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Can you drop them? Next question is, how is it that these images come into being? Right?
What is the mechanism that produces these images? Images being conclusions, words, opinions, judgements, saying so and so is like that. Or so and so didn't listen to me while I was talking, and I'm hurt, because the person to whom I'm talking may be tired - you follow?
- may have been seeing all kinds of things happen to that person, and I want to hurt, or him to pay attention to me while I'm talking. So if that person doesn't, I get hurt. All these are abstractions.
Right? Are we sharing this, going together? Which means, you see the fact that you have images.
(In Italian) Just a few moments ago we were speaking with a lady about this question of image. What you are saying applies only to the false images and not to the right ones - why? Wait - he says, this applies to a false image, not to a right image.
Wait - that's good enough, sir. That's good enough. There are good images and bad images, false images, and worthwhile images.
Right? We are talking of all images, not the good and the bad. Is technology an image?
(Inaudible) Is technology image. The whole structure of technology, is it image-building. Is it?
Wait sir - is it? I learn how to run a motor, and I have acquired knowledge of piston engines, internal combustion machine. And that knowledge is my memory, I've cultivated memory about that engine.
Right? And when I see another engine, a similar engine, my previous knowledge helps me to undo it or put it together again. Right?
That is a mechanical thing, isn't it? We are talking not only of mechanical knowledge but psychological knowledge. If we're talking about psychological knowledge, but you haven't answered whether - I don't know if it's an image... (Inaudible) Yes sir, it's a formula.
But I need that formula to run a machine. That seems to imply a method... (Inaudible) Must I learn - just listen to it, sir - if I had no formula about a machine, must I learn each time? Answer it, sir.
Must I each time forget what I've learnt and come to it new - about a machine? Obviously you couldn't, it isn't possible. Wait - obviously I couldn't, it would be absurd, wouldn't it?
Now in human relationship, between you and me, you're not a machine, I'm not a machine. It seems to me you are avoiding the question, because if I have images about machines... (Inaudible) Wait - the gentleman says you are avoiding my question. We said, we need knowledge to run a machine - right?
- knowledge or a formula or previous examination and a remembrance of that. I need that to run a machine. Now between you and me, two human beings, you're not a machine and I'm not a machine.
Right, sir? If I have a formula about you, a remembrance about you, a conclusion about you, or a judgement about you, that is the image I have about you. Right?
And you have an image about me. So what happens - the formula I have prevents me from meeting you anew. I still think the question... (Inaudible) What do you mean - we are going into it, sir.
(Inaudible) Sir, I want to know out of curiosity how to go to Montreux. Right? I go and get in the station, get into that train, and the train is a mechanical thing that's moving down, going down, to Montreux.
Right? Now you and I are not, you are not a station, I'm not a passenger - we both are human beings - isn't there a difference between you and me and the train and the technology? Obviously there is.
Obviously there's feeling. Not only feeling, but we are such complex entities, aren't we? What is the difficulty in this?
You know that a man has been in a concentration camp and certain subjects must not be spoken about. Isn't it a good thing to know this? One has been to a concentration camp - and one has gone through hell.
And isn't it good to remember - is that what you are saying? No, isn't it good for the other person to know that there are things not to be spoken about? I have been to a concentration camp and it is good for another to know about it.
Is that it? What the lady said was, if there was a man who had gone to a concentration camp - isn't it a good to know certain things about this so that you do not touch on certain subjects. That's it - you have understood the question?
If a man has been to a concentration camp and you know that he has been there, you don't touch certain... you know - his experience, because it's painful to him, so you don't enter into that. So you have an image about that man which prevents you, or helps you not to enter into all his pain and revive his anxiety and all the rest of it. Sir, is it because we are either seeking expansion or avoiding contraction from the environment - the 'I' seeking expansion.
Look, sir, I just want to know, as the gentleman asked, how to look. What it is to look at trees, mountains, at the whole technological world, and also at the world within - I just want to look. And he wants to know, what does it mean to look.
Right? And we are making this tremendously complicated. I can't look at you if I have any opinion about you, that's a simple fact.
Right? Doesn't technology, the train and the passengers, force you to have opinions. One man becomes a passenger, another man an engine driver.
One moment. (In Italian) So, you say that we can't see a person or a thing if we have an opinion about them. This is very evident... ...very evident... And many of us have understood, but even so, we still don't move forward.
Right! He says, it's fairly obvious that opinions, judgements prevent understanding of each other. That's fairly obvious.
And why don't we go further beyond that? Right? You can't go beyond that if you haven't dropped your prejudice.
(In Italian) So, it is not true that I see that I have opinions. Because if it was true that I saw that I had opinions, then those opinions would drop away. So, when I say that I see some opinions, maybe it's not true that I really see it.
He says... I don't know how to deal with all of you - I'm lost. For me, it's very simple.
May I state it, very simply? If I look at a tree, to me the seeing of a tree is the non-interference of thought. Right?
When thought interferes between my observation of that tree, I am not looking at the tree. Right? Thought is the knowledge of that tree, which is useful when I am classifying what kind of a tree it is.
But before I classify it, I just want to look at it. And I cannot look at it if there is any form of image about it - that's simple. The same with the mountain, with the river and the green meadows.
That is, when I look without the interference of thought, which is the response of memory, experience, knowledge, then there is a totally different relationship between me and the tree. I do not identify myself with the tree, but the observation is much more intense, the observation is completely total. Right?
So I observe without the interference of any conclusion - the mountain, the tree, the sunset. I don't know if you saw, yesterday evening, the sunset, on the hills. It was a marvellous sight, just to look at it, without saying how beautiful, how lovely, what extraordinary Alpengluhen, what a beautiful thing it is - just to observe, without a word, then you see much more, the intensity is much stronger.
Right? I do not know if you have ever done it. Now, I want to look at you - you've hurt me, you've praised me, you've talked behind my back, you've said you should, you should not do this, that, you are an idiot, you are a great man, you're a saint, you're an ass - you've said all these things.
And I look at you - should I look at you with all the incidents, accidents, words which you have used against me? If I look at you with all those, I don't see you. Right?
That's fairly simple, isn't it? I don't see you, I don't understand you, I have no relationship with you, though you have called me all kinds of things, pleasant, unpleasant, talked, scandalised me or whatever you do - that's your affair. And if I accept all the gifts you have given me, the insults, the flattery, the gifts become more important, don't they - I don't see you.
I wonder if you are following all this. And I want to see you. So any image that I have about you prevents me from looking at you.
Right? Similarly, any conclusion I have about myself, that I'm good, that I'm bad, that I'm noble, ignoble, there is great nobility in me, but I act ignobly - all that kind of thing - all that is an image, a conclusion about myself. So I can't learn about myself if I have any previous opinion about myself.
That's all. Wait. The world outside technology, the trees, the mountains, the science, all that, I want to look at it as though I'm looking at it for the first time in my life.
If I do I see things much more vividly, more intensely. I find new things in that look. And if I want to look at you, if I have an image about you I can't see you, I have no relationship with you, the image prevents me from having a contact with you.
Inwardly if the mind has any opinion about itself, then it can't learn about itself. That's very simple. Right.
Now is that clear? Clear both verbally and intellectually - we're not talking of the feeling about it, the feeling that how destructive it is in relationship to have an image. We'll come to that.
Now I say to myself, why do I have opinions or knowledge about the tree? You understand? I'm beginning with the most simple - why do I have knowledge about the tree?
It is useful to have knowledge, it gives you interest, what species of pine, species of oaks and so on. It's fun to have knowledge about it. But when that knowledge comes between me and the tree, I don't see the tree.
Right? And to me the tree is extraordinarily important, the beauty of the tree, and so on and on. Now the next question why does the mind prevent direct contact with the trees, mountains and so on, but always it creates an image about it?
Why does it do it? Right? You've understood my question - you answer it, sir.
Don't listen to me. Sir, is it possible to look at the image of the tree with the same intensity that I look at the tree? Yes, sir.
In other words, it's not the way of looking. The capacity to observe - wait. The capacity to observe the image that you have about the tree, and the tree.
To look, is what the question is. Now - wait, listen sir - what happens? See the logic of it.
To look at a tree without the image requires energy. Right? Right?
Are you following this? To look at that tree, which is alive, which is moving, which is marvellous, its branches, its leaves - to look at it you need energy. But that energy is dissipated when you have a conclusion about the tree, when you have knowledge - knowledge is useful about the tree, but when you're looking and that knowledge comes in, that knowledge prevents you observing with your total energy.
Sir... Sir, wait, wait, let me finish. So laziness comes in when you have this conclusion, opinion and so on about the tree. Laziness is a conclusion.
Right? Oh my lord! I think it might be useful to look at why society educates people to think in terms of clich'e.
Why does society train people to think in clich'es and so on? Why do you blame society when you have them? Just a minute - stick to one thing, sir, please.
Sir, to look I must be present. To look, to observe, I must be there, I must be present. I have had also the feeling, I am present - it may be imagined but I don't think it is - this feeling, I am present, I am here.
Yes, sir, I understand your question, sir, but we'll come to that presently. For the love of god, stick to one thing, step by step into it. Sir, when you look at the tree, you suddenly see that you're looking at it through the image, a clich'e - you can see that - I think it's very disagreeable so you drop it.
But do you drop it? I do. May I ask if perception is the same thing as the energy for perception?
Does it happen at the same moment? Sir, just go slowly with me, will you? Will somebody protect me?
Yes, sir? (Inaudible) Yes, sir? (In Italian) The technical knowledge of the tree is not an image.
No, I made that clear, sir. Now look sir. May I go into it a little bit - give me a little hearing, lend me your ears.
Really, it's a very interesting problem, tremendously interesting, because we have made life so dull, so boring, so mechanical, there is nothing new - you understand? - it is always second-hand. And to see a tree as though for the first time in your life - you understand what that means?
(French) He says, why do you talk about the mountain, trees, why don't you see the fact that we are here. The fact that you are here is because you have an image about me. Right?
Oh, come on, sir. You don't know a thing about me, but you have an image about me, because you have read books, there has been propaganda, articles, all the rest of the rubbish. So you have an image.
No, not necessarily. Wait, madam. You have an image about me - why?
What right have you to form an image about me, not knowing a thing about me. I may be a crook, I may be, god knows what - but why do you have an image about me? Don't you have an image of your secretary, sir?
Could I have an image about my secretary? I have no secretaries. Why should I have an image about my secretary?
You don't meet it - you are avoiding the issue. You're all here because you have an image about me. Right?
No. I mean, if you hear Beethoven once and you like his music, you want to hear the music again - that's nothing to do with an image of Beethoven. If I am touched by your words, it's nothing to do with an image of you.
Simply I'm touched by your words, as I'm touched by music. I understand Madam, just listen - I understand that. I took the train, the mountain, the river, the bird, because it's fairly easy to observe the images that we have about them.
Right? It's fairly easy. And I do not know if you have ever experimented with it yourself to look at all that without a single word.
Then if there is no movement of thought, which is the word, then you see the thing entirely differently - that's all my point. Now you are here because some of you have an image about the speaker, and therefore you don't listen to the speaker at all. You are interpreting what he is saying according to the image you have about him.
Right? Now if you are listening for the first time, as though for the first time, then what is the relationship? Then you are curious.
You understand, sir? Next moment you and I are going to die, and then you would listen, wouldn't you? You'd put your heart and mind, you'd have no image, you'd say, "What are you saying?
I want to find out." You won't be interpreting, you won't say, "Well, Jesus said that, the Buddha said that and Jung said that or Mr Smith said that." You don't listen.
Now, to come back to the question, why does the mind create these images, and live with those images, and project those images? Find out, sir, why. Why have you an image about the speaker?
Or you may not have an image, you say, "By Jove, he's saying something, I'd like to find out, I like to hear music, I like to see that tree, it doesn't matter, a dozen times - it's different each time." Because each time I look at it without a single word, without a single thought, therefore it's always new. And therefore it's always my friend.
You understand? Now I want to find out why the mind creates these conclusions, images and holds on to them. And they are abstractions - you understand?
- they are not facts - the tree is the fact, not an abstraction about the tree. And I live in my abstractions. I don't know if you follow all this.
Why do I do it? Why does the mind insist and sustain the images - what is the meaning behind it? Because we are taught to do so, we are trained to do that.
We are trained to do that. (Inaudible) Wait, just let's take that one question, please. We are trained, from childhood, by the culture we live in, the religions, with the image, all the rest of it.
We are trained. And so you retain them? And if you see what it does, will you drop them?
If... Wait, find out, sir, do listen to this. I've been trained by the society, the culture I live in, to have the images about my saviour, my god, my belief, my wife, my husband, my neighbour.
I have images. I say, 'Why do I have images?' and I blame it on society, or I say, 'Examine it, analyse it', but at the end of it I've got the images still.
Right? After... Wait, wait, sir - I'm going to show you - be patient.
I want to see why my mind creates it, and why it lives with these images. It lives with these images because it's essentially lazy - it's easier to live with an image than with the fact of a tree. You understand?
Therefore I say, "By Jove, my mind is lazy and therefore it lives in abstractions." You understand, sir? You've understood what I've said?
Because it's easier to live with an idea, with an image, rather than with the fact which is always changing. It's easier for me to live with an image about you, because I've come to a conclusion, and, you know, I don't want to think any more about it. I think you are a great man - that's the end of it, or I think you're an ass, a fool, and that's the end of it.
So to learn means the image comes to an end, which means the mind must be active, alive, and it cannot be alive if there is an image. Sir, that simply means that the image is also a fact, but that fact doesn't observe the tree first. Of course, sir, I'm telling you that, I've said that previously.
Then the image disappears... Wait, it doesn't disappear so quickly - look at it, take time - all that you are concerned about is how to get rid of the image. I'm not.
I want to see why it comes into being, what is the machinery that builds the image, if that machinery has no energy it comes to an end naturally. You understand? So I want to see.
Look what takes place. If I have an image about you, I'm in conflict with you, and I like that conflict. It says, "That keeps me alive".
Which is part of my laziness. So I see first of all, the mind is lazy and likes to live in a rut - the rut being the belief, the opinion, the conclusion. I've talked to several people, and they've formed an opinion about somebody, and you can't shake them - you show the facts, you show the logic of it, the truth of it, nothing doing, because their opinion is right.
Haven't you met such people all your life? Christ exists and that's the end of it. Marx is right and that's the end of it, the Red Book, the Little Red Book is the most marvellous thing - that's the end of it.
So why does the mind do it? Because it finds in the Red Book, in Marx, in Jesus, or in... complete security, which means complete laziness - it hasn't to think any more. And it's afraid to learn any more, because to learn something more means disturbing 'what is', what is your conclusion, your image.
Right? So I see the brain likes to live in security, in abstractions. I don't know if you are following all this.
So abstractions are more important than the fact. I have formed an opinion about you, rightly or wrongly. And that opinion is a conclusion, and to change that, and say, "By Jove, I'm mistaken, you are different," that needs a little thought, a little energy, that is, I don't want to be wrong.