Students Discussion 1, Gstaad, 15 July 1966
Krishnamurti: Who will start the ball rolling?
I hope you aren’t feeling as shy as I am, so… (inaudible)
(Laughter)
Questioner: You don’t look as if you’re feeling very shy.
(Laughter)
Q: Coming back to the problem of fear; sometimes one realises that the fear is conditioned by some previous experience, and if one sees actually that it isn’t the present situation but rather a previous situation, then that fear can dissolve. Do you think that sort of analysis, if one will call it, would be wrong?
K: Sir, what — before we discuss whether it’s right or wrong — what causes fear?
Q: No, of course, to some extent it’s the ego that wants to be secure and it doesn’t like to have pain or painful experiences.
K: And what is the process of the ego which makes it afraid?
Q: I’m not quite sure whether I’ve understood your question.
K: No sir. Look, I have had a previous experience that warns me of a danger, and I’m aware of that danger as it comes… as it arises, and I’m afraid of it. I’m in the front of a precipice…
Q: I wasn’t thinking of actual situations where this is, of course, pretty obvious, but of a more psychological nature, that some possibly painful previous experience of certain people that may have brought about a strong, painful emotion, and in future time, quite automatically and unconsciously, this fear is coming up. And it’ s, of course, no use fighting with this fear, but sometimes if one can see that this is just a projection, the fear isn’t due to the present situation but rather due to the previous situation, then this fear can go, if this insight is deep enough to see that it isn’t really related to…
K: To the present.
Q: …to the present, but rather to… (inaudible)
K: To something that has happened before.
Q: Yes, exactly.
K: Then what?
Q: Well, as far as I can see, this insight seems to be good enough, but I was wondering, as you were saying the other day that analysis isn’t good…
K: Ah…
Q: …and it shouldn’t be used, whether this ought to be applied.
K: I didn’t… did I say it shouldn’t be used? No; I explained how unnecessary it is.
Q: Yes, but isn’t it a question whether an analysis really remains only on the intellectual level or whether it’s related in a more intuitive way to the situation? For some people, if they try to understand their problems, it just remains a few words in the head. And that, of course, doesn’t change any emotion, but there doesn’t need to be… (inaudible)
K: I’ve had… let’s say I’ve had a previous experience which has brought fear; and I face the present with that past experience.
Q: Yes, but usually it is with a previous situation that didn’t so much produce fear but rather pain.
K: Yes, all right; caused pain, and I don’t want that pain to be repeated.
Q: Yes, exactly.
K: So I’m afraid it might happen again.
Q: Yes.
Q: Yes.
Q: Yes, that’s usually the situation but it’s quite unconscious at first.
K: Yes, quite unconscious and all the rest of it. What is taking place there? I’ve had an experience which has caused certain pain, and that I remember and I don’t want that pain to be repeated.
Q: Yes.
K: And I’m afraid. Where does analysis come in this? I know why I’m afraid; I know what has caused fear.
Q: No…
K: Pain.
Q: I don’t think it’s always quite so obvious why fear does arise. In certain actual situations, in front of a precipice or something like that, it might be obvious enough, but in relationship with other people — for instance, in the relationship, supposing, to one’s father or mother — there might have been certain…
K: Incidents which have caused pain in my childhood and I…
Q: Yes. I project those.
K: Yes.
Q: Yes. Then sometimes analysis can be used in order to see that the fear isn’t really related to the present but is just a projection from the past, but as it is unconscious, some people are afraid in certain situations without actually knowing why they are afraid or what they are afraid of.
K: All right, sir. All right. Let’s go back. My father has ill‑treated me when I was a boy, and I’m afraid of that. That has left a certain imprint, a certain condition in my unconscious, of that I’m afraid. It comes into being at certain moments.
Q: True.
K: Right? Now, I can analyse that, or somebody can analyse it for me and I can go into it, and either dissipate it through analysis, examination, be free of that cause of fear, or I can be aware of that fear as it arises and see if I can’t resolve it immediately, without analysis.
Q: Yes.
K: Either I can go into it through analysis; or without analysis is it possible to be free of it?
Q: Once and for all, or for that moment?
K: If it is a particular thing of which I’m afraid.
Q: Once and for all?
K: Once and for all.
Q: Yes.
K: So the question that we are asking each other is: is it possible once and for all, through analysis, to be rid of that particular fear? And without analysis, is it possible to be free of it entirely?
Q: Yes, that’s a good question.
K: That’s what you’re asking, isn’t it?
(Laughter) Ah sorry. (Laughs)
Is that the…? That’s the question, isn’t it, sir?
Q: Yes.
K: What do you say?
Q: Well, one thing is certain: if a person goes about really trying to find out his projections, his unconscious fears, his attachments and so on, trying to find out why exactly he does act in that way, it may be possible to reduce quite a few of these emotions and tendencies. But possibly, the other part of the question is whether one can get rid of all those emotions…
K: Yes, without analysis.
Q: …without analysis; yes. Yes.
K: Yes. What do you say?
Q: Well, from my experience, I can say that if one doesn’t use analysis in only an intellectual manner but as, let’s say, in a more existential way, that one does not only reason about it but does so with one’s mind and one’s heart, then one can reduce quite a few of those attachments.
K: Yes, yes.
Q: That seems to be definite.
K: Yes.
Q: About the other, I’ll possibly wait for a few years to answer that. (Laughs)
K: Oh no. (Laughs)
(Laughter) Sir, what is fear? We’ll come to the question in a roundabout way. How does fear arise?
Q: You mean in a subjective way or in an objective way?
K: Both, both. Both inwardly and outwardly. There is the precipice, I react to it, and there is immediate response. I withdraw, jump back.
Q: I wonder if we could possibly not use any example where the objective part is as obvious as here. Because there fear might arise, but if we will make a difference between fear and anxiety — anxiety being the more emotional part that’s engendered by the ego — then possibly we can use that example — some example of that kind; possibly the one you have suggested, that someone has been ill‑treated by a father or mother or by some authority and in addition… and then, later on, whenever some authority comes along treating him in a slightly similar way, the same anxiety or aggression arises. Could we possibly use that example?
K: Yes, all right, sir. Arises.
Q: Then the fear arises because the ego is afraid of that pain, possibly. That’s as far as I can see.
K: Now, that is, the unconscious response to that… to that person or to that…
Q: Image.
K: …image. Right? Now, what takes place when the image… between the image and the unconscious? You understand, sir, what I mean?
Q: No, I’m not… (inaudible)
K: There is the image of the person who is going to arouse the fear in me, and that dormant, unconscious remembrance of the past, between that image and the past, what takes place? You understand, sir, what I mean?
Q: Memory arises.
K: Now, what does that mean?
Q: Well, of course it means that one doesn’t really live in the present.
K: Ah, no, no! No, I’m not saying… Not only one does not live in the present, but what takes place?
Q: It is the unconscious emotion is aroused — did you mean that? — has come into activity again.
K: Now, what arouses the memory? What arouses the unconscious, the past? What arouses it?
Q: Any situation that corresponds, in some way or other, to that image.
K: To that… to the past.
Q: Yes.
K: Which means thinking, doesn’t it? A thinking takes place.
Q: Yes, but it might not be entirely a conscious thinking. The person might not know for quite a long time what is actually going on.
K: So, it is either unconscious thinking or conscious thinking.
Q: Yes.
K: Right?
Q: Mostly unconscious thinking.
K: Unconscious thinking. Right. So you’re asking how can the thinking process, through analysis, come to an end.
Q: No, I wasn’t really thinking along those lines. I’m not quite sure whether really the thinking process in that matter is the most important part of it. But the emotion of fear…
Q: If you don’t recognise it…
Q: Well, this is an unconscious recognition, and as this is an unconscious process, one doesn’t really think about it on those ways. What I think of… that arouses it is the energy that is connected with that image. If one would see the unreality of it, then the psychic energy that is…
K: Engendered.
Q: …attached — yes, that’s attached to that image — that is free, and from then on the fear in relation to similar situations won’t arise any longer, because it’s seen as something like… (inaudible)
K: All right. All right. How would you resolve that image?
Q: By seeing that this does really belong to the past.
K: All right. Now, how… By seeing; what do you mean by *seeing*?
Q: Well, if I realise that in a given situation a certain authority does arouse anger or a similar emotion, then realising that it isn’t really related to that authority there, who may be quite all right, but rather to that previous authority who has treated me in a certain way.
K: All right. Then… Certain way. Will that rid… be rid of fear?
Q: No.
Q: My experience is that an insight of this kind, that it is really seen as something belonging to the past…
K: To a dead thing.
Q: Yes.
K: Something belonging to a dead thing, when you see it, fear then ceases, in that particular context.
Q: In that context.
K: Yes.
Q: Yes; not altogether. But all fear, let’s say, a good deal of this unconscious fear that is related to that image is reduced and one has gained the capacity to further insight in the future when it comes up again.
K: When it comes up again. So I’m not entirely free of it.
Q: Possibly not entirely, but a good deal.
K: Good deal. But is it possible, I’m asking, to be entirely free of it? Otherwise it’ll keep on repeating, repeating till I gradually wear it out, and therefore it’ll take time.
Q: Yes, it will take time; yes.
K: Now, is time the element that frees the mind from fear?
Q: Possibly it isn’t.
K: Ah, now that’s the point, sir; that’s what we should discuss.
Q: Yes.
Q: Hasn’t fear got something to do with wanting to get away from something?
K: Yes; a resistance, defence, escape, of something which has happened, which I don’t want it repeated and I push it away.
Q: But there’s also a fear of something which has never happened before.
K: Yes, the future.
Q: No, when you are suddenly confronted with something which you have never met, which you do not recognise, which you can’t even shape, you can’t give an image to it; it’s not really an image.
K: Something unknown.
Q: Something unknown; right.
K: All right.
Q: And which you sense is something which you don’t want and which you push away.
K: Ah, wait…
Q: This is another form of fear.
K: Yes, quite.
Q: Which doesn’t fit into the category of… (inaudible)
K: But how shall we deal with it? Beg your pardon?
Q: We must feel something threatens our survival, or ourselves in some way, and that brings about fear.
K: Fear, yes.
Q: So…
K: No, it comes to all… it comes to a central issue, which is: how do I get rid of fear? You understand? Whether it is of the unknown, something which I want to run away from in order to survive, and various reasons, and something which has happened in the past which keeps on repeating, and through repetition I begin to understand and gradually diminish it. All this involves time, doesn’t it? Surely.
Q: Yes, it does.
K: Whether it’s of the future, of something I don’t know, of something unknown.
Q: Yes. Fear in itself involves time, to me, because…
K: So… That’s just it. Right.
Q: But the fear I’m talking about doesn’t. It’s an immediate reaction; there’ s no thinking involved, it’s almost a…
K: Oh, I’m not sure. Just wait, sir; just a minute, just a minute. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow.
Q: That’s not… (inaudible)
K: Ah, all right; not tomorrow. Something I don’t know, the unknown.
Q: Well, if suddenly, I don’t know, some sort of shape was to appear and…
K: (Laughs) Quite…
Q: I’d react, and this would… this is the fear, the actual reaction. I would be reacting. As long as I’m not reacting, it’s not the sort of fear I’m talking about.
K: Yes. I understand that.
Q: If you could name that unknown, would you be afraid of it?
Q: I wouldn’t be naming, I would be reacting; this is the actual reaction that I’m talking about. Once I have… I am freed from it, I mean, then it’s no longer there and there’s no point talking about it. Once you have named it, it’s not the same thing.
Q: Isn’t it something that might happen?
Q: No, no. No, it’s not something that might… something which is happening. Then… then… then it’s… it’s… This is the fear I’m talking about.
K: Ah, wait sir, wait sir; wait, wait, wait. Are you frightened…
Q: Not at the moment. (Laughs)
K: Not… no, of course not.
(Laughter)
Are you frightened as it is happening?
Q: Yes.
K: Ah, wait a minute; no, no. Let’s look at it.
Q: (Inaudible)
Q: Isn’t fear always related to something which isn’t actually happening?
K: That’s right.
Q: Then maybe I’m not talking about fear.
K: Ah, then that’s something else.
Q: But I’m talking about something which I associate with what we’re trying to bring out.
K: Sir, at the moment of anxiety, at the moment of the feeling of guilt, feeling of fear, at the moment of experiencing it, there is no fear. It’s only a second after or a second before.
Q: Maybe I can’t distinguish it. If in the moment of experiencing, there is a violent reaction against, this reaction is the fear.
K: Ah, that’s a second…
Q: No, no; it’s not dissociated.
K: It’s not…?
Q: It’s not dissociated; it is the thing itself.
Q: But if you see something and then you have a reaction…
Q: But then that doesn’t enter into this category. It’s something which… where you react as you are seeing; because… (inaudible)
K: Sir, shall we come to that presently, after we’ve discussed this issue? Can we say, sir, that time is fear? Time in the past, time in the future, and time in the present in relation to the past.
Q: I couldn’t quite say that only of unpleasant things. With pleasant things it would be that time is also pleasure for many people.
K: That also involves time. I have had a pleasant thing happen yesterday; I want it repeated today and I want that pleasure to continue tomorrow. All that involves time.
Q: Yes, it does.
Q: It is the reaction of thought?
K: We’ll go into it, sir; slowly, slowly.
Q: Sometimes it appears as if fear would arise only when the actual situation isn’t quite at hand as yet. When the situation, a dangerous situation arises, in that very moment there isn’t any fear. But in the future, when it isn’t quite there, then the fear is there.
K: So… That’s it. Either… If it is actually happening, there is no fear.
Q: Yes. No, that’s true, yes.
K: It is a second after or a second before.
Q: Yes.
K: Which means what? Whether it’s fear, whether it’s pleasure — the whole thing is involved in that.
Q: Which means it couldn’t be the thing itself; it must be the anticipated idea of it or the memory of it that causes it.
K: Yes, yes. Please… Go into it a little further. Go into it.
Q: Today I lost my traveller’s cheques. (Laughs)
(Laughter)
And I only became afraid when I thought of my loss, but then I realised, well, it’s a matter of office procedures and I’d have them back, and then I did find them; they were misplaced. But it was when I was thinking about the loss of something which I felt was important and…
K: Which is, thought is creating the fear.
Q: Thought, my thinking.
K: Yes, your thinking.
Q: So this would then include, of course, also unconscious.
K: Of course; of course; of course.
Q: Yes, that seems to be obvious. Without the anticipation of a situation, there couldn’t be any fear.
K: No; that’s just it. So thought is time.
Q: Yes.
Q: No, I don’t understand that. I don’t see what you mean.
K: Ah…
Q: Thought is time or thought is in time?
K: Is time.
Q: Yes…
Q: It’s the relationship between facts, the thought about the facts.
K: Yes. I had an unpleasant experience yesterday. It caused pain. I remember it and I don’t want it. Thought has been thinking about it, thinks about it and pushes it away, resists it, defends itself, avoids it.
Q: And does thought produce this or does the ego produce this?
K: Wait… wait a minute. Wait; go slow. What do you mean by the ego? It’s a bundle of memories.
Q: Yes, I suppose it is.
K: Ah, not *suppose*. (Laughs)
(Laughter)
Either it is or it isn’t.
Q: But isn’t behind it possibly the desire for security which produces… (inaudible)?
K: Yes, that’s all that’s involved in it.
Q: Do you mean without thought there is no time?
K: No, don’t jump to the conclusions. We’ll go into it.
Q: All right; you say thought is time.
K: Look, I am afraid I’m going to meet you tomorrow, because you’re going to hurt me; or you’re going to give me pleasure. Conscious or unconscious. Right?
Q: Sir, if, when fear comes, I look at it objectively, there is still a separation between me and fear, therefore I might look at it and study it, but we are still separate. But if I, when fear comes, I take it, then I am inside it and then nothing can happen to me because… there seems to be tremendous safety in fear if you’re inside it. (Laughs)
K: Yes, quite, quite, quite. But, you see, that’s merely conditioned thinking, isn’t it? ‘*If*….’
(Laughter)
Q: No. I know. I was going to say there is, but I was afraid you were going to scold me.
K: No, I wouldn’t. Please madame… (Laughs)
(Laughter)
Q: You see, you’re so used to getting slapped down when you say, ‘I feel this.’ You know, people say… (inaudible) You know?
K: No, let’s go into it slowly. You may be… probably you’re perfectly right, but let’s go step-by-step into it. You can’t… You know what I mean? Other wise, if we don’t carefully look at it, it’ll be mere emotion or intellectual conclusion; it’ll have no value. So I’d like to go into it step-by-step.
Q: There seems to be two kinds of time, like things happen, actual things happen. What do you call…? Is that not time then?
K: Shall we discuss time, what it means?
Q: Well…
Q: Can we finish this?
Q: Then, otherwise we would come quite a way from the previous issue. Time is a very important factor, I suppose, but possibly if we now pursue fear and time we might not get anywhere.
K: Let us see. I’ve had an incident — pleasant or unpleasant, conscious or unconscious — that breeds fear, because I don’t want it repeated; or I want it repeated and it becomes pleasure. In that interval, thought is in operation. T hought which is the reaction to a memory; thought which says, ‘By Jove, be careful next… tomorrow.’ Or thought says, ‘How nice that’ll be.’ So thought creates fear; not the incident, but thought about the incident.
Q: Yes.
Q: Yes.
K: Right?
Q: Yes, that’s fine.
K: Now, the problem is not the avoidance of the incident or the analysis of the incident, but the thought that thinks about it and breeds fear.
Q: Yes; yes.
K: Right?
Q: But can it also be that it is the fear which breeds the thought?
K: Wait. We’re going to find out; we’re going to find out. Is there fear without thinking?
Q: No.
Q: I don’t think that fear will arise without conscious or unconscious thinking about the situation; it won’t.
K: Of course, obviously; obviously. So my question is not analysis of the past, whether I can be free of it, but is it possible not to think in terms of past and present and the future? I don’t know if you…
Q: Yes, I see that.
Q: When one comes to that question in one’s mind and you see that you only can react to it intellectually, that you don’t have the vitality in you at that moment to grasp it totally and that you are seeing it as a fragment, one has no place to turn, and that helplessness overcomes you. You don’t have the vitality; all the energy has been spent.
K: I understand that.
Q: Well, I asked you what you do, and I’ve just told you and… you do nothing.
K: Let’s go… let’s answer this question, sir; we’ll come to that. So is it possible for thought not to project fear? One has been ill‑treated; that happens all the time.
Q: Time and again, yes.
K: (Laughs) Time and again; and it remains in the unconscious and I think about it; thinking takes place, and I say, ‘It’s most unpleasant.’ Is it possible to avoid that?
Q: That thought?
K: Not only for the incident to remain but also for thought to think about it. You follow, sir?
Q: Yes, I follow.
K: Let us go slowly into that.
Q: Yes. But that would presuppose possibly two abilities — let’s call it that way, for want of a better term — first of all, the ability to have painful experiences without resisting them…
K: Ah, no, no, no, no. That’s not it. Painful or pleasurable experiences.
Q: Well, I include both of them.
K: Therefore, is it possible to have experiences without having residue?
Q: Yes.
K: So that each experience goes through; so that there is nothing remains.
Q: Nothing stored up.
K: Stored up. You insult me and I retain that. Now, is it possible not to… to receive the insult without defence, so that it is not stored up? If you store it up…
Q: Then the fear will arise.
K: Inevitably.
Q: There’s no resistance.
K: Yes. So…
Q: (Inaudible)
K: No; watch it, sir; let’s go into it a little bit. Is it possible to have experiences which do not leave any residue, any storage, any content?
Q: Yes, that’s the most important issue… (inaudible)
K: It is, isn’t it?
Q: Yes.
Q: Or that it remains merely as a memory.
K: Ah no! The moment it’s a memory, it must react.
Q: Yes, but there you forget it, from that very moment, completely.
K: No, no; no, don’t say *forget*. First let’s look at the problem. Sorry.
Q: Surely it’s possible for it to remain as memory, and not to react.
Q: Not to act.
Q: Should one make a difference between two sorts of memories: an emotional memory and a factual memory?
K: Sir, technological memory is necessary.
Q: Yes.
K: How to… an engine drive and all the rest of it. Now, we have other kinds of memories which is not technological.
Q: Yes.
K: It is those that are causing mischief.
Q: Yes.
Q: Sir, maybe if one opened oneself entirely to the pain or to the pleasure…
K: No, it is not being open to them but it is a question of, as we said, not retaining, not allowing the mind to retain any pleasant or unpleasant memory.
Q: Yes.
K: If I can do that, the problem of fear is nonexistent.
Q: Yes, it will cease. I have a question with regard to that point there. It’s fairly obvious that if a person can experience in this way that fear in future won’t arise, but what about those fears that have been engendered in the past? I suppose…
K: Let us examine these two: there are the memories that are stored up and the memories that I am storing up.
Q: Yes, presently.
K: Those that have… that remain, of which I am conscious or unconscious, and those experiences which I’m always receiving and retaining, storing up. It comes to both more or less the same. Right?
Q: Yes, it would.
K: Now, is it possible — not theoretically, not verbally, intellectually, but is it possible — when you insult me, or when you flatter me, which are both the same…
(Laughter)
Q: Just about.
K: …is it possible not to react and therefore retain? You…?
Q: Yes.
Q: You said react and therefore retain…
K: The moment I say, ‘By Jove, he’s insulted me,’ what takes place? I’ve already reacted from a memory and therefore I’m strengthening that memory. Right sir?
Q: Yes.
K: Now, how do you work this out?
Q: Are you asking if it’s possible for us to not have the memory, or to not react to what happens?
K: Not to have the memory, except the memory, technological memory. You understand what…? Memory of where the station is, where I live, who… and so on, so on.
Q: Or, for instance — in the case of an insult or a flattery — that certain words were said… (inaudible)
K: Yes; I mean… Yes.
Q: Oh.
K: Is it possible for me, when he insults, to listen to it — to listen to it — and not react? If I react, I can’t listen.
Q: Yes, obviously.
K: And what I consider as an insult may be a… reality; what he’s telling me may be true. I translate it — because it hurts — as an insult. So can I listen to him so completely, so totally aware what he’s saying a nd it leaves no mark, because he’s telling either what is true or what is not true.
Q: Yes.
K: If it is true, I go into it. I needn’t be hurt.
Q: No, that’s quite unnecessary then.
K: And if he is saying something not true, it’s finished; I don’t mind. So the question arises then: is it possible for me to listen to him without bringing all my emotional… all the rest of it into activity? Right sir?
Q: Yes.
Q: But I think one can listen to it only if one is free from caring about the opinions of others.
K: Ah, no, no. No. I don’t care… No. Let’s… Now, wait a minute, sir. Opinion. What? He doesn’t know me.
Q: Well, yes, I want to be well-thought of.
K: But I… Of course; then…
Q: I’m dependent; I like the… (inaudible)
K: Then I’m lost. If somebody… if I want you to think well of me, then I am completely lost.
(Laughter)
You know, I depend on you, I want your flattery, I want… — you know — all the rest of it.
Q: Well, you might get it. (Laughter)
K: But I don’t want to. I want to find out the whole operation of my mind. You follow? I want to see how it works, what is going on — conscious as well as unconscious — therefore I’m eager to listen, because in that listening it is revealing itself.
Q: Yes.
Q: Excuse me, I get the feeling that what’s being said is not… it’s not that everything should pass, but that everything should be totally retained. In other words, when we listen to something and we’re reacting, we’re blocking parts of the information, therefore we’re not fully understanding what’s being said. For instance…
K: Partly that; yes sir; yes. Not *totally retained*…
Q: I feel very strongly that it’s totally retained.
K: No… let’s go into it. Don’t…
Q: Could I just add one more thing to it?
K: Surely.
Q: In listening to what you’re saying, if I’m listening just intellectually, as you say, this is not the truth; if I’m listening just emotionally, this is not the truth. In other words, I must listen to all of my… to all of what’s happening in me, as a result of what you’re saying…
K: Yes.
Q: …without blocking.
K: Yes. Not only you’re listening to what is being said, but also observing all the reactions that are taking place in you…
Q: Right.
K: …to what is being said.
Q: Yes. Then nothing is being forgotten.
K: Ah, no, no! No, no. Don’t say, ‘Nothing has been forgotten,’ as yet. Don’t stipulate it; don’t come to any conclusion yet.
Q: Well, what I’m doing is answering… You’re saying, ‘Nothing is retained,’ and my immediate reaction is to say, ‘Everything must be retained,’ if I’m to know really what was said; including my own reactions, without blocking.
K: Sir, each time you insult me or flatter me, I listen and observe all my reactions. Right? Is it possible to observe what is taking place without a memory?
Q: I would say no.
K: No, you’re saying exactly the same thing…
Q: Yes, because… for instance, we’re listening here, and probably everybody is listening in about the same way. That is, they’re somewhat intimidated by the situation — which is natural — and they’re reaching for word after word after word, blocking most of their own reactions to it by this process, and they’re going to be left with abstract words hanging in their memory.
K: Quite right.
Q: But it seems like the experience of really hearing what you say is a retention so complete that it’s assimilated — perhaps this is what you mean by *forgotten* — but it’s there; if you wish to recall it, it’s there completely.
K: Ah… no, no, no; it’s not quite like that, sir. It’s not quite like that. That’s why one has to go… Don’t, if I may suggest, don’t come to any conclusion yet.
Q: But the question was asked.
K: The question was asked, but don’t say this or that, just… let’s explore it slowly. Because the moment you conclude, you have stopped. So what we are asking ourselves is: how do I listen to his insult or to his flattery? Because on that depends whether I retain it or not.
Q: When you are totally aware of all your reactions, then there’s no room for thought to take place; or if it takes place, as soon as you are aware of the thoughts, it disappears; it’s the thoughts that makes the memory.
K: Yes, that’s true. Please, just go slowly. How do I listen to… how do you listen to an insult and a flattery?
Q: Normally one listens and relates it to oneself, without seeing that this is just the opinion according to the background of the other person. If I conform to the opinions and the attitudes and values of another, he will probably tell me one flattery or some other, and if I act or think or have certain reactions different from his values and attitudes and traditions, then he will probably reject it. If I relate that to myself, then the ego gets in one… one time it gets bolstered up and the other time it feels flattened.
K: Yes.
Q: If I relate it to myself without seeing the conditioned actor in the other person saying these things, then I retain it. But if I don’t relate it to myself but see it in a more objective way, like possibly a mirror reflects things, then it wouldn’t be retained. At least, so it seems to me.
Q: I think you can say it much simpler. If I react to it as an insult, then I have reacted; and if I don’t react, I don’t see it as an insult at all.
K: But how do you listen?
Q: Well, I just listen. (Laughs)
K: Which means what? Go into it, sir. I know. How…? So find out how we listen.
Q: I don’t add… I don’t qualify the thing; I just let it come in.
K: No, that’s all very…
Q: It’s very difficult to… (inaudible)
K: That sounds so easy, but when we are emotionally involved, it’s not. (Laughter)
Q: Well, if you are emotionally involved, you’re reacting.
K: But we are.
Q: Not always.
K: No…! Not… I mean, on very rare occasions, we’re not. But mostly we are involved.
Q: Well, if we are involved then we are involved and that’s too bad for us.
(Laughter)
K: (Laughs) No, no, no. No, that doesn’t… I’m involved. The moment he flatters me, I’m delighted.
Q: But supposing I just don’t even notice the flattery…
K: Ah, not *suppose*…
Q: All right. I don’t notice the flattery; then it wasn’t a flattery at all, as far as I’m concerned.
K: No; wait sir; no, that’s supposition. When you are…
Q: No, I mean this…
K: Just see; see what takes place actually. He flatters me. All… I purr like a cat.
(Laughter)
Now, I listen to his flattery. Is it possible to listen…? Now, before I have even put, ‘Is it possible…?’ how do I listen? To flattery, to an insult, to anything — how do I listen?
Q: Well, I take the words that he has said and I look at them and I compare it to what I consider that the words mean, and once I have seen…
K: Do we go through all this process?
Q: This is something that happens quite fast; the mind does this very quickly.
K: Goes through so quickly.
Q: Yes.
K: So if it’s pleasant, you keep; if it is painful, you avoid.
Q: Not necessarily.
K: I mean, but we do this.
Q: Yes, this forms a mental construction and it is either retained or thrown away.
K: Yes, all right. So I am translating what he is saying…
Q: Into what I can understand, yes.
K: Into… in terms of pain and pleasure.
Q: Yes.
Q: And… (inaudible)
K: Yes, what pleases me… same thing.
Q: All right.
K: In terms of pain and pleasure.
Q: Yes.
Q: That’s simplifying it too much, I think.
K: No, after all… Not simplifying too much, because we have gone into this sufficiently now to say, ‘Well, when he insults me it’s pain; when he flatters me it’s pleasure.’
Q: Well, I would say it’s in terms of probabilities and improbabilities. This is much more… (inaudible)
K: All right, sir. In terms of probability of what? (Laughs)
(Laughter)
Q: Well, the point is, the element of pleasure or of pain may be completely absent. This is why I disagree with… (inaudible)
Q: We’re thinking or we’re reacting in time when a person is either flattering us or insulting us, and there’s thought going on there, so we’re not… there ‘s no attention because we’re reacting to these images.
Q: If one really knows oneself, as you have suggested, or should get to know ourselves, surely it would be enough to decide: does this correspond to *what is* or does it not correspond to *what is*, and act from here.
Q: That’s what I mean; that’s exactly what I mean.
K: We’re all saying the same thing in different words, aren’t we?
Q: But what’s the connection with pain and pleasure there?
K: What’s the connection?
Q: Because we enjoy things, it builds our ego.
Q: No, not necessarily.
Q: Well, it seems… (inaudible)
Q: Pleasure… (inaudible) …does. Or it threatens it; either way.
Q: (Inaudible)
Q: Pleasure and pain almost become eliminated, and we are left with what is, and it’s not… (inaudible)
K: Wait… Madame, madame, don’t… this is… Don’t let us so quickly say, ‘We are like that.’ I’m afraid we are not like that.
Q: Sir…
Q: I’m wondering whether one can listen at all when one does always relate things to oneself.
K: One can’t.
Q: Yes, exactly. Isn’t that the problem, then, that experiences, the opinions of others, the attitudes, the laughter, the thoughts of others are related to ourselves immediately and, because of that, one does retain pain and pleasure?
K: Which is fear.
Q: Yes.
K: You follow? We are discussing fear; let’s keep that in mind. We are discussing whether it is possible to be free from fear through analysis; and is it possible without analysis to be free of it? Analysis takes time — it may take a week, a day, an instant; it takes time — and without the utilisation of time, is it possible to end fear? Those are the two issues we are discussing. Right? And then we said fear is the product of thought, in relation to some incident that has taken place, which is pleasure or pain. And thought is the response of a memory. And from that we went on to say: is it possible to receive all experiences without the residue or the storing of memory? Right?
Q: Yes.
K: Let’s keep to that for a few minutes.
Q: Without the residue of memory, as distinct from memory of facts.
K: Oh, of course; that… we said that.
Q: This has to be…
K: Yes, we said that. That is, technological knowledge has to be retained, otherwise I wouldn’t know what I’m doing: words, language, where I live, how to run a machine, how…
Q: What somebody said…
K: Yes, all that. Technological knowledge we’ll call that for the moment, and leave it there. Now, it is possible to have experiences — and you cannot help having experiences, unless you’re dead; unless you have built round yourself such defence, verbally, consciously or unconsciously, deliberately or through various influences, that you have guarded yourself so carefully, isolated… that you have no experience. You’re dead. Then you become a psychotic… a case, and all the rest of it. Now, I ask myself: is it possible to experience — and you can’t help experiencing — without leaving a mark? If I can solve that, then I’ve solved the problem of fear. Right?
Q: For yourself?
K: Ah no; of course, for myself. I’m a human being like you, and, if I can solve it, I have solved a problem of a human being.
Q: But this gentleman’s analysis is concerned with others as well.
Q: No, no, that may not be; no. I don’t think one can really be concerned about the problems of others as long as one hasn’t solved one’s own problems.
K: Ah, one’s own problem is the other’s problem. A human problem. Sir, let’s be clear. Human problem, whether I live in India or in Russia or here, is a human problem. It becomes localised when it is the individual problem. We are dealing with human problem, and then we can particularise and say individual problem. Yes sir?
Q: We said a moment ago that: is it possible to experience without memory? Correct?
K: Ah, no, no. We are saying, sir…
Q: If I say something and there’s no reaction of thought…
K: I don’t know what it implies yet. Let’s look at it carefully. I don’t know… Don’t let’s jump into it yet. First the question is: is it possible not to allow experiences to leave their mark, as knowledge, as incidents, memories and so on and so on and so on? That is the central issue. Let’s keep to that for two… Yes madame?
Q: It would only seem that, in order to do that, one must dissolve the ego, the centre.
K: No… we don’t know what it means yet. Let us put the question first; let’s go into it. Don’t let us come to any supposition.
Q: The… — I’m sorry, I didn’t completely understand — the question is: is it possible to dissolve…?
K: No, no. I say something to you — pleasurable or pain, hurting or pleasing — that leaves a mark in you, and the next time you meet me, you say, ‘That man, he insulted me.’ Right?
Q: Yes.
K: And you react to that memory, which is the mark of a previous experience. Right? So we are asking: is it possible for any experience not to leave a mark? If it is possible — it may not be possible — if it is possible, how is it to be done? Right?
Q: Yes.
Q: Is the problem to be able to prevent any future experience from leaving a mark?
K: Ah, all experience, whether in the future, present…
Q: No, because I notice that some experiences leave marks and some don’t, so I never know whether an experience is going to come which…
K: Ah, some don’t… — of course, of course — some don’t because you don’t care.
Q: Possibly.
K: Pass by. It doesn’t matter what somebody says… you are this or that. But if a friend or your wife or your husband or your… somebody says who really bites you, then you wake up. (Laughter)
Q: If there is no resistance, then there should be no residue.
K: Not… We are not discussing in theories. Just… ‘*If* there is not, there would not be that.’ Just first see what the question is, clearly.
Q: Sir, it’s the moment of listening; if I could learn to do that correctly… Isn’t the whole problem at that moment?
K: Quite. I agree.
Q: Now, if… — this is what I was trying to ask before — if I learn to do that split‑second thing the right way, then my past fears I needn’t worry about, because when the fear comes it’s a new fear; it’s happening now and the fact that I’m conditioned to it, that I’ve been scared a hundred times before and I’m doing it again, is not really important because the fear is there then and I am listening at it in a particular way and I’m looking at it, at a… Now, if I learn to do that…
K: Now — wait a minute, please — moment you learn… Please be… Find out what… No, moment you learn something, you have already become…
Q: Yes. If I could find… You see, what I find a conflict about is, for example, what is understood by detachment? (Inaudible)
K: I am not talking of detachment.
Q: Yes, I know. I am. (Laughter)
Q: It’s that position there that I must find, and if it is…
K: I think, if I may suggest, I think we’ll come to that point if we go little-by-little into this question.
Q: I see.
Q: Well, I don’t know… (inaudible)
Q: You’re saying, ‘How do you do it?’
Q: I don’t know if it’s possible. But then that leaves the possibility…
K: So that means you are willing to inquire.
Q: Yes. Open.
K: Open. You are willing to examine.
Q: To find out.
K: To find out. Which means you’re not… you haven’t taken a position. You’re open, you’re inquiring, you’re examining, you’re saying, ‘By Jove, it may be true or it may be false.’ Right? That’s what we’re going to do.
Most of us retain — right? That’s simple; that always takes place — and from that retention, we react; and from that reaction is fear, pleasure, all the rest of it takes place. Now, I’m asking myself, first: is it possible? I don’t know. I have no faith in anybody who says it is or it… You follow? I object to anybody asserting about it, at all. So I’m willing to examine. Now, is it possible? How do I find out?
Q: Put it into practice.
K: Ah…! Moment… — look, look what happens — the moment I put it into practice, I have already set a mechanism of repetition, which becomes a memory.
Q: Is the question: is it possible… when it’s a primary question, isn’t it the question of *how* it is this possible?
K: We’re doing that; we’re saying that. How is it possible? Because all the time I’m receiving experiences — conscious, unconscious — all the time they are leaving their droppings. (Laughs) (Laughter)
Q: Sir, we could examine those experiences which have left a mark and try and find out why this mark has been left.
K: All right, examine them. Now — wait a minute — what takes place when you examine them?
Q: It becomes thought.
Q: If you exhaust…
K: No… Sir, do look; do… have a little patience. Don’t try to answer it yet. Don’t say… You’re all so eager to answer, to do or not to do. First listen to the question. The question is: is it possible for any experience not to leave a mark? That is the question. And it is an enormous question, a very complex question. You can’t say, ‘Well, I’ll do this, I’ll do that.’ You follow? Because all human beings have acted on the other principle; all human beings: saints, the tyrants, the popes, the priests, the so‑called theologians, and everybody has acted on that principle, which is: retain and act. And we are asking some question which is totally different. And we all say, ‘Let’s do this and do that and let’s find…’ (Laughs) You follow?
The question itself is revolutionary. Right? So to find that… the way… how… the response to it, you must have a new mind, a fresh mind to look at it. Right?
Q: Yes.
K: So don’t respond to the old design, the old pattern. Right?
So here is a question which I don’t know the answer; and I don’t know how to do it, even if I want to do it — right? — knowing that my whole conditioning is the accepted norm. So to find that out, I must be free from the accepted norm. Right? So I must see if I am really capable of answering that question; and I’m only capable of it if I don’t think in terms of the past. Right?
Q: Yes.
K: But my mind is the result of the past; my brain, my mind, my… — you follow? — the whole thing is the result of the past. So with that mind I’m trying to understand something totally new. Right? I can’t. Right? So what am I to do?
Q: What’s so totally new about it, (laughs) what I’m trying to understand?
K: It is totally new.
Q: No, I mean I’m trying to understand without an answer.
K: Sorry, I didn’t catch it.
Q: I don’t see what is so totally new in the instant.
K: Sir, look sir; all human beings have said, ‘Experience is necessary, otherwise you can’t understand’ — *experience* meaning all the results of experience, which is knowledge. Not the factual knowledge, but the psychological knowledge. Right? And with that alone you can meet life. Now, we are saying quite… something entirely different.
Q: Yes, I know.
K: Now, my mind is conditioned by the past, and with that conditioned mind I am trying to answer this new question. Right?
Q: Yes.
K: Now, is it possible for me to be free of that and look? If I can do that, I’ll… I know how to answer the question; I know what to do. I’ll go into it presently.
(Pause)
So can we put it round the other way? Here is a question which is new — how do I look at it? How do I receive it? How do I respond to it, or listen to it? Because I want to be… it is necessary to be free from fear, and the old way is always increasing fear, gathering fear, and therefore there is no end to fear that way.
Q: Why is it necessary to be free from fear, and why is it…
K: Oh, my God…
Q: …always increasing fear? I don’t… (inaudible)
K: If I am afraid, sir, what? My Lord… I mean…
Q: No, but I don’t see that the old way is always increasing fear; this is…
K: Oh, oh. (Laughter)
(Pause)
Oh Lord, one has to explain so much. (Laughs) All right, sir.
Q: All right; never mind, never mind.
K: You see, we say experience will help you to be rid of fear. That’s what we say, don’t we?
Q: People have said so.
Q: I don’t really see what fear… (inaudible)
K: People say that.
Q: That’s the normal way of looking at it.
K: Normal, so‑called healthy way of looking at it.
(Laughter)
And you come along and say, ‘Look, the more experience you have, the more barriers you create, more defences, and therefore the more defences you have, the more fears you have; which is what has been proved, sir. Each nationality is building an army (laughs) — you know, all the game of that.
(Pause)
Is it very difficult, what we’re talking about?
Q: Well, we can’t use our minds to answer this question, obviously.
K: Then what will you answer it with?
Q: I can’t answer it.
Q: I don’t know why we’re talking about fear.
(Laughter)
K: Oh…!
(Laughter)
Throw something at him, will you? (Laughs) He began it, sir; you’re suddenly, at the end…
Q: No, but we have come to a question which seems to have nothing to do with it.
K: Oh…
Q: Ah…
K: Yes sir?
Q: If we… if our minds we realise are totally conditioned by the old way of thinking and that no matter how we approach the problem, it’s the old way, then we realise that it is the brain, the mind, the intelligence has to resolve this issue, but it can’t resolve it on the old… (inaudible)
K: So what do you do?
Q: Well, that’s the question.
K: Wait, wait, wait! You will answer it…
Q: It’s a difficult question to answer, really.
K: No, no, we’ll answer it!
Q: Yes. If I…
K: Sir… look sir, look sir, look sir. You’re going… you want to go to a certain place, and you have taken a road and you are walking along that. You ask somebody on the road, say, ‘Does this road lead there?’ And he says, ‘No, my friend, it’s in the opposite direction?’ What do you do?
Q: (Inaudible)
K: Wait! What do you do?
Q: I stop.
K: Stop. Right?
Q: I stop.
K: Why don’t you?
Q: Pardon?
K: Why don’t you stop?
Q: Because…
K: Ah…! (Laughter)
Q: Please could you go over it… ask me again?
K: Just stop. Instead of answering me, knowing that you are taking the wrong road, and the man tells you, ‘No, you’re taking the north road; take the south road,’ you stop before you turn. You actually stop and then listen to him. But you’re not doing that. You’re so eager to walk on the south… (laughs) You follow? So you first stop — stop all your conclusions, your reactions, your saying, ‘Is it possible? Is it not possible? Yes, it is. What does it involve? Should it? Should it…?’ You just stop. But you haven’t.
Q: No, we don’t.
K: That’s just it; you don’t. Your mind is going on. Which means that you are not very serious whether you go north or south. Right? If it is your home that you’re going to, and it’s very important that you get to your home, then you do stop and turn.
Q: Or else we couldn’t have understood something.
K: No, no. No, no, no. So I’m saying it is not important to you. (Laughs) This is just an afternoon entertainment…
Q: Oh no!
K: Wait, wait! Wait sir, wait, wait, wait, wait. It’s… Yes, it’s important sufficiently, but you don’t say, ‘My God, this is my life.’ Right? ‘This is terribly important, whether I go north or south.’ Right? It’s my life, it depends… what I do is… You follow?
Q: Yes.
K: It’s a tremendous thing. It isn’t just a verbal exchange. Because if you have taken the wrong road and it doesn’t lead you anywhere, and you want to get to your home — you follow? — your food, your life, your work, your family, everything depends on your getting home, then you stop. You don’t have to be told how to stop.
Q: No. But we have stopped now.
K: Have you? Now, wait a minute.
Q: Sure. (Laughter)
Q: This is exactly what I was saying. It seems to me we are on the wrong road; what are we… (inaudible)?
K: Then stop.
Q: Because we’re using our minds to try and work this out, aren’t we, so we couldn’t have stopped.
Q: Well, let’s try another road.
Q: If I may ask a question, that when we… if I see the implications of stopping…
K: Ah no…
Q: I can’t word it right…
K: Ah no, sir, there are no implications. When you want to get home, food, tired, everything… — you follow? — your home is there, and you want to get there and you have taken the wrong road, and the man tells you, ‘Sorry sir, you have taken the wrong road. Turn back and go the other way; it’s so many miles…’ and so on; he gives you the details. There’s no implications; you say, ‘By Jove…’ You hesitate, because he may be wrong, and you ask somebody else, and he says, ‘Sorry… the opposite direction.’ Then you stop.
Q: But the fact now is that we don’t see the importance of it.
Q: No, we don’t want to get rid of fear for some reason.
Q: (Inaudible)
Q: I think the importance is there all right, but this is quite a difficult point now to answer the question: is it possible, or how is it possible?
K: First, it is only possible if you stop.
Q: Yes.
K: Now, what does that imply — stopping?
Q: Ceasing to use the mind altogether.
K: No, no, no; you have used your mind to ask the question.
Q: But every answer you get from the mind…
K: Wait, wait; don’t… don’t yet… You’ve used your mind.
Q: Yes.
K: So your mind is sufficiently alert to have asked the question, but the mind says, ‘I must find the answer quick.’ The mind is already revolving, already trying to find an answer.
Q: So it’s going back to the old way.
K: Therefore you haven’t stopped.
Q: Yes.
(Pause)
K: So can you put this question to yourself and not answer it? Because you don’t know the answer. Because the answer is so… the question is so complex — you follow, sir? — so enormous in its content, it’s stupid on my part to say, ‘Yes, this is right, this is wrong, this should be, that…’ Sir, when you look at those mountains, the very magnitude of those mountains make you quiet. Right? Listen to it: the magnitude forces you to be quiet. Here there is nothing to force you to be quiet. It isn’t the complexity of the problem that’s making you quiet, but you say, ‘By Jove, it is necessary to be quiet to understand the problem.’ The two things are different. I don’t know if…
Q: Yes.
K: Have you got it? No. No? Those mountains, because of their immensity, of their beauty, they force you to be quiet, if you’re at all sensitive to it. There is an external factor forcing you to be silent. That’s… like taking a drug or a sleeping… But if you see that the problem itself is so complex that it’s necessary to be quiet, it is… you are being quiet; you’re not being forced to be quiet. The two things are different. Right; that’s all.
Q: Yes.
K: Now, can I, confronted with this enormous problem, and a very complex problem — and it needs tremendous intelligence to understand it, not just cunningness — is it possible? I am not intelligent; I am not sufficiently aware of the implications of that question. Can I become sensitive to that question? Not answer the question.
(Pause)
Q: For me it is difficult that mind becomes then not dead.
K: *Comment?* What sir?
Q: That it will not become dead, the mind, in this state. I’m not sure if this becomes dead, if not that…
K: *Parlez en Français* *ou en Allemand ou je ne sais pas quoi.*
Q: Dull.
K: Ah, dull.
Q: I’m not sure if I’m sensitive or dull.
K: That’s right. That’s all. That’s all my question.
Q: Yes.
K: How am I, not…? How am I…? It’s not a question of how am I to answer the problem but am I sensitive enough to see the problem? Is my mind tremendously awake all round to see the problem? If I don’t see it totally, partial perception is no perception at all. Right?
Q: But sir, to speak of my background, it becomes difficult to move myself to buy foods or to take…
K: So — I understand that…
Q: It’s a problem… (inaudible)
K: Now, is it… — wait a minute, sir — is it possible for me to become sensitive? Right? I am a dull person; is it possible for me to become tremendously sensitive, immediately? Right? Otherwise I’m storing up experiences; I’m caught in the wheel.
Q: So this fight with fear becomes irrelevant.
K: Yes, it becomes irrelevant; right. (Laughs)
Q: What is relevant?
K: Relevant is: here is an issue which I’m incapable of…
Q: Just the issue.
K: Issue; and I must resolve it. And I can’t resolve it if I am dull, both psychosomatically and in every way. So I have to become tremendously sensitive. How?
Q: It happens. I mean, you can’t… you won’t come to it at will…
K: Ah no, no; no, no; no, no; there is… You will see it. If you put that question, we go into it. It’s half‑past five. Do you want to go on?
Many: Yes.
K: Can’t we meet next week?
Q: Yes.
Q: Yes.
K: Wouldn’t it be better?
Q: Yes.
Q: Or tomorrow.
Q: Let’s go on now.
(Laughter)
K: Ah, not tomorrow… Because I have so many things to do. Can’t we meet next Friday?
Q: Yes, all right.
K: At the same time? Right sirs.
Q: Thank you very much, sir.
K: No, please.