Wholly Different Way of Living
3rd Conversation with Dr. Allan W. Anderson
San Diego, California
19th February 1974
Responsibility
A: Mr Krishnamurti, in this series of conversations we have been
exploring the general question of the transformation of man. A
transformation, which as you say, is not dependent on knowledge
or time. And, as I recall, we arrived at a point that was very
crucial, namely the one concerned with relationship and
communication. I remember one point in our conversation together
that was extremely instructive for me, a point at which, when
you asked me a question I began to answer it and you interrupted
me and reminded the viewers and me, that the important thing
here is, is not to finish out a theoretical construction but
rather to attain to the right beginning point so that we do not
go beyond where we haven't yet begun. This, as I repeat, was
extremely instructive for me and I was thinking, if it is
agreeable with you, it would be helpful today if we could begin
at the point of concern for communication and relationship to go
into that question and begin to unravel it.
K: Unravel it, quite. I wonder sir, what that word communication
means. To communicate implies not only verbally but also
listening in which there is a sharing, a thinking together, not
accepting something that you or I say, but sharing together,
thinking together, creating together, all that is involved in
that word 'communicate'. And in that word is implied also the
art of listening. The art of listening demands a quality of
attention in which there is real listening, real sense of having
an insight as we go along, each second, not at the end, but at
the beginning.
A: So that we are...
K: ...together...
A: So that we are both - yes, yes!
K: Walking together all the time.
A: There is a concurrent activity. Not one making a statement,
the other thinking about it and then saying, "Well, I agree, I
don't agree, I accept, I don't accept. These are the reasons I
don't accept. These are the reasons I do", but we are walking
together.
K: Journeying together, walking together on the same path.
A: Side by side. Yes.
K: On the same road, with the same attention, with the same
intensity, at the same tongue, otherwise there is no
communication.
A: Exactly. Exactly.
K: Communication implies there must be at the same level, at the
same time, with the same intensity, we are walking together, we
are thinking together, we are observing together, sharing
together.
A: Would you say that this requires an activity that underlies
the speaking together, or does one come to the activity after
one has started to speak together?
K: No sir. We are not saying that. What is the art of listening,
aren't we? The art of listening implies, doesn't it, that there
is not only the verbal understanding between you and me, because
we are both speaking English, and we know the meaning of each
word, more or less, and at the same time we are sharing the
problem together, sharing the issue together.
A: Because, as you say, it's a matter of life and death.
K: Also if you and I are both serious, we are sharing the thing.
So, in communication there is not only a verbal communication,
but there is a non-verbal communication, really which comes into
being, or which happens when one has the art of really listening
to somebody, in which there is no acceptance, no denial, or
comparison, or judgement, just the act of listening.
A: I wonder whether I am on the right track here, if I suggest
that there is a relation that is very deep here between
communication and what we call in English, 'communion'.
K: Communion, yes.
A: So that if we are in communion, our chance of
communicating...
K: ...becomes simpler.
A: Right!
K: Now, to be in communion with each other, we must be, both of
us must be, serious about the same problem at the same time with
the same passion. Otherwise there is no communication.
A: Exactly!
K: If you are not interested in what is being said, well, you
will think of something else and communication stops. So there
is a verbal communication and a non-verbal communication. They
are both operating at the same time.
A: One does not precede the other. Or follow upon the other.
Yes, they move together.
K: Which means that each of us, being serious, gives our
attention completely to the issue.
A: That act of seriousness that takes place then requires the
utmost devoted attention.
K: Sir, but a man who is really serious lives, not the man who
is flippant, or merely wanting to be entertained. He does not
live.
A: The general notion of being serious about something generally
suggests either undergoing some pain, or I'm serious about
something in order to get something else. These two things, as a
rule, are what persons imagine about seriousness. As a matter of
fact, we often hear this expression, "Don't look so serious",
don't we.
K: Yes.
A: It's as though we fear something about the serious.
K: Sir, look! As we said yesterday, the world is in a mess and
it's my responsibility living in this world as a human being who
has created this mess, it's my responsibility to be serious in
the resolution of this problem. I am serious. It doesn't mean I
am long faced, I am miserable, unhappy, or I want something out
of it. It has got to be solved. It's like if one has cancer, one
is serious about it. You don't play around with it.
A: Action in relation to this seriousness then is instantaneous.
K: Obviously!
A: This raises not an additional question, I don't mean to go
beyond where we haven't begun in that sense, but time assumes
for the serious person something very different for his
undergoing than it would seem to be for the unserious person.
One would not have then the feeling of something being dragged
out. Or as may say in English, time that has to be put in.
K: Put in, quite.
A: As a matter of fact, in this concurrent communication in
which communion is abidingly present time as such would not in
any way oppress.
K: No, sir, no, sir.
A: Am I...
K: Quite right. Like we see sir, I am trying to see what it
means to be serious. The intent, the urge, the feeling of total
responsibility, the feeling of action, the doing, not, I will
do. All that is implied in that word seriousness. At least I'll
put all those things into that word.
A: Could we look for a moment at one of them that you put into
them? Responsibility, able to be responsive.
K: That's right. To respond adequately.
A: Yes. To respond adequately.
K: To any challenge. The challenge now is that the world is in
mess, confusion, sorrow and everything, violence and all that. I
must, as a human being who has created this thing, I must
respond adequately. The adequacy depends on my seriousness, in
that sense on my observation of the chaos and responding, not
according to my prejudice, my inclination, or tendencies, or
pleasures, or fears, but responding to the problem, not
according to my translation of the problem. Right?
A: Yes. I am just thinking as you are speaking about how
difficult it is to communicate this to the person who is
thinking that the way adequately to respond to this chaos is to
have a plan for it which one superimposes on it. And that's
exactly what we assume, and if the plan doesn't work out, we
blame ourselves...
K: Or change the plan.
A: Or we change the plan, yes.
K: But we don't respond to the challenge.
A: No.
K: We respond according to our conclusion about the problem.
A: Exactly.
K: Therefore, it means really sir, if we can explore it a little
more, the observer is the observed.
A: Therefore the change, if it comes, is total, not partial. One
is no longer outside what he is operating upon.
K: That's right.
A: And what he is operating upon is not outside himself.
K: Of course. As we said yesterday, it's very interesting if we
go into it rather deeply, the world is me and I am the world.
That is not intellectual or emotional, but a fact. Now, when I
approach the problem, the chaos, the misery, the suffering, the
violence, all that, I approach it with my conclusions, with my
fears, with my despairs. I don't look at the problem.
A: Would you think it possible to put it this way, that one
doesn't make room for the problem.
K: Yes. Yes, put it any way.
A: Would that be alright?
K: Yes. Sir, let's look at this. As a human being one has
created this, this misery which is called the society in which
we live, an immoral society.
A: Oh yes!
K: Completely immoral! As a human being one has created that.
But that human being looking at it separates himself and says,
"I must do something about it." The 'it' is me.
A: Some people respond to that this way. They say, "Well look,
if I, I am truly serious, I am truly responsible, I make this
act and there comes between me and the world this confluent
relationship, which is total, all the things that are going on
out there that are atrocious, let's say, 2,500 miles away from
where I am, don't stop. Therefore, how can I say that the whole
world is me and I am the whole world?" This objection comes up
again and again. I am interested to know what your reply to that
would be.
K: Sir, Look. We are human beings irrespective of our labels,
English, French German, all the rest of it. A human being living
in America or in India has the problems of relationship, of
suffering, of jealousy, envy, greed, ambition, imitation,
conformity. And all that are our problems, common to both of us.
A: Yes.
K: And when I say, the world is me and me is the world and the
world I am, I see that as a reality, not as a concept. Now, my
responsibility to the challenge to be adequate must not be in
terms of what I think, but what the problem is.
A: Yes. I follow you I'm sure here. I was thinking while you
were saying that, that it might have been possible to answer the
question that I posed, and I am posing the question simply
because I know some persons who might very well view this, who
would raise that and who would want to participate with us in
this conversation. I wondered whether you might have said that
as soon as one puts it that way, one has already divorced
himself from the issue.
K: That's right.
A: That in the practical order that, that question is an
interposition that simply does not have a place in the activity
you are talking about.
K: Yes, that's right.
A: Now this is very interesting, because it means that the
person must suspend his disbelief.
K: Or his belief.
A: Or his belief...
K: ...and observe the thing.
A: And observes the thing.
K: Which is not possible if the observer is different from the
observed.
A: Now, would you explore the practical aspect of this with me
for a moment? People will say, who up to this point are
listening, it would seem people at this point will say, "Well,
yes, but I can't stop it, I think I have an intuition of what
you mean," they will say, "But the minute that I open myself, or
begin to open myself, all these things seem to rush in on me.
What I had hoped doesn't seem to take place." If I understand
you correctly, they are really not doing what they claim that
they are trying to do.
K: That's right. Sir, can we put it, this question differently?
What is a human being to do confronted with this problem of
suffering, chaos, all that is going around us? What is he to do?
He approaches it generally with a conclusion - what he should do
about it.
A: And this conclusion is interposed between him...
K: Yes, the conclusion is the factor of separation.
A: Right.
K: Now, can he observe the fact of this confusion without any
conclusions, without any planning, without any predetermined way
of getting out of this chaos? Because his predetermined
conclusions, ideas and so on are all derived from the past, and
the past is trying to resolve the problem and therefore he is
translating it and acting according to his previous conclusions,
whereas the fact demands that you look at it; the fact demand
that you observe it, you listen to it. The fact itself will have
the answer, you don't have to bring the answer to it. I wonder
if I am making myself clear?
A: Yes, I'm listening very, very hard. I, really, am. I'm afraid
if I am not going beyond where I shouldn't, having yet begun,
the next question that would naturally arise here - well,
perhaps you might feel when I raise the question that it is the
wrong question - but can one communicate in the sense that we
have been unravelling this? One says, I don't know. It doesn't
seem to me that I have done this. I haven't done this yet. I can
recognize all the things that have been described, that are
terrible. I don't recognize all the things that appear to be
promised without suggesting that I am imagining them or
projecting them out there. Clearly, if there is to be a change,
it has to be a change that is altogether radical. Now, I must
start. What do I do?
K: There are two things involved in that. First, I must learn
from the problem, which means I must have a mind that has a
quality of humility. He does not come to it, and say, "I know
all about it." What he knows is merely explanations, rational or
irrational. He comes to the problem with rational or irrational
solutions. Therefore he is not learning from the problem. The
problem will reveal an infinite lot of things, if I'm capable of
looking at it and learning about it. And for that I must have a
sense of humility, and say, "I don't know. There is tremendous
problem. Let me look at it, let me learn about it." Not I come
to it with my conclusions, therefore I have stopped learning
about the problem.
A: Are you suggesting that this act is a waiting on the problem
to reveal itself?
K: To reveal. That's right! Therefore, I must be capable of
looking at it. I cannot look at it if I've come to it with
ideas, with ideations, with mentations, or every kind of
conclusion. I must come to it, say, "Look, what is it?" I must
learn from it, not learn according to some professor or some
psychologist, some philosopher.
A: That one has the capacity for this, some persons would...
K: I think everybody has. Sir, we are so vain.
A: But this doesn't mean anything for the doing, of the what
must be done, that there is a capacity.
K: Look, the learning is the doing.
A: Exactly. Yes, yes. I wanted to make that clear because we
comfort ourselves with the curious notion if I have been
following you, that we possess a possibility and because we
possess the possibility we think that someday it will actualize
itself perhaps.
K: Quite right.
A: But if I'm correct, both ways no possibility can actualize
itself, and in the practical order that never occurs, but
somehow it is believed, isn't it?
K: I'm afraid it is.
A: It is believed.
K: Sir, it is really quite simple. There is this misery,
confusion, immense sorrow in the world, violence, all that.
Human beings have created it. Human beings have built a
structure of society which sustains this chaos. That's a fact.
Now, I come to it, a human being comes to it, trying to resolve
it according to his plan, according to his prejudices, his
idiosyncracies, or knowledge, which means he has already
understood the problem, whereas the problem is always new. So I
must come to it afresh.
A: One of the things that has concerned me for many, many years
as a reader, as a student, as one whose daily work involves the
study of scriptures, is the recurrent statement that one comes
upon, sometimes in a very dramatic form. For instance, take the
prophetic ministry of Jesus where he speaks, and he says that
they are hearing but they are not listening, they are observing
but they are not seeing.
K: And doing.
A: But then it seems he does not say, "In order to attain to
that, do this." No. The closest he comes to it is, through the
analogy with the child, to have faith as a little child. I don't
want to talk about words here because that would be disastrous,
so what is meant by the word faith here is not something that
would be proper to go into, but the analogy with the child
suggests that the child is doing something that is lost
somewhere along the way in some respect. I'm sure he didn't mean
that there is a perfect continuity between the adult and the
child. But why is it that over the centuries that men have said
this over and over again, namely you are not listening, you are
not seeing, and then they don't point to an operation, they
point to an analogy. Some of them don't even point to an
analogy. They just hold up a flower.
K: Sir, look! We live on words. Most people live on words. They
don't go beyond the word. And what we talking about is not only
the word, the meaning of the word, the communication that exists
in using words, but the non-verbal communication, which is
having an insight. That is what we are talking about all the
time so far.
A: Yes.
K: That is, I can, the mind can, only have an insight if it is
capable of listening. And you do listen when the crisis is right
at your doorstep.
A: Now, I think I'm at a point here that is solid. Is it that we
don't allow ourselves access to the crisis that is there
continuously, it isn't a crisis that is episodic?
K: No. The crisis is always there.
A: It is always. Right. Well, we are doing something to shut
ourselves of from it, aren't we?
K: Or, we don't know how to meet it. Either we avoid it, or we
don't know how to meet it, or we are indifferent. We have become
so callous. All these things, all three are involved in not
facing the crisis because I am frightened. One is frightened.
One says, "My lord! I don't know how to deal with it." So one
goes off to an analyst, or to a priest, or pick up a book to see
how it can be translated. He becomes irresponsible.
A: Sometimes people will register the disappointment that things
haven't worked out. So why try something new?
K: Yes. Of course.
A: And this would be a buffer.
K: Yes. That's what I mean. Avoidance. There are so many ways to
avoid - clever, cunning, superficial and very subtle. All that
is involved in avoiding an issue. So what we are trying to say,
sir, isn't it, the observer is the past, as we said yesterday.
The observer is trying to translate and act according to the
past when the crisis arises. The crisis is always new. Otherwise
it's not a crisis. A challenge must be new, is new, and always
new. But he translates it according to the past. Now, can he
look at that challenge, that crisis, without the response of the
past?
A: May I read a sentence out of your book? I think that may be
this has a very direct relationship to what we are talking
about. It's a sentence that arrested me when I read it. "Through
negation that thing which alone is the positive comes into
being." May I read it again? Through negation, something is done
apparently.
K: Absolutely.
A: Right. So we are not leaving it at the point where we are
saying, simply words are of no consequence. Therefore, I will do
something non-verbal, or I will say something because I never
communicate with the non-verbal. That has nothing to do with it.
Something must be done. There is an act.
K: Absolutely. Life is action.
A: Exactly.
K: It isn't just...
A: Now here I suppose I should say for our listeners and viewers
that this is from the "Awakening of Intelligence", the most
recent publication of yours, and it's on page 196 in the chapter
on Freedom. 'Through negation' - I take it that's a word for
this act.
K: Entirely.
A: "That thing which alone is the positive" - the word alone
came over to me with the force of something unique.
K: Yes sir.
A: Something that is not continuous with anything else. That
thing which alone is the positive comes into being. There is no
temporal hiatus here, so we are back to that thing we began with
in our earlier conversations about not being dependent on
knowledge and time. Could we look at this negation together for
a moment? I have the feeling that, if I have understood this
correctly, that unless whatever this is that's called negation
is, is not an abiding activity, then communion and communication
and the relationship that we are talking about just simply can
never be reached. Is that correct?
K: Quite. May I put it this way? I must negate, I mean negate
not intellectually or verbally, actually negate the society in
which I live. The implication of immorality which exists in
society, on which society is built, I must negate totally that
immorality. That means that I live morally. In negating that the
positive is the moral. I don't know if I am?
A: Oh, yes. I am being quiet because I want to follow step by
step. I don't want to go beyond where we have begun.
K: I negate totally the idea of success.
A: Yes, I negate totally.
K: Totally. Not only in the mundane world, not only in the sense
of achievement in a world of money, position, authority, I
negate that completely, and I also negate success in the
so-called spiritual world.
A: Oh, yes. Quite, the temptation.
K: Both are the same. Only I call that spiritual and I call that
physical, moral, mundane. So in negating success, achievement,
there comes an energy. Through negation there is a tremendous
energy to act totally different which is not in the field of
success, in the field of imitation, conformity and all that. So
through negation, I mean actual negation, actual negation not
just ideal negation, through actual negation of that which is
immoral, morality comes into being.
A: Which is altogether different from trying to be moral.
K: Yes, yes. Of course, trying to be moral is immoral.
A: Yes. May I try to go into this another step? At least it
would be a step for me. There is something that I intuit here as
a double aspect to this negation. I'd like very much to see
whether this is concurrent with your own feeling about this. I
was going to say a statement and I stopped myself. My desire for
success in itself is a withholding myself from the problem that
we talked about, and that itself is a form of negation. I have
negated access to myself. I've negated, in other words, I have
done violence to what it is that wishes to reveal itself. So I
am going to negate then my negation as the observer. This I
wanted to make sure.
K: You are quite right. When we use the word negation, as it is
generally understood, it is an act of violence.
A: Yes. That's what I was hoping.
K: It's an act of violence. I negate.
A: That's what I thought. Yes. Yes.
K: I brush it aside. And we are using the word negate not in the
violence sense, but the understanding of what success implies.
The understanding of what success implies. The 'me', who is
separate from you, wanting or desiring success which will put me
in a position of authority, power, prestige. So I am, in
negating success, I am negating my desire to be powerful which I
negate only when I have understood the whole process which is
involved in achieving success. In achieving success is employed
ruthlessness, lack of love, lack of immense consideration for
others, lack of a sense of conformity, imitation, acceptance of
the social structure, all that is involved and the understanding
of all that when I negate success. It is not an act of violence.
On the contrary, it is an act of tremendous attention.
A: I've negated something in my person.
K: I've negated myself.
A: Right. I've negated myself.
K: The 'me' which is separate from you.
A: Exactly.
K: And therefore I am negating violence which comes about when
there is separation.
A: Would you use the term self-denial here, not in the sense of
how it has been received down the line, but that if there is
anything to what has been stated in the past, could a person who
saw that word self-denial read that word in this context that
you are using?
K: I'm afraid he wouldn't. Self-denial means sacrifice, pain,
lack of understanding.
A: But if he heard what you are saying.
K: Ah, then why use another term when you have understood this
thing?
A: Well, may be he'd want to communicate with someone.
K: But change the word so that we both understand the meaning of
self-denial. I mean all religions have based their action on
self-denial, sacrifice, deny your desire, desire your looking at
a woman, or deny riches, take vow to poverty. You know all of
them: vow of poverty, vow of celibacy and so on. All these are a
kind of punishment, a distorting of a clear perception. If I see
something clearly, the action is immediate. So, sir, to negate
implies diligence. The word called diligence means giving
complete attention to the fact of success - we are taking that
word. Giving my whole attention to success, in that attention,
the whole map of success is revealed.
A: With all its horrors.
K: With all the things involved in it and it is only then the
seeing is the doing. Then it is finished. And the mind can never
revert to success and therefore become bitter and all the things
that follow.
A: What you are saying, I take it, is that once this happens,
there is no reversion.
K: It is finished. Of course not. Say for instance sir...
A: It's not something that one has to keep up.
K: Of course not.
A: Well, fine. I'm delighted we've established that.
K: Now take for instance what happened. In 1928 I happened to be
the head of a tremendous organization, a religious organization,
and I saw around me various religious organizations, sects,
Catholic, Protestant, and I saw all trying to find truth. So I
said, "No organization can lead man to truth." So I dissolved
it. Property, an enormous business. I can never go back to it.
When you see something as poison you won't take it again. It
isn't that you say, "By Jove, I've made a mistake. I should go
back and..." It is sir, like seeing danger. When you see danger
you never go near it again.
A: I hope I won't annoy you by...
K: No, no.
A: ...by talking about words here again. But you know so many of
the things that you say cast a light on common terms which for
me at least illuminate them. They sound altogether different
from the way they used to be heard. For instance, we say in
English, don't we, practice makes perfect. Now obviously this
can't be the case if we mean by practice we are repeating
something. But if you mean by practice the Greek praxis, which
is concerned directly with act, not repetition, with act, then
to say, makes perfect, doesn't refer to time at all. It's that
upon the instance the act is performed, perfection is. Now I'm
sorry I used the word instant again and I understand why that's
awkward, but I think in our communication the concern for the
word here is one that surely is productive, because one can open
himself to words and if one sees the word that way, then it
appears there is a whole host of phenomena which suddenly
acquire very magical significance. Not magical in the sense of
enchantment, but they open a door, which, when walked into
immediately situate him in the crisis in such a way that he
attains to this that you call the one alone, the unique which
comes into being.
K: Yes.
A: Which comes into being.
K: Sir, can we now go back, or go forward to the question of
freedom and responsibility in relationship? That's where we left
off yesterday.
A: Right. That was quoted from the chapter on freedom. Yes.
K: First of all, can we go into this question of what it is to
be responsible?
A: I should like that.
K: Because I think that is what we are missing in this world, in
what is happening now. We don't feel responsible. We don't feel
we are responsible because the people in position, in authority
politically, religiously are responsible. We are not. That is
the general feeling that is all over the world.
A: Because those over there have been delegated to do a job by
me.
K: Yes. And scientists, politicians, the educational people, the
religious people, they are responsible, but I know nothing about
it, I just follow. That's the general attitude right through the
world.
A: Oh yes, oh yes.
K: So, you follow the whole thing.
A: One feels he gets off scot-free that way because it’s the
other one's fault.
K: Yes. So, I make myself irresponsible. By delegating a
responsibility to you I become irresponsible. Whereas now we are
saying, nobody is responsible except you, because you are the
world and the world is you. You have created this mess. You
alone can bring about clarity, and therefore you are totally,
utterly, completely responsible. And nobody else. Now, that
means you have to be a light to yourself, not the light of a
professor, or a analyst, or a psychologist, or the light of
Jesus, or the light of the Buddha. You have to be light to
yourself in a world that is utterly becoming dark. That means
you have to be responsible. Now, what does that word mean? It
means really, to respond totally, adequately to every challenge.
You cannot possibly respond adequately if you are rooted in the
past, because the challenge is new, otherwise it is not a
challenge. A crisis is new, otherwise it is not a crisis. If I
respond to a crisis in terms of a preconceived plan, which the
Communists are doing, or the Catholics, or the Protestants and
so on and so on, then they are not responding totally and
adequately to the challenge.
A: This takes me back to something I think that is very germane
in the dramatic situation of confrontation between the soldier
and the Lord Krishna in the Gita. Arjuna, the general of the
army says to Krishna, "Tell me definitely what to do and I will
do it." Now Krishna does not turn around and say to him in the
next verse, "I am not going to tell you what to do", But, of
course, at that point he simply doesn't tell him what to do, and
one of the great Sanskrit scholars has pointed out that that's
an irresponsible action on the part of the teacher. But am I
understanding you correctly, he couldn't have done otherwise?
K: When that man put the question, he is putting the question
out of irresponsibility.
A: Of course, a refusal to be responsible. Exactly! A refusal to
be responsible.
K: That's why, that's why sir, responsibility means total
commitment.
A: Total commitment.
K: Total commitment to the challenge. Responding adequately,
completely to a crisis. That is, the word responsibility means
that, to respond. I cannot respond completely if I am
frightened. Or I cannot completely if I am seeking pleasure. I
cannot respond totally if my action is routine, is repetitive,
is traditional, is conditioned. So, to respond adequately to a
challenge means that the 'me', which is the past, must end.
A: And at this point Arjuna just wants it continued right down
the line.
K: That's what everybody wants, sir. Politically, look at what
is happening in this country, and elsewhere. We don't feel
responsible. We don't feel responsible to how we bring our
children up.
A: I understand. I really do, I think. In our next conversation
I'd really like to continue this in terms of the phrase we
sometimes use "being responsible for my action". But that does
not seem to be saying exactly what you are saying at all. As a
matter of fact, it seems to be quite wide of the mark.
K: No.
A: Good, let's do that.
4th Conversation with Dr. Allan W. Anderson
San Diego, California
19th February 1974
Responsibility and Relationship
A: Mr Krishnamurti, just at the point where we left last time in
our conversation we had raised the question of the distinction
between the notion that I must be responsible for my action and
just being responsible. I was sitting here thinking to myself,
oh why can't we go on, so perhaps we could start at that point.
Would that be agreeable?
K: Sir, there is a very definite distinction between responsible
for and being responsible. Being responsible for implies
direction, a directed will. But the feeling of responsibility
implies responsibility for everything, not in a direction, not
in a direction, in any one particular direction. Responsible for
education, responsible for politics, responsible the way I live,
to be responsible for my behaviour. It's a total feeling of
complete responsibility which is the ground in which action
takes place.
A: I think then this takes us back to this business of crisis we
were talking about. If the crisis is continuous then it's
misleading to say, I'm responsible for my action, because I've
put the thing out there again and it becomes an occasion for my
confusing what is at hand that requires to be done and the
concept of this notion of this action because I am my action.
K: Yes, that's just it.
A: I am it.
K: That means, the feeling of responsibility expresses itself
politically, religiously, educationally in business, in the
whole of life, responsible for the total behaviour. Not in a
particular direction. I think there is great deal of difference
when I say, when one says I am responsible for my action. That
means you are responsible for your action according to the idea
that you have preconceived about action.
A: Exactly. Yes. People sometimes will say that the child is
free because it's not responsible.
K: Child is free, you can't take a child.
A: No, of course not. But I think sometimes when we say this we
have this nostalgia for the past as though our freedom would be
freedom from constraint, whereas if one is his action genuinely
absolutely...
K: There isn't any restraint.
A: ...there isn't any restraint at all.
K: Not at all.
A: Right. Right.
K: Look. Take, if one has this total feeling of responsibility
then what is your responsibility with regard to your children?
It means education. Are you educating them to bring about a mind
that conforms to the pattern which the society has established,
which means you accept the immorality of the society that is. If
you feel totally responsible you are responsible from the moment
its born until the moment it dies. The right kind of education,
not the education of making the child conform, the worship of
success and the division of nationalities which brings about
war. You follow, all that you are responsible for, not just in a
particular direction. Even if you are in a particular direction,
I'm responsible for my act, what is your action based on? How
can you be responsible, when you, your action is the result of a
formula that has been handed down to you?
A: Yes I quite follow what you mean.
K: Like communists, they say, the state is responsible. The
state, worship the state, the state is the god and you are
responsible to the state. Which means they have conceived what
the state should be, formulated ideationally and according to
that you act. That's not a responsible action. That's
irresponsible action. Whereas action means the doing now. The
active present of the verb to do, which is to do now. The acting
now. The acting now must be free from the task. Otherwise you
are just repeating, repetition, traditionally carrying on.
That's all.
A: I'm reminded of something in the I Ching that I think is a
reflection of this principle that you pointed to. I don't mean
principle in the abstract. If I am quoting it correctly from one
of the standard translations, it goes like this, 'The superior
man' by which it means the free man, not hierarchically
structured 'does not let his thoughts go beyond his situation'.
Which would mean that he simply would be present as he is, not
being responsible to something out there that is going to tell
him how to be responsible or what he should do, but upon the
instant that he is, he is always...
K: Responsible
A: ...responsible.
K: Always.
A: He simply does not let his thoughts go beyond his situation.
That goes back to that word negation. Because if he won't let
his thoughts go beyond his situation he has negated the
possibility for their doing so, hasn't he?
K: Yes. Quite.
A: Yes. Oh yes. Yes, I see that. The reason that I'm referring
to these other quotations is because if what you are saying is
true and if what they say is true, quite without respect to how
they are understood or not understood, then there must be
something in common here, and I realize that your emphasis is
practical, imminently practical upon the act. But it does seem
to me to be of great value if one could converse, commune with
the great literatures which have so many statements and complain
about the fact that they are not understood. I see that as a
great gain.
K: Sir, I have not read any books, any literature in the
sense...
A: Yes I understand.
K: ...in that sense. Suppose there is no book in the world.
A: The problem is the same.
K: The problem is the same.
A: Of course, of course.
K: There is no leader, no teacher, nobody to tell you do this,
do that, don't do this, don't do that. You are there. You feel
totally, completely responsible.
A: Right. Yes.
K: Then you have to, you have to have an astonishingly, active,
clear brain, not befuddled, not puzzled, not bewildered. You
must have a mind that thinks clearly. And you cannot think
clearly if you are rooted in the past. You are merely
continuing, modified perhaps, through the present to the future.
That's all. So from that arises the question, what is the
responsibility in human relationship?
A: Yes. Now we are back to relationships.
K: Relationship, because that is the basic foundation of life:
relationship. That is, to be related, to be in contact with.
A: We are presently related. This is what is.
K: What is human relationship? If I feel totally responsible,
how does that responsibility express in relationship to my
children, if I have children, to my family, to my neighbour,
whether my neighbour is next door or ten thousand miles away; he
is still my neighbour. So what is my responsibility. What is the
responsibility of a man who feels totally completely involved in
this feeling of being a light to himself and totally
responsible? I think this is a question, sir, that has to be
investigated.
A: Yes, you know what I'm thinking? I'm thinking that only a
person responsible, as you have said it, can make what we call,
in our tongue, a clean decision.
K: Of course. Of course.
A: So many decisions are afraid.
K: Sir, I would like to ask this. Is there decision at all?
Decision implies choice.
A: Yes
K: Choice implies a mind that's confused between this and that.
A: It means, I think radically to make a cut, to cut off.
K: Yes, but a mind that sees clearly has no choice. It doesn't
decide. It acts.
A: Yes. Doesn't this take us back to this work negation again?
K: Yes, of course.
A: Might it not be that a clean decision could be interpreted in
terms of what takes place at this point of negation from which
flows a different action.
K: I don't like to use that word decision because deciding
between this and that.
A: You don't want to use it because of the implications in it of
conflict.
K: Conflict, choice, we think we are free because we choose. We
can choose, right?
A: Yes.
K: Is a mind free that is capable of choice? Or is a mind that
is not free, that chooses? Because choice implies between this
and that. Obviously. Now which means the mind doesn't see
clearly and therefore there is choice. The choice exists when
there is confusion. A mind that sees clearly, there is no
choice. It is doing. I think this is where we have got into
rather trouble when we say we are free to choose. Choice implies
freedom. I say, on the contrary: choice implies a mind that is
confused, and therefore not free.
A: What occurs to me now is the difference between regarding
freedom as a property or quality of action rather than a state.
Yes. But we have the notion that freedom is a state, a condition
which is, which is quite different from the emphasis you are
leading me into.
K: That's right.
A: Yes.
K: Let's come back to this, sir, which is what is responsibility
of a human being who feels this sense of responsibility in
relationship? Because relationship is life, relationship is the
foundation of existence. Relationship is absolutely necessary,
otherwise you can not exist. Relationship means co-operation.
Everything is involved in that one word. Relation means love,
generosity, all that's implied. Now what is a human
responsibility in relationship?
A: If we were genuinely and completely sharing then
responsibility would be present fully.
K: Yes, but how does it express itself in relationship? Not only
between you and me now, but between man and woman, between my
neighbour, relationships to everything, to nature. What's my
relationship to nature? Would I go and kill the baby seals?
A: No. No.
K: Would I go and destroy human beings calling them enemies?
Would I destroy nature, everything which man is doing now? He is
destroying the earth, the air, the sea, everything. Because he
feels totally irresponsible.
A: He sees what is out there as something to operate on.
K: Yes. Which is, he kills the baby seal, which I saw the other
day on a film, it's an appalling thing. And a Christian, they
call themselves Christian, going and killing a little thing for
some lady to put on the fur. And, you follow, totally immoral,
the whole thing is. So to come back: I say how does this
responsibility show itself in my life? I am married, I am not,
but suppose I am married, what is my responsibility? Am I
related to my wife?
A: The record doesn't seem very good.
K: Not only record, actuality. Am I related to my wife? Or am I
related to my wife according to the image I make about her? And
I am responsible for that image. Do you follow, sir?
A: Yes, because my input has been continuous with respect to
that image.
K: Yes. So I have no relationship with my wife if I have an
image about her. Or if I have an image about myself when I want
to be successful, and all the rest of that business.
A: Since we were talking about now, being now, there ia a point
of contact, I take it, between what you are saying and the
phrase that you used in one of our earlier conversations, the
betrayal of the present.
K: Absolutely. You see that is the whole point, sir. If I am
related to you, I have no image about you, or you have no image
about me, then we have relationship. We have no relationship if
I have an image about myself or about you. Our images have a
relationship, when in actuality we have no relationship. I might
sleep with my wife but it is not a relationship. It is a
physical contact, sensory excitement, nothing else. My
responsibility is not to have any an image.
A: This brings to mind, I think one of the loveliest statements
in the English language, which I should like to understand in
terms of what we have been sharing. These lines from Keats'
poem, Endymion, there is something miraculous, marvelous in this
statement, it seems to me that is immediately related to what
you have been saying: "A thing of beauty is a joy forever." And
then he says, as though that's not enough, "It's loveliness
increases." And then as though that's not enough he says "It
will never pass into nothingness." Now when the present is not
betrayed, it's full with a fullness that keeps on abounding.
K: Quite, I understand.
A: Would I be correct in that?
K: Yes, I think so.
A: I think that's truly what he must be saying, and one of the
things too that passed my mind was he calls it a thing of
beauty. He doesn't call it a beautiful thing. It's a thing of
beauty as though it's a child of beauty. A marvelous continuity
between this. Not it's beautiful because I think it's beautiful
and therefore it's outside. Yes, yes.
K: I must stick to this because this is really quite important.
Because go where you will there is no relationship between human
beings, and that is the tragedy, and from that arises all our
conflicts, violence, the whole business. So if, not if, when
there is this responsibility, the feeling of this responsibility
it translates itself in relationship. It doesn't matter with
whom it is. A freedom from the known which is the image. And
therefore in that freedom, goodness flowers.
A: Goodness flowers.
K: And that is the beauty. And that is beauty. Beauty is not an
abstract thing, but it goes with goodness. Goodness in
behaviour, goodness in conduct, goodness in action.
A: Sometimes while we have been talking I have started a
sentence with 'if', and I have looked into your eyes and
immediately I got it out I knew I had said the wrong thing. It's
just like a minute ago you said 'if', no 'when'. We are always
'ifing' it up.
K: I know. 'Ifing' it up!
A: It is awful.
K: I know sir. We are always dealing with abstractions rather
than with reality.
A: Immediately we 'if', a construction is out there which we
endlessly talk about.
K: That's right.
A: And we get cleverer and cleverer about it and it has nothing
to do with anything. Yes, yes.
K: So how does this responsibility translate itself in human
behaviour? You follow, sir?
A: Yes. There would be an end to violence.
K: Absolutely.
A: It wouldn't taper off.
K: You see what we have done sir, we are violent, human beings,
sexually, morally, in every way we are violent human beings, and
not being able to resolve it we have created an ideal of not
being violent, which is the fact, an abstraction of the fact,
which is non fact and try to live the non fact.
A: Yes. Immediately that produces conflict because it cannot be
done.
K: Conflict, misery, confusion all that. Why does the mind do
it? The mind does it because it doesn't know what to do with
this fact of violence. Therefore in abstracting the idea of not
being violent, it postpones action. I am trying not to be
violent and in the mean time I am jolly well violent.
A: Yes.
K: And it is an escape from the fact. All abstractions are
escape from the fact. So the mind does it because it is
incapable of dealing with the fact, or it doesn't want to deal
with the fact, or it is lazy and says, I will try and do it
another day. All this is involved when it withdraws from the
fact. Now in the same way the fact is, our relationship is
nonexistent. I may say to my wife, I love you, etc., etc., but
it's nonexistent. Because I have an image about her and she has
an image about me. So on abstractions we have lived.
A: It just occurred to me that the word fact itself, which there
have been no end of disquisitions about...
K: Oh yes of course. The fact, 'what is'. Let's call it, 'what
is'.
A: But actually it means something done.
K: Done, yes.
A: Not the record of something. But actually something done,
performed, act, act. And it's that sense of the word fact that
with our use of the word fact. Give me facts and figures, we'd
say in English, give me facts, we don't mean that when we say
it.
K: No, no.
A: No. No. One probably wouldn't need facts and figures in that
abstract sense.
K: You see, sir, this reveals a tremendous lot.
A: I follow
K: When you feel responsible, feel responsible for education of
your children, not only your's, children. Are you educating them
to conform to a society, are you educating them to merely
acquire a job? Are you educating them to the continuity of what
has been? Are you educating them to live in abstractions, as we
are doing now? So what is your responsibility as a father,
mother, it doesn't matter who you are, responsible in education,
for the education of a human being. That's one problem. What is
your responsibility, if you feel responsible, for human growth,
human culture, human goodness? What's your responsibility to the
earth do you follow? It is a tremendous thing to feel
responsible.
A: This just came to mind which I must ask you about. The word
negation in the book we looked at earlier which is continuous
with what what we are saying, I think is itself rather
endangered by the usual notion that we have of negation, which
is simply a prohibition. Which is not meant.
K: No. No.
A: Which is not meant.
K: Of course not.
A: When we reviewed that incident in the Gita between the
general and his charioteer, the lord, Krishna, the lord's
response was a negation without it being a prohibition, wasn't
it.
K: Quite. I don't know.
A: No, no. I mean in terms of what we just got through saying.
K: Of course.
A: There is a difference then between rearing a child in terms
of relating to the child radically in the present, in which
negation as is mentioned in the book here that we went through,
is continuously and immediately and actively present. And simply
walking around saying to oneself, "Now I am rearing a child
therefore I mustn't do these things and I mustn't do those
things, I must do that." Exactly. An entirely different thing.
But, one has to break the habit of seeing negation as
prohibition.
K: And also, you see, with responsibility goes love, care,
attention.
A: Yes. Earlier I was going to ask you about care in relation to
responsibility. Something that would flow immediately.
K: Naturally.
A: Naturally. Not something that I would have to project, that I
needed to care for later and so I don't forget, but I would be
with it.
K: You see that involves a great deal too because the mother
depends on the child, and the child depends on the mother, or
the father, or whatever it is. So that dependence if cultivated:
not only between the father and the mother but depend on a
teacher, depend on somebody to tell you what to do. Depend on
your guru.
A: Yes, yes I follow.
K: Gradually the child, the man is incapable of standing alone
and therefore he says I must depend on my wife for my comfort,
for my sex, for my this or that, and the other thing, I am lost
without her. And I am lost without my guru, without my teacher.
It becomes so ridiculous. When the feeling of responsibility
exists all this disappears. You are responsible for your
behaviour, for the way you bring up you children, for the way
you treat a dog, a neighbour, nature, everything is in your
hands. Therefore you have to become astonishingly careful what
you do. Careful, not, "I must not do this, and I must do that".
Care, that means affection, that means consideration, diligence.
All that goes with responsibility, which present society totally
denies. When we begin to discuss the various gurus that are
imported into this country that's what they are doing, creating
such mischief making those people unfortunate, thoughtless
people who want excitement, join them, do all kinds of
ridiculous nonsensical things.
So, we come back: freedom implies responsibility. And therefore
freedom, responsibility means care, diligence, not negligence.
Not doing what you want to do, which is what is happening in
America. Do what you want to do, this permissiveness is just
doing what you want to do, which is not freedom, which breeds
irresponsibility. I met the other day in Delhi, New Delhi, a
girl and she'd become a Tibetan. You follow, sir. Born in
America, being a Christian, brought up in all that. Throws all
that aside and goes and becomes a Tibetan, which is the same
thing in different words.
A: Yes. As a Tibetan coming over here and doing it.
K: It's so ridiculous. And I've known her some years, I said,
where is your child? She said, "I've left him with other
liberated Tibetans". I said, "At six, you are the mother". She
said, "Yes, he is in very good hands". I come back next year and
I ask, "Where is your child?" "Oh he has become a Tibetan monk."
He was seven. He was seven years old and had become a Tibetan
monk. You understand sir?
A: Oh yes, I do.
K: The irresponsibility of it. The mother feels, "They know
better than I do, I am Tibetan and the lamas will help me to
become..."
A: It puts a rather sinister cast on that Biblical statement:
train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he
will not depart from it. There is a sinister note in there isn't
there.
K: Absolutely. So this is going on in the world all the time.
And a man who is really serious negates that because he
understands the implications, the inwardness of all that. So he
has to deny it. It isn't a question of will or choice, he says
that's too silly, too absurd. So freedom means responsibility
and infinite care.
A: The phrase that you just spoke, 'infinite care'...
K: Yes sir.
A: ...would be totally impossible to what we mean by a finite
being, unless the finite being did not betray the present. "With
not betraying the present" is a negative again. It is a negation
again. With not betraying the present. Which is not to say what
would happen if it is not.
K: Sir, the word 'present', the now, is rather difficult.
A: Oh yes. Philosophers love to call it the specious present.
K: I don't know what philosophers say. I don't want to enter
into all that speculative things. But the fact, what is the
'now'? What is the act of now, the present? To understand the
present I must understand the past - not history, I don't mean
that.
A: Oh no, no.
K: Understand myself as the past. I am the past.
A: In terms of what we said earlier about knowledge.
K: Yes. I am that. Therefore I must understand the past, which
is me, the 'me' is the known. The 'me' is not the unknown. I can
imagine it is the unknown. But the fact is, the 'what is' is the
known. That's me. I must understand myself. If I don't, the now
is merely a continuation in modified form of the past. Therefore
it is not the now, not the present. Therefore the 'me' is the
tradition, the knowledge, in all the complicated manoevres,
cunning, all that, the despairs, the anxieties, the desire for
success, fear, pleasure, all that is me.
A: Since we are still involved in a discussion about
relationships here, might we return for a moment to where we
were with respect to education and relationship. I want to be
sure I have understood you here. Let us say that one were
fortunate enough to have a school where what you are pointing to
is going on.
K: We are going to, we are doing it. We have got seven schools.
A: Marvelous. Well we'll have a chance to talk about that, won't
we?
K: Yes.
A: Good, good. If I'm current here, it would seem that if the
teacher is totally present to the child the child will feel
this. The child won't have to be instructed in what this means
then. Is that right?
K: Yes, but one has to find out what is the relationship of the
teacher to the student.
A: Yes, yes. I quite see that.
K: What is the relationship? Is he merely an informer, giving
information to the child? Any machine can do that.
A: Oh yes, the library is filled with it.
K: Any machine can do that. Or what is his relationship? Does he
put himself on a pedestal, up there and his student down there.
Or is the relationship between the teacher and the student, is
it a relationship in which there is learning on the part of the
teacher as well as the student. Learning.
A: Yes.
K: Not I have learned and I am going to teach you. Therefore in
that there is a division between the teacher and the student.
But when there is learning on the part of the teacher as well as
on the part of the student there is no division. Both are
learning.
A: Yes.
K: And therefore that relationship brings about a companionship.
A: A sharing.
K: A sharing.
A: A sharing. Yes.
K: Taking a journey together. And therefore an infinite care on
both sides. So it means how is the teacher to teach mathematics,
or whatever it is, to the student and yet teach it in such a way
that you awaken the intelligence in the child, not simply about
mathematics.
A: No, no of course not. No. Yes.
K: And how do you bring this act of teaching in which there is
order, because mathematic means order, the highest form of order
is mathematics - now how will you convey to the student in
teaching mathematics that there should be order in his life? Not
order according to a blueprint. That's not order.
A: Yes, yes.
K: It's a creative teaching, not creative. It's an act of
learning all the time. It's a living thing. Not something I have
learned and I am going to impart it to you.
A: This reminds me of a little essay I read many years ago by
Simone Weil which she called 'On Academic Studies' or some title
like that and she said, that every one who teaches a subject is
responsible for teaching the student the relation between what
they are studying and the students making a pure act of
attention.
K: I know, of course, of course.
A: And that if this doesn't take place the whole thing doesn't
mean a thing. And when one stops to think what would a teacher
say if a student walked up and looked at them and said, "Fine
we're studying calculus right now. Now you tell me how I am to
see this that I am pursuing in relation to my making a pure act
of attention." It would be likely a little embarrassing, except
for the most unusual person, who has a grasp of the present.
K: So sir, that's just it. What is the relationship of the
teacher to the student in education? Is he training him merely
to conform, is he training him to cultivate mere memory, like a
machine? Is he training, or is he helping him to learn about
life - not just about sex, the life, the whole immensity of
living, the complexity of it? Which we are not doing.
A: No. No even in our language we refer students to subject
matters. They take this, they take that, they take the other and
in fact there are prerequisites for taking these other things.
And this builds a notion of education which has absolutely no
relationship to what...
K: None at all.
A: And yet, and yet amazingly in the catalogues of colleges and
universities across the country there is in the first page or so
a rather pious remark about the relation between their going to
school and the values of civilization. And that turns out to be
learning a series of ideas. I don't know if they do it any more
but they used to put the word character in there. They probably
decided that's unpopular, and might very well have dropped that
out by now, I'm not sure.
K: Yes, yes.
A: Yes, I'm following what you are saying.
K: So, sir, when you feel responsible there is a flowering of
real affection, a flowering of care for a child, and you don't
train him, or condition him to go and kill another for the sake
of your country. You follow? All that is involved in it. So, we
come to a point where a human being, as he is now so conditioned
to be irresponsible, what are the serious people going to do
with the irresponsible people? You understand? Education,
politics, religion everything is making human beings
irresponsible. I am not exaggerating. This is so.
A: Oh no, you are not exaggerating.
K: Now, I see this as a human being. I say what am I to do? You
follow, sir? What is my responsibility in face of the
irresponsible?
A: Well if it's to start anywhere, as we say in English, it must
start at home. It would have to start with me.
K: So I say, that's the whole point. Start with me.
A: Right.
K: Then from that the question arises, then you can't do
anything about the irresponsible.
A: No. Exactly.
K: No, sir. Something strange takes place.
A: I misunderstood you. I'm sorry. What I meant by replying
there is that I don't attack the irresponsible.
K: No. No.
A: No, no. Yes go ahead.
K: Something strange takes place. Which is, consciousness, the
irresponsible consciousness is one thing, and the consciousness
of responsibility is another. Now when the human being is
totally responsible that responsibility unconsciously enters
into the irresponsible mind. I don't know if I'm making it clear
A: Yes, yes. No, go ahead.
K: I'm irresponsible. Suppose I'm irresponsible, you are
responsible. You can't do anything consciously with me. The more
you actively operate on me, I resist.
A: That's right, that's right. That's what I meant by no
attacking.
K: No attacking. I react violently to you. I build a wall
against you. I hurt you. I do all kinds of things. But you see
you cannot do anything consciously, actively, let's put it that
way.
A: Designedly.
K: Designedly, planned, which is what they are all trying to do.
But if you can talk to me, to my unconscious, because the
unconscious is much more active, much more alert, much more,
sees the danger much quicker than the conscious. So it is much
more sensitive. So if you can talk to me, to the unconscious
that operates so you don't actively designedly attack the
irresponsible. They have done it. And they have made a mess of
it.
A: Oh yes, it compounds, complicates the thing further.
K: Whereas if you talk to me, I talk, you talk to me but your
whole inward intention is to show how irresponsible I am, what
responsibility means, you follow, you care. In other words you
care for me
A: Yes, yes. I was chuckling because the complete and total
opposite crossed my mind and it just seemed so absolutely
absurd. Yes.
K: You care for me.
A: I do.
K: Because I am irresponsible. You follow?
A: Exactly.
K: Therefore you care for me. And therefore you are watching not
to hurt me, not to, you follow? In that way you penetrate very,
very deeply into my unconscious. And that operates unknowingly
when suddenly I say, "By Jove, how irresponsible I am" - you
follow. That operates. I have seen this, sir, in operation
because I've talked for 50 years, unfortunately, or fortunately
to large audiences, tremendous resistance to anything new. If I
said, don't read sacred books, which I say all the time. Because
you are just conforming, obeying. You are not living. You are
living according to some book that you have read. Immediately
there is resistance - 'Who are you to tell us?'
A: Not to do something.
K: Not to do this or to do that. So I say, all right. I go on
pointing out, pointing out. I'm not trying to change them. I'm
not doing propaganda because I don't believe in propaganda. It's
a lie. So I say, look, look what you do when you are
irresponsible. You are destroying your children. You send them
to war, to be killed, to kill and be maimed. Is that an act of
love, is that affection, is that care? Why do you do it? And I
go into it. They get bewildered. They don't know what to do. So
it begins to slowly seep in.
A: Well, at first it's such a shock. It sounds positively
subversive to some of the people.
K: Oh, absolutely, absolutely, sir.
A: Of, course, of course. Yes.
K: So we enter into something now, which is, my relationship to
another, when there is total responsibility in which freedom and
care go together, the mind has no image in relationship at all.
Because the image is the division. Where there is care there is
no image, imagination, no image.
A: This would lead us into what perhaps later we could pursue,
love.
K: Ah, that's a tremendous thing.
A: Yes. Could we lay a few words before that, I don't know
necessarily that next time we would do that, but it would come
naturally. I've been listening to what you have been saying and
it's occurred to me that if one is responsible and care is
continuous with that, one would not fear. One could not fear.
Not, 'would not', 'could not', could not fear.
K: You see that means really, one must understand fear.
A: One must understand fear.
K: And also the pursuit of pleasure. Those two go together. They
are not two separate things.
A: What I have learned here in our discussion is that what it
is, if I have followed you correctly, that we should turn
ourselves toward understanding, is not what are called values.
K: Oh no.
A: We don't understand love. We understand all those things
which we catch ourselves into that militate against any
possibility whatsoever. This is what's so hard to hear that, to
be told that there just is no possibility. This produces immense
terror. Do you think next time when we converse together we can
begin at that point where we could discuss fear?
K: Oh yes.
A: Good, good.
K: But sir, before we enter fear there is something we should
discuss very carefully: what is order in freedom?
A: Fine, fine, yes, yes.
5th Conversation with Dr. Allan W. Anderson
San Diego, California
20th February 1974
Order
A: Beginning from where we were: Mr Krishnamurti, when we were
speaking last time it seemed to me that we had together reached
the point where we were about to discuss order, converse about
order and I thought perhaps we could begin with that today, if
that's agreeable with you.
K: I think we were talking about freedom, responsibility and
relationship. And before we go any further we thought we'd talk
over together this question of order. What is order in freedom?
As one observes all over the world, there is such extraordinary
disorder.
A: Oh yes.
K: Outwardly and inwardly. One wonders why there is such
disorder. You go to India and you see the streets filled with
people, bursting with population. And you see also so many
sects, so many gurus, so many teachers, so many contradictory
lies, such misery. And you come to Europe: there is a little
more order but you see when you penetrate the superficial order
there is equal disorder. And you come to this country and you
know what it is like, better than I do, there is complete
disorder. You may drive very carefully, but go behind the facade
of so-called order and you see chaos, not only in personal
relationship but sexually, morally, so much corruption. All
governments are corrupt, some more, some less. But this whole
phenomenon of disorder, how has it come about? Is it the fault
of the religions that have said, do this and don't do that? And
now they are revolting against all that?
A: Yes.
K: Is it governments are so corrupt that nobody has any trust in
governments? Is it there is such corruption in business, nobody
wants to look at it even, any intelligent man, any man who is
really serious. And you look at family life, and there is such
disorder. So taking the whole phenomenon of disorder, why is
there such disorder? What has brought it about?
A: Doesn't it appear that there is a sort of necessary, almost
built in progression in terms of the way we have mentioned
necessity earlier, once order so conceived is superimposed upon
an existing situation, not only does it not effect what is hoped
for but it creates a new situation which we think requires a new
approach. And the new approach is still the super imposition.
K: Like the communists are doing in Russia and China. They have
imposed order, what they call order, on a disordered mind. And
therefore there is revolt. So looking at all this, it's very
interesting, looking at all this phenomenon of disorder, what is
order then? Is order something imposed, order as in the military
on the soldier, imposed order, a discipline which is a
conformity, suppression, imitation? Is order conformity?
A: Not in the sense that it's artificially imposed, yes,
K: In any sense. If I conform to an order I am creating
disorder.
A: Yes, yes, I understand what you mean. In our use of the word
conform we sometimes mean by it a natural relation between the
nature of a thing, and the activities that are proper to it or
belong to it. But then that use of the word conform is not the
use that is usual and the one that we are concerned with here.
K: So is order conformity? Is order imitation? Is order
acceptance, obedience? Or because we have conformed, because we
have obeyed, because we have accepted, we have created disorder.
Because discipline, in the ordinary, accepted sense of that
word, is to conform.
A: Yes, we say in English, don't we, to someone who appears to
be undisciplined, or who in fact is undisciplined, we say,
straighten up.
K: Straighten up, yes.
A: The images that we use to refer to that correction are always
rigid, aren't they.
K: Yes.
A: Yes. yes.
K: So that authority, whether the communist authority of the
few, or the authority of the priest, or the authority of someone
who says, I know and you don't know, that is one of the factors
that has produced disorder. And one of the factors of this
disorder is our lack of real culture. We are very sophisticated,
very sophisticated, very so-called civilized, in the sense we
are clean, we have bathrooms, we have better food and all that,
but inwardly we are not cultured. We are not healthy, whole
human beings.
A: The inner fragmentation spills out into our operations
externally.
K: So unless we understand disorder, the nature of disorder, the
structure of disorder, we can never find out what is order. Out
of the understanding of disorder comes order. Not first seek
order, and then impose that order on disorder. I don't know if I
make myself clear.
A: Yes. I'm thinking as you are speaking of the phenomenon in
the world of study and the world of teaching and learning as we
understand them conventionally. I've noticed in our
conversations that you always suggest that study some
disfunction. We are never invited really to do that we, we are
given the notion that the thing to study is the principle
involved. The argument for that, of course, is that one refers
to health in order to understand disease.
K: Quite, quite.
A: But then the reference to health, when that is said, is
received purely conceptually.
K: Quite right.
A: So what we are studying now is a concept.
K: Is a concept rather than the actuality, that the 'what is'.
A: And we slip out of the true task. There is a difficulty in
grasping the suggestion that we study the disorder simply
because disorder by its own condition is without an ordering
principle. Therefore it sounds when it comes out as though I am
being asked to study something that is unstudyable. But to the
contrary.
K: On the contrary.
A: Yes. Now I'll stop. You go ahead. On the contrary. You were
about to say something.
K: On the contrary. There must be an understanding of disorder,
why it has come about. One of the factors, sir, I think, is
basically that thought is matter, and thought by its very nature
is fragmentary. Thought divides, the 'me' and the 'not me', we
and they, my country and your country, my ideas and your ideas,
my religion and your religion and so on. The very movement of
thought is divisive, because thought is the response of memory,
response of experience, which is the past. And unless we really
go into this question very, very deeply the movement of thought
and the movement of disorder...
A: That seems to me to be a key word, from my understanding, in
listening to you, movement. To study the movement of disorder
would seem to me to take it a step deeper than the phrase, to
study disorder. With the word movement we are dealing with act.
K: Movement.
A: Exactly. The career of disorder.
K: The movement.
A: Yes, If that is what we are directed upon then I think the
objection that the study of disorder is to undertake an
impossible pursuit is not made with any foundation. That
objection loses its force precisely at the point, when one says,
no, no it's not disorder as a concept we are dealing with here,
it's the movement of it, it's its own career, it's its passage,
it's the whole corruption of the act as such. Yes, yes, exactly.
I keep on saying this business about act all the time, and
perhaps it seems repetitious.
K: Oh that's absolutely right.
A: But you know hardly, hardly ever is that taken seriously...
K: I know, sir.
A: ...by our species. Of course the animals are on to that from
the beginning, but we don't.
K: No. You see we deal with concepts, not with 'what is',
actually what is. Rather than discuss formulas, concepts and
ideas, 'what is' is disorder. And that disorder is spreading all
over the word, it's a movement, it's a living disorder. It isn't
a disorder that is dead. It is a living thing, moving,
corrupting, destroying.
A: Yes. Exactly, exactly.
K: So.
A: But it takes, as you pointed out so often, it takes an
extreme concentration of attention to follow movement and there
is a rebellion in us against following movement which perhaps
lies in our disaffection with the intuition that we have. The
transition is unintelligible.
K: Of course. Quite, quite.
A: And we don't want that. We can't stand the thought that there
is something that is unintelligible. And so we just will make
that active attention.
K: It's like sitting on the bank of a river and watching the
waters go by. You can't alter the water, you can't change the
substance or the movement of the water. In the same way this
movement of disorder is part of us and is flowing outside of us.
So, one has look at it.
A: And there is no confusion in the act at all.
K: Obviously not. First of all, sir, let's go into it very, very
carefully. What is the factor of disorder? Disorder means
contradiction, right.
A: Yes. And conflict. Yes.
K: Contradiction. This opposed to that. Or the duality, this
opposed to that.
A: The contention between two things to be mutually exclusive.
K: Yes. And that brings about this dual, duality and the
conflict. Is there a duality at all?
A: Certainly not in act, there is not a duality. That simply
couldn't be. There certainly could be said, not even with
respect, don't you think, to thought itself and its operation
that there is a dualism. But the duality, of course, is present
in terms of distinction, but not in terms of division.
K: Division, that's right.
A: Not in terms of division.
K: Not in terms.
A: Yes, yes. I follow.
K: After all there is man woman, black and white and so on, but
is there an opposite to violence? You've understood?
A: Yes, yes I'm listening very intently.
K: Or only violence. But we have created the opposite. Thought
has created the opposite as non-violence, and then the conflict
between the two. The non-violence is an abstraction of the 'what
is'. And thought has done that.
A: Yesterday I had a difficult time in class over this. I made
the remark that, vice is not the opposite of virtue. Virtue is
not the opposite of vice, and somehow I just couldn't, it seems,
communicate that because of the insistence on the part of the
students to deal with the problem purely in terms of a
conceptual structure.
K: You see sir, I don't know if you want to go into it now, or
if it is the right occasion: from ancient Greece, you must know,
measurement was necessary to them. Measurement. And the whole of
western civilization is based on measurement, which is thought.
A: This is certainly true in continuous practice. It is
certainly true. And the irony of it is that an historian looking
at the works of the great Greek thinkers turn around and say at
this point, well now just wait a minute. And we would say some
things about Aristotle and Plato that would suggest that no, no,
no, there's a much more organic grasp of things than simply
approaching it in a slide rule way, but that doesn't come to
terms with what you are saying. You see that's right.
K: Sir, you can see what is happening in the world, in the
western world: technology, commercialism, and consumerism is the
highest activity that is going on now.
A: Exactly.
K: Which is based on measurement.
A: Yes it is. Oh yes.
K: Which is thought. Now look at it a minute, hold that a minute
and you will see something rather odd taking place. The east,
especially India, India exploded over the east in a different
sense, they said measurement is illusion. To find the
immeasurable, the measurement must come to an end. I'm putting
it very crudely and quickly.
A: No. But it seems to me that you are putting it precisely well
with respect to this concern we have with act.
K: Yes.
A: It's not crude.
K: It's very interesting because I've watched it. In the west,
technology , commercialism and consumerism, god, saviour,
church, all that's outside. It is a plaything. And you just play
with it on Saturday and Sunday but the rest of the week...
A: Yes.
K: And you go to India and you see this. The word 'ma' is to
measure, Sanskrit, and they said, reality is immeasurable. Go
into it, see the beauty of it.
A: Yes, oh yes, I follow.
K: The measurement can never find - a mind that is measuring, or
a mind that is caught in measurement can never find truth. I'm
putting it that way. They don't put it that way, but I'm putting
it. So they said, to find the real, the immense, measurement
must end. But they use thought as a means to - thought must be
controlled, they said.
A: Yes, yes.
K: You follow?
A: Yes, I do.
K: So, in order to find the immeasurable you must control
thought. And to control, who is the controller of thought?
Another fragment of thought. I don't know if you follow.
A: Oh, I follow you perfectly, yes I do.
K: So, they use measurement to go beyond measurement. And
therefore they could never go beyond it. They were caught in an
illusion of some other kind, but it is still the product of
thought. I don't know if I'm conveying it?
A: Yes, yes. What flashed over my mind as you were speaking, was
the incredible irony of their having right in front of them, I'm
thinking now of this profound statement: "That is full", meaning
anything that I think is over there. "That's full, this that
I've divided off from that, this is full. From fullness to
fullness issues forth". And then the next line, "If fullness is
taken away from the full, fullness indeed still remains." Now
they are reading that, you see, but if they approach it in the
manner in which you have so well described, they haven't read it
in the sense of attended to what's being said, because it's the
total rejection of that statement in the Brihadaranyaka
Upanishad that would be involved in thought control.
K: Yes, of course, of course. You see that's what I've been
trying to get at. You see, thought has divided the world
physically: America, India, Russia, China, you follow, divided
the world. Thought has fragmented the activities of man, the
businessman, the artist, the politician, the beggar, you follow?
A: Yes.
K: Fragmented man. Thought has created a society based on this
fragmentation. And thought has created the gods, the saviours,
the Jesuses, the christs, the Krishnas, the Buddhas - and those
are all measurable, in a sense. You must become like the christ,
or you must be good. All sanctioned by a culture which is based
on measurement.
A: Once you start with forecasts, as we have classically, then
we are going to necessarily move to five six, seven, 400, 4000
an indefinite division. And all in the interest, it is claimed,
of clarity. All in the interest of clarity.
K: So, unless, unless we understand the movement of thought, we
cannot possibly understand disorder. It is thought that has
produced disorder. It sounds contradictory, but it is so -
thought is fragmentary, thought is time, and as long as we are
functioning within that field there must be disorder. Which is,
each fragment is working for itself, in opposition to other
fragments. I, a Christian, am in opposition to the Hindu, though
I talk about love and goodness and all the rest of it.
A: I love him so much I want to see him saved so I will go out
and bring him into the fold.
K: Saved. Come over to my camp!
A: Yes, yes.
K: One of the, probably the basic cause of disorder is the
fragmentation of thought. I was told the other day, that in a
certain culture, thought means the outside.
A: That's very interesting.
K: When they use the word outside, they use the word thought.
A: And we think it's inside.
K: That's the whole... you follow.
A: How marvelous. How marvelous.
K: So thought is always outside. You can say, I am inwardly
thinking. Thought has divided the outer and the inner. So to
understand this whole contradiction, measurement, time, the
division, the fragmentation, the chaos, and the disorder, one
must really go into this question of what is thought, what is
thinking. Can the mind, which has been so conditioned in
fragments, in fragmentation, can that mind observe this whole
movement of disorder, not fragmentarily?
A: No, but the movement itself.
K: Movement itself.
A: Movement itself. Yes. But that's what's so terrifying - to
look at that movement. It's interesting that you've asked this
question in a way that keeps boring in because measure is, and
I'm going to put something now in a very concise, elliptical
way, is possibility, which is infinitely divisible. It only
comes to an end with an act, with an act. And as long as I
remain divided against act, I regard myself as a very deep
thinker. I'm sitting back exploring alternatives which are
completely imaginary, illusory. And in the business world men
are paid extremely high salaries to come up with what is called
a new concept.
K: Yes, new concept.
A: And it's called by its right name, of course, but it isn't
regarded correctly as to its nature. It isn't understood as to
what's being said when that happens.
K: That brings up the point, which is, measurement means
comparison. Our society and our civilizations are based on
comparison. From childhood, to school to college and university,
it is comparative.
A: That's right.
K: And comparison between intelligence and dullness, between the
tall and the black, white and purple and all the rest of it -
comparison in success. And look at also our religions. The
priest, the bishop, you follow, the hierarchical outlook,
ultimately Pope or the archbishop. The whole structure is based
on that. Compare, comparison, which is measurement, which is
essentially thought.
A: Yes. The Protestants complain about the Catholic hierarchy,
and yet their scripture, their Bible is what some Catholics call
their paper pope.
K: Of course.
A: Yes, of course. With the very rejection of something,
something takes its place which becomes even more divisive.
K: So, is it possible to look without measurement, that is
without comparison? Is it possible to live a life - life,
living, acting, laughing, the whole life, living, crying,
without a shadow of comparison coming into it? Sir, I'm not
boasting, I'm just stating a fact. I have never compared myself
with anybody.
A: That's a most remarkable thing. Most remarkable thing.
K: I never thought about it even - somebody much cleverer than
me, somebody much more brilliant, so intelligent, somebody
greater, spiritual - it didn't enter. Therefore, I say to
myself, is measurement, comparison, imitation, are they not the
major factors of disorder?
A: I've had a very long thought about what you said a few
conversations ago, about when you were a boy, and you never
accepted the distinctions that were employed in a dividing
way...
K: Oh, of course, of course.
A: ...and within the social order. And I had to think about my
own growing up, and accept the fact that I did accept this
distinction in terms of division, but I didn't do it with
nature. But that set up conflict in me, because I couldn't
understand how it could be the case that I'm natural as a being
in the world but I'm not somehow related to things the way
things are, in what we call nature. Then it suddenly occurred to
me later that in thinking that way I was already dividing myself
off from nature, and I'd never get out of that problem.
K: No.
A: And the thing came to me some years ago with a tremendous
flash, when I was in Bangkok in a temple garden. And of an early
morning I was taking a walk and my eye was drawn to a globule of
dew resting on a lotus leaf and it was perfectly circle. And I
said, where's the base. How can it be stable. Why doesn't it
roll off. By the time I got to the end of my 'whys' I was worn
out, so I took a deep breath and, I said, now shut up and just
keep quiet and look. And I saw that each maintained its own
nature in this marvelous harmony without any confusion at all.
And I was just still.
K: Good.
A: Just still. I think that's something of what you mean about
the fact. That was a fact.
K: Just remain with the fact. Look at the fact.
A: That marvelous globule on that leaf is the fact, is what is
the act, is what is done.
K: That is correct.
A: Right. Yes.
K: Sir, from this arises, can one educate a student to live a
life of non comparison - bigger car, lesser car, you follow?
A: Yes.
K: Dull, you are clever, I am not clever. What happens if I
don't compare at all? Will I become dull?
A: On the contrary.
K: I'm only dull, I know I'm dull only through comparison. If I
don't compare, I don't know what I am. Then I begin from there.
A: Yes, yes. The world becomes infinitely accessible.
K: Oh, then the whole thing becomes extraordinarily different.
There is no competition, there is no anxiety, there is no
conflict with each other.
A: This is why you use the word total often, isn't it.
K: Yes.
A: In order to express that there's nothing drawn out from one
condition to the other. There is no link there, there is no
bridge there. Totally disordered. Totally order.
K: Absolutely.
A: Yes, and you use the word 'absolute' often, which terrifies
many people today.
K: Sir, after all mathematics is order. The highest form of
mathematical investigation, you must have a mind that is totally
orderly.
A: The marvelous thing about maths too, is that whereas it's the
study of quantity, you don't make passage from one integer to
another by two getting larger. Two stops at two. Two and a half
is no more two. Somehow that's the case.
K: Yes.
A: But a child when he is taught mathematics is never introduced
to that - that I've ever heard of.
K: You see, sir, our teaching, our everything is so absurd. Is
it possible, sir, to observe this movement of disorder, with a
mind that is disorderly itself, and say, can this mind observe
disorder, this mind which is already in a state of disorder. So
disorder isn't out there but in here. Now can the mind observe
that disorder without introducing a factor of an observer who is
orderly?
A: Who will superimpose.
K: Yes. Therefore observe, perceive disorder without the
perceiver. I don't know if I am making sense at all.
A: Yes, yes you are, yes you are making sense.
K: That is, sir, to understand disorder we think an orderly mind
is necessary.
A: As over against the disorderly mind.
K: Disorderly mind. But the mind itself has created this
disorder, which is thought and all the rest of it. So can the
mind not look at disorder out there, but at the maker of
disorder which is in here?
A: Which is itself the very mind as disorder.
K: Mind itself is disordered.
A: Yes. But as soon as that is stated conceptually...
K: No, no. Concepts are finished.
A: Yes. But we are using words.
K: We are using words to communicate.
A: Exactly. What I'm concerned with, just for a second, is what
are we going to say when we hear the statement that it is the
disordered mind that keeps proliferating disorder, but it is
that disordered mind that must see, it must see.
K: I'm going to show you, you will see in a minute what takes
place. Disorder is not outside of me, disorder is inside of me.
That's a fact. Because the mind is disorderly all its activities
must be disorderly. And the activities of disorder is
proliferating or is moving in the world. Now can this mind
observe itself without introducing the factor of an orderly
mind, which is the opposite?
A: Yes it is. Of course it is the opposite.
K: So can it observe without the observer who is the opposite?
A: That's the question.
K: Now watch it, sir, if you are really interested in it.
A: I am. I am deeply interested in it.
K: If you will see. The observer is the observed. The observer
who says, I am orderly, and I must put order in disorder. That
is generally what takes place. But the observer is the factor of
disorder. Because the observer is the past, is the factor of
division. Where there is division there is not only conflict but
disorder. You can see, sir, it is happening actually in the
world. I mean all this problem of energy, all this problem of
law, peace, and all the rest, can be solved absolutely when
there are not separate governments, sovereign armies, and say,
look let's solve this problem all together, for god's sake. We
are human beings. This earth is meant for us to live on - not
Arabs and Israelis, and America and Russia - it is our earth.
A: And it's round.
K: But we will never do this because our minds are so
conditioned to live in disorder, to live in conflict.
A: And vocation is given a religious description in terms of the
task of cleaning up the disorder with my idea of order.
K: Order. Your idea order is the fact that has produced
disorder.
A: Exactly.
K: So, it brings up a question, sir, which is very interesting:
can the mind observe itself without the observer? Because the
observer is the observed. The observer who says, I will bring
order in disorder, that observer itself is a fragment of
disorder, therefore it can never bring about order. So can the
mind be aware of itself as a movement of disorder, not trying to
correct it, not trying to justify it, not trying to shape it,
just to observe? I said previously to observe, sitting on the
banks of a river and watch the waters go by. You see, then you
see much more. But if you are in the middle of it swimming you
will see nothing.
A: I've never forgotten that it was when I stopped questioning,
when I stood before that droplet of dew on the leaf, that
everything changed totally, totally. And what you say is true.
Once something like that happens there isn't a regression from
it.
K: Sir, it is not once, it is...
A: ...forever. Yes.
K: It's not an incident that took place. My life is not an
incident, it is a movement.
A: Exactly.
K: And in that movement I observe this movement of disorder. And
therefore the mind itself is disorderly and how can that
disorderly, chaotic, contradictory, absurd little mind bring
about order? It can't. Therefore a new factor is necessary. And
the new factor is to observe, to perceive, to see without the
perceiver.
A: To perceive without the perceiver. To perceive without the
perceiver.
K: Because the perceiver is the perceived.
A: Yes.
K: If you once grasp that then you see everything without the
perceiver. You don't bring in your personality, your ego, your
selfishness. You say, disorder is the factor which is in me, not
out there. The politicians are trying to bring about order when
they are themselves so corrupt. You follow sir? How can they
bring order?
A: It's impossible. It's impossible. It's one long series of...
K: That's what's happening in the world. The politicians are
ruling the world - from Moscow, from New Delhi, from Washington,
wherever it is, it's the same pattern being repeated. Living a
chaotic, corrupt life, you try to bring order in the world. It's
childish. So that's why transformation of the mind is not your
mind or my mind, it's the mind, the human mind.
A: Or the mind trying to order itself, even. Not even that.
K: Now how can it, it is like a blind man trying to bring about
colour. And he says, well that's grey. It has no meaning. So can
the mind observe this disorder in itself without the observer
who has created disorder? Sir, this brings up a very simple
thing. To look at a tree, at a woman, at mountain, at a bird, or
a sheet of water with the light on it, the beauty of it, to look
without the see-er. The moment the see-er comes in, the observer
comes in, he divides. And division is all right as long as it's
descriptive. But when you are living, living, that division is
destructive.
A: Yes, what was running through my mind was this continuous
propaganda that we hear about the techniques that are available
to still the mind.
K: Oh, sir
A: But that requires a stiller to do the stilling.
K: No, I wouldn't...
A: And so that is absolutely, I'm using your words, absolutely
and totally out, of any possibility of attaining.
K: But yet you see that's what the gurus are doing.
A: Yes, yes I do understand.
K: The imported gurus and the native gurus are doing this. They
are really destroying people. You follow, sir. We'll talk about
it when the occasion arises. What we are now concerned is,
measurement which is the whole movement of commercialism,
consumerism, technology, is now the pattern of the world. Begun
in the West, and made more and more perfect in the West and that
is spreading all over the world. Go to the smallest little town
in India or anywhere, the same pattern being repeated. And the
village you go and they are so miserable, unhappy,
one-meal-a-day stuff. But it is still within that pattern. And
the governments are trying to solve these problems separately,
you follow. France by itself, Russia by itself. It's a human
problem, therefore it has to be approached not with, with a
Washington mind, or a London, mind, or a Moscow mind, with a
mind that is human that says, look this is our problem and for
god's sake lets get together and solve it. Which means care,
which means accepting responsibility for every human being. So
we come back: as we said, order comes only with the
understanding of disorder. In that there is no superimposition.
In that there is no conflict. In that there is no suppression.
When you suppress you react. You know all that business. So it
is totally a different kind of movement, order. And that order
is real virtue. Because without virtue there is no order.
There's gangsterism.
A: Oh yes.
K: Politically or any other way, religiously. But without
virtue, virtue being conduct, the flowering in goodness
everyday. It is not a theory, sir, it actually takes place, when
you live that way.
A: The hexagram in the I Ching called conduct is also translated
treading.
K: Treading.
A: Treading. Meaning a movement.
K: Of course.
A: A movement. And that's a vastly different understanding of
the usual notion of conduct. But I understand from what you have
said that your use of the word conduct as virtue, as order is
precisely oriented to act, movement.
K: Yes sir. You see, a man who acts out of disorder is creating
more disorder. The politician, look at his life, sir, ambitious,
greedy, seeking power, position.
A: Running for election.
K: Election, all the rest of it. And he is the man who is going
to create order in the world. The tragedy of it and we accept
it. You follow?
A: Yes, we believe it's inevitable. We do.
K: And therefore we are irresponsible.
A: Because he did it and I didn't. Yes. Yes.
K: Because we accept disorder in our life. I don't accept
disorder in my life. I want to live an orderly life, which means
I must understand disorder, and where there is order the brain
functions much better.
A: There is a miracle here, isn't there.
K: Absolutely, that's the miracle.
A: There is a miracle here. As soon as I grasp the movement of
disorder...
K: The mind grasps it.
A: Yes, yes. Behold, there's order. That's truly miraculous.
Perhaps it's the one and only miracle.
K: There are other miracle but...
A: I mean in the deepest sense of the word, all of them would
have to be related to that or we wouldn't have any of them, is
what I meant, the real heart, the real core.
K: That's why, sir, relationship, communication, responsibility,
freedom and this freedom from disorder, has a great sense of
beauty in it. A life that is beautiful, a life that's really
flowering in goodness. Unless we create, bring about such human
beings the world will go to pot.
A: Yes.
K: This is what is happening. And I feel it's my responsibility.
And to me I've a passion for it, it's my responsibility to see
that when I talk to you, you understand it, you live it, you
function, move in that way.
A: I come back to this attention thing, The enormous emphasis
that you've made on staying totally attentive to this. I think I
begin to understand something of the phenomenon of what happens
when a person begins to think that they are taking seriously
what you are saying. I didn't say, begins to take it seriously,
they think they are beginning to. As a matter of fact, they
begin to watch themselves lean in to it. Of course nothing is
started yet. But something very strange happens in the mind when
this notion that I am leaning in. I start to get terribly
afraid. I become terribly fearful of something. Next time could
we discuss fear?