The Nature of the Mind

Roots of Psychological Disorder

J. Krishnamurti

First Discussion with David Bohm, John Hidley and Rupert Sheldrake in Ojai

April 1982

John Hidley: We are particularly interested in regard to the origin of psychological disorder and what is necessary to heal that disorder. Perhaps we could start with the question of what is the source of psychological disorder.

Krishnamurti: Yes, sir. And I would like to ask, if I may, what do we mean by disorder, when the whole world - as one knows here, as one sees it from continent to continent - there is a great deal of disorder.

JH: Yes.

K: Economically, socially...

Tom Krause: This is one of a series of dialogues between J Krishnamurti, David Bohm, Rupert Sheldrake, and John Hidley. The purpose of these discussions is to explore essential questions about the mind: what is psychological disorder and what is required for fundamental psychological change?

J Krishnamurti is a religious philosopher, author and educator who has written and given lectures on these subjects for many years. He has founded elementary and secondary schools in the United States, England, and India.

David Bohm is Professor of Theoretical Physics at Birkbeck College, London University in England. He has written numerous books concerning theoretical physics and the nature of consciousness. Professor Bohm and Mr Krishnamurti have held previous dialogues on many subjects.

Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist whose recently published book proposes that learning in some members of a species affects the species as a whole. Dr Sheldrake is presently consulting plant physiologist at the International Crops Research Institute in Hyderabad, India.

John Hidley is a psychiatrist in private practice who has been associated with the Krishnamurti school in Ojai, California for the past six years.

In the culture there are conflicting points of view about the proper approach to dealing with one's own or others' psychological problems. And the underlying principles from which these approaches are drawn are in even greater conflict. Without invoking a narrow or specialised point of view, can the mind, the nature of consciousness, its relationship to human suffering, and the potential for change be understood? These are the issues to be explored in these dialogues.

K: Is disorder the very nature of the self?

JH: Why do you say that? Why do you ask that, if it is the nature of the self?

K: Isn't the self, the me, the ego...

JH: Yes.

K: ...whatever word we like to use, isn't that divisive? Isn't that exclusive, isolating process: the self-centred activity which causes so much disorder in the world, isn't that the origin, the beginning of all disorder?

JH: The origin being selfish activity.

K: Yes, self-centred activity, at all levels of life.

JH: Yes, and certainly that's the way in which the patient comes in, he's concerned about his depression.

K: Yes.

JH: Or his fear.

K: His fulfilment, his joy, his suffering, his...

JH: Yes.

K: ...agony and so on, it's all self-centred.

JH: Yes.

K: So, I am asking, if I may, is not the self the beginning of all disorder? The self - I mean the egotistic attitude towards life, the sense of individual - emphasis on the individual: his salvation, his fulfilment, his happiness, his anxiety, and so on, so on.

JH: Well, I don't know that it's the source of the thing. It's certainly the way he experiences it and presents it. He presents it as his.

K: Yes, but I mean, if you go all over the world, it is the same expression, it is the same way of living. They are all living their own personal lives unrelated to another, though they may marry, they may do all kinds of things, but they're really functioning from an isolated centre.

JH: And that centre, that self, is the source of the difficulty in the relationship?

K: In relationship.

JH: And the difficulty that creates the symptoms.

K: And I wonder if the psychologists have tackled that problem, that the self is the origin, the beginning of all contradiction, divisive activity, self-centred activity, and so on.

JH: No. I think that the way psychiatrists and psychologists look at this is that the problem is to have an adequate self.

K: Adequate self.

JH: Yes.

K: Which means what?

JH: Defining normality...

K: The self that is functioning...

JH: Sufficiently.

K: ...efficiently.

JH: Yes.

K: Which means furthering more misery.

David Bohm: Well, I don't feel that the psychiatrists would necessarily agree with you on that last point, they might feel that a proper, or properly organised self could get together with other properly organised selves and make an orderly society.

K: Yes.

DB: And you are saying, as I understand it, something quite different.

K: Yes.

DB: Which is that no self can do it. No structure of the self can make order.

K: That's right. The very nature of the self must intrinsically bring disorder.

DB: Yes, but I'm not sure this will be clear. How can that be made clear, evident?

Rupert Sheldrake: Sorry, it seems to me that the context is even broader than that of psychology, because in the world we have all sorts of things which are not human beings with selves, there are animals and plants and all the forces of nature and all the stars and so on. Now we see disorder in nature too. It may not be consciously experienced and a cat that's suffering or a lion that is suffering or a mouse or even an earthworm that's suffering may not come into a psychiatrist's office and say so, but the fact is that there seems to be disorder and conflict within nature. There are conflicts between forces of nature, inanimate things, earthquakes and so on; there are conflicts within the animal world; there are even conflicts within the plant world - plants compete for light, and bigger ones get higher up in the forest and the smaller ones get shaded out and die. There's conflict between predators and prey; all animals live on other plants or animals. There's every kind of conflict: there's disease, there's suffering, there's parasites; all these things occur in the natural world. So is the context of psychological suffering and disorder something that's merely something to do with the mind or is it something to do with the whole of nature, the fact that the world is full of separate things and that if we have a world which is full of separate things and these separate things are all interacting with each other, that there's always going to be conflict in such a world.

DB: So, I'm wondering, is it clear that there is that disorder in nature. Would we say that disorder is only in human consciousness?

K: Yes.

DB: That is, the phenomena that you have described, are they actually disorder? That's a question we have to go into. Or what is the difference between the disorder in consciousness and whatever is going on in nature?

K: I saw the other night on the television a cheetah chasing a deer, killing it. Would you consider that disorder?

RS: Well, I would consider that it involves suffering.

K: Suffering, yes. So are we saying that it is natural in nature and in human beings to suffer, to go through agonies, to live in disorder?

RS: Yes.

K: So what do you say to that, sir?

JH: Well, I think that's the way it's looked at by the therapist. To some degree it's felt that this arises in the course of development and that some people have it more than others... suffering - some people are more fortunate in their upbringing, for example, or in their heredity. But it isn't questioned that that may not be necessary in any absolute sense.

DB: Oh.

JH: Well, that's what we're questioning.

K: That's what I would like to question too.

JH: Yes.

K: Dr. Sheldrake says it is accepted. It's like that.

JH: Yes.

K: Human conditioning is to suffer, to struggle, to have anxiety, pain, disorder.

JH: Well, it's certainly...

K: ...human conditioning.

JH: ...certainly necessary to have physical suffering. People get sick, they die, and we're wondering whether or not psychological suffering is analogous to that or whether there's something intrinsically different about it.

K: No, sir. I do question seriously whether human beings must inevitably live in this state: everlastingly suffering; everlastingly going through this agony of life. Is that necessary, is it right that they should?

JH: It's certainly not desirable that they should.

K: No, no. If we accept that it's inevitable, as many people do, then there is no answer to it.

JH: Yes.

K: But is it inevitable?

JH: Well, physical suffering is inevitable.

K: Yes.

JH: Illness, death.

K: Yes, sir, physical sufferings, old age, accidents, disease.

JH: Maybe we increase the physical suffering because of our psychological problems.

K: That's it. That's it. Sir, a mother bearing babies, she goes through a terrible time delivering them. Strangely, she forgets that pain. She has the next baby, another baby. In India, as you know, there mothers have about seven or eight children. If they remembered the first agony of it, they would never have children. I have talked to several mothers about it. They seem to totally forget it. It's a blank after suffering. So is there an activity in the psyche that helps the suffering to be wiped away? Recently, personally I have had an operation, a minor operation, there was plenty of pain; quite a lot. And it went on considerably. It's out of my mind completely gone. So is it the psychological nourishing of a remembrance of pain - you follow - which gives us a sense of continuity in pain?

JH: So you are saying that perhaps the physical suffering in the world is not the source of the psychological suffering, but that the psychological suffering is an action of its own.

K: Yes. Right. You have had toothache, I'm sure.

RS: Yes. I've forgotten...

K: ...you have forgotten it. Why? If we accept pain is inevitable, suffering is inevitable you must continue with it. You must sustain it.

RS: No, we have to accept that it's inevitable, that it happens sometimes. But we can forget physical pain; can we forget the kind of psychological pain that's caused by natural things like loss, death of people?

K: Yes, we'll come to that. I come to you, I've a problem with my wife, if I'm married. I am not, but suppose I am married. I come because I can't get on with her.

JH: Yes.

K: And she can't get on with me.

JH: Yes.

K: And we have a problem in relationship. I come to you. How will you help me? This is a problem that everybody's facing.

JH: Yes.

K: Either a divorce...

JH: Yes.

K: Or adjustment. And is that possible when each one wants to fulfil, wants to go his own way, pursue his own desires, his own ambitions, and so on?

JH: You are saying that the problem arises out of the fact that they each have their own interests at heart.

K: No, it's not interest, it's like - sir, we are all terribly individualistic.

JH: Yes.

K: I want my way and my wife wants her way. Deeply.

JH: And we see that our needs are in conflict for some reason.

K: Yes, that's all. Right away you begin.

JH: Yes.

K: After the first few days or few months of relationship, pleasure and all that, that soon wears off and we are stuck.

JH: Okay, that's the same problem then with the mother raising this child and making it her toy. Her needs are in conflict with the needs of the child.

K: Please, perhaps you'll go on, sir. The mother, her mother was also like that.

JH: Yes.

K: And the whole world is like that, sir. It's not the mother.

JH: Yes.

K: So when I come to you with my problem, you say it's the mother.

JH: No, I wouldn't say it's...

K: I object to that.

JH: I wouldn't say it's the mother.

K: Ah, no, I'm pushing it.

JH: You were saying that it's a much broader problem.

K: Much deeper problem than the mother or the brother didn't put the baby on the right pot, or something. (laughter)

JH: Right. Then it appears that the needs are in conflict.

K: No, I wouldn't say needs are in conflict. Basically, they are divisive; self-centred activity.

JH: Yes.

K: That inevitably must bring contradiction - you know, the whole business of relationship and conflict.

JH: Yes.

K: Because each one wants his pleasure.

JH: There's self-centred activity on the part of the person who's raising the child or on the part of the person who is in the relationship, married. The child is the victim of that.

K: Of course.

JH: And then grows up to perpetuate it.

K: And the mother's father and mother's fathers are like that too.

JH: Yes. Now why does it have to happen that way? Are we saying that's the way it is in nature? Or are we saying that...

K: Oh, no.

RS: Well, I mean, there are certain conflicts in nature. For example, among troops of gorillas or baboons - take baboons or even chimpanzees - there's a conflict among the males. Often the strongest male...

K: Yes, quite.

RS: ...wishes to monopolise all the attractive females. Now some of the younger males want to get in on the act as well. They try going off with these females and this younger male will fight and beat them off. So they'll be kept out of this. This selfish activity of this one male keeps most of the females to himself. The same occurs in red deer, where the stag will monopolise the females. Now these are examples of conflict in the animal kingdom which are quite needless. There would be enough food for these hens without pecking each other. Now these are not exceptions; we can find this kind of thing throughout the animal kingdom. So I don't think that the origin of this kind of selfish conflict is something just to do with human societies and the way they are structured. I think we can see in biological nature this kind of thing.

K: Are you saying that as we are the result of the animal, as we human beings evolved from the animal, we have inherited all those pecking order?

RS: Yes, I think we've inherited a lot of animal tendencies from our animal forbearers.

K: Oh, yes, yes.

RS: And I think that many of these show up in these psychological problems.

K: Yes, but is it necessary that we should continue that way?

RS: Ah.

K: We are thoughtful, we are ingenious in our inventions, extraordinarily capable in certain directions, why should we not also say: we won't have this, the way we live, let's change it.

RS: Well, we can say that; many people have said it.

K: I know, many people have said it.

RS: But without very much effect.

K: Why?

RS: Well, that indeed is a question. Is it that we're so completely trapped in the ancestry of the past?

K: Or so heavily conditioned that it's impossible to be free.

RS: Well, there are two possible kinds of conditioning: one is the genuine biological conditioning that comes from our animal heritage, which means that we inherit all these tendencies.

K: Let's accept that.

RS: Now that is undoubtedly extremely strong. It goes right back into our animal past.

K: Right.

RS: The other kind of conditioning is the kind of argument that I'm putting forward, perhaps: the argument, this has always been so; human nature is like this, there have always been wars and conflicts and all that kind of thing, and therefore there always will be; that the most we can do is try to minimise these, and that there'll always be psychological conflicts within families and between people and that the most we can do is try and minimise these...

K: So, accept the...

RS: ...or at least make them liveable with.

K: ...conditioning, modify it. But you cannot fundamentally change it.

RS: Yes. I'm saying this is a possible kind of conditioning: the belief that we can't really change it radically is another kind of conditioning. I'm a victim of it myself. So I don't know if it's possible to get out of it.

K: That is what I want to discuss. Whether it's possible to change the human conditioning. And not accept it, say, as most philosophers, the existentialists and others say, your human nature is conditioned. You cannot change. You can modify it; you can be less selfish, have psychologically less painful problems, bear up with pain, this is natural, we have inherited from the animals; we'll go on like this for the rest of our lives and for the lives to come. Not reincarnation, other people's lives. It'll be our conditioning, human conditioning. Do we accept that? Or should we enquire into whether it's possible to change this conditioning?

RS: Yes. I think we should enquire into that.

K: If you say it cannot be changed, then the argument is over.

RS: All right, so I'll say...

K: No, I'm not saying...

RS: I'd like it to be changed, I deeply want it to be changed. So I think that this question of enquiring into the possibility is extremely important. But one of my points, to go back to the conditioning point, is that a lot of this conditioning is deep in our biological nature and people who wish to change it merely by changing the structures of society...

K: Oh, I'm not talking about that, of course.

RS: ...are operating at too superficial a level.

K: Like the Communists want to change it.

RS: But the idea that you can do it by just changing the environment is what the Communists thought and still think, and in a sense the experiment has been tried and we can see the results in various communist countries. And of course, believers in that would say, well, they haven't tried properly or they betrayed the revolution, and so on. But nevertheless, the basis of that belief is that the source of all the evils and the problems is in society and by changing society man is perfectible.

K: But society is formed by us.

RS: Yes.

K: And by us it is going to be changed. So we haven't to change ourselves. We depend on society to change us. And society is what we have made it; so we are caught in that trap.

RS: Yes. Exactly; and if we start off with a heritage which is built into us, inherited, which comes from our biological past, and if we start with that and we start with these societies that also have bad effects, some of them, and to varying degrees, and we just try to change the society, the other part, the inherited part, is still there.

K: Oh, yes, but cannot those also be transformed?

RS: I really...

K: I may have inherited, what - violence from the... from the apes and so on, so on. Can't I change that? The inherited biological...

DB: Drives.

K: ...conditioning, surely that can be transformed.

RS: Well, all societies surely seek to transform these biological drives we have, and all processes of bringing children up in all societies seek to bring those drives within the control of the society. Otherwise you would have complete anarchy. However these drives are always brought within certain social forms and individual aggression is obviously discouraged in most societies. But is it really transformed? Doesn't it just come out again in the aggression of the society as a whole, war and so on. So we can see that these things are transformed by society, these basic drives that we inherit.

K: But why do we... sorry, what were you ...

DB: I was going to say they really haven't been transformed, but I think you're meaning by transformed a fundamental change and not just a superficial change or a transfer of the object of aggression from other individuals to other groups. So if you talk of transformation you would say really that they would more or less go away, right? That's as I understand it.

RS: Well, they'd be changed from one form to another...

DB: I meant...

RS: ...that's what I mean.

DB: ...I don't think that's the meaning which Krishnaji is using for the word 'transform', but essentially can't we be free of them, you see.

K: Yes. That's right. Sir, why do you divide, if I may ask, society and me? As though society were something outside which is influencing me, conditioning me, but my parents, grandparents, so on, past generations have created that society, so I am part of that society. I am society.

RS: Well, yes.

K: Why do we separate it?

RS: I think the reason why we separate it is that there are different kinds of society. And if I'd been born in India instead of in England I would have grown up in a very different way...

K: Of course, of course.

RS: ...with different set of attitudes.

K: Of course.

RS: And because we can think of ourselves growing up in different kinds of societies and we'd be different if we had, that's why in thought, I think, we have the idea that society and me are not exactly the same. We'd always be in one society or another, so society as a whole, all societies taken together, we would only exist within society, but any particular society is in a sense an accident of our birth or upbringing.

K: But even that society is part of us.

RS: Oh, yes. I mean through growing up in it, it becomes part of us and we become part of it.

K: But, I want to abolish this idea in discussion, this separation from me and society. I am society, I am the world. I am the result of all these influences, conditionings, whether in the East or in the West or in South or North, it's all part of conditioning.

RS: Yes.

K: So we are attacking the conditioning, not where you are born or East or West.

RS: Oh, yes. The problem would be conditioning of every kind: our biological conditioning, our conditioning from society.

K: That's right.

RS: Yes.

K: So personally I don't separate myself from society, I am society. I have created society through my anxiety, through my desire for security, through my desire to have power, and so on, so on, so on. Like the animal. It's all biologically inherited. And also my own individualistic activity has created this society. So I am asking, I am conditioned in that way; is it not possible to be free of it? Free of my conditioning? If you say it's not possible, then it's finished.

RS: Well, I would say first that it's not possible to be free of all of the conditioning. I mean, certain of it is necessary biologically, the conditioning that makes my heart beat...

K: Ah, well...

RS: ...my lungs operate, and all that.

K: I admit all that.

RS: Now, then, the question is, how far can you take that? The necessary conditioning.

K: Dr. Hidley was saying - that's his whole point - I am conditioned to suffer, psychologically. Right, sir?

JH: Yes.

K: Or I am conditioned to go through great conflict in my relationship with my wife or father, whatever it is. And you are saying, either we investigate into that and free ourselves from that, or accept it and modify it.

JH: That's right.

K: Now, which is it? That's what I want - which is it as a psychologist you maintain? If I may put such a question to you.

JH: Yes. Well, I think generally the approach is to attempt to modify it; to help the patient to make it work more effectively.

K: Why? I hope you don't mind my asking these questions.

JH: No, I think that part of the reason for that is that it's seen as biological and therefore fixed. A person is born with a certain temperament. His drives are the drives of the animal, and I think also because it isn't clear to the therapists that the problem can be dealt with as a whole, it is clear that it can be dealt with as particulars.

K: Is it - I am not asking an impudent question.

JH: Okay.

K: Is it the psychologists don't think holistically? Our only concern is solving individual problems.

JH: Yes, they are concerned with solving individual problems.

K: So therefore they are not thinking of human suffering as a whole.

JH: Right.

K: A particular suffering of X who is very depressed.

JH: Right. For particular reasons.

K: For particular reasons. We don't enquire into what is depression, why human beings all over the world are depressed.

JH: Or we don't try and tackle that as a single problem. We try and tackle it with this particular individual who comes in.

K: Therefore you are still really, if I may point out - I may be wrong ...

JH: Yes.

K: ... you are emphasising his particular suffering and so sustaining it.

JH: Now, can we get clear on that?

K: I come to you.

JH: Yes.

K: I am depressed.

JH: Yes.

K: For various reasons which you know.

JH: Yes.

K: And you tell me, by talking to me, etc., you know the whole business of coming to you and all that, you tell me: my depression is the depression of the world.

JH: Yes, I don't tell you that. I tell you that your depression ...

K: When you tell me that, are you not helping me to carry on with this individualistic depression? And therefore my depression, not your depression.

JH: Yes.

K: It's my depression which I either cherish or want to dissolve.

JH: Yes.

K: Which means I am only concerned with myself.

JH: Yes.

K: Myself, I come back to that.

JH: Yes, it's within the context of yourself.

K: Self.

JH: Yes...

K: So you are helping me to be more selfish, if I may...

JH: Yes.

K: More self-concerned, more self-committed.

JH: It is approached within the context of the self, but I would think that I am helping you to be less self-concerned because when you are not depressed, then you don't have to be self-concerned. You feel better and you're able to relate to people more.

K: But again, on a very superficial level.

JH: Meaning that I leave the self intact.

K: Intact.

JH: Yes.

DB: Yes, well, I feel that people generally wouldn't accept this, that the self is not there, you see, which is what you're implying, that the self is rather unimportant. But rather the assumption is that the self is really there and it has to be improved, you see, and if you say...

K: That's it, that's it.

DB: A certain amount of self-centredness people would say is normal...

K: Yes, sir.

DB: ...so you keep it within reason, right?

JH: Right.

K: Modify selfishness, right? Continue with selfishness but go slow.

DB: But I think you're saying something which is very radical, then, because very few people have entertained the notion of no self-centredness.

K: That's it.

JH: That's right; it isn't entertained.

DB: Maybe a few but...

JH: Yes. For biological reasons and because of the universality of the phenomenon? Because it isn't even seen as relevant, really.

DB: I think most people feel that's the way things are, it's the only way.

JH: Yes.

K: That means status quo, modified status quo.

JH: Yes.

K: To me that seems so irrational.

DB: But you must feel that it's possible to be different, you see, at least, more than feel, in some sense there must be some reason why you say this.

K: I'll tell you...What?

DB: Why you feel so different from other people about it.

K: It seems so practical, first of all. The way we live is so impractical: the wars, the accumulation of armaments, is totally impractical.

DB: But that wouldn't be an argument, you see, because people say, we all understand that, but since that's the way we are, nothing else is possible. You see, you really are challenging the notion that that is the way we are; or we have to be.

K: I don't quite follow this. We are what we are.

DB: People say we are individual, separate and we'll just have to fight and make the best of it. But you are saying something different, I mean, you're not accepting that.

K: All right. Don't accept it, but will you listen? Will the people who don't accept it, will they give their minds to find out? Right?

JH: Right.

K: Or say, please, we don't want to listen to you. This is what we think; buzz off. (laughter) That's what most people do.

JH: Well, this question isn't even raised usually.

K: Of course.

JH: Now why do you think that the self, this selfish activity, isn't necessary?

K: No, sir, first of all, do we accept the condition that we are in? Do we accept it, and say, please, we can only modify it, it can never be changed. One can never be free from this anxiety, deep depression; modify it, always, from agony of life. You follow? This process of going through tortures in oneself. That's normal, accepted. Modify it, live little more quietly and so on, so on. If you accept that, there is no communication between us. But if you say, I know my conditioning, I may perhaps, I may, tell me, let's just talk about whether one can be free from it. Then we have a relationship, then we can communicate with each other. But if you say, sorry, shut the door in my face and it's finished.

RS: So, there are some people who accept it, say we can't change it. But there are other people, and I would say that some of the most inspiring leaders of the different religions of the world are among them, who have said we can change it; there is a way beyond this.

K: Yes.

RS: Now since religions have wide followings and since their doctrines are widely dispersed, there are in fact large numbers of people in our society and in every society who do think it can be changed. Because all religions hold out the prospect of change, and of going beyond this conditioning.

K: Yes. But I would like to know, when you use the word 'religion', is it the organised religion, is it the authoritarian religion, is it the religion of belief, dogma, rituals, all that?

RS: Well...

K: Or religion in the sense, the accumulation of energy to find whether it is possible to be free. You understand my question?

RS: Yes. Well, I think the second, but I think that if we look into the history of the organised religions and people within them, we see that much of the inspiration for them was in fact that second kind of religion, which, still within that framework, still survives, I think. But it's also something which has often been corrupted and debased and turned into yet another set of dogmas, conditioning, and so on. But I think that within all religious traditions that this second kind of religion you talk about has been kept alive and I think that the impetus in all the great religions of the world has been that, though it's then been debased and degraded in various ways. But this vision has never left any of these religions, there are still people within them, I think, who still have it. And this is the inner light that keeps them going over and above the simple political part and all the rest of it.

K: I know, I know. But suppose a man like me rejects tradition. Rejects anything that has been said about truth, about god, whatever it is: the other side. I don't know; the other people say, yes, we have this and that. So how am I, as a human being who has really rejected all this: tradition, the people who have said there is, and the people who have said that's all nonsense; people who have said we have found (inaudible) - and so on, so on. If you wipe all that out and say, look, I must find out - not as an individual - can this truth or this bliss, this illumination come without depending on all that? You see, if I am anchored, for example in Hinduism, with all the - not the superficiality of it, not all the rituals and all the superstitions - if I am anchored in the religious belief of a Hindu, of a real Brahmin, I am always anchored, and I may go very far, but I am anchored there. That is not freedom. Because there must be freedom to discover this, or come upon this.

RS: Yes.

K: Sir, we are going little bit too far?

RS: No, but I would then go back and say, well, you put forward the question of a man who rejects all his traditions. You said, let us suppose that I am a man who has rejected all these traditions. I would then say, well what reason do you have for rejecting all these traditions in such a way?

JH: Well, that seems to be part of the problem that we've arrived at. We have said that man is conditioned biologically and socially by his family. The tradition is part of that. We've said that that's the problem that we're up against now. Is it possible for him to change his nature or do we have to deal with each of these problems particularly as they come up?

RS: Well, what I was saying is that the inner core of all the great religions of the world is a vision of this possibility of a transformation, whether it's called salvation or liberation or nirvana or what. There's this vision. Now there have always been people within those religions who've had this vision and lived this vision; now...

K: Ah! Sorry. Go on, I'm sorry.

RS: Well, perhaps out of your radical rejection of all religions you've always denied that. But if so, I would say, why? Why should we be so radical as to deny...

K: I question whether they really - I may be sacrilegious, I may be an infidel, non-believer - I wonder if I am anchored to a certain organised belief, whether I can ever find the other. If I am a Buddhist, for example, I believe that the Buddha is my saviour. Suppose I believe that, and that has been told to me from childhood, my parents have been Buddhists and so on, so on, so on. And as long as I have found that security in that idea, or in that belief, in that person, there is no freedom.

RS: No, but it's possible that you can move beyond that framework, you see, starting from within it that you can move beyond it.

K: That means I wipe out everything.

RS: It means you wipe it out, but there's a difference between an approach where you wipe it out from the beginning...

K: From the beginning, I am talking.

RS: And there's an approach where you start within it and go beyond it.

K: You see that - wait, wait; yes, I know, the well-worn argument. What is important, breaking down all the barriers at the beginning, not at the end. I am a Hindu, I see what Hinduism is, a lot of superstition, you know, all the rest of it, and why should I go through number of years to end it, why can't I finish it the first day?

RS: Because I think you'd have to reinvent and rediscover for yourself a great many things that you would be able to get through more quickly if you didn't.

K: No. His question is: I am a living human being in relationship with him or with her. In that relationship I am in conflict. He says, don't go about religion and illumination and nirvana and all the rest of it. Transform this, live rightly here, then the door is open.

RS: Yes, but surely, isn't that easier said than done?

K: I know! I know it's easier said than done, therefore let's find out. Let me find out with him, or with you, or with her how to live in this world without conflict. Right, sir?

JH: That's what we're asking.

K: Can I find out, or is that impossible?

JH: We don't know.

K: No. Therefore we start, we don't know.

JH: Okay.

K: So let's enquire into that. Because if my relationship with life is not right - right in quotes for the moment - how can I find out something that's immensely beyond all this? Beyond time, beyond thought, beyond measure. I can't. 'Till we have established right relationship between us, which is order, how can I find that which is supreme order? So I must begin with you, not with that. I don't know if you are meeting me.

RS: No, I would have thought that you could easily argue the other way around.

K: Of course, of course! (laughs)

RS: Until you have that, you can't get this right; because the whole history of man shows that starting just from...

K: Ah! Therefore you invent that. You invent something illogical, may not be true; may be just invention of thought, and you imagine that to be order, and hope that order will filter into you. And it seems so illogical, irrational, whereas this is so rational.

RS: But is it possible?

K: That is it! Let's find out.

RS: But you've now completely reversed your argument to start with, you see. He started with the patient coming to the psychiatrist's office who wants to get his relationships right, get the human relationships out of this state of disorder and conflict into something that's more tolerable.

K: I'm not sure this way - forgive me, Doctor, if I'm blundering into where the angels fear to tread (laughter) - I question whether they are doing right.

RS: But they're doing just what you said now, starting with the relationship, and not going into these bigger questions.

K: But I question whether they are really concerned with bringing about a right relationship between human beings, fundamentally, not superficially, just to adjust themselves for the day.

JH: I don't think that you're denying that larger questions are involved in that, you are just saying that we shouldn't invent ideas about what a solution would be like.

K: Yes. I come to you with my problem: I cannot get on with somebody, or I am terribly depressed or something dishonest in me, I pretend. I come to you. You are concerned to tell me, become more honest.

JH: Yes.

K: But not find out what is real honesty.

JH: Don't we get into the problem of creating the idea of real honesty at this point?

K: No. It's not an idea. I am dishonest. You enquire, why are you dishonest?

JH: Yes.

K: Go - penetrate into it, disturb me. Don't pacify me. Don't help me to say, well, be a little more honest and a little more this or that, but shake me so that I find out what is real honesty.

JH: Okay, that's...

K: I may break away from my conditioning, from my wife, from my parents, anything. You don't disturb me.

JH: No, that's...

K: That's just my point.

JH: I do disturb you.

K: Partially.

JH: Well, what...

K: You disturb me not to conform to little adjustments.

JH: Well, let's look at that.

K: Sorry.

JH: I disturb you to conform to little adjustments, yes.

K: You don't say to me, look, you are dishonest, let's go into it.

JH: I do say that.

K: No but, go into it, so that he is totally honest.

JH: Well, how deeply do I need to go into it so that I have disturbed you totally?

K: Yes. So you tell me. Do it now, sir.

JH: Okay. You come in and in our talks we notice that the thing that you are up to is that you are always trying to find some other person to make your life be whole.

K: Yes. I depend on somebody.

JH: Yes, deeply.

K: Deeply.

JH: And you don't even know that.

K: Yes.

JH: So I disturb you. I tell you that that's what's going on and I show you you're doing it with me. I show you you're doing it with your husband. Now is that sufficiently deep?

K: No.

JH: Why?

K: What have you shown me? A verbal picture...

JH: No, not verbal; not verbal.

K: Wait, wait.

JH: Okay.

K: Verbal picture, an argument, a thing which tells me that I am dishonest. Or whatever you tell me. That leaves me where?

JH: Well, if it's verbal it just gives you more knowledge about yourself.

K: That's all. Knowledge about myself.

JH: Yes.

K: Will knowledge transform me?

JH: No.

K: No. Be careful, sir, careful. Then why do I come to you?

JH: Well, not so that I can give you knowledge. You come thinking that maybe somehow I have some answers, because other people, because the society is set up...

K: Why don't you tell me, 'Old boy, do it yourself, don't depend on me'. Go into it. Find out, stir.

JH: Okay, I tell you that. I tell you, go into it yourself. And you say to me...

K: I can't do it.

JH: ...I don't know what you're talking about.

K: That's just it.

JH: Yes...

K: So how will you help me to go into myself and not depend on you? You understand my question? Please, I'm not the stage, the only actor. Sir, this is really a serious question. How will you help me to go into myself so deeply that I understand and go beyond. You know what I mean?

JH: No, I don't know what you mean. I understand how to help you go into it without depending on me.

K: I don't want to depend on you. I don't want to depend on anybody.

JH: Okay. I can help you do that. We can discover together that you are depending on me, but I don't know how deeply this has to go.

K: So you have to enquire into dependence.

JH: Okay.

K: Why am I dependent? Security.

JH: Yes.

K: Where is security? Is there such thing as security?

JH: Well, I have these experiences as I grew up that taught me what security is.

K: Yes, which is what? A projected idea?

JH: Yes.

K: A principle.

JH: Yes.

K: A belief, a faith, a dogma, or an ideal, which are all projected by me or by you, and I accept those. But they're unreal.

JH: Okay.

K: So, can I push those away?

JH: Yes. And then you are not depressed.

K: Ah! I am dependent and therefore I get angry, jealousy, all the rest of it. That dependence makes me attached and in that attachment there is more fear, there is more anxiety, there is more... you follow?

JH: Yes.

K: So can you help me to be free or, find out what is true security? Is there a deep abiding security? Not in furniture, not in a house, not in my wife or in some idea - find deeply if there is such thing as complete security. Sorry, I'm talking all the ...

JH: So you're suggesting that if I simply work on this with you and you come to understand that you're dependent that that's not sufficient because you won't have discovered any abiding security.

K: No. Because that's all I want. I've sought security in this house and it doesn't, there's no security. And there's none, I've sought security in my wife, there isn't any; then I change to another woman, but there isn't any either. Then I find security in a church, in a god, in a belief, in a faith, in some other symbol. You see what is happening? You are all externalising, if I can use that word - giving me security in things in which there is no security: in nations, all the rest of it. Could you help us to find out if there is complete security which is unshakeable?

RS: Are you suggesting that this is one of our most fundamental needs, driving activities?

K: I should think so.

RS: Drives and activities?

K: I should think so.

RS: So indeed it's a fundamental question as to whether this sense of abiding unshakeable security is possible.

K: Yes. Yes. Because if once you have that there is no problem any more.

JH: But this isn't clear, because then is it the individual that has that?

K: No. Individual can never have that security. Because he is in himself divisive.

http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-video/the-roots-of-psychological-disorder.php

The Nature of the Mind

Ojai, 16-17th April 1982. Conversations with Drs. Bohm, Sheldrake & Hidley.

Psychological Suffering

Q: Is it possible to live a life free from disorder?

Q: What is security?

We are hurt by parents, school, university. Is it possible not to be hurt and not to hurt? A lot of ideas, emotions, reactions, all that is me. Is it possible not to have images at all?

I identify with my nation because that gives me a certain strength, status, security.

Why do we want to identify with something? And why do we want to become?

Avoidance, of "what is" is an escape, but to say, look, this is what I am, let`s look at it, is not.

If I see the fact that responsibility is order, I am responsible for keeping this house clean, as we all live on this earth it is our earth, not the British , or French or German earth. And we have divided ourselves because in this division we think there is security. In isolation there is neither security nor order.

Psychological Suffering

J. Krishnamurti

Second Conversation with David Bohm, John Hidley and Rupert Sheldrake in Ojai 17 April 1982

Tom Krause: This is one of a series of dialogues between J Krishnamurti, David Bohm, Rupert Sheldrake and John Hidley. The purpose of these discussions is to explore essential questions about the mind: what is psychological disorder and what is required for fundamental psychological change.

J Krishnamurti is a religious philosopher, author and educator who has written and given lectures on these subjects for many years. He has founded elementary and secondary schools in the United States, England and India.

David Bohm is professor of theoretical physics at Birkbeck College, London University in England. He has written numerous books concerning theoretical physics and the nature of consciousness. Professor Bohm and Mr Krishnamurti have held previous dialogues on many subjects.

Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist whose recently published book proposes that learning in some members of a species affects the species as a whole. Dr Sheldrake is presently consulting plant physiologist to the International Crops Research Institute in Hyderabad, India.

John Hidley is a psychiatrist in private practice who has been associated with the Krishnamurti school in Ojai, California for the past six years.

In the first dialogue the nature of the self was discussed, its relationship to suffering, to society, and to religion. Questions raised were: can one discover or learn about these relationships and is the need for psychological security the root of the problem? Today's discussion continues with these questions.

John Hidley: We talked yesterday, we started with the question of the origin and nature of psychological disorder, and suggested that it has its roots in self-centred activity which is divisive and conflictual in nature and that biologically such factors as instinctual aggression and dominance drives, the facts of illness and death all contribute. I wondered if we could start this morning, David, by having you comment on the relationship between these biological factors and psychological security.

David Bohm: Yes, well, biologically if you begin with the animal you have all sorts of things like fear and anger and aggression and they're fairly simple. They exist for a short period while the fact is there and then they generally disappear, leaving little trace. There may be a few cases in the higher animals where there's some memory, but it's in man that the memory becomes very significant, remembering all these experiences and anticipating the future you get a very different sort of behaviour. For example, with an animal he might have a bad experience with another animal and shortly afterward he'll be in fairly good state of equilibrium, but say we have a quarrel between two groups, as in Northern and Southern Ireland, this has been going on for 350 years and there is a specific effort to remember it which you can see going on. And I think this is the biggest difference.

JH: Memory being the...

DB: Yes, the effect of memory, the consequences of memory. You see memory by itself would obviously not cause any trouble, because it's only a fact, right? But memory has consequences: it may produce fear, you see, it may produce anger; it may produce all sorts of disturbances to remember what did happen and to anticipate what may happen.

Rupert Sheldrake: You mean thinking about it?

DB: Yes. Based on memory, right?

RS: I mean, obviously the animal that's been attacked by another animal remembers in the sense that when it sees the other animal again, it's afraid. It probably doesn't think about it in between.

DB: Yes, it can't form an image, you see, I don't believe that most animals can form images of the other animals, and I can base that on experience, that I have seen dogs fighting very hard, and as soon as they turn the corner, the dog sort of forgets what happened. He is disturbed but he doesn't know why he is disturbed, you see. Now, if he could remember the other dog after he turned the corner, he could continue the struggle over territory indefinitely. So the point about territory is, the animal maintains it in a certain limited context. But man remembers it and he maintains this territory indefinitely and wants to extend it, and so on, because of his thinking about it.

RS: So, are you suggesting that the basis of the specifically human kind of pain and suffering over and above the kind of suffering we see in the animal kingdom is this ability to remember, to brood over it, think about it?

DB: Yes, the animal may have some of that, I've seen examples on television of a deer who lost its doe and it was pining away in the wild, but I think it's limited, that is, there is some suffering of that kind in the animal world but with man it's enormously expanded, you know, it seems limitless. Yes, I think the major point is that with man the thing can build up like a tremendous explosion that fills his whole mind, you see, and it can become the major motive in life, to remember the insult and to, you know, to revenge the vendetta, in families over many generations. To remember the bad experience you had with somebody and to be frightened of what's coming like the examination that the child may be frightened of, or something like that.

K: But have you answered his question, sir?

DB: Which is?

JH: How does the biological fact of illness or death or instinctual drive result in a psychological problem or disorder?

DB: By thinking about it. I say that the biological fact is not a serious problem, in the long run, but as soon as you begin to think about it, and not merely think about it but make images about it along with that thought, you know; and to revive the memory and anticipate the feeling of the future; and while you are thinking then it becomes a very serious problem because you can't stop it, you see. You will never attain security by thinking about it, but you are constantly seeking security. You see, the purpose of thinking is to give you security in practical affairs, technical affairs. Now, therefore you are doing a similar sort of thinking, saying how can I be secure against the possibility of suffering again? And there is no way to do that. You may take technical steps to make it unlikely, but as you think about it, you begin to stir up the whole system and distort the whole mental process.

JH: Well, it seems clear that by thinking about it we stir up the emotions and the associations that are those thoughts, but we're not suggesting we shouldn't think about it, are we?

DB: Well, it depends on how you think about it. You see, this thinking gets to be directed toward giving you a sense of security, you see, an image of security.

JH: Right, I get hurt when I'm little or some time along the line and it creates a fear in me and I anticipate that kind of situation. I may not even remember the incident, but I want to avoid it in the future.

DB: Yes, and now, the point is this: the mind is always searching for how to avoid it, and searching out thoughts, images, you know, saying, that fellow is the one who did it, I must keep away from him; coming to conclusions and if any conclusion gives you an image of security, then the mind holds on to it, right? Without actually any basis.

JH: Could you elaborate on that a little?

DB: Well, if you have had a bad experience with somebody, you may conclude that you should never trust him again, for example. Although that might be quite wrong. But the mind is so anxious to have security that it will jump to the conclusion that it's not safe to trust him. Right?

JH: Yes.

DB: Now, if you find somebody else who seems to treat you well and reassures you and flatters you, then you may jump to the conclusion you can completely trust him. Now, the mind is now looking for thoughts that will give it good feelings, you see, because the feelings of the memory are so disturbing to the whole system that its first function is to make the mind feel better, rather than find out what is the fact.

JH: Okay, so you're saying that at this point the mind isn't interested in what's true, it's interested in getting secure.

DB: Yes, it's so disturbed that it wants to come to order first you see, and it's adopting a wrong way, as I see it.

JH: The wrong way being?

DB: To think about it and try to find thoughts that will make it feel better.

JH: So you're saying that thoughts themselves in some sense are taking the place of reality, that the person is trying to get certain thoughts in his head that make him feel better.

DB: Yes. And that's self-deception, you see.

RS: What makes you think that the primary drive is for security?

DB: Oh, we discussed that yesterday, of course, but I wouldn't be sure that's the only primary drive, but it's obvious, for the animal it's a very important drive to want security, right? We also want pleasure, I think that's another drive - which are closely related.

RS: But to come back to this question of security, in its limited forms, security is clearly one goal that we have. People like to have houses and have them secure and cars and possessions and bank balances and that kind of thing. But there's this factor that comes in, when you've got that, there are two things, actually, that come in: one is maybe the fear that you'll lose it, but the other is boredom with the whole thing and the craving for excitement and thrill. And this doesn't seem to fit within this model of this primary and central craving for security.

DB: Well that's why I said it's only one of the drives, right? That there's also the drive toward pleasure, as an example, much of what you said is included in the drive toward pleasure, right?

RS: I'm not so sure.

DB: Excitement is pleasurable and then people hope for pleasure and excitement rather than pain, as a rule.

RS: But don't you think there's a pleasure in itself in curiosity and there's a sense of freedom in discovery that you can get from certain kinds of exploration which is neither just straightforward pleasure, it's not a repetitive kind of pleasure, nor is it security.

DB: Yes, well, I didn't want to say that all our drives are caught in this thing, you see, I said that if you think about them and base them on memory, then they are going to get caught in this problem. Now there may be a natural, free interest in things which could be enjoyable, and that need not be a problem, right? But if you were to become dependent on it and think about it and say, if I don't have it I become very unhappy, then it would be a similar problem.

K: Could we go into the question, what is security? What does that word convey? Apart from physical security.

RS: I would have said invulnerability.

K: Not to be hurt.

RS: Not to be hurt at all, not to be able to be hurt.

K: Not to be able to be hurt and not to hurt. Physically we are all hurt, one way or another: operations and illness and so on, so on. When you talk about being hurt, are you talking about psychological hurts?

JH: Yes, I'm wondering how it is that when a person comes into my office, his complaint is his psychological hurts.

K: How do you deal with it?

JH: I try and...

K: Suppose I come to you. I am hurt from childhood.

JH: Yes.

K: I am hurt by the parents, school, college, university...

JH: Yes.

K: ...when I get married she says something, I am hurt. So this whole living process seems to be a series of hurts.

JH: It seems to build up a structure of self that is hurt, and a perception of reality that is inflicting hurt.

K: Yes. How do you deal with it?

JH: I try to help you see how you're doing it.

K: What do you mean, how I'm doing it?

JH: Well, for example, if you have built up in you the notion that you're one down; or that you're the victim. Then you perceive yourself to be victimised and you perceive the world to be a victimiser. And I help you realise that that's what you're doing.

K: But by showing me that, will I get rid of my hurt? My hurts, very deep unconscious hurts that I have, that make me do all kinds of peculiar actions, neurotic, and isolating myself.

JH: Yes. It appears that people get better, that they realise that they are doing it. And in some local area it seems to help.

K: No, but aren't you concerned, if I may ask, with not being able to hurt at all?

JH: Yes.

DB: What do you mean by that, not hurting somebody else or not hurting inside of you.

K: I may hurt others unconsciously, unwillingly, but I wouldn't hurt voluntarily somebody.

DB: Yes, you really don't intend to hurt anybody.

K: Yes. I wouldn't.

RS: Well, maybe not, but I don't see the connection between not hurting other people and not being hurt oneself. At least I'm sure there must be one, but it's not obvious. And most people's view of the best way not to be hurt would be to be in such a position that you can hurt others so much they'd never dare. This is the principle of nuclear retaliation and this is a very common principle.

K: Yes, of course.

RS: So it's not obvious that not hurting others is related to not being hurt oneself. In fact, usually it's taken to be the reverse. It's usually assumed that if you're in a position to hurt others very much you'll be very secure.

K: Of course, I mean if you're a king or a sannyasi or one of those people who have built a wall round themselves...

RS: Yes.

K: ...naturally you can never hurt them.

RS: Yes.

K: But when they were children they were hurt.

RS: Yes.

K: That hurt remains. It may remain superficially or in the deep recesses of one's own mind. Now, how do you, as a psychologist, psychotherapist, help another who is deeply hurt and is unaware of it and to see if it is possible not to be hurt at all?

JH: I don't address the question about is it possible to not be hurt at all. That doesn't come up.

K: Why? Wouldn't that be a reasonable question?

JH: Well, it seems to be what we are asking here. It is the essence of the question that we're asking. We ask it in terms of particulars only in therapy, and you're asking it more generally, is it possible to end this hurt, period. Not just a particular hurt that I happen to have.

K: So how should we proceed?

JH: Well, it would seem that the structure that makes hurt possible is what we have to get at. What makes hurt possible in the first place, not this hurt or that hurt.

K: I think that's fairly simple. Why am I hurt? Because you say something to me which is not pleasant.

JH: Well, why should that hurt you?

K: Because I have an image about myself as being a great man. You come along and tell me, don't be an ass. And I get hurt.

JH: What is it that's being hurt there?

K: There, the image which I have about myself. I am a great cook, a great scientist, a great carpenter, whatever you will. I have got that picture in myself and you come along and put a pin into it. And that gets hurt. The image gets hurt. The image is me.

DB: I feel that that will not be totally clear to many people. I mean, how can I be an image, you see, many people will ask. You see, how can an image get hurt, because if an image is nothing at all, why does it hurt?

K: Because I have invested into that image a lot of feeling.

DB: Yes.

K: A lot of ideas, emotions, reactions, all that is me, that is my image.

JH: It doesn't look like an image to me, though, it looks like something real.

K: Ah, of course, for most people it's very real. But that is me, the reality of that image is me.

JH: Yes. Well, can we get clear that it's an image and not real?

K: Image is never real; symbol is never real.

JH: You're saying that I'm just a symbol.

K: Perhaps. (laughter)

JH: That's a big step.

K: From that arises the question whether it's possible not to have images at all.

RS: Well, wait a minute. I don't think we've clearly established that I am an image.

K: Ah, let's go into it.

RS: I mean, it's not entirely clear. I mean, it's obvious that to some extent one is an image, that when I have a feeling about myself and so on. It's not entirely clear that this is entirely unjustified. You see certain aspects of it may be exaggerated, certain aspects may be unrealistic, but, you see, one approach would be, well, we've got to remove, shave off these unrealistic aspects, pare it down to sort of reasonable size. And then that which remains would be the real thing.

K: So, sir, are you raising the question, what am I?

RS: Well, I suppose so, yes.

K: Yes. What are you? What is each one of us? What is a human being? That's the question that's involved.

RS: Yes, that seems unavoidable.

K: Yes. What am I? I am the form, the physical form; the name, the result of all education.

JH: Your experience.

K: My experiences, my beliefs, my ideals, principles, the incidents that have marked me.

JH: The structures you've built up that are how you function.

K: Yes.

JH: You skills.

K: My fears, my activities, whether they are limited or my so-called affection; my gods, my country, my language; fears, pleasures, suffering, all that is me.

JH: Yes.

K: That's my consciousness.

JH: And your unconscious.

K: That's my whole content of me.

JH: Okay.

DB: But there's still that feeling of actuality that me is there, you see, I mean, you may say, you could reasonably argue that that's all there is to me, but when something happens there's the feeling of its actual presence, at that moment.

K: I don't quite follow you there.

DB: Well, you see if somebody reacts to being hurt or angry, he feels at that moment that there's more than that, you see, that there is something deep inside which has been hurt, right?

K: I don't quite see. My image can be so deep, that's my image at all levels.

DB: Yes, but how...

K: Wait, sir, I have an image of myself; suppose: that I am a great poet, or a great painter or a great writer. Apart from that image as a writer, I have other images about myself. I have an image about my wife, and she has a image about me, and there are so many images I've built around myself; and the image about myself also. So I may gather a bundle of images.

DB: Yes, I understand.

K: Partial.

DB: Yes, you are saying that there is nothing but this bundle of images...

K: Of course!

DB: ...but you know, the question is, how are we to se this as an actual fact?

K: Ah.

RS: But wait a minute, there is something but this bundle of images; and I mean I'm sitting right here, now, seeing you and all the rest of it. Now I have the feeling that there's a centre of action or centre of consciousness which is within my body and associated with it which has a centre and it's not you, and it's not you, and it's not David: it's me. And associated with this centre of action, my body, sitting here, is a whole lot of memories and experiences and without those memories I wouldn't be able to speak, to talk, to recognise anything.

K: Of course, of course.

RS: So there seems to be some substance to this image of myself. There may be false images associated with it, but there seems to be a reality which I feel as I sit here.

K: Sir...

RS: So it's not entirely illusory.

K: ...are you saying that you are totally, basically different from the three of us?

RS: Well, I'm in a different place and I have a different body...

K: Of course.

RS: ...and in that sense I'm different.

K: Of course, admit that, I mean you're tall, I' short, I'm brown, you're...

RS: Yes.

K: ...black or you're white or you're pink or whatever it is.

RS: Now at another level I'm not basically different in the sense that we can all speak the same language and communicate, so there's something in common. And at a purely physical level all of us have a lot in common with each other, the same kinds of enzymes, chemicals, and so on. And those indeed - hydrogen atoms, oxygen atoms - we have in common with everything else.

K: Yes. Now, is your consciousness different from the rest? Consciousness, not bodily responses, bodily reactions, bodily conditioning; is your consciousness: that is your beliefs, your fears, your anxieties, depressions, faith, all that?

RS: Well, I would say that many of the contents of my consciousness or many of the beliefs, desires, etc., I have, other people also have. But I would say the particular combination of experiences, memories, desires, etc. I have are unique, because I've had a particular set of experiences as you have and as everyone has which makes a unique combination of these different elements.

K: So is mine unique?

RS: Yes.

K: So is his?

RS: Exactly.

K: The illusion makes it all common. It's no longer unique.

RS: That's a paradox. It's not immediately clear.

DB: Why isn't it clear? Everybody's unique, right?

RS: Yes, we're all unique.

K: I question that.

RS: We're not unique in the same way. Otherwise the word unique becomes meaningless. If we're unique, each of us is unique, we have a unique set of experiences and environmental factors, memories, etc.

K: That's what you just now said, that's common lot to all of us.

RS: Yes, we all have it, but what we have is different.

K: Yes, you, brought up in England...

RS: Yes.

K: ...and perhaps another brought up in America, another brought up in Chile, we all have different experiences; different country, different views, different mountains, and so on.

RS: Yes.

K: But apart from the physical environment, linguistic differences and accidents of experience, basically, fundamentally, deep down, we suffer; we are frightened to death, we are anxious, we have agony about something or other, and conflict, that's the ground on which we all stand.

RS: But that doesn't seem a very startling conclusion.

K: No, it is not.

DB: But I think what you are saying really implies that what we have in common is essential and fundamental rather than just superficial, you see. And now, I've talked with people about this and they say, everybody agrees we all have these things in common but sorrow, suffering and so on are not so important, the really important point are the higher achievements of culture and things like that, as an example.

JH: Maybe the distinction is between the form and the content. Our contents are all different and they have similarities and differences, but maybe the form is the same, their structure.

K: I would say contents are the same for all human beings.

RS: But you see I can recognise that there is such a thing as common humanity but I would regard that quite possibly as an abstraction or a projection rather than a reality. How do I know that is not an abstraction?

K: Because you go around the world, you see people suffer, you see human beings in agony, despair, depression, loneliness, lack of affection, lack of care, attention, that's the basic human reactions, that is part of our consciousness.

RS: Yes.

K: So you are not basically different from me. You may be tall, you may be born in England, I may be born in Africa, I have dark skin, but deep down the river, the content of the river is the water. The river is not Asiatic river, or European river, it is a river.

RS: Yes, well that is clearly true at some level. But I am not quite sure at what level, you see.

K: I am talking basically, deeply.

RS: But you see it seems to me, why stop there? I can see something in common with all other human beings, but I can also by looking at animals see something in common with them. We have a great deal in common with the animals.

K: Surely, surely.

RS: So why stop at human beings?

K: I don't.

RS: Why not say...

K: Because I say if I feel - I don't like the word 'common' - one feels that is the ground on which all human beings stand. Their relationship with nature, animals and so on, and the content of our consciousness is again the ground of humanity. Love is not English, American or Indian. Hate is not - agony is not yours or mine, it is agony. But we identify ourselves with agony, it is my agony, which is not yours.

RS: We might go through it in very different ways though.

K: Different expressions, different reactions, but basically it is agony. Not German agony and Asiatic agony. It's not what is happening - British and Argentine, it is human conflict. Why do we separate ourselves from all this? The British, the Argentine, the Jew, the Arab, the Hindu, the Muslim. You follow?

RS: Yes.

K: Which all seems so nonsensical, tribal. The worship of a nation is tribalism. So why can't we wipe out all that?

RS: I don't know. You tell me, why can't we?

K: Because again we have come back to the question: I identify with my nation because that gives me a certain strength, certain standard, certain status, certain security. When I say, 'I am British'! So this division is one of the reasons of war - not only economic, social and all the rest of it. Nationalism, which is really glorified tribalism, is the cause of war. Why can't we wipe that out? It seems so reasonable.

JH: It seems reasonable on a level like nationalism, people don't think they are England.

K: Start from there.

JH: Okay. But then I have a patient and he does think that he is married, and that it is his wife.

K: Of course it is his wife.

JH: Well, isn't that the same action that you are talking about?

K: No, no. Sir, just let's go into it slowly.

JH: Okay.

K: Why do I want to identify myself with something greater?

JH: Because I am not sufficient.

K: Like nationalism, like god.

JH: I don't feel sufficient.

K: Which means what?

JH: Insecure.

K: Insecure, insufficient, lonely, isolated, I have built a wall round myself. So all this is making me desperately lonely. And out of that conscious, or unconscious loneliness I identify with god, with the nation, with Mussolini, it doesn't matter, Hitler, or any religious teacher.

JH: Okay. Or I get married, I have a job, I make a place for myself. And that's all also identification.

K: Yes. Why do we want to identify with something? No, the basic question is too: why do we want roots?

JH: To belong.

K: To belong, in which is also implied to become. So this whole process of becoming, from childhood I am asked to become, become, become. From the priest to the bishop, the bishop to the cardinal, the cardinal to the pope. And in the business world it is the same. In the spiritual world it is the same. I am this but I must become that.

JH: Okay, what I am is not sufficient.

K: Why do we want to become? What is it that is becoming?

RS: Well the obvious reason for wanting to become is a feeling of insufficiency, inadequacy, in the state that we are. And one of the reasons for this is that we live in an imperfect world, our relationship with other people are imperfect. We are not content for a variety of reasons with the way we are. So the way out of that seems to become something else.

K: Yes. That means escaping from 'what is'.

RS: Yes. But it may seem 'what is' is something we have a need to escape from because there is something wrong with it.

K: All right. Take the usual experience. I am violent and I have invented non-violence. And I am trying to become that. I'll take years to become that. In the meantime I am violent. So I have never escaped from violence. It is just an invention.

RS: Well you are trying to escape from it. You may escape in the end.

K: No, I don't want to escape. I want to understand the nature of violence, what is implied in it, whether it is possible to live a life without any sense of violence.

RS: But what you are suggesting is a more effective method of escaping. You are not suggesting abandoning the idea of escaping. You are suggesting that the normal way of escaping, trying to become non-violent, is one way of doing it which doesn't work. Whereas if you do another method where you actually look at the violence in a different way you can become non-violent.

K: I am not escaping.

RS: Well, you are changing then.

K: No. I am violent. I want to see what is the nature of violence, how it arises.

RS: But for what purpose?

K: To see whether it is possible to be free of it completely.

RS: But isn't that a kind of escape from it?

K: No.

RS: Being free of something...

K: ...is not an escape.

RS: Why not?

K: Avoidance, running away, fly away from 'what is' is an escape, but to say, look, this is what I am, let's look at it, let's observe what its content is. That is not escape!

RS: Oh, I see, the distinction you are making is that an escape in the normal sense is running away from something, like escaping from prison, or one's parents, or whatever, but they still remain there. What you are saying is that rather than escaping from violence, which leaves violence intact and still there, and you try and distance yourself from it, you try to dissolve violence, or abolish it.

K: Dissolve.

RS: Yes.

K: Not abolish it, dissolve.

RS: All right. So this is different from escape, because you are trying to dissolve the thing rather than run away from it.

K: Running away, everybody runs away.

RS: Well it usually works to a limited extent.

K: No, it is like running away from my agony by going to football; I come back home, it is there! I don't want to go to watch football but I want to see what violence is and to see if it is possible to be completely free of it.

RS: If I am in a very unpleasant society and I can escape from it by defecting, or leaving it and going to another one. And this does in fact mean I escape to some extent.

K: Of course.

RS: So these are always partial answers and they are partially effective.

K: I don't want to be partially violent. Or partially free from it. I want to find out if it is possible to totally end it. That's not an escape, that's putting my teeth into it.

RS: Yes. But you have to believe it is possible in order to put your teeth into it.

K: I don't know, I am going to investigate. I said, for me, I know one can live without violence. But that may be a freak, that may be a biological freak and so on. But to discuss together, the four of us, and see if we could be free of violence completely means not escaping, not suppressing, not transcending it, and see what is violence. Violence is part of imitation, conformity. Right? Apart from physical hurts, I am not talking about that. So psychologically there is this constant comparing, that is part of hurt, part of violence. So can I live without comparison, when from childhood I have been trained to compare myself with somebody? I am talking comparison, not good cloth and bad cloth.

JH: Talking about comparing myself.

K: Myself, with you who are bright, who are clever, who have got publicity. When you say a word the whole world listens. And I can shout, nobody cares. So I want to be like you. So I am comparing constantly myself with something I think is greater.

JH: So this is where becoming comes from, comparing.

K: That's just it. So can I live without comparison?

JH: Doesn't that leave me in an insufficient state?

K: No. To live without comparison? No.

JH: Here I start off insufficient...

K: You understand, sir? Am I dull because I compare myself with you who are bright?

JH: Yes, you are dull because you compare yourself.

K: By comparing myself with you who are bright, who are clever, I become dull, I think I am dull. But if I don't compare I am what I am.

RS: Well you may not compare but I may compare. I may say, you are dull.

K: All right. I say, all right. You say I am dull, or I say, 'Am I?' I want to know what does it mean. Does it mean he is comparing himself with me who is - you follow? - worshipped? (laughter)

RS: Very frustrating, that. I mean if one compared oneself with somebody and said, 'You are dull', and then they said, 'What does dullness mean?'! (laughter)

K: The other day, after one of the talks in England, a man came up to me and said, 'Sir, you are a beautiful old man but you are stuck in a rut'. I said, 'Well, sir, perhaps, sir, I don't know, we'll go into it'. So I went up to my room and said, 'Am I?', because I don't want to be stuck in a rut. I may be. So I went into it very, very carefully, step by step, and found what does a rut mean, to stick in a groove along a particular line. Maybe, so I watch it. So observation of a fact is entirely different from escaping or the suppression of it.

JH: So he says you are stuck in a rut, and you observe it, you don't compare it.

K: I don't. Am I in a rut? I look. I may be stuck in a rut because I speak English. I speak Italian and French. All right. And that's not... Am I psychologically, inwardly, caught in a groove, like a tram car?

JH: Just motivated by something and not understanding it.

K: No, am I? I don't know, I am going to find out. I am going to watch. I am going to be terribly attentive, sensitive, alert.

JH: Now this requires that you don't react in the first place by saying, 'No, that's horrible, I couldn't possibly be stuck in a rut.'

K: I wouldn't. You may be telling the truth.

JH: To not have that reaction you can't have that self there that says, I am not the type of person that is stuck in ruts.

K: I don't know. Sir, is there a learning about oneself which is not - this leads to something else, I mustn't go into it - which is not constant accumulation about myself? I don't know if I am making myself clear. I observe myself. And I have learnt from that observation something. And that something is being accumulated all the time by watching. I think that is not learning about yourself.

JH: Being concerned with what you think about yourself.

K: Yes, what you think about yourself, what you have gathered about yourself. Like a river that is flowing, you have to follow it. That leads somewhere else. Let's get back.

JH: Maybe this is part of the question we are asking because we started with how does this disorder occur.

K: Yes, sir, let's stick to that.

JH: It occurs because I have the image of myself of someone who knows he is not stuck in a rut, I don't like to think that I am stuck in a rut, and somebody says, 'Yes you are'.

K: But you may be.

JH: Yes. I have to be open to looking, to see.

K: Yes, to observe.

RS: But then what about this approach: somebody says I am stuck in a rut, I look at myself and think, yes, I am stuck in a rut; and then I can respond by thinking, well, what's wrong with that? Everyone is stuck in a rut.

K: Sir, that's just blind.

RS: No, you accept the fact, but then you think, well, why should I do anything about it? What's wrong with that as an approach?

K: Like a man stuck as a Hindu, he is stuck. He is then contributing to war.

RS: Well, I may say, well I am stuck in a rut, but so is everybody, it is the nature of humanity to be stuck in ruts.

K: You see, that's it, you go off, that is the nature of humanity. But I question that. If you say that is the nature of humanity, let's change it, for god's sake!

RS: But you may believe it is unchangeable. What reason have I for believing that we can change it? I may think that I am stuck in a rut, so are you, so is everybody else. And anyone who thinks they are not is deceiving themselves.

K: It's cheating themselves. I may cheat so I begin to enquire, am I cheating myself? I want to be very honest about it. I don't want to cheat, I don't want to be a hypocrite.

RS: You may not be a hypocrite, you may think I am stuck in a rut, and you may be a pessimist. The alternative to being a hypocrite is a pessimist.

K: No, I am neither a pessimist or an optimist. I say, look, am I stuck in a rut? I watch all day.

RS: And you perhaps conclude yes. But then you can take the pessimistic cause and say, yes, I am, but so what?

K: If you prefer that way of living, go ahead. But I don't want to live that way.

JH: Well the person who comes into therapy usually comes with both sides going on at the same time. He says that, I have this problem which I want to be free of, I don't want to be stuck in a rut; on the other hand when it gets down to really looking at that, he doesn't want to look at it either because it becomes uncomfortable.

K: Oh, no, of course. To come back to your original question: the world is in disorder, human beings are in disorder, and we described what is disorder. And is there a possibility to live free from disorder? That is the real basic question. We said as long as there is this divisive process of life - I am a Hindu, you are an Arab, I am a Buddhist, you are a Muslim, I am British you are an Argentine - there must be conflict, war. My son is going to be killed, for what?

JH: For as long as I identify on a personal level with my job, or with my family and so on, there will be pain.

K: Of course.

JH: It is the same process.

K: So is it possible to have without identification responsibility?

JH: If I am not identified will I even go to work?

K: But I am responsible for the lady whom I have married. Responsible in the sense that I have to look after her, care for her, and she has to care for me. Responsibility means order. But we have become totally irresponsible by isolating ourselves - British, French.

JH: We handle the problem of responsibility by developing a rut that we can work in.

K: Yes. That's it.

JH: And staying inside that.

K: If I see the fact that responsibility is order, I am responsible to keep this house clean, but as we all live on this earth it is our earth, not British earth, or French earth and German earth, it is our earth to live on. And we have divided ourselves because in this division we think there is security.

JH: There is stability and security.

K: Security. Which is no security at all.

JH: Well, it isn't clear, we have got to go slow because I think that my job is security, I think that my family is security.

K: You may lose it.

JH: That problem keeps coming up.

K: There is great unemployment in America and in England - three million people unemployed in England.

JH: Well maybe I could get by without my job, but I need to think that I have some self respect.

K: What do you mean, self respect?

JH: What I am trying to say is that there is some place at which I put an identification.

K: Why should I want to identify with anything, sir? That makes immediate isolation.

JH: For stability's sake.

K: Does isolation bring about stability?

JH: It gives one a sense of something hard and firm.

K: Does it? Has it? There have been during the last five thousand years nearly five thousands wars. Is that stability?

JH: No.

K: Why don't we accept - well, I won't go into all that. What is wrong with us?

JH: Well, why don't we see this thing? You are saying that the root of the problem is that I continue to identify with one thing after another, if one doesn't work I just find something else. I don't stop identifying.

K: Yes, sir, which breeds isolation.

JH: But in your example about the person that is stuck in a rut, you say I don't have to identify, I can just step back and look at this thing and see if it is true.

K: Yes.

JH: So you are suggesting that there is something that is not identified, something that is free to look.

K: No. This leads to something else. Why do I want to identify myself? Probably basically the desire to be secure, to be safe, to be protected. And that sense, it gives me strength.

JH: Yes. Strength, and purpose, direction.

K: It gives me strength.

RS: But this is a biological fact. It is not merely an illusion. We again, to come back to the animal kingdom, we see it there: deer go round in flocks, birds have flocks, bees have hives and they are identified with the hive in which they work.

K: But bees don't kill themselves, species don't kill themselves.

RS: Well they kill other bees that invade their hide. They don't commit suicide. They kill others.

K: But we are?

RS: Yes and no, bees do fight other bees that come into the hive.

K: Of course. Yes, I know, I've raised bees, I know.

RS: So we see even in the animal kingdom this identification with the group, in the social animals, but many social animals, and we are social animals...

K: Just a minute. Agree. Are we by identifying ourselves with India, or China, or Germany, is that giving us security.

RS: To a limited extent it is.

K: A limited extent.

RS: And by identifying ourselves with our families does because this whole question of responsibility seems closely linked to it. If I identify myself with my family, feel duties, and so on, towards them, protect my sisters, I rush to her defence and make a big fuss about it and threaten, if not actually kill the people who insulted her.

K: We have no sisters. (laughter)

RS: So if I protect members of my family and defend, rush to their defence, so an insult to them, or an attack on them is an insult to me, so I rush to their defence...

K: Of course.

RS: ...there is a reciprocal obligation on their part, if I fall ill or sick they'll feed me and look after me; if I get arrested by the police they will try and get me out of prison and so on. So it does give me a kind of security, it actually works.

K: Of course.

RS: And that is a very good reason for doing it, for most people.

K: But stretch it further from the family, to the community, from the community to the nation and so on, that is a vast process of isolating. You are English, I am German, and we are at each other's throat. And I say, for god's sake, this is so damn stupid!

RS: Well, it is not entirely stupid because it works to a certain extent.

K: It may work, but it is impractical, it is killing each other.

RS: We haven't killed each other yet, there are more human beings than there have ever been before. So the system so far has gone to the point where far from killing each other we have actually got to the point where we have got a bigger population than the world has ever seen. So the system works only too well, for some reason.

K: So you propose war to kill them off?

RS: No! But there is some aspect of it that does work, and some security that is genuine that these things confer.

K: Yes, sir. At a certain level identification has a certain importance. But at a higher level, if you can call it higher, it becomes dangerous. That's all we are saying. Of course if you are my brother you look after me.

DB: Well it is very hard to draw up a line, you see that starts spreading out.

K: That's right, spreading out.

DB: You know, it slips.

K: That's is what I am so objecting to.

RS: But you see the question is where do you draw the line because if you are my brother then you have the tribal, the clan, or in India, the caste.

K: That's it. Extend it. And then we say, I am Argentine, you are British, he's French, we are at each other's throat and we are economically, and socially, culturally we are murdering each other. And I say that is so insane.

RS: But where do you draw the line, you see. If you say the nation state is wrong, then what is wrong with the tribe, or the caste, then you have got conflict between those.

K: I wouldn't draw the line. I say I am responsible as a human being for what is happening in the world, because I am a human. And so what is happening in the world is this terrible division, and I won't be a Hindu, I won't be a Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist - nothing. A hundred people or a thousand people li