K School – Adults Discussion 2, Brockwood Park, 6 June 1981
Krishnamurti: May we continue with what we were talking about yesterday? Yes?
Won’t somebody start?
Harsh Tanka: Sir, I would like to ask a question, if I may. We were saying yesterday that knowledge was of no use in the transformation of man. But I’m not sure that we here, as a group, see that that is what we are here for, that…
K: Ah, quite. After all, that’s what you were saying the other day, weren’t you, when we talked about this? That Brockwood and the group here, in this small community, was trying to not only cultivate the academic knowledge but also, if I understood rightly, transform the whole structure, psychological structure of man. Right?
HT: Yes.
K: Are you saying that we are not here for that purpose?
HT: Well, different people may have come here with different ideas of what this place is about — as educating children or looking after… maybe looking after the self or something like that.
K: So, what do the others say? Let’s have a dialogue about this first. Are you saying that we are not sure what Brockwood stands for? Is that it?
HT: Yes, sir.
K: What would you like, or what would you think Brockwood should stand for? What is the general, if they would express it freely, what would they want, what would they envisage Brockwood should be?
(Pause)
All silent. What would you want, sir?
HT: Well, I think that we are here in response to what we see in the world around us.
K: Respond to that? I can’t…
HT: What is the correct response to that?
K: Correct response to what is happening in the world.
HT: Yes.
K: What do the others… I can answer it but I’d like…
Brian Jenkins: I think, I would imagine that most of us would agree with that statement. But it is when we begin to narrow it down that maybe the division is created.
K: No, Harsha asked: what is the correct response to the world around us, the world that is tragic, violent, politically inept and, you know, all the horrors that are going on in this civilisation? So he wants to know, what is the correct response to all that?
Dorothy Simmons: Well, we started it, Krishnaji, as a school. We thought that education would do something about it. How you are educated would do something about that.
K: Yes, how we are educated, and that education would help us to respond properly, correctly.
DS: Yes. And then having gone for ten or twelve years we began to feel that our priorities were getting… were not in order. We felt that we were creating a good school, but a school only, not a whole education, and so we wanted to take it into… just as when you are born and you start from childhood, you learn about things, as you become adult it’s another sort of learning. You are able to view what has happened and we felt that, you are beginning to be adult, could you see what has really caused this chaos and conflict in the world and act rightly in response to that? So we wanted to take the age group up, make it a more adult school, not just a school.
K: Yes. So, what do the others… We discussed this last year, didn’t we, a little bit?
DS: Yes.
K: I’d like you to please, express it. They always keep silent.
HT: Sir, but how do we jump from saying… talking about the correct response, to talking about the transformation of man?
K: How can you respond correctly to all this that’s going on outwardly if there is not transformation in our consciousness, man?
HT: Well, the immediate feeling is that the transformation, or the change that is necessary is a change in myself, in the way that I am or the way that I live my life. And it doesn’t seem clear how the transformation of the whole of man is…
K: …will affect society, will transform society, and so on — is that it? Is that it?
Questioner: Well, I think that, you know, what I find is that I think you can see something going on in yourself which is similar to what is going on in the world, but what happens is that when you start looking at it, that it stops, and it doesn’t end, but you create a logjam in yourself. And it’s very difficult to try to be intelligent without sort of paralysing…
K: I understand, sir. Would you say the world represents, in one word, conflict? Produce all that tremendous chaos, uncertainty, you know all that is happening, would you reduce it, all that, to one word, which will cover all that — conflict? Between man and man, between groups and groups, man and woman, between nations, you know, the whole of this is conflict. Terrorism. Would you agree to that? Come on.
DW: Could we include in that, me and myself?
K: Conflict in myself.
DW: Yes.
Wendy Agnew: In fact, some people have said that that is natural, it happens so much that it is natural for that to happen.
K: So, can we educate students, older students, to understand conflict and go beyond it? That’s the point, isn’t it? Would we agree to that, all of us?
DW: The adults and the students.
K: Yes. Would we agree to that?
Many: Yes.
K: Now, how shall we set about it?
(Pause)
Come on. You are responsible here and you have a group of young people who in themselves are in conflict, and the world is in conflict, and they are the product of the world, of this society, and how would you educate these students — let’s call them for the moment — how would you educate them to understand the whole nature of conflict? And in the understanding of it, intelligence arises, and that intelligence would meet the world. That’s the point. Is that right? Am I putting it rightly? Right?
Q: Yes.
K: Don’t go to sleep on me, please.
WA: I think it is difficult for us to educate them, though. I mean, surely it has to be a mutual education because, I mean, it is not as though we are free of conflict and we can educate the students to be free of conflict. I mean, we can only say that there is conflict.
K: Not only the student but ourselves.
WA: Yes.
DS: In attempting to do that, it is implied in the attempt, isn’t it? It is implied in the attempt.
K: Of course. Naturally. Naturally. So let’s have some common ground on which we all agree — not different opinions, judgements. Do we all agree that Brockwood is a place where we are trying to understand and live, and so the conflict, both outside and inside — right? — could we come… is that the common ground upon which we stand? And find out for ourselves the intelligence that will meet all the world. Right? Would you agree to that?
Many: Yes.
K: No, no, (laughs) not casually. It’s not an argument which we are trying to indulge in, but can we understand this conflict? We so-called grown up people, can we understand this? The nature of it, the essence of this conflict, what this conflict is, whether it’s out there or in our consciousness. I can go on like this — you understand? — if you don’t join me.
DS: Well, in a way, Krishnaji, isn’t it… it’s out there and it is here.
K: I said that. It’s out there and it’s here. And do we really want to find out if it is possible to end this conflict?
Raman Patel: Isn’t it a very important question, whether we really want to find out?
K: I am asking that, sir.
HT: How can one answer such a question?
K: Why not?
Mary Zimbalist: How can one not answer it? (Laughs) I mean, is there anybody who is attached to conflict, who wants to go on in conflict? Surely everyone in the room must be.
K: I think there are many people who want it, because they say nature is in conflict.
MZ: Well then…
K: And we have grown through conflict. We have reached this state of humanity through conflict, and through conflict we’ll advance. A great many people are saying that.
MZ: Many people are, but then why would one come here?
K: No, I am just asking, are we clear on this point? That’s what I want to know.
Shakuntala Narayan: But they may say that theoretically but when they’re…
K: Even intellectually.
SN: No, but what I’m saying is that people who say that, you know, conflict is necessary for progress. I mean, that’s when they see it out there, but when somebody is in the midst of a conflict I don’t think any human being really wants conflict in himself.
K: I’m not sure. We are always climbing the ladder, psychologically as well as physically — right? — trying to become something all the time. Right? That is the essence of conflict.
Montague Simmons: Yes. If you asked any country in the world if they wanted peace, they’d say, ‘Yes, of course we would.’
K: Of course.
MS: And they go to war.
K: Of course.
MS: So it’s no good our saying, ‘Yes, of course we all want to get rid of conflict,’ but conflict is still there.
K: It’s all so crazy.
MS: We don’t really want to get rid of conflict. We haven’t really gone deeply enough into it.
K: No, please, let’s discuss it.
Scott Forbes: Krishnaji, I’m not so sure that we understand the full meaning or the full implications of what conflict is.
K: Now, let’s go into it. If you are willing, let’s go into it. Have a dialogue, not let me talk and you be silent. Let’s have a dialogue about it, all of us. Shall we? Will you all join in? Come on, sir, please.
Q: One way to continue conflict is to search for the ending of conflict.
K: No. Can conflict end through conflict?
Q: No, what I meant was if you really want to continue conflict, quite a subtle way of doing it is to decide you are going to end conflict, and then you spend a lot of energy trying to end conflict.
K: Say for instance, I’m in conflict, in my relationship with others, in my own way of thinking, in my ambition, my loneliness — I am in conflict. Right? I don’t separate this conflict from the world. I don’t separate this conflict from the society in which I live. So, society is me. I am very clear on that point. We have created this society.
HT: The fact is that we do separate this. We do separate ourselves from society.
K: Therefore begin, begin with that. Let’s see why we separate ourselves. You see, you are not applying. Why do we separate ourselves? Is it tradition, habit, tremendous egocentric action, activity? Why do we separate from a very obvious fact that the society, the culture, the government, the whole structure of society is part of me, I am part of that? Do we deny that?
K: Come over here, sir. Hold my hand. Come over here.
Q: I think we do deny it, because… Well, one has been in jobs and things and you’ve seen organisations, and you’ve said, you know, ‘I will do it differently.’
K: No, I’m asking a very simple question, sir, if I may. Am I different from society, the world? Let’s be clear on that one simple fact. Are we separate from all that? We think we are, but is that an illusion or a fact? Come on, please.
MZ: Krishnaji, it is, I think, evidently a fact to many or most of us, but there is also the parallel feeling which is, I cannot change society but I can do something about myself. And that in itself… (inaudible)
K: All right, but it is not a selfish, egotistic movement. That’s what I want to establish. Right? I am part of the world, the world is me. That for me, personally, is an absolute truth. It is so, for me. And when I say I must end conflict in myself, it is not a self-centred activity. That’s all. Would we agree to that? Even intellectually. (Laughs) Is there any doubt about that? Come on, please.
Doris Pratt: Well, all these different bodies, each with their own content, doesn’t help. It makes one more isolated. You look around, you see different individuals… (inaudible)
K: No, you see differences where? Body differences, hair differences, stature, colour, but inwardly, psychologically, we are the same. Go on — you don’t…
SS: Well, we don’t act as if we were, really. I think that’s part of the difficulty. We don’t act as if we were.
K: No, I’m not talking about action. I don’t want to talk about action. First I want to see this fact. See this fact, truth, whatever, this fact that I am not different from the world in which I live. Because man suffers whether it is in India or here or in Kamchatka, or wherever it is, he suffers. That’s common to all mankind. He has fear, uncertainty, desperate loneliness, seeking political power — the whole thing.
SS: I am not arguing, but he does have a compulsion to act, also.
K: First, before I act, I want to see clearly the course of action. Not just act.
DS: Is it that he sees his response, that we are responsible for the mess there is and the chaos?
K: We are, but do we — please — do we recognise this simple fact that man, wherever he is, he suffers, like us, whether British, American, Russian, all the rest of it.
BJ: Krishnaji, I think there’s a point that’s not clear here. You’ve been saying that wherever man is he suffers and we are part of that, and we are suffering, we are in conflict, and the point was made that if we want to end that conflict…
K: No, I don’t. First let us see if we are that.
BJ: Yes.
K: Start, whether we have the common ground upon which we all stand. Not the British, not the French — those are only labels, only words. But psychologically, inwardly we are all… we are humanity. For God’s sake, why don’t you see that? What do you say? Do we see that or not? Not what to do; that comes much later. Therefore when there is war I am responsible for it. Not just the word ‘responsible’, the feeling of it. When there is this terrible terrorism, this political division, all the rest of it, I am responsible for all that.
MZ: Sir, doesn’t that responsibility, that sense of responsibility, lead you immediately to some kind of action? How can you say action…
K: I am sorry, I won’t discuss action.
MZ: But why?
K: I want to… is it a fact that we feel responsible?
DS: But there is a sort of action, isn’t it Krishnaji, if you feel that responsibility, if you see the chaos there is and that you have created it, you are it…
K: You are that.
DS: Isn’t that a sort of action?
K: No, first we don’t… why do we talk about action?
MZ: Because of the very thing you said — because we feel responsible for the monstrosities.
K: No, no. Have I understood, have I seen the depth of the statement?
Pupul Jayakar: May I?
K: Delighted.
PJ: Why should I take the responsibility? Why should I be responsible?
K: No.
PJ: Let me… You see, you are posing something which in its very nature is impossible to accept. Impossible to accept from where I am.
K: Why?
PJ: Because I see a massacre, a Hindu-Muslim massacre. And I look at it and I say, ‘God, how can it be?’ I can’t say that I am responsible for that.
K: Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
PJ: Look sir, you can’t. To say that I am mankind, I am that massacre, I am conflict, and to deny the point in which one comes to you, is not because of that massacre. The point in which one comes to you is a point of deep disturbance within one. And it is an individual. Your refusal to accept the demand of the individual to be free of that.
K: I understand that demand very well, but I say that’s an illusion.
PJ: You say it is illusion.
K: No.
PJ: It’s not an illusion.
K: But let’s discuss it, let us have a dialogue about it. Don’t accept I say it is an illusion.
PJ: No, I say it, that, you know, we hear you and we too easily accept the thing. How does one accept it?
DS: Because we subscribe to it all in our living.
K: Don’t let’s… All right, let’s forget the word ‘responsibility’. All right, let’s leave that.
SF: Well, Krishnaji, just before we leave this, may I ask a question? Does not this sense of responsibility for all of mankind presume that all of the individuality or all of the ego has disappeared, has ceased to exist?
K: Now you are extending it so much we’ll get lost. Be careful.
PJ: We can just start with the simple fact. You started with the simple fact: why did many people come to build an institution, to work together, to create a new generation, whatever you like to call it. What brings you to this situation? In response to the outer. Quite right. But to say that one’s totally responsible…
K: I withdraw that word. I said I feel. Wait a minute. I feel responsible. This is not just words. I feel tremendously responsible for what is happening.
RP: Krishnaji, if I see a Hindu and a Muslim fighting and if I see the psychology of it which is involved in it, and if I feel I myself am not free of it, obviously I am responsible for it.
K: Because you are still a Hindu.
RP: Yes.
K: You are still a Muslim.
RP: If I don’t have that feeling of being free of it.
K: I mean, as long as you have this sense of division you must have…
PJ: Sir, so you start the inquiry into being free. You see, we are taking this need for a perception in which this is going to be possible by relating it to some abstraction with which we are not related.
K: I’m relating it because I have been a Buddhist — not personally — I have been a Buddhist, a Christian, a Muslim and all the rest of it, and I see that doesn’t solve any problem, human problems.
PJ: Yes. And then you see, it doesn’t solve it. I can make a statement. This statement you further go on. Look what you said. The nature of this conflict has its root in becoming.
K: Yes.
PJ: You said this.
K: Oh, yes. Yes, yes.
PJ: So you take it back into that statement and then view it.
K: Yes, that’s the essence of conflict.
PJ: Then view it, you see. You see, you can always make a statement that I am responsible, I am the world, but when you take it back into the nature and the movement of the mind, caught in becoming, and say that is the root of the whole thing. Then you bring it into a totally different situation.
K: So, all right, Pupulji, let’s start again. The world is in conflict. That’s an obvious fact. Right? And we human beings are also in conflict. We human beings have created that society.
PJ: Yes.
K: And so I am essentially part of that society.
PJ: Yes.
K: Right? That’s simple.
PJ: No but these are statements.
K: Wait, wait. Do we agree to that? Do we see that?
Many: Yes.
PJ: That’s… (Inaudible)
K: Now wait a minute, wait a minute. I want to understand when you say, ‘Yes, I see it,’ is it an intellectual concept or an actual reality to you? Otherwise you can’t go any further.
PJ: Sir, then you get everyone paranoid. Forgive me for saying it. Because, what does it mean, seeing it actually?
K: Actually means…
PJ: Seeing it actually is, as someone put it, that the nature of the self which sees has ended.
K: No, no, no.
PJ: Only then you see this as… Otherwise, what do you see? What do you see?
K: I am not talking of the ending of the self or the ‘me’.
PJ: What do you see?
K: I see that all human beings suffer. That’s the common ground of all humanity.
PJ: Yes, yes.
K: That’s all I’m saying. I can extend it, I can polish it, details, all the rest of it. That is the ground upon which we all stand. And that suffering is in our consciousness.
PJ: May I make a statement? Perception of the immensity of that, totally ends suffering, the truth of it.
K: Yes, yes. I have gone into that.
PJ: Perception of something which would be the ending of suffering, does not happen. Where…
K: So what are you saying, Pupulji?
PJ: I say we are starting with too big a field.
K: All right, let’s start on a very simple…
PJ: When you start with such an enormous field, you can never bring it to the particular?
K: We have been into the particular. I am suffering. I am in conflict. Is it possible to end that conflict? And if I do end it, what is my relationship to society? That’s all. That’s all I am saying. Let’s start on that.
PJ: That’s different.
MZ: Why do I have to ask what my relationship is with society?
K: All right, I won’t even ask. Cut it out. Let us trim it. (Laughs) Let us see. I am in conflict and is it possible to end it? And in the ending of it, do I become a vegetable or is there an intelligence that will operate? That’s all my question.
SS: That demand then is part of that intelligence, would you say?
K: No, no.
S: Or it may be part of the conflict itself.
K: No. Therefore we are going to investigate. (Laughs) Let’s investigate it. Let’s have a dialogue between us and see what conflict is, what’s the nature of conflict, why conflict arises, and whether it is possible to end it. That’s very simple. Right? Let’s do it, let’s discuss.
WA: Although I think we start with the assumption that it’s possible to end conflict. Do you see what I mean? It’s quite difficult. Because I think most of us seem to think that we can end conflict. So we start from that assumption and then try and find out how to end conflict.
K: No. I am in conflict. Please. I am in sorrow. I want to see… What am I to do with it? Escape? Go to a psychiatrist? Go and join the church? What am I to do?
RP: The initial response is to get rid of it, to find an answer.
K: All right. Tell me how to get rid of it.
RP: Well, our normal response is to find a substitution.
K: Yes, therefore, what? Escape from it.
RP: It never quite solves the conflict.
K: Sir, that doesn’t solve it either.
RP: No.
K: So are we clear as we make these statements, step by step? Are we clear? Clear in the sense, I won’t find a substitute, I won’t escape from it, I won’t rationalise it.
SS: Surely that’s part of the process of becoming free of it, isn’t it? Otherwise you will be…
K: I am asking you. Are we doing that? That’s all.
IP: Well, is becoming free of it a gradual process? It seems that this is what we are doing all the time. We see a conflict here, between myself and another person, and we are quite willing to deal with that. But we don’t seem to be able to see conflict as a whole and understand it and finish with it. We seem to be dealing with a little pocket here and there and there, whereas it is still going on.
K: So what does that mean?
DS: We are totally involved with an individual, personal approach, and that if you feel a sense of responsibility in it then you have got to use your intelligence which is not personal.
K: That again is demanding too much, as Pupulji points out.
Q: We can’t start again.
K: That may be demanding too much.
IP: We can’t see that.
DS: If you see that the world has been made as it is, the chaos through personal, individual pursuing of your pleasures and gratifications, which through history you can see…
PJ: You see that, Dorothy.
DS: Yes.
PJ: And then one is balked.
DS: One is?
PJ: Balked.
K: Stopped.
PJ: And immediately the response is exactly the same as it was before. You see, one says one sees this.
DS: But here comes a man along who says, ‘I am not in conflict.’
PJ: No, let’s see. Let’s see what actually…
K: ‘You poor loony!’ (Laughter)
PJ: No, but let’s see what actually takes place. We say…
DS: But, I mean, can’t one listen to that and the feel of that and see that it did happen that way?
SS: You see objectively.
PJ: But when it comes to the operative part of it, you see, there is a listening to that and there is an operative part. An operative part is the whole of one’s life and one’s relationships. When one comes to the operative part, and some situation arises, does that listening give one the perception to immediately face that with perception? If that listening has been… then one has that perception, we face that which arises, the arising of that. But the fact is that one is in a dormant position in which one permits it to arise, and then one makes the mistake to be free of it. Doesn’t it happen with most people?
DS: Well, yes, it does. Just take the starting of this place. It did start like that. There were a lot of individuals all sort of squabbling with each other and…
K: No.
DS: Well, not squabbling but giving a different point of view, and it was very difficult to live under the same roof at first. We had to learn how to do it. And gradually one saw that something had to be dropped, that you couldn’t pursue your particular thing the whole time.
K: Look, Mrs…
MS: We’ve talked a lot about conflict but nobody seems to have raised the question of what is the conflict.
K: Yes, sir.
MS: And conflict is surely between something in us deep down, what we want to do, and what we think we ought to do, generally.
K: Yes, sir.
MS: That is the conflict that we are talking about, but nobody has talked about why we are torn asunder.
PJ: It’s very much linked up also with the problem of desire.
K: That again becomes too complex. We can go into it, but again, you see, you want to particularise this conflict, and we are not doing it, we are moving away from it.
Q: Krishnaji, this may be too simple, but when I first realised that I was in conflict and the world also, and I felt responsible for it, I started doing all sorts of fairly clever things to get rid of it, over quite a long time. And of course I felt rather better than the world around me because I was doing this. And it slowly dawned on me that I wasn’t actually succeeding, in that I was still in conflict and I was still causing conflict around me. And there still is conflict but it doesn’t seem to me that I want to do anything about it.
K: No.
Q: Right.
K: I understand.
Q: And yet it is still there. I’m not content with it but I resist very strongly any attempt by anyone to get me to do something about it now because I am really very suspicious of that.
K: Quite. Now, do we have a dialogue or do I carry on? (Laughs)
RP: Can we not talk…
DS: There is a sort of dialogue going on, in the fact that everybody is listening. I mean, there are many ways of communicating.
K: All right. So, who is having a dialogue with me?
SS: Can I say something? I think in a sense this is a fairly elementary level, really.
K: It is.
SS: But the conflict is related to discomfort. You feel uncomfortable when you are in conflict. And I think one tends to deal with it generally. As we are talking in specific terms, you realise that there is a conflict in your attitude with X, then you maybe sort it out with X, or as Ingrid has pointed out, you sort it out with somebody else as it arises and in various ways. That is in particular ways and in particular events. But the next step, which seems to have a universal perception into the nature of conflict…
K: Yes, that’s it.
SS: …that’s the one.
PJ: Sir, forgive me, I don’t understand. I’d like to pursue what has just been said. What is the elementary thing?
SS: Well, an elementary thing is the thing that’s right in front of you.
PJ: Is it different to the universal?
SS: Well, I’m not sure, but it seems to be, because the conflict continues to arise. You see, I have a conflict with someone and we solve that, more or less, and then another one arises and we solve that, more or less.
PJ: But the solving of this, it is a very important thing you said just now, and I think this solving of that, the nature of the solving of that, is of central importance.
SS: Yes, I wasn’t deny it. Obviously, it has to be done but it’s…
PJ: No, no, when you talk of the nature of solving it, what takes place in that solution, in that solving? (Inaudible)
SS: Well, I wouldn’t even say that. I would say that it sort of brings things back into balance. I mean, you saw that there was conflict there and you set it back in balance, in a certain way. But that’s as far as it goes.
K: So, are you keeping balance, layer after layer, conflict after conflict?
SS: That’s more or less it.
K: So, is that balance?
SS: It’s wobbling! (Laughter)
(Pause)
PJ: I think very, very… is the necessity to see that there is no minor and no major. I think that is one of the most essential things.
K: Conflict is conflict, whether with God or with my wife. All right? (Laughs) Do you laugh at that?
SS: Yes.
K: It is so.
SS: Yes, I know.
RP: Is it not possible to discuss the nature of the conflict?
K: Yes, sir, we can. Don’t you know the nature of conflict? I quarrel with my wife, I quarrel with my boss, so there is this perpetual assertion of ‘me’ all the time. I am not saying how to end it, first I want to see the simple thing.
Q: Sir, it seems like conflict is a way of thinking, it’s a sort of pattern. One type of thought which has caused conflict in us.
Q: There doesn’t seem to be any way one can avoid the conflict. You might hope, you might try, you know. Even though you can try very hard not to be involved in any way, in any situation, whether in yourself or with others, any kind of conflict, you know, it arises. And no matter how hard one can try…
Q: Isn’t conflict inherent in thought?
Q: And in trying itself, conflict arises, I know, but with most people that is the case.
K: The very nature of thought is conflict. Thought is conflict.
SS: Can you say thought is relationship, rather than…
K: Ah, don’t reduce to something…
SS: No, but thoughts about, you know…
DS: …psychological things.
SS: You say psychological.
K: Thought.
SS: Not all thought.
K: All thought is conflict. No, thought is conflict.
SS: Not, you know, arranging the video, that kind of thing.
K: No, not arranging the video. But if Harsha and I say the video is wrong and he says it is right, and we quarrel. But as he knows more about it, I won’t say it is right or wrong — he knows more. But I am talking about conflict, and if you want to go very deeply into it, thought itself is the movement of conflict. Take it or leave it. But, you see, we meet and we haven’t solved a damn thing. Right? Sorry.
RP: It appears that it does never take a different course unless you meet it adequately.
K: Do it, sir. Look, I suffer, I quarrel with him, I assert my opinion and he asserts his opinion, and we begin to have, you know, the usual thing. That’s conflict.
RP: But one has to see the importance of the implications of it.
K: No, no. I offer an opinion. I believe my opinion, in it I very strongly hold to that opinion. He holds to that opinion and we have a quarrel about it.
RP: But unless I see the implication…
K: No, don’t see the implication. It’s a very simple fact.
RP: Okay.
K: So, can I drop my opinion and he drop his opinion, however strong it is?
RP: But can one actually?
K: Wait, wait. Can we do it? Do we do it?
RP: Which means one has to go into the implications of it.
K: No. Opinion. I have an opinion that Brockwood should be this and you have an opinion that Brockwood should be that. Could we drop our opinions, what Brockwood should be? Opinion.
HT: Sir, are we trying to get at this bit by bit? Are we trying… Maybe if we talk about conflict then slowly we’ll get to it.
K: Yes, but first, sir… You see, if I state it is not bit by bit, it becomes too big.
HT: But if we don’t start… can we get to it bit by bit? Because if we can’t then we should try to see…
K: You want both.
MZ: Sir, you asked what Brockwood stood for, way back at the beginning of this conversation. Now, are you asking us for opinions?
K: No.
MZ: No. So, what you just described is if I have an opinion, you have an opinion, and that we see we are in conflict, so what usually happens is that one of us shuts up.
K: No, not about Brockwood. I am saying, could we drop our opinions?
MZ: But what usually happens is that it is sort of suspended and you hold your opinion, I hold mine.
K: No, I won’t have opinions. I am not suspending.
MZ: I know, but this is the sort of level that we… (inaudible)
K: Maria, take it as its simplest common factor. We quarrel about opinions.
MZ: But we don’t drop them then.
K: I say drop it, in order to have no conflict. You won’t do that.
SF: Well, Krishnaji, it’s not only opinions that people have differences about.
K: Experience.
SF: Yes, but for instance you might say that conflict is born out of thought, or that conflict is thought, and that might not be an opinion. Now, I might have an opinion that conflict has nothing to do with that, and yet there will still be a difference.
K: It’s not an opinion. I say I may be wrong, let’s talk about it, have a dialogue about it, let’s go into it. But you won’t.
SF: And that you wouldn’t say is a conflict, just if we start off thinking different things or seeing different things?
K: Look, Scott, will you drop your opinion? Opinion, let’s see — your judgement about me, and I drop my opinion about you. Could we then meet freely without an opinion? That’s all. Which apparently causes a great deal of conflict.
SS: Well, it causes difficulty because how am to I distinguish between me and my opinion?
K: Ah, don’t complicate it. Don’t complicate it, for God’s sake.
SS: That may be conflict, you see, between me and my opinion.
K: No, I am saying, could we do a very simple thing? Could we all drop our opinions and let us be free of them. And so we have moved somewhere.
MZ: Well, the singular problem there is to distinguish between fact and one’s opinion.
K: We’ll go into it, we’ll go into it, if you want to. But, I’ll go into it, at the end of it will you drop it and not have it the next day, come up, pop up again with an opinion? This is what is happening here. Right? (Laughs) Will you? Shall we have a dialogue about opinions, which are a very common, daily fact? I won’t quarrel with Harsha about video; he knows far more about it than I do. So I say, ‘Please, if I can be of help to you I’ll carry a camera.’ You follow? I don’t say I know as much as he does. I don’t.
Q: Krishnaji, that is because the case you have taken is very obvious. There are many cases where you have studied, I have studied, and your view of the thing differs from mine.
K: No, sir, you are missing something.
PJ: Can one come to a situation where there are separate opinions, observe one’s mind, think about the situation?
K: Yes.
Q: Yes, one can.
PJ: Then the opinion is not…
Q: No, one can drop opinions but, you see, not for all time to come, or not complete ending.
PJ: Just listen (inaudible). If one, in a conversation where there are two opinions, observes one’s mind as one talks…
K: That’s all.
PJ: Why do you make it…
K: So simple it all is.
Q: You say that’s simple but when we say that you say, ‘Not at that level.’
PJ: Don’t say it is simple. It is not simple.
K: Look, we start with humility.
Q: Yes.
K: Humility. I’m learning about opinions. I don’t say my opinion is right. I am learning about why we hold on to opinions. Right?
Q: That’s right.
K: That’s all. Why? Which apparently causes conflict. My experience is better than yours, my values are better than yours — right? — and so on and so on.
RP: It gives you a feeling of asserting yourself on others.
K: That’s part of it. So will you drop all that? You see, that’s what I’m… Will you? Please answer. Will you? Don’t go off, silent.
SN: Well, there’s no point in my saying that I will and then I don’t do it.
K: Ah! We are trying to end conflict. If you want to end conflict as a human being you have to drop your particular opinions, values, not just be vague, but say, ‘I’ve finished with that.’ But not carry on next year and we talk about the same stuff. Would you? Will you? That’s one of the reasons for conflict.
Q: But it is not enough. To drop the opinions is not enough.
K: Drop it first.
Q: I don’t think it is difficult to drop opinions.
K: No, all right. Drop it. Then let’s go to the next thing, which is, experience, my knowledge and your knowledge — right? — which is based on experience. You know how to put… something or other, I don’t. So my point is I am willing to learn. And learning stops when you stick to your opinion, or your experience or your belief. That’s simple. Right? Why don’t we drop it?
Q: We don’t want to admit that we didn’t know about it.
K: Come on! (Laughs)
Q: I’m not saying it’s easy.
K: Don’t let’s fool ourselves. I am saying if you want to end conflict, fear, let’s begin with opinion, because we are learning. And I say next is belief, knowledge. I won’t even use ‘knowledge’, it’s too complicated. I hold on to something which I think is right. Could we drop all that? Could we?
WA: Somehow, when you say, you know, can you drop that, you know, we are talking about sort of opinions or something. I suppose I think that half the time my opinions come up without me realising that they come up.
K: No, all right.
WA: So to say, ‘Yes, I’ll drop them,’ it’s not…
K: Therefore I haven’t really… want to end conflict. If I can’t drop opinions and they crop up again, it means I really don’t want to end conflict.
WA: But how do I say, ‘I am going to drop all opinions’? I don’t understand that.
K: Can’t I? Can’t you? Or, as opinion arises, stop it.
MZ: Krishnaji, do we recognise that a thing is an opinion in our own self?
K: Yes.
MZ: But do we?
IP: I’m not sure. Aren’t we quite happy with our opinions until somebody challenges them?
MZ: Or we may think that that is a fact.
K: Oh, my God! Are you like that?
IP: You were saying just now, Krishnaji, I think something is right and I stick to it. If you really feel that something is right…
K: Now wait a minute. Now, what do you mean ‘right’? Just a minute. I am not offering an opinion. I want to find out when you use the word ‘right’, what do you mean by that? Is it an opinion? Is it an experience? Is it an objective examination? Or an inward, intuitive feeling, ‘That’s right’? I want to know — forgive me, I am not trying to corner you, I am just asking — when you use the word ‘right’ or you say, ‘That’s a fact, it’s not opinion,’ I want to know what your fact is. The fact. You see, you don’t…
BJ: You see, Krishnaji, I feel in a sense that we have certain… one of those a priori assumptions which we don’t even consider looking at. I mean for example, one assumption might be: it is right to remain at Brockwood. Another person’s assumption might be that’s it right to leave Brockwood. Perhaps we don’t even question these kind of assumptions.
K: Sir, look, I am starting with a most simple thing, which is, I have quantities of opinions — about politics, about Mrs Gandhi, Mrs Thatcher, Reagan, various others — I have quantities of them. At least I can say, ‘Look, let me look at these opinions, let me be sensitively aware of them, and let’s see if I can drop some of them.’ Right? That’s all. Drop it!
BJ: Yes, but there may be other skeletons in the cupboard.
K: Wait, wait. As they come up, I see they are opinions, judgements. I drop it. Begin there. You don’t even do that. That’s all my point. Right?
SN: Yes, I think it is possible to drop an opinion when you see, or somebody helps you to see that it’s an opinion.
K: Do you see your opinions?
SN: Well, I think I see them sometimes and I drop them. I know that when I drop something that it has been an opinion. But I feel the things that touches me more deeply…
K: I am only talking about opinions, don’t go off to the deep thing. You see?
MZ: That’s the point — we don’t…
SN: We don’t know the boundary.
MZ: And what is a truth?
SS: Right.
MZ: We don’t see the boundary between what an opinion is and what something that may be a truthful thing… (inaudible)
K: Yes. So, what happens? What happens? That something may be true, so I’m cautious, I am watchful, I am sensitively watching whether the opinions are facts. I don’t say, ‘It is a fact,’ and hold on.
MZ: We don’t say everything is opinion and we must reject.
K: I don’t. But I do say the simple thing, which is, we have opinions, and which we may think are facts. So let’s be cautious about it. And so I am willing to learn.
SN: Sir, would you say an opinion, when I want to hold on to it, it’s something that you want to hold on to?
K: Yes, probably.
SN: And if…
K: Wait a minute. Do you hold on to something? You see, you have caught yourself. You are not… Do you hold onto an opinion? Do you hold on to your experience?
SN: Well, I won’t say that I always hold on to it.
K: Occasionally, all right, let’s take that. Occasionally you drop it. But are you aware that you have a bundle of them? You see, this is what happens. We gather together and discuss this, and we have not dropped our opinions. We are not willing to say, ‘I have opinions, I am attached to them, how absurd it is to be attached to an opinion.’ What is an opinion? Just a lot of ideas, hot air.
SS: But there is the whole structure of the opinion, I think, that comes into it, really. If I hold that, I may hold that opinion, or one holds that opinion with passion, for some reason or other, it doesn’t present itself as opinion, it presents itself as a life or death issue.
K: Sir, my point is, are we willing to learn to find out if I have opinions, why I hold on to them? And that is one of the reasons of conflict. Right? I believe in Jesus and you don’t believe it, and I am going to take all my time to convince you of it. Right? And you say to me, ‘Go away. I have got my own Jesus.’ (Laughs) And we quarrel. So I am just saying, are we aware of one of the factors of conflict, that we hold on to an experience, to a memory, to an opinion, to a conclusion? That’s all I’m saying. A very simple thing.
RP: I think we are aware, sir.
K: Are you? Maybe. So then if you are aware that you have got these, then what do you do? Carry them? And I have my opinions. I carry my opinions. And when we meet here we hurl opinions at each other.
SS: Isn’t it rather that when I see an opinion as an opinion then I see through it, so to speak, I see the trick. But I think there is a difficulty in saying, ‘I will drop my opinions,’ because I think what happens is that one’s sense of an entity who is going to drop opinions, and then he’s on a sort of witch hunt looking for opinions, and then he’s trying to drop them as they come up and, you know, he’s in a tangle again. Whereas, if he were to understand the nature of an opinion and see an opinion as an opinion lucidly, then the opinion would fall away, it wouldn’t have any substance.
K: That’s all.
SS: It’s the substance that’s…
K: Do it. Do it. You have stated it. My next question is: have you done it?
MZ: But there’s a question in there: what is the nature of an opinion, Krishnaji? I don’t think we see that clearly.
K: I have an opinion about — who? — Mrs Thatcher.
MZ: Well, those are trivial things, but say…
K: All right, I won’t go to Mrs Thatcher. I have an opinion about him — poor chap!
MZ: I mean, you have said things in your life. You have said, ‘I adhere to this absolutely.’ Now, those presumably are not opinions of yours. You see something as true and that remains, unalterable. Now, a lot of us, or some of us, may think we see something that is so and therefore we go on singing it, and it may be only an opinion.
K: Look, Maria, I want to find out what is the root or the cause of conflict. I want to end it. And I see one of the factors is this. So, as I want to end conflict I must drop this. Don’t tell me, ‘Who is to drop it?’ I can go into that perfectly; I am capable of it. But the fact is I haven’t dropped it.
MZ: (Inaudible) Is part of the reason that we have difficulty in dropping it is that we do not see, we do not understand clearly where it is the area of opinion and where it is not?
K: I have explained it, Maria.
MZ: But you’ve given examples of…
K: No, not an example. I am learning to… I am in a state… my mind… the mind is in a state of learning what is a fact. Do I hold an opinion and think that’s a fact? Or is it a fact, which is observable, impersonal, and so on?
DS: Isn’t an opinion a partial information and not a complete understanding of the whole situation, and so it becomes opinion? And you say drop opinion, is when you’ve seen the whole thing rather than just one aspect of it.
K: Now, I agree, but if I ask do we see the whole of it, then it becomes too complex. You say, ‘No, no, that’s…’
DS: Well, just take the Mrs Thatcher one. I mean, we spend our day making inaccurate statements, ignorant statements, because we haven’t all the facts, we haven’t troubled to get all the facts.
K: I can never have the facts.
DS: Exactly. And so it comes out as opinion.
K: Ah. If I haven’t got the facts why should it come out as opinions?
DS: But the fact is it does.
K: So I must be — what? — rather stupid.
DS: Well, you are drawing attention to the fact that that is what we are doing. No?
PJ: May I say one thing? As I see it — and you can talk of opinions, you can talk of anything — there is a certain movement, a flowing movement in the mind. And an opinion or anything that is strong there crystallises and makes it static. And so the necessity of dissolving it so that the flow continues. Now, how is it possible? If I start deciding what is an opinion, what is not, I am caught in a trap because…
DS: …there’s no end to it.
PJ: …there’s no end to it. So the only thing is to observe whatever is. (Inaudible) And then in the dissolution what is right emerges out of the observation. Then I have nothing to do with it.
K: Which means, Pupulji, I am willing to move. I am willing to change, I’m willing to…
PJ: The whole thing. It is not a question of either dropping an opinion, but to let this movement, this flow continue. Who is going to decide one is an opinion, one is an insight? But if there is a movement and a flow, and any action arises out of an observation, there is an action out of observation it doesn’t even register, you don’t get stuck. You move on.
K: Ah!
Q: Somehow I think, it seems to me that to end conflict it’s not enough to drop opinions.
K: No, it’s not.
S: Because I think it is fairly easy to drop opinions.
K: But it’s much deeper.
Q: We think something is right. A question arises. We think it’s right because of what we have heard. But if we hear something else we are ready to drop and change a hundred times. But that is not enough.
K: No. So what shall we do, sir? We are in conflict with each other. Right? Even in this holy Brockwood we are in conflict with each other, about various things. There is no unanimous ground, a ground on which we all agree. Right? Would that be right? Or am I wrong? I hope I’m wrong.
BJ: I thought we began this meeting, Krishnaji, by agreeing on certain things.
K: Are we? I am just asking. I am not saying you are or you not.
BJ: Well, I feel there’s an aspect of this that we haven’t looked at, which is the fact that we are often frightened of revealing our opinions, or hesitant to reveal our opinions. I mean, supposing, for example, my opinion is that Brockwood is a school. I may be frightened to reveal that to another. I may talk to one or two about it.
K: What shall I do, sir? What shall we do? We started out, I made, according to Pupulji, I made a very complex statement, that I am the world and the world is me. She said, ‘That’s too… I don’t understand, it’s too complex, there’s no…’ etc. I said, all right, let’s drop that. Here we have gathered to find out how to bring about a different kind of education. Right? Right? Not only for those older students but educating ourselves in relationship to them. Right?
Q: And in relationship to one another.
K: Would you agree to that?
Many: Yes.
K: That we are educating ourselves as well as the student. Right? Now, that’s the common ground on which we all stand. Right?
SN: Yes.
K: Now, if that’s the common ground on which we stand then all of us are learning — right? — the student and me, and you. Agree? Learning.
Q: Yes.
K: Go on, please, help me. You can’t just remain silent. Would you put up your hands? (Laughter) (Inaudible)
Now, which means I am learning about myself and I am helping the student with whom I am responsible. I also want to help him to learn about himself. Right? Not only academics, A Level or whatever it is, but much more, this. Right? Right? Are we doing that? Will you do that? Don’t be nervous, for God’s sake! So, Brockwood says this is what we are doing.
BJ: Well, Krishnaji, I think already you have raised, as it were, a bogey, where conflict arises. I mean, one teacher will say you can only convey this to the student…
K: No, no. I’m not saying how to convey, what to convey. Are we all agreed that as a group we want not only to help ourselves and the student to understand the world and all that… That is, we are, all of us, are learning. Would you?
SN: Yes, I think we can begin with that.
K: That’s what I’m saying. Do we… is this the common ground on which we all meet? For God’s sake!
Q: Yes.
BJ: I think it is.
Q: Yes.
K: What do you say?
SS: I’m not sure.
K: There we are — he’s not sure! Bang goes the whole circus. Why?
SS: Well, I am very suspicious of statements made.
K: I haven’t made any statement. I’m asking. I am saying Brockwood wants or desires, the intention, is that both the educator and the educated, the person who is going to be educated, both of us are learning. Right? You can’t quarrel about that. Come on, sir.
SS: Yes, as an intention that’s fine.
K: That’s all. That’s all we are saying. That’s the common intention of all of us. Right? Now, how do we deal with this fact? How am I going to teach the student to not only learn about the world, about all the business that’s going on in the world and all the scientific, etc. — if he wants to learn — and also I want to help him to learn about himself. Right? Which means I also want to learn about myself. So, our relationship, mutual relationship is that both of us are learning about ourselves. Right? You can’t say, ‘Hmm,’ and keep quiet about it.
SS: No, it’s…
K: What’s the difficulty?
SS: Well, the difficulty is in the practise.
K: No, wait. You’ve all gone off. I haven’t even talked about practise. Is this the common ground on which we all stand?
SS: But there’s been a long… you know, there’s been ten years of practise.
K: I don’t know. I’ve just started again. Started anew today, six-thirty in the evening of Saturday, whatever the date is. Right? Will you do that? That’s the common ground you and I stand on. Do we agree to all this? For God’s sake!
Many: Yes.
K: Right. Now, wait a minute, when you agree is it an intellectual agreement or is this really what you want to do? Not passionate — really want to do this, to the best of your ability.
WA: I don’t think we would have come here if we didn’t want to do that.
K: I don’t know.
WA: Otherwise why come to Brockwood? I mean, you can be anywhere.
K: Lady, I’m just… for the first time I’m asking you.
WA: Yes.
K: Tell me. So you are all here on this statement. We all agree. All right. Then how do we put this into action? Right? Right?
SS: That’s the question.
K: I’m doing it. I’m doing it now. Don’t say, ‘That’s the question,’ and wander off from here. I say, ‘How do I learn about myself and about the other person?’ I want to help him to learn about himself, and in the act of helping him to learn about himself, I am also learning. That’s very simple. Right? Right? You are complicating. Come on. Right?
SS: Yes. I am probably too concerned with teaching him something.
K: No, I am learning about myself and also I am helping him to learn about himself. I am not teaching him anything, except mathematics, except how to climb a tree. I am only concerned with this. Right? Right?
RP: I think what Steve is referring to is about teaching mathematics.
SS: No, not teaching mathematics, but maintaining this…
K: Wait.
SS: No, maintaining it in a live way so that it remains fresh… (inaudible)
K: I’ll show you. Wait. Before you start all the complications…
SS: (Inaudible) …I’ve heard all this before.
K: Before you start all the complications, intellectualise it, ‘My God, how shall I do this?’ — is this what we want to do, you and I?
SS: Yes.
K: All right. Now, let’s see how to do it. Right? Both of us. I’m not telling you, you’re not telling me. Let’s find out how to do it together. Now, first I say: how do I understand, how do I look at myself? Right? Right? I am going to help him to look at himself.
SS: So I look first at myself.
K: Ah! I’m learning how to look. Right? Right? For God’s sake! I am learning how to look at myself. I don’t know, I have never done it. I may never have done it. So I say, I don’t know how to look at myself, let’s help each other. You see, you are not…
SS: Yes. There are… One of the problems, speaking as a teacher, if I may do that, because that’s what I’m thinking about as you are talking…
K: You are not following me then, you are thinking about teaching.
SS: True.
K: So what are you doing?
SS: No, because I have a responsibility. (Inaudible) I put myself in this seat.
K: You are not responsible for those children now, when we are discussing. Why are you wandering off there?
SS: Because that’s what I…
K: No. You are here to discuss with me, and you and I try to find out how to help each other to look. Don’t think about the students. Right? I’m not trying… Please
SS: No, no, no.
K: So, how do we look at ourselves? What is the mirror in which we see ourselves, as it is? You understand? As in a mirror, you see exactly your face. Right? So what is the mirror in which you and I can see exactly what we are?
SS: Surely it’s in the way we… (inaudible)
K: Join him. Join him. It’s not a dialogue between him and me.
RP: I can’t think of it but only in relationship.
K: Are you quoting somebody?
RP: No.
K: Be careful.
RP: I feel it now.
K: Right. (Laughs) So, in relationship — relationship is the mirror in which I see myself. Right? Right?
SS: Yes.
K: Ah! Not ‘yes’, but…
SS: But relationship, it’s not just, you know, relationship is to…
K: My wife, the student, the relationship to the tree, to the birds — relationship. In that mirror I see my reactions. Right? Don’t take time over it, it’s a simple fact! What’s the difficulty?
SS: Well…
K: Can’t I pick on somebody else?
SS: I think…
RP: The difficulty appears that because we do not respond in relationship our mind is chattering all the time.
K: No, I’m not saying that. You are going off. I am just saying I want to look at myself, I am helping you, the student, to look at yourself. So we are both learning to look, first. Not what to do — just to look. And I see, as in a mirror you look at your face and you can’t do anything about it, it is there. So the mirror in which to look at oneself is relationship. Right?
SS: I think one thinks of it as an inward process.
K: No, no. Just a minute. Inward process. You think about it. I don’t.
SS: Yes, or internalise it in some way, or see it as something going on inside oneself.
K: First — that comes later — I say, sorry, come back to earth. And I want to see in this mirror exactly what is happening.
PJ: Sir, may I ask you a question? When you say that you see yourself in the mirror of relationship…
K: That’s the only objective way of looking at it.
PJ: The mirror of relationship is the mirror of thought.
K: No, I don’t want… Darling, Pupul, I don’t… (laughs)
PJ: Please, sir, you must come.
K: I don’t want to. Then it becomes too vast.
PJ: No it isn’t. It becomes much more…
K: …simple. All right, let’s begin.
PJ: Isn’t the mirror of relationship, the mirror of thought?
K: Mirror of thought. Can thought — watch it — can thought look at itself in that mirror?
SS: But thought is in the mirror.
K: Ah! You see, you are…
SS: No, it’s not my thought, it’s not…
K: You see, you are complicating it. I said thought. It’s not yours or mine — I agree. Thought is thought. It’s common, common to man. Right?
SS: Yes.
K: Look carefully, don’t admit it. It’s common to man. So, can thought look at itself in the mirror of relationship? Look at itself. I am helping that student and myself to look at thought. See what I’m doing? When I say, ‘Look, can you look at thought? Can thought look at it?’ See what has happened? What’s happened when I put to you that question? Don’t go off to sleep. Lord, must I… Please, are you following what I’m saying?
SN: Yes, but I’m not quite sure what you mean by thought looking at itself.
K: Can you look at yourself? Thought is part of yourself, so can you — it doesn’t matter outside or inside — can you look at your thought?
SN: I can look at my thought but I’m not sure that I’m looking at it correctly. I’m not sure.
K: I don’t know. Don’t begin ‘correctly’, ‘wrongly’, ‘rightly’ — just look at it first. You see, you are all so…
SN: I can be aware of my thought.
K: All right. Are you aware of your thought?
Q: Does that have any value? Because some people think they meditate by sitting and observing their thought.
K: I’m not talking about meditation. Throw it out of the window.
Q: Yes, but you can go on being aware of your thoughts.
K: No. I say, look, Pupul raised a question. Pupulji raised a question. She says it’s really thought.
PJ: If I may…
K: Explain it.
PJ: Krishnaji, you said it is revealed in the mirror of relationship. Now what is relationship? Relationship is thought.
K: Of course it is, but I didn’t want…
SN: Do you mean thought as images?
PJ: Mixed up in images, words. When I relate to you, ‘the you’ is the past.
K: You see, Pupul, you are making it too complicated.
PJ: No, you cannot get to the actuality of it. You have to touch it. How do you touch it?
K: I only can touch it when I understand the whole nature of thought.
PJ: But you proceed by first asking yourself that question. Because when you say it is revealed in the mirror of relationship, what does it mean?
K: It means that I’m watching.
PJ: I’m watching.
K: That’s all.
PJ: What am I watching?
K: Watching how I… the reactions.
PJ: The reactions.
K: The opinions — you say, ‘I don’t like you,’ ‘I like you.’
PJ: Which is all thought.
K: I understand, Pupul. I don’t want to bring in thought yet.
PJ: (Inaudible) What is the mirror?
MZ: Are you saying, Krishnaji, that it makes it too abstract, to say that it’s…
PJ: No, when you say it is revealed in the mirror of relationship, relationship is not…
K: …an abstraction.
PJ: Relationship is a response.
K: Actual. No, just a minute. I’m related to him as my brother or my aunt. Sorry!
PJ: That’s one sort of relationship.
K: I’m related to him. It means I live with him, we share the same house, we eat together, he goes to work and I go to work, we meet in the evening, and so on. We are together living in that relationship — whatever it is, intimate or not. And I am aware of that relationship and I watch myself, the reactions that arise in that relationship. That’s all I’m saying.
PJ: You see, you can’t leave it there.
K: I am not leaving it there. I am moving step by step. Right?
Q: Krishnaji, even this watching of my reactions also goes through a centre. There is a centre which is watching this.
K: Yes.
Q: Through a centre I watch.
K: So I have learnt something. That is, I’m watching from a fixed point.
Q: A fixed point may loosen.
K: Yes, yes, sir.
Q: But a point remains somewhere.
K: Yes.
Q: It may not be fixed.
K: I am watching from a background.
Q: A background.
K: Let’s keep to that word. Right?
Q: Yes.
K: Right? So, what is that background from which I’m watching myself?
BJ: Well, to me, Krishnaji, it feels like something fairly concrete.
K: I don’t know about concrete mixture. I am just asking you. What is that background from which I’m looking? My background is: I’m a Christian, I like Mrs Thatcher, I don’t like my neighbour, I quarrel with my wife. That’s my background, my culture, my conditioning.
Q: Such a background as you are mentioning is something which one can easily be free of, this kind of stuff
K: Ah!
Q: Oh, yes, Krishnaji. There is a background…
K: I am learning. Not I am trying to free or not free — I am learning about myself.
PJ: (Inaudible)
Q: No, that’s a different thing. I do not operate from such backgrounds.
PJ: All right. So, proceed.
SN: No, but really…
Q: The nature of the background has depths and depths and depths.
PJ: Proceed.
SN: No, the background — Krishnaji is talking about the background of the past. That is a very big statement to say that you are free of the background.
K: I am watching from my background, which is my past.
Q: Yes, that’s right.
K: That’s all I’m saying.
PJ: Proceed.
K: I am watching — ‘I’, the past, is watching. That’s all. So, I am learning. I learnt just now, ‘I’, who is watching, is the past. So the past — which is what? — my knowledge, is looking. Right? That’s simple.
Q: That’s simple. Yes.
K: So, I have learnt that. Now move, still further. My past is dictating what I should do. Right? My past is colouring my view, my…
Q: That is what is creating the ‘me’. Because you are operating from this centre, the beginning of the ‘me’.
K: That is the past. The beginning of ‘me’ is the past. Right?
Q: Yes.
K: So, so far I have learnt. I am learning. Can I convey this to my student? I can. I may take longer — you follow? — I may take a couple of months but I am going to convey it to him. That he is an Englishman or a Frenchman. From that tradition of a Frenchman, from a Hindu, he is looking at everything. Right? So, the ‘I’ is the past.
Q: Yes.
K: Right? No, be clear on this. ‘I’ is the past. Right, sir? So I have learnt that: ‘I’ is the past. What is that past? What is it made up of? What is the past?
SS: Well, there’s this personal past and then it’s the…
K: All right — personal and global. Right? Be clear. Past is not only so-called personal but the past of India — right? — the recent past of England, and so on. So, the past is time. Right? Right? Come on, sir!
SS: That’s right, but it needs…
K: Careful. We are learning.
SS: You see, the difficulty is in conveying it to him as a fact.
K: This is a fact.
SS: Not so that he makes…
K: This is not an opinion. That I, observing myself, ‘I’ is the background of a thousand years, with all the memories, all the experiences. Or I am looking at myself as a Catholic. Right? That’s my background. That’s the past. Though I repeat over and over again the past, it is still the past. Right? I repeat in the present, Jesus or whatever it is, I repeat, but it is still the past. I am learning — right? — and I’m also helping the student to learn. So we have reached that point. I say what is the content of the past?
Q: Why do you ask that question?
K: I want to avoid the past tense. Which is, my consciousness is the past, which expresses itself in the present. That’s simple enough. No? What do you say?
SS: You see, I think one of the… one needs a certain, even to explore this question at all, one needs a certain wonder about it.
K: I am wondering. My whole mind is wondering.
SS: My problem is arousing an interest in someone so that he will want to look at this with me to start with.
K: Ah, wait a minute. ‘We are here,’ I’d tell the student, ‘old boy, we are here not only to learn about the universe, objectively, but also we are here to learn about yourself.’ That is the basis on which I start. Right? Would you agree to that?
SS: But many people contend, you see, you don’t learn anything about yourself by talking about it.
K: No. You have gone back.
SS: No, it’s a fact, Krishnaji.
K: Wait, you have jumped right back. (Laughs) We started very carefully to end conflict, and we are going to learn about the whole thing. And I say Brockwood, if we all agree, exists for this purpose: to educate ourselves in relationship with the student, who is educating in his relationship with us. Right? Right? We have agreed to that. Don’t go back to that. Is this our difficulty — we are not moving, moving, moving?
RP: That’s the difference between talking and communicating. When we try to talk…
K: I am communicating.
RP: Yes.
K: I am not merely talking. I am communicating how I understand how to look at myself. I may be wrong; correct me. I might change it. I don’t stick to it and say, ‘This is right.’ That would be too stupid. So I say, ‘I am learning.’ So I have come to the point — I don’t know if you have — in my learning that the past is me. ‘Me’ is looking at it. Looking at what? Are you following this or have you gone off to sleep, or too much? He has gone off to teaching students.
RP: So it appears as if one part of the past is looking at the other parts.
K: That’s it. No, no, the past is looking at what is happening in the present. Right? The past is regarding, looking, watching, investigating the present. The present being my actions, my — etc.
SS: But surely that’s already a distortion.
K: That’s all. Quite right. When that happens there is a distortion and that brings conflict. We have reached the point. Right? Then what shall I do? My next question: what shall I do about the past, which is always distorting? Which means, go into it a bit further. Thought is the past. Right?
SS: But I am also the past.
K: I said that, old boy. I said that. Thought is part of me. I can’t deny that. So, thought is distorting perception about myself. I am not being clever.
It’s seven o’clock. Ten to seven. Can we have ten minutes more?
Q: The scholars.
K: They can wait a few minutes more.
Have we come to that point?
PJ: Sir, can I pose a question? There is observation which is the past observing. Can we watch, that there is no movement to do anything?
K: Yes. That is, are you asking…
PJ: You see, I can do nothing with my past.
K: Wait a minute. Don’t say it. Be careful, be careful.
PJ: The past is observing.
K: That’s all. That’s all. Stop there. Stop there.
PJ: Any movement…
K: Stop there for a minute. Stop there.
PJ: Yes.
K: The past is observing.
PJ: Is observing.
K: Wait, wait. See what is implied in it. I, who is observing, is the past. So, the past is my knowledge about… Knowledge. Knowledge is thought.
PJ: Yes.
K: So, thought is watching, which is the past. But thought has created the ‘me’, etc., which is the past. So thought is watching.
PJ: Yes. Now, if I… (inaudible) I use the word ‘the past’ instead of thought watching. The past is observing the present. It is always trying to manipulate the present, determining, directing… (inaudible)
K: Of course, of course.
PJ: Can there be one action…
K: Ah, wait, careful, Pupul.
PJ: Can there be one action, I am asking? That is, the action which does not make it do anything about ‘what is’? I think there is a possibility in that state of observation, to just observe without letting any…
K: That’s all I’m saying. Do I realise that thought, the past is watching? The past is directing, the past is trying to change the present, manipulating it and all the rest of it. So the past is operating all the time, modifying itself and going on. So the past is always moving forward.
PJ: Now, can an awareness of this, what you are saying…
K: That’s all I’m saying. That’s all. Just stop there. Are we aware of this movement? So I tell the student, I say, ‘Look, we have reached this point’ — though the dinner bell has gone — ‘we have reached this point. Are you aware of all the steps we have taken? Aware of it.’ So, I repeat it again, ten million times, because I’ve got a whole term. I say, ‘Look, we are learning about each other, we are learning about ourselves. Learning is the crucial point about it.’ Right? So I am learning about my past. Can I look at this as an observer? Not say, ‘I am the past, I must change it, I must do this’ — just to observe, to be aware of it without any choice. Just to be aware of it. Right? Are you? You are my student.
SS: Am I without choice?
K: I didn’t ask that. Are you aware that the past is guiding, changing, observing? And I say: are you aware of it without any choice? Just without any choice be aware of this movement, the past operating all the time. Right? Don’t ask me. If you ask me I say, ‘Be aware of the trees.’ You are aware of the trees, you are aware of the roof; similarly, are you aware of this movement? All life is reduced to the past, moving, moving, moving, from the past, and therefore distorting — right? — and therefore conflict. Right? Not how to stop the past, how to change the past — just see the whole history of it. And we say Brockwood exists for this. Right? Right? Don’t go back on me now. (Laughs) Right? Right? Right? So are we together on this? All of us. So if we are all together on this, I am learning about myself when I offer an opinion. I say, ‘By Jove, let me look carefully, carefully. Am I offering an opinion?’ Or I don’t like him, therefore I’m going to oppose it. Watch. You follow what I mean? I’m watching. I’m learning. Therefore we are all together without conflict. You understand what I’m saying?
Do we go on till midnight? I don’t mind.
MZ: (Inaudible)
K: But have we got this point? Have you? Have you? So you never oppose. We are learning. If learning is the common factor for all of us, why should we? We are together, we don’t quarrel. Learning. I don’t know if you see the importance of this.
RP: Which also means that if I do oppose I say, ‘I’m sorry.’
K: I’m watching, I’m learning. If I am watchful, I know I’m opposing. I don’t have to tell them. I stop it myself.
RP: Yes. I mean, I say, ‘Sorry.’ Sorry is just a word but I observe it, yes.
K: Ah! I’m watching. Sir, I am watching the thing arising in me, as an opinion or this or that.
RP: Sir, but I think the confusion arises that when you make a statement like that, I will never oppose.
K: Ah, no, no. No, I said if we are learning there will be no opposition and therefore no conflict.
Do we start from there next time we meet?
RP: Yes.
K: For God’s sake, don’t go back. Right? Do we agree to that? Not go back and say, ‘Please, what do you mean by the past?’ Then I only… (inaudible) …bananas. Can we do that? Can we start where we stopped now, the next time we meet?
DS: When will we meet next?
K: Oh, we’ll fix it.
DS: Next Thursday?
K: We have come to a very interesting point. Stick to that, please. Will you? Careful. We are learning; don’t… You follow?
Right, we’d better stop.
…
K: We’re going to have a discussion.
DS: Krishnaji, are we having a meeting on Monday, as we said, or are we having it on Thursday?
K: I beg your pardon?
DS: Could we know if we are having a meeting on Monday or on Thursday?
K: What?
DS: Whether you will be here.
K: When you like.
MZ: This was our Monday meeting. This is the Monday meeting.
DS: This is the Monday meeting.
MZ: Would you talk on Monday too, and Tuesday?
K: I don’t know. I don’t care how much I talk. I’m a gas bag! (Laughter)
Copyright 1981 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Limited, England. All Rights Reserved.