Krishnamurti

Do we go on where we left off yesterday? Or would you like to start something new?

Krishnamurti

Shall we start where we left off? We were asking, weren't we, why do human beings live this way?

Shainberg

What is the root?

Krishnamurti

The turmoil, the confusion, the sorrow behind it all, conflict, violence and so many people offering different ways of solving the problems: the Asiatic gurus, and the priests all over the world, and the new books, new… everybody offering a new solution, a new method, a new way of solving the problems. And I am sure this has been going on for a million years. 'Do this and you will be all right. Do that you'll be all right'. But nothing seems to have succeeded to make man live in order, happily, intelligently, without any of this chaotic activity going on. Right? Why? Why can't human beings, so-called educated, knowing all the scientific knowledge, biology, sociology, everything is now open to every human being; why do we human beings live this way, in this appalling misery? Some of them are conscious, some of them are unconscious, some of them say, 'Well, this is all right, it is only for a few years and I will die. It is a jolly good business and it doesn't matter' - so why? What is the… Why?

Shainberg

Well, I have often said they do it because it gives them the very sorrow, the very turmoil - the very problems themselves is the security.

Bohm

I wouldn't…

Krishnamurti

That doesn't…

Bohm

I don't really think so, I think people just get used to it. I mean they miss anything they are used to but that's… you know people get used to scrap fighting and they miss it when they don't have it. But that isn't the primary reason in my view, I mean why they got started.

Shainberg

What is the primary reason in your view?

Bohm

That's what we wanted to get at…

Krishnamurti

That's what we are exploring.

Bohm

…but I just feel that whatever happens you'll get used to it and you come to miss it after a while just because you are used to it…

Shainberg

Yes.

Bohm

…but that doesn't explain why it's there.

Krishnamurti

You know, I was reading the other day some writer saying, historically, five thousand years historically, there have been five thousand wars, thousands of people killed, millions killed, women crying - you follow? - the whole… and still we are going on.

Shainberg

That's right. I had the same experience. I used to… at one time I was working and a guy said to me that he wanted to go to Vietnam to fight because otherwise his life was every night at the bar.

Krishnamurti

I know, but that isn't the reason. Why…?

Shainberg

That's not the reason but there is something they hold… we hold on to the conflict and the sorrow.

Krishnamurti

Is it we like it? Is it we are…?

Shainberg

It is not that we like it; it is almost that we like not liking it. It is a kind of orientation, a kind of, 'If I know my conflict, I know what I am at'.

Krishnamurti

Have we all become neurotic?

Shainberg

Yes. The whole thing is neurotic.

Krishnamurti

Are you saying that?

Shainberg

Yes. The whole society is neurotic.

Krishnamurti

Which means entire humanity is neurotic?

Shainberg

I think so. I mean this is the argument we have all the time: is the society sick? Or and then if you say the society is sick, what is your judgement, what is the value you are using for comparison?

Krishnamurti

Which is yourself, who is neurotic.

Shainberg

Right.

Krishnamurti

So when you are faced with that - that human beings live this way and have accepted it for millennia; there have been saviours, there have been gurus, there have been teachers, there have been - you follow? - and yet they go on this way. And you say, well, we are all half crazy, demented, from top to bottom, corrupt; and I come along and say, why?

Shainberg

Why do we do it?

Krishnamurti

Why?

Bohm

Why are we crazy?

Shainberg

Why do we keep it up. Why are we crazy? Right. I have it with my children. I say to my children, 'This is a sick society. Look, they spend fifty hours a week in front of the television box. That is their whole life'. My children, they laugh at me, all their friends are doing it.

Krishnamurti

No, moving beyond that - why?

Shainberg

Why? Without it, what?

Krishnamurti

No: not without it, what. Why first.

Shainberg

That is what we run into.

Bohm

No, well, no that's merely a secondary effect.

Krishnamurti

Secondary.

Bohm

You see I think we get to depend on it, as we were saying this morning, to occupy us and so on and Vietnam might seem some release from the boredom of the pub, or whatever, but that is secondary.

Krishnamurti

And also when I go to Vietnam, or fight the war, all responsibility is taken away from me. Somebody else is responsible - the general.

Shainberg

Right.

Bohm

In the old days people used to think that war would be a glorious thing, you see. When the war started in England everybody was in a state of high elation.

Krishnamurti

High, exactly.

Bohm

They didn't know what was in store, you see.

Krishnamurti

And all united. Why?

Shainberg

Why?

Krishnamurti

Is it that we have started out on the wrong path?

Shainberg

That's only part of it.

Krishnamurti

Is it the species don't kill themselves, you know the animal species, but we are the species that kill each other?

Shainberg

Right.

Krishnamurti

So looking at all this panorama of horror, and misery - I feel this very strongly because when I travel all over the place and I see this extraordinary phenomena going on - in India, in America, here, everywhere, and I say why do people live this way, accept these things, read history and - you follow? - it is no longer concealed. They have become cynical. It is all there.

Shainberg

That's right. They have become cynical.

Bohm

Nobody believes anything can be done about it, I mean that's one point.

Krishnamurti

That's it.

Shainberg

That's it.

Krishnamurti

Is it that we feel that we cannot do anything about it?

Shainberg

That's for sure.

Bohm

That's been an old story. People say human nature is that way.

Krishnamurti

Can never be altered.

Bohm

Yes. I mean that's not new at all.

Krishnamurti

Not new.

Shainberg

But that's certainly true that people feel - or we feel, I mean let's not say 'people' - we feel, like I said this morning, this is the way it is, this is the way we live.

Krishnamurti

I know, but why don't you change it?

Shainberg

Why don't we change it.

Krishnamurti

You see your son looking at the television for fifty hours a day; you see your son going off to Vietnam, killed, maimed, blinded - for what?

Shainberg

Right.

Krishnamurti

Sorry! There have been pacifists, there have been war mongers.

Bohm

Look, I mean many people have said we don't accept that human nature is this way, we will try to change it, and it didn't work. You know, so many people did that, right? The communists tried it, the socialists tried it, some others tried it.

Krishnamurti

The utopians.

Bohm

The utopians, and you know, there has been so much bad experience, it all adds up to the idea that human nature doesn't change.

Krishnamurti

Change.

Shainberg

You know when Freud came along, Freud made his studies; he never said psychoanalysis is to change people. He said we can only study about people.

Krishnamurti

I am not interested in that. I know that. I don't have to read Freud, or Jung, or you, or anybody, it is there right in front of me.

Shainberg

Right. So let's say… that's good. We know this. We know this fact about people and we also know the fact of the matter is they don't try to change it.

Krishnamurti

So what is preventing them?

Shainberg

That is the question. They don't. That is another fact.

Bohm

People have tried to change it in many cases, but they…

Shainberg

OK. But now let's say that they don't try to change it.

Krishnamurti

You know they go to Ashramas, they go to… a dozen ways they have tried to change.

Shainberg

Right.

Krishnamurti

But essentially they are the same.

Bohm

You see I think people cannot find out how to change human nature. You see…

Krishnamurti

Is that it?

Bohm

Well, I mean what ever methods have been tried are entirely…

Shainberg

Is that it? Or is it the fact that the very nature of the way they want to change it is part of the process itself?

Krishnamurti

That's what he is saying.

Shainberg

No, he's…

Bohm

Well, no, but I am saying both. I say the first point is that whatever people have tried has not been guided by an understanding, a correct understanding of human nature.

Shainberg

So it is guided by this very process itself. Right? The incorrectness.

Bohm

Yes, let's take the Marxists who say that human nature can be improved, but only when the whole economic and political structure has altered.

Krishnamurti

Altered.

Shainberg

Right.

Bohm

But then…

Krishnamurti

They have tried to alter it but human nature stays the same.

Bohm

…they can't alter it, you see, because human nature is such that they can't really alter it.

Krishnamurti

They have got a class society, they started off no wars, you know…

Shainberg

But they are using a mechanical way to make a mechanical change.

Krishnamurti

No. Look at it, sir: you - take yourself - sorry to be personal, if you don't mind, you be the victim!

Shainberg

I'll be the victim. Pig in the middle!

Krishnamurti

Why don't you change?

Shainberg

Well, I…

Krishnamurti

No, no! Don't give explanations.

Shainberg

Well, the feel of it is that… the immediate feel of it is that there is still, there is that… I guess I'd have to say there is some sort of false security, the fragmentation, the immediate pleasures that are gotten from the fragmentation; in other words there is still that movement of fragmentation. That's how come there is not the change. There is not seeing the whole thing.

Krishnamurti

I mean, do you want, when you say that, are you saying: political action, religious action, social action, all separate, all fighting each other almost; and we are that.

Shainberg

Right.

Krishnamurti

Is that what you are saying?

Shainberg

Yes, I am saying that. I mean we keep getting something back from it, we get these immediate pleasure and failures, frustrations from these…

Krishnamurti

Sir, there is a much deeper issue than that.

Shainberg

There's more. My immediate response is: why don't I change? What is it that keeps me from seeing the total? I don't know. I keep coming up with a kind of feeling that I am getting something. I keep getting something from not changing.

Krishnamurti

No. Is it the entity that wishes to change sets the pattern of change, and therefore the pattern is always the same under a different colour? I don't know if I am making myself clear?

Shainberg

Can you say it another way?

Krishnamurti

I want to change. And I plan out what to change, how to bring about this change.

Shainberg

Right.

Krishnamurti

The planner is always the same.

Shainberg

That's right.

Krishnamurti

But the patterns change.

Shainberg

That's right. Yes. I have an image of what I want.

Krishnamurti

No - patterns change, but I, who want to change, create the patterns of change.

Shainberg

Yes, that's right.

Krishnamurti

Therefore I am the old and the patterns are new but the old is always conquering the new.

Shainberg

Right.

Bohm

But of course when I do that I don't feel that I am the old…

Krishnamurti

Of course.

Bohm

…you see I feel that I am the new, I mean it's…

Krishnamurti

Of course.

Shainberg

Yes, I have got a new idea…

Bohm

But I really don't feel that I am involved in that old stuff that I want to change.

Krishnamurti

Just now after lunch you were saying Kabala, that thing, there is a new system.

Bohm

Yes.

Krishnamurti

New - say if you study this you will be transformed.

Shainberg

That's right.

Krishnamurti

This has been said a hundred million times. 'Do this and you will be transformed'. They try to do it but the centre is always the same.

Bohm

But each person who does it feels that it has never happened before.

Krishnamurti

Never before, yes. My experience through that book is entirely different, but the experiencer is the same old self.

Shainberg

The same old thing, right.

Krishnamurti

I think that is one of the root causes of it.

Shainberg

Yes, yes.

Bohm

Well, it's a kind of sleight of hand trick whereby the thing which is causing the trouble is sort of put into position as if it were the thing that were trying to make the change. You see it is a deception.

Krishnamurti

I am deceiving myself all the time by saying, 'I am going to change that, become that', then if it doesn't… and so on and on. Is that it?

Shainberg

That begins to get at it, I mean…

Krishnamurti

No, no. Look at yourself and say, 'Is that it?' You read Hindu - wait a minute - Hindu, or some book.

Shainberg

Right.

Krishnamurti

And say, 'Yes, how true that is, I am going to live according to that'. But the 'me' that is going to live according to that is the same old me.

Shainberg

Right, right. That's right. But we have this… we run into this in, let's say with… I think that all systems, for instance, of therapy, with patients, for instance, the patient will say the doctor is going to be the one who is going to help him. Right? And then when they see that that doctor is…

Krishnamurti

…is like you.

Shainberg

…is like you, or is not going to help you, then there is this… they are supposed to get better, they are supposed to be well, but in fact they have never touched that central issue, which is that, 'I thought that somebody could help me'. So then they go to something else, and they go to something else - most of them go to another theory.

Krishnamurti

Another guru…

Shainberg

Another guru, another type of thing, whether it's a mind guru or…

Krishnamurti

This afternoon there was a man here, talking about a new guru - you follow? - or an old guru - it is all the same old stuff.

Shainberg

You are really getting at the issue, the fact that the root is this belief that something can help you.

Krishnamurti

No, no. The root remains the same - right? - and we trim the branches.

Bohm

You see, I think the root is something we don't see because we put it in the position of the one who is supposed to be seeing.

Krishnamurti

Yes.

Shainberg

Say that another way.

Bohm

It is a sort of conjuring trick. You see, we don't see the root because the root is put into the position of somebody who would be looking for the root. I don't know if you see it, if that comes out clear.

Krishnamurti

Yes. The root says, 'I am looking for the root'.

Shainberg

Right.

Bohm

It is like the man who says, 'I am looking for my glasses', and he has got them on his head!

Shainberg

Or like that Sufi story, you know the Sufi story: 'I am looking for the key' - you know the one about the… 'I am looking for the key over here because it is more light'. You the story? The Sufi, the guy comes along and the guy is crawling around under the lightpost, see, and he's looking for… and guy comes along and says, 'What are you doing there?', he says, 'I am looking for my key'. He said, 'Well, did you lose it here?', he says, 'No, I lost it over there but there is more light over here'. (Laughter)

Bohm

We throw the light on the other part.

Krishnamurti

Yes, sir. So if I want to change, because I don't want to live that way, I don't want to follow anybody because they are all like the rest of the gang. I don't accept any authority in all this.

Shainberg

Yes.

Krishnamurti

Authority arises only when I am confused.

Shainberg

Right.

Krishnamurti

When I am in disorder.

Shainberg

That's right.

Krishnamurti

So I say: can I completely change at the very root?

Bohm

Now you see… let's look at that because you are saying, 'I' - there seems confusion in the language because you say, 'I'.

Krishnamurti

Confusion in the language, I know.

Bohm

I mean it makes it hard because you say, 'I am going to change, I am…'. It is not clear what I mean by 'I'.

Krishnamurti

The 'I' is the root.

Bohm

The 'I' is the root, so how can I change?

Krishnamurti

That is the whole point.

Bohm

You see, the language is confusing because you say, 'I have got to change at the root', you see, but I am the root.

Krishnamurti

Yes.

Bohm

So what is going to happen?

Shainberg

What is going to happen, yes.

Krishnamurti

No. How am I not to be I?

Shainberg

That's the question.

Bohm

Well, what do you mean by that?

Shainberg

How am I not to be I. But let's role it back a minute, a second. You state you are not going to accept any authority.

Krishnamurti

Who is my authority? Who? They have all told me, 'Do this, do that, do the other. Read this book and you will change. Follow this system, you will change. Identify yourself with god, you will change'. But I remain exactly as I was before: in sorrow, in misery, in confusion, looking for help, and I choose the help which suits me most.

Shainberg

Can we stop here for a minute? What would you say - now I mentioned something about psychiatry here, and I'd like to get something straight if we can. There is this whole theory, and gurus have it, they don't talk about it, but they have it, and there is in all psychiatry and so forth, that is the theory that if I go along with the authority to where I see my addiction to authority then I'll free myself from the authority. You know that?

Krishnamurti

Yes. All right. The communists say, 'Freedom comes at the end of good discipline. And discipline is what I tell you'.

Shainberg

Right.

Bohm

Yes, at the end of it the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Shainberg

Right. In other words by giving myself over I will discover my error. Now what do you want to say about that?

Bohm

Isn't that obvious, that…

Shainberg

Right. It is obvious that I am doing the same thing, and then I see the failure of this authority, but you see there is a thesis there, that if I see the particular of my following authority, then I will see the universal in the root.

Bohm

But why do you have to follow the authority to see authority? You see this is one of the questions. You see, do you have to deceive yourself in order to understand self-deception? I mean, do you say first I deceive myself then I look through it and I see through self-deception and I am free of it?

Shainberg

That is exactly…

Bohm

But I mean that is absurd because when you are deceiving yourself you don't know what you are doing, you see. It is too late. If you don't truly deceive yourself, what is the point? But if you truly…

Krishnamurti

What was the question? There were several questions we asked.

Krishnamurti

Let's begin again, we'll go on. We were asking: is it possible for a human being to change at the very root of his being? They have tried different ways, different - Zen - you follow? - ten different, umpteen different ways they have tried to change man: rewarding him, punishing him, promising him. Nothing has changed, brought about this miraculous change. And it is a miraculous change.

Shainberg

It would be, yes, yes.

Krishnamurti

It is. Everybody promises: do this, do that, do the other.

Shainberg

Right.

Krishnamurti

And I, a man like… we come along and says, 'Look, I don't want to accept any authority'.

Shainberg

Right.

Krishnamurti

Because you have misguided everybody. All the authorities.

Shainberg

Authority…

Krishnamurti

…in itself is disorder.

Shainberg

Right.

Krishnamurti

Authority exists because human beings are in disorder. The disorder has created them, not clarity, not compassion, not something entirely different. It is the disorder has created them. So why should I follow them? Though they promise, do this, discipline yourself according to this way - ultimately you will be free. I reject all that. Not - intelligently because I see - it isn't a cantankerous rejection, it is a reasonable, sane rejection. So how do I proceed? I have got fifty years to live. I don't know what the future may be, I'll find out, but I have got fifty years to live properly. What is the correct action?

Shainberg

What is the correct action to live properly…?

Krishnamurti

That's all. That's all. To be sane.

Shainberg

To be sane.

Krishnamurti

Not to be neurotic. Who is going to tell me? The communists? Marx? Lenin? Mao? The Pope? Or the local priest? Who is going to tell me? Because they don't act rightly either.

Shainberg

We have a whole group of people who don't say that they'll tell you, we have a whole group of people who say, see how you follow me and see, if you follow me, see your tendency to follow me, and then…

Krishnamurti

Yes, yes.

Bohm

I understand that.

Shainberg

And then the business of self-deception.

Bohm

To see through that. In other words…

Shainberg

To see through your own self deception.

Bohm

But I mean that's really an impossible trick you see, because if you say, 'Follow me and deceive yourself', then you must genuinely deceive yourself, and you can't see.

Shainberg

That's right, but the thesis is that if you deceive yourself you will see your own tendency to self-deception, which you don't see.

Bohm

But that must be authority because, I mean it doesn't make sense to say that if I deceive myself I am going to see through deceiving myself. I mean the whole point of self-deception is that if I am really doing it right I don't know what I am doing.

Shainberg

Right.

Bohm

Therefore how do you guarantee to me that I can see through self-deception by deceiving myself?

Shainberg

Because I am going to show you through your… I am not going to participate; I am going to here and you are going to deceive yourself and then you can see this authority in action, the way you need authority.

Krishnamurti

You are talking about group therapy…

Shainberg

I am talking about a kind of psychotherapy, right.

Krishnamurti

Psychotherapy.

Bohm

You see, why do I need to go through all that to see self-deception? You see it is not clear.

Shainberg

No, it is not clear. But that is the only way - in other words you are so desperately in need.

Bohm

Yes.

Shainberg

You need me desperately.

Krishnamurti

I don't need you.

Shainberg

No, but he does.

Krishnamurti

That is fundamentally wrong.

Bohm

I am accepting authority. Right?

Shainberg

Yes, that's right, but he is fundamentally wrong. Here he is, he is fundamentally wrong!

Krishnamurti

Tell him that. Tell him that.

Shainberg

You are fundamentally wrong. He did not hear me.

Krishnamurti

No. Don't allow him to appeal to you.

Shainberg

You mean don't play along in this absurdity.

Krishnamurti

I can't help you.

Shainberg

I can help you.

Krishnamurti

Because I am like you.

Bohm

I'll take my trade elsewhere!

Shainberg

You'll go somewhere else.

Krishnamurti

So if everybody said, 'I can't help you', you have to do it yourself, look at yourself, then the whole thing is beginning to act.

Shainberg

Right. But the whole thing doesn't work like that. There are a lot of people who will be willing to deceive him for a few dollars.

Krishnamurti

So we know they are all neurotic people.

Shainberg

Right.

Krishnamurti

Here is a man who says, 'I am neurotic. I won't go to any other neurotic to become sane'. I know. So what does he do? He doesn't accept any authority, because I have created out of my disorder the authority.

Bohm

Yes, well that's merely the hope that somebody knows what to do, you see.

Krishnamurti

Yes.

Bohm

Because I feel this chaos is too much for me and I just assume that somebody else can tell me what to do. But that comes out of this confusion. In other words…

Shainberg

Yes, the disorder creates the authority.

Bohm

The authority, yes.

Krishnamurti

Of course. Like in the school I have been saying: if you behave properly there is no authority. The behaviour we have all agreed to - punctuality, cleanliness, this or that. If you really see it, you have no authority.

Shainberg

Yes, I see that. That I think is a key point: that the disorder itself creates the need for authority.

Krishnamurti

Sir, look what has happened in India. Mussolini is a perfect example. Trains run…

Bohm

It doesn't actually create a need for authority. It creates among people the impression that they need authority to correct the disorder, you see - that would be more exact.

Krishnamurti

Right.

Bohm

Because the authority they don't need at all because it is just destructive.

Shainberg

Right, right.

Krishnamurti

So let's start from there. I reject all this - being not insane. In the rejection of authority I have become very sane, I am beginning to become sane.

Shainberg

Right.

Krishnamurti

So I say, now I know I am neurotic; a human being says, I know, now what shall I do? What is the correct action in my life? Can I ever find it, being neurotic?

Shainberg

Right.

Krishnamurti

I can't. So I won't ask what is the right action. I will say, now can I free my mind… the mind, from being neurotic, is it possible? I won't go to Jerusalem, I won't to - you follow? - to Rome, I won't go to any new…

Bohm

Authority

Krishnamurti

…Park Avenue, doctors - nobody.

Shainberg

Right.

Krishnamurti

Because I am very serious now. I am deadly serious because that is my life.

Shainberg

Right.

Bohm

But then you see… you have to be so serious… then you say that in spite of the immense pressure to escape…

Krishnamurti

I won't.

Bohm

…you won't. But I am saying that one will feel at this juncture there will probably be an intense pressure towards escape, saying this is too much.

Krishnamurti

No. No, sir. You see what happens…

Shainberg

Actually it's not what happens.

Bohm

Why?

Krishnamurti

When I reject authority I have much more energy.

Shainberg

Tremendous energy.

Bohm

Yes, if you reject the authority.

Krishnamurti

Because I am now concentrated to find out.

Shainberg

That's right. That is what happens…

Krishnamurti

I am not looking to anybody.

Shainberg

That's right. In other words then I have to use my… then I have to really be rawly open to 'what is' - that's all I've got.

Krishnamurti

So what shall I do?

Shainberg

When I am rawly open to 'what is'?

Krishnamurti

Not open. Here I am, here is a human being, caught in all this, what shall he do? No authority; knows social discipline is immoral. Right?

Shainberg

Then it's the intense alertness…

Krishnamurti

No. Tell me. Tell me - you are a doctor, tell me what I am to do. I reject you.

Shainberg

Right.

Krishnamurti

Because you are not my doctor, you are not my authority.

Shainberg

Right.

Krishnamurti

You don't tell me what to do because you are confused.

Shainberg

Right.

Krishnamurti

So you have no right to tell me what to do.

Shainberg

Right.

Krishnamurti

So I come to you as a friend…

Shainberg

Right.

Krishnamurti

…and say let's find out. Because you are serious and I am serious.

Shainberg

That's right.

Krishnamurti

Let's see how…

Shainberg

We can work together…

Krishnamurti

No, no, be careful. I am not working together.

Shainberg

You are not going to work together?

Krishnamurti

No. We are together investigating.

Shainberg

Together investigating. OK we won't call it… We are investigating together.

Krishnamurti

No, no. Working together means co-operation.

Shainberg

Right.

Krishnamurti

I am not co-operating. I say you are like me. What am I to co-operate with?

Shainberg

You don't want to co-operatively investigate?

Krishnamurti

No. Because you are like me.

Shainberg

That's right.

Krishnamurti

Confused, miserable, unhappy, neurotic. Sorry!

Shainberg

Right, right.

Krishnamurti

So I say, well why should we… how can we co-operate? We can only co-operate in neuroticism.

Shainberg

That's right. You mean we will collude essentially to play… deceive ourselves. So what are we going to do? Here we…

Krishnamurti

So can we investigate together?

Shainberg

That's a very interesting question. Can we? How can we both investigate together if we are both neurotic?

Krishnamurti

No. So I say, look, I am going to first see in what ways I am neurotic.

Shainberg

I see. OK. All right. Let's look at it.

Krishnamurti

Yes, look at it. In what way am I neurotic? A human being, who comes from New York, or Tokyo, or Delhi, or Moscow, or wherever it is. He says, 'I know I am neurotic, society is neurotic, the leaders are neurotic, and I am the world and the world is me'. So I can't look to anybody. See what that gives you, what it does.

Shainberg

It really puts you straight up there in front.

Krishnamurti

It gives you a tremendous sense of integrity.

Shainberg

Right. You have got the ball in your hands, now run with it.

Krishnamurti

Now can I - 'I' being a human being - can I look at my neurotic things? Is it possible to see my neuroticism? What is neuroticism? What makes me neurotic? All these things that are put into me - into me in the sense of the 'me' that has collected all this, which makes the 'me'. Can my consciousness empty all that?

Shainberg

Your consciousness is that though.

Krishnamurti

Of course.

Bohm

Is it only that?

Krishnamurti

For the moment I am limiting it to that.

Shainberg

That is my consciousness. That very… the proliferation of my fragmentation, my thought is my neuroticism. What am I going to do with this, what am I going to do here, where am I going to get this, or what am I going to do there, or how am I going to - I mean this 'me' is made out of the proliferation of these fragments. Isn't that right?

Krishnamurti

No, sir - of course - but also this means a tremendous question, you follow? Can I, can the consciousness of man - which began five, ten million years ago, with all the things that have been put into it, generation after generation, generation after generation, from the beginning until now - you are asking all that is neurotic, old boy, all that is a fragmented collection; can you take one at a time of those and look at it? Or can you take the whole of it and look? I don't know if I am…?

Shainberg

Yes. Can you take the whole of it and look - that's not clear. How can you take the whole of it and look?

Bohm

How… it seems at least a language problem there because you say if you are that, how are you to look at it?

Shainberg

How are you going to look at it?

Krishnamurti

I'll show you in a minute - we'll go into it.

Bohm

No, but I meant that it is a difficulty of stating it.

Krishnamurti

Stating it - I know. It is a verbal - you know, the words are wrong, you see?

Shainberg

Right.

Bohm

The words are wrong.

Shainberg

Because the words are made by this very system that is…

Bohm

So we shouldn't take these words too literally.

Krishnamurti

Too literally, of course.

Bohm

Could we say that the words can be used flexibly?

Shainberg

Right. Now that's a good point…

Krishnamurti

No - the word is not the thing.

Bohm

It's not the thing.

Shainberg

That's right. The word is not the thing but the word points at something much bigger than itself.

Krishnamurti

No. The word is not the thing. It may be the big thing or the little thing but the word is not that.

Shainberg

Not that.

Bohm

No, but you see we are using words and the question is how are we to understand them. You see they are in some way a clue…

Krishnamurti

…an impediment and - quite.

Bohm

…in some way a clue to what we are talking about. It seems to me, you see, that one trouble with the words, way we take them, we take them to mean something very fixed, like saying…

Krishnamurti

…this chair.

Bohm

…this is exactly a chair. My consciousness is just so, you see. I am the neurosis, therefore we take it very fixed.

Krishnamurti

It is moving, it is a subtle… it's much more…

Bohm

It is moving. It's moving and changing - yes - and therefore you can't just exactly say I am the neurosis or I am not the neurosis. Is that…

Krishnamurti

It is constantly in flux.

Bohm

Right.

Shainberg

But he is saying something bigger which is the fact that the very thing that we are investigating is the way we use words as the thing - is the very movement that we are investigating. That is the consciousness.

Krishnamurti

That's it. Would you repeat that once more?

Shainberg

Yes. That the very act of the word being seen as the thing by consciousness, that very movement is the thing we must investigate.

Krishnamurti

Of course, yes.

Bohm

Yes.

Shainberg

That is…

Krishnamurti

Now, can you look at it without the word? Is that possible? The word is not the thing. The word is a thought. And as a human being I realise I am neurotic - neurotic in the sense: I believe, I live in conclusions, in memories, which are all neurotic processes.

Shainberg

In words.

Krishnamurti

In words. Words, pictures and reality. I believe.

Shainberg

That is how you live.

Krishnamurti

My belief is very real, it may be illusory - all beliefs are illusory, but because I believe so strongly they are real to me.

Shainberg

Right. Right. They are very real to you.

Krishnamurti

Very. So can I look at the nature of the belief, how it arose - look at it?

Shainberg

Look at how I am living in the world in which I am trapped by the belief in the word is the thing. Look at that movement.

Krishnamurti

Don't expand that. I understand. Just look at… you have got a belief, haven't you?

Shainberg

Oh yes.

Krishnamurti

Now look at it. Can you look at it?

Shainberg

I saw, I mean this morning we were talking about the fact that the belief is doctor - word; thing.

Krishnamurti

Don't expand it. Can you look at that fact that you have a belief? Whatever it is: god, the State is the most important, or whatever it is.

Shainberg

Right.

Krishnamurti

Marx is newest god, or Mao and so on and so on and so on.

Shainberg

But I believe it is true.

Krishnamurti

No, no. Can you look at that belief?

Shainberg

As a belief and not as a fact.

Krishnamurti

Ah, no. It is a reality to you when you believe in it. Go to a Catholic, a Hindu, or a Marxist…

Shainberg

Right. But how am I going to look at it if I really believe it? In other words, loo

Krishnamurti

I say there is a god!

Krishnamurti

Right.

Shainberg

Right. Now you are telling me to look at my belief in the god.

Krishnamurti

Why do you believe? Who asked you to believe? What is the necessity of god? Not that I am an atheist - I am asking you.

Shainberg

I know it's there. God is there for me, if I believe.

Krishnamurti

Then there is no investigation, you have stopped. You have blocked yourself. You have shut the door.

Shainberg

That's right. So how are we going to get - well you see we have got such beliefs.

Krishnamurti

Ask him.

Bohm

What?

Krishnamurti

You have tried a hundred times to show somebody who has a very strong belief, he says, 'What are you talking about? This is reality'.

Bohm

That's right. That is the thing of how our word becomes reality. Can we investigate that?

Shainberg

How can we get at this? Because I think we have loads of these unconscious beliefs that we don't really shake: like the belief in the 'me'. I mean I think that…

Krishnamurti

He is asking some other question.

Bohm

How thought or the word becomes the sense of reality, do you see, that's…

Krishnamurti

Why words have become realities.

Bohm

You see I think a deeper question is how the mind sets up the sense of reality, do you see… I mean if I look at things I may think they are real, sometimes mistakenly, you know, that's an illusion but you when it comes to the… you know even with objects you can say a word and it seems real when you describe it that way. And therefore in some way the word sets up in the brain a construction of reality. Then everything is referred to that construction of reality.

Shainberg

How am I to investigate that?

Krishnamurti

What created that reality? Would you say everything that thought has created is reality, except nature?

Bohm

Thought didn't create nature.

Krishnamurti

Of course not.

Bohm

But I meant can't we put it that thought can describe nature.

Krishnamurti

Yes, thought can describe nature - poetry, you know all the rest of it.

Bohm

And also measure it and…

Krishnamurti

Imagination - all the rest of it. Can we say thought, whatever it has put together is reality? The chair, the table, all these electric lights; nature it hasn't created but it can describe it.

Bohm

And also make theories about it.

Krishnamurti

Make theories and all the rest of it. And also the illusion it has created is a reality.

Shainberg

Right.

Bohm

But isn't it to a certain extent this construction of reality has its place because you see if I feel that the table is real although the brain has constructed that, it's OK. But at some stage we construct realities that are not there, you see. We can see this sometimes in the shadows on a dark night, constructing realities that are not there.

Krishnamurti

Fear there is a man there.

Bohm

Yes. You see and also all sorts tricks and illusions are possible by conjurors and so on. But then it goes further and we say that mentally we construct a psychological reality…

Krishnamurti

That's where it comes.

Bohm

…which seems intensely real, very strong. But it seems to me the question is: what is it that thought does to give that sense of reality, to construct reality? Can we watch…

Krishnamurti

What does thought do… bring about, to create that reality?

Shainberg

Yes. You mean like if you talk to someone who believes in god, they say to you that is real, that it is really there, it is not a construction. And if you talk to somebody who really believes in their self, I mean I have talked to many people and you have been talking to the psychotherapists, they say the self is real, that it exists, it is a thing. I mean you heard a man once say, a psychotherapist say to Krishnaji, 'We know the ego exists', he says, 'We got a theory - it exists'.

Bohm

Well it is not only that, but you see… I think people have felt its reality and they refer… what happens is that the illusion builds up very fast; once you construct the reality all sorts of events are referred to it as if they were coming from that reality - you see - and it builds up a tremendous structure, a cloud around it of support.

Shainberg

Right. So how am I to investigate my reality-making mechanism?

Krishnamurti

Wait, wait. We have five minutes more. So let's come to it. What are we doing now?

Shainberg

We are moving. It's moving.

Krishnamurti

What are we doing? We have said: no authority, nobody can say to another, 'This is the right thing to do', because the… we are trying to find out what is the correct action in life. I can only find that out if there is no disorder in me. Right? 'Me' is the disorder.

Shainberg

Right. That's right.

Krishnamurti

However real that 'me' is, that is the source of disorder.

Shainberg

Right.

Krishnamurti

Because that separates, that divides - me and you and we and they, and my nation, my god - me.

Shainberg

Right.

Krishnamurti

Now we are asking how… With its consciousness, can that consciousness be aware of itself? Aware like thought thinking.

Bohm

Thinking about itself?

Krishnamurti

About… thought can… Put it very simply: can thought be aware of its own movement?

Bohm

Yes.

Shainberg

That's the question.

Bohm

That's the question. It's been called… could we say a self-reference of thought to… thought understanding its own structure and its own movement.

Shainberg

Its own movement. But is that thought that is aware of itself? Or is it something else?

Krishnamurti

Try it! Try it!

Shainberg

Try that.

Krishnamurti

Do it now - four minutes you have!

Shainberg

Right.

Krishnamurti

Do it now. Whether you can be aware of your - not you - whether thought can be aware of itself. Of its movement.

Shainberg

It stops.

Krishnamurti

What does that mean?

Shainberg

It means what it says: it stops, that it can't be… that with… that the sense of… with the observation of thought, thought stops.

Krishnamurti

No - don't put it that way.

Shainberg

How would you put it?

Krishnamurti

It is undergoing a radical change.

Bohm

So the word-thought is not a fixed thing.

Krishnamurti

No.

Shainberg

The word-thought…

Bohm

…does not mean a fixed thing. But it can change, right?

Krishnamurti

Right, right.

Bohm

In perception.

Krishnamurti

You have told me, other scientists have told me, in the very observation through a microscope - the object, the object undergoes a change.

Bohm

In the quantum theory the object is - you know - cannot be fixed apart from the act of observation.

Shainberg

This is true with patients in psychoanalysis. Being with the patient they change automatically.

Krishnamurti

Forget the patient, you are the patient!

Shainberg

I am the patient, right. It changes.

Krishnamurti

No, no.

Shainberg

It stops.

Krishnamurti

What takes place when thought is aware of its own… of itself? You know sir, this is an extraordinarily important thing.

Bohm

Yes.

Krishnamurti

That is, can the doer be aware of his doing? Can I move this vase from here to there, can I be aware of that - moving?

Shainberg

Yes.

Krishnamurti

I can physically. That's fairly simple.

Shainberg

Right.

Krishnamurti

I stretch out the arm and so on and so on.

Shainberg

Yes.

Krishnamurti

But can… is there an awareness of thought which says, yes thought is aware of itself, its movement, its activity, its structure, its nature, what it has created, what it has done in the world, the misery - all the rest of it?

Shainberg

Is there an awareness of the doing of the brain?

Let me ask you something. Why do you think you can be aware of…

Krishnamurti

Time.

Bohm

Time.

Shainberg

I want to save that question for tomorrow. The question is: when you are aware of your movement of the vase, it doesn't stop. But when you are aware of the movement of the brain it does stop. Isn't that an interesting question?

Bohm

The irrelevant thoughts stop then.