Small Group Discussion 1, Ojai, California, 9 March 1978
Krishnamurti: Don’t let’s be too solemn. (Laughter) (Pause) This is a dialogue between us; we’re all going to take part in our discussions. First of all, I would like to say, we are… we know the subject which we proposed, unless you wish something else, which is… I’ve forgotten it.
Fritz Wilhelm: Does the pressure of knowledge distort us, psychologically?
K: Ah, yes. Does the pressure of knowledge distort or deform the psychological nature of man? That is the subject we chose and perhaps you may wish to change that subject, but if we go into this question very, very deeply, I think we’ll cover most of the problems, not only personal, but universal, global. And to investigate we must be very clear what we are investigating. And also we must be very clear that we are not being intellectual, not authoritarian but investigating hesitantly, not assertively, not impatiently, but go into what we are going to discuss very, very hesitantly, very slowly, very deliberately, so that we start with uncertainty, not with certainty. And, perhaps then, much later as we go into it, we may come upon being quite clear. Is that… that’s…I think that’s simple.
That is, we are going to talk over together this question: does knowledge distort, deform — even damage — the psychological nature or the structure of a human being? I think it covers a great deal if we can go into it very delicately, very slowly. And so, shall we start with this: what do we mean by knowledge? Please… I am not… This is not a discourse by me, but together; what do we mean by knowledge?
Q: Knowledge is a memory as well as the things we learn, subjects and so forth.
Q: Sir, could we think about the meaning of the word *knowledge*?
K: I’m asking the meaning of the word, *to know*.
Q: *To know* is an extremely interesting word in our language, because of its origins and its actual distortions too; and *to know* comes as a Germanic word and yet it has to do with gnosis in its root; and knowledge, as I think we are using it, is different than gnosis or the Gnostic movement which was the ecclesiastic idea, about a certain revelation of truth, and… or seeing God immediately or something. Whereas, we use knowledge more in the Latin sense of *scientia*…
K: Of…? *Scientia*, yes.
Q: *Scientia*, yes. Which is… really has to do with factual things which we have accumulated over a great long period of time…
K: Yes.
Q: …and becomes, at this stage in our culture, an immense weight, which is a pressure.
K: What do we mean also by the word, *know*? I know you. Keep it very simple.
Q: I’ve seen you before.
K: Yes, I have seen you before…
Q: I recognise you.
K: I… know, seen you, recognition, memory, storing it up, and then meeting you again and say, ‘I know you.’ Do I know you, actually?
Q: No, you only know me that moment.
K: So, there is a difference between I may know you, but I have no knowledge of you. Could we say that?
Q: Yes. Knowing is different.
Q: (Inaudible) …I have no knowledge of you.
K: Yes, I’ve no… I don’t… I have no… I don’t know the whole of your being, or whole your… how you think, what you feel, what you are, what your reactions are. I may know you superficially by name because I recognise you, I’ve seen you, the colour of your face and so on, so on, so on. But perhaps, I don’t actually know you, have knowledge of you. Would that be right?
Q: That’d be right, yes, because knowledge would be mean much more…
K: Of course. Knowledge means…
Q: …much, much more.
K: Much more.
Q: A great pressure of facts and opinion and…
(Pause)
K: Knowledge also — doesn’t it? — mean information, gathering information of a great many facts, great many worldly things and also psychological thing, and they’re all stored up in the brain. Now, we’re asking whether that storing up of this great deal of information, great deal of knowledge, a great deal of… knowledge implies also tradition, the background, the whole nature of man accumulated; does that deform the psychological nature of man? That’s what we are discussing. That is, does knowledge bring great pressure upon human beings, psychologically? Please, this is a discussion; I’m not talking by myself.
Mary Zimbalist: Sir, when you say ‘deform’, can one also say that the psychological structure of man is knowledge? What else is it? The major body of the psychological structure of man is knowledge. So, how can it be deforming it, since it more or less created it?
FW: It’s much more, also, I think. It’s also emotions, you see.
MZ: Well, is that different?
FW: Well, we don’t… we don’t normally include in the word *knowledge* emotions and the other actions of the body, you see? So, it’s not clear yet if we can include that in the word *knowledge* or not.
MZ: Well, personally, I wouldn’t include it but I think knowledge is a very large portion anyway.
FW: Yes, definitely.
MZ: It would seem to be an utterly psychological structure. Not all of it, but most.
Q : We don’t know a state of mind without knowledge, without… without words.
Q: Well, it seems to me that the psyche and psychological function is, somehow, quite different than the way we use the word *knowledge*, in the way… that it’s a… knowledge is an accumulation, and the difficulty is its long history of accumulation, either in the individual or it’s our whole culture, society.
Q: Excuse me, is there… is there a difference between the structure and the content? We’re talking about the psychological structure, and it seems like we’re talking about knowledge as something different, being something that fits within that structure. And I’m not clear whether there is… Are they one and the same or are they different?
K: Are we asking whether the pressure of knowledge, which is the past, does that affect the psyche, the… — I’m using the word very carefully, please; I may be wrong — the intrinsic, pure nature of man? Yes sir, you don’t have to ask me. Anybody… there is no chairman.
Q: Could it be that… that the pressure of knowledge itself doesn’t cause the problem, but could it be my attachment to the knowledge?
David Bohm: Well, let me say, what is the pressure of knowledge? You see, we haven’t gone into that.
K: Yes, that’s… that’s why slowly…
FW: It’s not clear why knowledge should be a pressure at all.
Q: Yes, that’s…
FW: See, normally one assumes that the more knowledge one has, the better one is off, and it is not clear where, at what point, that knowledge becomes or turns into a pressure.
MZ: What is that ‘pure’ something?
K: I don’t know. I said, ‘very carefully’.
(Laughter)
MZ: Before it’s invented, what… Can we examine what it, is if it exists or not?
K: I think we may find it by negation, not… rather than positive assertion.
Q: Could we distinguish between knowledge per se, and pressure of knowledge? It seems to me pressure of knowledge… that knowledge itself is, perhaps, flexible and can be almost like a continuing revolution, with new evidence we can toss out, but that the pressure of knowledge is when we have accumulation, that isn’t necessarily a simple knowledge of fact but is a condition, through opinion and feelings and emotions and our cultural background or religion or… et ceteras, that there is a difference between pressure of knowledge and knowledge. Knowledge can be useful.
K: No, please, I would like to a little more expand it — may I? — before we go into… Knowledge is the past, tradition, all the accumulated memories, reactions, responses, the conditioning. And, as Dr. Bohm pointed out — asked, rather — he said, ‘Could we discuss what we mean by the word *pressure*, and what we mean by the word *knowledge*?’ Not… hypothetically, but actually, in oneself. Whether the past — which is the very essence of knowledge — whether that past is impinging, has great pressure on my… on my way of thinking, my way of feeling, my whole attitude towards life, my values, all that; whether the past with its immense accumulation — the past is not just yesterday, but ten thousand years — all that, this great weight, is not distorting clear perception. That’s what I… I’m… For the moment, we’ll just stick to these few words. Being born in a particular country, with a particular culture, values, political, economic, social, all that is impinging pressure and I am that. I am not separate from that. I don’t know. Would this…?
Q: Now, the word *pressure*, I think, implies conflict, in the sense that we’ve been educated contradictorily.
K: Not necessarily pressure. I’ve a pressure on my tummy. Somebody puts a stone on me or some weight, it’s a pressure. That very pressure is distorting.
Q: But can there be pressure without conflict?
K: We’re going to find out, sir. Slowly, we’ll go into it. We are not talking — if I may point out — abstractly or hypothetically, but actually, in… within oneself.
FW: (Inaudible) the pressure forces one to — the pressure of knowledge, one could say — forces one to use that knowledge in a certain direction, in a certain way.
K: It is not… We haven’t come to the point of action, yet. We are just uncovering the problem. The problem is whether the weight of the past — which is the very essence of knowledge — does it not distort perception? Perception being seeing things very, very clearly, not only visually, but without any prejudice, without any conclusion, without any *arrière-pensée*, without any past results. Is it possible to observe without any pressure? We’re coming… slowly expanding it.
Q: Sir, if we are observing through the past, through the knowledge, then how can that be separated? If we are the pressure, you see, we are the accumulations of knowledge and that knowledge is looking at something, interpreting what it sees, according to that knowledge.
K: So, are we asking: is the seeing, the observation, the result of the past? I look at you, because I’ve met you several times. I’ve drawn… I’ve made… I’ve come to certain conclusions about you, and with those conclusions, which are the past, which is the pressure, in observing you, is distorting my observation. Help me out, please.
(Laughter)
Q: Aren’t we then using memory or mind alone and ignoring the other five senses?
K: Yes, but…
Q: We’re closed in to our mind and losing our other senses.
K: Could we put it differently, also? Is there a perception, an observation, a seeing, without any sight of pressure, any sight of direction, compulsion?
DB: Could we ask, if that observation… can it exist even though we start with pressure?
K: Yes, that’s right.
Q: You can’t give a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to this question (inaudible)…
K: We are going to investigate into this, because, after all, that is what I am. If all my conclusions, my beliefs, my prejudices, my wants, desires, et cetera, et cetera, is… is driving me, then there is no perception.
Q: Is there a *me* that exists beyond that?
K: We’re going to find out; we are examining it. I’m not asserting anything, nor are you. We are just enquiring, going into it.
Q: Could we also ask the question then: can you observe without thought? Because (inaudible)…
K: We’ll come to that, presently. That’s too complicated, yet. First, I want to find out, each one of us, whether my whole life — not just at one level, but my whole life — is under a pressure. A motive is a pressure, ambition is a pressure, competition is a pressure, attachment is a pressure. So, I’m asking myself: is there a way of living without the slightest pressure?
Q: And still have knowledge?
K: Obviously.
Q: But without pressure.
K: Knowledge in its right place. I don’t want to go… to plunge into it too quickly. Let’s go into it slowly.
Erna Lilliefelt: But if we have these pressures, which we all realise we have, the question then arises: how does one either dispose of the pressures or live…?
K: First, do we, each one of us, are we aware, know or recognise or be conscious — *aware* is a better word than all this, if we’ll stick to that word — aware that we are under pressure?
Q: I’d say not before you come into conflict…
K: Beg your pardon?
Q: Not before you come into a conflict, you’re faced with something (inaudible)…
K: No, I don’t want to… Am I… is my life functioning or acting under pressure? It’s so simple a question. Am I… am I, as a human being — (inaudible) of course, a human being is the representative of all humanity; I feel that way — because I’m a human being, I represent all humanity. That’s not a theory, a verbal conclusion or a hypothesis, but it’s a fact. So, I ask myself, as you must — this is the way of discussion, a dialogue — are we functioning, living, thinking, acting, under great pressure, or not great or conscious or unconscious, oblique or direct pressure? I think it’s very important to find this out.
Q: I think most of us either know that we live under pressure, don’t know what to do about it or blindly accept it as a fact of life.
K: We’ll find out what to do about it. There may be a way out of it. I will… we’ll go into it and find… There is a way out of it. So, but I don’t want to assert it, but we must find out. But…
Q: You see, I’m having trouble, because it seems so clear to me that we are living under pressure and you are asking, ‘Are we?’ and…
K: No… Yes… Are we? Are you? S ir, not being personal — are you being… are you conscious, aware that you’re under pressure?
Q: Very much.
K: Wait. Sir, no… Slowly, sir.
FW: I think that’s not clear at all, you see. I may… Somebody may have told me that I’m living under pressure, or I may know that I live under pressure, but the question is: do I see, as it was before described, do I see without the pressure that I’m living under pressure? See, if I’m looking at myself with the same pressure I want to get at, and say, ‘Yes, I’m living under pressure’, that has no value at all. I have to… I think I have to start with a direct perception if I live under pressure or not, because if I start again with a supposition that I live under pressure, then it has no meaning.
Q: I don’t feel that it’s a supposition. I think that’s what I’m not clear about. I’m only asking, but it seems so evident to me that I am, but maybe I’m avoiding the question.
K: I think we are complicating it. He is trying to make it too complicated.
(Laughter)
K: I like to keep it simple and then, from simplicity, work… make it more and more complex, as we go along. I’m asking myself, as we are discussing: is my life under pressure? My actions, my relationship with my wife or my girlfriend or with my husband, is it under pressure?
Q: The pressure of the past, the pressure of society, the pressure of knowledge, of social structure, the whole business of public life…
K: No, pressure. You know, I’m attached to you, and that’s a form of pressure. I’m ambitious, that’s a pressure. I am irritated, I am angry, I’m jealous, I’m greedy, I want to be somebody. The whole American attitude towards life, is to… you know? That is a tremendous pressure.
Q: And that we always have, when we look at…
K: Uh?
Q: We always carry that with us, all the time.
K: Wait… As that gentleman pointed out, it’s so obvious. Right, sir?
Q: Yes, somebody wants me here and somebody wants me there, and I want to be there and I want to be here, and it’s pressure.
K: Yes, it is all pressure.
Q: But that is not what he’s talking about. This gentleman is talking about is not the pressure of knowledge, this is the pressure that society puts one under, you know?
K: Yes.
Q: And there is also the type of pressure which comes from bodily illness or, you know, the pressure of the job and so on and so forth.
K: Pressure of the job, pressure of my…
Q: The pressure the children put you under, whatever. You know, there are so many… And the inference, I think, in the question, was that knowledge… certainly knowledge does create a certain amount of pressure. I was thinking to myself that, you know, there is no pressure in knowledge, if knowledge is used and doesn’t use you.
K: Sir…
Q: I can have an encyclopaedic-type mind and really have no problem with it, as far as this type of factual knowledge. Psychological knowledge, I, you know… Maybe I’m moving too far now, but it’s just very obvious you’ve got to drop it, if there’s going to be any type of relationship. That’s probably moving too far.
K: Could we begin with this, slowly: does language drive us? Or we use language? They are two different things.
Q: It seems to…
K: I just want to explore it; just a second, please. I’m not preventing you from talking. I want to be quite sure — when we are having a dialogue, which we’re going to have for the next five days — whether language is forcing us, driving us, shaping us, shaping our actions, our attitudes; language guiding us, or we are using language, knowing the meaning of words, their content, their significance, their associated relationship? Right? Which is it? First, let’s be clear on that simple point.
Q: It seems to me that we are driven by knowledge…
K: No, no, words; I’m using ‘language’, not ‘knowledge’.
Q: I know. Okay, I meant driven by language. Because we are bombarded in our culture, at a greater and faster rate than ever before, by all kinds of communication which we were sometime, somehow expected to absorb.
K: Sir, is language driving you?
Q: It doesn’t seem that way.
K: *Language* means the words, the syntax, the verbal… all… language. The words which we use, the content of the words, the beauty of the words, the finesse of the words, the subtlety of words — is that forcing us to act, to move?
FW: I think, in a deep way, it is.
K: Just slow… I want to find… Don’t assert yet, please.
FW: Yes, well, I can…
K: Don’t assert anything. I just want to discover.
Q: If we look at our own minds, our own brain, it seems that language shapes us and gets in between us and the world, so that there’s difficulty relating directly.
K: I mean, when we use the word *communism*, the *communists*, that is driving us. Because that word is… tremendous associations, or *socialism* in a capitalist society, that… So, in the same way, *my wife*, *my this*. You follow? Language, apparently, is driving us, shaping us.
Q: So, it seems that the language, all of our thinking, all of our intellect…
K: Just.. Don’t elaborate, yet. Oh, God.
Q: We are the language, aren’t we? We are the words.
K: No, sir… Yes, we are the words, in one sense. But I’m asking sir, I’m asking myself –please, ask yourself and myself — whether the words we use are clear, without any emotional content, without any prejudice, without any conclusion, so that the words we use… Then, if you and I use a word, then there is direct communication — I don’t know if you…? — but if language is driving me and language is driving you, there is no communication. I wonder if I’m making myself…
MZ: Isn’t it that it isn’t language driving us — though we see it as such — it is our subjective reaction to language that is driving us?
K: Of course, of course; that’s what I… When I use the word *communist*, ‘He’s a communist,’ I mean, the whole reaction to it. Now, just… Please, just stick to this for a little while.
Q: That we use words without prejudice, without colour, we can talk to one another directly, is what you’re implying.
K: Of course, absolutely.
Q: But do we…? But are certain words very emotionally charged words, and if we have a dialogue and I’m using *communism* and you’re using something else, and we… But can we have a language, perhaps, that is simple?
K: No, but if both of us are using the word *communism,* knowing all the implications of it, without any emotional prejudice against or for, then there is… you and I are in direct communication about that… what we mean.
Q: We don’t have a distortion about the word, you say?
K: We won’t.
MZ: If we don’t let it evoke a chain reaction of association.
K: So, I’m… Please, find out whether you are driven by a language, by your language.
Q: I think the problem is in the way we were learning language. When we were first learning to speak, we had associations that went with it, you know, like ‘bad’ and ‘good’, and all those words we learned the word along with the associations, so it’s (inaudible)…
K: Madame, look, are you driven by language? Is your life shaped by language? Is your relationship — I’m not asking you directly, but I mean…
Q: Well, I am.
(Laughter)
K: (Laughs) Is your relationship directed by language?
Q: My thoughts, to a great extent, are.
K: It’s very important to find out. Please, don’t skip… don’t slur over it.
FW: See, I think it is also much deeper than just words with associations.
K: Hey, hey, hey! You see, he… this chap is always want to complicate it.
(Laughter)
K: Before… I can make it very complicated a little later, but I’m just beginning.
Evelyne Blau: Well sir, if there were no language, there would be silence, and in that silence one wouldn’t have to, necessarily, conceptualise as you do when you use language, because that is the tool that forces you into concepts. And it…
K: You… we are not answering my question. I’m sorry.
Q: You’re asking if you and I can talk directly.
K: Sir, if I’m driven by language, by the language I use, when you communicate with me and you are not driven by the language, your use of language is very direct — right? — and mine is not direct. So, there is conflict between us, there is a division; you can’t communicate with me at all. And it may be that’s our position, with each one of us. You may see very clearly… I mean, you’re not… language doesn’t drive you, but I am driven by language. I say, ‘I’m a Hindu’, and that’s a tremendous… You follow? So, are we in that position? Let’s be clear on that one point, at least. Are we all driven by language?
EL: I’m not sure I understand what you mean by the word *driven*?
K: Driven, forced, shaped…
EL: But do you mean: am I conscious of what I’m saying when I’m saying it, or am I just talking?
K: Both.
Q: Well, within what the word means to you, what kind of a reaction it… you know? Like, if he says…
EL: Yes, but then I have to be conscious of every word I’m using, what I’m saying…
K: Not… No, no, not that way…
Q: It seems to me I’m driven, because when someone says something I’m responding and I can feel myself responding without wanting to respond, that the word itself evokes something and I… I’m just reacting to it. And that’s certainly so.
K: Doesn’t the word *communism*, *communist* or *totalitarianism*, when you hear that word, doesn’t that word… That is a… that’s what I mean. *Socialism,* in America, is something dreadful. And in Europe — you follow? — Labour party in England is a socialist party.
Q: Are you saying the word is not the threat, even though you use the word *communism* and my reaction might be threatening, but you’re saying that’s… the word is not the threat, but I see it as the threat.
K: Yes, that’s it, that’s it.
Q: I see.
K: The word is not the thing, but the thing is the word for us. I wonder… if Tthis is…s… [clear?]
Q: So, one could say that we’re only driven by language when we don’t see that the description is…
K: No. Sir, don’t even… too… analyse too much, because then you lose the finesse of it. But can you find out for yourself whether the word, the whole association with that word, is forcing, driving, shaping, pressure — your attitude, your values, your action? I mean, to an Arab or to a Hindu or to a Israel… Jew, I mean, certain words are tremendous meaning. And he will give up his life for that word.
Q: That’s what propaganda is, basically.
K: That’s what happens when you go to war.
Saral Bohm: But sir, you were saying that our ordinary discourse is also of that nature.
K: Beg you pardon?
SB: That not just those very emotive words but even our everyday language…
K: That… of course. Every day: ‘my wife’…
SB: Yes.
K: I mean… (Laughs) You follow?
Q: I’m not clear whether or not a word has any meaning without the association, and you were saying…
K: Of course, the word has… but not… not that word weigh on us, shape us, control us. I mean, go to Italy and use certain words… (Laughs)
Q: Affect us but not control us. Is that what you’re saying?
K: Beg your pardon, sir?
Q: That words affect us but don’t control us, is that what you’re saying, suggesting?
K: You see, how complicated we have made it. (Laughs) It’s so simple. Am I… am I driven by words?
MZ: You’re saying: are we are using the tool or are the tools using us?
K: Tool is using us. Put it any way. Are we using the tool, as Mrs. Zimbalist points out, or the tool is using us? Keep it, sir, simple, low, not highbrow thinking.
Q: If I see that I’ve just attached to my idea, my thought, won’t it just become a symbol to me then, nothing more than that?
K: Obviously, obviously. So, what is, then, communication? You follow? Because that’s what we are trying to do here — we’re trying to establish a direct communication with each other. But if I am driven or forced or compelled, react to words and you don’t, I mean, I have no communication with you, at all.
Q: So, when we both see how the word has an impact on us…
K: So, if you are free… no, if you are not driven by words — I’m keeping to that, now that we have understood what we mean — and also, I am not driven by the word, by language, then…
Q: We can talk.
K: …we can talk to each other.
Q: Without getting hung up on (inaudible)…
K: When I say; ‘I love you’ (inaudible)… you know? I don’t have to go into all this. So, language may be one of the greatest pressures in our life. ‘I’m an American.’ You know, they’re… ‘Oh!’ ‘My way of life,’ and ‘American way of life,’ — you know, all that business. Or a European. It’s… You understand? Now we’ve got it, have we? Can we move from there? So, am I free of the pressure of language? There we are. I can meet a communist, and meet him not at the verbal level, with all his thesis, antithesis, his way of… — you know? — but as a human being, stripped of the word, stripped of the label. Then I can have… So, am I free of the pressure of language? My God, you understand what that means?
(Laughter)
K: Yes, sir. See, that means am I pressure… free of the pressure of the word, name ‘K’? Because the ‘K’ is… you know? Am I free of… Is there freedom from the name? Oh, come on, sirs, you don’t meet all this.
Q: It’s hard. You have the name but you have to be free from it.
K: Ah, no… Am I free of it? That… If I’m free, maybe I can use it or not use it… indifferent.
Q: It’s hard.
K: Sir, the pressure of language. By Jove, it’s a tremendous thing to be free of such… of… I don’t know if you feel that way. And the pressure of any identification, would you go to the next step?
Q: Could one say that the pressure of language creates a centre… ?
K: No. Identification with my country, with my wife, with my house, with my… with my beliefs — you follow? — because they are all… act as pressures, which prevent direct seeing, direct communication. If I’m attached to my wife, it’s impossible for me to see clearly. Right? Are you attached to your wives? (Laughs)
(Laughter)
K: That’s it. You see, we talk there but we never come down to brutal facts.
Q: There’s tremendous ramifications there, of course, because, the wife or the woman or the man, you know, it’s the breadwinner, the sexual partner, the friend, the confidant, the…
K: Yes, sir, all that’s implied.
Q: …all these things. So, therefore, really, to be free, it takes deep, extremely deep investigation — constant.
K: Go on, let’s investigate; that’s why I raised the question. The language, then the identification in which all this is implied: my attachment to… to person, to an idea, to a knowledge, to my reputation — you follow? — the whole thing, I’m asking.
Q: There’s also a great security in that.
K: Wait. (Laughs) Are we attached? If I’m attached to my wife, see the implications of it. Sir, the basis of a family — sorry, are we all families here? Yes, probably are — is the basis of isolation.
Q: Are we responsible for it?
K: Uh?
Q: Are we responsible? Are we deeply, actually responsible for…?
K: No. Am I… Sir, I’m… Am I attached to my family? My wife, my sex, my relationship with my children, dependence, attachment, holding them, possessing them, they possessing me, and the pleasure of being possessed and all the rest of it. In that, there is a… there is great pressure of isolation.
Q: I understand. Is it…?
Q: So, my knowledge and my tradition leads, then, to isolation.
K: I’m… I’m sticking to the family, for the moment.
Q: There’s my family and your family.
K:No…
Q: Before you leave this point, is it… is it okay if we introduce…
K: What, sir?
Q: Before we leave this point is it okay if we bring the idea of… there is the wife, there is the person here, and then he responds. Now, that wife, acting only personally…
K: Sir, look at… Sir, it is a very dangerous question because… (Laughs) You understand?
Q: Yes, you see, I would like to (inaudible)…
K: I’m going into it, sir. It’s a dangerous question, isn’t it?
Q: Yes, but…
K: No, just see the… what will… it may lead you to. It may lead you to something entirely different. So, we must be prepared — if we want to go into it very, very deeply — you must be prepared to go the whole length and not just stop halfway.
Q: Is it fully analysed at this point?
K: We’re going to it, slowly we’re going. Not analyse.
Q: I mean understood; all the (inaudible)…
K: Not analyse, just to observe as things happen, as they actually are, which is not analysis. Oh. Am I saying something? You’ve suddenly become very silent.
FW: Well, I think you’re describing facts, you see. At this… that’s our lives, you know, the interaction of a…
K: Therefore, there is not… When you are observing facts, there is no analysis, you’re just observing. So, I’ll begin. I said, the language is very… is… is important because for most of our lives is based on language, and the language shapes our action, language moves us, language makes us act in a particular way, language establishes a relationship of division, and so on, so on. That we see, very clearly; and I’m asking myself, and I’m asking you, whether you are free from the language shaping you, driving you, forcing you, controlling you, your reactions, your… all that. Or, there is freedom from language, from the pressure of language.
Q: But you brought in the family.
K: What?
Q: You brought in the family, though.
K: Wait! Later, later…
Q: Well, I was coming back to it — you brought it up.
K: I’m coming… I’m going into that, sir.
EL: To say that you were free of the pressure of language would imply that, somehow, you were able to get rid of all of your past associations.
K: No, no. Is your past association shaping you, driving you, forcing you? Or, you recognise the past… but they don’t interfere from your action. That’s a tremendous question. I mean, this… I’m going too fast, probably.
Q: You are saying, sir, that language is character.
K: See, sir…
Q: Language is human disposition…
K: Yes.
Q: …character, tendency…
K: It is… it is the action of the intellect.
Q: Which means…
K: No, just see. It’s the… Is the intellect — which is the words, the meaning and grasp and all the rest — is the intellect driving you? Or you are free of the intellectual verbalisation and all the associations of that, but you’re acting as a whole. I’m… That’s enough.
Q: No, it’s not enough, sir. If I… if I… if I created that character, that tendency in me, if I’m responsible for it, then I can be free.
K: Look, sir, you are an Arab. Right?
Q: Okay.
K: No, not okay. (Laughs)
Q: I understand what you mean.
K: And you’re… you’re free of the word and the content of that word, the relationship to that word, the whole significance of the Arab world. When I say, ‘I’m a Hindu’ — personally, I’m totally free of all that, because I’ve worked at it, I’ve watched it, I have gone into it. I have an abomination of all that.
Q: I understand. I just…
K: So, so, see what happens. I’m not driven by the word *Hindu*, with all its association.
EB: Sir, isn’t that more of an emotional response, rather than an intellectual one?
K: Emotional… No, not only… not only emotional but the intellectual concept of being somebody in that world… in a world that is particularised by geographical, economic, climatic position and so on, so on. This is…
Q: It’s very clear, sir, but I just want to add something to see your response to it.
K: Go ahead, sir.
Q: Have I created it? The implication is that I have created it, otherwise I cannot be free from it.
K: No, you haven’t created it.
Q: Then how can I be free from it?
K: You’re… You have… You’re been born in it… You’re born in it and the whole cultural *et* *cetera* imposes on that poor brain.
Q: Then the burden of guilt lies on the one that put it on me. Unless I have created it, sir, I’m not responsible for it.
K: Of course you have created it, in the sense your grandfather… You are not…That leads to something else. I don’t want to enter in… (Laughs) You… Sir, your brain is the… is the oldest brain in the world. I’m… You won’t agree.
DB: I don’t accept that.
K: Uh?
DB: I said, I don’t see what that means.
K: Oh, God. (Laughs)
DB: The oldest brain.
K: You are the result of ten million years of growth… experience, knowledge, incidents, accidents. Your brain has evolved, through centuries and centuries upon centuries, and that is an old brain.
Q: Please, bring responsibility to it at this point. Is man responsible for it? Because…
K: No, don’t use the word *responsible*…
Q: No?
K: It is there.
Q: But, you see, unless I’m responsible for it…
K: No, you’re not responsible for it. How can you be responsible for it?
Q: Then it acts upon me; then I’m not free from it.
K: No, sir. First, look. My… This brain is million… millions of years old; it’s an old brain. Right? And , being very old, can it be free of the past? Knowing where the past is useful, as knowledge, but be free of all the — you know? — Arab, India, Jew, Hindu, Christian, and the ancient India, all that.
Q: Exactly, you are saying… I mean, can you be free? You are saying, really, you are… you are not responsible for it.
K: No, no. I wouldn’t say… use the word *responsible*.
Q: I want to relate it, because…
K: You’re going to relate, but I wouldn’t use the word *responsible*. I am responsible for keeping the house clean.
Q: But if somebody makes it dirty, regardless of (inaudible)…
K: Ah, no, no! I may… My fathers have made the room dirty…
Q: Let me make it simple: you see, if God made it, he’s responsible…
K: God, God, I don’t know anything about God.
Q: Whatever. But if no one made it, then I am responsible, and then I can be free.
K: No, sir. I wish… Forgive me, can we talk without using the word *responsible*? Responsible implies responding correctly to a certain situation. I am responsible for the baby I have produced.
Q: Can I go into it a little bit?
K: Yes, sir. I’m not chairman.
Q: I’m sorry. The past… the past is right there. The past is right there. Any time there is an object in front of it, it reacts. Now, either it is helpless in front of the object, either it always reacts to the object outside and, therefore, it cannot help it or it can control its disposition, its character, see it… look at the object and not be affected by it.
K: I don’t quite understand this.
MZ: Would the… ? Is it… ? Do I to understand correctly that you’re saying if you are… if it’s been done to you by conditioning and everything, then you have no choice, you’re stuck, as it were?
Q: That’s right. You see, if it’s the old greedy… if it’s an old problem…
MZ: It’s the sort of… (inaudible) …that’s around the problem.
Q: Do you have to perpetuate the problem yourself, personally?
Q: Let me put it this way, to make it simple and short. I mean, even my mother, really, says the same thing. I mean, Plato, whatever, Muslims, Hindus, philosophies. If this character of mine is really created by somebody other than me, then I’m not responsible. (Inaudible)
K: You are that. (Laughs)
Q: Wait a minute.
K: You are that, the past.
Q: That’s what we want to establish. If I am that, then really there is no power over me. I have created it.
K: You are… Sir, look, sir.
Q: You are it.
Q: You are it. That’s right.
K: The ‘me’, the ‘I’ who says, ‘I’m responsible, I am this’, is the result of million years.
Q: But you see, sir, unless I began it myself…
K: You… How could you begin yourself?
Q: No, no, no.
Q: I think…
Q: I used the wrong words. You see…
Q: He means…
Q: You can’t just cut the problem, you see? You think it here, and you don’t go here, you don’t go there. Believe me, unless we go here or there, we don’t see it fully. Maybe I’m not using the right words. I feel I’m acting in a different character. I have a character, I have a disposition. Unless I am… Unless I respond, unless I have created it, unless I am it…
K: Who is ‘I’, sir?
Q: That content.
K: Who…? You can’t skip that word. Who is the ‘I’ who says, ‘I am responsible’?
Q: Well, let us say it is the content itself, it is the past itself.
K: So, the… (laughs).
Q: No.
Q: (Inaudible) you see we can take it… I don’t… it’s not…
Q: I think what he’s asking is, if I’ve been conditioned by millions of years of accumulation, therefore, it’s not my fault…
K: No, nobody is saying ‘fault’.
Q: No, no, I understand.
Q: That’s what he’s asking.
Q: No, no, can you help, you see? Unless you destroy your character, you cannot change.
DB: No, do you have freedom to change, even though you are that?
Q: That’s right — do you have freedom to change?
K: Yes.
Q: …any freedom…
Q: Now, if we say ‘Yes’, then… then…
K: Yes, obviously.
Q: …then I have created it. I mean…
K: I can’t understand, ‘I created it’.
MZ: Well, is it that you feel that you’ve… that there is a moment when the ‘I’ — quotes ‘I’ — accepts this, but can also turn away from it? It is there, it is put on you, but either the psyche accepts all that — as most people do — or it has a freedom to say ‘No’ to that. Is that what you mean by the left and the right?
Q: You see, freedom… I am free to do this or to do that, but do I… am I free to will? Am I free to unsheathe my wanting? I always want, I cannot help it, I can say, ‘I like this’, but behind it, am I free in starting the disposition? You see, man is not free to will…
K: Ah, ha, ha, ha.
Q: …he is free to do. Now, I want to relate that to the character.
K: You answer him, sir.
DB: Right, no. Are you free to will a new character? Is that your question?
Q: That’s right, that’s right. You see, willing always arises, and I just say, ‘Well, I choose this or I choose that’, but the willing keeps on coming and coming, and… Sorry.
DB: The will is the result of the past.
Q: That’s right, but you see, the past… normally, we are not… — at least, I’m not — …the will starts in me.
DB: Yes.
Q: I cannot help it, and then… No, my question is: unless that willing, that process, unless I have power over it — I mean, not in the sense of the ‘I’ — unless I am totally… unless I have created it.
DB: Why do you say that? I don’t understand.
Q: Because if somebody always makes it move, move, move, there is no way… it’s always willing.
DB: Are you saying that, unless you have created your will, you have no power over your will?
Q: In… in a sense. You see, there is the difference between willing and then, after the willing takes place, you say ‘I’… you… you fulfil the will. Do you understand what I’m trying to say? Am I… am I… ? I’m not free to will. The willing always takes place. Now, unless I am free, unless I have created it, unless I have started it, it cannot stop. Maybe I can force myself and stop wanting, but I cannot stop willing. You see what I mean?
K: I understand, sir, but I’m not sure I agree… I’m not sure that I understand by the word… the word you use, *will*.
Q: Okay.
Q: Desire?
Q: It is the old… (inaudible) …predestination, man is predestined or man is not predestined. Okay, so man is not predestined…
K: You mean… Are you asking, sir, unless I have desire — which is, desire is the essence of will.
Q: No, I see what you mean. No, no, I don’t mean that. You see, I always have desire…
K: So, I’m…
Q: Who is it… who is it that triggers the desire all the time? No, I say, at any time I see the object, if I see a woman, if I see my wife, I react, okay? Now, that reaction is the result of two factors, two factors: the object in front of me or the wife and something inside, the character, the disposition.
K: Yes. No… yes… Desire, desire…
Q: No, sir.
K: What are… ? I can’t get this.
Q: Are you asking, ‘Am I conditioned because I allow it to happen to me?’ or ‘Do I have a choice?’
K: No, no, no, he doesn’t…
Q: I may not responding to you. No, you said something and then I responded; there is the ‘you’, there is the inside that… it is rolling. You see, it is affected by what you say, and that person, he is not affected, okay? So, we have two things: the external thing, the external stimulus, and then the inside, the disposition…
DB: Isn’t that the pressure that…?
Q: No, no, no, no. You see…
DB: What is the difference?
Q: Don’t we see that people have different characters, different disposition?
DB: It’s different pressure. Suppose I say they have different pressures.
Q: Okay, different pressures, but I mean, to open it more, it is different, you know, likes, dislikes…
DB: Pressure… But they may be the result of pressure. That is…
Q: It’s okay, the result of…
DB: …the pressure you like certain things and dislike others.
Q: Different histories.
DB: Background history, tradition…
Q: Okay, different histories. Okay, so unless I have created that, unless I am responsible for it, and…
DB: Why do you say the…?
Q: The reason I say that, because willing keeps arising…
DB: But you say the will is the result of pressure?
K: Of course.
Q: (Inaudible) …related to cause and effect.
DB: Yeah, but it’s the result of pressure, then.
Q: You see, in cause and effect and phenomena…
DB: Yes
Q: …it’s necessary, isn’t it?
DB: It follows from the pressure that you want something.
Q: Okay, cause, effect must have you. I have a character, the moment my character finds the right stimulus, it will always act, regardless.
DB: How do you know it’s ‘always’? That’s the question.
Q: Oh, this is the law of cause and effect.
DB: But that may be language.
Q: No, no, no. Causality.
FW: That may be language, you see. That may be… You see, your argument is based on the power of language, see, and the powers of…
Q: Whatever…
FW: In language, in language, you…
Q: I’m sorry, I don’t… I feel guilty and… but…
K: I don’t… I don’t understand you, sir, sorry. That’s why I’m keeping out of it.
(Laughter)
Q: I’m sorry.
DB: I meant you’re taking the law of cause and effect as universal, you see. You say that the cause… the effect always follows a certain cause, necessarily. Right?
Q: That’s right…
K: Ah, wait a minute. If that is the language you are using, ’cause and effect’ — is that it? Now, we are… you know, we are on familiar ground.
(Laughter)
Q: Cause and effect.
K: Now, wait, just a minute, watch it carefully. Cause and effect — right? — is that what you are talking about?
Q: No, no, no. I mean, this is just the by-product of it. I’m talking about character.
K: What is character, sir?
Q: Disposition.
K: Wait. What is… Don’t use… Find out, what is character? How is character made?
Q: That’s why I took it from what you said. It is not…
K: No, no, I didn’t use the word *character*. I’m… When you use the word *character*, how is that character made? Formed?
Q: Language, as you said, exactly.
K: Language, pressure, society, circumstances…
Q: That’s right.
K: …economic and *et* *cetera, et* *cetera*.
Q: That’s right. So, the logical… I mean the legitimate question after that, is whether or not an outside agency — of course, there isn’t, maybe — whether an outside agency put that knowledge, that character in you…
K: Ah, ha, ha, no. No outside agency. Just a minute, sir. Look, sir. My character, if I have one, it is formed by pressure. Right? By circumstances, by culture, by social demands, by my wife, by my children, by the society… it’s made that way, my character is formed that way. Right? It is the result of tremendous pressure and a responding to that pressure brings about a character.
Q: And that accounts for the differences?
K: Yes, yes, your character and my… you were born there, *et* *cetera*. Now, we’re asking, if that… — what is it? — if that character is not the result of pressure? If there is no pressure, is there character?
Q: (Inaudible) …no.
K: What?
Q: No, there is no.
K: So, that’s what we are inquiring. How will you act in a world where there is no character? Everybody has character.
Q: (Inaudible) I was just saying that (inaudible)…
K: Wait, wait, wait. See… We’re going further. If there no character — which is no pressure — what then is the action?
Q: I understand.
K: That’s what we’re trying to find out. So, let’s go back. That is, sir, we said language for most of us is… we don’t use the instrument, but the instrument uses us. Right? We’ve gone into that, sufficiently. Now, we’re going the next step, which is: is not a strict, limited relationship a pressure which distorts action? We’re enquiring into that. That is, if I am attached to my wife — and most of us, if we are married or if we have girlfriends, we are tremendously held, attached, bound. Either we are conscious of it or unconscious of it. If we are conscious of it, we like it or we say, ‘For God’s sake, I want to break away from it’, and go off to some other woman or man and get attached there. Right? This is happening — divorce, you know, all the rest of the business. So, I’m asking, what is a relationship, in which there is no pressure of attachment?
EB: Sir, are you saying that any form of attachment is obsessive in its nature?
K: Every form must be. I’m attached to my house, or much better still, I’m attached to my concepts, to my conclusions, to my beliefs. How tremendously… — it narrows it, makes it monstrous.
EB: But a relationship is possible without… (inaudible).
K: We’re… We’ll find out. First, I must be free of attachment to find out the other.
EB: Yes.
K: I can’t say, ‘Well, I’m attached, I’m going to find the other.’ It’s like having one foot in the grave… (laughs). So, I say to… I’m asking myself, ‘Am I attached?’ And if I am attached, I’m asking, ‘Why?’ Not that I want to be detached, which is another form of attachment to detachment. I don’t know if I’m going too…
Q: Why am I asking why that is?
K: Uh?
Q: Why am I asking why, if I don’t want to be detached?
K: What, sir?
Q: You said I… ‘If I’m attached, I want to find out why.’ And you said, ‘Not that I want to be…
K: Why…? What is the reason of my attachment?
Q: Yes.
K: Why am I so attached to my wife, my husband? Why?
Q: What’s making me ask that?
K: I observe I am attached. If I… If I am at all attached to my wife, I see I’m attached. Because you’ve told me; you have pointed out that is a… it’s a tremendous pressure. And I say, ‘Am I… I want to find out’. I don’t say, ‘Well…’ This is not a linguistic, intellectual discussion — I have a horror of all that; it has no meaning. Whereas, if we say, ‘Look, am I, actually, in my daily life, in my relationship to another, am I attached?’ And you… you point that out to me — in discussion, in talk, as a friend — and I say, ‘All right, I’m going to find out’. I say, ‘Am I attached?’ I find I am attached. What does that do to me — the moment I discover that I am attached?
Q: I’m limited… (inaudible).
K: What?
Q: I see… I see I’m limited.
K: No, no, no… no. You’re missing…
Q: The attachments drop then, they have no power over you. If you see it (inaudible)…
K: No, no. You’re not… you’re not dealing directly; you’re moving off, verbally. When I discover, actually, that I’m attached, what is my response to that?
Q: You want to be free of it.
K: No, no, no… Please…
Q: Are you saying…?
K: Have you discovered, sir? Have you discovered, for yourself, that you’re attached? Wife, belief, house, property — it doesn’t matter what — nation, to a particular way of life.
Q: Am I attached to a thing or to an image?
K: I’m coming to… first, sir — the person or to the image. Perhaps, it may be the image and not the person.
Q: That’s what I mean, in the relationship of the man for the woman, maybe the man has the image of the…(inaudible)…cottage…
K: Of course, of course.
Q: …that’s what he’s attached to, but it doesn’t… it’s not real.
K: That… That… We’re going to find out. I’m going to…I don’t… Sir, I first want to go slowly at this, because it’s very important in one’s life. You… in the discussion of this kind, I have discovered — you have pointed out to me — that I’m attached, and I realise I’m attached. Right? What’s my instant reaction?
Q: I’m shocked.
Q: My instant reaction is that I see, immediately, the minute I’m attached to someone or my wife or children and so on…
K: Yes…
Q: …I see, immediately, I’m attached because I’m afraid. Fear is the background of all attachment…
K: No, no…
Q: …whether it be money or, you know, people.
K: Fritz Wilhelm showed me one thing: he said, ‘It is a… I never even thought about it. I’ve never been aware that I’m attached. I’ve never been put into a corner where… (Pause in recording)… I’m forced to acknowledge something.’ ‘You have put me in that corner where I’ve got to face it.’
Q: That’s right.
K: Wait, wait. So, what happens to me, when you put me in a corner and I’m watching and I’m realising the fact, the truth of my attachment, the fact of my attachment, watch my reaction… your reactions, not mine.
Q: When you asked that the first time, there was a moment that a (inaudible) opened up to me and I was aware of that side there. I don’t know if that…? That’s not…?
K: No, sir, that’s not my…
Q: It is a state of… I don’t know how to describe this — not knowing this — I think the mind just stops, that’s the (inaudible) first initial reaction… (inaudible)
K: Do you — not you personally — does one realise, that one is attached?
Q: For me, I’m afraid it is still under logical… (inaudible)
K: No, no, the fact, madam! Not logical! The fact that I’m attached.
Q: We realise it — don’t we, often? — through the pain or the joy (inaudible)…
K: I am attached or I depend. Why? I don’t want to go… ask ‘why’ yet. But, first, I want to see if I actually realise the enormous fact that I’m attached. Not because you tell me, but I see the truth of it, the actuality of it. I depend on her, sexually, for comfort, dozen reasons — because I’m lonely, I must have support, he will encourage me, dozen reasons — but the result of all that is I am desperately attached. Therefore, jealous, anxiety… all the rest of it follow. But that… I’m not concerned with that, for the moment. What effect has that on a mind that has been attached for a number of years, and suddenly… you have told me, ‘Look what you are doing.’? You understand? Look at the fact that you’re attached — what does it do to you?
Theo Lilliefelt: First thought that occurs to you is it’s very dangerous.
K: Very?
TL: Dangerous.
K: Either I say, ‘Sorry, I won’t accept your…’, because I… I’m frightened beyond words what will happen; I reject you totally. Right? Or, I say, ‘Yes, I realise I’m attached’ and then I say to myself, ‘Why shouldn’t I be attached? What’s wrong with it?’ Because I realise it gives me great comfort, great sense of security… it… I depend on somebody, it abolishes my loneliness — rather, not ‘abolishes’, I run away from it — and…
Q: Gives me identification (inaudible)…
K: Yes, and…
Q: …makes me someone.
K: And then I say to… ‘Why? Why am I attached? What is…?’ When do I ask that question? When I see the whole structure of attachment. Right? Then, only, I say, ‘Why?’ But we say, ‘Why?’ before we… Which means language drives us. Right? Ah, you don’t get it.
Q: Sir, are you saying, first we recognise that we’re attached?
K: Not… Do you recognise it? Not, ‘First, we must…’, then step by step… That becomes a system, then you are lost. But I’m asking you, do you — not you, sir, I mean ‘one’ — does one realise that one is attached? And the pressure of attachment. I can’t go anywhere without her, or him; I can’t be by myself; I can’t be… *et* *cetera, et* *cetera*. You follow, sir? You know what it all means; I don’t have to tell you.
Q: It takes an immense amount of energy to maintain the attachment, too, I think.
K: What, sir?
Q: It takes a lot of energy to maintain attachment, to be sure it doesn’t get…
Q: Slip away.
Q: Yes.
K: That’s right, sir.
Q: Then I’m very tired at night, after doing that all day.
K: Ah, no. You do it once, and it’s finished. Sorry (laughs).
Q: No, I mean to maintain the attachment.
K: Thank you.
Q: I don’t really know what you’re asking, I really don’t.
K: Eh?
Q: I really don’t know what you’re asking here. I’m sorry.
K: Probably, you’re not attached.
Q: Probably, I’m not attached?
K: Probably, I said, you may not be attached, to your wife, to your children, but maybe attached to a belief.
Q: Oh, I’m attached… (inaudible).
(Laughter)
Q: It’s easy to discern, if I could point out, whether one is attached: just mentally take it away. Take away the money, take away the prestige…
K: No, sir; no, no… Money…
Q: …take away the wife and the children… (inaudible) How does one feel?
K: Sir, look, no… No, no, no…
Q: …what is the basic…?
K: No. Am I…? Sir, don’t…
Q: To determine whether one is attached, is what I meant, Krishnamurti.
K: No, I’m asking: are you — not you, sir — is one attached to a person, to a wife, to a husband or to a girlfriend? That’s all. Limit it to that.
Q: How are we going to know? I mean, is this going to be an intellectual observation or is it really going to be a gut feeling?
K: I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you how we’ll know. I’m asking… I’m asking you, I’m asking you, as a friend, as a… *et* *cetera, et* *cetera*, without wanting to hurt you, without wanting to be impertinent, not wanting to interfere with your life, *et* *cetera, et* *cetera*. I just gently ask you, sir, are you attached to your wife? Or to your girlfriend?
Q: Okay…
K: Not ‘Okay’. (Laughs).
Q: Okay.
K: I don’t know ‘Okay’ in America…
Q: Now, yes. Now, now… For example, in my particular case — and just to get personal a minute — I think of a delightful daughter I have. Now, when I see an attachment, an emotional attachment, which is not love…
K: So, wait a minute. You have stated something, which is… which means love is not attachment.
Q: Absolutely. Love is absolute…
K: Wait, wait, sir.
Q: …loving that person with freedom…
K: Love is not dependence.
Q: That’s right.
K: So, have you…? Then, what place has love in your life when you are attached?
Q: None.
K: None. Right? That’s all, that’s all; that’s a simple fact.
Q: Now, the problem is that it’s not necessarily the case that, if you are not attached, there is love.
K: Ah ha (laughs).
Q: Or even anything significant.
K: Ah, I haven’t… I’ve only realised one thing. I don’t know what love means, but I see attachment is not love. I don’t know what love is, but this is not that.
Q: That’s right.
K: So, I… (inaudible) go into it further; love may be the only factor in which there is no pressure. (Pause) But, since one hasn’t got that extraordinary reality and the beauty and the… and all that of what love is, we have to face what actually is, which is: I am attached. And I say to myself, ‘Why?’ I don’t want to analyse, because analysis has no meaning — why? No, because, sir, unless I realise, tremendously, the fact that I’m attached, I won’t ask the question, ‘Why?’ I will ask intellectually, therefore no meaning. But when I ask, ‘Am I really dependent?’ And I see I am, as a fact, not as a… as a hypothesis, a conclusion, somebody told me, but the fact that I’m attached; and see the whole nature of attachment, what… *et* *cetera*, what it does. Then, I can ask: why have I… why is there… why does my mind cling to this person? Why?
Q: It’s because of your image.
K: What?
Q: Because of your image, I said.
K: No, not only your image, sir. Why am I attached? Is it I am lonely?
Q: I know that I’m attached…
K: What?
Q: …that I’m attached, because I’m afraid of the world’s rejection…
K: Yes.
Q: …that the world won’t take me up and love me enough…
K: (Laughs)
Q: …so, I have to find one person…
K: Yes.
Q: …that will give me all.
K: Yes. And that one person, who is attached to you, and at the same time you say, ‘Attachment is not love.’ So, you have… a game with yourself.
Q: Isn’t it because we want security?
K: No… Yes, we want… we want comfort, we want… Sir, look, have you…? I must… Have you, fundamentally, realised the fact — the fact; not because I tell you, or somebody points it out — the fact that you’re attached? And see all the implication involved in that attachment.
Q: You see, how much is ‘how much’?
K: Uh?
Q: The problem is how much do you see? I mean…
K: Ah, that’s up to you.
Q: That’s the problem (inaudible)…
K: Sir, if somebody forces you into a corner, as you are been forced now, in a discussion — unless it’s a verbal discussion, I won’t enter into it. I mean, if it’s a verbal discussion, I won’t enter in — but if it is an actual, daily fact of… about which we are discussing, and this discussion forces you into a corner and makes you realise that you are tremendously attached, deeply. And see the sequence of it, the sequence which is not disorderly — orderly sequence.
Q: What if I say I have seen that I am really attached?
K: What is your… what are you going to do about it? What is the… what will… the perception… Sir, how you perceive is important, not what you will do with attachment.
Q: I understand; but the perception is not a…
K: If it is superficial, it’s…
Q: …then you are no longer attached.
K: Ca y est. Okay.
(Laughter)
Q: I was attached. I’m now no more attached, but… I’m not deeply attached, I’m neither…
K: Find… Sir, no. No, you’re playing verbal game. Will your wife let you…? Sorry, forgive me…
Q: No, it’s okay.
K: …I’m not talking you, personally…
Q: No, no (inaudible).
K: Will your… If you tell your wife, ‘Sorry, Old Girl, I’m not attached to you’ what’s going happen to her?
Q: I mean I’ve told her that for years.
(Laughter)
K: What? Qu’es-ce qu’il dit? What?
FW: ‘I have told her for years.’
Q: I’ve told her for years. See, the reason I am saying this… The reason I am saying this…
K: Hold her hand, sir.
(Laughter)
Q: The reason I am saying this, and the reason I brought the point or the problem of character, is that people don’t change. I have seen this for… almost three years, let us say.
K: Yes, sir. But I’m asking you, at the end of it, when you’re really… there is no attachment of any kind. You understand?
Q: Yes, I understand.
K: To belief, to a daughter, to a husband, to a girlfriend, to any form — what has happened to you, then? What has taken place?
Q: That’s the problem.
K: Ah (laughs).
Q: No, no, I’m not…
K: That is not a problem.
Q: This is really, actually…
K: No, sir, it is not a problem. Problem then… it becomes a problem when you want a result.
Q: I understand, but…
K: No, no. Not ‘Okay’ (laughs). Sorry, I…
Q: Mr. Krishnamurti, could I ask you… could I pose a question? Is it possible, in any of our millions of relationships, to ever truly be unattached…
K: Oh, yes, sir.
Q: …without love?
K: I’m only talking of…
Q: Without love.
K: No, no.
Q: I mean, is it possible, to just mentally…
K: No, no, no.
Q: …bang, and then going into a state of… (inaudible) or void, or lack of feeling, or whatever.
K: No, sir. No, sir. When you actually realise that you’re attached and see all the consequences of that attachment, and are absolutely out of it, then there’s something totally different taking place.
Q: Yes, that’s right.
FW: But we don’t see that. We don’t see all our attachments… (inaudible)
K: Ah, then… then, let’s talk about it.
FW: Yes, that’s what I want to… (inaudible)
K: Ah, ah. You see how you’ve translated it? ‘Talk about it’ means verbalise it.
FW: No, no. You see, I see many attachments, one can enumerate many attachments, but that doesn’t mean that I see the basis of the attachment. You see, how can we get at the root of the attachments…?
K: All right, get to the root of it. It’s very simple. Why am I attached? It may be habit. Right?
Q: That isn’t enough.
K: Wait, wait. I said… I said it may be habit. One… you get used to it.
Q: (Inaudible)…
K: Wait, wait, sir, that’s only beginning, beginning. It may be habit; I must be quiet clear that it’s not habit. Right? And also, it may be I want a companion to talk to. Companion who will be with me, so that I can say, ‘Oh, I’ve had this feeling, I wish I… blah, blah, blah, blah.’ Because I’m inclined to everlastingly verbalise, talk, talk, talk. And I can’t talk to everybody, but I can to my wife, because she is bored with me and I’m bored with her.
(Laughter)
K: She has to put up with me — that may be one of the reasons. The other may be when I’m not attached, I see the danger — the insecurity, the fear, the loneliness, the despair, the boredom with myself, with all my books — hell with all that, I’m bored. Right? So, that may be it. Or, it may be that my desire, sex, my having pleasure fulfilled in some form or another — you follow? — I can give you multiple reasons, and where are you at the end of it? Nowhere. So, which implies, language drives us (laughs).
Q: Would you say it would help for us to go into this deeply, in ourselves, to see why?
K: This is what we are doing, now.
Q: And then, at the end, when we really see why, in ourselves, our own reasons, it’s not… (inaudible).
K: No, no. Explanation will never point out what is the root of it; words won’t point the root of it. You have to go beyond the words and say, ‘I must…’ — you follow? — beyond the words, and be very clear not to be caught in words. Why am I attached?
Q: For me, it’s always a feeling of fear.
K: Fear.
Q: (Inaudible) …boredom or despair or loneliness or whatever. It’s… Fear is the very basis, and it’s a very natural thing for the human… Fear.
K: Fear… fear by… Fear doesn’t exist by itself, it has a cause…
Q: That’s right. Always within relationship…
K: So…
Q: …to the other.
K: …in a relationship with another, where there is attachment — which is based on fear — it’s no longer relationship.
Q: That’s right.
K: Eh?
Q: So, therefore, I see that this is a devastating thing, to be attached.
K: So, if it is dangerous thing, walk away from it.
Q: That’s right.
Q: But the walking is never that…
K: What?
Q: There is a walking, you see, but that’s it. You just… it’s a walking…
(Laughter)
Q: He brings up an excellent point, though. Really, you bring up that… I’ve been following what you said at the beginning, and you bring up a very good point, I think. Because I think, you know, as we’ve said time again, without love, without a new feeling taking place before the attachment was, then I don’t think there is any way out of it, I think it’s just… we are in the same footsteps, over and over again!
K: Because, sir! Because you have never left the other!
Q: That’s right!
K: You haven’t cleansed the mind of the other! Or rather, the mind hasn’t cleansed itself, purgated itself, washed itself of attachment, completely.
Q: That’s right.
K: The other is there; you don’t have to say, ‘What is the other?’ Because we haven’t done it, we talk about the other. Okay.
Q: The reason we haven’t done it is because we are attached and we don’t want to. One of the reasons, I think, why we haven’t done it, is because we are attached, because we don’t want to.
K: Yes, sir, that may be. Then, at the end of this explanation, where are you? Where is your mind with regard to the attachment?
Q: We are the attachment.
K: Yes, sir. You are the attachment. At the end of this discussion, are you free of the pressure of attachment? Is the mind free of it?
Q: I mean, how can we answer that?
K: Oh yes, you can.
Q: I am free, then… and yet I am not free. I am free, from…
K: Ah, ha, ha.
Q: If I enumerate all the attachments…
K: If the other isn’t there, you’re not free.
Q: What’s that?
Q: That’s the point.
Q: And the other is none of these?
K: If there is another quality is not there, there is no freedom from attachment. You are not free from it.
Q: That’s it. So, I don’t know what is the thing, really, that one is attached to, deeply. I mean, is it possible to be attached to something you really have no idea about it? I mean, deeply?
K: What? I don’t quite follow.
Q: Is it possible we’re not seeing all our attachments?
Q: Yes.
Q: Unconscious.
Q: We just don’t see all the things that we are attached to.
K: What?
Q: I don’t think it would work, even if you saw, individually, all the little things that you are attached to. We have to go to the root of it, like we were saying, you know? The whole movement…
Q: If we could understand attachment…
Q: Period.
Q: …period. There is…
Q: But why has not that taken place? I mean, why…?
K: Ah (laughs).
Q: Because you don’t see it as a danger.
Q: Not just me. I mean…
K: Sir, when you see the danger, don’t you walk away from it?
Q: Yes, all the dangers…
K: Wait, wait, wait. Physical danger.
Q: Yes, yes.
K: You walk away from it.
Q: I walk away.
K: You don’t say, ‘What is there?’ You just walk.
Q: You see, I’m agreeing with you, but that’s not enough, somehow.
K: Ah, ah. You’re not agreeing with me; there is no agreement with me.
Q: No, sir.
Q: No, it’s not a matter of agreement. What I’m saying is why, why none of us…?
K: Do it. Do it, sir.
Q: That’s what I’m saying. I’m not attached and yet I am not… I don’t know what is the other thing you want to call… Why? Why none of us really have been totally free from this thing?
K: Because you have never applied your whole energy to this.
Q: No, sir. The last…
K: Sir, please listen. You give ten years to go through college, become a doctor or some other stuff and you won’t give a day or a year…
Q: No, no, no, sir.
K: No. Or a minute; minute is enough, sir. A minute, with complete passion to find this out.
Q: No, sir. You know what? They recovered me from the hospital, I was bleeding to death, literally, this is not exaggeration. And for a day, they were unable to stop the bleeding.
K: Yes, yes, yes.
Q: And in my wakefulness and in the dream — especially in the dream — all this thing goes on…
K: No, sir. No, you are missing the point.
Q: If you say, if you are… (inaudible)
K: Sir, look, look.
Q: I’m sorry.
K: Make a simple thing. I want to know how dangerous attachment is. Not what lies beyond, what is… I want to see the danger of it…
Q: I see it.
K: …the real… No. If you see the real danger of it, it’s finished.
Q: But not in abstract…
K: Eh?
Q: …in real life. In real life… I mean, you don’t just see attachment, just like that. You see nationalism, you see attachment to the family, attachment to money, attachment to job, to…
K: You may be… May be, all right.
Q: …all those things, you are free from it.
K: Yes. Wait. If you are free from it, what then?
Q: This is why (inaudible) …I don’t… There is nothing.
K: All right, there is nothing. Right? Wait, sir. There is nothing. You understand? There is nothing. Then why…? Why do you move away from that nothingness?
Q: I just move and eat.
K: You go and eat, go… No, no.
Q: That’s right.
K: You’re missing my point.
Q: No, you see, you are… This is somewhat like… It’s more of a verbal, really, than actual. In the actual real life, you see, there is nothing interesting… (inaudible)
K: No, no, no, no; not… Sir, please, stick to one thing, which is: if you are completely, totally free from all attachment — wife, husband, children, belief, dogmas, country — ah, you are a free man, aren’t you?
Q: Oh, I feel free…
K: Ah, wait, wait. You are a free man. Right? Is that enough?
Q: Well, I don’t know. I haven’t seen this.
K: Ah, you don’t see that.
Q: But I created my insecurity… I created my attachment to… to help me get over all my insecurities…
K: Of course.
Q: …and maybe I’m afraid to… if I were free from the attachments and I’m still feeling massively insecure, that sort of is the dilemma, and I probably…
K: Ah, wait, wait, sir…
Q: …that’s why my life is constantly… (inaudible)
K: Wait, no, no, no. Wait a minute, sir. Look at it, look at it. Go slowly. When you see the danger of attachment — the perception — what is that perception, that says, ‘It’s the most dangerous thing’? Come on, sir. What is that?
Q: The isolation (inaudible)…
K: No, no, no. You perceive the danger of attachment, suppose. What is that perception that says, ‘This is a most dangerous thing’?
Q: Can I answer that?
Q: I’m not sure.
Q: Can I answer that? Something real that happened.
K: Go on, sir. Be simple, simple.
Q: That’s right.
Q: You act (inaudible)…
Q: Whatever the problem was, the thing you are attached to, it is finished.
K: No, no; you haven’t understood.
Q: …the question. What is looking at the attachment? Is that what you’re asking?
Q: The need to survive, is what you say is looking at it.
K: No. Look, sir. You perceive or you see attachment is dangerous. What is that perception that says, ‘That’s dangerous’? Just… Keep quiet, other… Just tell me, sir.
Q: Well, I suppose, that…
K: Not ‘suppose’. You see? Actually, when you…
Q: The attachment obviously can cause conflict…
K: No, sir. When you see a bus coming rushing at you, a car, you step out, out of its way. It is instinctive, bodily intelligence, say, ‘You will get killed.’ Right?
Q: Self-preservation.
K: Self-preservation.
Q: Biological.
K: Wait, wait. Keep it to that: biological self-preservation. Now, when you see the danger of attachment — which is psychological, not biological — and see the danger, what is the… what has told you that it’s dangerous?
Q: The threat, I suppose.
K: Uh?
Q: The threat.
K: No, no; much more than threat. It’s your… It’s intelligence that says that it’s dangerous, isn’t it?
Q: Yes, but in an attachment, I won’t believe it, apparently.
K: Wait, wait, keep it, keep it. Uh?
Q: Apparently, it doesn’t believe it. I see it, but I don’t… obviously (inaudible)…
K: Ah, because you don’t see it as dangerous.
MZ: Krishnaji, is it that on many levels of seeing this, there is perceived a greater danger?
K: Uh?
MZ: Unless one… If one looks at it — in a way that is, perhaps, intellectual — you see it’s dangerous, but you see behind it a greater danger. If I’m not…
K: No, no…
MZ: …attached, I will be lonely, I will be this, I will be that.
K: No. All right, pursue the greater danger. The whole thing is dangerous.
MZ: But isn’t it that that layer of danger that prevents us looking all the way?
K: No, I see… Look, Maria, I see danger, and behind that there is another danger — danger of insecurity — go through that. And behind that there is fear, behind that there is utter loneliness of a human being, totally isolated from everything else. That’s a tremendous fear. Face it; go into it. And all this implies an intelligence that is operating; not your desire, your wish, your conclusion… This extraordinary intelligence says, ‘This is not worth it.’ And that intelligence is the absolute security. Phew.
(Laughter)
Q: That is the real point of the whole thing. Because that’s truly, I think, what this gentleman was asking and maybe, you know, Mr. Krishnamurti, some other day, we’ll go into that, because there can be, when you’re unattached, a couple of things. It could be a higher form of gratification. I mean, these attachments make me more afraid, it’s devastating. I want a higher form of gratification, therefore… (inaudible)
K: Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Q: …or it could lead to a void, a sterility, and you would say, ‘Hey’, and… which leads again into a cynicism…
K: No, sir.
Q: …so, without love…
K: No, no.
Q: It could, I say. I’m not saying it does. It could.
K: No. Love is…
Q: Without the love.
K: Ah, ha, ha. You have to go… you have to see the totality of danger of attachment.
Q: Yes, right… Right.
Q: And, you see, I’m saying that doesn’t happen. In real life… I mean, I’m sorry. In my wakefulness, I mean, personally, I just see it in, let’s say, you know, in individual cases…
K: Sir, in your… No, in yourself, in yourself is good enough. You’re the rest of the individuals, so go on.
Q: In my wakefulness, in my consciousness, when I’m awake, I see nationalism is… and then it’s…
K: Oh, that’s too silly. All those are.
Q: Now, everything… and away. Nothing comes, in my wakefulness, and I look at it, and I’m not attached to it. Now, in my dreams, this process goes on…
K: Yes, sir.
Q: …but it is never continuous. This intelligence… I’m attached, or I’m afraid of a particular thing, I see it, the fear goes on, goes on, until I am really looking at it, then fear disappears completely…
K: Yes.
Q: …and then I am awake, and then the next thing goes on. But it is always individual cases. You look at it and the mind says, ‘Unless you look at it, you will not be free.’ There is looking, that fear totally ends and then I’m awake, and the next thing. For example, one time there was a person — this is something silly — he said, ‘I am Krishnamurti’, and he says… he was talking, and then my mind says, ‘Well, listen to him.’ Now, as I listened, I said, ‘You are really not Krishnamurti’, and I am really sleeping. So, what I’m saying is that these problems comes in dreams, and they are finished, but there isn’t any continuous intelligence that you are talking about.
K: No, sir. We are missing the point, sorry.
Q: And I wish we would talk about this ‘I’, and character, and responsibility.
K: No, I… We are… Sir, you are going back to the old thing, but I want one thing clear to myself… in this conversation and dialogue: whether we realise we are driven by language, or we use language.
Q: That’s not enough. I understand fully, exactly…
K: Wait, wait, wait. Not understanding; find out, go into it — whether the instrument is using me or I am using the instrument.
Q: But as we go into that, if you will go next time, if you want…
K: We will; we’ll have to stop now. I’ve got a cramp (laughs).
Q: Sorry.
(Laughter)