K School – Adults Discussion 2, Brockwood Park, 18 September 1980
Krishnamurti: Would it be possible if we all met very often before I leave for India?
Questioner: It makes a funny echo, doesn’t it?
Harsh Tanka: The loudspeakers?
Q: Yes. (Inaudible)
Q: I couldn’t hear.
Q: (Inaudible)
K: What?
Q: (Inaudible)
K: I can’t hear what…
Q: It only played this side and not this side. There is nothing in this ear; it’s like…
Scott Forbes: Perhaps you’ll have to speak up, Krishnaji.
Mary Zimbalist: There is something funny about the acoustics in this room.
K: All right, you are saying speak louder.
Q: Right. (Laughter)
Q: Maybe close the…
K: Would it be all right, if it is convenient for you all, that we meet very often before I leave?
Group: Yes.
K: I leave 1st of… or 31st… 30th of October. I have to be there in India on November the 1st but I would like to have a few days of rest before I leave for India. So can we have it as long… practically every other day, if it is suitable and convenient for you all, and if you can bear me. I am saying this politely; I am not fishing.
First of all, I would like to suggest that we all put aside our opinions and if we can, all together, have one mind. Is that possible? Not about Harsha’s son or kindergarten school or whatever it is — that comes much later or little later — can we all have… can we all think together? Not about something, but the capacity to think — not from my point of view or your point of view but to think so that we are all thinking the same thing together. It doesn’t mean that we are conforming or having a dictatorial imprint or anything. Thinking together — can we do it? Because from what… the last time we met here — that was the day before yesterday — I saw, if you will forgive me, that you were all offering opinions galore, everybody saying different things. So could we cooperate together about something, and the feeling of cooperation, feeling of trust and cooperating with each other? I don’t know if I am making myself clear.
Why is there such different attitudes about each one? Why is there such a different outlook in all of us? Is it that there is no crisis, and therefore a crisis brings us together? You understand what I am saying? Am I making… A crisis: if the house burnt, we’d all be working together. We wouldn’t be arguing, discussing while the house burnt, we’d be doing something. So, does a crisis bring us together? Or a really profound problem or issue with which we are all concerned, will that bring us together? Please, let us talk.
Q: If everybody is aware that there’s a crisis, probably yes, we’d work together.
K: Isn’t there is a crisis here now? Because the crisis here is that we are all pulling in different directions, that we are all concerned, not about the main issue — I may be wrong, so correct me. The crisis is there.
Q: But we don’t perceive it as a crisis.
K: Don’t you see it as a crisis when you and I, living in the same house, perhaps we don’t trust each other — I am not saying we do or don’t; perhaps — we don’t trust each other, there is no actual communication with each other, we are offering opinions about each other, there is no flowering together. I don’t know if I am making myself clear.
Group: Yes.
Q: But I think this is the situation probably all of us have lived with all of our lives, so it’s not anything new.
K: No, I am bringing it…
Q: We become used to it.
K: Yes. The crisis is there.
Q: But it’s always been there, I mean. It’s always been there.
K: Of course, of course.
Q: And we have become quite used to it.
K: But we are bringing it forward. Now, can we all get together and resolve it together? Could we all have one mind? That means not a mind that merely accepts, rejects, but thinking together so as to have a mind that is… You know what I am talking about, don’t you?
Q: So when you say, ‘Can we put aside our opinions?’ do we necessarily know they have been put aside?
K: Sir, the whole world is full of opinions — right? — everybody expresses his opinion. Newspapers are full of that. And everybody says… But these opinions are penny to the dozen. Right?
Q: Yes, we see that. I think I see that in myself, but when we start talking, the difficulty seems to come in whether we are expressing an opinion or whether we are going to react with an opinion.
K: No, let’s find out, sir. Let’s find out. No, much more important than opinions is: can we, all of us have the same direction, a mind that is active together, feeling… You understand what I am talking about?
Q: It seems… I may be wrong, but it seems at times when people work together they may… when they start they may have opinions about something and yet if they really want to work together the opinions can be dropped and won’t get in the way. But if there isn’t some sort of strong trust between the people…
K: I beg your pardon?
Q: If there isn’t that trust between the people, they never seem to get started. They may have opinions and the opinions can be dropped fairly easily, but if the trust isn’t there then it’s very hard to even begin.
K: All right. Are you asking: is there trust between us?
Q: Yes.
K: Now, just a minute, sir. Is that a crisis?
Q: Yes.
K: Suppose I am married to you. If we don’t trust together, it’s finished. Right? So, I am asking: is that an issue that’s important?
Q: Yes.
K: Now, how do you bring trust? How do you… Let’s think it — all right — let’s think about this together. Right? Can we? Oh, come on, sirs, what am I to say? May I begin? Do you trust me? Be very honest. You know what is implied in that word? Not the meaning of the word but the content of it. That I wouldn’t harm you, that I wouldn’t betray you, that I wouldn’t exploit you, I won’t use you for my convenience, and so on, so on. I trust you. Go on, sir, don’t let me talk all the time. Join with this. I have asked you. I have asked you a question. Do you trust me? Don’t be frightened. If you say, ‘I don’t,’ it’s all right. I am not frightened, I am not saying, ‘Oh my God, they don’t trust me!’ I won’t weep over it. But I want to find out: do you trust me?
Mary Zimbalist: Yes.
France McCann: Yes, of course.
K: No, not you, Miss McCann, I am asking… No, I am asking them. Do you trust me? Why? Come on, sir, join in this!
Giselle Balleys: Sometimes we are also a little afraid to express with you.
K: No, trust is not… That may be different. Do you trust somebody? Do you trust each other? Do you trust me? I am being personal… It’s not personal. Please forgive me — it’s not personal. I am trying to bring it down to earth.
GB: But for that we must drop completely our fear.
K: No, no, I am asking something else — not ‘drop’. Do you trust me?
GB: Yes.
K: Why? You don’t know me. Why do you trust me if you… I am asking you. Please, join. Come on, don’t sit there.
Q: Well, we know what you have done with your life; we’ve watched you.
K: Is that what makes you trust me?
Q: Well, in some sense it lends a capacity to trust, because, I mean, you are not contradictory, you are not… you know, you are straightforward and honest. I mean, that’s…
K: You are not meeting my point.
Q: Does this not imply that we have to take a journey in ourselves?
K: No, no, sir. Just listen. I don’t know you. Literally, I don’t know you. I have seen you here for the last two years, I have talked to you, you have talked to me, we have been in the same room, and so on. Does trust depend on all that? Working together, walking together, you know, doing things — does that create trust or is trust something quite different?
Q: It’s quite different.
K: Now, please, come…
SF: Sir, often you trust someone that you’ve just met, in the sense that you have no fear of them, you don’t… you have no apprehensions, and you don’t mind exposing yourself. There is a certain trust there which hasn’t been built on past experiences.
K: So, how does… have we that kind of trust?
Shakuntala Narayan: I think, sir, generally one starts with trust. I think generally one starts with trust. I mean, I think this group, when we first began to work together, I think we started by trusting one another. I mean, it’s…
K: Now what has happened?
SN: But what happens is when we begin to work together…
K: It’s gone.
SN: …something happens. It seems like…
K: Now go step by step into it. You started, according to you, with trust. And in working together, during these years, that gradually has disappeared.
SN: Well, I wouldn’t say it is disappeared.
K: All right — diminished.
SN: Well, it changes. Sometimes there is trust and sometimes there isn’t. You know, something happens, there is…
K: Go on, pursue it.
SN: There is a conflict or there is a difference of opinion.
K: What makes for that conflict?
SN: Well, a difference of opinion, it could be.
K: Why? Why?
SN: Well, obviously we’re not…
K: No, fix it and remove it. If you and I work together, and gradually what begins to interfere?
SN: It seems we have different ways of looking at things.
K: Does that make for distrust?
SN: Well, sometimes it does.
K: Why? Look, you teach English and I teach mathematics. There, there is no question of distrust.
SN: No.
K: Where does distrust begin slowly?
SF: From hurt.
Q: Overlapping. Overlapping, territory. Something to do with…
GB: We build an image about the other one.
K: Is that a problem to us here now?
Q: Yes, I think it is.
K: You have all worked together and gradually the thing is breaking, moving away from the central trust. Is that it?
Q: I think it’s a great deal to do with it.
Q: Yes.
K: Would that be an issue? Would that be a crisis? That gradually the distrust has crept in. Right? Gradually. And that is breaking up slowly, breaking up this feeling that we are not together.
SF: Yes, sir.
K: Is that a demanding, I mean, urgent crisis? Or do you say, ‘Well, it’s not quite with me but it may be with you but I am not like that. I trust, but you don’t trust. I am not so distrustful, discouraged about it, I am still holding on’? And when… if it is a crisis, it must affect all of us. Like war is a crisis which affects all of us.
SN: I don’t think the situation is so hopeless. I don’t think the situation is hopeless.
K: No, I didn’t say. Lady, I didn’t say it was hopeless. On the contrary. If it is a crisis which we must meet, we must find the answer for it.
(Pause)
Now can we put all our minds together and see if this crisis cannot be resolved? If it is a crisis; I am not saying it’s a crisis.
(Pause)
SF: It seems that if that distrust is there, it must be a crisis.
K: Why?
SF: Because it affects all of our relationships and the way we deal with one another, and the very character of the place.
K: Is that so? Do you distrust? Or Shakuntalaji has brought that, a point, and then you are making that a point. You follow? Do you feel… Sir, I am asking, do you… If there is trust — trust — how can it be diminished? You understand? If I trust you, what happens? I see all the difficulties. I know you are going to do all kinds of things, contradict, do things which I may not like, and so on, so on, but the feeling that I trust you is there. Or not?
SF: Are you saying that if there is trust there then it won’t be destroyed by what someone else does?
K: Why? If it is destroyed, I want to know why. Because you have different opinions? I know a chap who, during the Second World War, he was caught in a certain country and he had to leave immediately. So he had a lot of money on him — he had just drawn from bank, gone to the bank and drawn most of his money, and said to his real friend, he said, ‘Here, hold it, for God’s sake, I can’t take it abroad, cross a frontier with this lot of money, keep it till the war is over and I come back.’ He came back and he was a great friend. He said, ‘Please.’ He said, ‘What money?’ Now, there it is obvious — right? — there is no… I trusted the man and he stole the money. Full stop. And so I no longer have trust in him. But I haven’t lost the quality of trust. I wonder if I am making myself… I wonder if I am making… Am I talking nonsense?
SF: Well, what’s that quality? What is that quality of trust?
K: Just a minute, sir. So, now I am asking you, all of you, what is our difficulty in all this? What’s our difficulty, Shakuntalaji?
SN: Well, I don’t feel that it’s as great a difficulty as it’s been made out to seem.
K: Oh, I see.
SN: Personally, I don’t feel that it’s over here. I mean, I see the crisis but I don’t see a crisis over here at this moment. I don’t think this is a moment of… Personally, I don’t.
K: So you say everything is all right?
SN: I don’t say everything is all right but I don’t say that, you know, there is a loss of trust amongst us all.
K: I don’t know, lady, I am asking you.
SN: Well, personally I don’t feel there is a loss of trust.
K: So then do we think together?
SF: Well, perhaps there is not an exceptional loss of trust, perhaps it’s just an ordinary…
K: Forget trust, sir. Leave trust now. I see that… Now, all right, let’s come, approach it differently. Do we think together?
Q: No, we don’t.
K: Now…
Q: Or at least, very seldom. We might do if we’re faced with a problem but on the whole we don’t.
K: Is that creating a problem, or problems?
SN: That creates problems all the time, actually.
K: So, lady, what will you do?
(Pause)
Doris Pratt: It seems to me that I can only think from my accumulation, and as each one of us has a different accumulation we have a different point of view or issue to put into the whole, and we need that variety of contribution.
K: Oh.
DP: In order to see all around the problem.
K: Oh, is that it?
DP: Well, that could…
K: Just look at it, Miss Pratt, what you are saying. I have my accumulation, you have yours, and from that accumulated memories and all that, I express something and you express something. It must be different, as you say. The difference contributes to greater understanding.
Q: Well, I find it very confusing. I don’t think it helps to a greater understanding at all.
DP: Well, I mean to say, if in point of fact I may say of some student, ‘I think he’s like this,’ somebody else says, ‘I find him like this,’ somebody else says, ‘I find him like this,’ and from the whole of that we have to get some sort of an assessment.
K: Is that how you assess?
DP: (Inaudible)
K: No, you are… How do we proceed? How do we proceed to have the capacity to think together?
DP: The word ‘think’ is the difficulty. The word ‘think’.
K: Oh, no, Miss Pratt, don’t make it something… Think together.
DP: ‘Think’ is turning over grey matter.
K: We think together to build a house. We think together to play football. We think together to build a school, we think…
DP: It’s all very well… In all those things, Krishnaji…
K: Would you mind letting me finish what I want to say? We think together about all these things. We think together to do something. Here, do we think together to flower together? You understand my question?
Q: When we are playing football or building a house, we know what we are doing, we know what the end is, but the flowering we don’t know.
K: Wait, sir. I said, do we think together in order that each one of us flowers.
Q: But we don’t know what that is.
K: Ah! I will explain what I mean. If that is the lack of direction, I will tell you what it means. Shall I go into it?
Q: Yes.
K: First of all, are we flowering here — growing, expanding? Not physically bigger, I hope not. (Laughter) Expanding. Your mind is much freer, alive, no prejudice, seeing — you know? — growing. Like a flower growing, that’s not stunted, that’s has beauty, that has perfume, alive, moving, that is free, that understands love. You know, all that, what we were discussing this morning, and more. That is to flower.
Q: That might be the problem, because it may be that the intention to do that isn’t strong enough, that we all meet with the same…
K: So then, sir, what is preventing us? You understand what I mean? Say I am here as a teacher or as a sweeper, whatever, a gardener, am I… in me is there a freedom, an affection — in me, not in you, in me — that is flowering, growing, seeing things as they are — you know, all that. Or is it all narrowing it down? What do I say?
David Bohm: Maybe, since we have been discussing thinking in a very negative way, generally it is something rather destructive, and maybe we should make it clear what does it mean to really think together. What is happening?
K: Yes, sir — what is happening?
DB: When we are thinking constructively together.
K :Yes, when we think together, what is happening? You understand? When we are thinking together to build a house — let’s begin there — to build a house, what’s happening? Come on.
Q: Our minds are working together.
K: Which means what?
GB: We coordinate the actions.
K: We both want to build a house — right? — architect and all the rest of it. You may suggest a larger room and I say, ‘No, too large,’ but it’s always together we are doing it. Isn’t there? It shouldn’t you are building house, I am not, I am contributing to it or I am contradicting — the movement is together. Right? Right? Sure?
Q: Sure.
K: Sure. I don’t know. Now, does this movement of being together exist? Or each one says, ‘No, this should be that way, that should…’ You should say it, but it’s together. You understand what I am saying?
Q: It’s the difficulty when the aim isn’t so clear. When there is a clear aim with something…
K: All right. Is that the difficulty, that we have no clear aim?
SF: No, sir, I think the things touch the individual person too much and that’s where we get into difficulty. If it’s a question of something outside, over there, it’s quite easy to talk together or to work together — or it’s much easier, because it’s not threatening at all.
K: Is that the difficulty? That we cannot… each one is such a strong individual, strong opinions, strong points of view, that we can’t meet each other. Is that it?
Q: I don’t think we can’t meet each other or that we don’t work together.
K: Ah, no. I said think together, not work together.
Q: Well, I think basically we do think together.
K: All right, then the problem is solved.
Q: We disagree about the size of the room, maybe, but not about…
K: Is that it? Is that it? Be clear.
Q: It seems so to me.
K: I don’t know — ask them. They don’t talk.
SF: No, I don’t feel that we do think together as well as we could. I think that there is moments where we think together.
K: Not ‘as well as you could’. (Laughs) Either you pull the rope together or you don’t.
Am I saying something outrageous?
Q: Sir, in the example you gave of the house, if the two of us are trying to make a house, and if one of us is building a house because I’ve got this great idea about a house, how it should be — you know? — and says, ‘Look, I understand your idea but I think this is really great,’ and I keep on pressing, pushing it, because I think what I’ve got is really, you know, very important, I think that causes a problem.
K: All right. Is that it? You pressure me. Either I yield to you or I fight you.
Q: Yes.
K: Is that it?
Q: Well, that’s what can happen. It’s not satisfaction at all. I mean, otherwise two people would work together and build a good house, but if one person feels something strongly that they won’t let go of, they’re not ready to…
K: Are you saying we don’t yield to each other? You don’t yield and I don’t yield. You understand?
SN: Or one bullies the other and the yields.
K: Yes, that’s it. Is that what… is that thinking together?
SN: It’s not thinking together.
K: (Laughs) So how do we bring about this capacity to think together? That doesn’t mean you can’t suggest, I won’t accept or I won’t… Thinking together.
SN: Well, first of all, if we have to think together there mustn’t be any superiority and inferiority.
K: No. Why not?
SN: Well, because…
K: You are a mathematician. You are superior. Dr Bohm is superior to me. What the heck?
SN: Yes, in matters like that, but in psychological matters.
K: Even psychologically you may be better than me. You have understood more.
SN: Yes, but that doesn’t mean I am going to bully you.
K: No, but there is inequality.
SN: Yes, there is inequality but…
K: But first accept it.
SN: Yes, I accept that but I am saying the attitude mustn’t be that I am bullying you into…
K: Not ‘your attitude mustn’t be’ — then you enter into suppositions and we are lost. We are trying to find out together why we can’t look at the same thing with the same outlook. You may. I am not saying you are not. We don’t advance, you see?
SF: It’s not clear why we don’t, Krishnaji. It’s clear that we don’t, but not why we don’t.
K: It’s clear that you don’t?
SF: Yes.
SN: Well, I feel that basically we want the same thing. I feel basically we want the same thing with regard to Brockwood.
K: All right.
SN: But in the working out of the details, we clash.
K: So, you want the same thing, but working it out there is… in details, that’s where the conflict comes in.
SN: Yes. I say, ‘This is the right way to do it,’ and someone else says, ‘No, my way is the right way,’ and that’s when the…
K: Now, will the man who says, ‘This is the right way,’ will he yield to you or will you yield to him, or do we stick to our own point of view?
SF: It’s not clear Krishnaji that even that yielding is going to be thinking together. I mean, we could take your turns yielding and that’s still not going to be thinking together.
K: No.
DB: It seems that we have to yield to reason, to intelligence, you see. If we consider each other’s points of view, and we have to be at least open, the important point is not whether we… not to start with whether we yield but the state of mind that is ready to yield to intelligence.
DP: I didn’t quite understand that.
DB: Well, you see, if you are holding to your own position then you are not ready to yield.
DP: But we all are, aren’t we?
DB: So then it’s impossible. Right? Now, if you begin with the way we are then the whole thing is impossible. I mean, that’s the way it looks to me. I mean, if you just stick there.
Q: So you begin with the intention to yield.
DB: Well, no, but to see the importance of yielding when reason shows, or something shows, the facts shows it’s necessary. Somebody else may show it’s necessary to do it another way.
DP: Otherwise, you stick to your…
DB: If you stick, if everybody says, ‘I stick to my way,’ then we can’t begin. Right?
DP: No, but I mean, you say yield to reason, but if you can’t see the reason.
DB: Then we have to discuss some more.
DP: (Inaudible) We are caught in that.
Q: I think that’s the difficult point, when you say will we yield to reason. As Doris said, who’s going to say what is reason and what is not? Or how do you see the reason of something and know it’s not an opinion?
DB: The thing is, in the very beginning, before we start, we have to be in a state of mind which is not going to hold for personal reasons, saying, ‘Just because it’s my idea I’m holding to it.’ I mean, if somebody says something that upsets my view then I react with disturbance.
DP: You say, in the beginning one has to be in a state of mind — when is that beginning?
K: Look, Miss Pratt, I want to think with you. Are you willing to think with me?
DP: I think I am willing.
K: Willing. Just a minute, that’s all he said. I want to think with you about something together. Are we, both of us, willing to think together about that?
DP: Yes.
K: Yes. Now, can we think together without that?
Q: Without what?
Q: Without a particular thing.
K: Particular thing — yes. Which means the capacity or the feeling or the affection that, ‘Let’s think together.’ To have one mind — not dictatorial, you know, dictatorship, totalitarian, big brother, all that kind of stuff. Apparently, this seems to be so terribly difficult. I may be wrong. Apparently — when I say ‘apparently’, seemingly.
Q: Well, it’s new, I think, because to actually… you have to have a feel for the intention, it has to be brought to your notice, for a start, but there is a such a thing as this intention which is what you are doing here now.
K: Look, sir, if Brockwood is our place — right? — we must… there must be a… we are all working for it. Right? And that demands that all of us have the same feeling, same feeling about the place. Right? Don’t we? And also to diminish our own particular idiosyncrasy and say, ‘Look, this is important, not me.’ So, we are moving together. I don’t know how to express any more. Does this exist? If it exists, it’s finished, there is nothing more to be said. You may…
MZ: Krishnaji, within that feeling is there a certain margin for different opinions and disagreement?
K: To me, opinions are valueless, personally.
MZ: Say you are considering building this house. Surely not everyone will want exactly, every detail in the house the same. But you’re all agreed that you want to build a house, that you have affection for the project, you want to go ahead.
K: Look — yes — I would say to the architect who is building the house, I say… I’ll tell him what I want. I will leave it to him. I will tell him exactly what I want — the size of the rooms, how many rooms.
SF: That’s the problem, Krishnaji, is that when there’s ten people who decide exactly what they want…
K: No, no.
MZ: Whom do you leave it to?
K: Ten of us are building the house.
SF: And ten of us are saying exactly what we want.
K: Yes, saying exactly what you want.
SF: Yes, but it’s a hundred different things.
K: Say it.
SF: And then what, sir?
K: See, we are building the house together — say exactly what you want, whether that’s possible to do within the area, within the amount we have money for it — we express all our feelings. And if we cannot do certain things, sorry, we can’t. And I say, though I suggested it, ‘I am sorry, it can’t.’ So I don’t carry the grudge about it. I don’t think, ‘Why didn’t you…’ and so on — it can’t be done.
MZ: But sir, if you wanted a brick house… You wanted to build a house of brick and someone else wanted to build it of wood, it’s not what can be done — either can be done. How do you come to…
K: I don’t understand what you are saying. Be simple.
MZ: One person wants to build a house of brick, the other person wants to build a wooden house. Both are possible.
K: Oh, really, we are reducing it to such absurdity.
MZ: Well, I am trying to use your factual analogy.
K: When I want to build a house, I want to build it. I don’t care whether it’s a large house, small, or wood. I want to build something that’s lasting, that’s beautiful, that will contain everything that I want. That’s all. If you say it’s wood, I say, ‘All right, have it.’
DB: Well, it seems to me there that people can give their reasons why they prefer one or the other and eventually they should be able to work it out.
DP: I think we have to abandon building a house. We want to build a place, not a structure, where something…
K: No, please.
DP: …really good is happening.
K: I wonder if we are disturbing more than we are doing good. (Laughs)
DP: That’s a terrible thing to say, because it means we may as well all go home.
K: Miss Pratt, you haven’t even… you are already ready to offer an opinion.
DP: No, I left several seconds after you finished. (Laughter) No, sir. If we are creating more disturbance than we are doing good, perhaps, then that is a crisis, if you are telling us that.
K: Why are you…
SF: Krishnaji, it seems — I don’t understand it but it seems that for this thinking together to occur we have to be able to abandon our egos, we have to be able to put aside our conditionings, put aside our prejudices and our opinions.
K: Begin then, do it.
SF: That’s a very big beginning.
K: It’s not very big. When you want to do it, you do it.
SF: We have to be ready to expose ourselves to being hurt. We have to do an awful lot which actually threatens us terrifically.
K: You see, two people speak, we don’t… none of us speak — all of us.
Q: Could we discuss some factual thing and watch in operation what happens?
K: The factual thing is that we are all offering opinions. Right? And what? And then what? And opinions are penny to the half a dozen, or a dozen or a hundred. And doesn’t one see opinions have really very little value? Right? Then why do you — not you — why do we offer opinions all the time?
DP: I think it’s not an opinion but a fact.
K: Wait a minute, wait a minute — what is a fact?
DP: What I am going to say. What I am going to try and say.
K: What?
DP: I am going to try and say.
K: Say it.
DP: I think it is a fact that everybody here, whether they are able to say it or not, really loves what you are saying and you.
K: May I… Oh, you have finished?
DP: I am not sure. I thought you interrupted. Am I mistaken? Am I mistaken?
Q: I don’t know, but you may be sentimental.
K: Look…
DP: Am I mistaken, Krishnaji?
K: I feel it’s very important, I really do, that we all have the capacity to think together. Right? I feel that’s immensely important. I’d like to convey it to you because we are all living in Brockwood and I am quite sure if we all think, we can… we will bring about a marvellous centre here. Not that it’s not — don’t jump on me — that it’s not or that it is. And so I say please have the goodness to find out for yourself what it is to think together. This morning, Dr Bohm and I were thinking together. Right? Right, sir? We were both pushing, pushing, pushing, investigating, withdrawing, investigating, so it’s not quite like that, it’s like this. And at that moment there was no Dr Bohm or me; we were together looking, looking, looking — right? — answering, questioning, exposing, saying, ‘This is not quite like this,’ and so kept moving, moving, together. Right? Can we do this? Can I do it with you?
Q: Sir, I think sometimes we don’t this to the very end amongst ourselves.
K: No, no, no — begin. No, sir, please. Just let me finish. Can we do it together? Or we are hesitant, nervous, afraid to expose, afraid to — you follow what I am saying? I don’t seem to meet you. Do you see that’s a very important thing to do, to think together?
Q: Yes, absolutely vital.
Q: Yes.
Q: Absolutely vital.
K: Vital. Now just a minute, sir. Now, can you and I see why we don’t?
Q: Yes, I think at periods in time we do it, and we don’t understand what comes in that sends it haywire. We don’t understand.
K: No, before. As the haywire arises, can you examine it and let the haywire disappear? You follow what I am saying? I want to think with you, look out of the same… and so on.
Q: Yes.
K: Now, I see something is creeping up in me which is going to prevent our thinking together — my dislike of you or my something or other. Can’t I see, ‘By Jove, that is going to prevent me from thinking together’? So I will not allow it to interfere because my intention with you is to think together. You follow what I am saying? So, that becomes irrelevant. Right?
Q: Yes, sir.
K: Now, are we in that position? We have… both of us have placed thinking together as the most important thing.
Q: Yes, sir. Yes.
K: And anything that interferes with it, my pleasure or my like, I will completely put it aside, because thinking together is far more important than my idiosyncrasy, my opinion. I don’t know if I am conveying it.
Q: Yes.
K: Then why can’t I do it?
Q: You said that hate, that distraction as it’s occurring has got to be caught at that moment.
K: At that moment.
Q: Yes.
K: That’s it.
Q: The moment it’s gone a fraction too long, you are finished. Yes.
K: That’s right, that’s right. Can I do that? Can we do that?
HT: So you can only think together with someone if you both have an interest in…
K: Ah, ah, no, then you are lost. Then if the interest changes you and I break up.
HT: But if one person does not want to talk about something… (inaudible)
K: If you definitely say, ‘I don’t want to think together,’ the problem is quite different. Isn’t it? If I say to you, ‘Sorry, I don’t want to think together’ — right? — there’s no problem.
HT: Then we just don’t think together.
K: Yes, we don’t. But if you and I see that thinking together is most essential, then anything that interferes with it is irrelevant. Right? And that irrelevancy is washed, put aside completely.
HT: Then that must mean that if we don’t think together it is because we don’t really see the necessity for it.
K: You don’t want to think together.
HT: We don’t want to think together.
K: That’s all.
HT: But we say we want to.
K: Oh, then that’s all playing with words. I want to think with you together. I want to. I really want to. I think that’s the only way to create, to live, to bring about something. You follow? And to me that’s tremendously important. I won’t let my prejudice — because you wear a black dress or you are an Indian or I don’t like you or you are this or that — I say, ‘All that, yes, yes’ — put all that aside — but that is the central thing which I am going to hold on to. No?
HT: Sir, is this thinking together just between two people or three people?
K: All of us.
HT: All of just us in the room.
K: Us. Begin with the… (laughs) You understand, sir? Look, sir, how extraordinarily difficult this is between us? You follow? We have known each other, we have lived for ten, fifteen, thirty years — apparently we can’t… And outside people, well, they say, ‘Go to hell. What are you talking about, thinking together?’ They say, ‘You are a communist or you are a…’ — you follow? — and throw me out. But here we are not throwing each other out, we are willing and examining the necessity and the urgency of thinking together. Right? If you say to me, ‘Sorry, I don’t want to think together,’ you and I will be friends but it will be finished. Friends — you know what I mean. But if you say, ‘I want to think with you because I see it’s tremendously important, because it’s only when you and I think together we can build, create.’ I don’t know. You follow what I am saying?
HT: But in spite of that it doesn’t happen.
K: What?
HT: In spite of feeling like that it may not happen, that we think together.
K: Oh yes, it will happen if you want to. If you want to marry that woman, you do everything you want to. You don’t say, ‘Well, it might not happen, shall I hesitate, shall I look around for a more beautiful girl?’ and go around the world looking for a beautiful girl — you would end up… (laughs)
No, please, sirs, this is… No, I said we’ll talk, if you are willing, if you want to, only one hour, not endlessly go on. So, it’s nearly an hour. It is an hour. So, do we want really to think together? Not ‘want’ in the sense, ‘Yes, I want, but if it isn’t convenient, I won’t.’ (Laughs)
Q: It also seems that trust is born when you see another person or you see yourself being… watching the beginning of the haywire that David was talking about.
K: No. No, we are beginning today, anew. Forget all that. And I say please, it is tremendously important for Brockwood, for ourselves, for humanity that there are a group of people who are really thinking together. If you say, ‘I really want to think together,’ then let’s go at it. You understand what I mean? Let’s go at it. You see, if you are thinking together you will contribute. You understand what I am saying? I wonder if you understand what I am saying. Don’t nod your head if you don’t agree basically. Don’t say, ‘Yes, carry on.’ But thinking together is… in that you are contributing, I am contributing, we are all adding, adding, adding, adding, moving. That is flowering, that is to move from one’s terribly anchored little self. You know, move.
(Pause)
When shall we meet again? Mrs D, or all of you, when shall we meet? I’d like to meet if possible every day.
Dorothy Simmons: Tomorrow.
K: Don’t bother me, whether I get tried, whether I am old — forget all that. Just find out if you want this.
HT: If we can keep it brief, sir. If we can keep it brief.
K: I am going to keep it brief. I’m not letting it draw on for the next three hours. I want to stop now. So, shall we meet?
DS: 4 o’clock tomorrow.
Q: 4 o’clock tomorrow.
K: All right. Don’t look at me as though I am getting tired. This is… I am going to do this until you all… (laughter) …burn together. All right? I have to talk to somebody tomorrow.
MZ: Yes, you are talking in the morning, sir. You are talking to the Marogers in the afternoon. You are talking Saturday morning and you were going to talk to the staff on Sunday afternoon.
K: That’s all right.
MZ: When will you talk to…
K: …Marogers. We will fix it.
MZ: Fix it? What hour is there in the day?
K: We’ll fix it. Do we want this, first of all? Please, I want to be quite clear this is a voluntary thing; I am not forcing you to meet me. If you say, ‘Go to hell,’ I’ll go. I say, ‘All right.’ (Laughter) I mean it. If you really want this every day, I will go at it. It may not be possible tomorrow or day after tomorrow, but we will go at it every day if necessary. And it means you are expending your energy, not me alone. Right?
MZ: Did you say how long sir? I can’t hear very well. Did you say how long you are going to continue this? I didn’t hear, I couldn’t hear.
K: Until doomsday. (Laughs)
MZ: Well…
SN: Until October.
K: I am going to have a holiday. I am going to… before I go to India I have to have rest. So, it will be probably from the 10th until I leave, or for two weeks or three weeks before I leave. I must have a rest because there is a tremendous lot to do in India. So, up to that I am going to drag you and you are going to drag me, if you want it. If you don’t, it’s all right. Right?
SF: Sir? Perhaps it will be better if we alternated the days, not every day.
K: All right. You arrange it, sir.
SF: I think so, because we’d have more energy. This gives us time to talk to one another on the day off.
K: Good, go to it. All right.
SF: I think more good would come out of it.
K: All right. All right? All right? Is that all right, Mrs D? Is that better?
DS: I think it’s better from all our points of view, yes.
K: Right. Every other day.
HT: (Inaudible) was going to say something.
Q: It’s fine.
K: He says that without me you want to see… you get together, discuss this. Right, sir?
SF: Yes, at least opportunity for that.
K: Yes. So, you’d have an opportunity for that. You come every other day. The postman comes every other day. Right? Right. The postman knocks twice, isn’t it, the play?
DS: He only knocks twice… (inaudible)
K: Only knocks. All right.
Please, I would like just to point out, I am very serious. It doesn’t mean I can’t laugh, but I am very serious about this. So, if you don’t want to be serious it’s perfectly all right.
Right.
Q: So we don’t meet tomorrow?
Q: No.
K: Right.
DS: Saturday. Saturday at 4?
Q: 4.
DS Saturday at 4.
K: Is there anything?
SN: There’s you in the morning. You are talking with David in the morning but there’s nothing in the afternoon.
K: Then that’s all right.
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