Datasets:
eliwill
/
krishnamurti_discussions

Dataset card Data Studio Files Community
text
stringlengths
12
1.33k
We're saying, you have enough physical energy - if you want to build a model aeroplane you build it. It would take time, you investigate, you enquire, you read about it, you put your mind and heart into it and build it. That requires a great deal of energy.
The motive there is the interest to build. In that, is there any friction, any struggle, any resistance? You want to build that aeroplane.
I come along and prevent you and say, "Please, don't be silly, that's childish" - and you resist me, because your interest is to build. Now see what happens when you resist me, you're wasting your energy, aren't you? And therefore you have less energy to build the aeroplane.
Go into it, take time, watch it. Now can your interest not be weakened, though I resist you, though I say you are silly? You see the point?
I want to go out for a walk, for it's a lovely day. I want to see the trees, listen to the birds, see the new leaf, the marvellous spring day, I want to go out. And you come along and say, "Please help me in the kitchen."
What takes place? I'm bored in the kitchen, I don't want to go because my interest is to go out for a walk. So there is a division in me, isn't there?
The division is a waste of energy, isn't it? I want to go out for a walk so much and you come and ask me, "Please help me in the kitchen." Which shall I do?
Come on, I'm doing all the investigation, you just listen! What shall I do? Knowing that it's a wastage of energy if I say, "Oh what a bore the kitchen is and I really want to go out for a walk."
What shall I do, so that I shall not waste energy? Come on, discuss with me. What shall I do?
What do you mean by waste of energy? I'll show you. You ask me to come and help you in the kitchen.
I really want to go out for a walk. If I am only doing what I want to do and go out for a walk, what happens to your question, "Come and help me?" I have a feeling of guilt, don't I.
"All my walk is spoilt," I say. "Oh Lord, I ought to have gone," - I fight. That's a wastage of energy, isn't it?
You mean just the conflict. Conflict is a wastage of energy, isn't it? So what shall I do, knowing if I yield to you, if I come to the kitchen, I say, "My God, what a lovely day it is, why am I not out."
And if I do go out for a walk I'll be saying, "My goodness, I should be in the kitchen." See what's needed more. No, not what is more needed.
How would you answer this, so that I do something without wastage of energy, which is conflict. You've understood my question, have you? Come on, Rachael, what shall I do?
I don't want to have a struggle in myself. I shall have a struggle if I go out for a walk you've asked me to come and help you. If I go into the kitchen and I really want to go out for a walk, I'll also have a struggle in myself.
I want to do something without a struggle. What shall I do in these circumstances? Explain your feelings to the person who's asked you.
Why should I explain? So the person will understand. Yes, he asked me to come and help him, he wants my help - too few people want to peel potatoes, so he asked my help.
Can I talk to him and say, "Look, I really want to go out for a walk, it's such a lovely day - do come with me." But the potatoes have to be peeled. So what shall I do?
Act responsibly, responsively. Act responsively, that is, act with responsibility, are you saying? Now what is my responsibility here - I'd love to go out for a walk, that's my responsibility too.
So what shall I do? How does one know that the walk gives more pleasure than the kitchen? It's a beautiful day, lovely clouds and to go and peel potatoes is terrible when the birds are calling!
So what shall I do? Use your brain cells, come on! () It doesn't matter what you do as long as, after you've said that you're really not going to help in the kitchen, you go out for the walk - as long as you just leave it there.
() You go to the kitchen and afterwards you go for the walk. (Laughter.) When I do go for a walk, I'll be tortured by my conscience or whatever it is.
But if you understand the whole situation, would there be this conflict? What is the whole situation? The kitchen, the lovely sunlight and shade, and my desire to go out for a walk.
This happened to me... This happens to all of us. The point being, whatever you do, you're going to be in conflict.
No, I'm not going to be in conflict. If the kitchen really needs me, I'll go and help in the kitchen. He says he needs you, so you'll go there.
But what happens to your walk? You go afterwards. The walk's always there...
Wait - there are huge clouds and darkness comes. And I say, "It's raining, why did you spoil my walk." ...you'd probably have got wet anyway.
(Laughter.) What do you do, go into the kitchen? Or say, "Go to hell, I'm going for a walk?"
You act. What is your action based on? Just direct energy.
You say you'll act - what is that action in which there is no conflict? Listen to it, what will you do in this situation when two things are contradictory - kitchen, walk? Have you got my question right?
What is the thing that creates the conflict? The conflict the contradictory demands, the demand to go out for a walk and your demand for my help. I'm pulled in two directions.
Now what shall I do so that there is only one direction in which there is no conflict. You understand the beauty of this question? When you see the urgency of helping in the kitchen... You see the urgency of the demand and you drop yours.
Can you drop your desire, which is very strong, to go out for a walk, and comply to his demand, totally? Will you do that? When I see the urgency of his demand... Can you drop your urgency to go for a walk and accept his demand with grace, with ease, without any conflict?
If you see the danger of the conflict. Do you see the danger of conflict, that it is poisonous, that it is a wastage of energy, that it doesn't lead anywhere? So can you drop your desire for a walk and just walk into the kitchen, equally happy, equally at ease, and forget your walk altogether?
Because if you don't forget your walk, it's going to keep on nagging at you, isn't it? Surely everything is making these demands on us all the time, silently, verbally and non-verbally. Everything is based on this.
That's what I'm getting at. I want to stay in bed and I have to be punctual for breakfast. You go into the kitchen with a grudge, don't you?
So I am asking, can you do something contrary to your desire and yet be in a state in which conflict doesn't exist. This is life, this is what happens all the time. Someone wants me to do something and I want to do something else.
And then they begin to nag me and I resist. On the other hand, if you always yield... If I'm always yielding I become a doormat.
So can I find out how to act when there are contradictory demands - an action in which there is no friction, there is no grudge, there is no resistance, no antagonism. Can you do this? It depends how strong the desire is.
However strong, the mind is intense. I compare the two demands. No, not comparison.
I mean, I want to do something, and somebody asks me to do something else - I have to compare those two. No, this is not comparison. You come and ask me to help you and I want to go out for a walk - I don't compare.
There is no comparison between the two. I see comparison because... No, that comes when I say, "Which is more important in this, my walk or going into the kitchen." I say, "The kitchen is more important."
What has taken place? I am evaluating and basing my action on what is important. But I don't want to base my action on what is important.
But when the house catches fire... ? The house is on fire, the walk has gone finished. Isn't this the same on a smaller scale, you evaluate what is at the moment necessary?
No, I don't want to base my action on discrimination, on what is important. Why? I'll show you why.
Who is the judge who says, this is important and that's not important? Myself, isn't it? It is the circumstances... You may consider that it's important and I might consider that it's not important, therefore there's friction between us.
So I don't want to base my action on what is important. Isn't there an objective, not subjective, factor? Factually, not based on importance but fact.
The fact is, he asks me to come into the kitchen and the fact is I want to go out for a walk. You still have to evaluate... Go into it slowly, carefully, it's quite interesting. Now, if I base my action on discrimination, what is important, what is not important, my discrimination may outcome of my prejudice, of my conditioning.
So I say discrimination is very petty, because it's based on my conditioning, my prejudice, my opinion, my tendency. I won't base action on discrimination. I won't base my action on evaluation.
Evaluation of what I think. Isn't there still the evaluation that is not coloured by what I think? There is - I'm first clearing the ground.
I will not discriminate, evaluate, because if I evaluate it might be based on my prejudice, my tendency, my wish, my imagination. So I won't base my action on my evaluation. Therefore I won't act on what is important and what is not important.
I'm going to go into this - are you meeting me? This is a dangerous thing we are entering into - unless you understand very clearly you must stop me. Otherwise you'll pick up a few words and say, "This is not important", and throw it at Mrs. Simmons' head.
So I've realized that if I evaluate it might be based on prejudice. But evaluation is necessary. When the teacher makes a report and says you are not good at French and very good at mathematics, that's evaluation, based on facts, not on your prejudice.
Do you see the difference? You're a little bit suspicious? It's very difficult because... Say I'm teaching you Italian.
I know much more Italian than you do, obviously, otherwise I wouldn't be teaching. And I see that you're not very good at Italian, factually, it's not my prejudice - after six months you don't know how to put a sentence together. That's a fact.
On that fact I evaluate not on my prejudice. Do you agree? That is entirely different from an evaluation about what is important.
Is it evaluation whether you want tea or coffee? Don't reduce it to tea or coffee just look at it first. So there are two factors in prejudice and fact.
When I evaluate what is important and what is not important it may be based on my prejudice and not on fact. And when he asks me to go into the kitchen, is it a fact or does he just want to annoy me? So I go in there and see what it is.
If it's needed I do it and forget about it, because it's the fact that demands action. You see the difference? I understand in this case...
Understand this case and understand the general principle of it. If I evaluate what is important or not important, it is based perhaps on my prejudice, therefore I distrust my judgement in evaluation. But when facts demand evaluation, facts decide the value.
The two are very clear, aren't they? Aren't they very clear? It's very clear when on one side you have your desires and on the other side you're needed.
If on both sides you are needed, you have to choose either one or the other. No, I won't choose. You have to act - either one or the other.
No, when you have to act, this or that, that means choice, and that means you don't know what to do and you choose which is more pleasurable. It's extremely difficult for a conditioned person to see truth without bias. Look, begin again.
I want to go out for a walk and you come and ask me to go into the kitchen. If I ask what is more important, the kitchen or my walk, I evaluate according to my pleasure, according to my wish, my prejudice. Therefore I say to myself, "I won't evaluate.
The facts will produce the right action." So I go with him into the kitchen and see if the fact demands it. The fact says, "Yes," and I forget the rest.
Yes, but if you're needed in the kitchen at the same time as you're needed in the office? That's a different matter. The fact will tell me what to do.
Then I realize, when the fact tells me what to do there is no friction. You see the beauty of it? Come on, you're not too young, are you?
So the facts are the final factor of decision, of action, not my prejudice. If both are of equal... My prejudice and the fact are two different things. My desire, my pleasure, my wish, my longing, my tendency are entirely different from the fact of the kitchen.
That makes your mind so clear, then there is no choice between the kitchen and your walk. The fact has decided that you go to the kitchen and that is the end of it. You know, that demands a great deal of intelligence.
A man who says, "I want to go for a walk and I'm going - who are you to call me into the kitchen, you're authoritarian, you're a bully" - to say that is a waste of time and energy. Much better to say, "Go away, please, I'm going for a walk, ask somebody else." That would be much simpler, wouldn't it?
But we are frightened to say that. You know, I've described all this, but the words are not the fact. I would like to examine it from a different point of view.
Go ahead. Take this I've been working on studies for six or seven hours. And then I feel the need to have a little break and have a walk.
And some people say, "Come into the kitchen and help." What will you do? It's a fact that I took the break to have a rest.
So what will you do? Even if I go into the kitchen, I won't pay full attention. So you ask, what is the fact - stick to facts.
The fact is I'm tired. You're tired, that's good enough. "Sorry, I'm tired, I can't come into the kitchen."
That's all. But be honest - not pretending to be tired. So let's come back.
There is physical energy and we have plenty of it, because we have good food, rest, and so on. Then there is psychological energy which is dissipated in conflict. And I say to myself, "That's a waste of energy."
Though in psychological conflict tension is created and out of that tension grows a certain kind of energy. And if I have a capacity as a writer, as a speaker, or as a painter, I use that capacity, which is a wastage of psychological energy. So can I act psychologically, without wastage of energy, based on facts only and nothing else.
You understand what I am saying? Only, facts and not psychological, emotional prejudice - "I must, I must not." Then you have harmony between the psyche and the physical.
Then you have a harmonious way of living. From there you can find out if there is another kind of energy of a totally different kind. But without having the harmony between the psyche and the physical, psychosomatic harmony, then your enquiry into the other has no meaning.
Now, you have listened to this. What are you going to do with your life, what are you going to do this morning, or this afternoon, when this problem arises? It is going to arise, every day of your life it's going to come into the kitchen, go out for a walk, build an aeroplane, or come for a drive.
School, class, stay in bed, "Oh, must I get up so early?" So what will you do? What you will do depends on how you have listened.
If you have really listened you will from now on just act on facts only - that's a marvellous thing, you don't know the beauty of it - just on facts. Instead of bringing all your emotional circus into it. Did you find any difference after Sunday's talk about laziness?
You remember we said, don't use the word "lazy", but find out why you want to stay in bed longer. Have you gone into it? Rose, have you gone into that other question, which was, we are hurt, from childhood we are hurt, by our mothers, by our fathers, by our neighbours, by our friends - people hurt us.
Now can you not be hurt any more? - which doesn't mean resist, which doesn't mean build a wall round yourself, but which means not to have an image about yourself. Have you an image about yourself?
Can you look at it all, not be so terribly attached to your long hair, or short hair? We're always talking about long hair, short hair here - what a waste of time! You know what it is to be pliable?
Have you ever watched a river? You have? How it flows over a rock, how it moves, never caught in a corner, in a little pool - moving, moving, moving.
And if you don't at this age keep on moving, you're going to be caught in a little pool of our own making and that is not the river, that's dirty water. An image isn't merely a picture about a conclusion is an image, a conclusion that I am something, that I must be something - that's an image. You know there is a school I go to in North India, just like this, but it's got three hundred acres and a marvellous river - the Ganges - it's on the banks of the Ganges, you see the river flowing by.
It is really most extraordinary, that river. It comes down passing the big city called Benares, comes down. You see people washing their clothes, bodies being burnt and thrown into the river, people bathing, doing their laundry and another man drinking the water - all this is taking place within a few yards.
And that river is always alive - because it's alive its water is not contaminated, is not polluted. Several doctors some years ago took that water to Switzerland to cure stomach troubles. I was rowing once on that river and as I put my hand down to see how cold the water was, an arm was floating by.
Because the tradition there in India, specially round Benares, is that your body must be burnt on the river bank - in India they cremate their bodies, they don't bury them - it's much simpler and it occupies less space. So the poor people bring their dead relatives, come to the river bank, buy wood and with a little wood they burn the body. But they haven't the time to wait there till the body is consumed as they have to hurry back to their village.
So the man who sells the wood puts the fire out, preserves the wood, throws the body into the river, and sells the wood to the next person who comes along. And you meet that body several miles below. Sir, I believe the water's been analysed and they found some extraordinary things.
I know. The sacred river, that's why it's called sacred. We were discussing the morning meeting at our school meeting last night.
There is some lack of clarity about it. With regard to what? The meeting before breakfast.
What about it? Why do you meet? To be together.
You're together all day. At the school I visit in Benares, they also meet every morning. At Rishi Valley they meet every morning and here you meet every morning - what for?
You're against it, are you? No. Be simple.
You're against it? No? Not against it, I don't like pressure from other people...
Wait, you don't like pressure being put on people - I'm putting pressure on you now by asking you what you think about it. You can tell me to go to hell, but people are putting pressure on you all the time, everybody is on somebody else - don't just say you don't like it. Your father is putting pressure on you, society is putting pressure on you, the books you read are putting pressure on you, the television, everything is putting pressure on you.