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Pain is the reaction to attachment

Pain is the reaction to attachment

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Seminar 5 Brockwood Park, England - 17 September 1978

I think we began by asking ourselves, in the first dialogue we had here, whether one can be a light to oneself. And that problem was never touched upon. Then from there we went to the question of relationship, what actually our relationships are with another. And we went into that question rather briefly and from that observation of our relationships, we talked about fear, fear of losing somebody, not being attached to somebody, and all the misery and confusion and the broken-hearted affairs that come about. I don't know why you call it broken heart, but it's rather silly. And so on.

Then we talked about fear, what is the root of fear. And somehow I feel we are not facing the problem, which was, can one observe the fact, the happening, the actuality which is the now, whatever the reactions, the attachments, the fears - can we face them. And I'm afraid we've never gone into that question, we've never held onto it, investigated it to find out for ourselves if it is possible at all to observe what is actually taking place, the happening, whatever that happening is, whether that happening is imaginative, actual reaction, the potentiality of it, or the possibility of it, and so on. We never stayed with that question.

So can we go into that this morning? Do you want to go into it? (Pause)

Please, sir, it's all up to you.

Can we face, for example - we'll leave fear, we'll come back to it later - face the problem that we're attached to somebody. Attached, cling to, look to, hold on to some belief, to some dogma, to some ritual, some belief, some experience, or some person. Can we observe the actual implication, the actuality, of attachment. I don't know if you - please, sir.

One is attached to - we'll go through the whole business of it - one is attached to one's experience, from which there are certain remembrance, knowledge, and holding on to that knowledge, experience, and the memory of it - holding on, never letting go. Or some ideal, cling to those ideals; all the politicians, all the priests, all the bishops and all the rest of the whole business, they all have ideals. And we also, some of us have ideals too, and we hold onto them, which is a form of attachment, form, other forms of belief, certain routine, and so on, so on, so on. And principally in our relationships we are attached to a person. Can we watch, stay with that fact that we are attached and watch it. And let the attachment, the whole nature of attachment, reveal itself instead of you telling one must be attached, one must not be attached and so on. Can the story of attachment, can it be revealed by observing it. I don't know how to put it. From which arises fear - I might lose. And from that loss, I feel hurt, broken-hearted, or wounded, jealous, anxiety, the whole nature of attachment. Can you remain, watch that, and let the story involved in that reveal itself? (Pause)

Perhaps that might be very complex and rather difficult. Can you watch, observe and remain with what is going on, what is happening, such as fear. And why is it we find it so difficult to remain with a fact?

David Shainberg: Krishnaji, I think one of the difficulties with watching attachment in relationship is something you brought up on the first day, I think, and that is that the very participation in the relationship obscures the fear, somehow or other, as long as the relationship is there, the real facets somehow or the other are covered over. It's like, let's look at it very practically, you go into a day and you experience things in a strange way, and then the relationship is there to run back to. You can always hide in the relationship.

Krishnamurti: Yes, so what are you trying to say, sir? I don't quite follow.

S: What I am trying to say is that relationship acts like an umbrella, under which all experience occurs.

K: In that, under that umbrella of relationship, isn't there attachment?

S: Yes.

K: Now can you, can one stay with that, watch it without any deviation, and let the thing that you are watching tell its story, rather than you tell it what it should be. You follow, sir, what I mean? Can you do that? Can one do that? So that it reveals everything. Like a flower, when you watch it very, very closely, there it is, you see everything in its detail, the delicacy of the vein, you know, the beauty of the whole thing. In the same way, perhaps, if we could watch this burden of attachment - I won't even call it a burden, attachment - it may contain an extraordinary beauty in it, and go, from that move. But apparently we can't do it. Why not?

Mary Zimbalist: Sir, could we go into just what's happening in that observation?

K: Slowly, slowly - would you kindly tell me.

MZ: Because in itself, the definitions of thought in all this, is hard to understand. If you observe something, you let the thing as you say, speak to you, unfold and reveal itself. But in that process it would seem, at least to me, that there is a moving of thought, taking it in, seeing it, examining it, seeing the different parts, the different action of it. Now is that what you're talking about as thought, the destructive element of thought. Because to watch the action one has to feel it, one has to see its workings.

K: Mariaji - (laughs). No, Maria, I'm talking of something else. Just a minute.

Q: Well, what do you mean by thought?

K: I want to, go into it - may we go into all this, or you are not...

Q: Yes.

K: Don't you watch a flower in the bud, then as it blossoms fully, and then a few days later dies, collapses, vanishes. In the same way, perhaps, if we could watch this sense of attachment, let it flower, without you telling it what it should, thought telling it what it should do.

MZ: Then, do I understand you correctly, that where the word 'thought' that you are using in this sense, is a sort of censor coming in.

K: Yes, the censor coming in - put it that way.

MZ: And there is something else which for want of a better word I'm calling thought which is that seeing.

K: I don't, I have no feeling, I have no thought, I'm just observing.

MZ: But what if you're observing something that isn't an outside thing like a flower, you look at it and it's there. You're looking at something within yourself. Therefore there is a movement of that attachment or whatever it is, going on in the mind, in order to look at it. Now is that thought or not?

K: No.

S: Krishnaji, I think Mary is raising an important point. If you are actively involved in attachment, who's going to do the watching? I'm attached, I'm quite clearly there, every part of my life is organised by the attachment, now how am I going to watch that? I can watch the attachment but there's always going to be a piece that's going to get away, as long as I am in that situation of attachment.

K: All right, sir - let's go into it slowly.

MZ: We can't...

K: You answer him, please.

MZ: Let me ask Dr Shainberg, can you see that very thing happening? Can you see that involvement, as part of the whole thing you're looking at?

S: No, that's what I'm saying, I don't think you can, as long as there is always ingredient, in other words, in many observations it's almost as if the urgency of life is absorbed by that attachment. And it's only if you stop the attachment, that's a different thing, then that's removed. but as long as the attachment is there, I don't think you ever see it, because you're attached.

K: Are you saying, sir, the very attachment prevents you from observing?

S: Right.

K: Is that what you are saying?

S: That's it, in simple terms.

K: Is that so?

Q: I just see the problem being that the past immediately rushes in, it seems to automatically, habitually rush in, and says what it should be.

K: Yes, I understand, but, Dr Shainberg is asking a question which is, when one is attached to somebody, when I'm attached to you, or to somebody, can I be aware of that attachment? You follow what I'm saying? Go on, sir, you answer me, please, I want to... I am attached, one is attached to somebody. Do I know I am attached? Or I discover I'm attached through pain. Let's go slowly - through pain, through jealousy, through anxiety, then I realise I am attached. Right, sir? I have realised that I am attached, which means I know I'm attached. No?

S: No, I think that your experience of the pain, jealousy, and anger is a reaction, it's not a real awareness, you're reacting to the loss, the moment that you have loss of the attachment.

K: How do I know I'm attached, sir? Let's begin with that. How do I know I'm attached? I'm very friendly, etc., etc., and I live like that. And how do I know, how does one know, that one is holding on, having put a hook in somebody, holding on to that. How does one know it? You tell me, as a friend, 'Look, you're going, be careful, when you get involved with tremendous attachment, you're going to pay for it.' Right? I don't pay much attention to you, because I like this attachment. I like this feeling that somebody owns me, I own somebody, you know, possess and be possessed. And there is a sense of gratification in that. How do I know that it is attachment? The actual fact, not the word. How do I know? I don't know till something happens in that relationship.

Q: But Krishnaji, don't I know because my attention is drawn in one direction, it's not in...

K: No, I'm not interested, in whether I am in one direction or another, but let's stick to one thing, sir. That is, I only know when there is some kind of discomfort, some kind of pain, some kind of, you know, quiver.

Q: Insecurity?

K: Insecurity. Call it what you like. Now it's only then I say, 'I am attached, this is coming from that.'

Q: But Krishnaji, I think what Dr Shainberg is saying, if I've understood correctly is that what you're seeing is not the attachment, you're seeing how you are reacting to the...

K: So, wait - I've said that, which is, we are explaining to each other, that is, the reaction I have as pain, in attachment. So this whole process, can I observe, is there an observation of this whole thing, this happening, whatever word you like to use, the actual state and the nature of it, instantly? You follow, sir? Or must I go through years and years of pain and I at last give it up and say oh for goodness sake, break it. You follow, sir? Now, I'm asking, that is a fact, there is pain, there is the realisation, which is, the reaction to attachment. Right? Does one realise all the implications of attachment by observing it, not letting thought wipe it away or distort it. Just watch it. Can't you? Is that not possible?

MZ: Isn't the potential of pain immediately there if you examine attachment?

K: Beg your pardon?

MZ: If you look at attachment, you immediately perceive the possibility of pain in it.

K: So - That's what I'm asking, why is it we can't see the whole implication of attachment instantly, and finished. Where is the difficulty in this?

David Bohm: Are you saying that attachment we see from its consequences, and therefore we infer the attachment - but you are asking that we might see the attachment unfold from the bud.

K: I don't quite follow you, sir.

DB: You said that we see attachment through its consequences - right? Not directly.

K: Yes, consequences.

DB: And infer the attachment.

K: So through consequences we realise attachment.

DB: But on the other hand, is there the origin of attachment, the bud from which it unfolds - are you suggesting that we see it from the inception?

K: Yes.

DB: Directly.

K: That's what I'm asking.

DB: Yes.

K: Why can't we see it, the whole nature of it, instantly?

DB: From its inception. From the point of its inception.

K: From the point of inception, the whole story of it.

DB: Yes.

S: In point of fact, though, because we see it from consequences, we don't go to it directly, we go to the solution.

K: Yes, sir, I know, that's what - yes. Either through consequences we realise we're attached, or we have instant realisation what attachment implies and end, finished. Which is it we do? I wish you would stick to this.

Q: Do we really want to end the attachment, because surely...

K: Sir, wait - I'm not asking whether we end it - why don't we see the nature and the structure of attachment instantly, all its implications. Apparently we can't do it. But what we generally do is consequences, and then realise I'm attached and therefore pain.

S: And then fix it up.

K: What?

S: Fix it, Fix it up, in other words.

K: Yes, yes.

Q: I think pain is the obstacle in every direction, because surely we became attached in the first instance because we felt here is one person who's not going to hurt me. And then when we feel we've lost that, then we're going to be exposed to other hurts, we've got no refuge.

K: Yes, sir, but can you watch your attachment, sir? You or any of us, can we watch our attachment?

Q: Sir, this implies that we have to learn to watch.

K: Do it now, sir, not learn and then - see. Learning implies, doesn't it, that you have accumulated knowledge and then watch with that knowledge.

DB: Are you going to suggest that there's another kind of learning where you listen and observe and learn?

K: Yes. You see, sir, what is happening now? We are dissipating by talk, by words, by explanations, so we're not actually saying, 'Yes, I am attached, let me look.'

Q: Krishnaji, when I try to do that my mind immediately brings an abstraction of what attachment is, and then I find myself looking at that, I'm not looking at the real thing.

K: So, which is, that you're making an idea of attachment and not the actual fact. Is that what you're doing Shankar? Or that is just an idea for you. Is that what you are actually doing and not looking at attachment.

Q: That's what is happening and perhaps we could go into how that happens, how one can step out of that.

K: I don't know. Let's first watch it and then see what happens, whether it continues or whether it stops. Let's first remain with that fact and let the fact tell its whole story. Gosh, how difficult this is! I am attached to my wound, psychological wound, suppose. I like that wound, I hold on to it, it gives me some anchor around which I can worry, and I can fuss around, you know, carry on the game. Can I watch that wound which I have received from childhood and let the whole thing flower, without you making it flower or denying it, controlling it, loving it, holding onto it. Let that thing flower and see what happens.

Q: It's a very painful thing to do.

K: Is it? You see what you've done - you've told it. You have told, 'That's painful'. It may not be. I said, let it tell you the story, not you say it is painful.

Q: Pain is surely a completely subjective thing, I just feel pain, full stop.

K: What?

Q: Pain is such a subjective thing, psychologically, that I just feel pain.

K: Pain is the consequence or the effect of attachment. So when you say it is painful, are you watching the thing, or you have said, 'It will be painful'.

MZ: Sir, isn't there a chain in all this, the attachment is arrived at as a defence against another pain, the pain of consciousness, or dependence, whatever it is, so that there's a series of attachments.

K: Yes, Maria, but - please, can you remain with the fact.

Q: We are attached to so many things (inaudible) which fact to select.

K: No, please. I'm... you see now you are expanding, I'm only...

Q: I don't know which fact to stay with.

K: I am trying to ask, if I may, most etc., etc., ask whether the mind can remain quietly observing the fact, observing 'what is'.

Q: My curiosity must be greater than my defensiveness.

K: What, sir?

Q: My curiosity must be greater than my usual defensiveness.

K: You see, you are telling, you are again talking what you might - your curiosity, your effort - you're not observing it.

Q: That's what I meant by being curious, to see, to look, rather than the automatic.

K: That's it, that's it, look, look.

Q: The looking comes out of curiosity to see.

K: No, there is no curiosity, sir. What is the difficulty in this? I'm at a loss.

Scott Forbes: It was our first question, Krishnaji. We said why can't we, or why don't we look at a fact.

K: Yes, that's all I'm saying.

SF: We're not any closer, or I'm not any closer to seeing why.

K: I think, sir, we are using, we are trying to avoid the issue.

Q: Yes.

K: I think we are trying to, because there is a sense of apprehension about it. What might happen, which again, you follow?, which prevents you from looking at the fact.

SF: Are we saying that fear prevents us from looking at facts then?

K: It may be fear, may be that you're not really concerned about watching, or you like the state in which you are. You follow? Don't disturb me, for god's sake. I am attached, I am wounded, I am this, I am that, don't disturb that because I'm used to it, and I like that, I am wounded or attached, that gives me a certain sense of security. You follow? Don't disturb that security. Is that what is happening? No. Then what is happening, why can't we look, without all this verbiage.

Q: One problem is, it's very difficult to see the attachment here, in this room. In this room the attachment is sleeping.

K: Throw out attachment, sir, you have something or other, why can't your own feeling of anger, jealousy, whatever it is, just watch it.

Q: It's the same problem, whether its jealousy, or attachment or whatever - you're in the room, and you're in a certain state of attention, and the attachments are outside, when you go out.

K: You see, you're not watching (laughs).

Q: I agree.

S: I think one of the problems, Krishnaji, is I don't think we can get at it by going from consequences. It seems that there has to be another kind of watching.

K: There is, but you're not willing to. I think the watching through consequences is absurd, it has no meaning.

Q: That is a deviation in itself, isn't it?

K: Yes. Whereas, I've said all this, sir, now please watch. Can you watch the fact, because I think this is very important, if we can understand this very seriously and integrally, the thing that we call fear may disintegrate through its own flowering. You follow? Look, sir: I am - one is angry. And when we are angry, at the second of anger, there is no identification with it at all. A few seconds later the whole business of identification, I should, should not control, and all that arises. But in watching without any movement of thought, actually, watching, then in that watching let anger - anger flowers, blooms, expands, and withers away. That is what I want to get at. So that instead of suppressing it, which makes it stronger, by watching it, it expands, the chapter comes to an end, the book comes to an end.

Q: But as Shankar said, we can see that as an abstraction quite easily.

K: What?

Q: As Shankar said, we can see that as an abstraction.

K: What?

Q: The problem, the anger, here, now we can see anger as an abstraction - but we are not angry.

K: No, I took that as an example.

Q: Yes, but it's the same for whichever example you take.

K: What?

Q: It's the same for whichever example you take.

K: Yes, yes. What are you trying to say, sir?

Q: If we are angry - right? - the problem is we're caught in the anger and the reactions of the anger and so on, so on. OK? Here we are not angry, here we are not attached.

K: What are you doing here - all right. What are you doing here? Would you kindly tell me, what you're all doing here?

Q: Maybe we could look at the fact that we're not quite meeting, understanding each other.

K: No. I'm asking, why are you here? Absolute silence.

Q: To understand oneself?

K: Comment?

Q: Se comprendre soi-meme? To understand.

K: Oneself.

Q: To know oneself?

K: Is that why you're here?

Q: To learn?

K: What? Comment?

Q: To learn.

K: To learn. But you're not learning. You repeat. Learning implies that you listen. Right? Learning implies that you're sufficiently curious, sufficiently intense, sufficiently eager to find out, learn. But apparently you're not, because you have been telling me what the flower is. Right? We're not learning at all, we're not learning from each other, we're telling each other what each one of us thinks.

Q: So we are attached to what we think.

K: That's all.

Q: And what you think.

K: What I think.

Q: I think we are...

K: Ah, ah, I haven't told you what I think.

Q: Oh yes, you have! (Laughter)

K: I have not. I have not told you what I think.

Q: Oh yes, you have. (Laughter)

K: All right, sir - since you know it, would you kindly tell me what I think? (Laughter)

Q: I know that game. (Laughter)

K: That's a very good question - please think it out, why are you here. You're free, you came here - why? As Mr Maroger said, to learn about oneself. Have you learnt anything about yourself?

Q: Yes.

Q: Yes.

K: Learnt what? At a superficial level? The top layer? You don't have to come here to learn the top layer. You follow? (Laughs) So have you learnt about yourself, learnt all about yourself, not just one layer of yourself - the whole content of yourself. Now, the whole - can you watch - I am coming back to the same thing - can you watch the whole content of yourself? Don't throw it away with a lot of words. Can I know myself totally - all my anxieties, fears, sorrows, pain, my psychological wounds, my attachments, my hopes, my fears, my longings, my loneliness, my - you follow? - the whole of it.

Q: Can you? Can you, for yourself?

K: Do you want to learn about it?

Q: If you can. If you did. It seems so difficult.

K: No, my question, sir - you said you came here to learn about yourself. I say, have you learnt anything? Or have you just scraped the surface and say, yes, I've learnt a little bit. That's not, that's not good enough. So I'm asking in return, can you learn all about yourself, not over the years, over the months and days till you die. Can you learn about yourself completely now, as you're sitting here.

Q: That means we'd have to see the root of ourselves.

K: No, no, no! You see, you're going off to something else!

Q: Sir, perhaps we could go into what happens when you ask that question.

K: Yes, sir, ask yourself. I'm asking you, again, can you learn about yourself, which is very a complex, intricate, subtle thing, completely.

Q: But I can't answer yes or no. Right? I can't, I have no means to proceed.

K: No, I've asked a question, sir. Do you want to learn about yourself completely?

Q: If you say, do you want to learn - of course.

K: Wait, wait, what is your reaction to that question? Can you say, of course?

Q: Is it possible - one asks, is it possible. You've asked a question...

K: Yes, I've asked the question.

Q: ...do we want to learn about ourselves. My response to that is, now is this possible?

K: If I say yes, what will you do?

Q: I still don't know.

K: So you want to learn about yourself, learn - no, learn whether you can have an insight into the whole nature of it. Right?

Q: Yes.

K: Whether you can learn. Right? Is that what you're...

Q: (Inaudible)

K: Yes, sir, I mean I'm asking generally. Is that what you want to do, learn - please listen carefully - learn the whole nature and the structure, which is a movement of yourself. That's why we have come together. Is that it? Right?

Q: Yes.

K: Right, sir? Right. Now who is going to teach you? Please listen carefully. Who is going to teach you? The man sitting here?

Q: No.

K: Why do you say no?

Q: Because I have to learn myself.

K: What do you mean by that? You see, you're not, you're not carefully watching what you're saying. It's extraordinary. You say, you've said, no - you can't learn the entirety of yourself from me, from the speaker. One has to learn from oneself. Is that so? Wait - remain with the question for two seconds. Is that so?

Q: I think the trouble is we are relying on someone else to do the work for us.

K: I beg your pardon?

Q: I think we say we want to learn about ourselves, and understand ourselves. But actually we want somebody else to do the work for us.

K: Yes, you're saying, really, I can't do it by myself, you tell me all about it.

Q: I think that's what happening, yes.

K: Yes, that's it. You want me to do all the work and then you listen to it, and then you take it home with you or not.

Q: And in that way we make it into an idea.

K: Yes, so, are you depending on me?

Q: Yes, I think we are.

K: Why?

Q: Because we feel we can't do it on our own.

K: No - why? Why are you depending on me to tell you, to teach you how to observe the totality of yourself? Is it a habit, depending on another? Is it traditional? Is it what you have been educated into - to accept another to help you to understand the totality of yourself?

Q: Sir, it's a state of immaturity - it's a state of being immature.

K: Immature? Yes, if you like to put it that way. But, sir, I am getting... look, it's very interesting, this, if you go into yourself. Who will teach you? Or the whole question is wrong.

Q: There is no 'who'.

K: What?

Q: How can there be a 'who' to teach me. How can there be a 'who' that will teach me when I want to learn, not from information but from the inside. I'm learning about this person.

S: Krishnaji, I think there's another piece here that you've added, I don't think you're being radical enough about it.

K: What, sir?

S: I said, I don't think you are being radical enough about it, because what you're really saying is, no one really wants to learn.

K: That's all.

Q: But that's quite a radical statement.

K: Nobody wants to - I didn't want to - I was being too polite. Sorry.

Q: I'd like to ask you - please don't jump on me, because...

K: I won't jump on you, Shankar, old boy - I won't jump on you.

Q: I've often heard you say this about understanding, all about myself, instantly. Now I find with myself that whenever I'm approaching anything I'm approaching it in a very separated way, like I talk, I try to find out about relationship, and then I try to find out about attachment or fear. And I would like to ask whether this whole approach is wrong - this whole approach is self-defeating, approaching things one by one, because there are so many things that, you know, one can go on and on in this way. Or whether there is a stage where one prepares oneself to learn how to question, learn - you use the word 'art' of questioning, to learn how to approach things, to learn how to see.

K: What are you trying to say, sir?

Q: I'm trying to say, I'm trying to ask you whether before one can see, come to this point where one is looking at everything together...

K: Yes, looking at something holistically, as a whole. Is that what you are trying to say?

Q: I'm asking whether there is something that happens before that, one prepares oneself for that.

K: Ah, no, there's no preparation. You see, you're going off to something else. Shankar, I'm not jumping on you, forgive me - if anybody thinks I jump on anybody, if I do, please forgive me. Do I want to learn about myself? Do I want to know, actually, not theoretically, is it my deep, committed, irrevocable interest to know myself? Is that it? Is that what you have? Irrevocable, that you are so completely committed.

Now, just a minute, sir. What is there to learn about myself? Nothing. Right? There's absolutely nothing I've to learn about myself, because myself is nothing. I've put lots of things on it, on this nothing I have education, science, philosophy, all the things, you follow? - piled it on, all the things religions have said, which are the most destructive things, what religions have done - they have put all this on me, on this essentially nothing. And we're battling, struggling, on these things, you follow? - about these things, changing from one thing to another.

What have I to learn about myself? That I'm crooked, that I don't think straight, that I'm vain, that I'm arrogant, I am proud, I am this - what does it all mean? Words, don't they (laughs), memories, ideas. Have ideas any content, except what thought gives to that idea? I wonder if you capture all this. No, this is too radical, as you said.

Q: Sir, when you say nothing, I have the feeling of an empty room.

K: Oh, sir, you follow, no, do, you know the meaning of the word 'nothing'? Not a thing.

Q: That is why it is so difficult because we are still attached to all these things.

K: What, sir?

Q: If we were not attached to things there would be no problem, but being attached to all those things...

K: That's right.

Q:... we don't learn.

K: If you understand, sir, the whole of my existence, the whole content of me, is put together by thought. Right? Right sir? And thought is memory. Right? So I am living, I am a whole structure made by memory. And I can't touch it. I can't, there's nothing to say. It is totally unreal, living on memory. This is too radical, so I won't go into it.

DB: Perhaps, it seems to me that I am nothing but the interesting question is how I have made the illusion that I am something. You see, it appears in ordinary life, to each person that he is really something.

K: Yes.

DB: And he creates somehow that illusion.

K: Yes, the illusion created by thought.

DB: Yes.

K: Which is, I am something.

DB: Yes and what?

K: Yes, I am something. When that thing, when that thing is not, I am nothing. And therefore it is still - sir, when I say I'm nothing, it is still thought. It is not an actuality.

DB: Because there is that illusion that...

K: Of course.

DB: ...thought is always creating.

K: So, how do we accept this illusion, why do we accept this illusion, about which we must learn. You follow, sir? (Laughs) Spend years, spend money, books - what? No, this is too radical, sir, I won't go into this, much too...

Q: Not too radical.

Q: Let's go into it...

Q: It's not too radical, we want to go into it.

K: Ah, ah, you don't understand it, then. Do you understand that it means one has to reject psychologically, everything that thought has put together. Right, sir? And that's why it's too radical, you won't, I mean, it doesn't - it sounds nice, it looks, it feels, by Jove, there's something in it, but one has to go into it very, very deeply, you can't just say, well, go into it.

So here we are. We all say 'I'm interested.' Why, I asked, we asked the question, why are you all here. To learn, about oneself. And you say, have you learnt anything about yourself, while you're here? That you are jealous, anxious, fearful, have a position which you must maintain, you have got a, you have been wounded and cling to that wound, and so, kind of - you know, live in that, which becomes totally neurotic and all the rest. Have you learnt anything? Or are we all playing tricks with each other?

Q: Sir, when we say we come to learn about the nature of the self, we are really learning, I mean, learning takes place on that score, it is learning about the nature of illusion.

K: Sir, I am asking a question, sir. Why are you here? I know why I'm here, I'm very clear. Can you be, can you be - just a minute, let me finish, just a minute - can you be as clear as that? I'll tell you why I'm here. I want to tell you a story. I want to tell you something that is tremendously important, all the rest of it. I know, sitting, K knows exactly what he wants to do. Are you clear? Or you've got innumerable motives.

Q: Innumerable contradictory motives.

K: Yes, that's it - innumerable contradictory motives - anyhow, have you? So, how can we communicate with each other, you follow, sir?

Q: Krishnaji, I feel that the basic difficulty is that to learn, the learning process is twisted, so if we continue in this twisted process we won't, I mean, we won't be able to learn.

K: All right, now, wait a bit - can we take up learning, go into it completely, what is implied, and actually find out what it means to learn.

Q: Because I think implied in the learning process we carry out day to day are the tricks we play with ourselves.

K: Yes, sir.

Q: So we'll be playing tricks all the time.

K: Wait, that's why, I'm asking, do you want to learn?

Q: I would say, to learn about the process.

K: No, to learn - no. What does it mean, the act of learning?

S: How can you learn if you are attached?

K: What?

S: Can you learn if you are attached?

K: I can't hear.

S: Can you learn if you are attached?

K: Oh yes, no, sir - forget attachment for the moment, don't bring that in. Do you want to find out, sir, the art of learning, the art - what it is, you know, the whole business of it. Do you want to learn? What am I to say? If you want to learn, if you want to learn the art of learning - right? - what price do you pay for it? Seven pounds a day? (Laughs)

Q: Our reservations.

K: What, sir, look, sir - you go to a cinema, pay ten pounds, five pounds, three pounds, to be entertained, for an hour, two hours. And here you come here, and you pay something for lodging. I'm not talking of that kind of paying. What are you willing to pay, not in coin, not in paper, actually what you say - 'Look, I'll give everything to find out.'

Q: That's a point.

K: Or, you say, 'Sorry, I can't give everything but I'll give you 50% of it, or 25%. Don't ask me 100%. I'll give you 10%'. Is that what we're doing?

Q: I hope no one is coming up against a reservation.

K: I don't know, I'm asking, sir - don't tell me. I'm asking you. There's someone who says to me, 'I'll give everything I have, to learn, to find out.' Nobody has said that to me, here or in India or anywhere else. Perhaps one or two have. But I'm asking you, out of politeness, kindness, etc., respect, what do you pay for something which is unpayable.

Q: Right.

K: So, sir, I'm asking, we come back, how much pay you are giving, how much you are giving to find out for yourself, to stay with the fact. I'm taking, going back to that one thing, because that's very important.

To stay with falsehood, you follow, sir? - with an illusion and don't call it an illusion but to stay with the fact that one is caught in some idea, you follow? - and live in that idea, work for that idea, sacrifice everything you have for that idea. What amount of energy, which is the pain, are you giving to it, to stay with one fact. (Pause)

Because, sir, you see, if you want to go into this question very deeply and it's necessary to go into this very deeply, then meditation is to remain so completely with the fact, with what is happening, it is totally dissolved, every reaction allowed to flower, wither away, so that there is no psychological, inward reaction to any challenge. I wonder if I'm talking...

Q: To become totally aware of one's quality or the condition of one's...

K: Yes, sir, can you, can I or you be aware totally of our conditioning, not bit by bit, bit by bit, but the nationality, the superstition, the beliefs, the educated, sophisticated self, you know, the whole thing. There's so much to go in.

Q: Implied in staying with the fact, is the dissolution of the illusion, but the illusion itself is trying to survive.

K: No, it won't, illusion only tries, illusion survives because you are strengthening it by fighting it, by saying I must be free of illusion. But if you say, yes, what is an illusion? You understand? What do you call an illusion? What's the meaning - the word, what does it mean, sir?

DB: The root of the word is 'ludere', to play, to act, it's to act falsely, to have a false play really.

K: Yes, that's what. Now I'm asking, what do you call illusion?

Q: A nothingness.

K: Oh no, that is illusion. For you it is an illusion. Do you know, if you go to church, if you are all Catholic, Probably, all Christians here, except a few, do you know the whole of that is vast illusion?

Q: Are we here in church now?

K: No, sir, we are saying, those of us who go to church, or have been brought up in this religion, Christian religion, with their symbols, with their saviours, with their Virgin Marys, with their rituals, etc., etc., etc., is that not an illusion? I'm asking, I don't... Would you say anything thought has created, psychologically, is illusion? Right sir? Are we living in that illusion? Now, can you remain with that illusion, let it flower, don't say, 'What is an illusion, what is not an illusion, how can I get rid of it, isn't it good to have a little bit of illusion,' (laughs) You follow? But just to say, yes, I see I am in illusion which is psychologically, thought has created something which - you understand? - all that, is totally unreal, reality being that which is touchable - you understand? - taste and so on. So anything thought has created psychologically is illusion. Can one remain with that fact, and not say, and not let thought move away from that? Of course if you told that to the Archbishop or the Pope, he'd say, 'Don't be silly, I'd lose my job'.

DB: However, it seems at first sight that the self is touchable, it has a sense.

K: What, sir?

DB: It seems to be an illusion that the self is touchable.

K: Yes, sir.

DB: You said reality is touchable, but I think one feels that the self is also touchable.

K: (Laughs) That's right, sir. You see if there is only observation of the fact, of the happening, don't you remove all conflict? Look, I am attached, I've seen how attachment arose - all that business. Now I'm just watching being attached to that person. I've seen the whole consequences of attachment: the pain, the jealousy, the suffering, the so-called, absurd broken heart and all that business. Now I'm just watching. And in watching won't it expand and therefore totally wither away, so there is no conflict? You follow, sir? Because when we are attached we say we must be detached, and the struggle to be detached. So I've learnt something out of that: attachment and detachment are similar. Right? I wonder if you see.

So if I remain with that fact of attachment, see how quickly it withers, sir? I wonder if you see this, if you do it, actually do it.

DB: I wonder if there's a problem, you see, it's clear what you mean by watching something outside but the sense of how, it's not so clear what you mean by watching something inside.

K: You understand? Dr Bohm is asking, there are two different kinds of watching: watching something outside of you, and watching something inside of you. Isn't there a difference? Now how do you watch - please, discuss - how do you watch something inside yourself, inside of yourself?

Q: To remain with it.

K: No, no - you haven't - I'm asking you, how do you watch it, look at it, observe it, hear the noise of it, the music of it, the story of it. You understand the question, sir? Please understand the question first. It is easy to watch outside. Right? Something outside, like the moon, the trees, the birds, the water, the stray dog or your pet dog, and so on, or your wife, or your husband - it's easy to watch. But is it as easy as that to watch what is happening inside? That's a question, you understand, sir - answer it, find out.

Q: It's not done with the senses, then, like we watch something outside.

K: Why do you discard the senses?

Q: Sir, I pose a thought, and then I feel some reaction, this is the only way I can watch, I can't watch, I don't watch a whole movement.

K: Look, sir - you've been wounded, haven't you, as a child, psychologically?

Q: Mm.

K: Don't say mm. You have, haven't you? Can you watch that wound?

Q: At that time or now?

K: No, now, now, don't... (laughs)

Q: So I must recreate the wound.

K: No, it is there.

Q; I don't see it.

Q: Oh, but it's there.

K: That's just it.

Q: Inside you.

K: Listen to the very interesting thing that he said. He said, 'I don't see it.' Which means what? It is there but he doesn't see it. Why? I have a wound, psychologically I've been hurt, suppose. And that wound is there. I may forget it, I may not think about it, I may have thought of it and don't know, what to do with it, so I say, 'Keep quiet, old wound - I can't do anything.' So, but it's there! So he says, 'I can't see it.' Why? The wound is psychological, inside. Why? You're not...

Q: You only know that you have the wound if you think about it or something prompts you to think about it.

K: So only when you think about it you know that you have a wound. Is that it?

Q: Yes.

K: So when you don't think about it, it's not there? No, do... (laughs)

Q: It's still there, even though you haven't thought about it. It's still there, you still carry it.

K: It's still there, even though you haven't thought about it.

Q: Even though it hasn't come awake, put it that way.

K: Yes, that's right. The moment you think about it, it becomes alive. If you don't think about it, it is dormant.

Q: Dormant.

K: So it's there.

Q: It's still there.

K: Now, can you see that wound, psychological wound, not physical wound or physical disability, can you watch that wound as it is now? This is a common factor, isn't it, sir? Everybody in the world is wounded. Some cling to it and worship it and adore it and say how lovely it is. Others say, dormant, the thing is dormant, only occasionally it wakes up, all the rest of it. As it is a common problem, can we all, can each one of us observe that which is common in each one of us? Watch it, I've been, you've been wounded. Is that wound a reality? Reality, let's begin, clear: reality in the sense, anything that thought has put together is reality, whether the reality be an illusion, the wound, the architecture - you follow? - anything that thought has put together is reality.

Q: Yes, it's real.

K: Reality, real, this is real.

Q: It is.

K: Yes. So this wound is a reality. Right? Can the mind watch this reality, and let that wound flower, not control it, suppress it, run away from it, just watching it. I see you can't do it.

Q: I don't think - I haven't understood. If we are only aware of the wound when we think about it, are you saying it's possible to be aware of it without thinking about it?

K: So, think about it, think about it, and it's there then. Right? Now can you watch that thing. And let it come out, you follow? Let the wound tell you all its story, from the first word to the last chapter.

DB: Do we watch that also with the senses? Can we watch that also with the senses - you said before the senses may take a part.

K: Of course.

DB: Could you explain that.

K: Oh, (laughs) You explain it, sir.

DB: I mean, do you feel the sense of the wound, when you recall it.

Q: You mean the physical sense?

DB: Yes.

K: Sir, that brings a very interesting question - I don't know, this may not be the right occasion. The psychological state, is it the result of senses at all?

DB: What do you mean - it's not clear.

K: You understand my question, sir? That is, have the senses put the thing there, or it lives apart from the senses.

DB: Perhaps it lives in memory.

K: I don't want to go into it for the moment, it's too...

Q: It is a part of the senses - the psychological state we live in is a part of the senses.

K: I'm sorry - don't - forget what I said - let's go back to this. Sir, I want to find out how to look at my wound, not the physical wound, that's fairly easy, I can observe it, it pains, it hurts, you can do something about it. But the psychological wound, the more I do something about it, the more I try to avoid it, etc., the wound survives, begins.

Now can I watch that wound, which is not an illusion, because thought has created that wound. So therefore it is a reality, a reality as real as the things that exist in a church. Right, sir? Both are real. So can I watch the reality of the wound?

Q: Sir, I can bring that feeling up inside me, I've done that, I've remembered a specific occasion, I've brought it up in me, the feeling how I felt. But you talk about going a stage further, where you've read it from the beginning.

K: Watch it, take time! You follow, sir? You're wounded, aren't you? All of us, like all children, small, from childhood, as you grow you get wounded, you can't... this human relationship, the world and everything is intent on this wounding each other. Or praising each other - you follow? - the same thing. Now can you watch that. If you watch, doesn't it grow, flower? Doesn't it tell you all it's... how it came into being, how it...

Q: It doesn't have the same power, it doesn't hurt so much, just by being with it.

K: Who is very badly hurt here? (Laughs) All right, I'll take it. I'm very badly hurt, I'm not, but I'll take that - I am very badly hurt, psychologically, I have done all kinds of things to avoid it, suppress it, control it, resist other people hurting me more, built a wall round myself, isolated myself, and hoping thereby nobody will hurt me. But in that isolation there is always fear. Right? This is all the flowering, because I'm watching it. I wonder - you follow? It's all the story which is being told by watching the wound, how it arose. It arose because I had a good picture of myself, and that picture has been hurt, the image, the idea of myself has been hurt. And the hurt is, you've told me that I was naughty, that I was ugly, that you must be better than your brother, that you must be a saint, you must be a businessman. You follow? By watching the wound, the wound is telling me the whole thing. Right? Is it, with you?

And so I am giving it freedom to open itself up, you follow, sir? Because of that freedom, it opens and withers away. So there is no wound. I wonder if you see it.

Q: So the wound is there because one has inhibited it from flowering.

K: What?

Q: The wound is still there because one has inhibited the natural flowering of that wound.

K: The wound is there, but you have never looked at it.

Q: That's right.

K: That's what I'm saying - you've never looked at it, and said, 'Look, old boy, I'm hurt, let me look at this hurt.'

S: I think you under-estimate the fact that approaching the wound hurts itself.

K: Of course, sir.

S: There is tremendous pain on approaching the wound.

K: That's why I talked previously, I said how do you approach a problem, do you come to it freely or with a prejudice, etc., with a conclusion, this must be, this must not be, I must control - or do you come to it - you follow? - freely. Then the problem, it's like a wave that breaks down, and withers away.

S: Yes, but Krishnaji, the fact is, and I am not clear you want to stay with the fact, the fact is that when you approach it there is tremendous pain.

K: Is it?

Q: Yes.

K: I question it. You know, sir, discuss...

Q: I think it's more than pain.

K: Wait, he's saying - it's more than pain. I agree. He's asked a question which is, he says, the very approach awakens fear. That's what Dr Shainberg says. I say, is that so? Or I have an idea that it might cause pain and therefore I'm afraid. You follow, sir? Therefore I'm not approaching it at all.

Q: Krishnaji, but isn't that what pain is about, the idea that I will have pain?

K: Yes, that's an idea.

Q: (Inaudible)

K: Therefore I'm not approaching it. Sir, look, I want to know, or anybody, any religious man wants to know, if there is god. Right? In India that's the eternal song, and also in this country if you are religious, Christian, all this business, don't you want to find out if there is god? Or do you say yes, I believe in god. I mean, that means nothing! To find out you must come to the problem freely, without any conclusion, your belief, your prejudice, your conditioning. Right sir?

So your conditioning is the god (laughs). You follow? No, you don't get all this.

S: But you move away again, I think you move away. Let's stay with this issue of the fear on approaching that wound.

K: Yes, sir.

S: Let's stay away from god.

K: I will... I brought in poor god because that is fairly demonstrable. All right. I am psychologically wounded, if I am. And what is my approach to that wound. What's your approach to the wound that you have, if you have any? Come on, sir, tell me what's your approach?

Q: There is no approach, that's just it. We just run away from it.

K: I'm asking. Running away is your approach.

Q: It's not an approach.

K: It's not an approach, I agree, but the fact is you run away from it.

Q: Yes.

K: So I'm asking, what is your approach? Your approach is that you are running away from it.

Q: The fact is that I am running away.

K: That's all. How is your approach? Won't somebody tell me.

Q: We think about it.

K: What, sir?

Q: We think about it.

K: You think about it. That's your approach. How do you think about it?

Tunki: There's a whole picture of it.

K: Tunki, how do you approach your wound? You see how we avoid every question. For god's sake!

Q: Well, I know this isn't a process but after a while it stops and is a stumbling block and it won't go further.

K: So your approach is that you have a block. That is - keep it there. Your approach is you can't approach it, because you have a wall.

Q: That's right.

K: All right. And others?

Q: It seems to have formed already certain conclusions about this problem.

K: So your approach is that you come to certain conclusions about this problem.

Q: And then no longer am I able to see it.

K: So, I'm asking, your approach is with conclusions, another is, with ideas, the other is, to run away from it. So our approaches are preventing you from looking at it. Right? Now if you want to look at it, want to observe the fact that you're wounded, then you have to be free of your conclusions, you can't run away from it, you can't approach it with an idea. Can you approach it freely? If you are reading a detective thriller, if you knew the whole plot before, you'd throw the book away, but if you don't know it, and it's rather exciting, you go through the whole book.

Here in the same way, you're hurt, and you really want to watch it, see what happens - for god's sake, find out what happens! To find out you must come to it with the same curiosity, with the same eagerness, if you read a good book, a novel, then you watch it and see what happens. You don't even do that! Because then you may totally eliminate altogether conflict. That means, a very sane mind.

T: So is it that we are not afraid of the wound itself but what happens if the wound disappears.

K: Partly. Because the wound has given me some sense of identification. You follow? I am somebody with a wound, without a wound, I'm nobody. (Laughs)

Q: Can it be said that the wound is caused by - we would like to have a pleasant image...

K: About yourself.

Q: From other people.

K: And yourself.

Q: Yes.

K: Mostly about yourself.

Q: Right.

K: So that pleasant image you have about yourself gets a pin prick. Somebody puts a pin into it.

Q: That's right.

K: Then you get hurt.

Q: Yes, but I think there is a basic craving and wanting to be accepted by others.

K: What?

Q: There is a basic craving in us.

K: Basic craziness?

Q: Craving.

K: Which is - rather good, quite. (Laughter)

Q: No, a basic craving that we have to be accepted by others.

K: Yes, sir, yes, sir.

Q: That's why we conform with this image.

K: Yes, sir, we've got basic craziness, sir.

Q: Not craziness. (Scream)

K: (Laughs) Yes. (Laughter) We are basically crazy, quite right, sir. I think we'd better stop, don't you?

Q: Being crazy?

K: You see, sir, it shows that we cannot remain with something and let it tell the whole story.

T: Well, isn't that's how my story tells, I mean my mind tells that story. My main problem is that I conform to the acceptance of the surrounding, but...

K: Wait, Tunki, we've been through all that.

Q: Yes, but how am I going to drop this?

K: I said, just watch it. That you are - just say, take one fact, for god's sake, Tunki, which is, that you are influenced by your parents, by the school, by teachers, by propaganda, everything, you are being influenced all around. Can you watch - just listen to it, Tunki - can you watch this influence being a pressure on you? Just watch it.

I'm afraid we must stop. We'll do it tomorrow.