Small Group Discussion 4, Rishi Valley, 17 December 1982

Krishnamurti (K): I think some of you were not here. Let’s make it clear again. What am I going to say? In Benares, in Rajghat, there were a few of us who formed a nucleus, that is, a group of people who are concerned entirely with the teachings, and they formed, if I can use the word *religious,* group. And so we thought at Rishi Valley too there should be such a group, a nucleus of people who are concerned with the world and so naturally with the teachings. We will use the word *teachings* for the moment, what K has been talking about. And Rishi Valley should become not only a first-class school, but also a religious centre. We mean by *religion* not the so-called, orthodox, traditional, fanciful, romantic, nonsensical religion. But we were inquiring the other day, rather a couple of days ago, what is a religious mind. And we were going to go into that again this morning because one feels that only religion in the right sense of that word, though etymologically the root of that meaning is not very clear, none of the dictionaries have made the root meaning of that word *religion* clear. But we can, more or less, by negating what is not religion, religious mind, come to discover for ourselves what is a mind that is truly religious.

We said an ideal mind, that is a mind that thinks in terms of ideals, right? We said such a mind is not a religious mind. Ideal in the sense, a projection of what should be, what might be, what ought to be, the end, the goal, the purpose, the so-called conceptual statement of other than *what is*. Am I speaking too many words? We said that such a mind which functions in ideas, in ideals, pursuing a certain direction laid down by thought, such a mind is not a religious mind. I don’t know what you will say to all this. And also we said a religious mind is not a believing mind. It is rather sceptical, doubting, questioning, inquiring, and so there is no sense of authority, no sense of hierarchical outlook on life. So there is no belief: ‘I believe in some strange fanciful god or I believe I shall be that’ and so on. And also we said—which is much more complex—that a religious mind has no conflict, that is, perceiving the nature of conflict and eliminating conflict.

I think we reached that point, didn’t we? Can we go further into this? That a religious mind, and we want Rishi Valley be a religious centre, not merely a school, a religious centre in the sense no belief, no ideals. Ideals are very, very complex business and the cessation of conflict in oneself and in our relationship to others. This is what we talked, came up to last time we met here. Now, can we discuss this? Discuss it, not me talk and explain; let us go into it together to find out if one can lead a life without a single conflict, not only in oneself, but in one’s relationships, in one’s communication, in one’s activity, not only to create conflict, but also the ending and the understanding of the nature of conflict. Right? Can we go into that?

Harshad Parekh (HP): Sir, when the mind is watching the conflicts going on, would you call this a religious mind?

K: Now, let’s understand what we mean by conflict. What do you mean by conflict? A struggle, a sense of *what is* and *what should be*, a sense of contradiction, a statement and the contradiction of that statement in oneself, saying one thing and doing another. I would call that for the moment conflict—saying one thing and doing another, in which there is a great deal of pretension, hypocrisy, lack of integrity. Sorry to use all these words. No honesty. So what do you? All of you please discuss it, all of you. What do you mean by conflict?

G. Narayan (GN): Sir, there is a Western way of looking at this. They say one is tension reduction, generally reduction of tension. There are two ideas with reference to conflict. One is reducing of tension. The other is they say when a man takes a big challenge, there can be an increasing of tension, but not necessarily of the nature of a conflict.

K: So let us find out what we mean by conflict.

GN: Yes, what is the relationship between conflict…

K: …and challenge…

GN: …and tension and challenge.

K: Yes. What is the relationship of one who is being challenged? Right? I am challenging you now. Is that challenge awakening a defensive mechanism which then would be a conflict or a resistance, which then breeds conflict, or a challenge which you observe without reaction? I wonder if I am making myself clear. Which is it? See, I am talking, please discuss with me.

Questioner 1 (Q1): Sir, if I may say, if we observe the challenge, if we observe that, I don’t think there is any conflict in observing.

K: No. But there is conflict when there is resistance.

Q1: No. Without any resistance you are just observing.

K: That is quite a difficult matter: what do you mean by observing?

Q1: That is, you don’t come to any conclusion.

K: Yes.

Q1: You don’t decide that what you are saying is not correct or what I am thinking is correct. You just listen.

K: Which means you are not reacting to the challenge.

Q1: Yes, not reacting to the challenge.

K: You are not resisting the challenge, you are not accepting it?

Q1: No.

K: Or denying it?

Q1: No.

K: Then what is your approach to the challenge? If you are not denying, if you are not accepting it, if you are not resisting it, if you are not creating in the very observation of that conflict a resistance, if none of these exist, then what is your approach to the challenge?

Questioner 2 (Q2): Factual approach.

K: What do you mean by *factual approach*?

Q2: There is no resistance, no image, you simply face the challenge.

K: Sir, I am challenging you now. Sorry.

Q1: With what are you challenging us, sir?

K: I am challenging you to find out what you mean by conflict. That is a challenge. What do you mean by conflict? Go on, sir. How does conflict arise?

Q2: The conflict is between the image and the actuality.

K: Yes. Which means what? I have a wife. There is conflict between us. Right? My brother and myself, my father and myself, my wife and myself, and so on. What do you mean by that conflict?

Questioner 3 (Q3): Sir, sometimes we feel low and depressed, and some other times we feel…

K: Sir, I said what is my relationship with my wife, which brings about conflict?

Q3: Disagreement.

K: Why is there disagreement? Look, sir, here we are. Why is there a disagreement between us?

Q1: Because there is no relationship.

K: No, don’t reduce it to relationship. Why is there disagreement? Either it is a disagreement of opinion, disagreement of judgement, disagreement of conclusions. Right? Am I making all this clear, or am I using a lot of words? So my wife and I disagree. She clings to an opinion and I cling to mine. Her values are different from mine, her evaluation of what is necessary is different from mine and so on. Why is there disagreement?

P.N.Shrinivasan (PNS): Because I hold on to my opinion.

K: Yes. Go on, sir. Why?

Q3: There is a division between my wife and me.

K: Yes, yes. You are not answering my question.

Q3: Probably I don’t want to compromise.

K: Yes, sir. Which means what? I compromise, which is a form of conflict. So compromise breeds conflict.

GN: He said, ‘I don’t want to compromise.’

K: If you don’t want to compromise, it means you have already compromised. [*Laughter*] I am not being clever, please.

Questioner 4 (Q4): Sir, there is no clarity in my vision, in either of our visions.

K: Is that it?

Q4: When I cannot see very clearly, I cling on to what I see or what I want to see, and he or she whoever it is I’m relating to clings on to his or her own opinions.

PNS: At times I may see very clearly, but I don’t want to give up myself.

K: Go on, sir. Let’s talk about it. You have disagreements with people, don’t you?

PNS: Yes, sir.

K: Do you have disagreement with Mrs Radhikaji?

PNS: Not very much. [*Laughter*]

K: Or with Mrs. Thomas?

PNS: No, sir.

K: Or with Mr Narayan?

PNS: No, sir.

K: Oh no. Don’t say no, no.

Q3: What do you mean by disagreement, sir?

K: He does something which I disapprove.

Q3: It is quite possible we can’t agree with all.

K: Ah, ah, wait, wait, wait. This is how we have existed, all our lives.

Q3: There is not agreeing.

K: No. I question this whole attitude of accepting.

Q3: I never said that we accept.

K: No, not accepting. Attitude of disagreement.

Q3: It is not the attitude of disagreement, sir. In some cases you have to disagree. Why should you agree always?

K: I am coming to that, sir. You are asserting that there must be disagreement.

Q3: Not necessarily. But it can be.

GN: Are you saying there can be disagreement, but it is not conflict?

Q3: Not conflict. It can be resolved.

K: So wait a minute, sir. A disagreement can be dissolved. Right? Right? But why do I have disagreement?

Q3: Probably we have not understood each other.

K: Which means what? I stick to my wife and myself because that is what most of us are caught. My wife does something and I disagree with it. Or I do something, she disagrees with it. There is conflict. I am questioning why between two people who have known each other—all the rest of it, sex, children, all that—why there is disagreement at all? Don’t answer it, sir, too quickly. Go into it a little bit.

PNS: There is no care between each other, we don’t care for each other.

K: So what does that mean? Go on, sir. Explain to me a little more. I don’t understand what you mean by it.

PNS: Suppose you say something to me. If I have to really understand you, I should care to listen to you and try to understand what you mean by that.

K: So my wife doesn’t care to listen to me, and I don’t care to listen to her because we have lived for twenty years or ten years or fifty years, and we know each other’s reactions very quickly and say ‘Oh God, here begins again.’ Right? Sorry. Is that all very familiar? [*Laughter*] Now, I am questioning this whole divisive agreement and disagreement. You understand, sir? There is divisiveness in this.

PNS: Even in agreement?

K: Even in agreement. I question why there is divisiveness, why there is division, which brings about agreement or disagreement, and before that there is conflict. Then there is compromise: ‘Darling, you do what you want to do’ and she says, ‘Today I will’ and all the rest of it. Now, you tell me: why is there this divisive process in human relationship, which is really the essence of conflict?

Q2: Can we approach it from the idea of attachment of each individual?

K: That arises later, sir. I am attached to my wife. Why am I attached? I don’t want to enter into that for the moment: it leads us somewhere else. Why is there division between my wife and myself, between myself and society, between myself and the community, myself and God, myself and the nation, and so on and so on? Why is there this divisive, fragmentary process going on in one? I wish you would discuss this. Put your brain into it, sir.

Questioner 5 (Q5): Because I have an idea of how I think it should be.

K: Yes, we said that. Where there is a separative attitude towards life—I want my way and you want your way, or I think it should be that way and she thinks it should not be that way—you understand?—all those processes are divisive, fragmentary, breeding conflict. Now, I want to know why there is this division.

Q3: Is it dependence, sir?

K: No sir.

Q2: Mustn’t it start off from the sense of being a separate entity and being apart from the other?

K: Yeah. I have got it, sir. What were you going to say, Madam?

Q5: Is it selfishness?

K: What do you mean by that word *selfishness*? Sir, please bear in mind what we are discussing. We want Rishi Valley, at least Rishi Valley exists not only for a school, but as a religious centre which is far more important than the school. From the religious centre, schools can be something excellent, super-excellent. So we are trying to understand what is a religious mind. We said a religious mind doesn’t belong to any of the rituals and *puja* and all the verbal statements and so on. It doesn’t belong to any group, any sect, any ideal, utopian, etc. We also said it has no belief, no ideals—we’ll come to that—and we said for a religious group, for a religious mind, there must be no conflict. Conflict exists between me and you, my husband, my wife, my father, etc. I say, ‘Why does it exist?’ Not I should compromise, I should tolerate, I should adjust. I don’t want to adjust, I don’t want to compromise. I want to understand why there is conflict between me and you.

A. Kumaraswamy (AK): Each one carries an image of himself and also of others. This conflict arises because of these images.

K: Why do you have image?

AK: From the past, the experience.

K: Don’t just throw lot of words; go into it, sir, little bit. Why do you have an image about yourself? Why? And my wife has an image about you or about her husband. Do you understand? Both the wife and the husband have an image about each other. Why?

PNS: Some form of security, to be mechanical.

K: Be clear, don’t be hesitant, think it out. You will accept it when it is truthful. Right? But when you are hesitant. You understand what I am saying? Nobody will say… All right, let us begin the other way. Forget my wife. Why do I have an image about myself? You all have it, haven’t you? Agreed? Why?

Q1: The image is based on some feeling, whether it is pleasurable or painful.

K: Feeling. Yes, sir. But why do I have it?

Q2: That is memory.

K: No, no.

PNS: Some form of insecurity.

K: What?

PNS: Some form of insecurity, so I want to have something, to be sure of…

K: So are you saying that having an image about myself gives me a certain sense of security?

PNS: Yes, sir.

K: Are you doubtful?

PNS: No, sir. I am sure.

K: You are sure. Are we? He and I agree.

PNS: Agree?

K: Agree? No, we see the same fact. Sorry, forgive me. You and I see the same fact, as you and I see that this is a microphone. We have called it a microphone; you can call it giraffe, but then we would both call it giraffe. There would be no sense of agreement and disagreement. So do we both see, you and I for the moment, that having an image about oneself gives a sense of security? Now do we, all of us, see this fact? Right? Do you see the same fact, that is, the same red flower on that tree? So there is no agreement or disagreement about the demand, the creation of an image which gives us security. Right? We see the same fact; therefore, there is no agreement or disagreement. Are we in this clear?

Q1: Could we go into that a little more, sir?

K: Why do I have an image about myself? From childhood this image has been built up—my father and my mother say, ‘You must be like somebody else’, ‘You are not as good as your brother’, ‘You are not as beautiful as…’ You know what they do. And not only what the parents do, but also you create your own image. Right? Don’t you? And that gives you a sense of identity, a sense of having roots somewhere, a sense of stability. Agreed? Not agree, do you see it? For God’s sake.

Q1: That is one part of it.

K: No, wait. Good enough, begin with that, sir.

GN: What would be the other part? He said that is one part. I was wondering what the other part would be.

K: I was going to ask him that. So this building up of an image from childhood is me. Take away that image, what have I?

GN: Is this sense of location necessary? Like a point, it must have a location. A sense of location—is it necessary?

K: I may have this image about the whole of India. Image is not here. I have that image as an Indian, as a communist, but we all have some kind of image.

GN: Right. What I am asking is: this point of location, this point of security, is that a human necessity?

K: We’re going to find out. But do we all see that we have images? It is so obvious. We all have them.

PNS: We all have them.

K: If you inquire why we have them, then you begin to find out, as you have found out for yourself it is, it gives us a sense of identity, a sense of being, a sense of non-isolation. Wait a minute. I’m using that. That comes later.

PNS: Isolation actually.

K: Yes.

PNS: It is not non-isolation.

K: Isolation. In that isolation there is security and so on. Do we all see this point before we go further? This is a class. [*Laughs*] Do you see it? Can we go on from there? Yes, sirs, please. Now, why do I have it? And why has it become so extraordinarily important? And what is the nature and the structure of this image? You understand? I know the nature and the structure of a microphone; it has all been very carefully put together by thought, by experience, by knowledge. And this image which I have built about myself, what is the nature of it? What is the structure of it? Come on, sir.

PNS: What do you mean by ‘structure’?

K: The building, this is a structure, it has been put together, the structure. You know? The meaning of that word is: *structure* means movement. This is a movement.

PNS: It is not a movement; it is static.

K: Leave it at that. I won’t go into it. What?

GN: He said it is static. I said the movement is inside.

K: Doesn’t matter. Leave it for the moment. Now, what is the nature of this image? How has it been put together, which is structure? How has it been put together? It is a movement, adding, adding, taking away, adding. I’m asking you, ‘What is the nature of it? What is the content of it?’

PNS: All that has happened.

K: Go on, sirs.

Q1: The accumulation of all past experiences, whether they are pleasurable or painful.

K: Go on. So you are saying. I don’t want to tell you. Go on, sir.

Q4: Sir, it is also built on all the ideals that I have held.

K: Yes.

Q3: What has been told to you.

K: Yes. Your experiences, your concepts, put it all together. You will see it in a minute. Your beliefs, your concepts, your judgements, your hurts, your desires and so on and so on. The nature of the image is—what?

Q3: An accumulation of all this?

K: Yes, sir. Move, move a little more; we have all added that.

Q2: Sir, memory, sir.

K: Memory.

Q1: With every challenge the image arises.

K: He said ‘memory’. Right? Is the nature and the structure of the image, memory?

PNS: Yes, sir.

Q1: As you remember all these past experiences.

K: Memory. He said memory.

Q4: And thought which is based on memory.

K: Memory. Right? The whole thing is based on memory. No?

Radhika Herzberger (RH): Then you will have to say a certain kind of memory, because all memories, you can have factual memories.

K: Which is, for the moment we are saying it is based on memory. Don’t let’s…

Q1: Remembrance.

K: Remembrance, which is memory. Remembrance of things past, right? So what is it? If it is, the nature of the image is memory, then what is it? What is memory?

PNS: Past.

K: What does that mean?

Q4: It is not actual.

K: Yes, it’s something gone. My brother is dead, but I have a memory of it. Which means what? Come on, sirs. What is the matter with all of you? My brother is dead. I have a memory of him. What does that mean? That is also dead.

Q1: Memory.

K: So look.

PNS: It is not alive.

K: So what does it? I am living on dead things. Right? The nature of my image is memory, remembrance of things that have happened and so on and so on. On that I am living, and she is living on that, and you are living on that. So, what?

PNS: So we are not really living.

K: Ah, ah, don’t. What does it mean? Come on, sirs, look at it. You are not.

PNS: We are mechanical.

Achyut Patwardhan (AP): Sir, we are afraid to be completely new. That means totally uncertain about ourselves, about others.

K: Achyutji, I am asking you. Answer my question, sir, if you don’t mind. I am living in the past, which is the accumulation of memory of hundred years or fifty years or ten years, and she is living on that too, And I am asking, What is the quality, the nature of this?

RH: Shadow boxing.

K: Shadow boxing! [*Laughter*] Yes. And go on, tell me some more. See, you are not *with* it. It is still ideas, right? You are not with the image which you have, and you are not watching that image and seeing the nature of that image. Which is something that is over, a remembrance of it, which is memory. And memory is what?—words, pictures, symbols, all dead things. I can give them vitality, but they are dead. You understand what I am saying?

PNS: It is like a machine working, going on.

K: Going on. No. Machines have vitality.

PNS: Memory also has.

K: No. But I said I have a dead brother and I remember it, but the fact is gone. And I have certain recollections, remembrances, which are all my memory. On that I am living.

PNS: Sentimental.

K: No. See what I am doing. What’s the matter with?

Q4: Not really living.

K: What does that mean?

PNS: Not seeing, sir.

Q2: It means I am dead to the present.

K: I don’t know what the present is. That is one of the most difficult things: to find out what the present is.

Q2: But I am living with these images and it is…

PNS: I am being pulled by, influenced by the memory.

K: You are, sir, you *are* that image.

PNS: Yes.

K: I don’t think you realize this: you are not being pulled by the image.

PNS: Sir, I am being pulled by that image.

K: You *are* the image.

PNS: Oh.

K: Hey.

PNS: Yes, sir. Be careful with words.

K: Exactly.

HP: Sir, you remember something which has happened in the past, and you are aware of that remembering in the present. Then it is present, isn’t it? Then it is not past.

K: Sir, I am taking one example. You stick to one example and work it out, sir. My brother is dead, fifty years or sixty years ago. If I am living on it, if I am living on the memory of that brother dying, then what is the memory, what is the quality of that memory? What is the difficulty, sir?

HP: That quality will depend whether that memory you are forcing yourself to have that memory or whether that memory is spontaneous.

K: What are you talking? I am talking about my brother dead.

HP: It comes just, spontaneous memory.

K: No, there is no spontaneity in memory. Sir, please just listen. My brother is dead, which is a fact and if I, which I am not, suppose I am living on the memory of his living, how we walked together, what we said together, the shirts we wore and so on and so on and so on, what is my brain doing?

PNS: It is trying to seek some form of pleasure.

Q1: It is in the past.

K: Yes, what does that mean? I am living in the past, right? Now, what does that mean? Living in the past. On what? I am living in the past. On what? What is the past? God’s sake!

PNS: My experiences.

K: My brother is dead. And if my brother is dead and I am living on that memory, what does that mean?

PNS: I am living in ideas.

K: I am living in ideas; what does that mean?

Q5: Illusion?

PNS: Things that are not real, sir, things are not…

K: Ah, ah. Stick to that. I am living on something that is not real, that is not actual. What does that mean? Why am I doing this? Which is my image. Oh, come on sir.

PNS: Yes. I am living in myself.

K: No.

HP: But this act of memory which is happening in the present is actual, isn’t it?

K: Is it? It is actual in the sense I am bringing something dead to be actual. What’s the matter with all of you? What’s the difficulty in this? Somebody help me, please. Look, sir, I will go into it. My brother is dead fifty-seven years ago.

PNS: You remember it very well.

K: I just calculated now. He died in ’25, fifty-seven years ago. And if I have—which I haven’t got—the picture of him, how he looked, lived, what we talked about…

PNS: Sir, you don’t have the picture of him, sir?

K: No, don’t bother about me, I haven’t got it. Look here, old boy, don’t go into that for the moment. He died of tuberculosis, and I remember all the things that he said to me, I said to him, quarrels, etc., etc. So I am living on something that is gone, only on something that is remembered. Right? That remembrance is memory. Memory is experience. The things we have talked about—all gone. I can revive them and say this is very actual, very living. But it is reviving a dead thing, right? And when I do that, what’s happened to the brain? It is being clogged by things which are gone.

PNS: Unnecessary.

K: No, gone! Don’t use that word; then they will begin to ask what is necessary, what is not necessary. So the brain is living on past memories, on dead things which have an emotional impact if revived. If they don’t revive and keeps on thinking about, looking at it, it just becomes sloppy little machines. Right? Would you agree to all this? Not agree; do you see the fact? Am I right in this? I am living on something which is dead, and therefore my brain also dies. I wonder if you see this. What do you say, Radhaji?

Q3: Sir, you said the emotional response is real. Therefore I would like to recollect that; if it is pleasurable, I would like to recall that.

K: Yes, which means what? I have derived pleasure about a dead thing, dead memories. Memories are always dead. Right? And I am deriving, out of a dead body, pleasure. [*Laughs*]

Scott Forbes (SF): Is that pleasure what gives it its force?

K: Its force, its vitality, its sense of loyalty: ‘I must be loyal to my brother’, ‘He died so long ago’, ‘We liked each other’—you know all that.

SF: But it is the pleasure that keeps it going, as I said.

K: Pleasure and the constant repetition of it. I have a picture on my mantelpiece, and I look at it every day. You know, sir, all these things that goes on with human beings. So my image is all that, right? So my brain is living on something, on a dead carcass. I am purposely using the word *carcass*. Right? So what has happened to my brain?

PNS: It is deteriorating.

K: Haven’t you seen old ladies and old men who are living in the past?

PNS: Yes, we are also living in the past. We don’t have to go to them.

K: Ah, I am being polite. [*Laughter*] So the brain is never fresh. Now you are getting the relationship? My wife has a memory of me, image of me, and she is living on that, and I am living on my image about her. So two dead things. And their relationship is between these two dead things, and each giving it life. Right? Would you agree to all this? Not agree; would you see this? So battle, conflict. So the next question is: is it possible to live without any image?

PNS: It’s active, very active.

K: No, just listen, old boy, listen first. Is it possible to live without a single image? Not how to…

PNS: …to control it.

K: …to control it, how not to do it, how to live. But first of all put the question.

Q1: Krishnaji, you were saying that we are not living, we are living in the past, we are dead.

K: More or less dead. [*Laughs*] That’s what I said.

Q1: Then the only way of living is to leave the past.

K: Now, sir, that was my question: is it possible to live daily life without a single image, which then causes conflict, which then brings a division. Right? Do you agree? As long as I have an image about you, and you have an image about me, those very images are a divisive process; they divide. Right? Now, the question is: can you live and I live without a single image?

PNS: Totally unattached.

K: Ah, no, no, no. You see, you are ready to answer, but see what is implied in the question.

PNS: I’m not trying to find out an answer.

K: I’m not trying to find the answer. I have put the question to see the implication of that question which is: can I live, which is, I have an image about India and I belong to that species of tribes, and can I live without the image of India, without the image of the flag, without the image of the idea that I am a Brahmin, non-Brahmin, blah, blah, all that? They are all images. Can I live that? Of course those are fairly easy—not to belong to any country, all that. Then, is it possible to live without any conclusion, which is an image? See the complications?

PNS: Yes.

K: That is, can I live without any end, purpose, goal? As long as I have a purpose, a goal, and you have a purpose, we will be at loggerheads with each other. Right? If you are a communist and I am a democrat, if you are a Marxist and I am a capitalist—inevitable division. Right? So I see that as long as I have an image as an Arab and Jew, British and so on, there must be division and therefore there must be conflict. So can I live without a single image? What do you say, sir? See what the content of the question is first. The image is the tradition, right? That tradition may be yesterday’s tradition or thousand years’. It is still a repetition from yesterday to today and to tomorrow. Right? So I am asking myself, ask yourself whether you can live without a single image. If I say in all humility that I have no image about anything, you will say you are crazy.

PNS: I won’t say it.

K: Why not? You are living in an illusion. I say no. I see the nature of images and the destructive nature of the images, the divisive nature of images which bring conflict. And a religious person has no conflict. That is not an ideal. I see that as a fact. So finished. I have no images. *If* you see the fact. But you say, ‘Why should I not have the images?’ we can discuss about it. But if you see the fact, a simple fact, where there is division there must be conflict, that where there is a Jew and an Arab, Muslim and Hindu, Christian, Arab; you do puja, I don’t do puja; you go to Mass, I don’t go—you follow? So where there is division, there must be conflict. And the nature of division is the beginning of images—ideological images, historical images, conclusions from historical study of Marx, come to a conclusion and hold on to that conclusion and work everything round that conclusion, which the communists, the totalitarian people are doing. That is creating a division. And the democrats and capitalists are doing their stuff. Right?

Rajesh Dalal (RD): Krishnaji, are you saying the very seeing the nature of the division ends division?

K: Yes.

SF: Sir, then that it implies that the seeing of this division has more vitality and more force than…

K: Obviously, obviously. Look, look.

SF: If that is true, Krishnaji, why do we then maintain the division?

K: I will show you in a minute. I have explained this, K has explained very, very carefully the whole nature of division, separativeness through ideation, ideals, conclusions, definitions, and so on, and each one of us chooses one and clings to the other, clings to it—I prefer the Marxian, you prefer the capitalist and so on. So each one builds an image and holds on to it. And the image is a dead thing; it’s like shutting all the windows hoping thereby to find some kind of security in that. Right? And apparently there is. And so conflict arises where there is division. Full stop.

RD: Krishnaji, one brain sees this and says that the very seeing ends it.

K: Yes.

RD: And the other brain…

K: …doesn’t see it.

RD: No, the other brain says, ‘I see that images are divisive’, but that itself is one more image or one more conclusion.

K: Of course, of course. That means what? Just listen. That is, the speaker K is saying seeing the fact and holding on to the fact, the reality of it. You hear it; verbal communication takes place. You draw a picture of it, an idea of it and hold on to that idea, but not see the fact.

RD: Right. Now K points that out, and this man says yes.

K: No, you don’t see. No. Either you see it or you don’t see it. Don’t say, ‘I see it.’

GN: I think he is trying to say: ‘I can say to myself that I am seeing, but actually I am not seeing.’

K: Of course, I mean that’s simple enough.

GN: Sir, the question ‘Is it possible to be without images?’ is a question of far-reaching depth. How does one give depth and vitality to something which is real, because the image-making mechanism seeps in very quickly?

K: Sir, look, Narayan, once you see something is dangerous, it is over. Each time you don’t go to the precipice and say, ‘Ah, I must run away from it.’ You see the danger of it, and it is not seeing it one moment and not the next. When you see danger, when you see poison, when you see something terrible, it is finished; you don’t go near it. But we refuse—not refuse—we don’t want to listen. Right?

SF: Why, sir?

K: Because it is too damned disturbing.

SF: It interrupts the pleasure of…

K: Too disturbing. I have found security in my image, and you come along and say, I hear you, but I don’t, you know.

SF: But the fact is, Krishnaji, it really doesn’t give security; it gives only the…

K: You *say* that.

SF: But it is a fact.

K: Sir, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, each one knows that isolation is the most dangerous thing.

SF: But they maintain it.

K: But they maintain it. Why? It is simple: the politicians, the voters being British, British, British…

SF: But then at an individual level, Krishnaji…

K: It is the same process.

SF: But I can see that it breeds tremendous insecurity and yet…

GN: …we continue with it.

SF: We continue it.

K: Which means what?

GN: Is there a dilemma in that?

K: You are a damn fool. [*Laughter*]

RH: Krishnaji, can’t one say that the question ‘Can one live without an image?’ you pose for us; we don’t pose it to ourselves?

K: That’s what I am telling you. If you put that question to yourself, what would be your answer?

PNS: I should be as serious as…

K: What would be your answer? Have you put that question to yourself?

PNS: Yes.

K: Then what takes place?

Q3: I would very much like everyone else to live that way; I can’t say anything about me. [*Laughter*]

K: Yes. Let them all stop war first, then I will stop war. I know, the good old stuff.

HP: Sir, my response to that question would be: I would be watching images as it comes. I would be watching the images as it comes, means, to be in touch with what is happening.

K: Then you take all years.

HP: No, it is not; it is just watching whatever thoughts. It is not seeking freedom from images, but to be in touch with…

K: Sir, why do you complicate these questions? I am just asking you a very simple question. I have lived with images; you come along, put that question to me. Then I say, ‘Am I putting this question to myself, or am I just repeating the question?’ You understand, sir? Have you put that question to yourself?

HP: Without putting that question to oneself…

K: I am asking you, first.

HP: Yes, sir, I am answering that. Without putting that question to yourself, you can watch what is happening.

K: Jesus! Sir, after coming to a certain point, through all this morning dialogue, you have put that question to me. This chap puts that question to me and I say, ‘Is it his question or my question?’ If it is my question, I have put it, what’s my answer to it?

RD: Sir, when you ask that question…

K: Ah, ah, I haven’t asked it; you have asked it of yourself.

RD: No. I’m saying, in today’s dialogue you asked that question, you put that question verbally. And I was noticing people giving answers to the question. At some moments I noticed answers coming from me, and I brushed my answers aside. Then I realized how difficult it was for me to even put the question. I was all the time noticing that my mind was not putting the question.

K: Now after saying all this, put that question.

RD: I put it, sir, I’m saying. After that I put, suddenly it happened. I became more serious. I put the question. There was no answer; the mind was silent.

K: What do you mean there was no answer?

RD: There was no answer in the mind; the mind was silent.

K: Why not? Or you are refusing to answer, you don’t want to answer.

RD: But I am asking the question of myself.

K: Ah, ah. You can ask it. But unconsciously, deeply you say, ‘For God’s sake, I’ll keep quiet.’ When you say, ‘I have put the question’, put it, not just as something casual. I want to know if it is possible to live without one image. What does that mean? I have no image. Suppose my wife has an image: what is my relationship to her? If I said to her, ‘Sorry, old girl, I have no image about you’, she says, ‘What the hell are you talking about? Does it mean you have no relationship?’ ‘No, darling, that is not the question.’ [*Laughs*] We begin to argue. But see what happens, sir. I have no image—about India, about Europe, about myself, about my wife; I have no image. And I am related to my wife. What is my action? She says, ‘If you have no image, are you detached from me? Are you not attached to me?’ If I say, ‘No, darling, I am not’, what would she say? She would pick up the nearest handy thing and throw it at me if she has got guts. Why don’t you face all this? Go on, sir, put that question to yourself and see what the response is. That is real freedom, you understand, sir? Not to have a single image about anything. Could you put the question differently?

Q3: Understanding the workings of the mind.

K: Now I am asking this question, sir. Could we put the question differently? Is affection, love, put together by images? Is love, a much-abused word, that word, is it related to images? If I have an image about you, can I love you? Oh Lord, it’s too…

AK: Then I will be loving only the image.

K: Yes, sir. I have asked, sir. Image is the product of thought, right? The image has been put together by thought. Are you clear on this?

PNS: Yes.

K: Are you sure?

PNS: Yes, sir.

K: Thought is memory, thought is knowledge, thought is experience. Experience, knowledge, memory. Thought has built this image. Therefore is thought affection? Is thought love?

PNS: What is affection?

K: Wait, wait. I am asking you. Thinking about my wife—is that love?

PNS: It is thought.

K: I am asking you, ‘Is that love?’

PNS: I don’t know what love is, so I can’t get into that.

K: All right. Is thinking love? For God’s sake!

PNS: I don’t think so. It is not, sir.

K: Why do you say it is not?

PNS: It is a very limited thing. If thinking is love, then it is a very limited thing.

K: But when I think, when I write a postcard from Goa to my wife—‘Darling, I am thinking about you’—she feels flattered, she calls that love. Right? What are you all smiling at? So thinking about her—is that love?

PNS: No.

K: Sir, do you know what you are saying? We are reversing the whole process of human relationship. I have a picture of my wife on the mantelpiece. Right? You understand what all that means?

PNS: Yes, sir, I understand.

K: And I call that love.

PNS: It’s not love.

K: Ah, don’t say it is not love. I call it because I am thinking about her, I am lonely, I am miserable, I am depressed without her. And all this I call love for her. No? You are married ladies, what do you say? Or unmarried people, what do you all say to this? [*Laughs*] Poor Rajasekhar Reddy is smiling very knowingly: he knows all the business of marrying and having four daughters. So do you realize when we say love has no relationship to thought, you have upset the whole applecart of human relationship. Right? So I am now coming back: does a religious mind have conflict? Or a group of us working together—which we are and I hope with our hearts and minds, not just as a business affair, if we are all working together—if there is a dissension, a disagreement, why do we have conflict about it? You understand? Could we dissolve the disagreement immediately and not carry it over?

AP: Sir, in our consciousness there is a certain weightage to the thought as I see it. We give a certain weightage to the thought.

K: Yes, weight.

AP: We carry it with us because we carry it with us as a convenient piece of luggage like we carry our clothes, etc.

K: Yes.

AP: Now, we can’t conceive of being without that because we would feel very bereft if…

K: Yes, sir, we said all that.

AP: Now, what I want to say is that you have very graphically, almost out of time, placed us in a totally new context, and still you go and live your old life, go and teach mathematics, go and do this, go and do that. I wonder if we see…

K: …how extraordinarily difficult it is.

AP: No. The kind of situation which we get into.

K: I think any situation, sir, if there is this quality of intelligence, it is solved. After all, if I have affection for you, in my sense, if I have affection for you, I would see that a disagreement never arose between us. It is my job, my responsibility to see that there is no dissension because I won’t take a stand about anything. But I am willing to examine, which doesn’t mean that I am yielding. I don’t start from a posit and then move from that. I say I have no ground on which to stand in the psychological sense, and so I am willing to move, and if there is a disagreement between him and me, I’d say, ‘Look, let’s talk about it’. Not wait till day after tomorrow. I would say, ‘Let’s meet this afternoon, let’s talk about it so that there is no wall between us.’ This way I have functioned, I’ll function. But if you refuse to do that, well it is up to you; I can’t force you. So could we have a religious mind, a religious group who have no belief—god, future—belief on which most people thrive on? Which means belief, faith—they go together. Then what was it? What was next? Ideals, no ideals, conclusions, definitions, concept, and holding on to that concept, because I have studied Marx, studied history, and Marx’s conclusion I agree with and I stick to that conclusion. It is a stupid thing to do, and they are all very clever people. Suslov, you know Suslov?

GN: Died some years ago, Russian.

K: He was my great brother. [*Laughs*] Suslov was the theoretical communist at the Politburo, on top level; he was the theoretician translating what Marx meant or Lenin meant. I think I have met him. He was the priest. They don’t call him the priest; they call him a theorist. Actually he was the priest, and they were all caught on to him. It is all too silly. So no belief, no ideals, and no conflict—can we live that way? Then next, all this implies cooperation, right? Can we cooperate to build together a religious centre here? Not *ashrama* in the old sense, which is an abomination. A religious group. Because they are religious they have a new kind of vitality, you follow, because they are free. If you have no belief, you are an extraordinarily free person already. Right? No ideals, no conflict. My God, you understand? That is, we cooperate without a person, not round a person, not round a belief, not round an ideal, but there is the spirit of cooperation, which is totally different than cooperating for something or about something. Have we that? Have you got that? What does that mean?

Q4: It means I want to learn so I don’t have anything I know or fixed.

K: Yes, then you have this spirit of cooperation. Suppose you have it: which means no authority; you are not cooperating because of something or about something or for something. No cause, no person, no ideal; therefore, you have the feeling of wanting to work together. Right? I don’t want to; how will you deal with me? Because it’s going to happen. You understand? How will you deal with me? This is a problem in this school, isn’t it? If a few people, a few of you have got this feeling of really wanting to cooperate, I haven’t, how will you deal with me? You want to help me to break down my ideals and all the rest of it. How will you help me? Have you got that feeling, sir, of cooperation, which doesn’t exist in India? You understand? Right? They all want to cooperate with Mrs Gandhi, of course, or round a guru or round a business motive for personal gain, and there nobody says, ‘Let’s cooperate without a purpose.’ You follow? They won’t even know what the thing meant. If you understand it and if you have got that spirit, then I haven’t got, what will you do with me? You have got me here in this place, what will you do? What is your responsibility to me?

PNS: I will give my life and explain.

K: Yes, sir, but find out what will you do with me. This is happening now, sir. [*Pause*] What will you do, Rajesh, if you got that spirit? Have you got that spirit? Don’t say ‘sometimes’; that’s an awful word. Have you? Don’t take long, sir. I am gone.

RD: I cannot answer you, sir.

K: Why not? You understand what it means, sir? It is so simple.

RD: Sir, don’t say it is so simple.

K: It is terribly simple.

RD: Then why do we feel so hesitant, sir?

K: I don’t know. I am asking you.

RD: Or we are making it too complicated, sir?

K: You are making it all so complicated.

RD: Yes. With the result that we are not able to say, ‘Yes, we mean that’.

K: Yes.

RD: What is it that prevents?

K: I will show you. First put that question: have you this spirit of cooperation which is not for a purpose, not round a person, not round an ideal. You follow? Let’s all build an *ashrama*. We all want to build a new house. Right? We all want to build it. Right? Do you?

RD: Yes.

K: Yes, that’s all. If you really want to build a new house, I employ the architect, and I say, you and I agree so many windows, so many doors, such size of the rooms, the kind of roof it is, right kind of insulation and this and that. Right? That means that though we want to build a house together, before that we have the urge to build, the feeling that we must create a new thing. Not ideals. Surely you have got it; any thinking person must have this. Or you are dead to all this?

RD: No, sir. We are not dead to this.

K: So you have it. Keep it simple. And it becomes very complex later. But you see the complexity and you are stuck.

RD: No, sir, if one starts with simplicity, you suddenly bring up something so complex.

K: I will, I will. But begin simply.

RD: Yes.

K: Sir, have you ever noticed how a tree grows? It is so simple, the beginning—puts out a little thing, gradually moves, moves, it becomes a gigantic tree. But you start with the gigantic; I start with the lowest thing. Right? Now I say, ‘How can you have this feeling of cooperation?’ See, motive is always personal, or personal identified with a greater motive. Right? So these are all a limiting process of cooperation, but we are wiping all that out, and therefore there is this extraordinary feeling of cooperating, working together. So no belief, ideals, no conflict and this sense of deep cooperation. You’ve got it, sir, haven’t you? If you have that, all this implies affection, care, love. What do you say? You are all keeping quiet. So is Rishi Valley becoming a religious centre?

AP: We have seen all this, this morning, through your eye.

K: Ah, ah. Throwing back…all right.

AP: I feel that it is necessary for us to see this on our own.

K: Of course.

AP: Because unless we see each one for himself that we do this journey alone…

K: Yes, sir.

AP: …that this will come into being if each one is working on this sees it all this for himself…

K: Sir, if you don’t see it for yourself, if I die tomorrow—I’ll probably die some time—if I die tomorrow, you won’t have this.

AP: No, I think we have seen something, but we must see that we have seen it through your eyes today; it is necessary to see it through our own eyes.

K: Yes sir, that’s why I say, ‘Put the question to yourself, look at…’ I can see the yoga teacher showing me all the lessons, but I have to do it myself. Right? I can’t live on him.