THE NATURE OF THE MIND

1ST CONVERSATION WITH BOHM, HIDLEY & SHELDRAKE

OJAI, USA, 16TH 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, 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 specialized
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.

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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 get
married, 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 necessary agree with you on that
last point. They may feel that the proper, or properly organized self could get together with
other properly organized selves and make an orderly society.
K : Yes.

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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, they're 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 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.

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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 suffering, 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 ?

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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.
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.

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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 : 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 monopolize 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
monopolize 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 had said it.

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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 minimize these, and that there'll always be psychological conflicts within
families and between people and that the most we can do is try and minimize these...
K : So, accept the...
RS : ...or at least make them livable 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, less
painful, psychologically have 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.

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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 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 you, by us is going to be changed, so we have 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 in to 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 : 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.
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,

8
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 o 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 ?

9
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
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 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 emphasizing 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.

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K : And you tell me, by talking to me, etcetera, 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.

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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 : 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. 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, 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, 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

12
the world are among them, who have said we can change it ; there is a way beyond this. 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 organized
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 organized
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
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, there it is - 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 these traditions. You say, 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 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 had this vision and lived this vision ; now...

13
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, nonbeliever - I
wonder if I am anchored to a certain organized 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 about.
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 old 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,
you know, all the rest of it, and why should I go through number of years to end it, why
couldn'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 !

14
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 where the angels fear to tread
- 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.

15
JH : Well, let's look at that.
K : Sorry.
JH : I disturb you to conform to little adjustments.
K : Yes. 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 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 the society is set up...
K : Why don't you tell me, 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...

16
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.

17
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 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 externalized, 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 unshakable ?
RS : Are you suggesting that this is one of our most fundamental needs ?
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 unshakable
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.

18
 THE NATURE OF THE MIND
2ND CONVERSATION WITH BOHM, HIDLEY & SHELDRAKE
OJAI, USA, 17TH APRIL 1982

JH : 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 OJ82CNM2 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, to 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

19
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 that 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 no 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 we're saying that at this point the mind isn't interested in what's true, it's
interested in getting secure.

20
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 the 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 - they 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 ?

21
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 victimized and you perceive the world to
be a victimizer. And I help you realize 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 realize 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 so 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.

22
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, psychoanalyst, 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, 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.
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.

23
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 experiences.
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.

24
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 an experiences and without
those memories I wouldn't be able to speak, to talk, to recognize 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, I'll 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 : 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, etcetera, I have, other people also have. But I would say the particular combination of
experiences, memories, desires, etcetera 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.

25
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, etcetera.
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 are agonizing 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 recognize 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.

26
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 it 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 - 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" ! This division is one of the reasons of war, not only economic, social and all the rest
of it, but 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.

27
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 child, 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 to escape from.
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.

28
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 it.
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 : 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.

29
JH : Here I start of insufficient...
K : 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, I want to know what does it mean. Does it
mean he is comparing himself with me who is - you follow ?
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 ?" !
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, 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, then 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. Am I psychologically, inwardly, caught in a groove, like a tram
car ?
JH : 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 - 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 I 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, you.

30
K : But you may be.
JH : Yes. I have to be open to looking, to see.
K : 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 ; then I can respond by thinking, well, what's wrong with
that, being 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, 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 be stuck in a rut, so are you, so is everybody else, anyone who thinks they
are not is deceiving themselves.
K : Cheating themselves. So I begin to enquire, am I cheating myself ? I want to be very
honest about it. I don't what 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 in 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 : 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 ?

31
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 the 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 slowly 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 a 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.

32
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 : Yes, I know that.
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.
RS : So if I protect members of my family, defend, rush to their defence, so an insult to them,
or an attack, 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 : 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

33
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 and we
are economically, and socially, 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, nothing. A hundred, or a
thousand people like that, would begin to do something.
JH : So you are saying that the problem comes up because I mistake my local security, I think
that it rests in some local identification.
K : Which is isolation. And therefore in isolation there is no security. And therefore there is
no order.

34
 THE NATURE OF THE MIND
3RD CONVERSATION WITH BOHM, HIDLEY & SHELDRAKE
OJAI, USA, 17TH APRIL 1982

JH : We would like to talk about the question of whether there is a deep security, whether the
self can be dissolved. You have suggested that if that's possible, then the problems that the
individual brings to the office, the problems...
K : Sir, why do we seek security, apart from physical ? Apart from terrestrial security, why do
we want security ?
JH : Well, we know moments of peace and happiness, and we want to stabilize that, hold that.
K : Then that becomes a memory.
JH : Yes.
K : Not actual security. A memory that one day we were happy, and I wish we could go back
to it. Or you project an idea and a hope someday to achieve it. But why is it that human
beings, probably throughout the world, seek security ? What is the raison d'être, I mean, what
is the demand for security ? What makes people ask for security, psychologically ?
JH : Well, they're occupied, they're filled with their problems. There's the feeling that if I can
solve the problem, if I can find out what the right answer is, if...
K : That's not security, surely. There is great uncertainty, great sense of emptiness in oneself,
loneliness. Really, loneliness - let's take that for an example.
JH : Okay.
K : I may be married, I may have children and all the rest of it but I still feel isolated, lonely.
And it's frightening, depressing, and I realize it is isolating. After all, loneliness is the essence
of isolation, in which I have no relationship with anybody. Is that one of the reasons why
human beings seek this desire for security ?
JH : Yes, to fill that up.
K : Oh much deeper than that. To be secure in my fulfilment, to be free of fear, free of my
agony. I want to be free of all those so that I can be completely secure in peace and happiness.
Is that what we want ?
JH : Yes.
K : Is that the reason why we seek ?
JH : And we want that to be stable over time.
K : Stable, permanent - if there is anything permanent - is that the reason why we crave this,
demand, crave for security ?
JH : Yes.
K : That means to be free from fear and then I am totally secure.
JH : It feels like I have to be that way in order to function adequately.
K : Function adequately comes later.
JH : What do you mean ?

35
K : If I am secure, I function.
JH : Yes.
K : If I am very anchored in something which I think is false or true, I'll act according to those
principles. But is it that human beings are incapable of solving this deep-rooted fear. For
example I am taking fear - and they have not been able to solve it.
JH : Yes, that's right.
K : Psychological fears. And to be free from that is to be so marvellously secure.
JH : You are saying that if we can solve these problems at a fundamental level.
K : Otherwise what's the point, how can I be totally secure ?
JH : Yes.
K : So, is it the physical security, of bread, of shelter, of food and clothes, spilling over to the
psychological field ? You understand what I mean ?
JH : Do you mean, is that where the psychological feeling of the need for security comes from
?
K : Yes, partly. One must have food and clothes and shelter. That's an absolute essential,
otherwise you four wouldn't be sitting here. In the search of that, psychologically also I want
to be equally secure.
JH : They seem to be equated.
K : Yes, I'm questioning whether it is so.
JH : Yes.
K : Or, the psychological desire to be secure prevents physical security.
JH : It seems like the psychological desire to be secure arises out of the necessity to function
in reality.
K : I want to be psychologically secure.
JH : Yes.
K : So I am attached to a group, a community, a nation.
JH : Yes.
K : Which then prevents me from being secure. Security means long-lasting security. But if I
identify myself in my search for psychological security and attach myself to a nation, that
very isolation is going to destroy me. So why do we seek this ?
JH : Okay, then you're saying that there is a mistake, which is that we identify ourselves,
attach ourselves to something and seek security in that, and that that's fundamentally wrong.
K : Yes, no, not fundamental. I won't say right or wrong.
JH : Okay.
K : I am asking why ? Why do human beings do this ? A fact which is right through the
world, it's not just for a certain community, all human beings want to be so unshakably
security.
JH : Yes.
K : Why ?

36
DB : Well, I think people have some answer. You see, if you say there's a young child, or a
baby, he feels the need to be loved by his parents and it seems that at a certain stage the infant
has the need for a kind of psychological security, which he should grow out of perhaps, but
since he isn't properly taken care of by his parent very often, he begins to feel lost, as you say,
alone, isolated, and there arises a demand that he become inwardly secure.
K : A baby must be secure.
DB : Yes, psychologically as well as physically, would you say.
K : Yes, there must be.
DB : Now at some stage you would say that it would change.
K : Yes.
DB : I don't know what age.
K : Why. At a certain age, a small baby or a young child, it must be protected.
DB : In every way, psychologically...
K : Psychologically...
DB : ...it must not be shocked psychologically.
K : ...you protect it with affection, taking it in your lap, cuddling him or her, and holding his
hand, you make him feel that he is loved, that he is cared for. That gives him a feeling, here is
somebody who is looking after me, and there is security here.
DB : Yes, and then I suppose he will grow up not requiring that security.
K : That's it. I am questioning, as he grows up, and as he faces the world, why does he crave
for security ?
DB : Well, I think very few children ever have that love to begin with, you see.
K : Oh, that's it. So is that the problem ?
DB : Well, I don't know, but that's one factor.
K : That we really don't love ? And if one loves, there is no need for security. You don't even
think about security. If I love you... not intellectually, not because you give me comfort, sex,
or this or that - I really have this deep sense of love for another. What is the need for security
? It's my responsibility to see that you are secure. But you don't demand it.
JH : Yes.
K : But human beings do. And does that mean we don't love another ?
JH : Yes, it means that what we love is the...
K : I love you because you give me something.
JH : Yes. You make me feel like I'm going to get that security which I crave.
K : No, we are skirting around this. Why ? Why do I want security so that I feel completely
content, without fear, without anxiety, without agony and so on ? Is fear the root of all this ?
JH : We seem to have mentioned already several things that are the root of it ? As the baby
grows up and isn't loved, he feels the need for that, he remembers that, he tries to return to
that or get that as an adult, he's afraid because he's not protected, and as an adult he tries to get
that protection.

37
K : Or, sir, is it unconsciously we know that the self, the me, the ego, is really totally unstable.
JH : You are saying that in its nature it's totally unstable ?
K : In its nature unstable. And therefore there is this anxiety for security outside and inside.
JH : Why do you say it's totally unstable ?
K : Isn't it ? Isn't our consciousness unstable ?
JH : It seems to have two sides to it. One side says that if I could just get such and such, I
would be stable.
K : Yes. And there is a contradiction in that. I may not be.
JH : I may not be.
K : Yes, of course.
JH : I'm not yet, but I will be.
K : Will be.
JH : Yes.
K : No, much more fundamentally, is not this the self itself in a state of movement,
uncertainty, attached ; fear in attachment ; all that ? That's state of lack of stability. Therefore
I am asking, is that the reason that human beings unconsciously knowing the instability of the
self, want security, God, the saviour ?
JH : Wanting something absolute ?
K : Yes, that'll give complete contentment. Our consciousness is its content. Right ?
JH : Yes.
K : And the content is always in contradiction. I believe...
JH : That's right.
K : ...and yet I'm frightened of not believing.
JH : That's why you're saying in essence it's unstable.
K : Obviously it is unstable. So clearly unstable. I want this thing and some other desire
comes along and says, don't have that, for God's sake ; there is this contradiction, this duality,
all that exists in our consciousness : fear, pleasure, fear of death, you know all the content of
our consciousness, all that. So that is unstable.
JH : Now sensing all of that, people generally say this problem is too deep or too complex,
there's no way to solve it, we can maybe just make some adjustments.
K : Yes, yes. And in that adjustment also there is lack of stability. So unconsciously there
must be craving for security. So we invent God.
JH : We keep inventing lots of different things we hope will give us that security.
K : We create God, he's our creation. We are not the creation of God, I wish we were. We
would be totally different. So there is this illusory desire for security.
JH : Now wait a minute, why do you say that it's illusory ?
K : Because they invent something in which they hope they'll be secure.
JH : Oh, I see. Yes.

38
K : So, if the content of our consciousness can be changed... quotes, changed - would there be
need for security ?
JH : If we could eliminate all these contradictions ?
K : Yes, contradictions.
JH : Then maybe we would have the security because our consciousness would be stable.
K : So that maybe it. We may not call it security. To be secure, which is a really disgusting
desire, sorry. To be secure in what ? About what ? Personally I never thought about security.
You might say, well, you are looked after, you are cared for by others and all the rest of it,
therefore there is no need for you to think about security, but I never - I don't want security. I
need, of course, I need food, clothes and shelter, that's understood, somebody to...
JH : We're talking about psychological security.
K : I'm talking much deeper issue.
JH : And you're saying that that occurs because the contents of consciousness are no longer
contradictory.
K : It may not be what we know as consciousness, it may be something totally different. All
that we know is fear, reward and pleasure, and death and constant conflict in relationship : I
love you but...
JH : Within limits.
K : Within limits. I don't know if that's called love. So there is the content of consciousness is
all that ; which is me. My consciousness is me. In this complex contradictory dualistic
existence the very fact creates the demand for security.
JH : Yes.
K : So can we eliminate the self ?
JH : Well, have we got to the self ? It seems like there's somebody in there, in here, who's
going to juggle all these things and get rid of the contradictions.
K : But that means you are different from this ; from consciousness.
JH : Right.
K : But you are that ! You are pleasure, you are fear, you are belief, all that you are. Don't
please agree with what we are talking about, what I'm saying. It may be all tommyrot.
JH : I think there are a lot of people who wouldn't agree with that. I think that they would say
that...
K : I know there're a lot of people wouldn't because they haven't gone into it. They just want
to brush all this aside.
JH : Well, let's look at this. Is there a self that separate, that's going to be able to somehow
iron out these contradictions ?
K : No !
RS : How do you know ? I mean it seems to me that there is - well, at least it may be illusory,
but it's very easy to think that one is separate from some of these problems and that there's
something inside one which can make decisions.
K : Doctor, am I separate from my fear ? Am I separate from the agony I go through ? The
depression ?

39
RS : Well, I think that there's something within one which can examine these things and that's
how it indicates there is some kind of separation.
K : Because there is the observer separate from the observed.
RS : Yes.
K : Is that so ?
RS : Well, it seems to be so.
K : It seems to be so !
RS : Now, this seems to be the problem, that it does seem to be so, I mean, in my own
experience, of course, and many other people's it does indeed seem that there is an observer
observing things like fear and one's own reactions. And it comes out most clearly, I find, in
insomnia, if one's trying to sleep there's one part of one that going on with silly worries and
ridiculous thoughts round and round ; there's another part of one that says, I really want to
sleep, I wish I could stop all these silly thoughts. And there one has this actual experience of
an apparent separation.
K : Of course, of course.
RS : So this isn't just a theory, it's an actual fact of experience that there is this kind of
separation.
K : I agree, I agree. But why does that division exist ? Who created the division ?
RS : It may just be a fact.
K : What may ?
RS : It may just be a fact.
K : Is that so ? I want to examine it.
RS : Yes, so do I. I mean, is it indeed a fact that consciousness, as it were, has levels, some of
which can examine others, one at a time ?
K : No. Would you kindly consider, is fear different from me ? I may act upon fear, I may
say, I must suppress it, I may rationalize it, I might transcend it, but the fear is me.
RS : Well, we often...
K : You only invent the separation where you want to act upon it. But otherwise I am fear.
RS : The common and ordinary way of analyzing it would be to say, I feel afraid, as if the
afraidness was separate from the I. I want to get out of this state of feeling afraid, so I want to
escape from it, leaving the fear behind and the I will pass beyond it and somehow escape it.
This is the normal way we think.
K : I know.
RS : So what's wrong with that ?
K : You keep up this conflict.
DB : But I think he is saying it may be inevitable.
RS : It may be inevitable, you see...
K : I question it.
DB : Yes, well, then how do you propose to show it's not inevitable ?

40
K : First of all, when there is anger, at the moment of anger, there is no separation. Right ?
RS : When you're very angry...
K : Of course.
RS : ...what we normally say is you lose control of yourself and the separation disappears, you
become the anger, yes.
K : At the moment when you are really angry, there is no separation. The separation only
takes place after. "I have been angry." Right ? Now, why ? Why does this separation take
place ?
RS : Through memory.
K : Through memory, right. Because I have been angry before. So the past is evaluating, the
past recognizing. So the past is the observer.
DB : That may not be obvious, you know. For example, I may have physical reactions that go
out of control, like sometimes the hand or the body, and then I say I am observing those
physical reactions going out of control and I would like to bring them back in, right ?
K : Yes.
DB : I think somebody might feel the same way, that his mental reactions are going out of
control and that they have momentarily escaped his control and that he's trying to bring them
back in. You see, now, that's the way it may look or feel to many people.
K : So, what ?
DB : Well, then it is not clear. Have we made it clear that that is not the case, you see.
K : Sir, I am trying to point out, I don't know if I am making myself clear : when one is
frightened, actually, there's no me separate from fear.
JH : But then there seems...
K : When there is a time interval, there is the division. And time interval, time is thought. And
when thought comes in then begins the division. Because thought is memory ; the past.
RS : Thought involves memory - yes.
K : Yes, involves memory and so on. So thought, memory, knowledge, is the past. So the past
is the observer ; who says I am different from fear, I must control it.
JH : Let's go through this very slowly because it's seems like the experience is that the
observer is the present. It seems like he's saying, I'm here now and what am I going to do
about this the next time it comes up.
K : Yes. But the 'what am I going to do about it' is the response of the past, because you have
already had that kind of experience. Sir, haven't you had fear ?
JH : Surely.
K : You know, something, a fear that has really shaken you.
JH : Yes.
K : Devastating one.
JH : Yes.
K : And at that second there is no division, you are entirely consumed by that.

41
JH : Yes.
K : Right ?
JH : Right.
K : Now, then thought comes along and says, I've been afraid or because of this and because
of that, now I must defend myself, rationalize fear and so on, so on, so on. It's so obvious,
what are we discussing ?
DB : You see, I think that, coming back again to the physical reaction which can also
consume you and you say at the next moment, you say, I didn't notice it at the time, thought
comes in and says, that's a physical reaction.
K : Yes.
DB : Now I know it, you see, what is the difference of these two cases, you see, that in the
second case it would make sense to say, I know that I have reacted this way before, right ?
You know, I can take such an such an action.
K : I don't quite follow this.
DB : Somebody can feel that, it's true I get overwhelmed by a reaction and thought comes in.
But in many areas that's a normal procedure for thought to come in if something shattering
happens, and then a moment later, you think, what was it ? Right ? Now, in some cases that
would be correct, right ?
K : Quite right.
DB : Now, why is it in this case it is not, you see.
K : Ah, I see what you mean. You answer it. You see, you meet a rattler on a walk.
DB : Yes.
K : Which I have done very often. You meet a rattler, he rattles and you jump. That is,
physical self-protective intelligent response. That's not fear.
DB : Right. Well, not psychological fear.
K : What ?
DB : It has been called a kind of fear.
K : I know, I don't call that psychological fear.
DB : No, it's not psychological fear, it's a simple physical reaction...
K : Physical reaction...
DB : ...of danger.
K : ...which is an intelligent reaction not to be bitten by the rattler.
DB : Yes, but a moment later I can say, I know that's rattler or it's not a rattler, I may discover
it's not a rattler, it's another snake which is not so dangerous.
K : No, not so dangerous, then I pass it by.
DB : But then thought comes in and it's perfectly all right.
K : Yes,
DB : Right ?
K : Yes.

42
DB : But here, when I am angry or frightened...
K : Then thought comes in.
DB : And it's not all right.
K : It's not all right.
DB : Yes.
K : Oh, I see what you are trying to get at. Why do I say it is not all right. Because fear is
devastating, it blocks one's mind and thought and all the rest of it, one shrinks in that fear.
DB : Yes, I think I see that. You mean that possibly that when thought comes in it cannot
possibly come in rationally in the midst of fear, right ?
K : Yes.
DB : Is that what you mean ?
K : That's what I'm trying to say.
DB : So in the case of physical danger, it would still come in rationally.
K : Yes. Here it becomes irrational.
DB : Yes.
K : Why, I am asking, why ? Why doesn't one clear up this awful mess ?
JH : Well, it isn't clear.
K : Look, sir, it is a messy consciousness.
JH : Yes, it's a messy consciousness.
K : Messy consciousness, contradicting.
JH : Yes.
K : Frightened, oh, so many fears and so on, it's a messy consciousness. Now, why can't we
clear it up ?
JH : Well, it seems we are always trying to clear it up after the fact.
K : I think the difficulty lies in that we don't recognize deeply this this messy consciousness is
me. And if it is me, I can't do anything ! I don't know if you get the point.
RS : You mean we think that there's a me separate from this messy consciousness.
K : We think we are separate. And therefore we are accustomed, it is our conditioning, to act
upon it. But I can't very well do that with all this messy consciousness which is me. So the
problem then arises, what is action ? We are accustomed to act upon the messy consciousness.
When there is realization of the fact that I can't act, because I am that.
JH : Then what is action ?
K : That is non-action.
JH : Okay.
K : Ah, that's not okay, that is the total difference.
JH : Yes, I think I understand. On the one hand there's the action of consciousness on itself
which just perpetuates things.
K : Yes.

43
JH : And seeing that, then it ceases to act.
K : It's not non-violence.
RS : Sorry sir, you're saying that normally we have the idea that there's a self which is
somehow separate from some of the contents of our consciousness.
K : That's right, that's right, sir.
RS : If someone tells us we're wonderful, we don't want to be separate from that, but if we
feel afraid and if somebody tells we're awful, we do want to be separate from that. So it's
rather selective. But nevertheless we do feel there's something in us which is separate from
the contents of this messy consciousness. We normally act in such a way as to change either
the contents of the consciousness or our relation to the world, and so on. But we don't
normally examine this apparent separation between the self, the me, and the contents of the
messy consciousness. That's something we don't challenge. Now you're suggesting that in fact
this separation which we can actually experience and do, most of us do experience, is in fact
something we ought to challenge and look at and we ought to face the idea that we actually
are the messy consciousness and nothing other.
K : Of course. It's so obvious.
RS : Well, it isn't obvious, it's very non-obvious and it's a very difficult thing to realize,
because one's very much in the habit of thinking one is separate from it.
K : So can we move away from our conditioning ? Our conditioning is me. And then I act
upon that conditioning, separating myself. But if I am that, no action, which is the most
positive action.
JH : The way that that would be heard, I'm afraid, is that if I don't act on it it's just going to
stay the way it is.
K : Ah !
RS : You're suggesting that by recognizing this, the process of recognizing it, facing up to...
K : It's not facing up. Who is to face up ? Not recognize. Who is to recognize it ? You see, we
always think in those terms. I am that, full stop. We never come to that realization, totally.
There is some part of me which is clear and that clarity is going to act upon that which is not
clear. Always this goes on.
RS : Yes.
K : I am saying the whole content of one's consciousness is unclear, messy. There is no part of
it that's clear. We think there is a part, which is the observer, separating himself from the
mess. So the observer is the observed. Gurus, and all that.
DB : You were raising the question of action, though ; if that is the case, how is action to take
place ?
K : When there is perception of that which is true, that very truth is sufficient, it is finished.
DB : You have said also, for example, that that-ness itself realizes its own messiness, right ?
K : Yes. Messiness, it's finished.
RS : Sir, are you suggesting that the realization of the messiness itself in some way dissolves
the messiness ?
K : Yes. Not a separative realization that I am messy. The fact is consciousness is messy, full
stop. And I can't act upon it. Because previously acting upon it was a wastage of energy.

44
Because I never solved it. I have struggled, I have taken vows, I have done all kinds of things
to resolve this messy stuff. And it has never been cleared. It may partially occasionally...
JH : Well, I think that's another aspect of this. In therapy or in our own lives we seem to have
insights that are partial, that we clear up a particular problem and gain some clarity and order
for a time. And then the thing returns in some other form or...
K : Yes, yes.
JH : ...the same form. You're suggesting that the thing needs to be done across the board in
some way.
K : Before the observer acts upon it, upon the messy consciousness, right ? Say, I'll clear this
up, give it time, you know all the rest of it. But that's a wastage of energy.
JH : Right.
K : When the fact that you are that - you are not wasting energy. Which is attention. I don't
know if you want to go into this.
RS : No, this is very interesting. Please do.
K : Would we agree that acting upon it is a wastage of energy ?
JH : Yes. This creates more disorder.
K : No. It creates much disorder, and there is this constant conflict between me and the not
me. The me who is the observer and I battle with it, control it, suppress it, anxious, worry, you
follow ? Which is all essentially wastage of energy. Whereas this messy consciousness is me.
I have come to realize that through attention. Not I have come to - sorry.
DB : Would you say that the consciousness itself has come to realize it ?
K : Yes.
DB : I mean, it's not me, right ?
K : Yes. Which is total attention I am giving to this consciousness - not I am - there is
attention and inattention. Inattention is wastage of energy. Attention is energy. When there is
observation that consciousness is messy, that fact can only exist when there is total attention.
And when there is total attention, it doesn't exist any more, confusion. It's only inattention that
creates the problems. Refute it !
RS : But, sir, I don't understand entirely what you're saying. This total attention that you're
talking about would only be able to have this effect if it somehow was something completely
in the present and devoid of memory.
K : Of course, of course, attention is that. If I attend to what you have said just now, devoid of
memory, which is attention, I listen to you not only with the sensual ear, but with the other
ear, which is, I am giving my whole attention to find out what you are saying ; which is
actually in the present. In attention there is no centre.
RS : Because the attention and the thing attended to become one, you mean. You mean there's
no centre in the attention because the attention is all there is, the thing attended to and the
attention is all there is.
K : Ah, no, no. There is messiness because I have been inattentive. Right ?
RS : Yes.
K : When there is the observation of the fact that the observer is the observed, and that state of
observation in which there is no observer as the past, that is attention.

45
Sir, I don't know if you have gone into the question of meditation here. That's another subject.
JH : That may be a relevant subject. It seems that what you're talking about may happen
partially.
K : Ah ! It can't happen, then you keep partial mess and partial not mess. We're back again the
same position.
JH : Yes.
RS : But do you think this kind of attention you're talking about is the sort of thing that many
people experience occasionally in moments of great beauty, or occasionally a piece of music
they're really enjoying, they lose themselves, and so on - do you think that many of us have
had glimpses of this in these kinds of experiences ?
K : That's it. That's it. When I see a mountain, the majesty and the dignity and the depth of it
drives away myself. A child with a toy, the toy absorbs him. The mountain has absorbed me ;
toy has absorbed the child. I say that means there is something outside which will absorb me,
which will make me peaceful. Which means an outside agency that'll keep me quiet : God,
prayer, looking up to something or other. If I reject an outside agency completely, nothing can
absorb me. Let's say, if you absorb me, when you are gone I am back to myself.
JH : Yes.
K : So I discard any sense of external agency which will absorb me. So I am left with myself,
that's my point.
JH : I see. So you're suggesting that when this happens partially it's because we're depending
on something.
K : Yes, of course.
JH : I see.
K : It's like my depending on my wife.
JH : Or my therapist or my problem.
K : Something or other.
JH : Yes.
K : Like a Hindu, Catholic or anybody, they depend on something. Therefore dependence
demands attachment.
JH : Now it's possible to listen to you say this and have the idea of what you are talking about
and try and do that.
K : Ah, you can't do it ! That means you are acting again. You want something out of it. In
exchange I'll give you this, you give me that. Just a trade. Here it's not like that, you are
enquiring into something which demands a great deal of thought, great deal of intelligence
and attention. I say, look, why is there this division, this mess in the world ? Because our
consciousness is messy and so the world is messy. So from that arises, is it possible to be free
of the self ? Consciousness, the messy consciousness, is the self.
RS : It is not possible to be free from the contents of consciousness, different experiences, as
long as my eyes are open, I'm looking, I see all sorts of different things. Now what you were
saying about the attention when one's looking at a mountain, for example, are you suggesting
that if I have that same kind of attention to everything I experience, that then this is the...
K : You see, again you experience.

46
RS : Yes, well, all right, but...
K : You are the experience.
RS : Yes.
K : Right. That means, there is no experience.
RS : There's just attention, you mean.
K : Experience involves remembrance. Time, which is the past. Therefore the experiencer is
the experienced. If I seek illumination, enlightenment, or whatever you might call it, I am then
trying to do all kinds of things to achieve that. But I don't know what illumination is. I don't
know. Not because you said it or Buddha said it or somebody has said it : I don't know. But I
am going to find out. Which means the mind must be totally free : from prejudice, from fear,
all the rest of that messy business. So my concern is not illumination, but whether the content
of my consciousness can be cleansed - whatever word you use. That's my concern - not
concern, that's my enquiry. And as long as I am separate from my consciousness, I can
experience it, I can analyze it, I can tear it to pieces, act upon it - which means perpetual
conflict with me and my consciousness. I wonder why we accept all this. Why do I accept that
I am a Hindu ? Why do I accept I am a Catholic ? You follow ?
RS : Yes.
K : Why do we accept what other people say ?
JH : Well, we say it ourselves.
K : Yes. No, not only we say it but it's encouraged, sustained, nourished by people outside.
Why ? Why do we accept it ? He is a professor and he is teaching me, I accept that. Because
he knows biology much more than I do, I go to his class, and I am being informed by what he
says. But he's not my guru, he's not my behaviour guide. He is giving me information about
biology and I am interested in it. I want to study it, I want to go out into the field and do all
kinds of stuff. But why do we accept authority, psychological authority, spiritual - quote
spiritual - authority ? Again we come back to security. I don't know what to do but you know
better than I do ; you are my guru. I refuse that position.
RS : But don't we arrive at the same set of problems if we start not from authority but from
responsibility ; say I'm the father, I have this child - we've agreed some time ago...
K : You have to instruct it, of course.
RS : You have to look after this baby.
K : Of course, of course.
RS : Fine. But now in order to feed the baby you become preoccupied with security : job
tenure, you know, house...
K : Of course, of course.
RS : ...protecting the house against marauders and so on.
K : Of course, of course.
RS : Don't you get into the same lot of things about preoccupation with security starting not
from authority but from responsibility for others, for children, for example.
K : Of course.
RS : So then what is the answer to that. It's easy to say you should reject responsibility.

47
K : Of course, I have money, if I earn money, job, so on, I have to look after myself, I have
servants, I have to look after servants, my children, perhaps their children too. I am
responsible for all that.
RS : Yes.
K : Physically I am responsible. To give them food, to give the right amount of money, allow
their children go to a proper school like my children, I am responsible for all that.
RS : But isn't that going to bring you back to the same position of insecurity and so on that
you were trying to dissolve by this rejection of authority ?
K : I don't see why I need spiritual or psychological authority. Because if I know how to read
myself, I don't need anybody to tell me. But we have never attempted deeply to read the book
of myself. I come to you and say, please, help me to read. And then the whole thing is lost.
JH : But I think what Rupert is asking is that if we start by assuming responsibility for other
people, that entails...
K : What ? My earning capacity.
JH : Which must be secure.
K : Yes, secure as much as possible. Not in countries where there's tremendous
unemployment.
JH : So you're saying that that doesn't entail any psychological insecurity.
K : Of course not. But when I say, he's my servant, I'm going t keep him in that place, you
follow ?
JH : No. Tell me more.
K : I mean, I treat him as a servant.
JH : Yes.
K : Which becomes irresponsible. Naturally.
JH : But if it's a servant, he can come and go. But if it's a child...
K : Ah !
JH : ...he can't come and go.
K : He's part of my family.
DB : I think the question is something like this, that suppose you are responsible for a family
and the conditions are difficult, you may not have a job and you may start to worry about it
and become insecure psychologically.
K : Yes.
DB : Right ?
K : I don't worry about it, there it is, I have no more money. So, my friend, I have no more
money, if you want to stay, share the little food I have, we'll share it.
DB : You're saying that even if you are unemployed and you are responsible for a family it
will not disturb the order of the mind, right ?
K : Of course not.
DB : You will find an intelligent way to solve it.

48
K : Deal with it.
DB : Yes.
RS : But this kind of worry as a result of responsibility is relative.
K : I don't call it worry. I am responsible.
RS : Yes.
K : And therefore I look after as much as I can.
RS : What if you can't ?
K : You can't. Why should I worry and bother, I can't, it's a fact.
DB : You're saying that it's possible to be completely free of worry, for example, in the face
of great difficulties.
K : You see, that's what I am saying. Where there is attention, there is no worry, because there
is no centre from which you are attending.
RS : There are still problems and there may still be responsibilities that one has.
K : Of course I have problems, so I resolve them.
RS : But if you can't resolve them.
K : Then I can't.
RS : If your family is starving.
K : I can't. Why should I worry about it ? I can't be Queen of England.
RS : No.
K : No.
RS : But if you're a poor Indian, unemployed, your family is starving, there's nothing, you've
tried everything, you've failed. And you don't worry. Actually, surprisingly enough, a lot of
poor Indians in just that situation don't worry, that's the most amazing thing about India. But
then of course people coming along looking from outside say, well, this is fatalism.
K : Yes, that's right.
RS : And it's often regarded as the disease of India, the very fact that so many people manage
not to worry in those circumstances... to the degree that we would expect.
K : I'd like to ask you a question. You've listened to all this : messy consciousness - does one
realize it, and empty the content : fear, you know, the whole business ? Does it interest you ?
JH : Yes.
K : Totally ?
JH : Yes.
K : That means what ?
JH : It means you just listen.
K : No, it means a conversation, dialogue between us. Penetrating deeper and deeper and
deeper. Which means you must be free to examine. Free from your prejudice, from your
previous experience. Of course, otherwise you can't examine. You can't investigate...
'investigate' means explore, you know, push, push, push it further and further. Now, are you,
are we willing to do that, so that actually the self is not ? But when the self is not it doesn't

49
mean you neglect your wife, your children - you follow ? It becomes so silly, like becoming a
sannyasi, going off to the mountains, a monk going off into a monastery. That's an
extraordinary escape. The fact is I have to deal with my wife and children and if I have a
servant. Can I be so totally without the self that I can intelligently deal with these problems ?

50
 THE NATURE OF THE MIND
4TH CONVERSATION WITH BOHM, HIDLEY & SHELDRAKE
OJAI, USA, 18TH APRIL 1982

K : I don't capture the depth of your meaning, what is implied. You have gone into it and you
can say that, absolute attention. I hear it and make it into an idea. And then I pursue the idea.
JH : That seems to be the process.
K : That's what we do all the time.
RS : Yes.
K : So it's gone. Idea is not what you said. What you said had depth in it.
JH : But we don't know that we're pursuing an idea.
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.
The first three dialogues have focused on various processes of self-identification, and their
effects. The need for psychological security has been discussed as growing out of a basic
division in which the contents of consciousness appear to be separate from consciousness
itself. Today's discussion begins with the importance of attention.
K : What is analysis ? And what is observation ? In analysis there is the analyzer and the
analyzed. And so there is always that difference maintained. Where there is difference there
must be conflict, division, and that's one of the factors that really is very destructive to the
whole psychological freedom : this conflict, this division. And analysis maintain this division.
Whereas if one observes closely - I'm not correcting you, sir, I'm just enquiring... the analyzer
is the analyzed. Again the same problem, thought has divided the analyzer and the analyzed.
The analyzer is the past who has acquired a lot of knowledge, information, separated himself,
and is either correcting the observed, the analyzed : make him conform, he is acting upon it.
Whereas the analyzer is the analyzed. I think if that is really understood very deeply, the
psychological conflict ends, because in that there is no division between the analyzer and the
analyzed, there is only observation. Which Dr Bohm and we discussed at considerable length
last year.

51
So if that is clearly understood - I am not laying down the law, but as one has observed this
whole business of conflict - whether one can live the whole of one's life without conflict. That
means the controller is absent ; which is a very dangerous question. I feel where there is
inattention, lack of attention, is the really the whole process of conflict.
RS : Yes, I can see that if both sides saw this with the utmost clarity...
K : Yes. That means they are giving intelligence to the whole problem.
RS : What happens if only one party in a conflict sees it with that utmost clarity ?
K : What happens ? One gives complete attention in one's relationship between man and
woman ; let's begin with that. You have given complete attention. When she insults you, when
she flatters you, when she bullies you or when she is attached to you, all that is the lack of
attention. If you give complete attention and the wife doesn't, then what happens ? That is the
same problem. Either you try to explain day after day, go into it with her patiently. After all,
attention implies also great deal of care, affection, love. It's not just mental attention. It's
attention with all your being. Then either she moves along with you, comes over to your side,
as it were, or she holds on to her separative contradictory state. Then what happens ? One is
stupid, the other is intelligent.
RS : But the conflict...
K : So there is always the battle between the stupid and the ignorant. I mean between the
ignorant, the stupid and the intelligent.
JH : A thing that seems to happen in that situation is that the one's intelligence makes room in
which the other person who is caught in some attachment may have freedom to look.
K : But if the other refuses to look at it, then what is the relationship between the two people ?
JH : There is none.
K : That's all. You see tribalism is deadly, destructive. You see it basically, fundamentally,
and I don't. You have seen it probably immediately and I'll take many years, a long time to
come to that. Will you have the - I won't use the word patience - will you have the care,
affection, love, so that you understand my stupidity ? I may rebel against you. I may divorce
you. I may run away from you. But you have sown the seed somewhere in me. But that does
happen, doesn't it, really, in life ?
RS : Yes.
JH : You said something that interests me here, you said that if you have seen it immediately
and the other person may take a long time to come to seeing it. And it seems like in this
attention that you're talking about, perception is immediate.
K : Of course.
JH : It isn't built up out of...
K : Oh, no, no, then it's not perception.
JH : Well, that may be part of the reason the other person is having difficulty seeing it, is that
they want it to be proved to them.
K : You see conditioning...
JH : Yes.
K : ...is destructive. And I don't.
JH : Yes.

52
K : What is our relationship between us two ? It's very difficult to communicate with each
other...
JH : Yes.
K : ...verbally or with care, it's very difficult.
JH : You won't know what I'm talking about.
K : And also I'm resisting you all the time. I'm defending myself.
JH : You're defending what you think you see.
K : What I think is right. I have been brought up as a Hindu or a British or a German or a
Russian, whatever it is, and I like it. And I see the danger of letting that go. I might lose my
job. People will say I'm little-minded. People might say I depend on public opinion, so I'm
frightened to let go. So I stick to it. Then what is your relationship with me ? Have you any
relationship ?
JH : No.
K : No, I question whether you have no relationship.
JH : I can tell you what I see.
K : Yes. But if you have love for me, real, not just attachment, and sex and all that business, if
you really care for me, you cannot lose that relationship. I may run away, but you have the
feeling of relationship. I don't know if I am conveying what I mean.
JH : In other words, I don't just say, well, I see it and you don't, and if you're not going to
listen, the heck with you.
K : No. Sir, you have established a kind of relationship, perhaps very profound, when there is
love. I may reject you, but you have that responsibility of love. And not only to the particular
person, but to the whole of humanity. What do you say, sir, about all this ?
DB : Well, I can't say. I think that this care and attention are the essential points. For example
in the question of the observer and the observed or the analyzer and the analyzed, the reason
why that separation occurs is because there has not been enough attention.
K : Attention, that's what I'm saying.
DB : So that one has to have that same attitude even in looking at one's own psychological
problems.
JH : An attitude of care ?
DB : Care and attention to what's going on, you see, one starts to analyze by habit, and one
might condemn that, for example, that would not be the right attitude. But one has to give care
and attention to exactly what is happening in that just as in relationship with people, right ?
And it's because that there was no attention or not the right kind of attention that that division
arose in the first place, and was sustained, right ?
RS : But it's possible to have perhaps this kind of attention towards people that we know :
wives, children, friends, etcetera, but what about people we don't know ? I mean, most of us
have never met any Russians, for example, and we feel, many of us, there's this terrible fear of
Russia and Russian nuclear weapons and the Russian threat and all the rest of it. And so it's
very easy to think, well, we've got to have all these bombs and so on because the Russians are
so terrible. We can think all these things about Russians, we've never met them. So how do
we have attention to enemies or imagined enemies that we don't know ?

53
K : What is an enemy ? Is there such thing as an enemy ?
RS : Well, there are enemies in the sense that there are people who...
K : ...who disagree with you...
RS : ...not only disagree.
K : ...who have definite idealistic ideological differences.
RS : Well, they're usually people who are afraid of us, I mean, the Russians are afraid of us
and we're afraid of them. Because they're afraid of us they're in a position of being our
enemies.
K : Because we are still thinking in terms of tribalism.
RS : Yes, certainly.
K : Supposing you and I move out of that. I'm Russian, you are English or British or German
or French. I move, I despise this sense of tribalism. What's my relationship then with you ?
RS : Well, we...
K : I'm not Russian then.
RS : No.
K : I'm a human being with all my psychological problems and you are another human being
with all your psychological problems. We are human beings, not labels.
DB : Of course the Russians may reject this, you see, that is, suppose we're in this situation...
K : We are in that...
DB : ...and the Russians will reject this, right. Then what's the next step, right ?
K : So what shall we do ? You see, I represent all humanity. I am all humanity. I feel that
way. To me it's an actuality, not just an emotional explosion, emotional, romantic idea. I feel I
am the rest of mankind ; I am mankind. Because I suffer or I enjoy, I go through all the
tortures and so do you, so do you. So you are the rest of mankind. And therefore you have
terrible responsibility in that. So when you meet a Russian or a German or a British or
Argentine you treat them as human beings, not labels.
RS : Then does this simply mean that in this largely tribal society with governments and
bombs and weapons of war, there'll just be a few individual scattered here and there who've
dissolved tribalism in themselves ?
K : Yes. If a hundred of us all over the world really had a non-tribalistic attitude towards life,
we would be acting like a - I don't know - like a light in the midst of darkness. But we don't.
This just becomes an idealistic romantic idea and you drop it because each pursues his own
way.
RS : Yes.
K : Sir, I think we ought to differentiate between attention and concentration. Concentration is
focussing your energy on a certain point ; and in attention, there is no focussing on a certain
point. It's attention.
JH : Concentration seems to have a goal in mind.
K : A goal, motive ; it's a restrictive process. I concentrate on a page, but I am looking out of
the window and I'll pull it back and keep on this business. Whereas if I give complete

54
attention to what I am looking out of the window, that lizard which is going along the wall,
and with that same attention I can look at my book, look what I am doing.
JH : Concentration presupposes that there's a controller in there pulling back.
K : That's just it.
RS : But then, if there's no controller of the attention, the attention is simply a response to
whatever the present circumstances are.
K : You insult me ; I'm attentive. There is no recording that insult.
DB : Yes, that's it.
K : You flatter me : what a marvellous talk you gave the other day. I've heard this so often
repeated. And I'm bored with it, so - I'm not only bored, I see - what ? You follow, sir ? Is it
possible... really, that's the much more difficult question - is it possible not to record, except
where it is necessary ? It's necessary to record when you are driving. To learn how to drive.
Record when you do your business and all the rest of it. But psychologically, what is the need
to record ?
RS : Isn't it inevitable ? Doesn't our memory work automatically ?
K : Memory is rather selective.
JH : We seem to remember things that are important to us...
RS : Yes.
JH : ...have some connection with who we think we are and what our goals are.
DB : It seems to me that when there is paying attention then in general attention determines
what is to be recorded and what is not, that is, it is not automatic any more.
K : It's not automatic any more. Quite right.
DB : If it comes from the past, from the concentration or from the analysis, then it will be
automatic.
K : Another problem which we ought to discuss - we said yesterday we would - religion,
meditation, and if there is something sacred. We said we would talk about that.
Is there anything sacred in life ? Not thought creating something sacred, and then worshipping
that sacred, which is absurd. The symbols in all the Indian temples, they're religious, like in
the Christian church, or in the Muslim mosque there is this marvellous writing, which is the
same. And we worship that.
JH : That's idolatry.
K : No. Thought has created this. The thought has created the image and then it worships it. I
don't know if you see the absurdity of it.
RS : Well, that's manifestly absurd, but the more sophisticated members of different religions
would say that it's not the thought, the image created by thought that's being worshipped, but
the image points to something beyond thought which is being worshipped.
K : Wait a minute, let's look at it. That is, the symbol, we know symbol is not the real, but
why do we create the symbol ? Please answer it. If there is something beyond, why do we
create the intermediary ?

55
RS : Well, I think that this is a question which in certain religions has been central to them :
the Jews, who were against all idolatry for exactly this reason, and the Muslims, who don't
have images in the mosques.
K : No but they have these scripts.
RS : They have writing.
K : Of course.
RS : But they think writing is what tells them about what lies beyond all symbols, you see.
K : Yes.
RS : Now you could say the writing simply becomes a symbol, but I mean, these are words,
and words can help us. We're having a discussion, and these words that we're having, your
words may help me, for example. If they're written down, then they're written words like
Muslim words.
K : So ; why do I have to have an intermediary at all ?
JH : Because I think I'm here and it's over there and I don't have it. I need some way to get
there.
K : No, you're not answering my question. Is it that you, the intermediary, understand or
realized or follow truth or whatever it is, therefore you are telling me about it ?
JH : Well, maybe I've seen something and I want to tell you about it.
K : Yes, tell me about it, but why do you make yourself interpreter ? Why do you become the
intermediary between that - I don't know what that is - and me, who is ignorant, who is
suffering ? Why don't you deal with my suffering rather than with that ?
JH : I think that that will deal with your suffering. If I can get you to...
K : That has been, sir, that has been the old trick of all the priests in the world. We have had
priests from time immemorial, right ?
JH : Yes.
K : But you haven't released my sorrow. I am still suffering after a million years. What for ?
Help me to get rid of that. Help me to be free, without fear, then I'll find out. Is it that you
want position, power, status, like the rest of the world ? Now this is really quite serious.
DB : I think, you know, if we try to give the priests the most favourable interpretation, that
they may have considered, at least, the best among them, that as a kind of poetic imagery that
people may use to point to something beyond that, right, in a communication, and they are
trying to point to this sacred which we were talking about. That's perhaps the way they would
look at it. Now would you say that that would that make no sense, you know, to have a poetic
image to point to the sacred.
K : But, sir, why don't you help me to see what is happening to me ?
DB : Yes, that's your point, don't point to the sacred right away but look at this first.
K : Help me to be free of it, then I'll walk.
DB : Yes, I understand that.
K : We have never talked - nobody has gone into this like that. Always god, some saviour,
some Brahma, and so on, so on. And this is what we call religion. All the rituals are invented
by thought, marvellous architecture by thought, all the things inside the churches, temples,

56
mosques, created by thought. And thought creates it, then thought worships it. But thought is
not sacred.
JH : Yes, I see that. So you are saying, is it possible to put a stop to thought ?
K : Thought. Is it possible ?
JH : And thought is the thing that gets in the way by creating the images...
K : Of course.
JH : ...which we take for something really valuable.
K : I start out looking for something sacred. You come along and say, I'll tell you all about it.
Then you begin to organize it. It's all gone by then, it's finished.
JH : Then I just stay within thought, that's all I have.
K : So, if we reject or understand that thought is not sacred, there's nothing holy about
thought, but thought thinks that what it has created is holy. Right, sir ?
DB : Right. Would you also add that time is not sacred.
K : Nothing in time, of course not.
DB : Nothing in time, or people would say that.
K : Tomorrow is not sacred !
DB : They always say only the eternal is sacred.
K : But to find out what is eternity, time must stop.
JH : But we get into a real subtle place here, because you have said things like, absolute
attention dissolves the self. Then absolute attention can become a thought.
K : Idea of it, yes.
JH : Yes, the idea of it. So we may go the route of creating the idea. That seems to always be
the danger.
K : You make a statement : absolute attention. I don't capture the depth of your meaning, what
is implied. You have gone into it and you can say that, absolute attention. I hear it and make it
into an idea. And then I pursue the idea.
JH : That seems to be the process.
K : That's what we do all the time.
RS : Yes.
K : So it has gone. Idea is not what you said. What you said had depth in it.
JH : But we don't know that we're pursuing an idea. We don't realize at the time that we're
pursuing an idea.
K : Of course not, because I am used to this reducing everything to abstract ideas. So could
we try to find out or realize that anything though does is not sacred ?
RS : That seems self-evident to me.
K : All right. That's self-evident. In all the religions as they are now, there is nothing sacred.
Right ?
RS : No, there's nothing sacred in itself in the words or the buildings or so on. But in a sense
all these religions are supposed to point beyond themselves.

57
K : Yes. And to help me to go beyond all this, I must start with my being free from my agony,
understand my relationship with people. If there is confusion here, in my heart and my mind,
what's the good of the other ? I am not materialistic. I am not anti the other. But I say, look, I
must start where I am. To go very far, I must start very near. I am very near. So I must
understand myself. I'm the rest of humanity. I am not an individual. So, there is the book of
humanity in me. I am that book. If I know how to read it from the beginning to the end, then I
can I find if there is a possibility, if there is really something that is immense, sacred. But if
you are all the time saying, look, there is that, that will help you, I say, it hasn't helped me.
We have had these religions for millions of years. That hasn't - on the contrary, You have
distracted from 'what is'.
So, if I want to find out if there is anything sacred, I must start very near. The very near is me.
And can I free myself from fear and agony, sorrow, despair, all that ? When there is freedom I
can move, I can climb mountains.
RS : Sir, are you saying that the sacred would become apparent if we dissolved fear and all
these other things.
K : Obviously, sir. That's real meditation, you see.
RS : Through attention to what is really happening in us.
K : That's it.
RS : And what is really happening between us and other people and all the rest of it.
K : Between our relationships.
RS : Yes. Through attention to this, this action...
K : ...attention and we have discussed too with Dr Bohm, some time ago, having an insight
into the whole movement of the self, which is not a remembrance. Insight is total perception
of what you are, without analysis, without investigation, all that, total immediate perception of
the whole content of your consciousness, not take bit by bit by bit, that's endless.
JH : Oh, we're broken up so we look at each little piece.
K : Yes. And because we are broken up we can never see the whole. Obviously, that seems so
logical !
JH : Okay.
K : So, is it possible not to be broken up ? What is to be broken up ? This confusion, this
messy consciousness, which we talked about yesterday. You see nobody wants to go so
deeply into all this. Right, sir ? First of all, one hasn't the time ; one is committed to one's job,
to one's profession, to one's science, to one's whatever one is doing. And you say, please, this
is too difficult or too abstract, not practical. That's the word they all use. As though all this,
what you are doing and all is terribly practical. Our armaments, is it practical ? Tribalism, is -
oh well, you know all about it.
So, sir, let's move from there. Is silence of the mind a state of attention ? Or is it beyond
attention ?
DB : What would you mean by beyond attention ? Let's try to get into that.
K : Is attention an act of will ? I will attend.
JH : No, we said that's concentration.

58
K : Sir, I am asking you, where there is attention is there any kind of effort ? Struggle ? I must
attend. What is attention ? Let's go into it a little bit. What is attention ? The word diligent is
implied in attention ; to be diligent. Not negligent.
RS : What does diligent mean ? Careful ? You mean careful ?
K : Yes. Care. To be very precise. Diligent.
DB : The literal meaning is taking pains.
K : Pains, that's right. Taking pain. Which is to care, to have affection, to do everything
correctly ; orderly ; not repetitive. Does attention demand the action of thought ?
RS : Well, it doesn't demand the action of analysis, in the way you've explained it.
K : No.
RS : ...and insofar as thought is analytical, it doesn't demand that. And it doesn't demand the
action of will insofar as will involves a separation, an attempt to, by one part of the mind, to
force another part to do something else. It doesn't imply any sense of going anywhere or
becoming anything because becoming leads one out of the present.
K : That's right. You can't become attentive.
RS : But in the act of attention...
K : Just see what is implied. You can't become attentive. That means in attention there is no
time. Becoming implies time.
RS : Yes.
K : In attention there is no time. Therefore it is not the result of thought.
RS : Yes.
K : Now : is that attention silence of the mind ? Which is a healthy, sane mind : uncluttered,
unattached, unanchored, free mind, which is the healthiest mind. Therefore I am asking, in
that attention, is the mind silent ? There is no movement of thought.
RS : Well, it sounds like it, yes. It sounds like a state of being rather than a state of becoming
because it's not going anywhere, or coming from anywhere.
K : Again, when you say being, what does that mean ? Being what ?
RS : Well, being what it is. It's not being something else.
K : No, what does that mean, being ? Are you putting being as a opposite to becoming ?
RS : Yes.
K : Ah, then. The opposite has its own opposite.
RS : Well, by being I simply mean a state which is not in a process of going somewhere else
in time.
K : Which means non-movement.
RS : I suppose so.
DB : You could say that, yes.
K : Non-movement.
DB : If you say what you mean by movement, that it doesn't mean it's static to say it's non-
movement.

59
K : No, it's dynamic, of course.
DB : But you see it's a little difficult...
K : There is no moving from here to there.
DB : But there is another kind of movement, perhaps.
K : That's what I want to go into. If we use the word being without movement, it is without
thought, without time, which is the movement which we know. But the other has its own
dynamism, its own movement, but not this movement, the time movement, the thought
movement. Is that what you call being ?
RS : I suppose it is.
K : Is that being silent ? You follow, sir ? We have various forms of silence. Right ?
RS : Yes. It may not be silent in the sense of soundless.
K : I am using the word 'silence' in the sense, without a single movement of thought.
RS : Well, in that sense it must be silent almost by definition.
K : Yes. So, has my mind - the mind - has it stopped thinking ? Has it - not stopped thinking -
has thought found its own place and therefore it's no longer moving, chattering, pushing
around. Because there is no controller. You follow ? Because when there is a great silence,
then that which is eternal is. You don't have to enquire about it. It's not a process. It isn't
something you achieve, my God ! By fasting, by rituals, by all these absurdities. Sir, you hear
that.
JH : Yes.
K : You hear X saying that. What value has it ? Value in the sense, what do you do with it ?
Has it any importance or none at all ? Because you are going your way. You are a
psychologist, you'll go your way, I'll go my way, I have said what I have to say and there it
ends. Then somebody comes along and says, I'll tell you what he means. You haven't the time.
He has a little time, he says, I'll tell you all about it. And you are caught. This is what is
happening. From the ancient of times, the Sumerians, the Egyptians, the Babylonians, they
have played this. And we are doing still the same kind of nonsense. And what has religion
done to man ? It hasn't helped him. It has given him romantic illusory comfort. Actually look
- we're killing each other - I won't go into that.
So, sir, let's begin. What is a healthy mind ?
JH : It's a mind that's not caught so in this...
K : A mind that's whole, healthy, sane, holy ; h-o-l-y, holy. All that means a healthy mind.
That's what we started discussing. What is a healthy mind ? The world is so neurotic. How are
we going to tell you, as an analyst, as a psychologist, how are you going to tell people what is
a healthy mind, nobody's going to pay attention. They'll listen to the tape, to television, and
they'll agree, but they'll go on their own way. So what do we do ? First of all, do I have a
healthy mind ? Or is it just a lot of pictures, words, images ? A mind that's totally unattached,
to my country, to my ideas - all totally dispassionately unattached.
JH : And you are suggesting that only then am I in a position to talk to anybody ?
K : Obviously ! Obviously. I may be married. I may, but why should I be attached to my wife
?
JH : Then it's an idea of marriage, it's not a marriage.

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K : But love is not attachment. So have I realized that ? A healthy mind that says, I love,
therefore there is no attachment. Is that possible ?
RS : Sir, you make it sound so easy and so difficult at the same time because...
K : I don't see why it's difficult.
RS : Because you see, I hear what you say, I think this is absolutely wonderful stuff. I want to
have a healthy mind, I want to be in a state of being, and then you see I realize that it's back
into this, that I can't become in a state of having a healthy mind and I can't move by an act of
will or desire into this state. It has to happen. And it can't happen through any act of my will.
K : No. So.
RS : I have to let it happen in some sense.
K : So we begin to enquire. You begin to say, now, why ? Why am I not healthy ? Am I
attached to my house ? I need a house, why should I be attached to it. A wife, relationship,
can't exist without relationship, life is relationship. But why should I be attached to a person ?
Or to an idea, to a faith, to a symbol, you follow ? The whole cycle of it. To a nation, to my
guru to my god, you follow ? Attach mean attached right through. A mind can be free of all
that. Of course it can.
RS : But not just by wanting to be free of it.
K : No. But seeing the consequences of it, seeing what is involved in it : the pain, the
pleasure, the agony, the fear, you follow, all that is involved in that. Such a mind is an
unhealthy mind.
RS : Yes, but one can even agree with that, one can even see it, one can even see the
movements of one's attachments, one can even see the destructive consequences of all this.
But that doesn't in itself seem automatically to dissolve it.
K : Of course not. So, it brings in quite a different question. Which is, sir, do you hear it,
merely with your sensory ears or do you really hear it ? You understand my question.
RS : Yes.
K : Is it just casual verbal sensory hearing, or hearing at depth ? If you hear it at the greatest
depth, then it's part of you. I don't know if...
DB : Well, I think that generally one doesn't hear at the greatest depth and something is
stopping it, you see. All the conditioning.
K : And also probably we don't want to hear it.
DB : Well, but the conditioning makes us not want to hear it.
K : Of course, of course.
DB : We're unwilling to do so.
K : How can I say to my wife, I love you but I am not attached ? She'll say, what the hell are
you talking about ? But if one sees the absolute necessity to have a healthy mind, and the
demand for it, not only in myself, but in my children, my society.
JH : But you don't mean by that going around demanding of myself and other people that they
become healthy.
K : No, no, no. I demand in myself. I ask why is not my mind healthy ? Why is it neurotic ?
Then I begin to enquire. I watch, I attend, I am diligent in what I am doing.

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DB : It seems to me that you say that we must have to see the absolute necessity of a healthy
mind, but I think we've been conditioned to the absolute necessity of maintaining attachment.
And that's what we feel, right ?
RS : Well, we haven't necessarily, you see, there are many people who've seen that there are
all these problems, there's something wrong with the mind, they feel that something could be
done about it and all that, and then take up some kind of spiritual practice, meditation, what
not. Now you're saying that all these kinds of meditation, concentrating on chakras and what
not are all just the same kind of thing.
K : I have played that trick long ago.
RS : Yes.
K : And I see the absurdity of all that. That is not going to stop thought.
RS : Well, some of these methods are supposed to. I don't know if they do or not, you see.
They've never done it for me.
K : No
RS : But I don't know if that's because I haven't done them right.
K : So instead of going through all that business, why don't you find out. Let's find out what is
thought, whether it can end, what is implied, you follow ? Dig.
Sir, at the end of these four discussions, have you got healthy minds ? Have you got a mind
that is not confused, groping, floundering, demanding, asking ? You follow, sir ? What a
business ! It's like seeing a rattler and saying, yes, that's a rattler, I won't go near it. Finished !
JH : It looks from the inside like this is a tremendous deep problem that's very difficult to
solve, and you're saying from the outside that it's just like seeing a rattler and you don't go
near it, there's nothing to it.
K : It is like that with me.
JH : Yes.
K : Because I don't want to achieve nirvana or heaven or anything. I say, look - you follow ?
JH : Well, I think it's interesting why it looks so deep when in fact it isn't.
K : No, sir, we are all so very superficial. Right ? And that seems to satisfy us. That's our
good house, good wife, good job, good relationship, don't disturb anything. I'll go to church,
you go to the mosque, I'll go to the temple, keep things as they are.
JH : Well then you're saying we don't even want to look at it.
K : Of course not.
JH : But say we come with a problem...
K : Sir, if Mrs Thatcher and the gentleman in Argentina looked at it, how tribalistic they are,
they would stop it. But they don't because the public doesn't want it. British - you follow ? We
are educated to be cruel to each other. I won't go into all that.
So, a healthy mind is that, sir. A healthy mind is without any conflict. And then it is a holistic
mind. And then there's a possibility of that which is sacred to be. Otherwise all this is so
childish.

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