K School Discussion 3, Brockwood Park, 4 October 1969
Questioner: …about confusion.
Krishnamurti: Confusion. Where? In the library, or in the kitchen? (Laughter)
Q: I think the confusion is about the pheasants, dissections…
Dorothy Simmons: I thought ‘Can I do what I like?’ was a very good subject, because I find… (inaudible)
K: I thought we talked about it the other day.
DS: We did. We talked about it.
(People enter)
DS: The train was late.
(Pause)
K: We waited for you. We waited for you. We expected you.
DS: The train was a derailment.
K: Derailment?
DS: Yes. And we couldn’t phone because the phone was out of order.
(Pause)
K: We were wondering what to talk about this morning.
(Pause)
Q: Could we talk about communication?
K: There we are, sir!
Q: Sir, we have been talking about whether or not it would be possible to talk to Mr Morton and some of the people who are going to beat the bushes in order to kill the pheasants. And some of us here think that if…
K: I think it might be a very good idea if you could talk to Mr Merton. Merton, is it?
Q: Morton.
Q: But the problem is that we don’t know how to go about it.
K: Go to his house.
Q: We don’t want to just put our ideas over on him.
K: Why not? Go to his house — it’s there — a delegation of you.
DS: Well, it’s already been gone into quite considerably.
K: Oh.
DS: Before. Yes.
Q: That’s where the question of confusion comes in.
DS: You see, before when we could buy the house we had to agree to some of his terms, which were that beaters could come in five times a year. And he wouldn’t sell the house — we got caught on that. And so in order to have the house…
K: …you have to let them shoot here.
DS: Not shoot, but it’s the same thing really, it allows the pheasants to be beaten out into their ground, where they will shoot them.
Q: So in other words, what happened is when you bought the place you made an agreement that you didn’t agree to.
DS: Not quite. We saw the whole situation and we wanted this house, and unless we could meet some of his terms — he wants to shoot on it which we said no to completely — we met, we went as far as we could, and to still have the building, get this building, we had to meet his terms, if we wanted it. And it was the same with every house we came into contact with. You are living in a place where you must recognise what goes on here.
K: But suppose we, as a group, went to his house, unofficially, not legally, say, ‘Look, sir, this is terrible, what is happening. Can’t you let us alone, in peace?’ Would there be any harm in that?
Q: Well that’s where the problem of communication comes in because, we may be wrong, but we have a feeling that…
K: What do you mean we may be wrong? I’d like to go up there. I mean, what is wrong in it if some of us go there and say, ‘Look, please…’ Where’s the confusion in this?
Mary Zimbalist: But we’ve already accepted his…
K: I know, but we can always go back and say, ‘Look, can’t you reconsider it?’
Q: Then he might say, ‘Why?’
DS: Well, you see…
Q: Well, then we accept…
K: If he says, ‘Buzz off,’ we’ll buzz off. Then there’s no more to be said.
Q: We wanted, some of us wanted to do that, and then some of the others said he would feel attacked and that we should find a way to express what we feel about it but in such a way that he won’t feel…
Q: …antagonised…
Q: …too much, and that…
K: No, but you go up there politely, kindly, respectfully, (laughs) everything and say, ‘Please, sir, don’t.’ If he says, ‘Sorry, this is a legal thing we have agreed to,’ then you walk out — it’s finished.
Q: Yes.
K: I don’t see quite what’s the harm in this, do you?
DS: I don’t see any harm in it, except that we have done that, and he has raised very carefully hundreds of pheasants for that express purpose.
K: I can see them, dozens, hundreds of them.
DS: And also, you see, it’s not only Mr Morton, it will be the hunt.
K: I know, but he’s the main person.
DS: Well, I don’t know if he is. He might be.
Q: He is, of course.
K: He’s the man.
Q: He owns all the land.
K: He owns all the land here.
Q: He’s the person.
Q: He’s the one who has the right to apply for the licence, even if he applies for other people, but he is the one who has to do it. The thing is, I think that a lot of us feel that if we went to him and talked about it, we have confusion in ourselves about the whole question of hunting. I think we see the violence that is still in ourselves.
K: Ah, no, I wouldn’t go into all that. I would just go up to him and say, ‘Look, sir, this is what is taking… You are going to kill here, please would you consider, though it’s legally… etc.’ See what he says.
DS: There is a difference too, to go to him. You see, at first we started by saying we’d invited him here. I think that’s made a difference. I think if we go it him…
K: Go to him — much better.
DS: Yes, much better. And he might — he’s a fairly open person, isn’t he, don’t you think? — he would listen. I think our going to him would be much more…
K: …dignified or polite.
DS: Yes.
Q: I think one of his arguments will be, and was, that The Firs, the six acres, the grove over there, is an area that he didn’t want to sell us in the beginning, and we insisted on it. And he said, ‘Well, it’s a place where all the birds gather. It’s a favourite place for the pheasants.’
K: Thank God!
Q: And he said, ‘I want it because it’s part of my hunting,’ and we said, ‘Well, we want it too.’ So, that’s the thing. Now, he will say, ‘Well, all my pheasants, his pheasants, that he will have bred, will be coming to our grove.’
K: Sir, but what’s the harm if I go…
Q: I see there’s no harm.
K: None at all.
Q: No. I agree, I agree.
K: Why should I be… I may be violent, you know, personally, but we want to save those animals, so we go there, we go to him and say please.
Q: Well, we discussed one time earlier this year making Brockwood a sanctuary.
K: Yes.
Q: A place where animals couldn’t be harmed.
K: Marvellous.
Q: And this is a big problem.
MZ: The hunt, the fox hunting can’t come onto the land.
Q: I don’t think they are included. It’s just that beaters can come in. I don’t think fox hunters use beaters. I think it was just all the pheasants.
Q: Just the pheasants.
(Pause)
MZ: Is there a question in this worth discussing, which is: can one take action without being able to be certain one is totally free of any…
K: Then you can’t act at all.
MZ: …violence in oneself, because then one comes to a grinding halt from all this.
K: Then I can’t… we can’t act at all. Unless I am totally free from violence I can’t go to Mr Morton and say, ‘Please, don’t kill, shoot the animals’ — I mean, that would be impossible.
MZ: But can each one of us say yes, I am totally free of violence?
Q: No.
Q: We just can’t wait until we are free from everything to act because otherwise we would just stay here discussing for a long time.
DS: I think we could watch how we go to him. I think a great deal depends on how it’s presented to Mr Morton. I mean if we give him the feeling that…
K: …we really care for — you know.
DS: Yes, and not… I have a slight feeling that, so far, that we were a sort of ‘holier than thou’, a little. And I think it’s very difficult to know how to do that. I mean if we invited him here and we all sit around and say…
K: Oh, we couldn’t do that. That wouldn’t do. No.
DS: It would be quite impossible.
K: That would be impossible. I would get up and walk out. (Laughs) But if we went to him and said, ‘Look…’
DS: Yes. And discuss it. Say come over and discuss something that we feel very strongly about.
David Bohm: Of course, at one point communication means two sides are communicating and so therefore if one goes — he’s going to make some arguments himself, you see, and if one goes without being ready to listen to them, this will block the communication, you see.
K: Of course.
DB: So, for example, he may well say that these animals would probably die of starvation or something anyway, so various arguments are given — there are far too many of them for what can be…
K: What we are concerned with is that they shouldn’t be shot on this place, that they kill them. You know what I mean? We can’t…
Q: Well, I what was concerned about it being out of this place… (inaudible) Isn’t the problem bigger than that? I mean, you are only concerned about our property.
K: But you can’t prevent all the people from shooting, can you?
MZ: They could come and say to us, ‘Why do you try to prevent us, why don’t you join us?’ I mean, they could object to our attitude too.
Q: So we have to… (inaudible)
K: That means we must stop killing all animals, no wars. That’s a bigger problem, but we are concerned with the immediate problem in a certain place called Brockwood Park, where Mr Morton has the right to kill, to slaughter animals and birds. And we are going to him and say, ‘Please, sir, would you kindly consider, because we want to create this into a sanctuary, this is a school, we are vegetarian.’ It all depends how you put it. No?
Q: Yes, but this problem has made us aware of the larger problem also.
K: Ah, that’s a different matter, that’s a different matter. Mr Morton isn’t concerned with the larger problem.
Q: And we wanted to make him concerned about it.
K: If we are concerned with the larger problem, that’s quite a different issue.
DS: I question that. I mean, I question whether one can or should go to Mr Morton in order to make him aware of it. I mean, it’s absolutely…
K: That’s not our concern.
DS: Exactly. It’s not our concern. He may make it his concern. We might go to him and talk to him and say all that we feel strongly, and he might listen. And he then might make these other… the deeper issue his concern, but we can’t go to him and say, ‘Look, you should realise what you are doing,’ without… I think we won’t have a very good neighbour.
Q: We’re not going to say that to him.
DS: But that is the implication of what we are saying.
MZ: Yes. That is then the premise.
DS: It’s the implication of what we’re saying.
K: What?
Q: No, we don’t have to say…
DS: How we have been talking, Krishnaji.
K: No, but it’s simple. Why make a complicated issue out of this?
Q: We just say what we feel about it. We don’t want him to do it.
DS: I was trying to include what Francois was saying.
Q: Well, what he said… (inaudible)
Q: We cannot teach all the world a lesson on how to behave — it’s impossible.
K: We might try something else. As they do and did in India, if I owe you something you come and fast in front of my door. You understand? You blackmail me.
MZ: Blackmail.
K: Only you don’t call it blackmail, but you do it for spiritual reasons. This has happened, you know. I know of people who have done it. They don’t want you to do something which they think is wrong, so they come to your house, front steps, and remain there fasting, until you are forced by circumstances to yield to what you want (laughs). That’s what, partly, Gandhi did. So if we resort to that kind of stuff then I’m afraid that would — you know, Mr Morton will have the police on to you. Surely we don’t propose that, do we? No. (Laughs)
Q: Let’s go into the question outside of Mr Morton and let’s go into the question of the killing, of the slaughter of the animals. Because in the other talks that we had, there was… I think we were trying to get actually into the deeper question ourselves, and we always came to a point where we couldn’t go any further. There was nothing…
K: What is the question, sir? I don’t quite…
Q: The question of the killing of the animals, and it’s within ourselves.
K: Killing. Don’t let’s call it animals — killing first.
Q: Yes, killing.
K: Killing human beings, wars, killing human beings by economic means — right? — killing human beings with harsh words and gestures. Is that what you…? Discuss all that is involved.
Q: Also about the flies being in the kitchen annoying us, so we have to kill them, and we are wondering if we could kill them…
K: I know a group of people in India called the Jains, who don’t kill animals, insects even. So they put on a mask and sweep the floor or the room before they can walk. Right? That’s one extreme. But the same people are very rich, and exploit people ruthlessly — factories. And they are supposed to be not hurting animals, but they don’t mind hurting human beings. So where would you stop killing? That’s the point. You follow, sir? I mean, when you eat vegetables, we kill. When you put on leather shoes you use the leather which has… animals which have been killed for eating, and so on, so on, so on. So where do you draw the line between killing and non-killing?
When we were in Ceylon, two Buddhists, man and wife, came to see us. Buddhists, you know, are not supposed to kill anything, except what is absolutely necessary, like vegetables, nuts and so on. But these two said, ‘We are Buddhists, we don’t want to kill, so we eat meat killed by a butcher, so it is not our karma, our responsibility. And because we support that butcher, we change the butcher every week.’ (Laughter) And his real problem was whether they should eat eggs, because fertilised eggs contain life. You follow the reasoning?
Q: Yes.
Q: Therefore the problem is not killing, but hurting.
K: No, where do you draw the line?
DS: You can’t live without killing, surely.
K: Well, let’s find out. Where do you draw the line?
Q: But when you eat a fruit it’s going to fall off the tree anyhow, so you’re not going to kill. I mean, it’s not like… (inaudible)
DS: It’s going to die, eventually, too.
DB: Animals will die, and they starve to death or they kill other animals.
K: I must tell you also that in India there are shoes and leather goods made out of animals which have died naturally — called ahimsa. You follow? They worship cows, ill treat cows, ill treat their wives and husbands, whatever it is, and yet talk about non-killing. So where do you draw the line?
Q: The important thing isn’t killing, because it’s the act, the act when you… The thing is, like we learn in physics, in our physics class, in our chemistry class, we learnt about energy. Now, energy cannot be destroyed, it’s said, it can change form. But is that not what happens when we take a plant and eat the plant, we are not killing the plant, but we are changing the form of energy.
K: Energy, quite.
(Laughter)
Q: And therefore for the animals.
DS: Animals are the same.
Q: Yes. Now the thing is we can see… can’t we see a degree of suffering in the form? The physical existence that we have, we physically suffer.
DS: Don’t you ever sometimes think that when eating, a bite off an apple?
Q: No, I don’t. I don’t think it suffers in the way we suffer.
DS: It has some sort… it’s sensitive to the sun.
K: Good God!
DS: I mean, where do you draw the line then? You’ve got to draw a line somewhere.
Q: No, it doesn’t suffer, it’s…
DS: You say so.
Q: OK, well then what is suffering? What is suffering? Is suffering the change of form?
Q: My suffering, the lack of knowledge about changing form. The more sensitive, the more evolved, the more able of suffering, and also able to understand why and therefore be free of it. There are degrees of sensitivity.
K: Why are you a vegetarian?
Q: Me?
K: Any of you here.
Q: I don’t want to kill any animals. I don’t want… I want to draw a line in the killing. I want to say that to kill an animal is not necessary for me to exist in the form that I am in.
K: Right.
Q: It’s not necessary for my survival.
K: But you don’t mind putting on leather shoes.
Q: I don’t put on leather shoes. (Laughs)
K: When the cold weather comes you will have to — you see that — or running shoes or whatever it is — cork floor or something.
Q: This is necessary, the leather shoes. But I think, in fact, leather shoes are not necessary anymore. At one time they were.
K: So where do you draw the line? And are you inflicting suffering on animals? Are you inflicting suffering on people — your neighbour, your wife, your husband? So, what is the question, what is the issue? I told you the monks in India, certain types of monks who will… who put on masks and wipe the floor before they walk so as not to hurt any insect. They go to the other tremendous extreme of letting animals, like lice and others, live on them. Thinking that’s… and yet their own mentality is that they don’t mind hurting people.
Q: But they are the same. That’s where they’re wrong.
K: Wait, wait, wait — I am just showing it to you. If you are a pacifist and say, ‘I will not go to war, I will not kill another,’ then when you buy a stamp, write a letter, send a telegram, eat in a restaurant, or taxes, and you are supporting war. You understand? When you buy a shirt and pay whatever tax you pay, that supports the war. So, again, where do you draw the line? Or do you go much deeper, go into it much deeper, not just do, you know, superficial things, but very much deeper, saying the cause of war is nationality — right? — one of the causes. So, I will not be national. Though I have an Indian passport I don’t belong to any country. Right? I won’t compete. You follow? Which would be a much deeper issue than merely saying, ‘Well, I’m a pacifist and I won’t write a letter.’ ‘I don’t want to cause suffering therefore I’ll eat only grain, because, you know, they’re mature, they’ve fallen, they’re reaped — you follow? — there’s no suffering in that.’ And I won’t cause harm to another. You know, that’s one of the most difficult things to find out. I don’t want to hurt another. Do you know how difficult that is? Have you gone into it? To find out what it means not to hurt another — by word of mouth, by gesture, by thought. And suppose you do something wrong. You hurt me, either by speech or striking me, or doing something — you hurt me. To see that I don’t retaliate. You follow, sir? It’s really a very, very complex question this, not just…
I mean, like those people — I know a great many people who say, ‘My father wishes and my parents wish that I should do this, and I am doing it because I don’t want to hurt them.’
Q: But at the same time you can be hurting yourself.
K: Look at it, look at it.
You give me money, in trust. I refuse it, and you say, ‘What am I to do?’ Morally, it’s yours. You follow? Should you hurt me by going to law?
I am married to you. After a few years I say, ‘My God I can’t stand you!’ Right? And I leave you. I am hurting you.
Q: But that’s only because you say something’s mine.
K: (Laughs) Just look at it, sir.
(Pause)
Q: Sir, what is the right way to live? Because of all of these facts, what’s the right way to live?
K: Let us find out how to live rightly. Knowing all this, knowing that there are wars, knowing people hurt each other, deliberately or unconsciously, or they hurt animals, people, by habit. After all, meat eating is a habit. And the scientists are finding out it’s much better to live on whatever protein is necessary, because it’s cheaper than maintaining cattle on a huge piece, you know, acreage, and all the rest of that. But yet we won’t give up meat eating because I like it.
Q: Some people say that they don’t feel well when they don’t eat meat. Some people say they cannot live without eating meat because they don’t feel energetic without meat.
K: That may be merely psychosomatic, as Dr Bohm was saying the other day. Eating of soya bean or protein, or whatever it is, you’ve got enough pep.
DS: There is more in the soya than in meat.
K: So, shall we discuss this? How to live a life where one does the least harm to another? Is that possible? Which means the strong mustn’t influence the weak. Please follow all this, sir. That means no propaganda.
Q: At the same time we ought to be careful not to hurt ourselves, also — isn’t it?
K: Not to hurt ourselves.
Q: To live correctly, also ourselves.
K: You see, that’s just it — not to hurt myself and not to hurt you.
Q: Yes.
K: When I say not to hurt myself, I’m already hurting you. No?
Q: It’s one, isn’t it?
K: That is, we’re thinking dualistically — you and I. When I say I mustn’t hurt you and also I mustn’t hurt myself, we’re putting ourselves in an impossible position. So could we move to another level, this question? Is it possible to live with compassion? Yes?
Q: Yes.
K: Then how do you express it in action? You are going to Mr Morton, some of you, and say, ‘Look, Mr Morton…’ How will you talk to him compassionately? Not in a sense of superiority. That he feels you are really compassionate. You follow what I mean? And that may be the right communication. The feeling that you have about people, about property, about trees, about the poor, the animal — compassion, the feeling. Then I’m sure he will listen and he will do something. Or may not, I don’t know — you know? Then we’ll be acting rightly.
Q: But are we compassionate?
K: Ah, that’s just it. Can we live compassionately? That’s the question. What is involved in it?
Q: And where does compassion arise?
K: Obviously, it must be non-dualistic action. Right? There must be no feeling of we and they, me and you. As long as there is this division, compassion is not. And is this possible, to live like that? And what does it mean in action? First of all, do I feel that way? Being free, never to call mine, me, or feel the *me*. Ah, that’s a tremendous problem — you follow what I mean? It is not just…
Well, if Mr Morton feels that here are a group of people who really feel these things, not just words, who, their life, their way of thinking, their way of looking, I’m sure it is going to make a tremendous impression on him.
So what does it mean, or think or feel, non-dualistically? This jersey is mine. I’ve paid for it or somebody paid for it and gave it to me — it is mine. And you want it. Right? What shall I do? I may give it to you. I’ll give it to you, but I know somebody else will replace it. You follow? (Laughs)
So, first I have to have this feeling, and then the details can be arranged. You follow what I mean? Do I feel compassionate? That means in word, in gesture, in feeling, in thought, deeply, inwardly. Which means to love people, never to be angry, jealous, competitive — you follow? And therefore never wanting to influence another. I don’t want to influence Mr Morton. Why should I? I tell him what I feel, what I think is true, and put it on the table for him to look at. If he refuses to look, what am I to do? Beat him up? (Laughs)
So can I — not ‘can I’ — can one live with this sense of compassion? We won’t enter into all the problems of love, because that becomes tremendously complex — in which is involved sex, tenderness, kindliness, consideration, pleasure. And I don’t know how far you want to go into it.
Q: Can we be compassionate if we don’t go completely?
K: I don’t know. I’m asking you.
Q: I think we need to go into it.
K: You need to go into it. If you do, go into it — I am not going to push you into it.
Q: How about you? Do you live compassionately? How about you?
K: Me?
Q: Yes.
K: Why are you asking that question?
Q: Well, because you are talking about compassion.
K: Yes. I may or I may not. I should find out. You follow? Find out. I may be deceiving myself, or I may be telling the truth. That’s not important. It’s for me to find out whether I am compassionate or not. Right? It’s for you to find out for yourself, in yourself, whether you are compassionate or not. But if you say, ‘No, you are not compassionate there, or there or there…’ — you follow?
Q: Yes, yes.
K: Then either you are judging me, according to your standard…
Q: Yes.
K: Therefore you are already in a dualistic attitude. So can we together — together, not I and you — together go into this question? Put our minds and heart to understand this very complex problem. You see, because in that is involved, first, pleasure. Right? Because all our moral values are based on pleasure — like and dislike. Right? So unless I understand… unless one understands this question of pleasure it’s going to act as a hindrance for further communication or further enquiry into the question. If I am acting… if one is acting, thinking, feeling, in terms of pleasure, how can I be compassionate, how can there be compassion? I like you, and I don’t like you. Biologically, sexually I am attracted to you, and I am not attracted to another.
Q: Excuse me, sir. If this is a fact, that I can like somebody and… (inaudible) It is a fact — what can I do about it?
K: But does that interfere with your being compassionate with the other whom you dislike? I dislike you — I am sorry, I am just taking… — because for various reasons I dislike you. Why should I dislike you at all, first? Because you have your own ways, your own particular mannerisms, your own tendencies, your own values — why should dislike come into this?
Q: Duality. You still do.
K: No. You still do — that’s the normal reaction — but why should you? You look at me and you say, ‘Well, I dislike him because he is a terrible bourgeois, middle class or mediocre.’ Right? And you condemn me — you follow? — and it begins, this game of like and dislike. Why should you judge me at all? I am what I am. I am mediocre — right. Can I put away my mediocrity when you talk to me? That’s where communication comes in. If I project my mediocrity you can’t communicate with me. I don’t know if you follow?
Q: Yes.
Q: But instead of becoming compassionate maybe you will become indifferent.
K: No, no. That’s the danger, of course.
Q: I know that’s the danger, but…
K: It is. It is possible.
Q: I think about communication, if we find out, in the meaning of the word *communication*, it means to build together.
K: Together.
Q: And if you put out your mediocrity, there is nothing to do.
K: That’s it! But the moment you condemn me as being mediocre, you’ve already stopped communicating. And if I project my mediocrity, it’s finished. So, knowing my mediocrity, can I communicate with you, putting aside my mediocrity? I won’t project my reactions, I won’t say, ‘Well, I don’t like long hair,’ or a beard, or whatever it is. Can I for the moment put away all those and communicate? To put aside I must know I am mediocre. I must know my reactions. If I don’t know my mediocrity you can’t communicate with me. It’s very interesting this.
Q: Then there’s nothing… there’s no way of communicating this thing. If I’m mediocre then there’s no way of you communicating with me.
K: That’s just it. A man who believes in, you know, a Catholic, very strong, devout, practising Catholic, how can you communicate with him? If you are also an ardent believer, practising Hindu or Muslim, or a Protestant, you don’t meet. And that’s what’s happening.
Q: So what he is then, like, if he is mediocre he has decided, he has a conclusion, he has stopped.
K: Of course. He refuses to listen to you who are avant-garde, you are the latest… (laughs)
Q: It’s the same thing. (Laughs)
K: So, sir, look, from this, communication means, as you said, build together. Now, can we build together? A school — you follow? — build together with Mr Morton? He has got his legal rights, his prejudices, his desire to… you know, that’s part of the habit. To kill animals, to eat them, to say, ‘By Jove, how good they are’ — you know, all the rest of it. So can you go to him and feel this sense of building together, compassion, all the rest, and show it to him? After all, communication means two people willing to build together — two or a dozen or a hundred.
Q: But we want him to build with us. We want him to build with us, and it’s not sure that he will want it.
K: He won’t. He will not. And you have to point it out, and if he refuses we leave it. What can you do?
Q: If we say that then you are doing the same thing, you are being dualistic.
K: Exactly.
(Long pause)
You may be very intelligent, compassionate, considerate, and I am not intelligent. How are you going to communicate with me? And that’s where the whole world is like this — you follow? You are sensitive, you are intelligent, you are compassionate, and I am brutish.
(Pause)
So can I and you — no, we two, we here in this room, build together, knowing, being aware of our prejudices and not letting them interfere?
(Pause)
What’s the time?
Q: Twenty to one — five… (inaudible)
K: Oh, we’d better stop. It’s five past one. We’d better stop.
Q: It’s five and twenty to one.
K: Oh, five and — oh, sorry.
Q: Twenty-five to one.
K: What do you say, sir?
DS: When we go to Mr Morton though, aren’t we really sort of… isn’t it that there’s… the pleasure of his hunt and killing is one aspect only, and we are really going to him and saying, look, have you ever thought of all these other things?
K: No, I don’t want to say it that way.
DS: But aren’t we in fact doing that though?
K: No, no. I say, sir, please, we are a group of people, we don’t want to kill on this place. I would put it quite differently, because we want to create a sanctuary here, we are vegetarians, we don’t want to hurt people, we really mean this, we look after the earth — you follow what I mean?
DS: Because we have incorporated something more than just one thing.
K: Yes, include all that. We are looking after the gardens, we are careful, we are part of the earth, and so on. And, if he says, ‘Sorry, this is my wish, I am agreed to this,’ then what can you do?
Q: I mean, it’s not like going to Lord Chesham and saying, ‘You’re hunting.’ I mean, it’s not arbitrary. We are not trying to change Mr Morton, we are just — it’s affecting our forty acres, that’s why we are going to see him.
K: And we are living in a place where there is hunting going on, and we say, ‘Please, this forty acres, please don’t hunt. Can you please consider that.’ Put it very simply, you know what I mean? Appeal to his good nature, if he has one. But if you go there moralising, or you say, ‘For God’s sake…’
You know, once, in Bombay, I went to get my visa for America, to the consul, and the consul said, ‘Oh, you are a very dangerous revolutionary, I won’t let you go in. Listen to this. I won’t give it to you.’ I said, ‘All right, sir.’ But I told him, I said, ‘Perhaps if I went to England, I know some people there who know the ambassador.’ He said, ‘No, once I refuse to give it to you, it’s right through.’ He said, ‘But come back two or three days later.’ So I go back and he says, ‘I have read something about you, you are quite revolutionary, so I won’t give it to you.’ And I said, ‘All right, sir, that settles it. It’s like if somebody refuses to open the door to my knock, what am I to do? It’s your problem.’ ‘Oh, is that the way you feel?’ he said, ‘come in.’ And we went round, he talked to me about an hour. He said, ‘All right, you seem fairly decent, I’ll give it to you.’ (Laughter) Literally, this happened.
You know these people, like Mr Morton, he is well established here. You follow? A lot of people depend on him, look up to him. Probably he can vote and influence people to vote in a certain direction. So he is a big man, established here. And if we go and say, ‘Please, we want this,’ he’d say, ‘Buzz off!’ But if you can, you know, talk to him and show him what you feel, not what he should do, that we are a group of people who are really serious, I assure you…
(Pause)
So, sir, come back, let’s come back. Can we communicate with each other? Which means build together. The school, the garden, the house, we build together, create together, the whole thing. The moment we form groups within this, we have stopped. The moment I compete with you, it’s over. If I feel superior to you, that’s finished. After all, working together means meeting each other at the same level — not inferior and superior. It doesn’t mean that you… I may not know as much as you do, but you convey to me. Even though you know much more, we are doing things together.
After all, the relationship between the teacher and the taught, the educator and the one who is being educated, if there is this sense of communication, that is, build together, learn together, then the whole thing changes. This is real communication. Then the information is not merely something to be crammed into your mind, but in the very giving of that information there is communion, there is learning — both of us.
(Pause)
Sir, look, sir, I want… I mean, let’s communicate together, build together this question of not killing. Let’s find out what it means, not I tell you or you tell me — together we are going to find out. To kill another human being is called murder — in anger, or because you ran away with my wife. But to kill in an organised way, war, is perfectly moral — for my country, for my God, for my king, for my whatever it is, for my principles, all that. That is perfectly recognised as being true — you know, all the rest of the nonsense. Do you feel the same way as I do about that matter? Communicate together. Not that you and I agree together, which would be silly, but you and I see the same thing as it is — not you interpreting it one way and I interpreting it another. You…?
Q: Yes.
K: Can we do that? So that the moment you see that, you will never kill another human being, either through organisation or through anger. It is finished. I don’t know if you see that. Together we have seen that killing a human being, whether anger or organised, killing is, I mean… But if you say, ‘Well, I am a pacifist, I never kill,’ you’ve already taken a stand. I don’t know if you follow? You have already created a dualistic attitude in yourself. As we said the other day, to come to a decision not to kill a human being, you are like a Catholic who says, ‘I believe.’ But if you say, ‘Look, let’s look at it together, communicate together over that question,’ then we are both… we both see the same thing at the same time. Like seeing a precipice, both of us act. You follow? There is no question of your agreement and my agreement — it is there, the danger. And because we both of us see it, we act together, therefore cooperate together. I wonder…
(Pause)
I think we’d better stop, don’t you?