: From the student’s point of view that looks like a prejudice and/or habit.

K: You see, what I’m trying… Don’t… Learn together, that’s what… You cannot learn together if you say, ‘I am right, this is what I think what should be’ — then we’ve stopped altogether. So can we learn together about violence with the student?

JZ: Yes, we can learn when there’s violence, when we see the violence occurring in the relationship. That’s the time I can learn about it, we could learn about it.

K: Oh, no. When you read a newspaper, that’s violence. Every morning there’s some hijacking or somebody murdering somebody else or one minister — you know, all the rest of it.

JZ: But it doesn’t touch my physiological or psychological…

K: Oh, yes, you’re part of the world.

JZ: If I realise that.

K: I said that. Why, that’s the…

DS: (Inaudible) …of violence, like somebody coming down here and just saying they are going to come down here.

K: Oh, yes.

DS: Whether we like it or whether they are invited or not, and you get involved in violence.

K: I know, I know. It happened yesterday, like you said. I know these people. They think you’re violent, but you may not be violent. You may say, ‘Sorry,’ — I want to stay to dinner tonight at your house — ‘I’m sorry, you can’t because I’ve… for various reasons.’ That’s not violence. I may translate it as violence.

JZ: But if the people insist then you’re almost forced to call an authority.

K: They are loonies!

DS: They would claim that was a sort of violence. A prejudice of mind that their different way of setting about things is my prejudice.

K: Where was it? In Saanen, was it? A lady came to Chalet Tannegg and lay down. She went to see her, etc., etc. She said, ‘I won’t go,’ and lay down in the dirt and rain. And the proprietor came and all of them came and said, ‘Please get up,’ and she went into a complete coma, or pretended to go into one. And the proprietor said, ‘I’ll call the police.’ The police came and lifted her up and took her away. The moment she was — perfectly… (laughs)

MZ: It wasn’t the police… (inaudible) We called a doctor, not the police. The doctor wouldn’t come, but he sent a taxi. So a group had to lift her into the taxi.

K: You see? She was putting on an act.

MZ: And they sent her off to the doctor.

DS: You see, it’s very difficult. Just take those Yugoslavians, those Croats. They find themselves in chains by their action of saying, ‘Look, I want to live in a different way without violence. I’ve had violence done to me, I want freedom.’

MZ: And in the process they bomb somebody.

DS: Yes, and they are violent.

K: I know, but you see… Of course. I know all those.

DS: But how to extricate, how to live without being violent, passionately, is extremely difficult.

K: Madame, life is difficult.

DS: Yes, but you’re saying to me, ‘Get this child and free him from violence.’ I’m not free of violence myself.

K: Therefore, let’s learn about it. Which doesn’t mean you become softie.

DS: And yet you have to see and listen to what the other person has to say, which gives the implication of being a bit of a softie.

JH: It seems to me that I have to remain completely vulnerable and yet listen to the other person without…

DS: You also have to take action.

JH: Yes, without becoming that.

DS: Listening is a sort of action.

K: What happens to that man yesterday? He came and was rude to you, and all the rest of it, because he wanted to see me and there wasn’t — you know, all that. So you say, ‘Please, go.’ That’s all. And he thinks you’re violent. All right, but you know you’re not violent.

DS: But he doesn’t go and so I close the door — that is violence.

K: No.

MZ: Well, I have to write a letter to him after lunch which will take more or less the same position.

K: That will be taken as violence.

MZ: And he will find it violent. I will put it as nicely as I can. One meets it to the best of one’s ability without much emotion or counter-violence, but saying, ‘This is how it is.’ Is that violent?

JZ: And during the gatherings, you know, you must have heard about the people making…

K: Guitar.

JZ: Yes, and finally only the threat of police could penetrate them.

K: Such people, you know what they are, they are obstinate, they are essentially violent.

DS: But it is violence, Krishnaji.

K: I know this, madame. So what will you do?

JZ: Can we go into this — I hesitate to do it — but go into this long hair/short hair business once and for all?

K: Oh no, that’s such a superficial affair, sir, for God’s sake.

JZ: Well, pick another one then, but pick a situation that actually comes up.

K: Such as?

JH: Getting out of bed on time.

K: Is that a problem? All right, let’s tackle it, let’s learn about it. What shall I do, as a teacher or whatever it is, and I want him to get up at nine o’clock or whatever time we all agree and he won’t get up? What shall I do? We’re going to learn — because we’ve no authority and all the rest of it, no violence. So what shall we do?

JH: It seems to me that any talking about getting up out of bed the next morning relates to a certain part… They may be very serious and I may be, when we’re speaking, but the day after their body is extraordinarily heavy and that does not penetrate. So the interest does not carry through.

K: So, what shall we… madame, how shall we learn together, with the boy who’s learning, who won’t get up out of bed? How shall we help him to have that intelligence which says — you follow? — ‘I must get up naturally’? Now, create that intelligence — how shall we do it?

JH: I don’t know.

K: Wait. What shall we do? If I say, ‘I don’t know,’ if you all say, ‘I don’t know,’ then it’s finished. What shall we… we have got to do something. Right?

JH: I understand. I am in that situation.

K: Now, please, let’s find out how… let’s learn about it. Why doesn’t he want to get out of bed? Is he avoiding something which he doesn’t want to do?

CS: Probably. They have no trouble getting up if they are going off to a picnic.

K: That’s it — eccolo!

CS: There’s something, the next few hours… (inaudible)

K: So that means they are doing something they don’t want to do.

CS: Or they feel they are being pushed.

K: Pushed, yes — something… we said they don’t want to do.

SN: Also they’ve gone to bed late and haven’t had enough sleep.

K: Or overeaten, over-played, over-talked.

SN: Watched television.

K: So at the end of all these explanations, I want him — both of us, we say we naturally get up. How should we do this?

Brian Jenkins: It seems it is a mistake to approach the student personally, saying, ‘You didn’t get up,’ or whatever, make him feel that he’s done something wrong. We’ve got to look at the whole picture, impersonal.

K: I am doing… we are doing that, sir, now. We said he may have eaten too much, played too much, talked too much, television, and, oh, God, ten different things. We know all the explanations for why he may not get up, why he doesn’t get up. Now we are saying: how can we learn together with the boy so that he himself naturally gets up intelligently? What shall we do? How shall we attack this problem?

CS: Well, we could explore with him what does it mean by something he doesn’t want to do. He may weigh things in terms of what fun he gets out of it, or perhaps his morning jobs and his morning classes he doesn’t consider — quote — fun. So we can go into what’s fun or the whole question of pleasure and pain and his own dislikes and likes.

K: At the end of it, one explanation you have missed, maybe. And then he’ll say, ‘Oh…’ — he’ll catch you there. So what we are trying to find out is how to awaken that intelligence which will help him naturally to get up.

JZ: I think maybe this is the nugget of our problem here, that there are all sorts of symbols, symptoms of this non-awakened intelligence — you know, the long hair, the getting up in the morning.

K: Yes, sir.

JZ: Maybe there’s twenty or thirty continually reoccurring ones. And if we didn’t deal with these symptoms the place would fall rapidly into disorder.

K: Quite right.

JZ: Now if we try going into with each student to awaken their intelligence so that these things happen naturally and spontaneously, and meanwhile they are still doing this, the place is a chaos.

K: Chaos.

JZ: And so what often we do is we throw up our hands and say, ‘All right.’ Maybe not in that way, but we attack — attack literally, I guess, maybe violently, the symptoms. You know, we continually bring it up to them, show it them: ‘You’re not coming to morning meeting; you’re not coming to morning meeting again.’ So in a sense we settle for the symptoms.

K: What shall we do? Together.

JZ: And still maintain order.

K: Order, still maintain order. What shall we do to bring about this intelligence which will operate?

JZ: One interjection. On the opposite side of that coin there are students — maybe half of them; not a minority — that very quickly pick up, you know, ‘What can I do? What do I have to fit into in order to keep everybody quiet? You want me to get up, I’ll get up. If you go to bed, I’ll go to bed.’

K: Quite, quite. I know this.

JZ: And then they satisfy the minimal rules that we lay down and then they disappear into the woodwork. You don’t see them. (Laughter) You know, they do what they want, except when we want them to do something.

K: Quite.

JZ: And then otherwise they are doing exactly what…

K: You’re perfectly right — they disappear in the woodwork. (Laughter) It’s a good expression — quite right.

SN: But on the other hand there are maybe two, three or four who see the central thing and everything seems to fall into place and they seem to be doing things so easily. What is it that has been touched in those students that they see the necessity for being on time for morning meeting, the necessity for washing the dishes, the necessity for order? I think there are two or three, if not more, will see that, at least.

DS: Many more.

SN: Many more probably. But I’m saying two or three because…

K: Sushula — I mean, Shakuntula — what…

CS: But you could carry that one step further. They may see the necessity for exterior order, which of course gives the mind a more quiet atmosphere, but of that where do we go from there?

SN: No, I think they see it. I’m not saying exterior order. I think they see the necessity for order fairly deeply.

CS: So are you saying that there are some students who have transformed?

SN: I’m not saying they are totally transformed but I’m saying to the extent that they’ve seen the necessity for order something must have happened.

K: Look, this is the problem, isn’t it?

SN: Yes.

K: Which is, while they are awakening their intelligence, order should be had. These two must go together — right? — awakening of intelligence and order at the same time. So, what shall we do? How shall we together learn with the student to bring this about?

JH: Taking that to academic things, which seems the same process, the interest and how other people explored order…

K: Wait, I’m still…

JH: …then if I can find a nugget of interest within myself or the student…

K: You see, that’s… interest, so…

JH: …the rest grows.

K: So you are using their interest to get what you want.

JH: No, I am relating to their interest.

K: Yes, but I don’t want to awaken their interest because they’ve got so many of them, or maybe one dominant interest — sex or whatever it is. What we are trying to get at is to have order and at the same time the awakening of intelligence. How do we do this? These two working together harmoniously in their life, like two horses.

CS: Doesn’t it get back to seeing the necessity for change? Doesn’t it get back to really seeing that the way they’re living, where it’s leading, and what sort of existence they have…

K: We so-called mature people have a little bit captured that, but they haven’t captured it. But now we come to much… their daily life, we want order and the awakening of intelligence, together. What shall we do? How shall we bring this about in the student?

PB: Krishanji, we keep coming to the point where you say, ‘How will we do this? Tell me how. Tell me how.’ You keep saying this.

K: No, sorry, I use…

PB: No, I know you’re not meaning method and so on, still I feel very much that if one cares very deeply about this one is passionate about this…

K: I am asking — that’s what I feel, for God’s sake.

PB: And that’s what I feel. I can’t tell you how.

K: No, I’m not… No, no.

PB: All I can say is…

K: You see the importance…

PB: …completely.

K: Wait a minute. You see completely or somewhat the importance of these two working together: awakening of intelligence and order at the same time, so there is no disorder, mess and all that. So, how shall we work together, teach each other and the student, to bring this about? What shall we do? There is an action to take place. You can’t leave it to each one of us to do it. You may be doing the right thing and I come along and destroy what you’re doing.

PB: Well, that’s the only question. I don’t think I’m in any conflict about action one-to-one or me with a class. I don’t know the question of the whole group.

K: So it must be done together.

PB: Yes, I feel that.

K: It must be done together. So let’s find out how this can… to bring this about, approach, what shall we do? We want the student and each other to have that intelligence, the awakening of it and order.

(Pause)

I mean, don’t go back and say, ‘Do we see it, the importance of it?’ — if you don’t then God help us. If we do then how shall we deal with this question with regard to the student? Knowing we’re off the pedestal, all that.

PB: You know, I think when the new students come here they come over a period of one or two days, a bit longer — and I’m partly speaking from my own memory of my coming here — I feel they come into an existing situation. They come full of an image about this place, what Brockwood’s going to be, and they come full of an image about you.

K: I know, I know.

PB: Yes, but this is a fact.

K: I know, sir.

PB: So they have this idea of what this place is. Then later on because we’ve not dealt with that, they find the disparity between the image and the reality, and there’s a great problem.

K: Yes, but I am concerned the moment they come here, the first day — just a minute, forgive me — the first day they come here this is what they must meet.

PB: Right. I think there’s a real place, particularly for the new students, for us all to talk together about what on earth we’re doing here.

K: That’s what I propose. When the first day they come, after put their valise and slept, I say, ‘Look, 9 o’clock we’re all going to meet’ — or whatever time — ‘and we’re going to discuss this thing together.’

PB: Yes. Now we do this, we do meet, but my feeling about it is that we don’t really satisfy the student’s wish to know what on earth he’s doing here, in a deep way.

K: That’s our job.

PB: Yes, indeed. Now there comes the question: who does this talking? This is another matter, but I think very much in the group here there’s a reluctance. When you say, ‘Do you understand this? Do you see this? Do you feel this?’ there’s a reluctance, I sense, for anyone to say, ‘Yes, by Jove, I actually see that,’ because I don’t want to stand out and say, ‘I think I see that,’ and other people think, you know, ‘What an egotist,’ or something.

K: Listen, sir, on the 25th in the morning they will all be here — 26th or whatever it is. Before they plunge into subjects and all the rest of it, let’s spend the whole morning sitting together and talking to them about all this. Together — not I talk and you keep quiet, or you talk and I keep quiet — together they must feel that we are all in this boat.

PB: Yes, I think it is much, much more important to begin in this way, before we even begin to talk about the structure of how we are going to do this.

K: No, no, leave that. I am saying the first thing they meet, an extraordinary sense of solidarity amongst us about this thing, that they can’t play games with each one of us — you follow? — that we are all concerned about this fact, this awakening of intelligence and order.

PB: And they meet a group of people here who they actually… perhaps can see care very deeply.

K: That’s why we said let’s all meet before the gang arrives so that we are clear somewhat, as much as we can. We’ll discuss more and more so that we are very clear on this matter, that they must have this feeling of awakening of this extraordinary intelligence and order.

Right, sir? What do you say?

Q: Yes.

K: So before the 25th we’ll meet as often as we can here, all of us, and discuss all these matters.

MZ: So when will we meet again?

K: Saturday?

It’s quarter past — good Lord!

JZ: Sir, in a school that I started when I was around seventeen years old, they had a period where all the new students came before the old students — they called it an orientation week — and all the new ones would come one week ahead of the older ones. And they were fresh, you see, they didn’t know…

K: Yes, quite, quite, quite.

JZ: And then there were continual meetings and interactions with the staff, an introduction to the routine, to the way of life. In looking back on that it was a very good thing because the old students carry with them their own atmosphere.

K: I know, I know — it’s a good idea.

JZ: And they have a lot of influence. And that influence is even strengthened when the student knows nothing. If an old student has to show him where the lavatories are, what time to get up, where to get a cup of coffee, it gives him a certain…

Q: Power.

JZ: Yes, a certain power and an influence, whereas if we can…

K: …slip in.

JZ: Yes. They just learn to live with us, and then when the new…

K: It’s a good idea.

JZ: I mean, they may have an atmosphere of their own created that the old students have to fit into.

K: Right.

DS: Yes… (inaudible)

CS: Well, we can’t really arrange it for this year.

DS: I don’t know.

BJ: Well, we’ve begun already. Adrian knows, apparently, everything of the building.

PB: Yes, that’s one out of twenty.

CS: I mean, they’re coming — we can’t expect them to change aeroplanes and what have you.

Q: Yes, but it might be something.

K: Something in this — we’ll talk about it. We’d better stop now because it’s twenty past one. Nearly two hours — Zeus!