Small Group Discussion 1, Rome, 29 October 1965
K: Can somebody start questioning and discuss?
Q: (In Italian) No so se gli altri sono d’accordo. Ma (inaudible) nel corso delle ultime tre conversazione si sia arrivati atraverso vie diverse a parlare della mente negativa e definitiva siempre ciascuna volta. Quello che mi interessa enormamente sarebbe di discutere sulla possibilita della mente negative …di passare della mente negative di passare ad un azione positive.
K: You’ve all understood the question?
Q: I hope.
Q: Yes
K: Si? Sir, what is positive action? (Pause) What is positive action in relation to what is taking place in Vietnam, in Kashmir — the aggressive, destructive nature of human beings — what is the positive action, as is generally understood? War, resistance, demonstrations — as they are going on in America — acceptance to the pattern… of the pattern, and obedience, conformity, accepting the norm established by society — society being church, politics, economics, all the rest of it — that acquiescing or adjusting or obeying the pattern, whether established by society or for oneself, is so called positive action, isn’t it? Right? Now where does that lead us? Where does a society — a human individual in relation to society — what happens to such an individual? (Pause) If we could understand that then we could break through that and find out the negative action, then from that find out a different action which is not the positive action of conformity. Right?
What does it do to an individual? (Pause) (Dogs barking) It either suffocates, destroys his independence, freedom, or he reacts — demonstrations, beatniks, and so on — a series of reactions in relation to the norm, in the context of the norm, but still in the context. And such a human being is never free. There is fear, you know, all the rest of the things involved. Need we go into that?
Q: Useless.
K: We can move on.
Q: Yes, yes.
K: So, if an individual like you and me see that, see what is implied or what is the nature of this positive action which we have accepted so far — what is the structure of it, the meaning of it, the significance of it, the activity of it in our lives, daily lives — if we understand it without reaction, we can drop it. Because it must be without reaction otherwise it will be…
Q: The same thing, yes. K: Now is it possible to drop it without reaction? Say for instance, I’m going on Monday to India. They’re going to question me: which side am I on? Is it not a righteous war? Now, what is the response of a human being who is not positive in that sense? First of all, he has no nationality, he has no this or that — the pleasant war, the war which is righteous, a war which is not righteous — who is not competitive, who is not ambitious in the positive sense, and so on. Now, will such a human being have an answer to Kashmir and Vietnam in terms of the questioner? I don’t know if you… Because he wants to get me on his side.
Q: I don’ think so.
Q: On the other side.
K: Or on the other side.
Q: On the other side, yes.
K: But if I don’t, if a human being doesn’t belong to either — and he only knows this side and that side as the positive and righteous and all that — what is his position? I don’t know if I’m making myself clear. (Pause)
Q: (Italian) Se tutti in india forsero cosi.
K: (Italian) Quasi tutti.
Q: (Italian) Adesso non ci sarebbe piu oposizioni, justo?
Q: (Italian) Pero, non e il mondo, il mondo intero no e cosi.
K: No. No, no, no. No, the world isn’t like that but the world has all the symptoms of this or that.
Q: Yes, the world is really exactly like that. They may not be challenging you on an issue of war but they will challenge you on any other issue, a thousand different issues.
K: Then initially there is no war, at the moment, but there is always this side, my side and your side, my country and your country, which inevitable must breed war.
Q: And contradiction.
K: Of course, and all the rest of it that follows. And if you don’t belong to either, what’s your position?
Q: Do you have a position? Does one have a position at all?
K: No, wait, I want to find out. What is your position? How do you answer it?
Q: I don’t know.
K: Ah, wait a minute, that’s not good enough.
Q: Of course
K: You must, as a human being living in this world you must act. You can’t say, ‘Well, I won’t act.’ So what do we do, who do not belong to this side or that side, who is not competitive in the deep sense of that word — you understand, sir? — who is not ambitious, competitive and therefore breeding violence. Right? What do we… how do we respond? And we must respond. You can’t just sit still and say, ‘It’s not my business.’ (Pause) First of all, are we in that position? Capisce? If not, you can’t answer that question honestly.
Q: So we have to see what is action.
K: What is action in relation to this question, problem, because that’s the thing that’s happening in the world at the moment. Are you a pacifist, a conscientious objector, who morally, ethically, spiritually, you see pacifism is the only answer to this kind of thing — and is that pacifism merely a reaction or is it a pacifism that says, ‘I will not kill,’ because — for various reasons? That means if you are really a pacifist in the deep sense of that word, no kill.
Q: Not kill?
Q: (Italian) Amazzare.
K: Sorry.
Q: (Italian) Cioe se presentono chiamono sotto le armi deve dichiararsi perche o va in prigione o va sotto le armi e deve amazzarsi. Adesso vi dichiarara…
K: What is your position, sir? You’re in that position. It’s really a very complex problem. If I am a pacifist — I know several friends — they won’t go to the Red Cross, they won’t drive cars to help the soldiers to get well and be sent back, and yet they feel responsible for the morality of the country to which they belong. So as an individual and as a citizen they say this is immoral to kill somebody for the sake of your country. Then there is the other side, the Chinese Communists, want to expand, aggressive, you know all the rest of it. What is one to do?
(Pause)
Q: Can I ask you a question?
K: Go ahead, sir, we’re discussing.
Q: In speaking about action, you ask, ‘What is one to do?’ Now if one is truly uninfluenceable, one has truly negated all influence and cleared one’s (inaudible)…
K: That’s what we’re saying
Q: …then it doesn’t make any difference what one does.
K: Ah, no, no, no. You are morally responsible, you can’t just sit…
Q: But morals imply a moral system.
K: No, in the sense you will not kill — let’s call that for the moment.
Q: But this means that this is what you see as immoral.
K: Let’s leave the word *moral* for the moment, if you like.
Q: Well why are you influenced by killing? What I mean is why is killing wrong or right?
K: It doesn’t solve any problem, first of all. I kill you and you kill me. What have we solved?
Q: But perhaps one cannot answer that until one is completely uninfluenceable and one sees…
K: That’s what I want to get at. That’s what I want to get at — whether we — he put that question: what is negative action which is positive?
Q: What is a negative reply to a positive challenge.
K: No, no, no, no, there is no challenge or anything. He says there is, in our discussions and so on, we’ve come to the point when we say there is a negative state of mind which is the essence of positive. And he says, ‘What is that?’ And before we can go into that we must understand what…
Q: …which kind of action can arise from this state of mind. Yes.
K: Yes. Before we can go into that we’ll have to understand the so called positive action of everyday living.
Q: Yes, of reaction.
K: We went into the conformity, acceptance, obedience, fear, all that. Am I, as an individual, free of it? If I’m not, I can’t understand the other, because it means I deny this, which is negation. I deny the positive action of an individual in a society and the society influencing, you know, that relationship. So, if you and I deny that completely, implying the whole psychological structure of a society which has influenced me, which I have created it out of my pleasure and all the rest of it, then what is negative action? It is only then I can put that question, not before.
Q: Positive action is an action which arises without a reaction.
K: That’s right.
Q: In other words, it arises gratuitously.
K: Yes. Which means that I must understand all my reactions, I must understand and not die to reactions, because then I’ll be paralyzed — and let those reactions not interfere in my action.
Q: Of course, it is difficult outside of the person who’s making this action to decide whether it is made gratuitously or not.
K: Of course, that’s why I said I have to have to be tremendously honest. And am I capable of such objective honesty about subjective matter? And therefore I have to objectify the subjective — I don’t know if you follow what I mean — and put it on a table and look at it as ruthlessly as you would under a microscope.
Q: Karl Marx or Freud or somebody who went against all the conditioning of his time to create something new, is it a creative action or not?
Q: Did they go against or did they simply continue in a reaction.
Q: It was a reaction.
Q: If you don’t like capitalism and you make the opposite, what you’re making is determined by the capitalism you’re against.
Q: Yes, of course.
Q: If your parents are Catholic you make yourself Protestant.
Q: (Inaudible) . K: Ah, a reaction can produce a semblance of a creation but it’s not, obviously.
Q: Then there is the story of Lafcadio’s Adventures by Gide where he throws a man out of a train for no reason at all.
Q: Except a tremendous reason of trying to prove to himself that he was capable of a gratuitous action.
Q: I see.
Q: Which was tormenting him all the time.
Q: Yes, his reaction to this… (Laughter)
Q: Isn’t that moment, I was thinking of Freud, if he’s done it spontaneously because he couldn’t do anything else, that was all…
K: What throw a man out of the window?
Q: No, no, no, I’m not talking about Freud. I’m trying to say a man of science who studies and then arrives at his conclusion and just looks at it and says what is his conclusion and all that, he can be spontaneous.
K: No, sir.
Q: Because if he’d stopped himself it would have been also another reaction to a reaction. He can’t tell himself, ‘No, I mustn’t do it.’
K: No, no. No, no.
Q: (Inaudible)
K: No, no, we’re making it very superficial. Just a minute, just a minute. First let’s begin again. We accept, obey, conform — psychologically, not in clothing. Right. And that conformity with its discipline, with its order which is disorder, is considered moral, ethical, social, beneficial, and improving society. Now, I see that, not intellectually, verbally but I see where it leads human beings. It has led to tremendous tyranny on one side — Hitlers, you know all that business — on the other this reckless kicking of society as a reaction. Right. I see that and I say to myself, ‘Can I as a human being, living in the society be free of this tremendous desire to be secure in society?’ Can I be free of that? And in trying to find out, or rather, in becoming free of it I must reject society — I don’t know — completely, not knowing where it’s going to lead me to, obviously. Right? If I knew where it was going to lead me to, it would not be rejection.
Q: Conformity.
K: Because that would be my pleasure, my ideal, my conformity to a pattern of another kind. Right? So, have I, a human being — not an individual; I don’t mean individual in the in the petty little sense — as a human being rejected this thing totally? If I don’t I won’t understand what is negative action, first of all, out of which comes quite a different positive action. I don’t know if…
Sir, let’s put it this way. Instead of making it so…putting it so generally. I’m not jealous — let’s say a human being is not jealous. You have a better position, you have a better car, a better house, and so on, so on — my wife, I’m not jealous, all the rest of it. There is no spark of jealousy. What is his action then? He doesn’t know what love is. It isn’t just… freedom of jealousy doesn’t bring about love. Right? Right, sir?
(Pause)
Q: Yes.
K: Because jealousy is a reaction, and all the rest of it, and love is something one has to come upon, not cultivate it, not build it up. Right? So, I’m free of… a human being is free of jealousy which means no envy of another. In that particular little non-envious, non-jealous state, he is in a negative state, isn’t he? He’s not jealous, not envious. Now that negative state in itself is very positive, isn’t it?
(Pause)
Q: He has a positive existence.
K: He has a very positive existence.
Q: And action.
Q: He’s not rejecting anything. I don’t understand. The word *rejecting* implies…
K: Ah, rejecting — to reject.
Q: Because it can be… I always feel rejecting is an action, is another form… is a programme.
K: No, no, no, no. I reject church.
Q: It’s willing.
K: No, I say it’s silly, it’s stupid. I reject it.
Q: In this example, we apply the word *rejection* to this thing of jealousy, which I think I understood, that he’s not rejecting anything.
K: He’s not jealous. All right, if you like to put it.
Q: He’s not rejecting it. Because the word *rejecting* is acting.
Q: But it is negative. He’s leaving it. He’s just…
Q: Rejecting is like saying, ‘No, no, no, I won’t have anything to do with this thing. It’s already positive, it’s an action.
Q: No, no, it’s just that I don’t have to go to Naples tomorrow. I don’t want to go to Naples. I’m not rejecting Naples. (Inaudible)
Q: That’s okay, I’ll leave it.
Q: (Italian) Questa si tratta… la gelosia e un vizio, una cosa che uno non ce la e non ce la, pero se ritorniamo alla questione di Kashmir e del india e della decisione che una deve prendere, li anche anche il rigettare diventa *involvement.*
K: No, sir. Let’s drop that word. If you don’t like that word *reject*, let’s… Deny. You see? I put it away. I’ve no reaction but it has fallen away from me.
Q: (Inaudible)
K: It has fallen. Jealousy has fallen away from me. Right. And such a mind which is not envious, all that, is that not negative and therefore very positive?
Q: Yes.
K: If I don’t hate anybody the mind is already tremendously vital.
Q: This of course doesn’t imply that you love everyone.
K: Wait, wait, I don’t want to go into that yet.
Q: That would be a positive.
K: No, that would be… But I must first find out, understand and go into it tremendously whether the mind is capable — or the brain, the whole structure — is capable of really not hating anybody.
Q: May I ask you one question concerning something which pertains very much to this subject of whether the mind is capable or not? In one of your talks you said that a metamorphoses must be brought about, that we are still very much animals.
K: The animal — quite.
Q: And I quite agree with that. I think that it’s part of our structure.
K: I know, I know.
Q: And in your assumption that it is possible for one part of us to completely throw off and detach itself and remain uninfluenceable from the rest of ourselves, it seems to me to be very hypothetical.
K: No, did I say… No.
Q: If we are animals, we are animals.
K: Therefore why not… After all, there is an intelligence that says don’t be an animal.
Q: Yes, but then again part of this intelligence that says don’t be an animal, is an animal.
K: Not necessarily. Wait, sir. Wait, wait, wait.
Q: I am going slow.
K: No, you can see it, sir. Discuss it. I am jealous. That is part of the animal structure. Must I continue, as a human being, in that animal structure?
Q: That’s the question.
K: Yes. Must I? If I discipline myself against jealousy, or identify myself with something which is not going to provoke jealousy in me, I am still the animal. Right?
Q: What you are avoiding are all the stimulus which can evoke an animal reaction. In other words, there are certain reactions to these outside stimulus which a human being will react to in an animal way and what you are doing is avoiding all sorts of…
K: Not avoiding.
Q: No, that’s not correct.
K: Not avoiding. I won’t avoid.
Q: To avoid is to react.
Q: Well what you do is cancel it essentially so it never reaches a receptive level. I’m not sure what this means though.
K: Yes, that’s why I want to be quite clear.
Q: I’m not sure how you manage to do this, how it is possible.
K: No, I’ll show you. I’ll show you. That’s fairly simple how it can be done. That is fairly clear. We’ll come to that in a minute, but answer this question. Sir, you are in this position, as a human being, whether in Vietnam or in India or anywhere else — what is your position? And you can’t say, ‘Sorry, I have no position’ — right? — ‘I’m out of it. It is not my war, it’s somebody else’s.’ You can no longer say that. The positive action would be: I’ve got to join, take sides, and beat the guts out of these people, and so on, so on, so on, so on. Or…
Q: …the other side.
K: No. You realise that, or you say, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t kill.’ Right? But yet you are a nationalist, you are violent, competitive, aggressive, seeking power — which are all indications of violence. Right? So you really are not a pacifist. I don’t know…
Q: Yes, yes.
K: So one has to ask oneself whether a human being, being a great deal of the animal, is it for him possible to be non- etc., etc., all that. And how is he to free himself from it without the animal taking charge?
Q: Yes.
Q: Without the animal influencing.
K: Yes, without the super animal taking charge, take influence. It is only possible, I think, when one can look, as we discussed, look, observe, see the thing without reaction. To see the flower without reaction. To listen to that dog barking and react to it, but not let that reaction interfere. Which means no resistance to that barking.
Q: But he meant there is always a moment of choice. You can shut the door so you don’t hear the barking or you can go out and give it some food.
K: No, I think choice is wrong.
Q: Or you can put plugs in your ears. You can always do a thing. That’s what he meant.
K: No. Choice. Why should I have a choice?
Q: No but he started on the thing, I think: what is the action that comes out of the state? I mean on the practical, on the immediate thing.
K: No, no, no. He asked: what is the negative mind which is the positive action?
Q: I think he said: what is the action which comes out of the negative state?
K: No, the negative state is the positive action.
Q: Yes, but…
K: He put it differently, but he agrees with it now. It is not a negative state which the mind achieves and from there acts, which is positive.
Q: No. The negative state is the positive action.
Q: So the result of this negative state is a positive action.
Q: Is action.
K: Is action.
(Pause)
After all, if one is actually free of fear — actually not theoretically and idealistically, all the rest of it — actually, factually free, that’s a tremendously negative state which is positive, because one is free.
Q: Is free, yes. . K: It’s like removing a burden which you’ve been carrying.
Q: But sometimes life puts you in a way that you have to choose.
K: No, wait a minute, let’s look. What do you mean by choice? I choose this material opposed to another material.
Q: No, I but mean, let’s say war or peace.
K: No, no. No, wait, wait, let’s go into it slowly. Choice. We’re examining the word *choice*.
Q: That’s a free choice. Yes, that’s right.
K: We have to choose. I eat this food, I don’t eat that food.
Q: Yes.
K: I like to live in this house and not in that house. I like to read that book and not… I like to see that television and so on, so on, so on.
(Pause)
Q: Are there reasons for this choice, that you like to do this or that?
K: Yes, because…
Q: (Inaudible)
K: Yes, I do. I have looked at it. I’ve said that food I won’t eat because it gives me pain. I prefer this colour because that colour doesn’t suit me, and so on. Choice. I realise why I choose. Wait. Now, why need there be — no — what then is action without choice? Is there an action without choice? Because that is only action. Action born of choice is inaction because it breeds conflict. I don’t know.
Q: Action born of choice is inaction.
K: Inaction. Inaction in the sense…
Q: Because you are pushed.
K: Yes.
Q: Reaction.
Q: They say choose, be a soldier or not. You have to have an action which is…
Q: …choice. It’s according to something.
Q: You can only choose when you’re confused.
Q: And when you are in conflict you jump out of the window or you stay in your room.
K: When you see something very clearly there is no choice.
Q: When I prefer one food to another, maybe I’m not choosing at all.
K: So that is the point, sir. When I see very clearly the whole implication of war — nationalism, private governments, sovereign states with their armies, you know, all that, and the individual struggling for power, position, prestige — all that’s violence — when I see the whole structure of violence very clearly there’s no choice.
Q: Yes.
Q: May I say that the examples you have chosen are very clear and of course there is no real choice. It’s quite clear that the thing you must do is the thing that would be best.
K: No, no, there is no best. When you see something clearly you act.
Q: Yes, but that’s what you mean by seeing clearly. In other words, it is not a matter of weighing, it is quite, quite clear.
K: Yes.
Q: But not everything is that clear.
K: No, no.
Q: And the mind is not capable of seeing things that clearly.
K: Wait, sir, what things? What are the things? Why should I be clear whether I live in this room with this ugly — you know?
Q: Minuscule decisions.
K: (Inaudible)
Q: It is not important.
K: It’s not important.
Q: But how do you know what is important or not?
K: No. I don’t mind. There is no question of… because I have no… it doesn’t upset me, I don’t react, it’s somebody’s room, I live there — forgotten. But when you tell me that I must join the army, I must be this, I must believe, I must not believe, all that, then choice comes in. And when I see this whole structure then why should choice come in at all?
(Pause)
So is the mind capable of seeing clearly? Not only with regard to the colour of the wall but with regard to things that — no, I won’t say — to everything — not walls and something superior and inferior — to everything. It is only possible when I am attentive.
(Pause)
Q: (Italian) In che rapporto sta l’imagine con l’attenzione?
K: (Italian) Come?
Q: (Italian) Voglio dire, l’attenzione esercitato dal imagine…
K: Ah, no, no, no. What is attention? Wait a minute. What is attention? Do we attend or do we concentrate? To attend to something implies, doesn’t it, giving your mind, your body, your nerves, your heart, your eyes, completely to that thing. That’s generally what we mean — at least we mean — by attention.
(Pause)
In that state of attention action is entirely different, obviously. But with us, inattention breeds action which involves confusion. I don’t know…
Q: Real attention is not focused on one thing.
K: You try. You try. What is attention? I asked you: what is attention? To be really attentive. The concentration of a schoolboy when he wants to look out of the window or when he has other thoughts, doing something else with his mind and trying to concentrate, that’s not attention. But as he grows up he has more and more powers of concentration because he blocks off and can concentrate.
Q: And that is not attention.
K: How can it be? So he lives in fragments, he concentrates tremendously in the office because he knows jolly well he will lose his job, and at home he’s…
Q: But in the state of attention, action doesn’t… It is action. But I mean, if you’re really attentive you don’t move anymore.
K: Ah, but, sir, that’s one of the most difficult things isn’t it, to be really attentive? Which means no resistance, no fear of consequence of what is going to happen, an attention in which there is no motive. You have to go into it tremendously to be really attentive.
Q: In this state of attention that you describe where there is no fear and no desire, there is also no direction.
K: No, we must understand. Wait a minute. First you said, fear, no direction. What do you mean by direction?
Q: In other words there is a thing called time, but we may not recognise it. We observe it.
K: Yes.
Q: We cannot help it if our minds and our perceptions are so constructed so we observe time passing.
K: Yes.
Q: Whether we like to think of it as time or not is another story.
K: No, it’s another — quite. There is time.
Q: There is something, a process, which things are changed from one perception to the next.
K: Right.
Q: And this is a direction. Whether we have a direction in ourselves with respect to what we perceive outside us is another story, but there is a direction.
K: Yes.
Q: Things are happening.
K: Yes.
Q: Now our relation to the things that are happening in this state of attentiveness, as far as I can see, perhaps I’m wrong…
K: No direction.
Q: …is without any orientation to the direction.
K: That’s right. I feel that too. I feel a real attention is non-directive. We can see it, experiment. If you are completely attentive, taking everything in — the colour of the flowers, the colour of the carpet, the people around you — you know, all that, completely take it in — is there any direction? And at that moment is there time, which is direction?
Q: Well we see that the light is dimming.
K: Yes.
Q: Although it means nothing to us whether that light dims or not, we observe it dimming.
K: Of course.
Q: Now if there were a desire to continue looking at flowers then the urge to put a light on…
K: Then you do it.
Q: No. Why?
K: If you don’t want to, don’t do it.
Q: Exactly. But how do you know whether you want to or not, if there is no direction?
K: Ah, no, no, we must understand again, the whole…
Q: It’s a state which you are awake. Because every religion tries to wake up people and they’re never awake, and this is a kind of consciousness, this attention.
Q: Yes.
Q: Which is a state of awakeness maybe.
Q: But there is something else going on beyond this attentiveness that enables you to operate with it. In other words, you feel ‘I want to see that flower,’ therefore you turn the light on, but it doesn’t bother you.
K: Right.
Q: If the light doesn’t go on.
K: Right, right. Ah, you see in the same thing inwardly, inside the skin, can one be attentive? I can with regard to the flower. If the light doesn’t go on, I’m quite indifferent. But inwardly, if somebody else is rude to me, if someone is rude to me, if I’m not successful, if I’m not clever, if I’m not famous, all the rest of it, can I be attentive to all that and therefore be free, and turn the light on on my reactions so that I see them all very clearly? And I can only do that, turn on the light, when I’m attentive to all my inward reactions.
Q: But part of what your inward reactions are, are animal.
K: I know, absolutely. Now watch it. They are animals, I admit. But is attention animal? I say it certainly is not.
Q: I can’t discriminate, I’m sorry.
K: Sir, look, I’m afraid. There is fear in me. Which is a great deal of the animal. Now to cultivate courage is part of the animal still, because it’s a reaction, it’s self-protective, and so on and on and on. It’s still the animal — right? Now, I see that very clearly. The seeing of it is not animalistic. But when I cultivate courage it is still part of the animal. So I see both fear and courage are both animalistic. And seeing that very clearly is surely non-…
(Pause)
Q: When we are with you we have the state of attention. When we are not with you the state of attention falls. So you mustn’t exercise to have it back, you can’t read books, you can’t do a thing. So what happens?
K: What will you do?
Q: What does one do?
K: Am I influencing you to be attentive? If you are, then it is not attention. But if it is because we are reflecting together, because we are debating together, because we are trying to understand the thing together, naturally out of that comes…
Q: …attention.
K: …attention. But when there isn’t this tension, this energy, one naturally goes down. Either that or you’re influenced, you’re pushed into a corner and you are jolly well going to fight. Then it becomes inattention and it’s just an influence. That has no meaning at all. It’s like going to the church, going to the mass, getting a little thrill and keep repeating it day after day.
(Pause)
Sir, go back to that point. You and I are faced with this question: war, violence, on both sides — communists — human beings are violent in one way or another. In their pacifism they are violent. In every way they are violent. How do we create a new society which is not violent? Is it possible? You know, I haven’t ready it — Buddha, you know, 500BC preached don’t kill. He talked because the Hindus had already — you know all that business. And there was a whole group of people who didn’t kill. Brahmins didn’t kill. My father wouldn’t kill an animal or anything, but would have others kill it. A snake would be in the room, he would call his servant to kill it. Now, the Buddhist people made such a thing of it that they were just conquered, wiped out. Asoka, you know, the king, 250BC, he was conquering and suddenly became a Buddhist and stopped all conquering. And naturally, you know… So it isn’t enough my being a pacifist in the large sense of that word, but it is also important that you become too. Otherwise you’ll destroy me.
Q: That’s right, yes.
Q: So what do I do meanwhile?
K: So what do we do? I don’t know if you’re…
Q: Yes.
K: You and I see this immense violence going on in our hearts, in our minds, physically — you know, every way going on. You must have read they have recorded human history 5,000, 6,000, you know, whatever it is, to 14,600 wars, more. How do we, you a pacifist — no, I won’t call it *pacifist* — you, you’re a not quite animal (laughs), but more, and you say, ‘Look, I don’t want to kill,’ and it is imperative to teach me, to tell me also not to kill, otherwise I will destroy you and I will perpetuate violence. So both of us must. How do we set about this?
(Pause)
Violence isn’t decreasing. On the contrary.
(Pause)
It’s no good your being a non- killer. You have to make a society which is also non-killing.
Q: But if you are the society?
K: But by not killing you’re out of it, obviously. Non-killing being all that’s implied. You’re out of the structure of society. Now how will you help society, or group, or one, to come out of society? Otherwise what’s it all about? It’s your own private salvation, your own cultivation of the backyard, you know, all the rest of that stuff, it has no… So how will you, who are non-animalistic, help me to be also? Otherwise you have very little action, you have little — you follow?
Q: You can be wiped out.
K: We are wiped out. . Q: I will try to tell you.
K: And then what?
Q: (Inaudible)
K: So, look, they have been told umpteen times. You understand, sir? Religions, you know, Christianity has always spread wars. They have always talked about non-killing. They kill animals, birds, kill, kill, kill, for their food, for their existence, survival. You follow? I mean, you eat meat, I don’t eat meat; you kill and I don’t kill, but I kill the vegetable. So I must draw the line somewhere. Right? I like to draw the line killing vegetables. (Laughs)
Q: But why draw a line?
K: No, I don’t. Not draw the line — you know, it isn’t a line, sir. (Laughter) I say I don’t kill. The least. I’ll kill the least.
Q: But if you do anything to change the society, why are you doing it? Are you doing it out of fear of being killed?
K: No. No. No, I’m not, because I see — it’s like seeing something tremendously important.
Q: Why is it necessary?
K: Because that is the way to live.
Q: You see it but…
Q: It’s its own justification; you don’t have to justify it.
K: I see. I see what human beings can be.
Q: But is it important that they be what you see?
K: Yes, of course it is, otherwise what is life? Suffering, misery, conflict?
Q: It’s whatever you make it but…
K: But that’s what’s happening. I was thinking of those poor Vietnamese and the Americans being shot to pieces there. What? Think of the mother, sister, wife, husband, all that. And this is being perpetuated over and over — two and a half wars every year.
(Pause)
Timex.
Q: There’s a common problem in everything of the other person’s relationship between us, our problems, and us with the others.
K: No, madame.
Q: Because I can put an order in my house but then I see there is disorder in another house.
K: What does it mean? What does it mean if you put your order in a house, in yourself, what use has it?
Q: Yes but that is the problem, the other mess.
K: (Inaudible)
Q: I get on the bus. They step on my feet.
K: Madame, écoutez. You must have order. You must have order within yourself, but I come and create disorder around you.
Q: That’s the problem. What do I do?
K: What do we do?
Q: (Inaudible)
K: You want to be kind, you want to be gentle. You are. And the other man comes and kicks your face, what?
Q: So what?
K: I know.
Q: Christ said to give the other cheek. It’s not possible.
K: Oh, no, no, no. Of course. That’s all history. I don’t know if he did. I mean, he probably turned around and gave him a bang, but that doesn’t matter — we don’t know. The Hindus have done that, the Buddhists. Oh, this is an ancient business this, you see? The Sumerians 5,500 years ago said don’t — you know? — and we’re still doing it.
So what is your relationship when you don’t kill, to society? Either you have no relationship — wait, sir — either you have no relationship and therefore you can’t… you say, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t touch you’ — a lone wanderer who will be killed or not killed, who has preached, who has said, ‘Don’t kill, my friends, you’ll live better.’ And it has no value on me because I hate. I hate that man who has run away with my wife. I hate the people who tread on my country, God and all the rest of it. How do you act on me, or not at all? This is a very important question, sir, you follow what I mean?
Q: Yes, yes, it is.
Q: Can’t we ask only the other fellow, sir?
K: Which other fellow?
Q: The fellow who isn’t gentle, who does believe in killing.
K: He’ll say, ‘I am that way. You are a strange freak. Your adrenalin glands don’t work properly therefore you are a pacifist.’ He throws a stone at you. That’s the end of it.
Q: Because nearly all would-be pacifists take up positions of defence of their pacifism and they order arms.
K: But I just want to know what you as a human being who has really non-killing and therefore don’t kill — are you merely working in your back garden, cultivating your backyard, or has that any value to another? Not that you should have value, I don’t mean that.
Q: Not a value — yes.
(Pause)
Q: You say you see how people could be, that’s why you would like others to be…
K: No, no, no, that’s not the reason. Because I see — it’s like saying, ‘Remove your glasses, you’ll see much more clearly. For God’s sake you will see life and the earth and the stars much more beautifully and you’ll live. Remove your glasses.’ And you’ll pick up a stone and throw it at me. What?
Q: But suppose you were able to achieve the fact of peace and the fact that men would not pick up stones and throw them at you, without having them take off their glasses. Suppose they still were suffering but they weren’t influencing you.
K: But they don’t influence me.
Q: Would that be all right, also, though?
K: No.
Q: What wouldn’t be all right?
K: No, I’m not influenced. Because you are killing your sister or your brother, I’m not influenced, but I say, ‘For God’s sake, live differently. You can live differently.’
Q: Yes, but you seem to feel this would be best for everyone.
K: Naturally.
Q: Of course, that’s what you feel.
K: But the others don’t feel.
Q: But that’s based on your insight into yourself.
K: Naturally. Yes.
Q: And that’s based on an assumption that everyone will have will have the same reaction as you.
K: I think so, because if they are properly educated, properly — you know, all the rest of it.
Q: Yes, yes, yes, yes. And that the human race as a whole would benefit from this similarity of view point.
K: Of course. Not similarity of view point. . Q: That to me is not obvious.
K: It is not similarity of view point. It’s a fact.
Q: That to me is not obvious.
Q: Could we go into that a little, because I think the diversity and tension in humanity is what produces betterment.
K: No, no, no. No, no.
Q: (Inaudible)
K: No, no. He can have his pacifism — we will use that word for the moment — his realisation that he will not kill. From that he will be a different human being, create differently, live differently. He won’t be copying me. I mean that would be too silly.
Q: Yes, but the psychological framework, it’s always the same.
Q: Exactly.
Q: Is there a psychological framework, or the absence of one?
Q: The absence, of course, when I observe something of course there is absence of framework.
Q: So then there’s no similarity.
Q: I must be free from the framework.
Q: Because if I preach I become like a priest who preaches. I want to convince somebody into…
K: Look, sir, look, sir, I’m doing that now.
Q: No you’re not.
K: No, wait, wait, wait, wait. I don’t want to kill. Because I’ve no nationality, I have no religion, I love — all the rest of it. I feel tremendously passionately human beings can live differently.
Q: I agree.
Q: I do too.
K: And you listen to it. What? I am not preaching, convincing you of my patterned way of living.
Q: No, of course not.
K: Which would mean we would go back to the old damn silly thing. I’m pointing out to you, look, look, look, a way of difference. That’s all. It’s up to you. Therefore I say to myself: what is my, yours, or any of our relationship with the other?
Q: Your action is making a statement, or being so.
K: Yes, and then what?
Q: (Inaudible)
K: You listen. !You listen, madame. You listen.
Q: Si.
K: And then what?
Q: You don’t tell us how to dress or how to eat. You just say look.
Q: (Inaudible) …as you say, you’re doing it, we’re doing it — let’s see how it’s happening. You are talking and we are listening .
K: I’ve done it for forty years. I know that.
Q: (Laughs) So there is a relationship, there is an action and…
K: No.
Q: No?
K: No, no. Unless you completely stop killing there is not relationship.
Q: Yes.
Q: There is no relationship at all.
K: At all.
Q: At all. Yes. Yes, yes, of course.
K: You love me and I’m jealous of you. What relationship have you and I got? None. And then what? Proceed a step further — and then what? Is society to go on like this, everlastingly?
(Pause)
Q: You love me, then you’re jealous, you kill the relationship, and society is the same thing.
K: All right — then what? What happens? I’m just asking, sir, what do we do? You’re out of it, I’m out of it, he’s out of it, we carry on and…
Q: We just look at the problem.
K: And then what? We, you and I are out of it — you know what I mean.
Q: Yes.
K: Right. And then what. We don’t influence society. They’ll make another Christ of you… (laughs)
Q: Yes.
K: Or kill you or say you we are anti-Christ or whatever it is, and that is the end of it.
Q: So…
K: No, but you see? You see, there is another thing which is quite interesting. There is the un-conscious world — the un-consciousness of man which is the world. You follow?
Q: Yes.
K: Sir, human beings have lived this way from recorded history, for 5,000 years, more. This must have created an un-consciousness, you know, an ambience, where it is there, still there, potent, killing, killing. Right? And you come along and say, ‘Don’t kill.’ It may affect the unconscious. You follow what I mean? It may. I don’t say it does. But you are as positive — in the right sense — as passionate as the man who kills, but you are passionate with something entirely different. Therefore that may affect the unconscious in a tremendously vague way. After all, that is what has happened. Look, sir, what is taking place in all the propaganda.
Q: Yes, yes.
Q: All the liberal propaganda has been unconscious.
K: And also — no — take what is happening in the church. It has been here for two thousand years — all the things it says. And you just repeat. You’re not conscious of it. You follow what I mean?
Q: Yes, yes.
K: I don’t know, am I making any sense?
Q: Yes.
K: And you read in the morning paper, buy such and such a soap. You look at it and pass on, but it has already gone in.
Q: Yes.
K: The next time you go in to buy a piece of soap, bar of soap, you go there and buy it.
Q: Yes.
Q: Even I think political movements like, for instance, civil rights, it is not the result of any one man saying you must do that — the people somehow start thinking, they start realising the necessity of certain things because unconsciously they see it’s true. They are not pleasing any one particular act or one particular request.
K: No, but, sir, look, every religious propagandist, every religion says, ‘Don’t kill.’ They have said it, you know, and yet we are killing.
Q: When they say don’t kill, I think they only mean don’t murder but they allow war and they allow slaughtering animals.
K: No, no, no.
Q: So the people immediately interpret that word *kill* very specially, sir. But if they all had said don’t eat meat and don’t make war and don’t kill under any circumstances, it might have been better.
K: The Buddhists and Brahmins did that, sir.
Q: They did say.
Q: The Christians have been eating meat since the beginning.
Q: The Christians say don’t kill but… (inaudible)
Q: They all eat meat except on Friday when they kill the fish.
Q: Well, that is a detail.
Q: It’s not a detail, I think it’s very important.
Q: No, but it’s the same thing with the Buddhists. It’s not a difference because of the people. If they had said, ‘Don’t eat meat,’ it is the same.
Q: Suppose one were to see…
Q: ‘Don’t steal,’ and they’re still stealing. (Inaudible)
K: No, no, madame…
Q: So I mean this propaganda doesn’t work, or does it?
Q: Isn’t this in the unconscious? It has been poured into it for centuries. What is it doing? Nothing.
K: Yes, that’s just it. That’s just it.
Q: Yes, that’s just it.
Q: Suppose one were to see though that the taking of life in itself, apart from passion, apart from hate, apart from fear, were necessary to remain, to have some of the human society remain organized. Such as the case if overpopulation were to cause world wars — in order to eliminate overpopulation it was necessary to systematically remove life, whether to have abortions, to have euthanasia, to have systematic eugenics, in other words, the elimination of tropical life — in a case like this where it was done because it was seen to be best.
K: All right. All right.
Q: This to me…
K: All right, sir, do it. Do it.
Q: Then it’s not life itself.
K: That’s just it.
Q: (Inaudible)
K: Birth control. But don’t kill in order to destroy population. You haven’t done it. On the contrary, you’ve increased it in the last 20 years.
Q: Partially due to our increase in technology.
K: Technology and health and all the rest of it.
Q: So we mustn’t make terrorism but we have to do it.
K: Obviously, sir. Even if you do it. Suppose you tomorrow say, ‘I won’t kill, because I see everything.’ You say to yourself, all right, then what? You don’t kill. Do you influence society? Do you teach me not to kill or you just keep quiet?
Q: Maybe through my example you won’t kill.
K: I don’t want to. I don’t want to copy. We have had saints and umpteen examples. I don’t want to copy you.
(Pause)
So you see, sir, before, it was the master, the disciples — copy, copy, copy — you know, church — and he’s the example, he’s the master, he’s the saviour — we can’t; we can only through him. And then the priest — you know all that hierarchy of saviours coming. I say that’s too silly. That is too juvenile.
(Pause)
Q: But the question you posed, it is almost similar to the question of kill or be killed in a society that is violent, that there are violent people outside of yourself and then sometimes an extreme condition, such as the choice of kill or be killed, is posed to you.
K: Sir, wait. . Q: How does one make a decision, because…
K: No, you can’t. You can’t. Either you organise killing at war…
Q: Which we do the best way.
K: (Laughs) The best way to kill me — or individually, perhaps you might get angry and kill me. But that is different.
Q: Yes.
K: But if you organise with (inaudible) and others to kill me then it is…
Q: Sir, unconsciousness, this programme, how can I act on the unconsciousness of mankind of the world?
Q: On the society, yes. So what does one do?
Q: How?
K: No, you know, sir, in America before the war, the Second World War, I was told they has a committee, senate committee or whatever it was, formed to investigate the whole propaganda business. Do you know who stopped it first? Church, Army, Business.
Q: I see, because their interests were being threatened.
(Pause)
K: Look at it, sir. How will you do this ? From education you have to start, right from the childhood. And the educator is violent. The parents won’t send you if they know you are going to turn out a sissy, as they call them — you follow what I mean? — a weak-kneed boy to face this monstrous world. They say, ‘No, don’t do it, we won’t send him to you.’ You follow? So what does one do? Go around talking, pointing out?
(Pause)
Who is going to listen? Not the ministers, not the generals, not the business people, not the church, but some poor old women, some poor old gagaly men, who just say, ‘All right, sir, it is perfectly right; we can’t do anything.’ I’m not saying — please. (Laughter)
You see, sir? So sorrow is not only I suffer because my wife or someone is dead, but also there is the sorrow of ignorance. You follow? Not book knowledge, I don’t mean that — that’s not. This real ignorance of man. Because if he says, ‘Now I can, you know, stop hating, live quietly, go to the office,’ you know, everything done, arranged, to help man to live.
(Pause)
Q: It seems to me that anyone who manages to attain this completely negative state, this detached state will see at once clearly what is the best thing to do.
K: No, sir, how can he? What is best? Look, you see very clearly. Wait a minute, sir.
Q: One would see it very clearly.
K: I see very clearly. How can I show you the clarity? You have to see it.
Q: Yes, that’s what I say — each person who attains this state will see very clearly what it is to do.
K: Which is what? Tell another?
Q: One cannot just answer this question.
Q: Do we contact?
Q: One must first do this and then one will have the answer.
K: That’s what I was trying to get at, without saying so. You see, sir, unless one understands the whole structure of it and breaks the mind of its pettiness — you know what I mean? — I’ll become… I won’t kill but I’ll have my mind so rotten — you follow what I mean? — so petty, you know — you know, you’ve seen them all. The question is not merely not to kill but to free the mind. That’s the real question. Not killing comes out of that not…
Q: You have to be responsible.
(Pause)
Q: Clearing out your own mind, not the other’s.
K: Of course. . Q: Has anyone ever attained this thing?
K: I hope so.
(Pause)
I don’t care if another has attained. I want to get at it. (Laughs) Because otherwise life is so shoddy, so… — it’s boredom.
Q: There is no sense to it.
K: Absolutely none. What? Sent off to Vietnam to be killed like an animal being slaughtered — or in Kashmir — what for? (Inaudible) Or what’s happening in the church — mesmerising them — you follow? — with rituals and all that.
Q: Coca-Cola.
K: Coca-Cola. (Laughter)
K: And the Vatican, the second comes out and say we don’t have to eat fish on Fridays, we can also eat meat. (Laughter)
K: No, sir, we are all mad.
Q: It’s because the fish market in Rome was so poor that they obliged people to eat fish a hundred years ago. Nobody would eat fish.
Q: So the church and the fish merchants had an agreement.
K: Oh, this is all… (Laughter)
Q: I swear.
K: I know. I know. I am sure… (inaudible) (Laughs) (Laughter)
(Pause)
So, we can’t be cells, in the communists or the Jesuit sense, where we form a group where we won’t kill.
Q: Because this is positive action.
K: You follow? It becomes nothing at all then. But can’t we be a cell in the sense that you and I are clearing up the mind — you follow what I mean? — helping each other. Not you dominating me, I am dominating you, but helping each other to be very clear, very, you know, sharp, and inwardly very much alive. They try to do that too but of course it goes off, you know — you become the secretary and I become the president of that cell… (laughs)
Q: Yes.
K: Oh, for God’s sake.
(Pause)
Q: Do you feel that there is a high probability of influencing society in our time?
K: No, certainly not.
Q: Before it reaches the critical stage where it will be uninfluenceable?
K: (Laughs) Probably atom bombs — is that what you mean?
Q: Well, the rate at which — well I don’t want to say *influence* but in a sense it is influence but not a positive influence — the rate at which the pacifying influence, is spreading is less than the rate at which the population is growing in which this animalistic violence is growing. In other words, the percentage is getting smaller although the numbers of the pacifists are growing.
K: Yes.
Q: And there will come a time when the number of pacifists, the percentage of pacifists will be negligible and they will be swept away with the violence. It’s sort of a critical mass problem.
Q: It is not necessarily a question of numbers.
Q: No, but it is a question of numbers, although the numbers are not one to one.
Q: This is where three people, five people can change the whole situation.
K: I’m afraid they don’t, do they? They change in the direction the world is going, or modify it or react — you know what I mean? — create a new thing, but not the thing we’re talking about.
Q: No, but I mean, it is not a question in the field that you were saying about influencing. It’s not the question of a thousand people influence more than three hundred or five within the section of influencing.
Q: I agree that the weight to be given to the influence per pacifist may be much greater than the weight to be given per incoherent, unorganised, violent members of society. Even so, with this additional weight, it is still possible to be overwhelmed I feel, at the rate which society is growing, our society is growing. Even with that weight. And I was just looking for some hope, perhaps.
K: Well, sir, especially in South India where the Brahmin is supposed to be pure Brahmin, where he wouldn’t kill — you know all the rest of it — within the last twenty years it has almost disappeared. They were the aristocracy at one time — not money — of brain, culture and all that — but now it’s gone.
No, sir, is it possible for you and me to change so completely, metamorphosis taking place, that we do somehow — a drop in the bucket — you know what I mean? — dust — a poison, not dust — a strong poison in a bucket of water, it destroys the water. And perhaps we also, you know.
(Pause)
Gosh, it’s so… We are lazy, our bodies are getting old, we have so many habits.
(Pause)
We’d better stop. We meet on Monday morning. Sunday morning.
Q: Sunday morning. What time, sir?
K: I don’t know.
Q: About eleven or so?
K: Eleven in the morning.
Q: We’ll meet.