Public Questions 2, Brockwood Park, 3 September 1981

I’m glad it’s nice weather.

As we said the other day in answering these questions, there are too many of them. We can’t answer all of them and we have chosen some which I hope will be representative of all the other questions. We can together examine the question, explore as far, as deeply as possible into the question, but there is no end to talking, to answering questions and reading. But if we don’t put any of them into action, into our daily life they have very little meaning. And it’s becoming more and more difficult in a very complex society to live a sane life. Sane I mean a life which is whole, healthy, normal, and therefore holy — h-o-l-y. We have lost all sense of simplicity — not in clothes, I don’t mean that – simplicity of outlook, simplicity in our life, to be not so terribly self-centred, that’s becoming more and more difficult, and it seems rather difficult to live a life that is free from all the cruelties and the bestiality and the vulgarity of life. And during all these meetings that we have had here for the last fifty, thirteen, fourteen years and all over the world, there seem to be so few who really apply, who are consistently, continuously applying what we hear to find out what the truth of it is and live it, and not escape into some kind of idiotic, foolish ashramas or… the word *ashrama* means in Sanskrit, retreat. It is good to have a retreat but under a… not in a concentration camp which the gurus are cultivating. So in answering all these questions, please, we are together examining them; together we are seeing the whole implication of these questions and see if it is possible to live a life of sanity in this world.

1st Question: We find ourselves living in fear of war, of losing a job, if we have one, in fear of terrorism, of the violence of our children, of being at the mercy of inept politicians. How do we meet life as it is today?

How do you meet it? One must take it for granted the world is becoming more and more violent, that’s… which is obvious. The threats of war are also very obvious — South Africa, Middle East and so on. And also it’s a very strange phenomenon that our children are becoming violent too. One remembers a mother coming to see us one year, in India. The mother was horrified because in the Indian tradition mothers are considered with great respect. And she came to see us and said, ‘My children have beaten me’ — unheard of thing in India. You understand? So this violence is spreading all over the world. And there is the fear of losing a job, as the questioner says. Facing all this, knowing all this, how does one meet life as it is today?

I don’t know. One knows for oneself. I know how to meet it for myself but one doesn’t know how you will meet it. First, what is life? What is this thing called existence, full of sorrow, overpopulation, inept politicians, all the trickeries, dishonesty, bribery that’s going on in the world, how does one meet it? So one must first, surely, inquire: what does it mean to live? What does it mean to live in this world as it is? How do we live our daily life, actually, not theoretically, not philosophically or idealistically, but actually how do we live our daily life? If we examine it, or aware of it seriously, it’s a constant battle, constant struggle, effort after effort, even to get up in the morning is an effort. What shall we do? It comes down to that. We cannot possibly escape from it. I used to know several people who said the world is impossible to live in, and they withdrew totally, completely into some Himalayan mountains and to the Sierras of California and disappeared. That’s merely an avoidance, an escape from reality. Or to lose oneself in a commune, or join some guru with vast estates and get lost also in it. Those people do not obviously solve the problems of daily life, or inquire into the change, into the psychological revolution of a society. They escape from all this. And we, if we do not escape and are actually living in this world as it is, what shall we do?

Can we change our life? To have no conflict at all in our life, is that possible? Because conflict is part of violence. This constant struggle to be something, both in the world, economically, socially, morally and inwardly, to be something, which is the basis of our life — to struggle, to struggle. Can we, as human beings living in this world, change ourselves? That is really the question. Radically, psychologically transform ourselves; not eventually, but not admitting time. You…? For a serious man, for a really religious mind, there is no tomorrow. This is rather a hard saying, but there is no tomorrow, there is only the rich worship of today. And can we live wholly this life? And actually, daily, transform our relationship with each other? That is the real issue. Not the world, what the world is, the world is us. One more and more sees the actual reality that the world is us. Please, this is so: the world is you; you are the world and the world is you. That is an obvious, terrible fact. And if we don’t meet that challenge completely, that is, to realise that we are the world with all its ugliness, we have contributed to all this, we are responsible for all this: what is happening in the Middle East, in Africa and all the craziness that’s going on in the world — we are responsible for it. One may not actually be responsible but our grandfathers, grandmothers, great-grandfathers have been responsible for all this — slavery, thousands of wars, empire, the brutality of empires, of which we are a part.

And if we don’t feel very responsible for all this, which means responsible utterly for ourselves, what we do, what we think, how we behave, then it becomes rather hopeless, knowing what the world is, knowing that we cannot individually, separately, solve this problem of terrorism, which is the problem of governments, to see that its citizens are safe, protected. They don’t seem to care. If each government was really concerned that its own people must be protected, there would be no wars. But apparently governments have lost sanity too; they are only thinking party politics, their own power, position, prestige — you know? – the whole game of it.

So can we, not admitting time, that is, tomorrow, the future, live in such a way that today is all important? So we have to… one has to become so extraordinarily alert to our reactions, to our confusion — you know? – work like fury on ourselves. And that’s the only thing we can do, apparently. And if we don’t do that, there is really no future for man. I do not know if you have not followed some of the headlines in the newspapers, they are all preparing for war. And if you are preparing for something you are going to have it — like preparing a good dish. And apparently the ordinary people in the world don’t seem to care. And those who are intellectually, scientifically involved in the production of war don’t seem to care. They are only interested in their careers, in their jobs, in their research. And those of us who are fairly ordinary people, so-called middle class, if we don’t care at all, then we are really throwing up the sponge. And the tragedy is that we don’t seem to care either. We don’t seem to get together, think together, work together. We are only too willing to join institutions, organizations, hoping organizations, institutions will stop wars, will stop butchering each other. They have never done it. Institutions, organizations will never stop any of this; it’s the human heart and the human mind that’s involved in this. Please, we’re not talking rhetorically but we are facing something really very, very, very dangerous. We have met some of the prominent people who are involved in all this – they don’t care. But if we care for our life, daily life is lived rightly; if each one of us was aware of what we are doing daily, then I think there is some hope for the future.

2nd Question: Is man’s search for something truly religious simply an extension of his eternal acquisitiveness, selfishness, or is it something entirely different; not a reaction, but a deep fundamental movement towards an ultimate reality?

This is a very complex question. Let’s go into it carefully. Why do we search? Why do we seek something? We’re always seeking – why? Is it that we are so utterly discontent with everything that we touch, see, smell, feel? Is it our search is really, deeply for satisfaction? We may call it the search for truth, search for God, search for happiness, search for this or that, but is it that we are all seeking some kind of deep, abiding contentment, satisfaction in one form or another? You might call it God, you might call it truth — give it any other name one likes, is it that we want an abiding, lasting, unshakable contentment, some deep security? And is there ultimately security and contentment? What is security?

Let’s examine, please, together. What is security? We need to have security physically, to have a roof, clothes, food. That is absolutely essential. But in an overpopulated world that’s becoming still… that is still lacking. If you go to the Eastern countries, Africa or India or those countries, where fifteen million people are born every year, adding to the population in India — fifteen million people every year. That is, as much as the population of Holland every year is added. Governments are inept to control, birth control and all the rest of it. And also the problem there is the religious. They believe in reincarnation and the souls are waiting to be reborn, so don’t — you understand? — give as many births as possible (laughs). And those people have no security at all physically. India is having nearly seven hundred million people. There is overpopulation in Europe too. And we are all seeking security, security physically. And that too is being denied in the affluent societies like Europe and America because they are also preparing for war. They talk about having physical security, some of them, or the majority of them have physical security, but always there is the threat of war that denies physical security. National division prevents security. That is, this tribalism is preventing security.

And also we want intellectual or psychological security. The churches throughout the world, the temples, the mosques give you psychological security, at least they think they give it to you. The book — you know? – all that. And is there psychological security at all? Please, let’s talk it over together. One feels… one needs psychological security, to depend on something, to possess something that is unbreakable. So we invent a belief — belief in God, belief in something or other. It’s invented by thought. And that invention, we think, is necessary to be secure: I am a Christian, I believe in a saviour, I worship, I hold on to that; and they do the same in India, all over the world with their own particular form of belief and faith. And when you look at it closely, intellectually even, and if you look at it much more deeply, it is fear. Fear of not being anything; fear of losing your experiences, your values, all that. And we hold on to something that is illusory. Now a man, or a woman – when we use the word *man*, the woman is included, please; don’t let’s become women’s lib and all the rest of it – when man, seeking security, finds some kind of thing, however illusory, however neurotic, he clings to it. And he will fight for it, kill for it – you’ve seen all this. So is there any security at all psychologically? Please think it over; let’s talk it over together. I want security psychologically. I find security in the belief of nationalism, I find security in God. If I don’t find it in God, I find it in some theory, in some ideal, or go off abroad to the Asiatic world, and find something that they have thought out for the last three, four thousand years. So I’m always seeking that security. And intellectually I see the absurdity of it, the foolishness of it, the illogicality of it, but yet emotionally I want to have something in me that I can rely on. Is there something?

There is something only when I realise completely that all the theories, the beliefs, the dogmas, the nationalisms are illusory; the very realization that they are false is the action of intelligence. I wonder if I… is that…? To realise something that is illusory, that is false, that has really no substance behind it, that very realization is the action of intelligence. That intelligence is the total security. I don’t know if… Are we meeting each other? I have accepted, say, for example, suppose that I’ve accepted some kind of belief which has given me, and my fathers, my… past generations, a certain security. And I realise — their grandson — realise that what they believed, what they have put upon me is illusory, it has no meaning. That perception itself is intelligence and that intelligence is total security. Nobody can destroy that intelligence. That intelligence is common to all of us, it’s not my intelligence or yours. It is the intelligence of perception. It is the intelligence that says these leaders, inept politicians, the gurus, all that is so nonsensical. The realization, the perception of that is the abiding intelligence, which is the everlasting security. Do we see that? Not theoretically, not as an ideal but actually say ‘This is…’ You follow? It gives you an extraordinary sense of independence, a sense of deep freedom, because that intelligence guides. It’s not your will, your opinion, your values, your prejudices, but that intelligence is watching, guiding, helping.

And we must distinguish, I think, between reality and truth. Could we say reality is everything that thought has created? The tent is a reality, it’s created by thought. The chair on which one is sitting is created by thought. But the wood is not created by thought. Nature is not created by thought; the tree is not created by thought. Don’t say, ‘Who has created?’, and go off into something mystical and God and nature and all the rest of it. We are talking about… to perceive the actuality, the reality which is the actual and truth. So we are saying all the things that thought has created is reality. Nature is not created by thought. The tiger, if you have ever seen one in the wild, as we have on several occasions, almost touched it, that is not created by thought; it’s much too vast. And thought has created, made the surgeon, communication, the buildings, and all those things that are in the temples. All that is reality. Truth is not put together by thought. Truth is something free of time, thought, and something that is beyond all perception. So if we are clear on these two matters: reality and truth, then we’ll never get confused about these terms. And it is only intelligence that can perceive that which is eternally true; not sacrifice, worship, prayer, all that thing, they are all done or… the instigation of thought, or the invention of thought. But truth demands compassion, love, and with compassion and love goes intelligence. Intelligence is not separate from compassion. Compassion is not separate from love. It’s all one. And without that, truth cannot possibly exist.

3rd Question: What is right action that will meet everything in our lives?

First of all, let’s examine together how we have broken up action. There is the political action, social action, religious action, idealistic action, action based on some experience, theory. So our action is broken up — business action, family action, sectarian action, the local action of the parish, the action of the lobbyists who are interested in their own particular safety, or the safety of a particular investment and so on. They are all broken up actions. That’s a fact; that’s a truth. And there is also personal action based on one’s own will, one’s own anxiety, relationship with another. So our existence, which is our daily life, is totally broken up. I wonder if one is aware of that at all. Or we just drift from one action to another, go off in the morning at 9 o’clock to the office, that has a particular action there. Come back home and that’s another action. I wonder if one is deeply aware of this fact, that our life is broken up, carefully departmentalised: the surgeon, the carpenter, the priest and the politician, and we are the laymen with our own action.

So if one realises that one’s life is actually broken up into various departments of actions, contradicting probably each other, insufficient in themselves from each other, and trying to integrate all of them together, which most of us are trying to do. That becomes impossible, this integration. You can’t integrate two opposites. I don’t know if you… Yet that is what we are trying to do. So if one realises, actually perceives, or is aware that one’s life is broken up, then one asks: is there an action which is whole, not broken up? Such action is applicable to everything that you do. I wonder if you’re following this? Are we together in this? I realise my life — if I realise, if my life is broken up – I realise it’s broken up. I know too that it cannot be integrated. Integrity is something entirely different. So I ask myself: is there a life, not superficially but deeply, is there a life that is not broken up? Is there a life which is not pursuing an ideal, and which means also broken up. If I am violent and I have the ideal of not being violent, I’ve already broken it up. I don’t know if you follow this. I’ve already divided my life. So I realise the ideal is futile. When I’m violent why should I have the ideal of non-violence?

I know this is one of the things that have been brought over from India, this adoration of non-violence, politically, religiously and all the rest of it, and I’ve discussed this point… the speaker has discussed this point with the originator in India, and it’s so impossible, we have talked to people who are deeply rooted in some prejudice. Or they call idealists. But the fact is: any form, any division, any sense of breaking up one’s life will inevitably bring about conflict. That is, if I’m violent, I do not need the ideal of non-violence. But I am violent. What is important is to understand that violence, see the cause and the perceiving the cause is the ending of the cause. It’s like a surgeon sees that I have some disease, he says it must be operated, and it’s finished. Similarly if I am violent, to see that I’m violent, discover the cause, and that cause can be eradicated, obviously. But if I pursue the idea of non-violence, I am moving away from the fact. The ideal is not fact. I don’t know… The opposite is never the fact. What is factual is what is happening now. Right? Am I…? If I’m violent, I face it, I look at it, I go into it, I see the cause of it. I see the cause is the thinker who thinks he is violent. I don’t know if you follow all this. No. I’ll have to explain this a little bit.

Is violence different from me? Let’s go into it slowly. We’ll meet each other. I have this sense of anger — if I have – anger, violence… first of all let’s define what is violence. Violence is anger, hate, anger, imitation – right? – conformity, obeying; all that is part of violence. And I happen to be violent — suppose — and I see by looking at it very carefully the causes of it. Step by step I see it. And I do not know how to deal with it, to eradicate the cause so I invent the non-violence as a lever to get rid of violence. Right? So I’m escaping from a fact to non-fact. So I stop that movement when I realise I’m escaping. Then I see I’m violent; is violence separate from me, or I am violent? You follow? Violence is part of me, like anger is part of me, greed is part of me, suffering is part of me, anxiety, pain, depression, loneliness, is all… is me. But thought has separated the *me* from violence. I don’t know if you realise. So I’m always acting on violence — suppressing it, rationalizing it, finding excuses for it, but when I realise the thinker is the thought — right? — the observer is the observed, then the division comes to an end. And where there is division there must be conflict.

So please follow this: I have totally eliminated conflict. You understand? I am not separate from violence but I have been educated for generations that I am separate. And my habit, my conditioning is to fight violence, which is part of violence. So I realise the observer is the observed, the experiencer is the experience. I don’t know… So I realise that. So I have eliminated from my mind the whole idea, concept, habit of conflict. Are you doing this with me? Which is, to remain completely with that word, the word *violence* and the remembrance of past incidents which brought violence; the word is the remembrance, the picture, and that picture, that symbol, that word is me. Right? Please, this is logical, sane, look at it. It’s me. And so I stop, the mind stops acting, but remains with it, doesn’t escape from it. So when you remain with something entirely, completely with all your attention, the thing disappears completely. So one eliminates altogether violence. But if you pursue non-violence, you will never end it because in the pursuit you are sowing violence all the time. I wonder if you understand.

So the questioner asks: what is right action? We said there is right action only when we see that we are broken up, our life is broken up, and from that awareness one asks the question: is there a life which is not broken up. Living in this modern world, can I live without different contradictory actions? Which is, going to the office, coming home, being a surgeon, coming home, a scientist, coming home — you follow? — all broken up. And the result of this contradictory, broken up life will inevitably bring violence, strain, heart failure — you know? – the whole circus.

So we’re asking: is there a life which is whole? Not what is right action, but can one live a holistic life? That is, when I go to the office I am always the same — you understand? – when I come home I am what I am. I may be a good carpenter, a plumber a technician, but I am living a life which is whole. Do we understand each other? When there is that wholeness of life, that itself is right action. Do whatever you do, out of that is right action. There is no right action per se, but there is right action when I realise the broken up, contradictory life with all its complications, that very realization brings about a perception of the whole. You…? Is this happening with you now? For God’s sake. That’s why sirs, you may listen to the speaker for the next hundred years but if one doesn’t actually realise as we are sitting here together, the action of intelligence is holistic. And that intelligence cannot be cultivated. It isn’t a thing you go to school and learn to be intelligent, or become sensitive by going to college and being told how to be sensitive. But if one sees the actuality without any desire to alter it and fuss around with it, if one sees actually what is happening, that very perception is intelligence. And out of that, that intelligence is always right action. I don’t know…

4th Question: What is the right relationship to money?

If you haven’t any, you have no relationship.

(Laughter)

K: Like the speaker, it’s very simple. But to be serious, (laughs) what is right relationship to money? Why has money become so important? Just let’s inquire into it. We are not the Delphic Oracle, or laying down the law, or telling you what you should think or do, but we’re trying together to understand the problems of life, which are very complex, which need deep examination impersonally, objectively, sanely. So this is one of the problems – money. Why has money become so important? Is it because we have become worldly? Worldly – I’m using in the sense, attached to the things that thought has put together. That’s the first question I’m asking. It’s a complex question; we’ll go into it.

Is it because money gives us freedom? You can travel; if you have lots of money, you become powerful, become Lord this and that. If you have money you have a status, you are respected, you are looked up to. This is happening. If you have money, you can do almost anything — go against all the laws. You see this every day. Money is not supposed to be transferred from one country to another but if you are wealthy you have a secret account in Switzerland — you know all this — or transfer great wealth to America and so on. And if you have money, you can enjoy yourself. So money has become extraordinarily valuable in all those senses. And without money you can’t do much either. If you want some clothes and so on you must have some money. But the question is really: why has money in our life, apart from buying necessary things or having something which is pleasant: a nice picture, or a nice vase, or some beautiful ornament, apart from all that — or a beautiful garden if you’re lucky — apart from that, why do we lay such emphasis on money? You answer it, please.

I do not know if you realise what religions have become, organised religions: vast wealth, they are really business organizations in the name of God. This vast wealth of the gurus, incredible wealth, which all of us… not all of us, some of us have given to these gentlemen. And so money has become important. And when you go to the temples and so on there is always money being asked. Are we so occupied with money? Naturally the poor man who has no money, he’s naturally thinking about it. But those of us who have a little money, are we occupied with it? Is our main concern or occupation money?

That awakens another question which is: why are our minds perpetually occupied, occupied with something or other? If you are occupied with… when you are talking about meditation, then you are occupied with it; God — you follow? – everything from the housewife to the highest religious authorities are occupied — why? You understand my question? It is not irrelevant question, it is relevant because our occupation with money or with sex, with this or with that, indicates the state of our own minds, our own hearts. To be occupied with something. Does it mean that this occupation with business, with money, with sex, with God, with the guru, with the… and so on and so on, keeps our brain full? You understand my question? Is it that we are afraid not to be occupied? Please look at it. Look at our own… ourselves, which is: am I occupied from morning till night and when I go to sleep the brain is also occupied, with dreams, with all kinds of sensations. So there is never a moment when the brain is not occupied. Is that so? And when the brain is so occupied there is no space — you…? — and so the brain becomes more and more shallow. You can see this happening. Is it because we are frightened of not being occupied, therefore having no space, the brain having no rest at all, therefore wearing itself out. Right? The wearing itself out is a part of senility. Right? So is there a possibility of not being occupied? Merely to look, to observe, not be occupied with observation. Just to look, to observe so that the brain has a rest; not to record because our brain is all the time recording. I don’t know if you’re following all this; if it interests you. Then your brain becomes extraordinarily alive, pliable.

If you have ever observed without a single thought – have you? — to observe a tree, to observe the water, a sheet of water, the light on it; to observe a woman or a man without all the consequences of that observation, the sensations, so that your mind is really free from occupation. How can a brain that is occupied ever observe? You understand my question? How can a mind — a brain rather — that is always occupied with something casual, daydreaming, with the kitchen or with God – they’re all the same; all occupations are the same, they are not superior occupations or inferior occupations; we are talking about occupation per se. Such a mind is really the most bourgeois mind in the world, including the communists. Is chattering part of this occupation — talking, talking, talking, endlessly? You follow?

Now, are we aware of this occupation, and experimenting with ourselves to see if it stops? Then to find out whether there is fear and pursue that fear — you follow? – go to the very end of it and end it, as we talked about it at previous talks. Then see what happens to this brain which has space, which has quietness, which is not occupied. If you say, ‘How am I to do it? Tell me the steps, the method how not to be occupied’, then those steps, those methods become your occupation; you’re back in the cycle. But if you see the consequences of occupation, and see the fact of it, you move away from it. So if one is occupied with money – why? Either you are poor, which is natural, then you have to be concerned about it, but even if you are poor, to be occupied eternally from morning till night, and the man who is very rich is also terribly occupied, how to keep the money, increase it — you know? – the whole business.

So the real question is: can the mind be free from all occupation? If I may repeat some incident: we were in the Himalayas once far away from all noise and in a cottage, and a group of monks, sannyasis came rushing into the cottage to tell me something. They knew who I… the person who was occupying it. So they came to see me and they said, ‘We have just come from a man who is far away in the hills who is full of knowledge. And we have just come and we are filled with that knowledge.’ And we said, ‘What is that knowledge?’ We went into it. At the end of it we discovered the solitary person living in the Himalayas was really not solitary at all. He has carried all the world’s knowledge up there and so he’s never alone, never quiet. He is full of that knowledge and can therefore perhaps can never experience something totally original. A mind which is occupied can never experience something original. It’s only the mind that is free, if I can use the word, empty.

We were talking with a scientist some days ago and we were saying that emptiness is very important in life; not vacuum, not being just vague and daydreaming but really a mind that’s not occupied has space and totally empty. And we were saying that such a mind is full of energy. And the scientist agreed. He said ‘Where there is emptiness there is not… it’s not empty; that very emptiness is energy’. You… I’m… something. So let us… you think about it; you know, look at it.

I’m afraid this has to be the last question:

5th Question: You say liberation is not an individual matter but concerns humanity as a whole. Yet liberating insight has been the unique achievement of individuals like the Buddha, the Christ, and perhaps yourself. How can it be a matter of the whole of humanity?

The question is clear, isn’t it? First of all, let’s leave the Buddha, the Christ and the speaker alone, they are not important because they’ve so many… You know what disciples are? Disciples destroy the teacher; they invent a lot of theories, a lot of nonsense, write about it; they are the interpreters, and when there are interpreters you know what takes place. So let’s look at the question very carefully, if we can liberate ourselves from these figures.

Is insight, the liberating factor which is insight, is it an achievement? First. Is it only granted or given to the few? Is it something that demands an utterly unselfish life? Is it something that is not personal? To go into this, one must go still deeper, further, which is: the world is me and I am the world. That is a fact to me, to the speaker. The speaker is not separate from the world and the world is not different from him. We have gone into this very sufficiently. Human consciousness with all its content, which is belief, experience, knowledge, memory, fear, pleasure, suffering, pain, anxiety, loneliness, despair and all the pain of the world is common to all mankind. This is so. It’s common to all of us, whether we live a million miles away or very close. So we are the world, psychologically, and you are the world. Now, is liberation, illumination or that enlightenment only reserved for the extraordinary few? Or if you achieve… if you had that tremendous insight into the wholeness of life, your consciousness is totally different – right? – naturally, because that liberating insight frees you from all the content of that consciousness: the pain, the anxiety, the loneliness, sorrow, depression, all that is wiped out. It’s a fact if you do it, and it can be done. And it’s not reserved for the few.

But we human beings are not persistently, continuously applying; we are slack. We do this one day and we are weary of it the next day, we go off, so we keep… The ball is never in our court, it’s always in other people’s court. So if we are capable of maintaining, not by will but by perception, by seeing the fact, and remaining with the fact without any movement away from the fact, then the fact undergoes a radical change. You can see this if you do it. That is, if I remain completely with violence, that is, not try to do something about it because I am violence, then the very attention you give to that factor of sensation which is called violence, when there is this light of attention on it, it disappears completely, forever. If you do it, you will discover it for yourself. And if you as a human being who recognises that you are the entire humanity, psychologically, the entire humanity, and therefore you are extraordinarily responsible, without any feeling of guilt, then your consciousness undergoes a change — obviously. That is the liberating factor of insight. If you have that liberating factor of insight and you have transformed your consciousness, you are bringing a factor of something new into the whole consciousness of humanity. You understand this? I do not know if you have not followed a recent experiment which has been written about… Oh, I don’t want to go into all this. I’ve started so I must finish it.

(Laughter)

K: They had put some rats in a tank of water and there were two outlets. One a dark one and one with a light. When the rat climbed up the ramp and went to the light which he thinks he can escape through that, it gets a shock, so it comes down and goes to the other, which is black. Then it escapes through that. And generally the father, the mother rat takes time to discover this. Then its children learn much quicker. Please, it’s not genetic. They learn much quicker. And so without taking many experiments, after a few experiments they go off through the black and they escape. And they were doing this in England, in Australia and perhaps in some part of America, totally different, not communicating with each other. And the rats in Australia — please listen to this — the rats in Australia discovered much quicker the black way of escaping, not through light. You understand this? No, I’m not going to explain it if you don’t understand it (laughs) It’s very simple. Without new genetics entering into it, the rats in England took time to learn and the grandchildren or great-great-grandchildren learnt much quicker. Two attempts and black, out. The same thing happened in Australia. The doctors were not communicating with each other. So they have discovered there is a group consciousness, as well as chemically, it is so. You understand? So this group consciousness — oh, I’m tired — exists and therefore when there is one rat learns much quicker, that quickness is transformed… is given to the whole consciousness. You understand? So if we… you can understand from that. You get it? We have been talking about this for years, only the rats…

(Laughter)

K: …only the rats have illuminated this, our minds. Very interesting. Look how we are operating, ourselves. We don’t see something true immediately. It takes time. Then we learn and genetically we transform. We don’t say… Oh, I won’t go into it. So we are saying if you transform yourself through the liberation of insight, you are communicating to the whole of consciousness of man. You understand? This is happening, like the great rulers of the world, or the great killers of the world have affected the human mind – right? – Attila, Genghis Khan, Hitler, Napoleon; on the other side Buddha and so on, they have all affected the human mind, human consciousness. But if we actually daily live this intelligence, the insight which liberates, then you are bringing to the whole of the consciousness of man a totally different air, different value, different movement, which is not based on knowledge; which is based on insight and intelligence. You understand…?

Sorry, we have taken an hour and a half. We’ll meet on Saturday. May I get up, please?