eliwill/krishnamurti_discussions · Datasets at Hugging Face

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- you want to fulfil them - don't you? Your sexual pleasures, your vanity pleasures. Right?
There you feel utterly, totally responsible. So you have the energy. Only that energy you don't apply totally to this, to respond.
Sir, look, when you respond totally that is creative action - you understand? There, there is no imitation, conformity, authority. You respond because you see the whole and the detail, and because you see it you are free to act.
You understand what this...? We cannot do this in a consumer society. We cannot do this in a consumer society.
And how will you change the consumer society? If you feel responsible for the consumer society, for all the wars, for everything that is going on... One can't be part of it. Then you won't buy a pair of shoes, is that it?
Then you won't buy a pair of trousers, or skirt, or whatever you call it, because by buying, supporting, the consumer society is sustained, therefore you won't buy, will you? Then what happens? You gradually isolate yourself and go away.
Right? (Inaudible) Madam, look, when you write a letter, put a stamp on it, you are sustaining, you are maintaining war. Right?
You are paying tax. I don't pay taxes. (Laughter).
I don't pay tax either because I have no money. But those who pay tax, by saying, 'I won't pay tax', or 'I won't buy this, I won't do that', what happens? You are going to stop war?
Or war is much more complex than that? Begin with the whole and not with some petty little thing. When you see the whole there is intelligence.
I can't understand this. Sir, I have spent two hours, an hour and half this morning, you mean to say you don't see this? I see it but does everyone see it?
It's up to them. It's up to them. I can't force them, I can't bribe them, I can't push them.
I have no motive to do that, I don't want to do that. You can be an example and effect a change. I don't want to have an example.
You are a miracle. I am not, I don't want an example because if you are the example then I want to imitate the example. I refuse to conform to the image that I have built about you as...
So that is what I am saying, when you see - please listen, sir - no authority, no example, no acceptance of following somebody as the right, and so on, I see the whole of this. You are therefore teaching us. I don't want to teach you.
That is our old repetitive conditioning which says, 'Somebody has to teach me'. Wisdom cannot be taught. Wisdom comes when you understand sorrow.
What shall we talk over together this morning? There is a feeling that the speaker is being isolated from other fields of human existence, and therefore his listeners with him. Why is it that though the speaker talks so passionately about responsibility and so on, why is it that most of us haven't got that flame?
Is it because he is missing, or doesn't take into account other areas of human existence. (Inaudible) (Repeating) Can we go into the question of being hurt from infancy until we die and whether those hurts can ever be wiped away from the mind. Is that it?
Yes. (Inaudible) (Repeating) Can we talk about physical tension. (Inaudible) (Repeating) Could we go into communication and attention.
All right, sir, let's talk about communication and attention. Any other thing? Is it possible to bring up a child without conditioning him?
Is it possible to bring up a child without conditioning him. How can I have a balance between psychological quiet and the activity of the mind in my work? How can I have a balance, a harmony between the noise of my activity in the functioning and also inwardly at the same time keep peace and quiet and so on, all that.
Suffering, energy and action. Suffering, energy and action. (Inaudible) What do I mean by the heart.
Healing. Feeling. Healing.
The nature of healing. Look! (Laughs).
The nature of healing, and all the how can I keep the noise and the activity outwardly and inwardly be quiet and bring about a balance; can we bring up a child without conditioning him and so on. Now amongst all these questions which is the central question, in discussing it perhaps we will perhaps include all the others? Attention.
I thought so too but I wanted you to say it. Attention. I wonder why we are inattentive.
What is the relationship between attention and the lack of attention? Is attention the opposite of no attention? And what do we mean by attention, and can that attention be sustained right through; or there is always a gap between two attentions which we call inattention?
What is attention? And what is it to be inattentive? There is somebody knitting in here.
Can that lady, or man, pay attention to what is being said? Can we divide attention in knitting, talking, looking, listening? Let me put it round the other way, it is simpler.
In attention, being attentive is there in it any kind of division? What is the difference between attention and concentration? First of all there is awareness, to be aware, then there is concentration and attention.
Is awareness different from concentration? What do we mean by the word 'to be aware'? I am aware that you are all sitting there, there is a tent over us, and it is very hot.
I am aware of all the colours and the shape of the heads and so on and on. Is the mind aware, cognisant, know, conscious of what is going on within the sphere of the mind? Are you aware of your thoughts, of your feelings?
Are you aware that you are fidgeting, scratching, yawning, pushing your hair back? Are you aware of all that - as you are doing it, not after? So what does awareness mean?
I am aware of conflict and violence. I am aware of beauty, the loveliness of a tree, the flowing waters. I am also aware of my responses to the river, to the mountain, to the lovely tree.
Are we aware of all this? Go on, sirs. This is not a speech by the speaker, we are examining, investigating together.
Therefore when we are investigating together there is communication, not only verbally but also intellectually and much deeper. A non-verbal as well as verbal communication. Now I am just asking you, are we aware of the movement of thought?
Are we aware of the starvation, the hunger of millions of people - not what we read in the paper, or in the magazine, or an article, or somebody telling you millions are starving, but the awareness of a mind that is perceptive? I don't understand. He doesn't understand.
Is awareness a continuous movement? Right? Voluntary, or is it involuntary?
When are we conscious of anything? That is, when are we aware of anything? Is it we are aware, conscious when there is pain, or when there is great pleasure, or are we aware non-descriptively, non-verbally of the areas of human existence which the mind has not touched at all?
First of all to be aware one has to be sensitive, hasn't one? No? Both physically and psychologically.
How can you be physically sensitive when you have overeaten? Right? - when you are sexually indulgent, when you are concerned with the physical sensational satisfactions?
Come on sir, discuss it. (Inaudible) If you are a vegetarian and don't get enough vitamin C and B and all the rest of it then the vitality of a poor vegetarian chap goes down. (Laughter).
The speaker has been a vegetarian, never eaten meat in his life. I don't eat meat either. Good!
So physically most of us are not sensitive, alive physically. Psychologically, inwardly, we are hardly sensitive to what is going on inwardly - aware of our hurts, aware of our ambitions, violence, hatreds, personal antagonisms and so on, so on, so on. And mentally, intellectually we are second-hand people.
So mentally, intellectually, psychologically, physically there is not total sensitivity. And shouldn't there be that quality of sensitivity, not to your particular desires, to your particular wants, but being sensitive. And that is the beginning of awareness.
Right? The next question psychologically, inwardly, are we aware of our responses? Are we aware when we are not telling the truth, when we are indulging in double talk, when we are saying one thing and doing something else, when we are quoting others?
You follow? - this whole phenomenon of being second-hand, which is to be traditional, which is to conform - conform to an example. That gentleman yesterday said, 'There is a perfect example'.
And why do we need an example? Is that not conformity, in that is there not imitation, fear, and authority and following? All that is traditional.
We have had thousands of examples. Right? And we want to be that.
And in that there is the acceptance, non-verbally, essentially, of authority. Tradition implies authority, conformity, imitation, following. No?
Oh, come on sir. Now all that is tradition - following, accepting, being second-hand. In that is implied comparison - you are better than I am, and therefore I must be like you.
All that is implied in that word 'tradition', to hand over. Now a mind, the psyche, psychologically that follows, how can such a psyche be sensitive? Go on, sir, please.
(Inaudible) I haven't quite understood the question. The gentleman is saying, life is a form of tradition, is a form of continuity. Is that what you are trying to say, sir?
(Inaudible) Sir, look, sir, we are discussing, we are trying to find out what tradition is. There is the physical structure, the genes, and all the rest of it, the physical structure. We are not talking about the physical structure.
We said, psychologically, inwardly, how can there be sensitivity if that inward structure is essentially based on tradition? That is all we are saying. (Inaudible) Are you traditional?
Move from the physical of course, that's understood, move from the physical, and are you traditional? Traditional being accepting authority, accepting an example, following, imitating, conforming, and educated to be deeply second-hand human beings. Of course we are.
Tradition being the past. And psychologically we live in the past. I hope you are following all this.
Am I talking to myself, or it is too hot? And can a mind that lives in the past, at whatever area - religiously, psychologically, intellectually, even in science, the real scientists cannot possibly accept this idea of being... you follow? - all that.
Now can the mind become aware of all that area? Please give your attention to this, it is rather interesting if you go into it. You see there are these we are educated to follow; we are educated to accept; we are educated to conform.
Let's keep to those, there are a few other things. Now are you aware of it? And if you do become aware of it then you have the problem of choice.
Don't you? That is, how can I live without the indications of what is right and wrong established by the past? Are you following?
So you have choice - whether you should do this or that. Right? That is, being aware - just look at the map of tradition - being aware of this map of tradition - authority, conformity, acceptance, obedience, taking a vow, resisting, dividing, conflict, sorrow, all that is within the area of tradition.
When you become aware of all that you say, 'Which is the right thing to do amongst all this?' Right? I wonder if you... Now I am questioning whether awareness has any choice at all.
No. No. The gentleman says, no, and the lady says, no.
If there is confusion there must be choice. Sir, I am sure you are not theorising, therefore you are saying as a fact, where there is confusion there is choice. Right?
That's a great thing to admit. You understand? It is not an intellectual admission, or acquiesce, or agreeing with something because you think it, but if you are aware of it, if you realise the significance of it, that the mind when confused chooses - politically - you follow?
- chooses between this guru and that guru, between this religion and that religion, between this symbol and that symbol - you follow? When you are confused this is the inevitable action. So I am asking, has awareness any choice at all?
Or you are aware, in which there is no choice? I am aware of (noise of aeroplane) aeroplanes. (Laughter).
I am aware of all the colours here, the variety, the extraordinary colours, and I am just aware. Why should I choose? I choose only some material which pleases me.
Right? Either pink, or red, or white, or something or other. But when I observe, when I am aware there is no choice.
So can the mind be aware of this whole map or area of tradition? You, not me. Can you be aware of your second-hand thoughts?
All thoughts are second-hand anyhow. Can you be aware how you conform? And what does conformity mean?
Where do you draw the line of conform and not conform? You follow? Where do you say, obviously it is necessary to adjust oneself to a particular culture - right?
- putting on trousers, or whatever you do, and another culture which says, it is so hot, don't put on trousers, put on something else. You are following all this? Now where do you draw the line between conformity and non conformity?
Please listen. When you are aware is there a demarcation between the two? No.
Don't agree, please, do look at it. Because for most of us conformity is almost instantaneous - in the world of fashion, in the world of crazy things, in the world of ideas and so on and on. With great ease we adjust ourselves, we conform.
And I am asking, when you are aware of this conformity, intellectually, psychologically and perhaps physically too, because somebody says you must do yoga and you trot out and do yoga, and you must be a vegetarian and you are a vegetarian, you know, all the rest of it - conform. Is there freedom from conformity? You understand?
Do enquire with me please. It is very interesting. Not verbally but actually find out if you can be free, if there is such a thing as freedom and what place has conformity in freedom?
You understand what I am saying? (Inaudible) (Repeating) It is only the man in prison that knows there is freedom and wants to be free. When you are free you are not conscious of it.
Look, Madam, look, do you know what conformity is? And the mind is asking, when you become aware of it what takes place? (Inaudible) No, madam.
If I am aware that I am conforming there is the whole problem of why does the mind conform? Why does the mind conform? Fear?
No, don't shrug your shoulders. We have been brought up like that. That is tradition.
You have been brought up like that, and if you don't conform there is fear, there is the sense of lack of security, physically you might lose your job, please... (Inaudible) So where is there nonconformity? If our mind is merely conforming all the time, one is living in prison. And being in prison it is no good saying, there is freedom.
It is only when we leave the prison there is freedom. So one has to find out where is the end of conformity. In the awareness of the prison.
No, don't - that's a theory. So are we aware that we are conforming? I wish you would discuss this.
(Inaudible) (Repeating) Is it like playing a role in a theatre. Who is playing the role, playing what role? My role.
Your role. Is your role different from somebody else's role? Sir, this not a role.
We are asking, if you don't mind, when one becomes aware - we are talking about awareness, nothing else - when one becomes psychologically aware of what is going on inwardly, then you inevitably come upon this question of tradition - tradition being the acceptance of authority and so on and so on, so on. And as you become aware of it and look at it, what is your reaction? To be free of it.
Now, the reaction is to free yourself from conformity, imitation. Do you? The background of tradition is necessary for creativity.
Tradition and conformity is necessary as a background for creativity. Don't agree or disagree. So we have to look at what we mean by creativity.
How can a second-hand mind be creative? How can a traditional mind be creative? I know... Oh, I don't have to go into all that, need we?
What is creativity? What is creativity. To do something new out of nothing.
Yes, to do something out of nothing. You see, now we are indulging in description, in opinions. Right?
A writer who lives a shoddy little life and writes marvellous poetry, is he creative? For god's sake, think it out. A man who is in conflict with himself, with the world, he may produce a novel of that conflict, describing all the details, the tortures, and psychological tantrums and all the rest of it, is he creative?
Yes. Here we are! So we have to find out what it means to be creative.
You are merely observing somebody else and judging whether he is creative or not. Right? You have never found out for yourself what it means.
(Inaudible) No, don't theorise, sir. You see that is why unless you go into this very, very deeply in yourself you will never find out, you are just theorising. So come back.
We will come to what is creativity. That is, when one becomes aware of a traditional life, and the traditional life of so-called writers, creators, is conformity because they are conforming to a pattern. And they may have a talent and you call them creative.
That's not creativity - no, I won't go into all that. So when one becomes aware - I hope you are being aware - of your conformity, what is your reaction to that conformity? You conform when you put on trousers and all the rest of it; when you have long hair, short hair, you conform to a fashion, you conform to a particular craze, you conform when you accept the authority of a guru which you have rejected that authority in the priest of your own country.
Right? You are following all this? And the mind wants to conform, why?

- you want to fulfil them - don't you? Your sexual pleasures, your vanity pleasures. Right?

There you feel utterly, totally responsible. So you have the energy. Only that energy you don't apply totally to this, to respond.

Sir, look, when you respond totally that is creative action - you understand? There, there is no imitation, conformity, authority. You respond because you see the whole and the detail, and because you see it you are free to act.

You understand what this...? We cannot do this in a consumer society. We cannot do this in a consumer society.

And how will you change the consumer society? If you feel responsible for the consumer society, for all the wars, for everything that is going on... One can't be part of it. Then you won't buy a pair of shoes, is that it?

Then you won't buy a pair of trousers, or skirt, or whatever you call it, because by buying, supporting, the consumer society is sustained, therefore you won't buy, will you? Then what happens? You gradually isolate yourself and go away.

Right? (Inaudible) Madam, look, when you write a letter, put a stamp on it, you are sustaining, you are maintaining war. Right?

You are paying tax. I don't pay taxes. (Laughter).

I don't pay tax either because I have no money. But those who pay tax, by saying, 'I won't pay tax', or 'I won't buy this, I won't do that', what happens? You are going to stop war?

Or war is much more complex than that? Begin with the whole and not with some petty little thing. When you see the whole there is intelligence.

I can't understand this. Sir, I have spent two hours, an hour and half this morning, you mean to say you don't see this? I see it but does everyone see it?

It's up to them. It's up to them. I can't force them, I can't bribe them, I can't push them.

I have no motive to do that, I don't want to do that. You can be an example and effect a change. I don't want to have an example.

You are a miracle. I am not, I don't want an example because if you are the example then I want to imitate the example. I refuse to conform to the image that I have built about you as...

So that is what I am saying, when you see - please listen, sir - no authority, no example, no acceptance of following somebody as the right, and so on, I see the whole of this. You are therefore teaching us. I don't want to teach you.

That is our old repetitive conditioning which says, 'Somebody has to teach me'. Wisdom cannot be taught. Wisdom comes when you understand sorrow.

What shall we talk over together this morning? There is a feeling that the speaker is being isolated from other fields of human existence, and therefore his listeners with him. Why is it that though the speaker talks so passionately about responsibility and so on, why is it that most of us haven't got that flame?

Is it because he is missing, or doesn't take into account other areas of human existence. (Inaudible) (Repeating) Can we go into the question of being hurt from infancy until we die and whether those hurts can ever be wiped away from the mind. Is that it?

Yes. (Inaudible) (Repeating) Can we talk about physical tension. (Inaudible) (Repeating) Could we go into communication and attention.

All right, sir, let's talk about communication and attention. Any other thing? Is it possible to bring up a child without conditioning him?

Is it possible to bring up a child without conditioning him. How can I have a balance between psychological quiet and the activity of the mind in my work? How can I have a balance, a harmony between the noise of my activity in the functioning and also inwardly at the same time keep peace and quiet and so on, all that.

Suffering, energy and action. Suffering, energy and action. (Inaudible) What do I mean by the heart.

Healing. Feeling. Healing.

The nature of healing. Look! (Laughs).

The nature of healing, and all the how can I keep the noise and the activity outwardly and inwardly be quiet and bring about a balance; can we bring up a child without conditioning him and so on. Now amongst all these questions which is the central question, in discussing it perhaps we will perhaps include all the others? Attention.

I thought so too but I wanted you to say it. Attention. I wonder why we are inattentive.

What is the relationship between attention and the lack of attention? Is attention the opposite of no attention? And what do we mean by attention, and can that attention be sustained right through; or there is always a gap between two attentions which we call inattention?

What is attention? And what is it to be inattentive? There is somebody knitting in here.

Can that lady, or man, pay attention to what is being said? Can we divide attention in knitting, talking, looking, listening? Let me put it round the other way, it is simpler.

In attention, being attentive is there in it any kind of division? What is the difference between attention and concentration? First of all there is awareness, to be aware, then there is concentration and attention.

Is awareness different from concentration? What do we mean by the word 'to be aware'? I am aware that you are all sitting there, there is a tent over us, and it is very hot.

I am aware of all the colours and the shape of the heads and so on and on. Is the mind aware, cognisant, know, conscious of what is going on within the sphere of the mind? Are you aware of your thoughts, of your feelings?

Are you aware that you are fidgeting, scratching, yawning, pushing your hair back? Are you aware of all that - as you are doing it, not after? So what does awareness mean?

I am aware of conflict and violence. I am aware of beauty, the loveliness of a tree, the flowing waters. I am also aware of my responses to the river, to the mountain, to the lovely tree.

Are we aware of all this? Go on, sirs. This is not a speech by the speaker, we are examining, investigating together.

Therefore when we are investigating together there is communication, not only verbally but also intellectually and much deeper. A non-verbal as well as verbal communication. Now I am just asking you, are we aware of the movement of thought?

Are we aware of the starvation, the hunger of millions of people - not what we read in the paper, or in the magazine, or an article, or somebody telling you millions are starving, but the awareness of a mind that is perceptive? I don't understand. He doesn't understand.

Is awareness a continuous movement? Right? Voluntary, or is it involuntary?

When are we conscious of anything? That is, when are we aware of anything? Is it we are aware, conscious when there is pain, or when there is great pleasure, or are we aware non-descriptively, non-verbally of the areas of human existence which the mind has not touched at all?

First of all to be aware one has to be sensitive, hasn't one? No? Both physically and psychologically.

How can you be physically sensitive when you have overeaten? Right? - when you are sexually indulgent, when you are concerned with the physical sensational satisfactions?

Come on sir, discuss it. (Inaudible) If you are a vegetarian and don't get enough vitamin C and B and all the rest of it then the vitality of a poor vegetarian chap goes down. (Laughter).

The speaker has been a vegetarian, never eaten meat in his life. I don't eat meat either. Good!

So physically most of us are not sensitive, alive physically. Psychologically, inwardly, we are hardly sensitive to what is going on inwardly - aware of our hurts, aware of our ambitions, violence, hatreds, personal antagonisms and so on, so on, so on. And mentally, intellectually we are second-hand people.

So mentally, intellectually, psychologically, physically there is not total sensitivity. And shouldn't there be that quality of sensitivity, not to your particular desires, to your particular wants, but being sensitive. And that is the beginning of awareness.

Right? The next question psychologically, inwardly, are we aware of our responses? Are we aware when we are not telling the truth, when we are indulging in double talk, when we are saying one thing and doing something else, when we are quoting others?

You follow? - this whole phenomenon of being second-hand, which is to be traditional, which is to conform - conform to an example. That gentleman yesterday said, 'There is a perfect example'.

And why do we need an example? Is that not conformity, in that is there not imitation, fear, and authority and following? All that is traditional.

We have had thousands of examples. Right? And we want to be that.

And in that there is the acceptance, non-verbally, essentially, of authority. Tradition implies authority, conformity, imitation, following. No?

Oh, come on sir. Now all that is tradition - following, accepting, being second-hand. In that is implied comparison - you are better than I am, and therefore I must be like you.

All that is implied in that word 'tradition', to hand over. Now a mind, the psyche, psychologically that follows, how can such a psyche be sensitive? Go on, sir, please.

(Inaudible) I haven't quite understood the question. The gentleman is saying, life is a form of tradition, is a form of continuity. Is that what you are trying to say, sir?

(Inaudible) Sir, look, sir, we are discussing, we are trying to find out what tradition is. There is the physical structure, the genes, and all the rest of it, the physical structure. We are not talking about the physical structure.

We said, psychologically, inwardly, how can there be sensitivity if that inward structure is essentially based on tradition? That is all we are saying. (Inaudible) Are you traditional?

Move from the physical of course, that's understood, move from the physical, and are you traditional? Traditional being accepting authority, accepting an example, following, imitating, conforming, and educated to be deeply second-hand human beings. Of course we are.

Tradition being the past. And psychologically we live in the past. I hope you are following all this.

Am I talking to myself, or it is too hot? And can a mind that lives in the past, at whatever area - religiously, psychologically, intellectually, even in science, the real scientists cannot possibly accept this idea of being... you follow? - all that.

Now can the mind become aware of all that area? Please give your attention to this, it is rather interesting if you go into it. You see there are these we are educated to follow; we are educated to accept; we are educated to conform.

Let's keep to those, there are a few other things. Now are you aware of it? And if you do become aware of it then you have the problem of choice.

Don't you? That is, how can I live without the indications of what is right and wrong established by the past? Are you following?

So you have choice - whether you should do this or that. Right? That is, being aware - just look at the map of tradition - being aware of this map of tradition - authority, conformity, acceptance, obedience, taking a vow, resisting, dividing, conflict, sorrow, all that is within the area of tradition.

When you become aware of all that you say, 'Which is the right thing to do amongst all this?' Right? I wonder if you... Now I am questioning whether awareness has any choice at all.

No. No. The gentleman says, no, and the lady says, no.

If there is confusion there must be choice. Sir, I am sure you are not theorising, therefore you are saying as a fact, where there is confusion there is choice. Right?

That's a great thing to admit. You understand? It is not an intellectual admission, or acquiesce, or agreeing with something because you think it, but if you are aware of it, if you realise the significance of it, that the mind when confused chooses - politically - you follow?

- chooses between this guru and that guru, between this religion and that religion, between this symbol and that symbol - you follow? When you are confused this is the inevitable action. So I am asking, has awareness any choice at all?

Or you are aware, in which there is no choice? I am aware of (noise of aeroplane) aeroplanes. (Laughter).

I am aware of all the colours here, the variety, the extraordinary colours, and I am just aware. Why should I choose? I choose only some material which pleases me.

Right? Either pink, or red, or white, or something or other. But when I observe, when I am aware there is no choice.

So can the mind be aware of this whole map or area of tradition? You, not me. Can you be aware of your second-hand thoughts?

All thoughts are second-hand anyhow. Can you be aware how you conform? And what does conformity mean?

Where do you draw the line of conform and not conform? You follow? Where do you say, obviously it is necessary to adjust oneself to a particular culture - right?

- putting on trousers, or whatever you do, and another culture which says, it is so hot, don't put on trousers, put on something else. You are following all this? Now where do you draw the line between conformity and non conformity?

Please listen. When you are aware is there a demarcation between the two? No.

Don't agree, please, do look at it. Because for most of us conformity is almost instantaneous - in the world of fashion, in the world of crazy things, in the world of ideas and so on and on. With great ease we adjust ourselves, we conform.

And I am asking, when you are aware of this conformity, intellectually, psychologically and perhaps physically too, because somebody says you must do yoga and you trot out and do yoga, and you must be a vegetarian and you are a vegetarian, you know, all the rest of it - conform. Is there freedom from conformity? You understand?

Do enquire with me please. It is very interesting. Not verbally but actually find out if you can be free, if there is such a thing as freedom and what place has conformity in freedom?

You understand what I am saying? (Inaudible) (Repeating) It is only the man in prison that knows there is freedom and wants to be free. When you are free you are not conscious of it.

Look, Madam, look, do you know what conformity is? And the mind is asking, when you become aware of it what takes place? (Inaudible) No, madam.

If I am aware that I am conforming there is the whole problem of why does the mind conform? Why does the mind conform? Fear?

No, don't shrug your shoulders. We have been brought up like that. That is tradition.

You have been brought up like that, and if you don't conform there is fear, there is the sense of lack of security, physically you might lose your job, please... (Inaudible) So where is there nonconformity? If our mind is merely conforming all the time, one is living in prison. And being in prison it is no good saying, there is freedom.

It is only when we leave the prison there is freedom. So one has to find out where is the end of conformity. In the awareness of the prison.

No, don't - that's a theory. So are we aware that we are conforming? I wish you would discuss this.

(Inaudible) (Repeating) Is it like playing a role in a theatre. Who is playing the role, playing what role? My role.

Your role. Is your role different from somebody else's role? Sir, this not a role.

We are asking, if you don't mind, when one becomes aware - we are talking about awareness, nothing else - when one becomes psychologically aware of what is going on inwardly, then you inevitably come upon this question of tradition - tradition being the acceptance of authority and so on and so on, so on. And as you become aware of it and look at it, what is your reaction? To be free of it.

Now, the reaction is to free yourself from conformity, imitation. Do you? The background of tradition is necessary for creativity.

Tradition and conformity is necessary as a background for creativity. Don't agree or disagree. So we have to look at what we mean by creativity.

How can a second-hand mind be creative? How can a traditional mind be creative? I know... Oh, I don't have to go into all that, need we?

What is creativity? What is creativity. To do something new out of nothing.

Yes, to do something out of nothing. You see, now we are indulging in description, in opinions. Right?

A writer who lives a shoddy little life and writes marvellous poetry, is he creative? For god's sake, think it out. A man who is in conflict with himself, with the world, he may produce a novel of that conflict, describing all the details, the tortures, and psychological tantrums and all the rest of it, is he creative?

Yes. Here we are! So we have to find out what it means to be creative.

You are merely observing somebody else and judging whether he is creative or not. Right? You have never found out for yourself what it means.

(Inaudible) No, don't theorise, sir. You see that is why unless you go into this very, very deeply in yourself you will never find out, you are just theorising. So come back.

We will come to what is creativity. That is, when one becomes aware of a traditional life, and the traditional life of so-called writers, creators, is conformity because they are conforming to a pattern. And they may have a talent and you call them creative.

That's not creativity - no, I won't go into all that. So when one becomes aware - I hope you are being aware - of your conformity, what is your reaction to that conformity? You conform when you put on trousers and all the rest of it; when you have long hair, short hair, you conform to a fashion, you conform to a particular craze, you conform when you accept the authority of a guru which you have rejected that authority in the priest of your own country.

Right? You are following all this? And the mind wants to conform, why?