Small Group Discussion 2, Ojai, California, 19 March 1970
Krishnamurti: What shall we discuss this afternoon?
Questioner: Could we continue with the comparative mind that we touched on last time?
Q: You mentioned when you heard the song of the dove that the reason we enjoyed the song of the dove was because there was no relationship between us and the dove. Could we go into that?
Q: Could we talk about seeing, learning and action?
Q: I wonder whether we might consider what is a process of worthwhile… very worthwhile at a meeting such as this. I mean, we know more or less that… what completed so there was no waste of energy. I mean, we know, you know, that to learn and to gather or come and collect something, but… And in this, what is worthwhile should be whether the speaker is here or not, otherwise it’s a gathering of people seriously.
K: I haven’t quite understood what you said.
Q: What can take place at such a meeting which is worthwhile and what is not worthwhile?
Q: I have a couple of questions that are rather involved so I have written them down to get them exact. As I see it, individuality belongs to the evolutionary process. We are individuals but we don’t have to be. Some of us may even have reached the point of decision. The other evening, Mr Abernathy introduced you as the man who thinks this is a terrible world. You have said that man is always giving and demanding respect, that it is the same in the religious structure of priesthood and also in the hierarchy of gods. Is it because you think this world is such a mess you have repudiated the hierarchy of gods and urge us to do the same? If life here is really not to be desired why does it not only exist but is being nurtured? And if we followed your suggestions and shorten our evolution, what is the end product, if any, other than annihilation? If so, why should we seek annihilation?
K: Oh lord, it’s rather a complex question, isn’t it? I don’t know what you all want to talk about.
Q: I had a question: whether you could go into the observer and observed being one. Last Saturday I was in a (inaudible) wildlife film and they showed undersea waters on the Bahamas islands and it was so interesting to see — they had put a mirror up and the fish fought their own image. I have the same observed with birds, they fight their own image and fly against the hubcap of a car and it can go on for hours. And I wonder sometimes whether you look at us the same way. I read in conversations about the habit — the man who fights a habit, doesn’t he fight his own image?
K: I’m lost. (Laughter) Completely — I don’t know what you want to discuss.
We were talking the other day, in the afternoon when we met, how each one of us has so many opinions about everything — like that question. — opinions about Nixon, opinions about hierarchy, opinions about the gods, evolution, opinions and judgements about everyone, including the speaker and so on, so on, so on. Do opinions reveal truth? Truth in the sense not an abstraction but the truth of everyday life, its content and the reality that is in the content. I don’t know if I’m making myself… After all, most of us in this terrible world — it is a terrible world, perhaps not in the valley, living all about — in this world it seems so very obvious that there should be some kind of radical change, to change not only the social structure but also the inward values and opinions, judgements, restrictions, controls.
I should have thought that would be worthwhile to discuss, how a human being, who has been conditioned for so many centuries, can bring a change, change of *what is,* the thing that is to be changed, and bring about a freshness of mind and heart and all the rest of that stuff. So, I should have thought that would be worth discussing, not these abstract, meaningless discussions about the fish and the mirror. I’m not being rude, sir, anything of the kind, but I should have thought that would be worthwhile to discuss. I don’t know what you feel.
Q: Yes.
K: We have accepted the evolutionary process — man gradually evolving towards a more peaceful, more realistic, a deeper, more understanding life, gradually — you know, through time, through experience, through knowledge, step by step. That we accept, don’t we? Most of us do, because we are caught in this evolutionary process by the verb *to be*. We are held within the pattern of that verb. I don’t know if it interests you, all this — it doesn’t matter, there are nice hills, I’ll go on. And is it… can it happen that a few individuals can break through this heavy burden of the past, this conditioning, the slavery to propaganda, and stop quoting others, however great or however petty they are, and find out for oneself? I should have thought that would be worthwhile. What do you say, I don’t know?
Participants: Yes.
K: What are you going to do about it? (Laughs)
Q: In view of what you said last week about change, namely that the mind that enquires about change is comparing, is itself the reason that there is…
K: Look, sir, don’t make it so abstract, let’s be more definite.
Q: How can we enquire about change…
K: I am going to show it to you. Let’s be a little more definite and so-called practical, shall we?
Q: It seems to me that it is not that we want to change gradually but we don’t know how to do it directly, at once, so we fall back into the… (inaudible)
K: Wait a minute, madame. I mean, to find out the truth of it one has to experiment with it.
Q: It seems to me that I have done that.
K: Experiment in the sense… the word *experiment* means to put the thing to test, in life.
Q: Some of us have. Some of us have.
K: What?
Q: Well, we have discovered that by being aware, that many, many problems are instantly surmounted.
K: If you had really experimented, in the sense testing it out, would you put a question about evolution?
Q: Yes.
K: Why?
Q: Because…
K: Which implies time, gradualness, and all the rest of it.
Q: I don’t say I agree with it.
K: Ah no, no, madame, then we are not talking of… then we are not… we are discussing abstractly which has nothing to do with oneself — theories then we are indulging.
Q: No. I mean, you are correct, but that isn’t… it doesn’t go far enough.
K: Madame, look, let’s come to something. If you have not read any book, anything, and not quote anybody, follow anybody, you have to find out. And you have no faith in anybody because they have all betrayed you — the priests, the churches, the gods, the books and everything, education. So there you are.
Q: Did you say they betray you?
K: They have betrayed; they haven’t brought peace to the world. You are not at peace. Your actions, your way of life. I’m not being personal — I mean, as a human being. So, I should have thought it would be the most fundamental and primary question: How is one, being conditioned as one is, to break that down, break through? Not keep on everlastingly living in battle with oneself and with the world. I should have thought that would be the most primary and essential question.
Q: We aren’t in a battle with ourselves.
K: Aren’t you?
Q: Oh yes we are.
Q: Some of us are.
Q: Some maybe, yes.
K: You mean to say you are not… Madame, let’s be rather clear about this. You may not be in battle in a segment — in a certain fragment you may not be in battle. But the rest of the fragments which makes up oneself, it is a contradiction. Don’t we live in contradiction?
Q: Yes.
Q: Yes.
Q: (Inaudible).
K: No, not outwardly, inwardly, don’t we live in contradiction in ourselves? Which is a battle. And can that contradiction, these dualistic quarrels within oneself end? That’s the real question. So that one can live at peace within oneself and therefore live peacefully with the world. No wars, you know, all the rest of the business.
Q: Well, then one can’t help but wonder if one does that…
K: Ah, not *if*. That’s problematical, *if*.
Q: Well, suppose…
K: Is it possible? Is it…
Q: Yes. I think it is.
K: No, no. Is that a theory or when one puts that question ‘possible’, does it take place?
Q: Sometimes.
K: Oh, no. Sometimes isn’t good enough — when one is thirsty to have sometime water.
(Pause)
I should have thought that would be worthwhile — shall we go into this?
A: Yes.
K: Please. You must be terribly serious about this or not at all. It’s not worth merely putting words together.
First of all, to see what this conflict is within oneself one must look at it with no opinion — right? — with no judgement. Can we do that, as the first sane, balanced step? If I want to understand, I don’t know, somebody, I must first be free of the evaluating censorship, the image that I have built about that person. It seems to me so simple, this. Can one free the mind of all image? No?
Q: First we have to understand why we project that image.
K: Not we project it, why we have it. How does it come about that you have an image about somebody, me (laughs), about the speaker — why? Or about somebody else — why? How does it happen? Don’t you… Why do you have images?
Q: Thought creates the images.
K: Yes, but… No, madame, thought may create it, but the burden of carrying an image and the multiplication of images, why is there this burdensome thing? How does it happen?
Q: Because one doesn’t look. One doesn’t look.
Q: Compare.
Q: One doesn’t really look.
Q: The mind seems to find security in it.
K: No, sir, don’t please give a quick answer — look at it. Why do you have an image about somebody?
Q: Well, it’s the burden of our traditions that we have been…
K: No, madame. Have you found out or you’re merely repeating this thing? Do you actually know, not theoretically or verbally, that you have an image — about your neighbour, about your wife, about your — you know — image, opinion? Do you? Do you know why it exists, what is the cause of its continuation? No? (Laughs)
Q: Memory.
K: Please, when you use the word *memory*, what does that mean?
Q: Well, I remember that I met that person and what happened.
K: Now, you met that person and he was rude to you or he was terribly friendly to you. Now, the two images are entirely different, aren’t they? The image of the one who has been rude and the image of the other who is friendly. Now, how do these images take root in the mind?
Q: It’s something in relation to yourself.
K: No, madame, don’t… Enquire, please, you are… (laughs)
Q: Our own emptiness. We have to have something to hold on to.
Q: Well, they give a sense of pleasure or a sense of pain. In the case of an insult… (inaudible)
K: Yes, sir, I understand that, but why does the mind give the soil for them to take root? I meet you and you are very nice, flatter me, and I meet another who insults me. The mind has formed an image about that, about both.
Q: First you react on it.
K: I know, this is reaction.
Q: Is it a soil for the ego and sort of a protection for the *I*, for the ego, to protect itself?
K: I don’t know — don’t ask me.
Q: Well, I want more flattery and I want less insult, so I… (inaudible)
K: Sir, look, these images are formed, aren’t they? When you are enquiring into the cause of them will it break down the image? Oh, lord!
Q: Who is the person who breaks it down?
K: Wait, sir, that’s a later question, much later question, if you don’t mind. I have formed image about you. That image remains — thickens or fades away. It is there in my mind, in the mind. I want to find out why it exists at all. One, you say it is pleasure, and therefore it remains. But the hurt also remains. Right? And thought gives it a continuity. I meet you once a week or so and thought says, ‘Ah, there is that chap who insulted me, I don’t like him. And there is the chap who flattered me, I like him.’ Thought gives a continuity, nourishes that particular event or experience. Right? Now… And we have images about everything — about my wife, my husband, my brother, my sister — you follow? — neighbour, God. We live in images — why?
Q: Isn’t it, that may have something to do with… somehow we think we can understand the thing if we make an image of it. And we don’t realise that it isn’t a transitory thing, it… (inaudible)
K: Is the symbol the reality?
Q: Is the what?
K: Is the symbol the reality?
Q: No.
K: But we live by symbols.
Q: So we see images because we don’t see reality.
K: But why do we carry these images, these symbols?
Q: Because we are living in the past — we bring the past always into our present.
K: Now, that’s one question: why? Second: is it possible to end it? You insult me, and you flatter me. Is it possible for the mind not to give soil to that, instantly? That is, when you flatter me, I listen, I am attentive, watchful. You may be telling the truth and if you are not, it’s your affair, it doesn’t enter very deeply — finished. If you flatter me, I watch it too, very carefully — the mind watches it — and if it is just, you know, silly stuff, I reject it, the mind rejects it. Now, can this happen all the time — you follow? — so that the mind never accumulates images?
Q: You have to keep on doing it.
K: Please do it. If you do it once you will find out what is involved.
Q: This means that even though you react and the reaction implies the existence of images in your consciousness, you don’t make any more images?
K: Obviously, obviously.
Q: You don’t have to do anything about the ones already there?
K: Look sir, look sir, let’s be simple. I insult you. I say, ‘You are an ass.’
Q: (Inaudible)
K: Listen, sir! You call me an ass. Can I listen to it without any resistance to it? Will you do it?
Q: Well, there is one thing: if I already have an image in myself… (inaudible) …this is resistance.
K: Wait, sir. Wait, wait — I am coming to that. Go slowly. I am coming to that. Here is a new image being formed. You understand? I call you something. I insult you — I hope not — I insult you. Then what takes place in you?
Q: I react.
K: You react. Then what?
Q: Then I name the reaction.
K: Yes. Go on, sir.
Q: I say that…
K: …you are another.
Q: If I still… (inaudible)
K: You are another. Yes, sir, quick. You are another. So, there is a resistance to what is being said.
Q: Already inside of me, which causes me to react.
K: No, sir. Be simple, sir.
Q: I mean, do I react if I don’t have a conclusion inside of myself which contradicts what you’ve said?
K: You have an image about yourself that you are not an ass.
Q: Right, yes. And that’s what causes me to react.
K: Wait, look…
Q: Or that’s what reacts.
K: Look, examine that image which you have about yourself.
Q: It’s another image.
K: No, look, most of us have images about ourselves, don’t we?
Q: Definitely, yes.
K: Why? And how does this happen that you have an image about yourself?
Q: It goes back pretty far.
Q: It’s instinctive, isn’t it? I mean, you immediately reject the…
Q: I don’t want nothing.
K: Have you never done this or are you just talking? Have you ever done, explored into this whole structure of building images? Have you, or you’re just for the first listening to it?
Q: I think so.
K: Madame, my question: is this the first time you are listening to it?
Q: No.
K: Then where are you with your images?
Q: Lost interest in them.
Q: No!
Q: (Inaudible) …more about what we’re hearing now.
K: Now, first of all, if I have an image about myself, I want to know why, how it has happened. Educated as a boy in India, all the rest of it, up to now, and has gradually built up image after image, which has become thicker and thicker and thicker. Right? Now, why does the mind hold on to it?
Q: It thinks it needs it to deal with future situations.
K: No, madame, why does the mind hold on to the image, to the conditioning, to the stresses and strains, to this thing, why does it hold on?
Q: It seems to me to be a fear of not being.
K: If you had not that image what would happen to you?
Q: (Inaudible)
K: No, madame, you don’t… I see you haven’t done it at all, you are just playing with it all. I’m so sorry.
Q: I would look at everything afresh, anew.
K: No, sir, you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t. You don’t do it, I see. All right. What am I to do?
A person is born in India, as a Brahmin, a culture, a tradition — that is the whole Brahmanical structure — whether it’s good or bad, that’s not the point — and that is the image which holds him — the higher self, the atman, the reincarnation, the pantheon of gods and so on, so on, so on. And as he lives he adds more to it — takes away some and is adding. At the end of one’s thirty, forty, fifty years, or sixty, one is nothing but that image. Right? Now, first of all, how is the mind to be free of it? Because that image implies the mind can never be free.
Q: But those are the known things.
K: No, no — good enough, just stick to one of the… don’t add more. Oh, lord. Why does it hold on, the image? You understand, let’s keep to that one thing, not… you can add to that image or take away, explain it, put it in different garments and whitewash it and this or that, but it is there. And I am asking myself: why does it exist?
Q: Security.
Q: Habit.
Q: Well, one is nobody without it.
K: Do you know you have an image?
Q: Yes.
K: Why does it exist?
Q: Habit.
K: Habit?
Q: If you feel you can understand…
K: Wait, sir, stick to one thing. Habit? Is it the habit that has created the image?
Q: No, that comes afterwards. The habit comes afterwards.
K: Oh no, not at all. You see, you have not even… My mother repeats to me, ‘You are a Brahmin,’ and the society says you are a Brahmin, you are this, you are that, you are Catholic, you are protestant, or a communist or — repeat, repeat, repeat. That becomes the habit. Not *after*.
Q: No, but I mean you have the image, you build the image of yourself.
K: Which is through…
Q: And then it becomes a habit, is what I meant.
K: No. It’s the repetition of the statement that you are or you are not — no?
Q: A form of propaganda or brainwashing.
K: Wait, sir, look at it. That’s one part of it, isn’t it? The repetition of it, the habit. Then what happens? I, a Catholic or a Baptist or whatever you like, I carry that image, as an artist. I’m an artist and that image, through that image I look at everything. No?
Q: Comparing.
K: Not compare — look. I’m an artist, I look at these pictures — good enough. And you are not an artist, you are just a label, you are a businessman, I spit on your face.
Q: That’s comparing.
K: No. Don’t, sir. The action… Please, you are not following this.
So the image — I look through the image. Right? That image has been built through habit, through custom, though tradition, through environmental influence, through the reaction between the image which you have and the society with all its other images which society has or your neighbour has — so it is the relationship between one image and a thousand other images. No? And each one looking through his particular image. The more strong that image, the more neurotic one is. No?
Q: But if I look through the image it means there’s somebody other than the image looking through.
K: Madame, first see what we are doing, then we can go into a little more…
Q: But it’s the image looking, or images.
K: One image is looking through another image, if you want to put it that way. You can see this in yourself happening. No? I’m an American, I’m a capitalist or extreme left, or I’m an artist, I’m an educator, I am God, I am — you know? — I am the atman, I believe in hierarchy.
Q: So the whole personality is accumulation of images.
K: Therefore, obviously it is. So the relationship is then between images — the image the wife has about me and I have about my wife, the image I have about Mr Nixon and the poor chap has about me, and so on and on and on and on. Now, that is a fact, it’s not a theory, it is not a… I don’t have to read Bertrand Russell or Freud or any of these birds to find that out, I can watch it in myself. Now I say to myself: it is there — very definite; the outlines of the image are very clear. Now, I see what it does. The mind sees what it does: divides people. You the Catholic, I the protestant, you the Buddhist, I the Hindu, you living on the top of the hill with a particular name and I living in the valley with another name. Right? These are obvious things. Now I say to myself: the division brings about conflict — the Vietnam war, the communist, non-communist — you follow? — the division — the division created by the image. This is simple, you don’t have to… it doesn’t need a great deal of intellectual capacity, this.
Now, and I see all my relationship — with the tree, with nature, with my wife, with my children, with my neighbour, with my god, is this image responding — right? — saying, ‘I am the soul, I am the superior self’ — you know, all that. And that inevitably must create great disharmony, great harm, danger. That’s a fact. When nationalities exist as they do now, inevitably they must separate — with their armies, with their guns, with their military, with their — you follow? — this is so clear. Right. Now, how is the mind to end it? If you don’t end it you must live in a battle, whether you are conscious of it or unconscious of it, whether the battle is just a little bit in a corner, it’s a constant struggle, conflict, a contradiction, a division. Now, seeing all that the mind says: now, how am I — because I am very serious, I am not just a flippant entertainer of philosophy or of religion — there’s no meaning in all that kind of stupid stuff when the house is burning — so how am I to end it, how is the mind to end it? Now that’s your problem. Now let’s tackle that.
Q: Being aware of the fact that you are the creation of the images.
K: But see the danger. Why haven’t you been aware of it before? Why now? When I am just about dying, I say: I must be aware. You follow? When the house is burning.
Q: Well, I have been aware for some time.
K: You know what’s happening in America? Don’t you? The terrible things that are going on? And the house is really on fire. Right?
Q: Yes.
K: The bombs, the demonstrations, throwing bricks, spitting on policemen’s faces — you know what is happening? And all this is the image formation — obviously. Now, how do you end this?
Q: By seeing actuality.
K: Why don’t you see it? Who is preventing it?
Q: We enjoy our images, they give us pleasure.
K: Do you enjoy it?
Q: They give us pleasure, some of them.
K: Yes, some of them give you pleasure, some of them give you pain. So you have to go into the question of pleasure and pain, and say, ‘Well, this gives me tremendous pleasure, I’m going to hold on’ — which again divides. Right? So, the question is: the mind sees all this very clearly and doesn’t do anything about it — right? — chisel, takes off one image, little bit of clipping here and there, but the image machinery goes on. Right? I can talk about awareness, I can talk about… etc., the thing is going on. Now what are you going to do? No answer? The house is burning and you know the cause of this. And apparently the cause doesn’t end the… doesn’t the put the fire out. So what will you do?
Q: Stop building images.
K: Now, how do you stop building images?
Q: When we see that we are…
K: Madame, not *when* — *when* means a future.
Q: We see now that we are building the images and so we can stop it.
K: Do you stop it?
Q: I hope so.
K: Not *hope so*. Hope is (inaudible) If I hope that I will be happy one day, it’s such a… (laughs)
Q: No, it must be now.
K: Then do it. Madame, how does… Therefore your enquiry is not into the problematical hope but actually to end it now. Now, how does that happen?
Q: In a moment.
K: Don’t say… (laughs) You’ve heard this, why doesn’t it happen to you?
Q: Thought cannot do it.
K: I don’t know. Why do you say thought cannot do it?
Q: Because thought is memory, thought is the past. When thought acts on images it increases or it changes, but it is not doing anything about it.
K: Is that a conclusion — please listen, sir, doctor — is that a conclusion, that thought will not do it, or is it a fact that you have found out thought will not do it? Do listen to it, sir. When you say thought cannot do it, is it somebody told you that thought cannot do it? Or have you discovered it for yourself and therefore say, ‘By Jove, that’s out, finished’?
Q: I saw the effect when thought tried to, and this moment that I saw, that didn’t do a thing. Then experiment started.
Q: When I come to this point myself, I seem to find a moment of peace and then I find my young people are trapped in this thing of riots and…
K: Oh, no, no, no, please, I’m not… No, please. No, this is not a question of young people or old people — everybody is caught in this trap.
Q: But what good for me to free myself if all of my young people are still caught in it?
K: I’ll tell you, a very simple reason: if you are not… if you don’t see clearly, how can you point anything to another? Therefore, what is… you see, please, again, don’t divide you and the young people — you, the mother or the grandmother or the father or whatever it is, and the younger generation — we are all in the same boat.
Q: Well, if it were the real house on fire, you’d abandon it.
K: (Laughs) What do you do? Here is a problem, a vital question, issue — how do you… what will you do with it?
Q: It seems futile to rescue oneself and not know how to reach others…
K: Is it? Look, madame, what you are saying. What is oneself and the other? The other is a human being, like you. He rebels against the society which you have built. You — not you personally, but you are responsible for the war and you have built. And he rebels against that. And in the very rebellion, revolt against, he is building his own society similar, like yours — conforming, long hair, short hair, no hair — you know? — violent, not violent — the exactly the same pattern being repeated only in a different level or a different direction. So the world is me; the world is not different from me. It isn’t me liberating myself first and then helping the world to liberate itself — sounds too silly. I’m sorry. I’m not being impatient or angry, but I don’t see the difficulty in this.
Q: Well, it isn’t silly when you have one young person in an emergency.
K: You help him. And generally they don’t listen to you. The attraction is too great. That’s what… the strength of Hitler lay in his youth movement — Mussolini. I mean, this is well known — the Eton style. I mean, this is well known.
Q: And we have our drugs here now.
K: The drugs and the heroin, and the whole thing — and they won’t listen to you. You are old fashioned. And ten years later they will be old fashioned themselves.
Q: Yes.
K: Please, don’t let’s go on with the young and the old and the middle-aged and… (laughs)
Q: We’re off the track.
K: So what will you do?
Q: If we see the truth of it, what is there to do?
K: Do you see the truth of it?
Q: If we see…
K: No, wait, madame. Not *if*.
Q: Well, *when*.
K: Not *when*. (Laughs)
Q: Now.
K: Why don’t you see it now?
Q: We do.
K: Why? If you see it, what takes place?
Q: You change.
Q: You become nothing, and no one like to become nothing.
Q: No.
K: No, wait a minute, madame. Are you free of the image? That’s what we are talking about. The machinery that builds the image must come to an end. Not peace, glory and all the rest of that stuff — the machinery that is constantly building the image — conscious, unconscious — that machinery has to stop.
Q: Can it stop all at once?
K: I say yes. Then where are you? (Laughs) So don’t ask these questions, please.
Q: But I see I am the machinery.
K: Sir, that’s again a theory.
Q: No.
K: So what will you do? If you are the machinery, how will you stop?
Q: In this moment thought is silent.
K: That’s not good enough ‘at this moment.’ The moment you go outside the whole circus begins. How does this machinery come to an end? You understand, sir, the question? How? Tell me. How does it happen that it comes to an end? What is the fuel that keeps it fed? Don’t answer me, please, just look at it. What is the petrol, the energy that keeps it fed?
Q: Justifying oneself in a situation, protecting oneself.
K: The energy, the fuel that keeps it fed, the machinery, what is it?
Q: To achieve something.
Q: Thought, thinking.
K: God?
Q: Thought.
K: I don’t know.
Q: If you’ve tried it you’d find out.
K: What is it?
Q: Thought.
K: Thought. Is it thought? Is it? Do please investigate, look into it.
Q: Desire to sustain one’s position.
K: Desire. Is it? Desire — what do you mean, desire. Desire for what?
Q: Self-protective desire.
K: Protecting what?
Q: To maintain the image one has got of oneself.
K: You are back again. (Laughs) You have understood my question, if I may repeat it — may I? — which is: the fuel that keeps it going, night and day.
Q: Desire.
Q: Energy.
K: What is the energy?
Q: Desire.
K: Desire. Now, please, just a minute, you have… Desire — what is desire?
Q: Fulfilment of…
Q: You remember something… (inaudible) …desire.
K: Desire — please, madame, do be simple about all this. Desire. What is desire?
Q: (Inaudible) …emotions?
K: Desire.
Q: Perception?
K: Sir, don’t repeat unless you actually feel it with your bones, with your breath, with your… taste it — otherwise it’s just repetition of words, there’s no meaning. What is desire?
Q: Is it a craving for something to be that isn’t right now?
K: Craving — again, you see, same thing — craving, desire, longing, all the rest of it. Desire — examine it, sir — desire. You have the desire when you see a nice house. You say, ‘I have desire to have that house’ — nice woman or picture or a dress or an ideal — desire — to be like that.
Q: Or to possess.
K: What is that desire? How does it happen?
Q: To feed the image.
K: You see a nice piece of furniture and you say, ‘I wish I had a chair like that in my house.’ What is the process of that? How does it come about? I had seen that chair and I want it — how does it happen?
Q: Thought takes place.
Q: It’s the instinct to possess other things, isn’t it?
K: We are talking of desire, not the instinct to possess. The desire, the energy.
Q: There’s a comparison that’s going on.
K: There is a desire for that chair.
Q: (Inaudible)
K: I haven’t got that chair in my house; I’d like to have that chair. What is the mechanism of this desire?
Q: Well, it pleases you, first.
Q: It’s self-aggrandising.
Q: We’re back to thought again. Thought is the driving force.
K: If you didn’t see that furniture, would you have a desire for that?
Q: No.
Q: No.
Q: But the image of the furniture….
K: Wait, wait, wait, do look at… We are talking of desire, don’t… If you didn’t see the object of your desire, would the desire exist? Or would the object… or does the object create the desire, to which you give a certain value? If you see a rotten piece of… rotten chair, you don’t say, ‘I wish I had it.’ You have given a certain value to that particular chair and you wish to have it. Desire. We are investigating — not the chair, whether it’s beautiful or ugly — the desire to possess it. Why? How does this desire come into being?
Q: Through comparison.
K: No, madame. I don’t compare. I have no chair. I want that chair.
Q: When you see it, because of the value of it… (inaudible)
K: You see a nice-looking woman and all that goes on, the machinery — the desire, the passion, the lust and all that — why? Find out, sir, don’t just put words together and then… If you didn’t see that woman, would you have that… No, you wouldn’t. So desire is part of the response, stimuli, of the object. You see…
Q: To possess.
K: No. Do examine it, madame, do examine it! I see that nice car. The seeing, contact, sensation, and then thought comes in and says: I wish I had that car. It’s so simple.
Q: But the same object can… another person who doesn’t give the value…
K: Beg your pardon, sir?
Q: The same object can generate desire in one person…
K: Of course, sir, that’s obvious. That’s obvious. You may not want a car, you may want a beautiful house. You may not want a beautiful house but you want to be famous. You may not want to be famous but you want to be scholarly, marvellous, erudite person or a mathematician — it’s the same thing, sir, don’t waste time on it.
Q: So in a sense this desire…
K: No, sir, look what happens to you. I see there is perception, contact, sensation, then out of that comes thought and say, ‘I wish I could have it.’ This is so obvious.
Q: Well, can one look at it without desiring it?
K: That is not the point, madame. We are first enquiring what is desire, how does desire come, not what to do, not to possess. We are examining how desire itself comes into being. Right? Now, I can see that car… the mind can see that car visually and say, ‘All right, it’s a very beautiful car’ — finished. But thought says: old boy, how nice it would be to get into it and drive very fast, how nice. Impress my neighbour. I’ve got a big, whacking big car. You know, all the things that go on.
So, to come back. The image we all know, we all have. And the next thing is: how did… can it happen — no — to end that image. Then you will say: putting an end to desire, that’s impossible. I mean, the moment I see that tree, there’s no desire, there’s a response — which thought turns into desire. I can look without thought, and therefore there is no desire to possess. So, one has these images — that’s a fact. Then the question arises: how does it happen it ends? What is the energy that feeds it and keeps the images going?
Q: Is it the desire to continue?
K: No, no, madame, the energy.
Q: Thought is energy.
Q: The will, isn’t it, to be, to…
K: It’s no good guessing, if you will forgive me. Because, you see, I’m very serious, because I see very clearly… the mind sees very clearly this image building is the most mischievous thing, most dangerous thing, because it basically, fundamentally divides people — Americans and Russians, you know, it’s all ideation, division, image. Now, can this end?
Q: I see the utter necessity that thought has to be silent.
K: Sir, what will you do when you are faced with this problem? It’s your problem, it’s your baby, what will you do with it? You can’t spin theories. The house is burning. You can’t say, ‘Well, who set the house on fire? Is it an Englishman or a Frenchman or an Italian or an American?’ — you have no time, you have to act. Now, you are in the same position. There is the whole nature of building all that image — what will you do? It’s your problem. How will you stop the… building the image?
Q: We need to be free.
K: Free?
Q: The thrill to be free of it.
K: Oh, no, no, please — there is no thrill.
Q: But when you really love people you don’t build images.
K: Madame, just look at it first before you… Not *when* you love people.
Q: No, not *when*…
K: (Laughs) When I’m tall, I’ll… — it has no meaning.
Q: With love there is no necessity to build images.
K: There is no love. Right? You have these images and you cannot love if you have an image, obviously. So don’t let’s talk about love — let us see if this image can end.
Q: When we die these images will stop.
K: I’m not interested. I’m sorry. I’m living.
Q: So why bother to stop them now?
K: Ah, I’m living. When I die, well, I mean, that’s quite a different matter. I’m living, I’m suffering, I see people around me suffer — overpopulation. You go to India, you see some terrible thing is happening there.
Q: Does imagination…
K: I can’t commit suicide, shut my eyes about all this and say, ‘Well, I don’t want to think about this,’ and withdraw.
Q: Well, in thinking of the others and the unity of us all we get away from our images.
K: Madame, that’s what they have done before: ‘Let us think about others, let’s all live together in a marvellous utopia, in a marvellous community.’ It never worked. Even the communists with their monolithic ideas has broken down.
What will you do? Is this a serious problem to you?
Q: (Inaudible)
K: No, don’t, please… Un momento. Please, is this really a serious problem to you? As serious as getting your next meal?
(Pause)
What will you do? You can’t trust anybody, can you, anymore? Right? Including the speaker, I hope. You can’t trust anybody, because they have played all this kind of game for centuries — right? — the priest, the leader — oh, God, must we go through all that? So there you are, you are left by yourself with the problem and you have to solve it. What will you do? Don’t say, ‘I’ll go home and think about it,’ because by the time you reach home and think about, the house is burnt. Right? Events can’t wait on your pleasure, on your leisure. So what will you do?
Q: I don’t see any way to stop the image building process. If I form an image about an individual, every time I see him his action reinforces that image and makes it even stronger.
K: Yes. We have been through all that. You have insulted me. Each time I meet you that insult is strengthened. Now, how do I… how does the mind be free of that image of insult?
Q: By realising my unimportance, comparatively.
K: My lord! That’s an image, isn’t it, when you say ‘realise my unimportance’ — isn’t that an image? You are terribly important. Because now you think it is not important because you see the dangers of it, but all these years one has built it up because one thought oneself as a tremendously important person.
Q: But it’s much more comfortable when I begin to realise that I’m not.
K: Please, put your mind to this thing. It’s your responsibility to solve this. How shall I go about it?
Q: I must become silent.
K: Not *must*, sir. The moment I say, ‘I am determined to be silent,’ that creates another image. See the difficultly of all this. What shall I do to be free completely — conscious as well as unconscious images?
All right, may I proceed? No, no, please, don’t do it. Because this is my bread and butter — you follow? — this is my life. So don’t just repeat after me, because that has no value at all.
So I ask myself… the mind asks itself: what is to be done? Because the image is built, put together through resistance, isn’t it? Right? Through resistance, through the image that I have built… the mind has built for itself that it must control. Because it has an image that it should be something. Right? Now, what is resistance? What is resistance? Has the mind any resistance about anything? I am enquiring — you follow, sir? — I’m enquiring, the mind is enquiring, looking into itself to find out if there is any resistance. The moment there is, there is a division, there is contradiction, there is an image. Right? That’s simple. Now, is there any resistance in me, in the mind? It’s a very complex question, this is not just… Resistance means the memory of that insult, the scratch of that insult has left a mark, or that flattery or that incident or that experience. And there are many forms of resistances. Right? Now, I recognise them, they have come into being that way. Now I want to start afresh, in the sense I want to look to find out if I have resistances. I have had it, now I want to see if the mind has got any resistances. It becomes much more difficult at the unconscious level, at the deeper level. Right? Are you interested in all this?
A: Yes.
K: (Laughs) Now, how does the mind investigate the deeper level? Analysis?
Q: No.
K: Why?
Q: Because comparison, you never get out of that circle.
K: No, no, madame, you are not answering. I’m an intelligent man. Don’t say no — why no? You must have reason behind it.
Q: Because there’s no end to analysis.
K: Have you analysed it? Have you analysed yourself and gone through the whole business of it and said, ‘Not worth it — finished’? And therefore never analyse. No, you don’t… If you don’t analyse, how will you… how does the mind uncover the deeper layers? Right, sir? Wait for dreams? Wait for intimations of it, hints of it? Which means waiting. Right? Ah, you are not meeting all this, you don’t…
Q: That doesn’t get you anywhere at all, but if you see through one…
K: No, madame, don’t say it can’t get you anywhere, you haven’t…. If you’ll forgive me saying so, please do enquire. Don’t say it can’t get you anywhere, which means you already want to get somewhere. Therefore, that image is already built — ‘somewhere’. Right?
Q: You are misunderstanding what I meant. I think if I have seen through one trap, I’m free of all traps.
K: Is that so?
Q: It seems to me.
K: Maybe, madame, I can’t judge — I am not your confessor nor is this a collective therapy. I’m just asking: the mind sees that it is caught in this trap, the trap that it has built through resistance. Resistance implies security: wants to be safe. Can the mind be safe?
Q: No, I think this…
K: Oh, don’t… This is the most… this is one of the most…
Look, madame, you know what it means to be safe, what it means to be completely unhurtable? Which means no resistance, which means no energy that goes… which means no energy goes into resistance of any kind. Look, I see you are not used… The mind can investigate quickly and rapidly the superficial resistances — very quickly. It doesn’t need a great deal of enquiry, it’s so clear and so simple. But can the mind unearth, expose all the deep resistances it has built up. If it says, ‘I can expose them through analysis,’ it means, doesn’t it, there is the analyser and the analysed. The analyser is the image maker, a fragment of the many fragments. He says, ‘I’m going to analyse.’ I don’t know if you follow all this. We are many fragments and one fragment has assumed the authority, say, ‘I’m going to examine.’ Which is obviously a fictitious process. No? So, if analysis does not expose the deeper resistances, what will? What is to be done?
Have you got a headache after this?
Look, sir, we started out by saying: the most important thing is, when the house is burning, when the world is in such chaos, that you being part of this world, which you have built, it behoves for you to change. Right? Which is not a selfish motive. But you are responsible for making this mess, and the younger generation will be also responsible. So you have to change. And the change implies a time, an evolutionary process. We all think that. Is it so? Please, watch, because in… I’m doing this because we want to come to a point when the mind says… has a different quality to it altogether. Therefore we are going back. Unless you have understood this and do it you won’t have that quality, you’ll just go on repeating and enter into the grave and that’s the end of it. Or believe that you will live next life, which is equally suicidal.
So, as long as there is image building, change is not possible. Change is non-functioning of image. Right? Not substitution of one image for another but the ending of all images is the revolution. You may not like the word, but I like that word. Revolution means revolution — not throwing bricks at poor policemen or burning people, all that kind — that’s not revolution at all. So, we are saying: why does the mind build images? One sees it builds images inevitably because it wants to protect itself — my family, my house, my God, my nation — and this protection it thinks lies through resistance. Right? Resist. I resist my wife because she has nagged me for forty years, has bullied me, dominates me, or I — you know all that business. So there is that image. I see this very… the mind sees this very clearly. It’s not just description, it’s the actual fact. The word is not the thing, the description is not the described, therefore I’m not concerned with the description. The fact, the thing described, is that it has tremendous resistances. And these resistances have become the means of its safety, which is the image. Right? Now, go slow. Now, I have come to that point, the mind has come to that point. Now what has happened to the mind that’s come to that point?
Q: (Inaudible)
K: Please, sir, don’t answer. What is your mind — the mind that is you, for the moment — what has happened to that mind? Seeing the world divided — younger generation, the older generation? Seeing… it sees that the world is you and you are the world — not my children and your children — the world is you, in the deepest psychological sense. And you see that very clearly, not as an idea but actually. Then you see the division, how division destroys people — your nation, mine, and all the rest. And you see that division comes where there is an image formation. That image formation is through habit, through repetition, through assertion that I… the soul, the non-soul, the atman, all that — I am a communist, you are a capitalist. So division invariably brings conflict. So conflict implies an image — yours and mine, which breeds division. Now what has happened to the mind that has come so far and sees it very clearly, as a matter of fact, not as a theory? What’s happened to it? Your mind, what has happened to it now?
Q: Relieved.
K: No. Relieved?
Q: Alert.
K: No, you see, you are all guessing. Don’t guess. Please, this is terribly serious. You can’t play with words. How can it be relieved?
Q: When you see through these pressures your mind is relieved of the pressure.
K: Is it relieved? You haven’t even enquired into the unconscious. You are relieved of a few certain fragments of the images. Right? Relieved… I mean, freedom means right through your being, to the very roots of your thought.
So what is the quality of your mind now, after going through all this?
Q: Alert.
K: (Laughs) I’m not going to… you have to find out. Now, move from there.
So, the mind sees that the image formation is part of this resistance. This resistance is a form of self protection. Resistance — I live in a house because I have to resist the sun — you know? Psychologically, the house is the image in which I’ve taken protection, the mind has taken protection — which is resistance. Right? Now, I see that very simply. Now, there are deeper qualities of resistance. How shall I unearth them, how shall I expose them? Analysis is out; I will never touch analysis, because it is the most stupid approach, because that takes time and each analysis must be completely perfect. If there is any hangover, with that I’ll examine another fragment, you know, and therefore… And also in that — am I going to fast? — there is the analyser who separates himself from the many other fragments and assumes the authority to analyse. And that becomes one fragment saying, ‘I am God,’ the next fragment saying, ‘I am flesh’ — too silly. Right? So, analysis is out. Then what is the quality of the mind that has seen all this, including analysis? I can’t tell you because you have to find this out. What is the quality of your mind?
Then the question is: the mind can observe the images that it has build outwardly, including the house, and now it says: I want to expose all the hidden resistances. And analysis, which is postponement, duration, time — you follow? — all that’s involved, that’s out. Therefore, how am…? Right? How will you answer that question? What will you do, if I may ask? Nobody to tell you — what will you do? Don’t say, ‘I’ll leave it to the gods.’ Gods! You have left it too long to the gods. What will you do with this issue? Which is: there are hidden resistances. Unless they are exposed completely, mere superficial resistance of putting your arm round another, it has no meaning. Right? So, how… expose them — what will you do?
Q: Look for them.
K; Oh, look for them — that will take long time. Behind each rock?
Q: That’s the problem of analysis, looking for it.
K: So what will you do? See, this is really, if you pursue this, your whole system of education has to change. Right? Because there it’s all comparative — somebody is better than you, examinations, and strengthening the images. That’s all. The whole structure of society changes. Now what will you do? There’s nobody to help you. And if it helps you, if you are looking for help from somebody, you are caught — right? — to Jesus, Buddha, to X, Y, somebody, then you depend on that somebody. That dependence is another form of image and resistance. You don’t see — doesn’t matter. So, you are left with that baby. Right, sirs?
What time is it, sir? Sorry.
Q: Are you going to leave us there?
K: I’ll…
Q: Then why do you try to help us?
K: Now, I’ll tell you very simply: I’m not helping you. God forbid. Is that all right? I’m not helping you. What do you mean by help?
(Pause)
Look, do you talk about helping your child when you love the child? Don’t translate that I am the mother, the father, and you are the children — I’m not. Do you love? Do you say to your child, ‘I am helping you,’ when you love the child?
(Ends abruptly)