If I may, this evening, go into something that may be rather abstruse, and in explaining certain things, the explanation is not the fact. And we are easily persuaded by explanations to believe or not to believe, to accept or to deny. So I think one has to be rather attentive not to accept nor disregard not only the explanations but also to bear in mind that when we are talking over together certain psychological facts, the word and the explanations become barriers, they hinder rather than help to discover for oneself. And, as we are going together into something that needs a great deal of attention, a sensitivity of careful observation, it seems to me that erudition and being familiar with various philosophies and ideals, and so on, doesn’t in any way resolve our immense psychological complexities and problems. And to understand these problems, one has to have this serious intention to examine very closely, not what is being said so much as what actually is taking place when you are listening.

And, as we said, listening is one of the most difficult things to do: to actually listen, neither with pleasure nor displeasure; not bring all one's idiosyncrasies, knowledge, and petty little demands, which actually prevent listening.

When one goes to a concert—and I don't know why one goes—one listens with pleasure. One says, “I have heard that music before, I like to hear it again,”—memories, certain pleasurable experiences that one has had, and these memories prevent the actual fact of listening to a note, or to the silence between two notes. The silence is far more important than the note, but the silence becomes filled with the noise of memory, and therefore one ceases to listen altogether. But to actually listen needs attention—not a forced, cultivated, drilled attention.

It seems to me attention can only come, and therefore listening, when there is freedom, not a motive. And motive always projects its own demands, and therefore there is no attention. And attention is not either of interest. If one is interested, then that attention becomes concentration, and concentration, if one observes, is always exclusive, limiting. And, with a limited concentration, pushing aside every thought and every feeling in order to listen prevents the actual act of listening. And when one so listens, an actual transformation takes place. Because if you have ever observed yourself, if one has, you will see that one never actually listens. It’s only when you are forced, cornered, bullied into listening, then you listen with a resistance, or with a pleasurable anticipation.

And as we are going to examine together an issue, or rather several issues, we must examine it without the interest which always has a motive behind it. We can examine only a fact—the fact of what is actually taking place. And, to examine there must be observation—to look and therefore to listen. And if one listens—which is an act of total observation—then all the interference of thought ceases, then that very observation is the catalyst.

And I think this is rather important to understand because most of us are so conditioned to accept what we are told: we want something positive, a directive, a method, a formula, a system. And, if one sees the whole significance of a system or formula, whose pursuit only brings about a mechanical activity, practise, then one can discard this whole so-called positive method. And as we are so heavily conditioned, through propaganda, and so on and so on, and also our own fear and uncertainty, we easily accept, that is, we want to be told what to do, how to think, what to think about.

And as we are not going to do that at all, because this mechanical thinking leads to immaturity, not to freedom at all, following somebody who gives you a positive direction has been done centuries upon centuries by the churches, by every kind of sect, religion, guru, and all the rest of that business. That's too crude, too obvious; and when one sees that whole structure of that and its destructive nature, one discards it totally.

So, as we are not thinking in terms of formulas, direction, one has to be rather sensitive to put aside this mechanical approach to life, to action. And we hope this evening we can—at least during this hour or ten minutes, or whatever it is—look without a positive demand, able to observe or listen not merely to the speaker but also to our own intimation, to our own movement of thought and feeling, neither accepting nor rejecting, neither being depressed nor elated by what we see. Because without knowing, without observing the total movement of our own selves inwardly, every movement of thought, feeling, word, gesture, and the inward—what lies behind the word, behind the thought: this whole structure of the psyche—we have no actual foundation to anything. What we have is merely acceptance of what has been or what will be—the inevitable. But when one begins to learn about the whole structure, the meaning of oneself, then you have the foundation deeply laid: then you can move or not move.

And therefore, it seems to me, self-knowing is very important—knowing for oneself, not what you have been told about yourself. So, one has to relearn about oneself. And learning is not a movement of what has been accumulated as knowledge; learning can only be in the active present: all the time, and not what you have learned through experience, through your previous activity, and so on—memory. If you are merely accumulating, then there is not the actual fact of learning, seeing something for yourself and moving from there. Unless one does this, action then becomes merely an idea: and we divide action and idea, and hence the conflict, the approximation of action to the idea.

If this is somewhat clear, not verbally, not as an idea, but as an actual fact, then we can proceed, then we can take the journey together And we have to take the journey because we are going to delve into something very, very deep and urgent.

Most of us do see the utter futility, the meaningless existence that one leads. The intellectuals throughout the world invent a philosophy: how to live, what to think, what kind of world it should be, and so on—that's their amusement. And so do the theologians, and of course, inevitably, the priests. But our life, our daily existence is monotonous, utterly meaningless—the actual fact, not you don't have memories, pleasures, and amusements; that's a very small part of our existence. But deep down, if you can strip off that particular layer, there is this enormous discontent with our lives, with our shoddy little existences. And it breeds despair, and being in despair we seek, we say, “There must be something.” We want some hope, something by which we can live. So we give, intellectually or emotionally, a significance to life, to our life, which prevents us from actually looking, observing, listening to the whole content of our entity. And being discontented, in despair, we turn to various philosophies, various methods of meditation—you know all that we do; one doesn’t have to go into all the details of it.

So, one begins to seek. You try this, you try that; you take this special drug, the LSD, or another drug, and keep experimenting, hoping some day we’ll discover the key to all this. That's what we are all doing. We want truly religious experiences, something supernatural, something mysterious, because our own lives are so empty, so dull, so meaningless, so utterly petty. And we seek because we are discontented, and we don't know where to look because nobody believes in any of the things that anybody says any more. The religions, all that has gone up in smoke—it’s not worth even discussing.

So, being discontented, eaten up with this absurd triviality of existence, which has no meaning whatsoever—except technologically one must earn a livelihood and have some money, and all the rest of it—but beyond that it has no meaning. So there is discontent, a desperate loneliness, and we seek. Now, there is this emptiness, this loneliness, this despair, and to fill that we are seeking.

Probably you are listening this evening, seeking something to fill that void of nothingness. And this search is a terrible thing because it’ll lead nowhere. One has knocked at the many doors in our despair, loneliness, and misery: Eastern philosophies, Zen, this new person who is sitting and listening, talking. You listen to all of them, and you knock at every door. And actually what takes place is: when you are seeking, you find what you want. So the first thing, it seems to me, is to realize that there must be no seeking at all.

That's a hard pill to swallow, because most of us have been so accustomed, so conditioned to seek, psychologically, inwardly. And we say, “If I can't seek, if I see there is no meaning in seeking, then what am I to do? I'm lost.” So seeking becomes another escape from the actual fact of what one is. Please, this is rather crucial that one should understand this. Because any movement of seeking gives the idea that you're actually moving, acting; but actually what takes place is you're not moving at all.

What is taking place when you are seeking is a mental process which one hopes will satisfy. And so seeking is a static state; it’s not an active state. The actual state is this terrible loneliness, emptiness, this incessant demand to be happy, you know, to find a permanent reality, and so on and so on—seeking by a mind that is frightened of itself, what it is. A man who is alive, in the deep sense of that word, completely fearless, a light to himself; he has no need to seek.

So, can this loneliness, this sense of utter meaningless existence, can one find out—not through books, not through philosophies, not through psycho-analysts, or through any organized religion— actually find out for oneself, without any shadow of a doubt, if life has a significance at all? And what is that significance, if there is one? Man, historically, has been seeking this thing called God. And it’s not the fashion nowadays to talk about that entity, he’s not worth talking about even, because nobody is interested. It has been the monopoly of the organized religions, and the organized religions have gone up in smoke, or in incense. And it has no meaning at all any more. Yet man is seeking, wanting to find out. And without finding that out, life has no significance—do what you will: you can invent every kind of philosophy, or the very, very latest drug to give you a certain stimulation which will have a certain experience because you have become slightly, in another corner of the field, extraordinarily sensitive.

And if one relies on stimulation of every kind, including the speaker here, then stimulation inevitably leads to a dull mind. So, one has to find out, one has to examine and, through that very examination, discover; not project from your conditioning, or from your fear, from your hope, a certain reality which [you] hope exists. Then you are back again to the old circle.

So, first one must realize the utter shallowness of our life, not because someone tells you, but the actual fact of what it is: the meaninglessness of going to the office for the next forty years—or you’ve been already forty years—struggling, struggling, struggling, and at the end, die. Or filling the moments when you are not occupied with earning money, fill those odd moments with some philosophy, with some idea; or you have money, you can go to certain places and learn meditation to be aware, and all the rest of it. It all becomes so utterly meaningless and childish. But one has to find out, one has to discover if there is a real significance, not invented by the mind—that's very easy. So, to find that out if there is a significance, there must be an end to seek it, and therefore one faces what actually is within oneself.

You see, because of our despair and anguish, and all the rest of it, we have invented a network of escapes, beliefs, dogmas; or you just live for the time being and die, rationalizing your whole existence—saying, you know, saying all the things one says—and so the mind must be free of belief to examine. So, to examine there must be freedom, obviously, otherwise you can't examine. To look, to listen, there must be extraordinary freedom from all one’s conditioning, all one’s demands, so that you can look at your own conditioning, at your own demands, at one’s own fears.

Then when there is no movement of seeking or achievement, which is extraordinarily arduous because we want to succeed; we want a quick answer to everything. You take a drug and you think you have answered the whole of existence because you have had a certain experience. And that experience seems to have, is the shadow of the real, and we play along those lines. Now, if one can see all this structure, then not escape either through a conclusion, or through a word, or through the movement of seeking an answer, you know, this demands astonishing attention, and this attention is not to be gained by practising attention—God! that becomes mechanical. But when one realizes for oneself the utter futility of all what we are doing—which has to be done at a certain level—but that’s not the whole substance of life: the concerts, the paintings, you know, the marvellous escapes that man has invented to run away from himself and so prevent himself from looking at himself.

Then only, when the totality of the mind, this whole consciousness—and all consciousness is always limited, however much you may expand through drugs, through practice of certain disciplines, hoping to expand consciousness—there is always the observer. And the observer is the centre, and where there is a centre, the expansion is always limited. Obviously, this is…

As we were saying the other day, an object creates space around itself. I have space round me physically, because the object is here. This hall, with these four walls, creates this space; and there is space outside the wall. We only know space from the centre. When you look at the stars of an evening, a beautiful sunset, you know the space because there is the observer, and that space is always limited. You can expand it through various tricks of memory, drugs, and various forms, but it is always limited, and therefore there is no freedom. And there is space which is complete freedom when there is no observer, when there is no centre.

As we were explaining the other day, the experiencer is the experienced, or the experience. I think that’s fairly, obviously clear—I don’t know…we won’t go into too much because we’ve got to go a little further. So the observer, the thinker, the experiencer is always creating this space around himself; and that's the only space he knows. And within that he is doing everything to escape from that, from that prison which the observer has created. So the observer, the experiencer is the experienced, the observed, and therefore his experiences which he is seeking, wanting, longing, hoping [for], are always within the limitation of that space which the observer creates. You can see this for yourself very simply, when you observe yourself, when you observe a building, a flower by the wayside, or when you have an experience, or want an experience—there is always the observer. But the observer is the observed; the two are not separate—I can’t go into it…because it’s very important to understand this—then the observer doesn't create or demand any experience, therefore there is no centre from which to observe, to experience, to gather memory from which to move.

Look, sir, let me put it very briefly, because I see the observer and the observed is a rather complex issue. When one says one is afraid, there is the observer who says, “I'm afraid,” and he wants to do something about that fear—that's irrelevant. But is the fear different from the observer? The observer, by his thought, by his memories of pleasure and pain—the centre—has bred this fear, which he has put outside of himself and looks at it and says, “I must get rid of it.”

So, I won’t go too much into it. So, the observer is the observed—when one sees that, the conflict between the observer and the observed, that is, the centre which says, “I must be different. I'm angry, and I must get rid of anger; or I do this or do that.” So, when he does that, there is a separation between the observer and the observed, and hence the conflict. And, a mind in conflict, at any level, even physically in conflict, brings about a certain dullness, weariness; it loses the sharpness. It is no longer active in its sensitivity; it’s wearing itself out through conflict. And that's all we know, both outwardly and inwardly: outwardly this conflict as war, as success, competition, because inwardly we are doing the same, we are in that state, we want to achieve, we want to become this or that—this everlasting struggle. So there is this conflict, and so our mind deteriorates.

But when the mind realizes, understands the nature of the observer and the observed, conflict comes to an end. And, the cessation of conflict is essential, because then the mind becomes completely peaceful, and then one can find out what is the significance of existence—not before, not when you are ambitious, greedy, envious, acquisitive, seeking more and more and more experience. All that immature stuff ceases when the observer realizes that what he observes is the observer, the seeker is the sought. Ah, if one sees that, then there is a totally different kind of action, not this restless, meaningless activity. It’s only such a mind that can, because it’s examined, because it’s understood the whole meaning of seeking, and also it is rid of fear, and therefore there is complete quietness, stillness, silence of the mind, which hasn't come into being through drill, through mesmerism, self-hypnosis. It comes because one has understood all this.

Then meditation becomes a tremendous activity, because an agitated mind—a mind that has problems, a mind that is everlastingly, restlessly seeking, searching, asking, questioning, being critical and not critical, accepting, and all the things that it goes through—comes to an end when the observer, who is creating this movement, realizes the experiencer is the experienced, is the experience. And therefore this whole process is a kind of meditation, not a self-hypnosis, because there is no demand, no desire, no seeking, “I want this, I don't want that.” Then only one can come upon that thing which man has sought for centuries upon centuries, which has nothing to do with belief, with organized belief, religion, which nothing whatsoever to do with all that immature nonsense. And, to come upon it, there must be, naturally, love. Love is not desire, nor is it pleasure. One has to understand it, not become puritanical about not having desire or pleasure, which merely means suppressing. And to understand this unfortunate word love, one must also understand the nature of dying; because life is dying. One cannot understand the full depth of life if there is no dying to the past; and the past is the memory which is the observer. And without this, life has no meaning. You can have more cars, more bathrooms, more prosperity, and all the rest of it, and more wars—life has no meaning. You can invent a meaning for it, but actually it has no meaning. To come to that significance, to that immense reality—and there is such a thing as that, not because the speaker says so, but there is, apart from every assertion or non-assertion—and, to come to it there must be the freedom from the animal, the animal which is aggressive, violent, killing, and all the rest of the things which we are. And without that, do what you will, go to all the analysts, to all the temples, to all the new philosophies, your life will still be empty and meaningless.

Questioner (Q1): The Lord Buddha, I think, did it without killing the animal, and taught not to kill the animal.

K: The questioner says the Buddha never killed the animal. Huh?

Q1: The animal in him.

K: The animal in him. Sir, one must be really rather careful in this. It is no good quoting authorities. You really don’t know what the Buddha said or did, or Christ, and so on. Discard all authority and find out for yourself.

I did not say kill the animal in you. That’s… Man has tried that, every monk in the world has done that—either that or indulgence. But to understand the whole structure of the animal in us—to understand, not intellectually, not sentimentally, not verbally, but to actually come directly into contact with it: the petty little jealousies, anxieties, and hopes, and, you know all that—to understand it, to look at it. To look at this you need care; and to care you must have affection for it. You can't care for a child if you have no affection. It may be ugly, it may be silly, it may be— whatever it is—but you have to look at it; and to look you have to care, which doesn't mean you destroy something in you, or suppress it, or control it, or run away from it.

You see, that's one of our conditionings that we suppress or indulge. Therefore we must understand the nature of pleasure: pleasure which is desire—understand it, not suppress it, or sublimate it, or run away from it. And to understand it, you must look at it with care.

Q2: If I, the observer, look upon a tree as the thing observed, is the tree and I one and the same thing?

K: Is the observer, the questioner says… If I think the observed is the observed, then is the tree me? Now you see: you have heard this, that the observer is the observed, you have heard it, you haven't listened to it. There is a vast difference between hearing and listening. You haven't learned about it, you have heard it, and it has become an idea. Immediately that's what takes place, an idea; and that idea is translated: “Is the tree me? I, the observer, look at the tree, and the tree is me.” But the tree is not you, obviously. So, one really has to, you know…

Have you ever looked at a tree, at a cloud, or the beauty of a sunset—looked at it, in which there is no observer at all? When you do look at it, what actually takes place, ordinarily when you look at it? Your memories come pouring in: “Ah, that marvellous sunset I saw the other day in California; that light on the mountain.” Or, you are absorbed by the sunset and for the moment you are silent; and that silence you remember and say, “By Jove, I'd like to repeat that.” Like sexual pleasure, that's what we do: it becomes a repetition because we think about it. And you want that pleasure repeated, and in that we are caught. But to look at a tree, or the movement and the folds of a mountain, thought as memory must come to an end. Though one has botanical knowledge, that knowledge prevents us from looking at that tree. When you do look at the tree without the observer, the tree is not you, or you are the tree. There is no space between the observer and the observed; then you don't say, “Am I the tree? Or, I shall attempt to identify myself with the tree,”—all that becomes meaningless.

Q3: Does this separation between the observer and the observed exist in the mind of a baby or a small child?

K: In the small child, is there an observer and the observed? If I understand it rightly, right? I'm afraid we can't go back to the childhood. Actually what takes place with the grown-up people is what we are discussing—you: what takes place when you look? You’ve always a space between you, your wife, your husband; between you and your neighbour, and all the rest of it. And in this space all conflict exists, all separation exists, not only between the black skin and the white skin and the brown skin and the yellow skin but also the images that one has built through memory, through fear, through flattery, through insult, and therefore there is a separation. And separation is an indication of a lack of love. Like a man, lumberman, looking at a tree, he looks at it with a different eye; so does the scientist. And the sentimentalist looks at it differently, and the artist.

But we never look because we look through space which is created by the observer. And therefore there is quite a different relationship if there is no observer, when the observer realizes that the thing he observes is the observed.

Sir, when you know that you love, when you know it as an observer, as an entity loving something —a tree, a woman, a man, a child—is that love? And, we have divided love into divine and mundane, sexual and non-sexual, something sublime and something absurd. We live in fragments. Our fragmentary existence is the curse of our life. Life is a total movement—a total movement, not a fragmentary movement in conflict with another fragment. And to understand this total movement, the maker of fragments must come to an end.

Q4: Sir, when you see a thing, as you said, is it total attention?

K: Prego. Dica en espanol, per favore.

Q4: Quando usted…(not clearly audible)…hay una attencion total…?

K: Capito, capito, si, si. The questioner asks, “What is total attention?” No, please, sir, why do you ask?—not that you shouldn't ask, but why do you ask? Can't one find out for oneself what is total attention? Sir, look, let's begin with a very simple thing: to be aware—what does it mean? I'm aware of the size of this hall, the lights in it, the shape of it, the height of it, and I'm aware also of the colours of the people sitting here, their faces, how they look, how they smile, with their glasses, and so on and so on. I'm aware. Then I begin to say, “I don’t like, I don't like, this is nice, this is not nice.” So I'm aware with choice. I say, “This is a nice hall, not nice hall; that's a nice colour, not nice colour.” Then choice begins; and where there is choice, there is confusion. Now, that's a fact that is going on all the time, not only outwardly but also inwardly. And can I look, be aware without choice—to look without choice of any kind?

Of course I have to choose between this cloth and that cloth, or something else, that’s physical; but inwardly, why should I have a choice? Can I look at anything, be aware of anything, without choice? Now, when you put that question, nobody can answer it—you have to do it! And if you do it, you’ll find out that there is an awareness without choice. Now, when there is that awareness with choice, push it, I mean, go into it deeper, then you will begin to discover what concentration is. Concentration is a form of resistance, exclusion, either with a motive of pleasure, or profit, or fear, and so on and so on and so on. And if you go into it deeper, then you will see that there is attention, attention in which there is no effort at all, because there is no motive which makes you attend. And when you are totally attentive—which means with your nerves, with your body, with your ears, with your eyes, with your heart, with your brain, with your mind, completely attentive, in which there is no success, no motive, nothing, completely attentive—you will find that there is no observer at all. And to be so attentive is its own discipline, not this discipline of compulsion, imitation, fear, adjustment to a pattern.

Q5: This choiceless awareness, this freedom without fear, is this as meaningful or more meaningful in its meaninglessness… how will I know ... because it seems I have experienced these states of choiceless awareness, and I love to get back to them, but I wonder very much are they really meaningful.

K: Ah. Yes sir, I tell you. I hope you’ve all heard the question.

Several from the audience: No.

K: No? Yes sir. Has choiceless awareness any meaning at all, any significance? And the questioner says further, asks further, “I’ve had this state of choiceless awareness, I like to get back to it.”

Choiceless awareness has a meaning, and it’s only in that state I can examine, examine what the politician says, what the priest says, what the propaganda says, what your wife says, or your husband says, or what your own memory, promptings, your intimation, your dreams, everything— which has tremendous meaning if you're aware choicelessly. Because then your thinking becomes highly clear, you are no longer persuaded or influenced by your own motive, or the motive of society, then you can look and not distort what you're looking at. And we do this when we are really in a crisis, when you're shocked, then your whole attention is there, you're watching. Of course, if the shock is too great, you are paralysed, and all the rest of it, that’s different.

And, the questioner says further, asks further, that he has had this experience of choiceless awareness, and he wants to go back to it.

Q5: But is it was meaningful also in terms of a higher purpose, in terms of the evolution of life; or is it just meaningful in its meaninglessness, that’s what I really want to know. You see…

K: I don’t think it is meaningless, sir.

Q5: The choiceless awareness I know is meaningful, but I wonder is the whole life-process meaningful.

K: I’ve explained all this evening.

Q5: Yes, I’ve heard, yes…

K: (Laughs) I can’t go back to it.

Q5: I’ve heard it so many times that I wondered if the whole life-process is meaningful in some way. If it’s not meaningful…

K: Sir, I’ve explained, sir, that the whole life has a meaning, significance, when that thing that man has been seeking is found, otherwise it has no meaning. And that thing cannot be found if the mind is confused, in war with itself. I explained all that. And the questioner wants to know also; he’d like to go back to that state of choiceless awareness. Now, if one is aware of this demand to go back, or to gain again that state of choiceless awareness, then he is in a choiceless state of attention. But the moment you say, “I want something repeated,” what you want repeated is something that you’ve had that is memory, that is not actual. Therefore, the pleasure of that experience remains and you want that pleasure repeated. And the repetition of that, of any pleasure becomes mechanical, and choiceless awareness is not at all mechanical; on the contrary, it is attention from moment to moment. And when there is no attention, there is inattention; and in inattention all our misery comes.

Q6: Sir, what is the relationship, what effect does a revolution in the mind of a single person have on the whole human race?

K: What is the effect of a total revolution or mutation in the mind of an individual, what effect will it have on society, on the whole?
Sir, as we explained before, the individual is the local entity, the American, the Russian, the Indian, and so on, the local, conditioned—you know—modern entity; the human being is much older. And you are saying, if there is a mutation in the human mind, will it affect the whole consciousness, not only of the individual but of man—is that right, sir? There are several things involved in this question: how to change society, first. And we see it: a society must be changed; and how? And is it possible? Realizing the vested interests of the politicians, of the army, of the priest, of the business man, of the—you know—is it possible? And a society which is you: you are the society psychologically, you have created this society, you are part of that society. The psychological structure of society is what you have psychologically created; it is not something different from you. We have conflict; our life is a battlefield—daily existence—and the battlefield in Vietnam is the extension of our daily life, and you want to say, “I want to change all that.” Can it be changed, or should one be concerned with the total human being—human being who is ten thousand or two million or whatever years old? If there could be mutation, then everything will come right. Merely changing a local entity, the individual, is not going to affect it a very great deal: cultivating my backyard isn't going to do very much. But when I’m concerned with the total man, then in that mutation of the psyche, then perhaps that mutation will affect society—perhaps.

Q7: Is it not true that in modern culture and society one must have accumulated knowledge, technological knowledge, and this is inattention?

K: No sir, no sir. Sir, I very carefully—look, please, let’s make it brief—I very carefully explained that one must have knowledge, technological knowledge. You must have knowledge where you're going tonight, where your home is, what your name is. Yes sir, what?

Q7: My point was that, all right, you have said we must have this basic technological knowledge, but we also must also have complete attention.

K: Ah! I also said, sir, we must have basic knowledge—we must have knowledge, and also we must be free from the known, otherwise you're merely continuing in the known, and you may take a drug, hoping to go beyond the known—you can't. Those are all cheap tricks.

Q8: Why is that the sunset or the tree…(inaudible)…identification of the observer and the observed?

K: What sir? Make it brief, sir, sorry, I can’t hear.

Q8: Why is the sunset and the tree easier to observe as an observer identified than with wandering objects.

K: Je n’ai pas compris…sorry, I haven’t quite understood, sir. Why do you take the sunset and the tree? Is that it?

Q8: Those are a little easier…

K: Yes sir, quite right. I said that, sir. Because that's very simple: the tree and the sunset doesn’t interfere with your life. (Laughter) I can look at the tree, but I can't look at my wife, my husband, my neighbour. (Laughter)
You know, sir, I know it's quite funny, but do look at it sometime: look at yourself, at your wife and your husband, at your neighbour—look! Not identify yourself with what you see but look, and you’ll find a great miracle there. Then you are looking at life totally anew, you are looking at the tree, at the person for the first time as though you never looked at anything before.
Sorry, sir, yes sir?

Q9: I understand that the observer must die for there to be clarity, and the clarity is valuable. When the body dies, is all this clarity also lost?

K: Ah, sir, no. I went through this, sir, don’t ask these questions, if you don’t mind, sir. You see, sir, death is a most complex thing. You can't answer it like this: just a question—two minutes, and then go to the next subject. It's like understanding life, you understand? Life is an immense thing, with all the pain, the despair, the anxiety, the pleasure, the joy—it is a tremendous thing. And we don’t understand that—living. And to understand living you must care for living; you must listen—madam!—you must listen to the whole movement of living. And, when you understand this thing, this enormous movement of life, then this movement is part of dying.
I won’t go into all this. Sorry sir, what were you going to say, sir?

Q10: I was going to ask: Doesn't the child have more choiceless awareness than the adult, and less prejudice, less conditioning?

K: Ah, the child! The gentleman says, the questioner says, “Doesn’t the child have greater choiceless awareness than the adult?” It depends on the child. (Laughter) And it depends on the adult.

Q10: I’m speaking of the condition of childhood, I'm not speaking of any particular child.

K: I understand, sir. I was going to go into that. The child is conditioned by the parents, by the society, by the culture in which he lives, by the school he goes to, and by the children around him. He is conditioned, and this conditioning either decreases or increases as he grows older. The walls thicken by his own ambition, by his own greed, and all the rest of it. And he becomes more and more non-observant, non-curious, non-aware—this is what takes place in modern education. Technologically the child is trained, and practically the whole of life is neglected.
Yes sir?

Q11: Are you saying one must have technological knowledge, and that one must be aware of that the two cannot be concurrent, that in other words, one’s life is so much…in the sense… Are you saying that when one has technological knowledge in that moment one cannot possibly be aware?

K: Ah, no, no, on the contrary, sir! No, no, I didn’t say that. The questioner asks, “Why do you divide technological knowledge and awareness? Why do you separate the two? Is it not possible to be choicelessly aware when you are being trained technologically?” Of course! Sir, the more you become non-mechanistic, even technologically, the more you are active, you produce. Give a workman the same labour, he gets bored with it, he produces less. And, give him that work and help him to learn about that work, he'll produce more—that's what they are all doing, that's one of the gadgets, the tricks they are playing. I divide it only because the inevitable question arises: Mustn’t we live with technological knowledge? What shall we do with all that, if we destroy that? To prevent that, I’ve divided it, and I also went into it and said that the thing cannot be divided, life cannot be divided into fragments.

Q12: Sir, so many millions of people are caught up in this confusion and in this materialistic type of life. It seems almost hopeless to me to think that there will ever be enough people with enough clarity.

K: The questioner says there are millions and millions of people caught up in this what she calls mundane life. They can’t be affected by the mutation of a few people. I really, if I may ask: Why are you so concerned about the multitude? Are you one of the—I’m not asking you personally, madam—are you one of the do-gooders? Why are you so concerned? And you are not really concerned about yourself and your relationship with the world. We have produced this world by our thought, by our feelings. And unless the total human being—which is each one of us—changes, brings about a mutation which we talked about; leave the other alone. We have done enough propaganda, and propaganda is never the truth—it's a lie. And, when there is love you will know for yourself what relationship is between man and man. And without that we want to bring about a change in society, we want to change man, we want to do good, we want to put up the various flags, the various—you know, all that. When we love, then there is no problem; then do what you will, there is no harm.