1978

Brockwood Park 1978

Brockwood Park 2nd Seminar Meeting 13th September 1978

Krishnamurti: Shall we go on to talk over together the thing that we wished to talk about this morning, relationship? I think the word means - please correct me - from the Latin, to refer to, to look back. I think that most of our relationships are that. And we are going to talk over together the whole significance of relationship as it is, and in the understanding of what it is actually go beyond all the implications of that narrow limited relationship into something wider and deeper. That's what we are going to discuss, talk over together.

So what do we mean by relationship? Please, this is not a talk by me or a solo, but join all of us together in this because we are all involved in some kind of relationship or another - with a wife, with a husband, with a girl, or a boy, with parents, with our relationship to society, to nature, to the whole world, our relationship to all the things that are happening in the world, the terrible things, the violence, and also the extraordinary technological advancements and science and engineering and so on. So not only the limited relationship between two people but also relationship with the whole world - have we any? And so on. Shall we start it? Will you start it?

Questioner: Sir, when you said that the dictionary means to refer back to.

K: Referee, from the Latin, to look back to, to refer to.

Q: Are you of the opinion that people generally, this is how they relate to other people? I don't quite understand what you meant by that. Do you feel that people generally...

K: Let's begin, sir. Forget what I have said. What does relationship mean to you, to each one of us? I am married - suppose I am married - I have children, what is my relationship to my wife, to my children, and what do I mean by relationship? Am I related to nature, to the world, to the ecological world? Am I related to what is happening in Nicaragua, between the Arab and the Jew, the starvation and so on and so on? So what is my relationship with the most intimate and the most far, outward? We have to begin with the near, the closest, and then work forward. So if you are married, if you have got a girl friend, or if you have no girl friend, and so on, what actually is our relationship with another.

Q: We don't seem to have any.

K: Please, investigate it.

Q: There is always a barrier whenever you meet anyone, or a separation between what is happening outside, nature, each one of us.

Q: I feel that with my family it is a succession of trying all the time, and shifting, and to a certain extent with nature, just around, and farther issues, it doesn't extend to any extent.

K: Look, madam, relationship is one of the most important things in life. Relationship between me and another, me with many others, which creates society. And in my relationship with another there is always tension, there is always a sense of division, and therefore conflict, and a sense of guilt, a sense of possession, a sense of responsibility, a sense of protection, all that is involved in it, not only with children but with each other. And that apparently from the ancient of times until now it goes on that way, constant conflict between you and me - not you and me, you know what I mean, my wife and myself or with another. Why do we go on that way? Why do we live that way? What is right, or wrong in our relationships with each another? I want to begin closest and then gradually work to the world about us, not only in England but in India, Japan, the whole world. So I must begin near to go far. So I say I see as it is now without exaggeration, without giving false values, it is a constant struggle, constant pain, constant tension, a division. If we accept that as being normal then it is all right, but if one doesn't accept it as being normal, healthy, then we have to proceed to find out whether it is possible to end that kind of relationship, in which there is no shadow of conflict with each other. Is that possible? What are the implications if it is possible, and whether one can actually in daily life do it. That's the issue we are going to talk about this morning.

Q: I have relationship with another in those moments when I am aware of them and I am aware of myself - in those moments. But as I approach it I feel fear, and I feel either pain or a threat.

K: That's right, sir. So all that is implied - pain, attachment, jealousy, anxiety, fear and the great sexual pleasure, and so on - the whole of that is implied in our daily relationship. Why do we accept it? Why don't we question it?

Let me again repeat: we are here, this gathering, the group of us are supposed to be serious people, with a serious intention to understand our problems and resolve them, not in ten years time, but here, now. Otherwise it is not worth talking about it, it becomes theoretical and nonsensical. Personally I am not interested in that kind of stuff. If I am married, if I have a problem of that kind, I want to resolve it instantly. That may be my peculiar tendency, or my way of looking it, I don't want to carry a problem overnight, specially a psychological problem, which is relationship with another. Either I say, that's normal, I can't help living that way and for the rest of my life it is that - I may change wives, I may change husbands, but the same pattern is repeated over and over again. And as I am a serious man I want to find out if it can end, what is the manner of ending it, and what is a way of living in which there is no conflict at all. That's what I want to find out. At least that we are gathered here, to do that.

Q: Can we then look at the original meaning of that word relationship, which means to carry back.

K: What sir?

Q: Relationship is something that goes out from one person and something is carried back from the other.

K: Yes, yes.

Q: Without the carry back, the re-late, there won't be anything called relationship. It can't be carried back. We have been talking so far as though one person were doing the relating only.

K: I think you heard all that so I don't have to repeat it. Please, enter into the discussion, sirs.

Q: Is it possible to look at why we do that.

K: Yes, why do we support this kind of life, why do we live this way.

Q: Is it possible to know what is our motivation?

K: No, I am questioning it now, sir. I am questioning why human beings, including us, we live that way. Is it part of our heredity, part of our tradition, part of our habit, so we have got used to it and say, yes, that's the way to live. The trees struggles, everything struggles, this is part of nature, inevitable that in our relationship there must be conflict. We can find all kinds of excuses but the fact remains which is a relationship between two people, give and take, and looking back, and all the rest of it. Now why, we are questioning, why we accept that way of life. Why we accept wars, why we accept violence and so on and so on.

Q: (Inaudible)

K: So, do you say you accept it as it is?

Q: I don't know, but not wanting to get entangled in something false, and yet not wanting to isolate oneself.

K: I don't quite follow this. I mean others may follow, please answer him, I am not the oracle.

Q: You said relationship creates conflict.

K: No, no, I didn't say that. Not, I said, what is the fact. The fact is in our daily relationship with each other, man, woman and so on, there is division, there is conflict, there is struggle and all the things involved in it, which we don't have to describe in detail because everybody knows what our relationships are.

Q: If all those things are eliminated, if all those things are acknowledged...

K: No, not 'if'. You see that is supposition.

Q: When all those things...

K: The same thing - if, when.

Q: Sir, isn't part of the tension in relationship because another can hurt you, you are afraid of this.

K: Sir, first let's see what actually is taking place and then we can move from there. If we accept that this kind of struggle in relationship is healthy, and in nature everything is struggling - a tree in a forest is struggling to have light, a tiger is chasing a deer. You follow, there constant struggle. And you may say to have this conflict is healthy, helps us to grow, all kinds of things, and you accept it. Right? One generally accepts it unless the struggles become utterly intolerable, there is divorce, then there is the breaking up the family, which affects the children, and so on and so on. If that is a fact, and it is generally a fact, then how do we approach the fact in order to bring about a transformation in the way we are living? I can't explain. I think it is fairly clear what we are talking about, isn't it?

Q: Sir, I feel there is no true relationship if there is no love.

K: Then we come to the question, what is love. We may come to that question presently, or we may begin with that, if you wish. Then we have to enquire into what we call love. Have we love for another? One may say, I love my wife, but is that love? You follow, sir?

Q: Why is there no love in us?

K: I beg your pardon?

Q: If there is no true relationship I think it is because there is no true love in us, inside us.

K: Sir, I want to find out - I don't know why I am answering, please we are all supposed to take part in this discussion, every one of us, not me talk all the time and you listen, all of us are supposed to engage in conversation, when one question is put by another to answer it as well as we can, find out how each one of us reacts to these things.

Q: Before I can come to any consideration of love I have to somehow face the fact that I am threatened by a relationship.

K: That's what I am saying, that's what I am asking. Are we clear what our actual relationships are at present, now, not at some future if and when.

Q: We are all afraid of getting hurt.

K: So is our relationship based on fear, getting hurt?

Q: It is unconsciously based on fear, pressure and images.

K: Tunki, you have heard me talk about images infinitely, for a number of years. Are you repeating what we have said, or you have discovered that for yourself?

Q: Well, you see I need somebody and then that person does something which I like and then I would have a certain image of this person - he is named such and such, and I think, this very kind person.

K: So you are clear - it is your own discovery. I haven't told you that you have got an image about that person. It's your own discovery that you have an image about a person?

Q: Yes.

K: That's all. So it's yours, not mine.

Q: I think we do have relationship with people but they are limited because we are always looking for something to share. For example, nationalism will bring a lot of people together and they will have a sort of relationship, but the moment there is nothing that interests you in a relationship with someone, you won't care.

K: Interest brings us together because of a particular interest. Is that it?

Q: Like here we are sitting together and we have relationship because we all care about the same thing.

K: Aren't we moving away from what we are talking about? I am just asking.

Q: There is also another factor of relationship which he was talking about.

Q: Might it help, can we go back to the question of how is it that we can approach this, so that it will bring about a transformation in relationship.

K: And also the gentleman raised the question, we are anxious about our relationship because it is based on fear of getting hurt.

Q: I don't understand this 'getting hurt'.

K: We will go into it, sir. But first do we realize, if I may ask, that at present, as we live daily, our relationship is a peculiar affair - to put it mildly? A sense of division, you and me, you with your ambitions, you with your career, you with your passions, you with your ambitions and so on and so on, and me with my ambitions, and greed and so on. This is our actual daily state. I have a profession, and I spend ten hours at it, earning money, I come home, and she has also gone out to earn money and comes home, and we are both tired, irritation - you know all this, why should I discuss it. I am not married.

Q: And also we enter a peculiar relationship with very little children where one feels they can look through one, so there is a block in the relationship.

K: What I am asking, madam, is, do we realize actually the way our relationships are? Do I know my relationship with my wife, or with my girl or boy, is divisive and because it is divisive there must be conflict? That's all, I am starting from there

Q: I don't think we do know it - at least I don't think I know it most of the time. It's a sort of compulsive thing until I can allow it to be different, then I have got no choice.

K: Now how do we discuss, madam, this problem? Nobody seems to want to join except a few of us. All of us, it is all our problem, why don't we talk about it, why don't we go into it. Are we afraid to go into it? Wait, sir. Are we afraid to go into the fact?

Q: I think we are.

K: That's just it. We are afraid to go into the fact, and face the fact, and the very facing of the fact may produce certain reactions, and of those reactions we are afraid. Is that it?

Q: I am nearly crying when I think about it.

K: So what shall we do? Just verbally talk about relationship? And keep our fears and let things go on as they are?

Q: That's what we generally do.

K: I know, sir, is that what you want?

Q: No.

Q: How can we at every moment recognize division? It seems that we see it in retrospect afterwards, but at the moment we have our barriers. How can we recognize this division every second?

K: I don't have to recognize something, it is there. Why do I have to say I have to recognize that I am in conflict with my wife? It is there.

Q: Because I am afraid of saying so.

K: Therefore, is it a question of fear that we don't talk about our relationship?

Q: Yes, in case...

K: If it is fear, let's tackle fear. Let's go into the question of fear. But if you say, sorry, I don't want to discuss any kind of relationship with my wife, or with the world, or with anything because I am afraid if I do go into it something may happen in our status quo, therefore let's leave that alone and let's talk about god and golf, or the beautiful days. Is that what you want? If you want to talk about god and the beautiful days or something or other, cut me out. It's very simple.

Q: Well for me, I again come back to the level of getting hurt.

K: All right, sir. Do I really want to find a relationship with somebody in which being hurt is impossible? Is it possible never to be hurt? Even that, to discuss it.

Q: Well you ask is it possible never.

K: Of course.

Q: Never to be hurt?

K: Never to be hurt.

Q: Not physical wounds?

K: In all relationships.

Q: But I sometimes feel hurt.

K: I don't quite follow.

Q: Sometimes.

K: Why should I be hurt? Why should another hurt me? Why should my wife hurt me? Or my children, or my boss, or anybody, it doesn't matter who it is, why should they hurt me?

Q: They do.

K: No, why, I know they do. I know we have been hurt.

Q: Because you have different feelings and different thoughts.

Q: It seems we have a self, and that self is what gets hurt, and that self is what prevents us from having any relationship.

K: Either we accept being hurt, that's inevitable; or there is a way of living in relationship where there is no hurt at all.

Q: It is all a bundle of hurts.

K: Apparently you don't even find out.

Q: It's also that you don't want to hurt the other person.

K: What do we know, sir? Do you want to go into this question of being hurt?

Q: Yes.

Q: Yes.

K: Which means, a way of living with another, intimately or not intimately, in which there is no possibility at any time of being hurt. Right? Is that possible? So let's find out. Right?

Q: It's not possible.

K: If you say, not possible, then it is finished.

Q: I didn't say it was not possible.

K: No, if you say it is not possible you have closed the door on it.

Q: It is possible.

K: If you say it is possible you have also closed the door. Let's find out. Do you really want to go into this?

Q: Yes, I have never thought about it.

K: No, all of us, not you and I but all of us, is this a problem that you want to discuss, go into and resolve it, not next year start again and say, 'I am hurt, please tell me how to get rid of it' - that becomes too silly.

Q: Probably I want to find out because I don't like being hurt.

K: If you want to go into this question of being hurt, what is hurt? When you say, I am hurt by my wife, or by somebody, what is the thing that is hurt?

Q: Some feeling about it.

K: Examine it, madam, don't answer me. Forgive me. Find out for yourself what is the thing that is hurt.

Q: One can see if one looks at it that there are areas of rigidity in oneself that are hurt.

K: Rigidity. All right. You say that. Please, all of us take part in this, for god's sake.

Q: It is the self, Krishnaji, that's hurt.

Q: What is the self?

Q: It's the self images, it's what you consider to be you.

K: No, sir, look, I want to find out, I am hurt for various reasons - we can find out what has hurt me, but I want to find out what is the thing that is hurt. You understand sir? Is it my thought, is it my body, is it my image about myself, is it a sense of wanting not to be hurt and therefore being hurt. You follow? So what is it when you say, I am hurt? Is it physical hurt, or a psychological hurt?

Q: It's a psychological hurt we are talking about.

K: I am asking you, sir, please tell me, or tell each other.

Q: We are talking about psychological hurt because physical pain I can understand.

Q: But doesn't psychological pain give you physical pain as well?

Q: In the sense do you mean that if you are tense.

K: I am married, or you call me a fool, and I am hurt. My wife says something to me and I get hurt. Right? Or you call me a perfect fool, an idiot, and I get hurt. Now I am asking you - please stick to this one point - what is the thing, when I say, 'I am hurt' - what is hurt?

Q: It seems to me that I am hurt because I have a certain idea of myself.

K: All right. Leave it there. An idea about myself. Right?

Q: An interpretation about myself.

K: Keep to that one thing, don't add more to it, we will come to it. I have an idea about myself. Right? I think I am a great man, with tremendous reputation, and you come along and say, you are a perfect ass, and I get hurt. Right?

Q: That's not the primary observation. The first observation is sensations in the body, and heat.

K: No, no. I am hurt because you called me a fool. Right? Now, what is the thing that is hurt? When I say, I am hurt, what is this 'I' that is hurt?

Q: There are certain things that compose our self. Our conditions, our ideas, everything our self is made up of, so for that matter we have certain desires, certain goals, certain ideas. If someone comes along and contradicts what I think, what I know is myself, is my knowledge, is my idea, is my condition and breaks it at a certain limit, well then it is for me - not for him, because he has other ideas and other conditionings.

K: So for you - leave the other fellow alone.

Q: For me it is not enough, the line is broken at that point.

K: So you have a certain idea.

Q: I have a certain goal.

K: Certain idea - keep to that word 'idea' which that gentleman suggested. That idea is broken, is modified or shattered. And that idea, being shattered, hurts you.

Q: Well, yes, of course.

K: Keep to that, don't expand.

Q: OK, yes, of course.

K: So what is hurt is the idea about yourself. Keep to that simple thing.

Q: What is hurt, yes, is my idea.

K: Keep to that simple thing. I have an idea about myself, or I have an idea, or a belief, or a conclusion and so on and so on, you come along and break it, kill it, or chip it, break it up.

Q: Modify it.

K: Modify it. So I get hurt.

Q: Yes.

K: That's all. That's all. Keep it there. So what happens? You come along and break my idea, or you give a shock to that idea and I get hurt, I shrivel up. Right?

Q: Yes.

K: That's all. Right, sir?

Q: It's not just an idea I have about myself, it's the idea I have of the other.

K: Oh no, how could I have the idea of the other?

Q: Because I have an idea - I don't get hurt if people I don't care about, don't respect, say that I am a fool, it's only if there is someone says this that I care about, something that is between us, or that I respect his opinion.

K: It is still my idea.

Q: It's my idea, but not entirely only inwardly about myself, it is also...

K: It is still my idea about her.

Q: Well, yes. If I have an idea and you come along and chip off half of it, or say, if I think I am something, and you say I am something else, I don't necessarily have to be hurt. I can say, well, he's the fool, I am not the fool. He's a fool for saying I am a fool because I am not a fool and therefore I avoid the whole issue.

K: Which means I have an idea I am not a fool. I don't see why we scramble all over the place for a simple thing. I have an idea. And you come along and chip that idea, break it up and I get hurt. That idea gets hurt.

Q: But she is saying that not necessarily one will get hurt.

Q: Is the point that one is depending on other people to keep this image?

K: Partly, sir. I am dependent on you, or on my wife, or on somebody, and I am afraid that dependency might break down and therefore I am frightened, and so I get more dependent on her, or him. It is still me getting hurt. I am asking you what is the 'me' that gets hurt?

Q: It seems like desire, ideas come out of desire.

K: No, you are going off to a little more complex thing. Have you an idea about yourself which can be hurt? You have, haven't you? Now that is, you have a picture, you have an idea, you have an image, or conclusions about yourself, and that image, conclusions, ideas, get hurt. Right? Then the next question is: why do you have images about yourself? Why do you have a conclusion about something or other? You don't go into all this.

Q: To give the self a meaning.

Q: That's a conclusion.

Q: Well, conclusion is a meaning.

Q: What is looking for meaning?

Q: To give it importance, to have the idea that one is important.

Q: I think it is for security.

Q: Somehow there is an energy that tries to be important. There's something that wants importance.

Q: But can we really try to nail down what is this energy which seeks importance. Is that just a different word for the same thing we are trying to catch hold of? A 'me', an ego, an idea, an energy, what is that thing, or is there such a thing, why is there a moving towards, a generating thing?

Q: I think it creates all these ideas and gives meaning to them.

Q: So shall we try to find out what it is?

Q: I even don't know if has got something to do with my idea when I get hurt I seek violence.

K: You see you are moving away from something, which is, sir, we are talking about relationship. Relationship with my wife, or with my girl friend, or with my boy, or whatever it is, relationship. In that relationship we get hurt. Right? Is that what you are saying?

Q: Yes.

K: Or am I saying it and you are accepting it?

Q: No, we are saying that.

K: People are frightened about this matter, you know, that's why they are all very quiet, because it will open Pandora's door. You know what that is? The devil is inside, so he is frightened, he keeps it all very closed. So I want to open it for myself, you don't have to listen. I've opened it for myself umpteen times.

So I am hurt. I question, I say, why. Why am I hurt and what is hurt? As he pointed out, as many of you have pointed out, it is my idea, my belief, my conclusion, my dependency, my sense of belief and so on which I have got, which all goes to make up a picture about myself. Right? Right? I am a - what? - a scientist, a professor, a businessman, or something or other, and I have a picture of myself. Right? And you come along and say, you are not as good as I am. I have discovered much more, or I have done this, I have done that. I get a shock. So then my next question is, why do I have these pictures, images, ideas, conclusions, which can be hurt? As long as I have them they are all going to be trodden on. Right? No? No?

Q: Are we asking, Krishnaji, why do we maintain the self?

K: No, no. My question is - just listen - I have got them. Right? And I see as long as I have them somebody is going to tread on them. It doesn't matter, it may not be my wife, it may be some stranger or somebody whom I know, somebody is going to tread on it, then I get hurt. So I am asking myself, why do I have these images, pictures, ideas, conclusions about anything which can be hurt, which can be trodden on?

Q: Isn't it to build up an identity about ourselves?

K: So are you saying, I have identified myself with my belief, with my picture, with my image and so on, so I am all that. Right? And when any of you tread on any of these things I am hurt. Keep it as simple, let's keep it simple first and we will make it very, very complex as we go along.

Q: Because I feel I need to know and to be sure, to be secure

K: But it is so, isn't it. If you have no picture, madam, about yourself, I am a marvellous woman, marvellous man, I am very good at this and so on, if I have no pictures at all about myself, you can't hurt me.

Q: Then I am afraid that I might not exist if I don't have images.

K: So wait. Then you say, if I don't have these images, pictures, conclusions and so on I am nobody. So fear of being nobody creates these pictures. Right? The fear of being nobody is conditioned by society, by your parents and so on and so on, they say you must be somebody. Right? You must be good at mathematics, you must be good at being a professor, businessman, or a violinist and so on and on, and society has imposed this through education, or you have your own capacity. And so you have a picture about yourself. You say, can I live without a picture about myself, and you say, I can't, because it is too frightening to be nothing. Wait, wait. Which means what? You actually have not given that up, the picture, but you are afraid of what might be. It might be something entirely different. It's like a person who is attached to another tremendously, and won't let go because he says, my god, if I let go what will happen. 'What will happen' is creating fear, not the letting go. But if you let go then you will find out what might happen. Right?

Q: Part of the trouble seems to be you want to know what will happen before you let go.

K: Yes, yes. Before I give up I must have some reward at the end of it. This is the good old game we all play. So I am asking myself and you, why am I hurt? Can you be - can I and you be free of the idea, the image, the picture? If you can't, then get hurt and accept it, and live with it, don't say, oh, my god, is it possible to live without fear. I say it is not possible if you accept it. But if you say, look, I know I am hurt, now I see why I am hurt, you know, the reason, the logic, the sequence of getting hurt, now let us find out a way of not being hurt. That is, let's find a process or something which will completely wipe away any image I have. And I don't create future images. Is that possible?

Q: Not creating the negative, saying I am bad, I am worth nothing, therefore I can't be hurt.

K: That's a game you are playing. Do you really seriously want to find a way of living in which you cannot possibly be hurt? Do you want to find out?

Q: Yes.

K: No, no, it isn't a game you are playing.

Q: But we think that these images about our self are necessary for some reason, so we won't drop them.

K: Let's find out. Are they necessary? If you think they are necessary it is going to be hurt. Right? So anything that can be hurt is not necessary. Right? Anything that can be destroyed, trampled upon, broken up is not worth keeping. You wouldn't buy a cheap dress which would last half a day. Right? You may say it is necessary to have a dress, agreed.

Q: But sir, also along with those hurts comes pleasure.

K: I just want to keep this one thing, sir, that comes a little later. Now do we want to find a way of living in which there is no possibility of being hurt?

Q: It seems that if I have an image of myself it is because I always refer to the past.

K: Which is, the past is your knowledge about yourself, what you have accumulated, and so on. I am asking a different question, sir, if you don't mind. I am asking, do we want to discover for ourselves a way of living in which the picture is not?

Q: Is there a way?

K: Dead silence!

Q: Can we want to if we are afraid of being totally alone, totally empty, can we want to find out how to?

K: Ah! That's not the point. The point is, is there a way of living not to be hurt? Not how to be empty, what it means to be empty, what it means to be lonely.

Q: Well not to be hurt, implies to be empty, as he mentioned.

K: Look, sir, that's not the point, we are not talking about emptiness. You see, you won't face the fact. You talk about non-fact, emptiness. You don't know a thing about emptiness, why talk about it?

Q: Surely if you don't want to be hurt, that is possibly a wrong way of putting it. That seems to have a motive.

K: I beg your pardon?

Q: You see if you live and you are prepared to look at hurt, and you will get hurt, but able to look at it and say, why am I hurt, I see what I am doing, but not to avoid hurt, to live without hurt. You learn by living, and seeing all these things happening.

K: But it is happening everyday of my life.

Q: Yes, how do you solve that?

K: Why should I look at it, I know that I am hurt.

Q: But it is not necessarily a question of hurt, it is a question there is a problem has arisen, how do I solve it. How do I meet this?

K: I am showing you.

Q: But if it is recorded in the memory and it is a return always of the memory, the same words.

K: Mrs Simmons I am asking you, or we are asking each other, knowing that one is hurt, either...

Q: I don't think it is a question of hurt necessarily, I think it is a question of looking at difficult facts.

K: No, no, you are introducing something entirely different.

Q: It is the meeting of the facts that causes the difficulties.

K: I don't know how to meet the fact.

Q: Well I am finding out in living.

K: Which is, that is in living I have learnt the fact that I am hurt.

Q: Krishnaji...

K: Answer her.

Q: Well I think she was trying to say that if you say, how can I not be hurt, there is a danger of just avoiding being hurt.

Q: Yes, that's about what we are doing right now. Are we trying to move away from hurt?

K: No, Mrs Simmons is saying something entirely different. As far as I understand she is saying that as I live I begin to learn the way I am hurt, and why I am hurt, and not make a problem of it.

Q: I don't think that was what she was saying.

K: Wait, let me finish. I am trying to understand what she said. I am not hurt, but I am learning as I live that I am getting hurt, and as I am getting hurt I learn about the hurt and act upon it immediately. Is that what you are saying?

Q: That is what life is about.

K: Yes, I understand. Is that it? Is life like that? You may think life should be like that, but is it like that?

Q: I find it so.

K: Actually?

Q: Actually.

K: Actually that you find that living you are getting hurt and you are learning about that hurt, and wiping away that hurt. Is that it?

Q: You tackle one hurt after another?

K: So you have learnt about that hurt. And next time again you learn.

Q: That seems to me just putting it off.

K: No, answer her, I am not. I am trying to understand the problem as she raises it.

Q: You see you are the common problem all the time.

K: Yes, I am the common problem, which comes to the same thing.

Q: You say, what is it about me that I have got such a fantastic ego that I refer everything back to how I feel, so you begin to perhaps say, perhaps it doesn't rest with me, perhaps there is something else.

K: So you have learnt through a series of days, through a series of events that you get hurt, and that you have this enormous ego that is getting hurt through a series of days, and then tackle the problem of why you have built this extraordinary importance about yourself. Is that it?

Q: Not quite.

K: I say, why do that? Why wait till the very end to discover...

Q: No, you do it as you are living, you don't sit down like...

K: Can one do that - I am saying the same thing, probably we are saying the same thing in different words - can you as you live your daily life observe that you are getting hurt and wipe it away instantly? Can you? Will you?

Q: I want to learn more about these hurts, hurt itself.

K: I tell you, it is hurt because I have got an image, a picture about myself. You come along and say, you are not as good a pianist as I am, and I get hurt, because I have got a picture that I am one of the best.

Q: But...

K: Listen to it sir, that gentleman hasn't understood the idea that we have got a picture about ourselves.

Q: I have understood.

K: Then as long as you have that picture you will be hurt.

Q: Yes.

K: So the next question is, is it possible to wipe it out?

Q: The hurt you mean?

K: No, the picture.

Q: The picture.

K: Which gets hurt.

Q: If I can accept the hurt then that wipes out the picture.

K: No.

Q: It is no longer hurt.

K: Why should you accept a hurt?

Q: Because if I accept the hurt I am not longer hurt. It is something different if I can accept it.

Q: Is that so?

Q: Yes.

Q: As well as destroying all our images, all our conditionings.

Q: You talk about yourself as if you are able to accept hurts.

Q: No, no. My question was, the gentleman said if you accept it then it was no longer hurt, I just wanted to know if that is really so, is that a real experience of his.

Q: It is for me, yes.

K: Why should I accept anything? Why should I accept war? Why should I accept violence? Why should I accept I am hurt and it's all right?

Q: But it is the truth that is hurt, so why should I not accept it? I am hurt by the truth.

K: All right. If you are hurt by the truth, and you accept that hurt, who is accepting the hurt?

Q: Well, it is not the image.

K: No. Who is accepting the hurt? It is another image which is accepting the hurt.

Q: You don't accept it, you react to the hurt, we don't just let it pass by and say it is nothing, we are obsessed by it because it drives you to do things.

Q: Even after having discussed all this hurt will go on tomorrow I am sure.

K: What sir?

Q: Even after having discussed all this today hurt will go on tomorrow I am sure.

K: Yes. So we are hurt by the world events, by...

Q: Violence.

K:... violence, and we are hurt by our immediate friend. So we are saying, as long as we have an image, which you may discover at the end of ten days, learning about get hurt, and what is getting hurt, and so on, can't you see directly now that as long as you have an image, either the accepting image or the denying image, they are still the images, you say, all right, as long as I have an image I am going to get hurt.

Q: But it seems to me that if one is thinking only in terms of hurt, then one is rather trapped because one may convert the hurts one knows.

K: Yes.

Q: That is a possibility.

K: We can enlarge the whole thing, not just hurt. As long as I have an image there is no possibility of love.

Q: Image seems to be all there is, so why should one want to get rid of it?

K: That's all my point. As long as there is the image you are going to be trodden on.

Q: It seems that that's all there is, so what can get rid of the image?

K: What will you do?

Q: We said looking at the image.

K: So let's forget it. Let's start it again. As long as - please help me, sir - I have got an image about myself, a marvellous image. I have talked for fifty years, and I am a great man, I am extraordinarily clever, this, blah, blah, blah. You come along and tread on it. And I get hurt because I have this immense egotistic picture about myself. Right? Now please help me to be free of that picture because you have told me that as long as you have that picture somebody is going to put a pin in it. Right? Right? Now help me to understand the picture and wipe it away so that nobody can put a pin into me at all.

Q: There are so many pictures.

K: There is only one picture-maker, in Bond Street - sorry! There are not many pictures. Right? This is not clear?

Q: There are many pictures, but only one picture-maker.

K: No, only one painter painting many pictures.

Q: Yes.

K: That's all. Right? So who is that one painter who is painting innumerable pictures: I am a great man, I must be rich, I must have a position, I must be nice - you follow - I am beautiful, I am lovely, I am great. You follow? These are all pictures.

Q: All our judgements.

K: All judgements, pictures, convictions, beliefs, dogmas, the whole circus.

Q: That's what I think of as myself.

K: Which is the image-maker. Which is what? Thought.

Q: Yes.

Q: Thought in a certain direction.

K: Yes, thought in one direction one day, the next day another and so on and so on.

Q: Well isn't thought...

K: No, Tunki, don't move. First let me understand - you have said thought - let me understand that, don't jump to something else. Is that so? Is the central painter of innumerable pictures, the one painter, who is that one painter who is doing all this? You understand my question?

Q: Yes.

K: Who is that one painter who is painting so many pictures according to circumstances, according to desire and so on and so on, who is that?

Q: It is a thing that you used to call the 'me', but I now don't know if it is me.

K: Not what I call, forget what I call it, what do you call it? How do you look at the painter, the one painter?

Q: As I.

K: Who is the one painter? Tell her.

Q: Thought.

Q: Wouldn't you say that this painter is made up by everything, everything around me. I mean because in relationship everybody has images and it's like a whole ball of bits, whereby you put some over there and the others there and yourself on a certain place on the ball, and it seems our relationship is...

K: Look, Tunki, Picasso painted a thousand pictures, let's say, different periods, different ideas and so on. Picasso was the painter all the time. Right? Who is that Picasso?

Q: His talents.

K: What is a talent? Who is that painter? Don't reduce it to talent. Who is that pater? The talent, the greed, money, communist, the dove carrying peace, all that is Picasso, and more, his sexual appetite, his jealousy. So there is only one painter which is me, Picasso. I am not Picasso, me Picasso, thank god. Now as long as there are pictures I am painting somebody is going to come and tear it. And that tearing I call being hurt. Right? Now can I - what's the good of my repeating something all the time - I want to find out a way of living that whatever I paint can never be trodden on.

Q: Well, then...

K: Listen to my question, don't jump.

Q: Yes, it's the second time it's aroused in the conversation. I see the question very clearly. For there not to be hurt I think it is necessary for all the paintings to be eliminated.

K: Which means what? That I don't paint at all?

Q: Yes, right.

K: Wait, wait, no go into it, old boy. That I don't paint at all, that I don't act, that I don't express, that I don't give way to my talent, I do absolutely nothing.

Q: Yes.

K: I can't live like that. What are you saying?

Q: Maybe one starts with not putting a name on the picture.

Q: What do you mean by picture? The picture is the image of ourselves, right? So I mean, if you don't have those pictures.

Q: There is no self, no.

Q: Then we get the painter without paintings.

Q: No, there is no painting, there is no painter.

K: Look, old boy, that's just an idea, enjoying the expression of ideas. But you haven't helped me. I have asked you to help me. I have asked - listen, sir - I have asked you all to help me to be free of this hurt. And I also say not only these peculiar hurts, but to be completely without fear of being hurt. Help me.

Q: Well, the at the same time there is no fear to be hurt means that there are images, that there are paintings.

K: Please help me to be free from being hurt.

Q: I am doing the best I can.

K: You are not helping, you are putting it into another set of terms. I am afraid - listen to it carefully - I am afraid. Afraid of getting hurt. Now please help me how to be free of my fear of getting hurt.

Q: Nobody can help you.

K: Otherwise you stop discussion.

Q: Could be go back a little bit. There is something I don't really see well, which is we stated the painter is the 'me', and that's quite easy to say, and I could have said it, and yet I still don't see that entity, it's nothing.

K: That's just the point. You don't see the truth, the reality of it, but you have accepted the ideas about it.

Q: Which is like another painting.

K: That's what we have spend, an hour and a quarter on ideas. We haven't faced the fact, which is my fear of getting hurt. And Mrs Simmons says, learn about it as you live. Right? Learn what fear is, go into it, daily, as it happens, and learn all about it. Right? And at the end it is finished. But I am saying quite the contrary. Forgive me. Which is, don't spend a day on it, an hour on it. Look at it, understand it immediately, and wipe it away, finished. There is no choice between the two. You don't say, I like her way, or I like your way. Let's find out what is the truth of the matter is.

Q: Is it an accumulated process where I acquire knowledge about being hurt and I slowly want, today or tomorrow, to go into it day after day.

K: Talk to her, not to me.

Q: How can I begin to look at this so that I see it much more clearly? Because so far I haven't been able to do that.

Q: Can we see the perception that we create something, like a toy, hold it up to the world to show it, that we are admitting this failure but creating a nucleus which is very vulnerable and paint it red.

Q: So if we actually saw it as clearly as that...

Q: Yes, it's our fault, it isn't necessarily something that is outside, that is inevitable, but we admit that hurt psychologically, by the formation of this notion of the self, this dependence.

K: Is it that we are afraid to discuss this question of relationship? For you it is very easy, you are not involved for the moment, but if you get married, have children, then it will become a problem. So for you it is not problem so you would say, I am not afraid of it. But having married, with children, the whole business, somebody comes along and says let's talk about relationship, I am frightened because I may discover things which may be shattering.

Q: Well, there's relationship without marriage.

K: Oh, darling sir, don't. Yes, I can have a relationship with getting married.

Q: Krishnaji, doesn't it naturally refer to sorrow? That we live in sorrow, hurt is part of sorrow.

K: Yes, quite.

Q: And afterwards there arises the image.

K: Is that all. The image exists and I get hurt, not after. You see, please, sir, I am asking you a simple question, first, if you don't mind. Is it that we are frightened to discuss relationship, in which is involved dependency, attachment, and jealousy, sexual pleasures, remembrances of all that, is it that we are avoiding to look at it? That's why we are all so silent.

Q: Wouldn't you go into the question how can we get rid of the image and the image-maker, because that's the problem to me, how to get rid of it.

Q: There is a difficulty here in words - how do I get rid of it, how do I wipe it away. Surely if it is an image, I want to see that it is an image first.

K: Sir, is the image different from you? Is the picture, the image different from you? Separate?

Q: I don't know.

K: Is it, I am asking you. Or you are that picture?

Q: It seems that we have to...

K: No, I have asked sir a simple question: are we frightened to discuss about our relationships?

Q: Yes, sir, it would seem so.

K: I am just asking sir, forgive me, for just two minutes. Are we frightened to discuss relationship, in which is involved attachment, dependence, sexual pleasures, the separateness, my wife and me are two different beings, there is a division, and open up this enormous complex thing in relationship. Are we frightened to look at it?

Q: I don't know.

K: No, I am asking, is anybody frightened about it?

Q: Yes.

Q: Yes, because..

K: Yes, one is frightened, so you are avoiding it are you?

Q: It seems we have to start at the beginning.

K: We start at the beginning.

Q: Which is conflict and relationship.

K: Which is conflict and relationship. You are attached to me and I like it, so as long as both of us like it there is no conflict. But suppose I begin to say, no sorry, don't depend on me, it is rather irksome, then conflict comes in you. So again, you see, I have asked this question, please answer it, loudly or to yourself: are you frightened to discuss this whole question of relationship?

Q: No.

K: My darling. Wait till you get married.

Q: Well I am sitting here and I want to talk about it.

K: Yes, I am talking. Are you frightened?

Q: No.

K: Why? Why aren't you frightened?

Q: Because I want to find out.

K: What? Verbally?

Q: It seems that there is necessarily a certain reluctance to look at it because it involves the self.

K: No, Scott, I am asking her whether she really wants to find out. She has no problem about it, she says, by Jove, I must understand this before plunging into all that. Now can she understand it? Or must she plunge - listen carefully - must she plunge into it and then understand it? Or can you look at the whole thing non-verbally and see what is involved in it and begin?

Q: How can we look at something not letting it...

K: Why not? Must I become a murderer before I find out about murder?

Q: Not unless you are a self murderer.

K: It is the same thing. It is exactly the same thing.

Q: We are talking about marriage!

K: Are you saying marriage is murder? No, you asked me whether it is possible to understand something if you are not experiencing it. To that I said, must you understand murder and therefore to understand murder you must commit murder? Must you get drunk to understand sobriety?

Q: But we all have relationships whether we are married or not, or whether we have them just as friends, we all have relationships.

K: That's the whole point, sir. If you acknowledge that this problem of relationship is one of the greatest importance in life, and I am not frightened to look at it, frightened to go into it, see the whole picture of it, what is its nature, its structure, what is involved in it. And you can only do that if you are not frightened. But at the beginning if you are frightened you can't open the door.

Q: Not to be frightened to stand alone.

K: No, no. You see you have drawn a conclusion. I said do we want to go into this question, whether we are married, or have a girl friend, or boy and all the rest of it, the meaning and the implications and the nature and the whole business of relationship. And I say if you really deeply want to go into it and understand the whole beauty of it, the greatness, the tremendous involved in relationship, you must approach it without fear. But if I am already caught in it, and my wife and I, I am afraid to open it because something might happen between her and me. I would rather remain in status quo, as we are, rather than open the door. That may be most of us.

Q: How can I know this room without sitting in it? From outside, you mean?

K: No, I am asking in return, must I get drunk to know what it means to be drunk? Must I get drunk?

Q: Yes, I think so.

K: So why should I go through that? Why should I go through being drunk? I don't want to drink. It is stupid. Why should I go through that?

Q: I can't know you without knowing you.

K: You can't know me?

Q: Without knowing you, without seeing you.

K: You can't know me. You have met me, you can't know me. You can know the picture of me, the reputation, or non-reputation about me, and so on. You can't actually know me because the thing is living. So a living thing can never be known, it is only a dead thing that can be known. So I can never say, 'I know my wife'.

Q: You can only follow the life.

K: Can you follow the life of another? All the variations, all the subtleties, all the nuances, the movements. What are we talking about. Do we want to go into the question of relationship without fear?

Q: Yes.

K: Yes? All of us, or one or two, the rest say, piano, piano! Sir, we have come together to have a serious enquiry into our relationships, into our pleasures, into sorrows, into the whole problem of existence, if you are afraid at the beginning you can't go into it. So if you want to discuss fear let's talk about it and wipe it away. Don't say, well, next year I'll come back to fear.

Q: There seems to be a question whereby this painter is still painting this image, because the human mind wants to be liked, wants company.

K: Yes, I know all that, Tunki, look, old boy I am asking something else, before you put your own question, I put it first, so give me... I asked you, do you really want to go into the question of the great complex question of fear without fear, do you want to into the question of fear and therefore enter into the whole problem of relationship. And you can only enter it if you are not afraid of it.

Q: Yet, I can see that I can only enter it with fear.

K: You can't.

Q: You can't at all?

K: It's like you can't climb the Everest with all your burden.

Q: No.

K: So you throw away lots of things and have a few things - metaphorically speaking. They carry a terrible lot of things.

So do you want tomorrow morning to discuss the question of fear? What do you say, sirs, do you want to?

Q: Is it only fear that is preventing us from going into it?

K: Yes, sir, may be.

Q: I question that, sir, because I am not so sure.

K: Then what is preventing us from going into it? Is it verbally that we don't understand English? Don't understand the expressions of the English language, and therefore you are doubtful? So let's make it very clear of every word we use, so that linguistically we understand each other. We are not doing anything but just throwing words at each other.

Q: Sir, that is part of the problems that here and now we don't have a problem with relationships because we are only talking, the problem is later. And now we can understand the words, that's quite easy, it is not necessarily fear of going into the problem that makes it difficult. But there is another kind of communication.

Q: It is not a problem right now because we don't know the right question to ask.

K: No, Tunki, that's not it. I am frightened because I have committed myself to a woman or to a man, and call that relationship, I am frightened to open that cupboard, there may be terrible skeletons in it. So I would rather discuss round it and go anywhere but say, look, I want to go into this, understand it, and go fully into it. But apparently you don't.

Q: Can we discuss tomorrow, and go into this without fear?

K: I am saying, sir, perhaps the language difficulty here is, we are saying you cannot understand the depth, the beauty and the whole complex question of relationship if there is any kind of fear in you about it. That's clear. If I am afraid to enter, to understand the relationship, what is involved, I am afraid because, you follow, god knows what is going to happen. I might leave my wife. I am not saying that - you follow. So, I say, please let's talk about relationship.

So do we talk tomorrow morning about fear? What do you say, sirs? Which means do you want to be free of fear to live differently?

Q: There's tremendous fear of going into the question, but yes.

K: What?

Q: There's enormous fear of going into the question of what is fear.

K: Yes, sir. There is fear. That's what I am saying. There is fear, and how can you examine anything if there is fear. How can I understand what love is if there is fear? I can tell my wife I love her, but that means nothing if I am afraid.

Q: Sir, may I ask a question?

K: There is no chairman here.

Q: I wonder if it is possible for us at all to approach things in this way. Like today we tried to talk about relationship and we find that when we are afraid we cannot discuss it. You see tomorrow we will talk about fear, we will find something else will stop us from talking about fear.

K: That's right, sir. That's what is going to happen.

Q: How are we going to approach all this?

K: Therefore that means you are not serious. I want to live a life without fear. I will do anything to stop my fear - give up my property, give up my wife, give up everything because I want to live without fear. You follow? That's the only way to find out. You can't just sit and talk about the mountain top, you have to climb it.

Q: As I understand that question, it is almost the same thing as saying, I want to live a life without any hurt.

K: That's right, same thing, sir.

Q: And as far as I can see we haven't really finished with that question, we haven't discovered what it means to live a life without hurt, or how one can come to that.

K: Look, Scott, I want to find out why I am hurt. Right? And I find verbally at least that I have got an image which is going to be hurt, and that image is me.

Q: But will I satisfy with just the words?

K: That's a rationalization, logic and all the rest of it, but isn't an actuality. So how are you going to make me understand and see the actuality of it? You can't do it. You can't hit me on the head.

Q: No.

K: You can't bully me into it, you can't persuade me into it, you can't give me a reward to see it; you say, well here it is, look at it. But if you refuse to look at it what am I to do?

Q: Or, if one is unable to look at it.

K: I say, why are you unable to look at it. Stop there and find out. Don't go off to something else. Why are you unable to see something dangerous?

Q: Because of fear.

K: So it may be fear - wait - it may be habit, you have never even thought about it, you are so heavily conditioned you refuse to see it.

Q: Or the brain just keeps on...

K: You brain may not be active enough to see it. So these are all the factors. So we then have to examine why your brain when faced with something very, very dangerous refuses to see it. Is it made dull by drink? By sexual over indulgence? You follow? Is it by continuous traditional acceptance of things? And so on. So the brain has become mechanical. Right? And so something new put in front of it, it says, I don't understand. Is that so? Is your brain like that? Is your brain mechanical?

Q: It is very mechanical. But I don't know if...

K: Stop there! If it is very mechanical, why? What has made it mechanical? Knowledge?

Q: Partly. Habit.

K: Habit.

Q: Partly.

K: Routine. Can the habit be broken without the man who says, I want to break it? Which is mechanical. You follow? So then you do all that. Not take years and years and days, now instantly, do it, completely free of habit. You can only do it when you see the fact of it, when you see the danger of a habit. Going day after day to the office, you know, habit. The mess of it all.

Q: What comes first? Free to see, or see to be free?

K: No, no. Sir, we said, why has the brain become so mechanical. You understand? Why? Is it we have accepted tradition, habit? Habit - living in a routine. You follow? So if all these are the causes of a mechanistic mind then why don't you break it?

Q: Sir, somehow the self is involved in all this.

K: Yes. Don't involve it.

Q: It survives and maintains itself.

K: That is just an avoidance of breaking the habit - the self is involved, and so on. Here is a factual thing, that is, habit in any form becomes mechanistic. Right? Habit implies mechanism, the very meaning is a habit. So the brain might have got into the habit of living this way and it says, please leave me alone, I am used to this, don't break it up because I don't know what will happen. You follow?

Q: I feel a kind of laziness to break habits.

K: Yes. If it is laziness, go into it, break your laziness. You see we all talk about this.

Shall we talk about fear tomorrow morning? Not for the fun of it, but actually say, I am afraid, I want to be free of the damn thing. Then it is worth it, it is fun to talk about it. But if you say, I am afraid, but let's talk about the window - there is no point. Right, sirs, it is time to stop.

1978

Brockwood Park 1978

Brockwood Park 2nd Seminar Meeting 13th September 1978

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