Krishnamurti
You know I don't think we answered yesterday the question: why human beings live the way the are living. I don't think we went into it sufficiently deeply. Did we answer it?
Shainberg
We got to a point... we never answered that question. I left here feeling... I left our discussion feeling...
Krishnamurti
No, I was thinking about it last night, I mean this morning rather, and it struck me that we hadn't answered it fully. We went into the question of can thought observe itself.
Shainberg
Right.
Bohm
Right. Yes.
Krishnamurti
But I think we ought to answer that question.
Bohm
But I think that what we said was on the way to answering it. I mean it was relevant to the answer.
Krishnamurti
Yes, relevant. But it is not complete.
Bohm
Yes.
Shainberg
No it's not complete, it doesn't really get hold of that issue: why do people live the way they do, and why don't they change? Why, knowing this, they don't change.
Krishnamurti
Yes. Could we go into that a little bit before we go on with...
Shainberg
Well, you know my immediate answer to that question was that they like it, that it provides, and we came up against that and sort of pulled away - that it provides...
Krishnamurti
I think it is much deeper than that, don't you? Because what is involved, if you economically, if you... if one actually transformed one's conditioning or one's... the way one lives, economically you might find yourself in a very difficult position.
Shainberg
Right.
Krishnamurti
And also it is going against the current.
Shainberg
That's right.
Krishnamurti
Completely against the current.
Bohm
Are you saying that it might lead to a certain objective insecurity.
Krishnamurti
Objective insecurity.
Bohm
It is not merely a matter of the imagination.
Krishnamurti
No, no, actual insecurity.
Bohm
Yes, you see because a lot of things we are discussing yesterday was some illusion of security or insecurity but in addition there is some genuine...
Krishnamurti
...genuine insecurity.
Bohm
...insecurity.
Krishnamurti
And also doesn't it imply you have to stand alone.
Shainberg
It definitely... you would be in a new... I mean, you would be in a totally different position because you wouldn't be...
Krishnamurti
No, because it is like completely - not isolated - away from the stream. And that means you have to be alone, psychologically alone; and whether human beings can stand that.
Shainberg
Well certainly this other is completely to be together.
Krishnamurti
That is herd instinct, which all the totalitarian people use, and also everything is together: be with people, don't be alone.
Shainberg
Be like them, be with them, be... it is all based on competition in some way, you know: I am better than you, or you're...
Krishnamurti
Of course, of course. All the Olympiad is all that.
Bohm
Well, it is unclear because in some sense we should be together but not in that sense...
Krishnamurti
Of course.
Bohm
...you see, I mean society, it seems to me, is giving us some false sense of togetherness which is really fragmentation.
Krishnamurti
Quite right.
Bohm
But it is called being together.
Krishnamurti
Quite.
Bohm
It makes you feel that way, for a moment.
Krishnamurti
So would you say the reason, one of the main reasons, that human beings don't want to radically transform themselves is that they are really frightened not to belong to a group, to a herd, to something definite, which implies standing completely alone? And I think from that aloneness you can only co-operate; not the other way round.
Shainberg
Certainly if you... I mean empirically people don't like to be different, and that we know, and empirically they...
Krishnamurti
You must have seen on the television Chinese boys training, the Russians, all the eastern satellite people - all of them training, training, never alone.
Shainberg
Right.
Bohm
Yes.
Krishnamurti
I once was in... talked to a FBI man. He came to see me and he said, 'Why is it that you walk alone all the time? Why are you so much alone? I see you among the hills walking alone, and... why?' You follow? He thought: that's very disturbing.
Bohm
Well I think that even anthropologists find that in more primitive peoples the sense of belonging to the tribe is even stronger. They feel completely lost, their entire psychological structure depends on being in the tribe.
Krishnamurti
And I think that is one of the reasons why we don't want to - we are frightened. After all, cling to the misery that you already know, than come into another kind of misery that you don't know.
Shainberg
That's right. But there is a whole action/reaction scheme. That is, by being with others...
Krishnamurti
...You're safe.
Shainberg
...you're safe. And you're... I mean there's a... it even goes further: there is an action... it's almost as if you could say that being with others is the off-shoot of always living from: you're this, I compare myself with you and therefore, I am together with you, sort of as the afterthought. You know what I mean? In other words, that is part of the circle.
Bohm
Even if you leave off comparison, I think there is something deeper in the sense that people feel this togetherness, this sense of belonging to the group, you know even if they are not comparing they just feel it is safe - they will be taken care of, you know, like their mother may have taken care of you, and that you are sort of gently supported, and that fundamentally it will be all right because the group is large, it is wise, it knows what to do. I think there is a feeling like that, rather deep. The church may give that feeling.
Krishnamurti
Yes. You have seen those animal pictures? They are always in herds.
Bohm
Right.
Shainberg
Except you know, the mountain lion. Did you ever read about the lion? There have been some studies done by this fellow Shaller, in which he shows that the lion... always in lion groups there is always one who goes off alone.
Krishnamurti
Yes, I have read...
Shainberg
You have read about that?
Krishnamurti
Yes, I have heard about it.
Bohm
Anyway the cats are not...
Krishnamurti
The feeling of aloneness is much more - it has got a great deal in it. It isn't just - I say it is not isolation.
Shainberg
Right, right.
Bohm
I was asking, now people are seeking that sense that from the group you have some support from the whole.
Krishnamurti
Of course.
Bohm
Now isn't it possible that you are discussing an aloneness in which you have a certain security? You see, that people are seeking in the group a kind of security, it seems to me that can arise actually in aloneness.
Krishnamurti
Yes, that is right. In aloneness you can be completely secure.
Bohm
I wonder if we could discuss that because it seems there is an illusion there that people sense that you might feel that you should have a sense of security.
Krishnamurti
Quite, quite.
Bohm
And they are looking for it in a group, you see, the group being representative of something universal.
Krishnamurti
The group is not the universal.
Bohm
It isn't, but it is the way we think of it.
Krishnamurti
Of course.
Bohm
The little child thinks the tribe is the whole world, you know.
Krishnamurti
I mean a human being as he lives this way, if he transforms himself he becomes alone, he is alone. Because he does... I mean... that aloneness is not isolation and therefore it is a form of supreme intelligence.
Bohm
Yes, but could you go into that a little further about it not being isolation, because at first when you say alone, the feeling that I am here, entirely apart. Right?
Krishnamurti
It is not apart, no.
Bohm
That perhaps could be...
Shainberg
What do you think it is that a person experiences? I think there is one part of it that people, all people seem to gravitate, like they have to be together, they have to be like other people. What would change that? That is one question. What would change anybody from that? And second of all: why should anybody change from that? And third of all: what does such a person experience when they are alone? They experience isolation.
Krishnamurti
I thought we dealt with that fairly thoroughly the other day. That is, after all when one realises the appalling state of the world, and oneself - the disorder, the confusion, the misery and all the rest of it, and when one says there must be a total change, a total transformation, he has already begun to move away from all that.
Shainberg
Right. But here he is altogether, being together.
Krishnamurti
No. Being together, what does it really mean?
Shainberg
I mean being in this group.
Krishnamurti
Yes, what does it really mean?
Shainberg
Being together is different from this having to be...
Krishnamurti
No. Identifying oneself with a group, and remain with a group, what does it mean? What is involved in it?
Shainberg
That's right. What is involved in it. I think one of the things that's involved in it is what I said before - is it sets up this comparison.
Krishnamurti
No, no, apart from all that superficiality, what is involved in it? The group is me. I am the group.
Shainberg
Right, right.
Krishnamurti
So therefore there is really... it is like co-operating with myself.
Bohm
Well, I think you could say like Descartes said, 'I think, therefore I am'. Meaning that I think implies that I am there. You say, 'I am in the group, therefore I am'. You see that's the sort of... if I am not in the group where am I? You see?
Krishnamurti
Yes.
Bohm
In other words I have no being at all. That is really the condition of the primitive tribe, for most of the members anyway. So there is something deep there because I feel that my very existence, my being psychologically, is implied in being first in the group. The group has made me - everything about me has come from the group. Do you see? I say I am nothing without the group.
Krishnamurti
Yes, quite right. I am the group, in fact.
Shainberg
Right, right.
Bohm
And therefore if I am out of the group I feel everything is collapsing. That seems to me is deeper than the question of competing: who is the chief, or who is the big shot or...
Shainberg
Right.
Bohm
That is a secondary affair.
Shainberg
Well, except I wasn't really saying that that was important so much as I was saying that the very action - what I am trying to get at is some of the moment to moment experience of being in the group, which is occupied.
Bohm
Could I say that the more striking thing is what happens when a person is taken out of the group and he feels lost, you see. In other words, all that stuff seems unimportant because he doesn't know where he is.
Shainberg
Right, right. He doesn't know what... he has no orientation.
Bohm
To life or to anything.
Shainberg
Right.
Bohm
And see therefore, you know that might be the greatest punishment that the group could make would be to banish him.
Krishnamurti
Yes, they used to do that.
Shainberg
Oh, yes.
Krishnamurti
Look what is happening in Russia: when there is a dissenter he is banished.
Shainberg
Right, right.
Krishnamurti
Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov and all those people are against the group.
Shainberg
Right. Right.
Bohm
Because such a banishment sort of robs him of his being - it is almost like killing him, you see.
Krishnamurti
Of course. I think that is where it is, that the fear of being alone - alone is translated as being isolated from all this.
Bohm
Right. Could we say from the universal? The false universal.
Krishnamurti
Yes, from the universal. Yes.
Bohm
It seems to me you are implying that if you are really alone, genuinely alone, then you are not isolated from the universe.
Krishnamurti
Absolutely not - on the contrary.
Shainberg
That is what he is saying.
Bohm
That's what he's saying, but I mean... and therefore we have to be free of this false universal first.
Shainberg
This false identification...
Bohm
With the group.
Shainberg
...this false identification with the group.
Bohm
Identification of the group as the universal, you see. Treating the group as if it were the universal support of my being, or something.
Shainberg
Right, right. Now there is something more to that. What is being said is that by being... when that localised identification that I am the group, that 'me', that false security is dropped, then one is opened up to the participation in...
Bohm
...in something.
Krishnamurti
No, there is no question of participation - you are the universe.
Shainberg
You are that. You are...
Bohm
You see I can remember... as a child I felt that, I was in a certain town and I felt that was the whole universe, then I heard of another town beyond that which seemed almost beyond the universe and it seemed that must be the ultimate limits of all reality, you see. So that the idea of going beyond that would not have occurred to me. And I think that is the way that the group is treated, you see. We know abstractly it is not so but in the feeling that you have, it is like the little child.
Krishnamurti
Is it, therefore, is it that human beings love... or hold on to their own misery, confusion, and all the rest of it because they don't know anything else?
Bohm
Yes.
Krishnamurti
The known is safer than the unknown.
Shainberg
Right. Right, the known... yes, yes.
Krishnamurti
Now to be alone implies, doesn't it, to step out of the stream.
Shainberg
Out of the known.
Krishnamurti
Step out of the stream of this utter confusion, disorder, sorrow and despair, hope, travail, all that - to step out of all that.
Shainberg
Right.
Krishnamurti
And if you want to go much deeper into that: to be alone implies, doesn't it, not to carry the burden of tradition with you at all.
Bohm
Tradition being the group, then.
Krishnamurti
Group. Tradition also being knowledge.
Bohm
Knowledge, but it comes basically from the group. Knowledge is basically collective.
Krishnamurti
Collective.
Bohm
It is collected by everybody.
Krishnamurti
So to be alone implies total freedom. And when there is that great freedom it is the universe.
Bohm
Could we go into that further because you see to a person who hasn't see this, you know, it doesn't look obvious.
Shainberg
Well it doesn't look obvious - I think David is right there. To a person, to most people, I think - and I have tested this out recently - that the idea, or even the deep feeling that you are the universe, that you don't have to do anything, that seems to be so...
Krishnamurti
Ah, sir, that is the most dangerous thing. That is a most dangerous thing to say. How can you say you are the universe when you are in total confusion? When you are unhappy, miserable, anxious - you follow? - jealous, envious, all that - how can you say you are the universe? Universe implies total order.
Bohm
Yes, the cosmos in Greek meant order.
Krishnamurti
Order, of course.
Bohm
And chaos was the opposite, you see.
Krishnamurti
Yes.
Shainberg
But I...
Krishnamurti
No, listen: universe, cosmos, means order.
Shainberg
Right.
Bohm
And chaos is what we have.
Krishnamurti
Chaos is what we live with.
Shainberg
That's right.
Krishnamurti
How can I think I have universal order in me? That is the good old trick of the mind which says, disorder is there, but inside you there is perfect order, old boy. That is an illusion. It is a concept which thought has put there and it gives me a certain hope, and therefore it is an illusion, it has no reality. What has actual reality is my confusion.
Shainberg
Right.
Krishnamurti
My chaos. And I can imagine, I can project a cosmos.
Shainberg
Right.
Krishnamurti
But that is equally illusory. So I must start with the fact of what I am.
Shainberg
Right.
Krishnamurti
Which is I am in a chaos.
Shainberg
I belong to a group.
Krishnamurti
Chaos - chaos is the group.
Shainberg
Right.
Krishnamurti
They have political leaders, religious - you follow? - the whole thing is a chaos. So to move away from that into Cosmos, which is total order means not that I am alone, there is a total order which is not associated with disorder, chaos. That is alone.
Bohm
Yes, well can we go into that. Suppose several people are doing that, in that state, moving into cosmos, into order out of the chaos of society.
Krishnamurti
That's right.
Bohm
Now then, are they all alone?
Krishnamurti
No, of course.
Bohm
We want to get it clear.
Krishnamurti
No, they don't feel alone there. There is only order.
Bohm
Are there different people?
Krishnamurti
Sir, would you say, suppose - no, I can't suppose. We three are in cosmos, there is only cosmos, not you, Dr. Bohm, Dr. Shainberg and me.
Bohm
Therefore we are still alone.
Krishnamurti
Which is - order is alone.
Bohm
Because I looked up the word 'alone' in the dictionary: basically it is all one.
Krishnamurti
All one, yes, yes.
Bohm
In other words that there is no fragmentation.
Krishnamurti
There is no... therefore there is no tree; and that is marvellous, sir.
Shainberg
But you jumped away there. We got chaos and confusion. That's what we got.
Krishnamurti
So, as we said, to move away from that most people are afraid, which is to have total order. Alone, as he pointed out - all one. Therefore there is no fragmentation, when there is cosmos.
Shainberg
Right. But most people are in confusion and chaos. That is all they know.
Krishnamurti
So move. How do you move away from that? That is the whole question.
Shainberg
That is the question. Here we are in chaos and confusion, we are not over there.
Krishnamurti
No, because you may be frightened of that.
Shainberg
May be frightened of that.
Krishnamurti
Frightened of an idea of being alone.
Shainberg
How can you be frightened of an idea?
Bohm
That's easy.
Krishnamurti
Aren't you frightened of tomorrow? Which is an idea.
Shainberg
OK. OK, so it's an idea.
Krishnamurti
That's all. They are frightened of an idea which they have projected, which says, my god I am alone, which means I have nobody to rely on. Nobody with whom I can...
Shainberg
Right, but that is an idea.
Bohm
Well, let's go slowly because also there's...
Shainberg
Yes, this is very important.
Bohm
We have said to a certain extent it is genuinely so. You are not being supported by society and all that. You do have a certain genuine danger because you have withdrawn from the web of society.
Krishnamurti
Yes. If you are a Protestant in a Catholic country it becomes very difficult.
Shainberg
I think we are confused here. I really do, because I think if we've got confusion, if we've got chaos...
Krishnamurti
No. Not 'if', it is so.
Shainberg
It is so, OK - I go with you. Now we've got chaos and confusion, that is what we've got. Now if you have an idea about being alone while in chaos and confusion that is just another idea, another thought, another part of the chaos.
Krishnamurti
Yes, that's all.
Shainberg
Is that right?
Krishnamurti
That's right.
Shainberg
OK. Now that is all we have got; is chaos and confusion.
Bohm
Well, wait. I feel you are... Watch the question of language because you see when you use the word 'all' it closes things. You see...
Shainberg
OK. All right.
Bohm
...in other words, we were saying yesterday that language has to be more free in its usage, a bit poetic perhaps, and if you use this world 'all' you have to watch it.
Shainberg
All right. But we have this. We have chaos.
Bohm
We have chaos. Right.
Shainberg
OK. Now that's what we have. Now what is going to... I have an idea, let me say what my idea is - that most people are... let's say unaware, unwilling, don't believe in, don't know anything about this 'all one'.
Krishnamurti
I am not talking about that. We are not talking about that.
Shainberg
That's right, we don't have that.
Krishnamurti
No.
Shainberg
All we have got right now is chaos.
Krishnamurti
Sir...
Bohm
Leave out the word 'all'.
Shainberg
OK. We got chaos. (Laughter) Chaos.
Krishnamurti
Chaos. Now wait a minute. Being in chaotic condition, to move away from that they have the feeling that they will be alone.
Shainberg
Right.
Bohm
In the sense of isolated.
Krishnamurti
Isolated.
Bohm
Not the sense of alone.
Shainberg
Right.
Krishnamurti
Isolated.
Shainberg
That's what I am getting at.
Krishnamurti
They will be lonely.
Shainberg
That's right.
Krishnamurti
Isolated.
Shainberg
That's right.
Krishnamurti
Of that they are frightened.
Shainberg
Not frightened - in terror.
Krishnamurti
Yes. Therefore they say, 'I would rather stay where I am, in my little pond, rather than face isolation'.
Shainberg
That's right.
Krishnamurti
And that may be one of the reasons that human beings don't radically change.
Shainberg
That's right. That's right.
Bohm
That's like this primitive tribe: the worst punishment is to be banished, you see, or isolated.
Shainberg
You don't have to go to a primitive tribe: I see people and talk to people all the time; patients come to me and say, 'Look, Saturday night came, I couldn't stand to be alone, I called up fifty people looking for someone to be with'.
Bohm
Yes, that's much the same.
Shainberg
'I had to join this group'.
Bohm
It is much the same. I think it comes in a more simple and purer form there - people just frankly admit it and they know that's the case, you see.
Shainberg
Right.
Krishnamurti
So, that may be one of the reasons why human beings don't change. The other is we are so heavily conditioned to accept things as they are. I mean, we don't say to ourselves, 'Why should I live this way?'
Shainberg
That is certainly true. We don't... We definitely are conditioned to believe that is all it can be.
Krishnamurti
No, we never even...
Bohm
Well, that is important. That is an explanation, we are conditioned to believe that is all that is possible, you see. But this word 'all' is one of the traps that holds us.
Shainberg
Maybe that is the very fact. Right.
Bohm
You see, if you say, 'This is all that can be', then what can you do?
Krishnamurti
Nothing. Nothing.
Bohm
You see that's this use of language that... You see this way of using language may be a change, you see.
Krishnamurti
Quite right, sir.
Bohm
You have to watch that word...
Shainberg
It is the condition.
Bohm
But the word 'all'...
Krishnamurti
That is what he is pointing out.
Bohm
The word 'all', you see the word...
Krishnamurti
When you say, 'This is all I know', you have already stopped.
Shainberg
Right, right.
Bohm
Because what does the word 'all' do, you see. It closes everything...
Krishnamurti
Closes everything.
Bohm
It says that this thing is all of reality, you see. It's got to be real.
Krishnamurti
Yes, quite right.
Bohm
One thing is it turns an idea into reality, apparently. It gives that sense of reality to the idea, because if you say that is all there is, then that has to be real, do you see what I mean?
Shainberg
Yes, I think that is a very good point. I mean that is very much like the points that we have been making where the very act of the thinking, that thought is complete, where thought... a thought becomes reality - is also... So again the language itself is the condition.
Krishnamurti
So shall we say human beings don't radically transform themselves - they are frightened of being isolated from the group, banished from the group. That is one reason.
Shainberg
That's one reason.
Krishnamurti
And also traditionally we are so conditioned that we would rather accept things as they are: our misery, our chaos, our... all the rest of it, and not say, 'For god's sake, let me change this'.
Shainberg
Right.
Bohm
Well, we have to get out of this conviction that the way things are is all that can be, you see...
Krishnamurti
Yes, that's right. You see the religions have pointed this out by saying there is another world - aspire to that. This is a transient world, it doesn't matter. Live as best as you can in your sorrow, but hand over your sorrow to Jesus, or to Christ, or somebody and you will be perfectly happy in the next world.
Shainberg
Right.
Krishnamurti
So the communists say there is no next world, but make the best of this world.
Bohm
Well I think they would say that there is happiness in the future in this world, you see.
Krishnamurti
Yes, yes. Sacrifice your children, to your... everything, for a future; which is exactly the same thing.
Bohm
But it seems that it is sort of a transformation of the same thing, that if we say we have this society as it is and we want to give it up but we invent something similar...
Krishnamurti
Yes, quite.
Bohm
...to go to.
Shainberg
We have to invent, it has to be similar if we are inventing it - a system.
Bohm
Yes, but it seems it is an important point, that it is a subtle way of not being alone.
Krishnamurti
Quite right.
Shainberg
You mean to go ahead and make it out of the old ideas?
Bohm
Yes. To make heaven, or the future.
Shainberg
Yes.
Krishnamurti
So what will make human beings change, radically?
Shainberg
I don't know. I think that this is such a... you see, even the idea that you are suggesting here is that they say it can't be different, or it is all the same - that is part of the system itself.
Krishnamurti
Agreed.
Shainberg
All...
Krishnamurti
Agreed. Now wait, wait. May I ask you a question? Why don't you change? What is preventing you?
Shainberg
I would say that it's... it's a tough question. I suppose the answer would be that - I don't know how to answer it!
Krishnamurti
Because you have never asked yourself that question. Right?
Shainberg
Not radically.
Krishnamurti
We are asking basic questions.
Shainberg
Right. I don't really know the answer to the question.
Krishnamurti
Now sir, move away from that, sir. Is it as our structure... as our whole society, all religion, all culture, is based on thought, and thought says, 'I can't do this, therefore an outside agency is necessary to change me'?
Shainberg
Right.
Krishnamurti
Whether the outside agency is the environment, the leader, Hitler, this, or Stalin and Mao, or somebody outside, or god. God is your own projection of yourself, obviously. And you believe in god, you believe in Maos, you believe - but you are still the same.
Shainberg
That's right. Right.
Krishnamurti
You may identify with the State and so on and so on, but you are still... good old me there is operating. So is it thought doesn't see its own limit? And know, realise, it cannot change itself? Realise it.
Bohm
Well, I think that something more subtle happens: thought loses track of something and it doesn't see that it itself is behind all this.
Krishnamurti
Of course. I said... we said that. Thought has produced all this chaos.
Bohm
But thought doesn't really see it, you know - abstractly. But I think you see in the bones.
Shainberg
What about the whole business that thought, what thought does in fact is it communicates through gradual change.
Krishnamurti
That's all invention of thought.
Shainberg
Yes, but that is where I think the hook is.
Krishnamurti
No, sir, please sir, just listen.
Shainberg
Sure.
Krishnamurti
Thought has put this world together.
Shainberg
Right.
Krishnamurti
Technologically as well as psychologically. And the technological world is all right, leave it alone, we won't even discuss it - it would become too absurd.
Shainberg
Right.
Krishnamurti
So psychologically thought has built all this world in me and outside me - the churches, society and so on. And does thought realise it has made this mess, this chaos?
Bohm
I would say it doesn't. That it tends to look on this chaos as independently existent, do you see...
Krishnamurti
But it is its baby!
Bohm
It is, but it is very hard for it to see that. You see we were discussing that at the end of the hour yesterday, really.
Krishnamurti
Yes, we are coming back to that.
Bohm
This question of how thought gives a sense of reality. You see we were saying technology deals with something that thought made but it is actually an independent reality once it is made.
Krishnamurti
Made it; like the table, like those cameras.
Bohm
The machine, etc. But you could say that thought also creates a reality which it calls independent but isn't, you see. I thought of a good example, that is: the Corporation, you see...
Krishnamurti
Yes, yes.
Bohm
You see people there are working for the Corporation, it makes money, it loses money, they strike against the Corporation and so on. But actually you could say, where is the Corporation? It is not in the buildings because...
Krishnamurti
They are part of it.
Bohm
...well anyway if all the people were gone the buildings would be nothing - right? - and if the buildings all burnt down the Corporation could still exist, as long as people think it exists.
Shainberg
Right. And it pays taxes, the Corporation pays taxes, not the individual.
Krishnamurti
So, does thought realise, see - aware - that it has created this chaos?
Shainberg
No.
Krishnamurti
Why not? But you, sir, do you realise it?
Shainberg
I realise that thought...
Krishnamurti
Not you - does thought? You see how you...? I have asked you a different question: does thought, which is you, thinking, does your thinking realise that the chaos it has created?
Bohm
You see, thinking tends to attribute the chaos to something else; either to something outside, or to me who is inside. I mean at most I would say that I have done it, but then thinking is attributing, saying that I am doing the thinking. Do you see what I am driving at?
Krishnamurti
Yes, yes.
Bohm
That there is something thinking. I was going to say it is like the Corporation, thinking has invented a sort of a Corporation who is supposed to be responsible for thinking. Do you understand? We could call it 'Thinking Incorporated'!
Krishnamurti
'Thinking Incorporated' - quite, quite.
Bohm
And you see the Corporation is supposed to be thinking.
Shainberg
Yes, yes.
Bohm
So we attribute, we give credit for thought to this Corporation called 'me'.
Shainberg
Yes. That's a good way to look at it, yes.
Krishnamurti
Thought has created me.
Bohm
Me, but thought also...
Shainberg
It creates an Institution.
Bohm
...but also thought has said that me is not thought, but a reality independent of thought.
Krishnamurti
Of course, of course, of course.
Bohm
You see thought treats the Corporation as if it were there, just standing like the buildings or the table. It says it is a reality, it is not a mere... I think it is in this question of reality, you see, if you say there are certain realities which are independent of thought, but if you... there are certain things which are appearances, like if you are standing on a cliff looking at the ocean, you see all the play of light which is not an independent reality but it is due to the sky, the sea, and me, you see, all interrelated.
Krishnamurti
Of course, of course.
Bohm
So it is important to keep clear whether it is a reality that arises through this whole... it's dependent on this whole movement, or whether it stands self-generated, you know - independent. Thought is treating me as an independent reality.
Krishnamurti
Of course.
Bohm
And thought is saying it is coming from me and therefore it doesn't take credit for what it does.
Krishnamurti
To me thought has created the 'me'.
Shainberg
That's right.
Krishnamurti
And so the 'me' is not separate from thought. It is the structure of thought.
Shainberg
Right, right.
Krishnamurti
The nature of thought that has made me.
Shainberg
Right.
Krishnamurti
Now: does thought, does your thinking, or does your thought realise this?
Shainberg
I would say, yes and no.
Krishnamurti
No, no.
Shainberg
It's like in flashes it does.
Krishnamurti
No, not in flashes. You don't see that table in flashes - it is always there.
Shainberg
I think what actually happens though is that you see the action... I wonder, it seems as though to really - if we could be honest about this, completely true about it, what do we see when we see... what happens, or what is the actuality of thought seeing this creation?
Krishnamurti
No. We asked a question yesterday, we stopped there: does thought see itself in movement?
Shainberg
Right.
Krishnamurti
The movement has created the 'me', created the chaos, created the division, created the conflict, jealousy, anxiety, fear - all that.
Shainberg
Right. Now what I am asking is another question: that yesterday we said that... we came to a moment where we said thought stops.
Krishnamurti
No, that is much later. Please just stick to one thing.
Shainberg
OK, but thought - what I am trying to get at is what is the actuality of thought seeing itself.
Krishnamurti
Tell me. You want me to describe it.
Shainberg
No, I don't want you to describe it. I am trying to get at is what is my actuality. I mean what is the actuality that thought sees. And as I observe this - we get into language here, the problem of language - but it seems that thought sees and forgets.
Krishnamurti
No, no, please. I am asking a very simple question. Don't complicate it.
Shainberg
Right.
Krishnamurti
Does thought see the chaos it has created? That's all. Which means, is thought aware of itself as a movement? Not, 'I am aware of thought as a movement'. The 'I' has been created by thought.
Shainberg
Right.
Bohm
I think the question that is relevant is: why does thought keep on going? You see, why does it sustain itself? Because as long as it sustains itself it does produce something like an independent reality, an illusion of one.
Krishnamurti
Why does thought...
Bohm
Why does thought keep on going?
Shainberg
What is my relationship to thought?
Krishnamurti
You are thought. There is not a you related to thought.
Bohm
That's the way when the language says there is, when it says, 'I am the entity who is doing, that produces the thought'.
Krishnamurti
Of course, of course.
Bohm
Which is to say, like General Motors says, 'I am the Corporation which is producing automobiles', do you see?
Shainberg
Right. But look, look, look: you're right. How can I get it... The question is: I say to you, 'What is my relationship to thought?', you say to me, 'You are thought'. In some way what you say is clear, but that is still what's coming from me, do you see? That is still the way thought is moving, to say, 'It is my relationship to thought'.
Bohm
No, that's the point, to say, 'Can this very thought stop right now?' Do you see?
Krishnamurti
Yes.
Bohm
What is sustaining this whole thing, at this very moment, was the question I was trying to get at.
Shainberg
Yes, that's the question.
Bohm
In other words, say we have a certain insight, but something happens to sustain the old process nevertheless, right now.
Shainberg
That's right. Right now thought keeps moving.
Krishnamurti
No, he asked a very... Dr Bohm asked a very good question which you haven't answered. He said why does thought move?
Bohm
When it is irrelevant to moving.
Krishnamurti
Why is it always moving?
Shainberg
That's right.
Krishnamurti
So what is movement? Movement is time. Right?
Shainberg
That's too quick. Movement is time...
Krishnamurti
Of course.
Bohm
But I think...
Shainberg
Movement is movement.
Krishnamurti
No, no. From here to there.
Shainberg
Right - like that.
Krishnamurti
Physically. Yes, from here to there.
Shainberg
Right.
Krishnamurti
Physically - from here to London, from here to New York. And also psychologically from here to there.
Shainberg
Right.
Krishnamurti
I am this; I must be that.
Shainberg
Right. But a thought is not necessarily all that.
Krishnamurti
Thought is the movement. We are examining movement, which is thought.
Shainberg
Thought...
Krishnamurti
Look: if thought stopped, there is no movement.
Shainberg
Yes, I know, I am trying to... This has to be made very clear.
Bohm
You see I wonder... I think there is a kind of step that might help, to see...
Shainberg
What is that?
Bohm
To ask myself: what is it that makes me go on thinking or talking. In other words, I often can watch people and see they are in a hole just because they keep on talking: if they would stop talking the whole problem would vanish.
Krishnamurti
That's right.
Bohm
I mean it is just this flow of words that... because what they say then comes out as if it were reality in them, and then they say, 'That is my problem, it is real, and I have got to think some more'. Do you see? I think there is a kind of a feedback. Suppose I say, 'Well, I have got a problem, I am suffering'.
Shainberg
You have got an 'I' though.
Bohm
Yes. I mean I think that, you see, therefore I have a sense I am real. I am thinking of my suffering but it is implicit that it is I who is there, and that the suffering is real because I am real.
Shainberg
Right.
Bohm
And then comes the next thought, which is: since that is real I must think some more.
Shainberg
Right.
Bohm
Because if it were that would be the case.
Shainberg
It feeds on itself.
Bohm
Yes. And then one of the things I must think is: what is my problem? Which is that I am suffering. I am compelled to keep on thinking that thought all the time. Do you see -I'm maintaining myself in existence - do you see what I am driving at? That there is a feedback.
Krishnamurti
Which means sir: if thought is... as thought is movement, which is time, if there is no movement I am dead! I am dead.
Bohm
Yes, if that movement stops, then that sense that I am there being real must go, because that sense that I am real is the result of thinking. Right?
Krishnamurti
Do you see this is extraordinary.
Shainberg
Of course it is.
Krishnamurti
No, no, actually. In actuality, not in theory.
Shainberg
Right, right.
Krishnamurti
One realises thought as movement. Right?
Shainberg
Right.
Krishnamurti
There is not, 'I realise thought as a movement' - thought itself realises it is a movement. It is in movement.
Shainberg
Right.
Bohm
And in this movement it creates an image of...
Krishnamurti
Of me, or...
Bohm
...me that is supposed to be moving.
Krishnamurti
Yes, yes.
Shainberg
Right.
Krishnamurti
Now when that movement stops there is no me. The 'me' is the time - is time, put together by time - which is thought.
Shainberg
Right.
Krishnamurti
So do you, listening to this, realise the truth of it? Not the verbal logical truth, logical statement, but the truth of such an amazing thing? (Pause).
Bohm
Can you say then that whatever technical thought comes about then is in order?
Krishnamurti
Of course.
Bohm
In other words it doesn't mean that thought is permanently gone.
Krishnamurti
No, no. No.
Shainberg
It could still be a movement in its proper place; its fitting order. Right and proper thought.
Krishnamurti
Its proper place.
Shainberg
And it comes about... I mean it would... I mean the brain can still do that thing. Right?
Bohm
Yes.
Krishnamurti
So am I - not, 'am I' - a human being, is he afraid of all this? Unconsciously, deeply, he must realise the ending of me. Do you understand? And that is really a most frightening thing: me, my knowledge, my books, my wife, my - you follow? - the whole thing which thought has put together. And you are asking me to end all that.
Shainberg
Right.
Bohm
Yes. I mean, can't you say it is the ending of everything? Because everything that I know is in there.
Krishnamurti
Absolutely. So you see really I am frightened, a human being is frightened of death - not the biological death.
Shainberg
To die now.
Krishnamurti
Death of this coming to an end. And therefore he believes in god, reincarnation, a dozen other comforting things but in actuality when thought realises itself as a movement and sees that movement has created the 'me' - the divisions, the quarrels, the political - you follow? - the whole structure of the chaotic world - when thought realises, it sees the truth of it and ends. Therefore it is in cosmos. Then there is cosmos. Now you listen to this: how do you receive it?
Shainberg
Do you want me to...
Krishnamurti
Receive it.
Shainberg
Receive it.
Krishnamurti
I offer you something. How do you receive it? This is very important.
Shainberg
Yes. Thought sees its movement...
Krishnamurti
No, no. How do you receive it? How does the public, who listens to all this, say, 'How am I listening to this, what is he trying to tell me?'
Shainberg
How?
Krishnamurti
He says, 'I am not telling you anything'. He says listen to what I am saying and find out for yourself whether thought as movement, in that movement it has created all this, both the technological world which is useful, which is necessary, and this chaotic world.
Shainberg
Right.
Krishnamurti
How do you receive, listen to it; or the public - another who is not here - listen to it? How do you listen to it? How do you... what takes place in you when you listen to it?
Shainberg
Panic.
Krishnamurti
No. Is it?
Shainberg
Yes. There is a panic about the death, that death... a sort of fear of the death. There is a seeing... there is a sense of seeing and then there is a fear of that death.
Krishnamurti
Which means you have listened to the words; the words have awakened the fear.
Shainberg
Right.
Krishnamurti
But not the actuality of the fact.
Shainberg
I wouldn't say that. I think that is a little unfair. They awaken the...
Krishnamurti
I am asking you.
Shainberg
...they awaken the actuality of the fact, and then there's almost... there seems to be a very quick process. There is an actuality of the fact and there seems to be a silence, a moment of great clarity that gives way to a kind of feeling in the pit of the stomach where things are dropping out and then there is a kind of...
Krishnamurti
Withholding.
Shainberg
...withholding, right. I think there is a whole movement there.
Krishnamurti
So you are describing humanity.
Shainberg
Yes, I am trying. Yes, I am describing me.
Krishnamurti
Who are the humanity.
Bohm
All the same.
Shainberg
Right.
Krishnamurti
You are the viewer, the people who are listening.
Shainberg
Right. That's right. There is a sense of, 'What will happen tomorrow?'
Krishnamurti
No, no. That is not the point. What will happen...
Shainberg
That is, I am telling you, that's that fear.
Krishnamurti
No. When thought realises as a movement, and that movement has created all this chaos - total chaos, not just patchy, but complete disorder - when it realises that, what takes place, actually? You are not frightened, there is no fear. Listen to it carefully: there is no fear. Fear is the idea brought about by an abstraction. You understand? You have made a picture of ending; and frightened of that ending.
Shainberg
You are right. You are right. There's stop...
Krishnamurti
There is no fear...
Shainberg
No fear, and then there's...
Krishnamurti
There is no fear when the actuality takes place.
Shainberg
That's right. When the actuality takes place there is silence.
Krishnamurti
With the fact there is no fear.
Bohm
But as soon as the thought comes in...
Krishnamurti
That's right.
Shainberg
That's right. Now wait, no don't go away. (Laughs) When the thought comes in...
Krishnamurti
We have got two minutes more.
Shainberg
OK. Three minutes.
Krishnamurti
Go on.
Shainberg
The fact and the actuality - no fear.
Krishnamurti
That's it. That's it.
Shainberg
Right. But then thought comes in.
Krishnamurti
No. Then it is no longer a fact. You can't remain with the fact.
Bohm
Well that is the same as to say you keep on thinking...
Krishnamurti
Keep on moving.
Bohm
Yes. Well I mean as soon as you bring thought in that's not a fact, that's an imagination or a fantasy which is felt to be real, but it is not so.
Shainberg
Right. Right.
Bohm
Therefore you are not with the fact any longer.
Shainberg
So we are saying something there...
Krishnamurti
We have discovered something extraordinary: when you are faced with fact there is no fear.
Shainberg
Right.
Bohm
So all fear is thought then, is that it?
Krishnamurti
Yes all... That's right.
Shainberg
That's a big mouthful...
Krishnamurti
No. All thought is fear, all thought is sorrow.
Bohm
That goes both ways: that all fear is thought, and all thought is fear.
Krishnamurti
Of course.
Bohm
Except the kind of thought that arises with the fact alone.
Shainberg
I want to interject something right here, if we have got one second. And that is, it seems to me that we have discovered something quite important right here, and that is at that actual seeing, then the instant of attention is at its peak.
Krishnamurti
No. Something new takes place, sir.
Shainberg
Yes.
Krishnamurti
Something totally that you have never looked at, it has never been understood or experienced, whatever it is. There is a totally different thing happening.
Bohm
But isn't it important that we acknowledge this in our thought, I mean in our language?
Krishnamurti
Yes.
Bohm
As we are doing now. In other words, that if it happened and we didn't acknowledge it then we are liable to fall back.
Krishnamurti
Of course, of course.
Shainberg
I don't get it.
Bohm
Well, we have to see it not only when it happens, but we have to see it happens and we have to say that it happens.
Shainberg
Well then are we creating a place to localise there, or...?
Bohm
No.
Krishnamurti
No, no. What he is saying is very simple. He is saying, does this fact, actuality, take place. And can you remain with that... can thought not move in but remain only with that fact. Sir, it is like saying: remain totally with sorrow, not move away, not say, 'It should be, shouldn't be, how am I to get over it?', self pity and all the rest of it - just totally remain with that thing, with the fact. Then you have an energy which is extraordinary.
Shainberg
Right.
Krishnamurti
Can you? It is time.