Public Talk Rome, Italy - 28 October 1973

I think one must realise that this is not an entertainment, something that you have to feel obliged to listen. Most of us go to a meeting of this kind hoping to receive some ideas, some form of excitement, some form of intellectual appreciation. But I am afraid this meeting is in no way a form in which you merely listen to a series of ideas, agreeing or disagreeing, but rather we are together going to share and therefore understand the many problems, and how to deal with them.

Our common ground, whether one lives in India, in Europe, or in the extreme Orient, the common ground is not so much the culture, the outward environment, the economic condition, or a particular religion that one belongs to, but rather wherever human beings are there has always been wars, there has always been sorrow, pain, suffering, and a great deal of fear. And also there is death. And this is our common ground, neither the Christian, or the Hindu, or the Muslim or the Jew is outside of this area. So our common ground, yours - and that is what we are going to understand and see if we can resolve it. We need a different kind of energy, a new catalyst, a new way of understanding and going beyond our problems. And this morning that's what we are going to do. We are together going to investigate, examine whether the human mind, your mind, can go beyond this constant aggression, wars, division, conflict, pain, and the fear not only of the present but of the future, fear of death, and also whether it is possible for a mind that really seriously, not starting with any belief, any conviction, can discover for itself the absolute truth, the reality, or whatever name you like to give to it.

So this morning we are going to, together, please bear in mind that we are going to do it together, that you are not merely listening to a talk, to a series of words, but together share this problem of our existence and whether the mind can ever resolve all these problems that have existed for so many centuries. Because however much one may change the environment, the economic condition, different forms of government, different concepts of what truth is, if there is God or no God, it becomes very important, seeing what the world is at the present time, whether a serious mind can go beyond all this.

As we said, you may have a different form of government, different social structure from the outside, and invariably the inner conquers the outer, so without radical revolution in the psyche, in the very structure and nature of our thinking, mere outward change will not transform man. Knowledge, and we have plenty of knowledge; science, mathematics, biology, physics and so on, there is a great deal of knowledge, one can add more to it, take away from it, but knowledge apparently has not transformed man. He remains what he is, suffering, competitive, ambitious, contradictory in his actions, frightened, and the pursuit of pleasure. This has been going on for thousands of years. And until man inwardly, radically changes, brings about a total revolution in himself, mere outward change will not bring about an end to our sorrow, to our pain, to our anxiety and so on. So that is our problem. Which is, whether man will change psychologically, bring about a total revolution in himself, given the right environment, right social structure, economic and so on. Or will man, that is you, living in a particular culture, in a particular country, whether such a man can bring about a psychological revolution in himself.

And we have divided life as the outer and the inner. Please, do follow this a little bit. We consider that changing the outward environment somehow is going to transform man. There's a whole section of society that believes in this; change the outer then that will somehow transform the inner. And there are all those who pursue that the inner is far more important than the outer, and if you bring about that inward change you will transform the outer. This has been the whole history in different words, in different facets and culture, this has been the division. Wherever there is a division - national, economic, religious - there must always be conflict. And this division between the outer and the inner seems to me so utterly unreal, they both go together. And that's one of the things that we have to examine together.

First, wherever there is a division both inwardly and outwardly there must be struggle, conflict of every kind. As is observed, as one can see the division between the Jew and the Arab, between the Hindu and the Muslim, between various forms of ideologies, wherever there is a division inwardly and outwardly there must be not only conflict, struggle, but war, fear, ambition, competition and so on. This is an absolute fact. Both psychologically and outwardly, where there is a separation there must be the ground upon which man fights. And can this separation as the outer and inner be resolved ever? The outer is the culture in which we live; religious, economic, social, moral and all the rest of it; and the inner we think is separate from the outer. What we are the culture is. We are the result of the culture in which we live. You, living in Italy, are Catholic, Protestant or what you will, economically conditioned, socially a certain structure is built, of that you are. And in transforming oneself totally, psychological revolution, you are changing the whole structure of human thinking. So it's very important that we understand the quality and the nature of this inward revolution which will also affect the outer, that the two are not different.

I hope we are sharing this together; that you are neither agreeing, nor accepting. We are examining, investigating together like two people who are tremendously concerned, who are very serious, who are concerned seeing what the world is, what one is, that the world is you and you are the world, seeing that, whether it is possible for each one of us to transform ourselves totally.

First of all one must examine how this division, both inwardly and outwardly has arisen. Why man always lives in conflict, in self-contradictory activity. I hope we are understanding each other, are we? Look sirs: man, that is you and I, we have lived for thousands of years, we are conditioned, and that conditioning has separated man from man. When I say I am a Hindu I have separated myself from non-Hindus, and where there is separation there must be conflict, war, struggle, pain. And this is one of our conditionings, when we call ourselves Christians or Hindus, Communists, or whatever you will, that is our conditioning, and as long as that conditioning exists there must be wars, pain, struggle. And can the mind free itself from this conditioning and not fall into another form of conditioning? That is, can the mind, your mind, which has been so conditioned for two thousand years to believe in certain forms of religious, moral, economic conditioning, whether that mind can free itself from it. That's one of the basic questions.

In examining that, how is the mind, your mind, going to free itself from a conditioning that separates man from man and can the mind ever be unconditioned? That is, can the mind observe its conditioning? And can it observe its conditioning without the observer? You understand? I am conditioned, my mind is conditioned as a Hindu, Catholic, Communist or whatever it is, a believer and non-believer. And the mind sees intellectually, or verbally, what the results of that conditioning are. It can observe them very clearly outwardly, historically. And seeing the result and the cause, can the mind free itself from those conditioning factors that separate man from man, so that he lives totally in peace with each other, so that there is no battle between you and me, so that we can live in a world where there is no starvation, no wars, no killing each other? And that is only possible when a new type of energy comes into being.

Now, the release of that new energy is what the speaker is interested in. Because we have lived in such a miserable, confusing, contradictory world, a mad world, a world that is totally insane, corrupt, polluted, where man is using the riches of the earth, spoiling everything. Now, to transform that, transform the way he has been living is the primary and the only thing of importance. Therefore can the mind observe its own conditioning, its beliefs from which certain experiences arise and therefore convince him of those beliefs as being real, and therefore continue in the same pattern? So it becomes very important to find out whether the mind, which is conditioned, can that mind transform itself? Which means can the mind see the activities of itself? So in that the problem is, the observer and the observed. Are we following each other in this? Yes?

Have you noticed when you have looked at yourself there is the observer, the thinker, the experiencer, different from the experience, from the thing seen, and the observed? There is a difference between the observer and the observed. In that division there is always conflict. The observer is the past, which is the 'me', the prejudices, the experiences, the knowledge, the whole structure of time, which is the past. That past looks at 'what is', which is the observed. Now, is the observer different from the thing observed? We have accepted that this division is a natural thing - you understand?

To put it very simply: envy is the common lot of most people. Becoming aware of envy, then the entity that says, 'I must not be envious', the two are different. Right? But are they different? Are they only the observer is the observed? If this is realised really deeply then there is a release of a totally different kind of energy. Am I making myself clear? Look, sir, or ladies, whatever it is: observing what the world is, with all the mess, the cruelty, the brutality, the wars, the hatreds, the separation, a serious mind is concerned with that: poverty, starvation, the utter degradation of man who is gradually disintegrating, he is only concerned with money, power, position, polluting the earth, the air, everything he touches he is destroying. And seeing that, one asks oneself: is it possible for a human mind to change itself radically? And to bring about that change you must have a different kind of energy. Not the energy brought about through friction, not the energy that comes through the pursuit of an ideology and the conformity of that ideology in action, but an energy that is complete, whole, non-contradictory and therefore non-personal.

And in investigating that, and I hope we are doing it together now, one must enquire into this question of who is the observer? Who is the entity that says, 'this must be and that must not be'? Who is the entity that places himself above, calling himself the soul or whatever name you like to give to it, the higher consciousness, the higher entity. Who is that, who is always trying to control, shape, change? Now, in looking into that one asks what is the nature of thought? Thought in itself is fragmentary. Right? Thought is never new, thought can never be free. It can imagine that it is free, it can create certain ideas about freedom, concepts, ideologies, but thought is always old, because thought is the response of memory, memory being experience, knowledge. So thought is always the outer, it can imagine the inner but it is still the outer. So thought being fragmentary, broken up, assumes one part as the superior, and tries to control the rest of the other parts. You can observe this in yourself very simply. That part which is fragmentary which assumes the authority of experience, knowledge, or the higher-self, is still part of thought. So thought in itself is fragmentary. So the observer is one of the fragments of the many fragments which thought has brought about. Are you following all this? Are we meeting each other? I hope so, at least, it is up to you.

And when man says, 'I believe, I know and I know because I have experienced', he experiences what he has already known. And therefore thought is always fragmentary. It is never whole and therefore it must create this division not only outwardly, as nations, religions, ideologies, but also inwardly it must create the division between the observer and the observed, and therefore continue a life of constant struggle. And that's a tremendous waste of energy. And the new factor comes into being, when one sees, when the mind realises totally that the observer is the observed, when that realisation takes place there is a release of energy which is new, which will go beyond 'what is'. You understand, sir? Look: human beings are jealous, envious, and if one likes to live in envy and jealousy that's all right, if that is your pleasure live with it. But if you want to go beyond it, which every intelligent human being does, then look at it very closely and you will see that there is jealousy and the entity who says I am jealous. So there is a division between the observer and the observed. And in that there is conflict; he tries to overcome jealousy, control jealousy, rationalise jealousy, see the importance of jealousy or say, 'jealousy is love' and so on and on and on. Whereas when the observer is the observed, jealousy is the observer, without the observer there is no jealousy. Are you following all this?

Then the mind goes beyond this factor of jealousy and so on. That's the first thing, it seems to me, to realise: that inwardly and therefore outwardly, or outwardly and inwardly, any form of division, intellectual as different from morality, and morality being different from religion and so on and on and on, as long as there is a division of any kind there cannot possibly be a total action, a complete action. It'll be fragmentary and contradictory action. And to go beyond that one must see or realise, or see the fact, the truth that the observer is the observed. Then from that you can begin to enquire whether the mind can ever be free from its conditioning so that it is really free, so that it is capable of seeing something totally new, because most of us are second-hand human beings. You understand? This is not an insult but just stating a fact. We are second-hand or third-hand human beings. And to bring about a different kind of human being demands a great deal of enquiry, a great seriousness, an earnestness because such men are needed in a world that is so chaotic.

From that realisation that there is no division between the experiencer and the experience, between the observer and the observed, then when the mind has gone beyond that then you can begin to enquire further, what is reality. Is there such a thing as absolute reality? Is there such thing as God? You know I personally don't like to use that word 'God' because everybody uses it; the criminal, the priest, the corrupt politician, everybody uses that word and it is heavily loaded, it has become an ugly word. But to find out, which has been the endeavour of man from ancient of times, to find out, to come upon that thing which is not measurable by thought. Because if one has not come upon it life has no meaning. Life becomes an empty shell though you may have lovely things around it, you may have perfect society, food, clothes, shelter, where the State looks after you completely, but if the mind has not come upon that then life has very little meaning. For our life now is a pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of fear. In the pursuit of pleasure we have created a morality that has become disorderly, which is no longer virtue at all because the mind is always pursuing a pleasure. I do not know if you have not noticed it. And where there is pleasure there must be fear also, and that is our life, our daily life of pursuing pleasure in different forms - politically, religiously, in every way, and also living in the shadow of fear - fear of death, fear of losing a job, fear of a thousand things.

And can the mind be free of fear completely? Because if the mind is not free from fear then your enquiry into reality becomes an illusion, it has no meaning, then the search for reality, or the enquiry into reality, is an escape from 'what is'. So can the mind be free of fear? Which means can the mind go to the very root of fear, not merely understand the various branches of that fear but to the very root of that fear and go beyond it? So what is fear? I do not know if you have ever asked such a question. Or if you have ever gone into it very, very deeply. Not only the immediate fears but also the ultimate fear of death. Is not fear the product of thought? Just look at it. Don't accept what the speaker is saying, just look at it, look at it without any prejudice, without any conclusion but just observe it. Fear of what might happen, fear of losing, not gaining, fear of loneliness, fear of not being loved, fear of darkness, fear of small things and of great things, is that not the product of thought which projects what might happen? And to understand fear one must go very, very deeply into the nature and the structure of thought.

And thought is, as we said, the expression, or the response of memory, which is the past. Thought pursues both pleasure and sustains fear. There has been a pleasurable moment yesterday and thought demands that it shall continue today. And there has been pain yesterday, and thinking about that pain and not wanting that pain again repeated today is the fear. So thought is responsible for both fear and pleasure. And therefore can thought function where it should, which is in the field of knowledge, but be aware of the movement of thought as pleasure and fear? You are following all this?

And from that arises: is love pleasure? Is love desire? Is love the product of thought? Or love has nothing whatsoever to do with jealousy, hatred, antagonism, it is not touched by thought at all? And therefore it has no division in itself and therefore it is compassion, passion for all. And in enquiring into that thing which we said can never be put into words, the reality, that absolute reality, can thought ever discover that? You are following all this? And we have expended thought in trying to discover it. Our religions are based on thought, the images that we have are created by the hand or by the mind and therefore still thought. And thought has its place in the field of knowledge, to act efficiently, objectively, non-personally. But when thought begins to enquire into reality it can only enquire according to its past conditioning, and therefore thought can never find out for itself - thought can never find what is truth, therefore thought has to be completely still, and that is the whole question of meditation.

All right? Are we meeting each other, please? Don't let me talk vainly to people who are not really interested. If you are not interested, don't bother. If you are really interested and you must be because you are a human being, you have got to face this world, you have got to change things in this world, which means you have to change yourself radically, there must be a revolution in yourself, not in throwing bombs and bringing about a new structure, a social structure, it must begin within yourself first. You must be totally honest, then you can talk about honesty. But if you are frightened, if you are caught in a belief, if you are still sticking to your petty nationalities, petty egotism, then you cannot possibly bring about a radical revolution in yourself and therefore in the world. Therefore it is very important that one be very serious, totally committed to this transformation of the human mind. And that transformation can only take place when we understand the movement, the activity, the hopes, the fears, the despairs, the loneliness, the utter lack of compassion, brutality, in ourselves. And to understand it, to observe it there must be no observer. Only observing, seeing with eyes that have never been touched by the past.

So in enquiring there must be freedom from fear. That means freedom from the fear of not only small things, the daily fears of domination, fears of losing, fear of not being a successful, stupid human being in this world, because most people worship success. That's part of our conditioning. And in understanding fear one must understand what is death. You know, it's one of the common factors in human life whether you live in China, India, here or America, Russia, where you will, it is there waiting for all of us. We die through old age, through disease, through accidents, and we have never been able to solve it. We have taken comfort in a belief, in some kind of concept, but we have never come face to face with it and understand it deeply and see what it means to die.

If you will, let's go into it a little bit because you see love and death go together. It sounds rather strange to say it, but they are always together, because if one doesn't know, if the mind doesn't know what it is to die how can it know what it means to live, to love? Because death is an important factor in life. The whole Asiatic world believes in re-incarnation, being born next life. What is it that is being born next life? The 'me', the ego, the self. What is the self? Do examine it, look at it, because it's coming close to yourself. What is the self, the 'me' that the mind is so attached to? The 'me' is a word with all its associations belonging to that word, the 'me', the self, is all the things with which thought has identified itself; the furniture, the name, the property, the wife, the husband, the son, all that. The 'me' is what it hopes to be. And the 'me' is not permanent, there is nothing permanent, though we want permanency in life. And that me is frightened to die, to come to an end because that's the only thing we have. Do you realise that? The books I have read, the things I have done, my anxieties, my fears, my agonies, despairs, my ambitions, the frustrations and so on, all that is me. And that 'me' is afraid to die. And when you look at that very closely you will see that 'me' has no reality - reality means substance - it's just words, things that are dead. And to die to all that, to die to my identities, to my ambitions, to my beliefs, ideologies, to end all that, not through will, not through determination, but seeing the unreality of it. Seeing the truth in the false dissipates the false, ends the false. So the mind realises that the organism must come to an end, it will come to an end through disease or various forms of accidents, it will come to an end because the organism has lived on taste and not on what is beneficial intelligently. So one understands the nature of death: to die today to everything that it has known. That means total freedom from the things the mind has clung to, the attachments, the ideologies and so on, not to knowledge as action, but to the things it has known emotionally, psychologically.

Now, when once that has been clear then you can proceed to find out if there is such a thing, or if there is not, a reality that is not put together by thought. A reality that is not of time, a reality that has nothing whatsoever to do with any ideology, any belief, any concept. And that means can the mind, one part of it functioning in the field of knowledge, which we have to do, how to ride a bicycle, how to drive a car, how to speak a language, what to do in a factory and so on, which is all based on knowledge, can that mind be free to be utterly silent? For it is only in complete silence that a new thing can take place. And that's the whole business of meditation. Which is absolute stillness of the mind. Can that stillness be brought about through any particular system, through any particular process, control? Obviously not. Because if you understand what is implied in control, there is the controller and the controlled. The controller is the controlled, therefore can the mind be free of that conditioning which it has been brought up to control? Because it sees for itself that the controller is the controlled, therefore a freedom of action without any form of imitation, control, suppression. And this requires tremendous alertness, an awareness, a great attention. Then you will see that there is a movement in silence which is not of time.

Now what is time? There is time according to the watch, yesterday, today and tomorrow. Time is movement, obviously. Please do listen to this, it's quite interesting if you go into it. Because man is caught in time, he's bound to time, he lives in time; birth, adolescence, old age, death. He wants to become something, that's time. He says, 'I will change from this to that', that involves time. 'I will become better', that involves time. The cultivation of virtue requires time, but virtue is not a cultivable thing, anymore than you can cultivate love. So you have to understand this question of time. There is time, chronological time, we cannot possibly escape from that. We have to have that time to go from here to there and so on and so on. Time, we said, is movement. I think everybody would agree to that, see that. Now, can that movement as time come to an end so that the mind is free to see that which is without time? Because you see, knowledge is time, thought is time. Any movement from here to there, in any direction, any movement in any direction, horizontal or vertical involves time. Now, to come upon that which is timeless, which is not put together by thought, as most religions are - not most, all religions are - can that movement come to an end? And it can only come to an end in absolute silence. And that is meditation. And everything else is nonsense when they talk about all that thing that they are indulging in now, that the gurus are bringing into this country and in Europe, and all the rest of it, that's all nonsense. The fact is, to go into this problem very, very deeply, one must, the mind must be free of all second-hand activity. My mind must stand completely alone. 'Alone' doesn't mean isolation, withdrawing: on the contrary, when the mind is alone it is clear and because it is clear its actions are clear, and therefore its relationship with another is totally different. It's not based on images.

Then such a mind, which has understood this whole business of division with all its conflicts, the pursuit of pleasure and fear, whether the mind can ever be free of fear. Obviously it can if you give your complete attention to it. And where there is no fear there is love and virtue. And also the understanding of death. All that is necessary for a mind that is seriously enquiring into reality. Therefore such a mind becomes very quiet, still, without any form of control. Therefore it comes upon something which is timeless and nameless.

Perhaps, (one has talked for an about an hour now,) we can ask questions, take a dialogue. A dialogue between two friends, between two people who are really seriously interested - not interested, sorry, that's the wrong word - seriously committed to this question of total transformation of the mind. And seeing what the world is now, the corruption, the poverty, the social injustice, the immorality that is called morality in this world, seeing all that, one becomes very serious, not intellectually, not verbally but deep down in your heart you become very serious. And if you are so inclined perhaps we can ask questions about all this.

Q: (Inaudible).

K: Are you saying, sir, that when you watch yourself you are imposing one thought by another thought?

Q: (Inaudible)

K: I understand sir. The questioner says - please correct me, sir, if I am repeating it wrongly - the questioner says the very word observation, seeing, implies duality. That is one thought imposing on other thoughts, the very initiation of observation is to bring about this duality. (Please, madam, we are talking seriously, please stop taking photographs for the love of heaven). The very beginning of observation brings about this duality. That's what the questioner says.

Now, let's go into it a little bit in detail. Observation means not only with your eyes but also you observe with your mind. You observe visually and with knowledge, psychologically. So there is, in observing, a division takes place. Right? That's what the questioner says. Now when you look at something, what takes place? Do please give a little thought to this, your attention to it. What takes place when you look at me, and I look at you? Or when you look at your friend, your intimate friend, your wife or husband, whatever it is, what takes place when you look? Are you looking at him, or at her directly, or are you looking at each other through the image that you have about each other? You understand? I am answering your question, sir. Can you look at another without the image you have built about the other? If you have the image you have built about the other then obviously there is a division. Right? If I can look at you without the image then I look at you directly; but if I look at you with my images which I have built about you it's like looking through a coloured glass, then I don't see you completely, I only see you partially. And this partiality in observation is the dual process. To look at myself, to see myself as I am, I don't know what I am, I know what other people have said I am; the philosophers, the psychologists, the psychiatrists, and there are dozens and dozens of people say you are that, the priests, my mother and father, the whole society tells me what I am. And I am educated according to what they tell me I am. Now I want to find out what I am, I want to see exactly what I am. Therefore I discard totally what others have said. Right? Can I discard it? Because the moment I discard totally what others have said, what have I to look at? I wonder if you get this. You understand? If I discard completely, not verbally but actually what the religions have said I am - God, no God, you know, that truth is born in me, that some saviour exists in me. When I discard that, when I discard completely what my parents, society, culture, tradition has said I am, what the psychologists, the philosophers, all the rest of the gang tells me what I am, then what am I? You are following? What am I?

Then I find out I am nothing if I remove everything which others have said I am. And I am frightened to be nothing, because that's one of my conditioning that you must be something. So when I look at myself I see what other people have said I am. But I realise also that I get angry, jealous, envious, unhappy, depressed, anxious, fearful. That is not what other people have said about me, that's an actual fact, that I am frightened of losing a job, I am frightened of death, I get hurt. Now can the mind look at the hurt, look, observe that hurt? Why is it hurt? Why am I hurt by something you say about me? Because I have an image about myself, obviously. If you tell me I am a fool, I think I am a great man, and when you say that it hurts me. So the image I have built about myself for various reasons, economic, social, cultural, religious, that image gets hurt. And so in observing myself, seeing how it gets hurt, then the next question is: can the mind be free from all hurt? Not build a wall round itself, that is stupid, that has no meaning at all. But to ask the question: can the mind be free from all hurt, never to be hurt, that is innocence. The very word means not to be hurt. Can the mind be innocent? Which means not receiving any hurt, which means no image of itself of any kind.

So in observing myself I see, the mind sees the whole movement of this. In that observation there is no duality. You understand, sir? What it sees - there is only the seeing and not the see-er. The see-er is the past, the Catholic, the Protestant, the Hindu, all that. Just to see and therefore the seeing is the acting, instant acting, that is intelligence. But the man who sees and takes a long time to act, he is neurotic, he is not in balance. But the man who sees danger, acts, he's a sane man. But such action cannot take place if you are acting with a conclusion from what you see. That is the seeing and an abstraction of that seeing into an idea, and carrying that idea out into action, that is insanity. That's what most of us are doing. I see something very clearly, then draw a conclusion, an idea about that, and act according to that, according to the idea, which is an abstraction of the fact. But the seeing of 'what is', is the action. That is intelligence, sanity.

So to watch oneself, to see oneself, means to see what actually is without the image, without the observer who is the past. This requires, you know, sir, this requires attention. This requires a great deal of care, affection, love to look. Right, sir?

Q: (Inaudible)

K: I understand, sir.

Q: (Inaudible)

K: I understand, sir, Are you saying sir, if I may ask, to put it briefly, you are saying that the speaker last year said something contrary to the analytical process. And you are saying, are you sir, that all of us live in the field of analysis, both emotionally, intellectually and so on. And analysis has a certain value - is that it, sir?

Q: (Inaudible).

K: What the speaker is talking about is the end of analysis, not the beginning of it. Right. Now, I'll go into it a little bit. You aren't tired? I am surprised!

First of all, to me, to the speaker, the whole problem of analysis is somehow not complete. Analysis implies time. Time in the sense to analyse myself completely, both the conscious as well as the unconscious, means to look at the many, many contents of consciousness. Right? To open up layer after layer of this field which is called consciousness, which is in me. Therefore that requires time. While I am analysing there is a living going on. In that living I am doing things and acting differently, contradictory to my analysis and therefore they never meet. That's one problem. Then that is time, investigating into myself implies the investigator, who himself has to be analysed, and therefore what is he analysing when he himself has to be analysed? What he is analysing is it different from the analyser? You follow? And life is action, life has to be lived everyday in action, action being relationship. Now, when I am analysing, what takes place? I am violent - I am not, but suppose I am violent. In analysing why am I violent, what are the causes of violence, hereditary, cultural or is it natural and so on and so on, there is a gap between analysing and acting. In acting I am still violent. (There seems to be a gap in the tape at this point)

Experience, knowledge and all that. And he assumes he has the authority to analyse, when he himself needs total analysis. And all that takes time. To put it briefly: all that will take months, years and so on. And I say to myself, in the meantime I am violent. In the meantime I am brutal, ugly. And I go on sowing the seed of violence all the time. So I say to myself is there a way of looking, observing, without analysis so that the very observation is the ending and the acting? You are following? Are we meeting each other a little bit in this?

Can the mind observe violence so completely, without analysing, which takes time, can the mind observe violence wholly and end it instantly, not take time? Because if it takes time it will sow the seeds of violence. So my enquiry then is: can the mind observe violence without any movement of analysis? That means, can it observe without the element of time? You are following? Now what is violence? Violence is a word and by using the word I strengthen the feeling, and give it a continuity. So can the mind observe that feeling without the word? And is there a feeling without the word? And if there is a feeling without the word, is it violence? Or is it a reaction to something that you have said to me that produces this feeling, and can I look at that feeling completely as it arises, and end it? You are following all this? That means can the mind observe this whole structure of violence instantly? And the very observation is the ending of it. It doesn't interest me to take months to get over my violence. It's silly. So the mind is intent on finding out. It is intent because it has seen what violence does in the world. And what violence has done in oneself. It sees actually the result of all this.

And can the mind observe the total movement of violence, completely, wholly, not partially? And it can observe only when you give complete attention. That is when you give attention with your heart, with your mind, with your nerves, completely. Because in attention there is no analysis, there is no analyser, therefore there is total seeing of it. And when you see completely there is the ending of it and a different action from that seeing.

Q: Can I ask you another question?

K: Yes, sir.

Q: (Inaudible).

K: May I repeat sir, otherwise I can't. The questioner says your philosophy about fear is nonsense.

Q: Yes, because...

K: Wait, sir, I am explaining. Without fear there would be more criminals, without fear society, friendship all that, would go. So fear is necessary. Now, sir, philosophy, as far as I understand, means the love of truth in daily life. Philosophy is not an idea, or the cultivation of ideas. It's the love of truth in daily life. Now, you say fear is necessary. I am not questioning your statement. All that I am saying is, what fear does in one's life, actually, not theoretically, not abstractly but what takes place when one is afraid. One lives in darkness. The criminal without fear may be more criminal, and it may be that the criminal is the result of the society in which he lives. And therefore to change society in order to prevent the criminal you must change yourself, obviously.

Q: I did not say that you should change society. I said fear is necessary not only for criminals but also for ordinary people, because without fear obviously I would fall down from this gallery.

K: Sir, sir, I think we have misunderstood something, sir. I think we have misunderstood each other. I used that word 'fear' totally. I'll show you. You see a precipice and you don't throw yourself over. Is it out of fear? Or is it natural self-preservation? I see criminals acting in various different ways - criminals may be not only the person who steals, but also the criminals who create wars, criminals who are polluting the earth, the politicians who are corrupt. And therefore we are using the word 'criminal' as a whole, not just a particular form of criminality. And you say fear is necessary. That depends, when the human being is educated wrongly. And our education now is merely to conform to the pattern which society has set up. If there is right kind of education, intelligence is in operation. And where there is intelligence it will act without fear because it sees danger. Danger in nationalism. Danger in dictatorship. Danger in killing each other. That's what I mean by using the word 'fear'. When the mind understands the whole nature of fear it becomes intelligent. And it acts intelligently under every circumstance; when it sees danger it avoids danger, psychologically, and outwardly and inwardly, when it sees something is dangerous, like nationalism, belief, ideologies, it is not afraid of them, it sees the danger, therefore it will not indulge in those things.

I think that's enough, sir.