Subtitles
I wonder what you mean when you use the 00:00:00
I wonder what you mean when you use the word I I've been very interested in this 00:00:04
problem for a long long time and I've 00:00:16
come to the conclusion that what most 00:00:20
civilized people mean by that word is a 00:00:25
hallucination that is to say a false 00:00:30
sense of personal identity that is at 00:00:36
complete variance with the facts of 00:00:39
nature and as a result of having a false 00:00:44
sense of identity we act in a way that 00:00:48
is inappropriate to our natural 00:00:50
environment and when that inappropriate 00:00:55
way of action is magnified by a very 00:01:01
powerful technology we swiftly begin to 00:01:05
see the results of a profound discord 00:01:09
between man and nature as is well known 00:01:14
we are now in the process of destroying 00:01:17
our environment as an result of an 00:01:22
attempt to conquer it and master it and 00:01:27
we have not realized therefore that our 00:01:30
environment is not something other than 00:01:34
ourselves in assuming that it is we have 00:01:39
made a great mistake and are now paying 00:01:43
the price for it but most people would 00:01:49
agree with the lines of the poet who 00:01:53
said I a stranger and afraid in a world 00:01:58
I never made because we have the strong 00:02:03
sensation that our own being inside our 00:02:07
skin is extremely different from the 00:02:12
world outside us 00:02:13
in that while there may be intelligence 00:02:19
inside human skins and while there may 00:02:23
be values and loving feelings outside 00:02:29
the skin is a world of mechanical 00:02:31
process which does not give a damn about 00:02:34
any individual and which is basically 00:02:39
unintelligent being gyrations of blind 00:02:44
force and so far as the merely 00:02:48
biological world is concerned gyrations 00:02:50
of libido which is Freud's word for 00:02:55
blind lust there are many people who say 00:03:01
they don't believe that the world is 00:03:03
like that but under the control of a 00:03:06
wise just and beneficent God although 00:03:11
many people say that they believe that 00:03:13
to be the case very few people in fact 00:03:17
believe that to be the case a great many 00:03:20
people believe that they ought to 00:03:21
believe in God but they don't actually 00:03:27
because the idea of God has handed down 00:03:32
in popular Christianity and Judaism and 00:03:35
Islam has become implausible to most 00:03:39
educated people they would love to 00:03:43
believe it but they can't and what has 00:03:47
become the common sense of the average 00:03:49
person is the avant-garde thinking of 00:03:54
the 18th and 19th centuries of the West 00:03:57
which is the mechanical universe and 00:04:01
most of them have not even caught up in 00:04:04
their common sense with the universe of 00:04:06
modern physics because we think about 00:04:08
the world in Newtonian categories and 00:04:11
not so much in the categories of quantum 00:04:14
theory psychoanalysis for example is a 00:04:17
Newtonian conception of our 00:04:20
psychological mechanisms to notice that 00:04:24
we speak of unconscious men 00:04:26
mechanisms and think of the libido in 00:04:32
the same way as ernst haeckel thought of 00:04:34
the energy of the universe as blind 00:04:37
unconscious psychoanalysis is really 00:04:42
psycho hydraulics because of its analogy 00:04:46
between psychic energy and the flow of 00:04:49
water in all this the view of the 19th 00:04:57
century is that the human psyche the 00:05:02
mind the ego the super-ego the it'd all 00:05:09
this is basically a mechanical 00:05:12
functioning you see the 19th century 00:05:17
strove to take an objective attitude to 00:05:21
nature to be the very opposite of what 00:05:26
we presume to call primitive animism the 00:05:31
point of view which sees everything as 00:05:33
alive of people who hold converse with 00:05:38
animals and plants and rivers and 00:05:40
mountains and stars that said the 19th 00:05:44
century is the pathetic fallacy the 00:05:47
projection of intelligent human 00:05:50
characteristics upon unintelligent 00:05:54
entities in nature we withdrew that 00:05:58
projection in the 19th century and said 00:06:02
let's look at everything objectively as 00:06:04
it is and then we turned that attitude 00:06:12
onto ourselves and studied human 00:06:16
physiology and human psychology as 00:06:21
object and when we discovered ourselves 00:06:27
to be objects we decided that that was 00:06:32
that and the time had come for suicide 00:06:32
simply because oh objects as the name implies are of 00:06:39
course objectionable I found that phrase 00:06:47
which I thought I'd invented myself in 00:06:51
the writings of Western lebar who is a 00:06:54
great anthropologist but definitely of 00:06:56
the psychoanalytic school who share this 00:07:01
19th century philosophy of so-called 00:07:04
scientific naturalism and he uses the 00:07:07
phrase the objectionable objective world 00:07:10
and so you see when everything is 00:07:14
deprived of subjectivity and regarded as 00:07:18
simply a mechanism as it were with 00:07:21
nobody home then the world is seen as 00:07:25
futile and we are indeed preparing to 00:07:29
destroy the planet with nuclear energy 00:07:32
and other processes now I submit that 00:07:38
this 19th century view of the world is 00:07:41
pure mythology and not very good 00:07:44
mythology at that but that it is 00:07:48
fundamentally based on a hallucination 00:07:52
that we have about our own existence it 00:08:00
should be obvious that the human being 00:08:04
goes with the rest of the universe even 00:08:10
though we say in popular speech I came 00:08:13
into this world now it is not true that 00:08:16
you came into this world you came out of 00:08:20
it 00:08:22
in the same way as the flower comes out 00:08:25
of a plant or a fruit comes out of a 00:08:28
tree and as an apple tree apples the 00:08:33
solar system in which we live and 00:08:35
therefore the galaxy in which we live 00:08:37
and therefore the system of galaxies in 00:08:39
which we live that system peoples and 00:08:45
therefore people are an expression of 00:08:48
its energy and of its nature 00:08:52
if people are intelligent and I suppose 00:08:56
we have to grant that if then the energy 00:09:01
which people expressed must also be 00:09:04
intelligent because one does not gather 00:09:08
figs from thistles and grapes from 00:09:12
thorns but it does not occur you see to 00:09:17
the ordinary civilized person to regard 00:09:19
himself or herself as an expression of 00:09:23
the whole universe it should be obvious 00:09:27
that we cannot exist except in an 00:09:31
environment of earth air water and solar 00:09:38
temperature that all these things go 00:09:42
with us and are as important to us 00:09:45
albeit outside our skins as our internal 00:09:48
organs heart stomach brain and so forth 00:09:53
now if then we cannot describe the 00:09:56
behavior of organisms without at the 00:09:59
same time describing the behavior of 00:10:01
their environments we should realize 00:10:04
that we have a new entity of description 00:10:07
not the individual organism alone but 00:10:11
what would now be called a field of 00:10:13
behavior which we must call rather 00:10:16
clumsily the organism environment you go 00:10:21
with your environment in the same way as 00:10:24
your head goes with the rest of your 00:10:27
body but it's funny isn't it 00:10:29
when we think of a person say you 00:10:33
suddenly think of your mother what do 00:10:35
you think of the face and we're used to 00:10:40
representing people in the newspapers in 00:10:43
magazines and books and in art galleries 00:10:45
with a head and shoulders portrait we 00:10:50
think that the feet the legs the behind 00:10:54
the torso all that is somehow irrelevant 00:11:00
but you see here's this truncated face 00:11:05
and that's the person the face like we 00:11:10
say put a good face on it save face a 00:11:13
front and oddly enough the very word 00:11:17
person is the Latin cast owner that 00:11:22
through which sound passes and it refers 00:11:26
to the megaphone mask worn by actors in 00:11:31
greco-roman drama the dramatis personae 00:11:35
the list of the characters to appear in 00:11:37
the play is originally the list of masks 00:11:41
that will be worn and therefore your 00:11:44
person your personality your face is 00:11:48
your mask and the question is therefore 00:11:53
what is behind the mask well notice that 00:11:57
the whole body goes with this face you 00:12:01
do not find in nature faces arriving in 00:12:05
the world 00:12:05
Sooey generous they go with a body but 00:12:10
also bodies do not arrive in a world 00:12:15
which would be for example a plain ball 00:12:18
of scrubbed rock floating without an 00:12:21
atmosphere far away from a star that 00:12:26
will not grow bodies there is no soil 00:12:29
for bodies there is no complexity of 00:12:31
environment which is body producing so 00:12:38
bodies go with a very complicated 00:12:41
natural environment and if the head goes 00:12:47
with the body and the body goes with the 00:12:49
environment the body is as much an 00:12:51
integral part of the environment as the 00:12:54
head is part of the body it is deceptive 00:12:59
of course because the human being is not 00:13:01
rooted to the ground like a tree the 00:13:04
human being moves about and therefore 00:13:07
can shift from one environment to 00:13:09
another but these shifts are superficial 00:13:12
the basic environment of the planet 00:13:14
remains a constant and 00:13:17
the human being leaves the planet he has 00:13:19
to take with him an a a canned version 00:13:23
of the planetary environment now we are 00:13:29
not really aware of this upon taking 00:13:33
thoughts and due consideration it does 00:13:36
occur to us yes indeed we do need that 00:13:38
environment but in the ordinary way we 00:13:41
don't feel it that is to say we don't 00:13:46
have a vivid sensation of belonging to 00:13:49
our environment in the same way that we 00:13:51
have a vivid sation of a sensation of 00:13:55
being an ego inside a bag of skin 00:13:58
located mostly in the skull about 00:14:01
halfway between the ears and a little 00:14:03
way behind the eyes and since we feel 00:14:08
that way and it is not the way we exist 00:14:12
this is why I call it a hallucination 00:14:15
and it issues in these disastrous 00:14:19
results of the ego which according to 00:14:22
nineteenth-century common sense feels 00:14:25
that it is a fluke in nature and that if 00:14:31
it does not fight nature it will not be 00:14:34
able to maintain its status as 00:14:36
intelligent fluke 00:14:36
so the geneticists are now saying and many others are now saying that man must 00:14:42
take the course of his evolution into 00:14:47
his own hands 00:14:48
he could no longer trust the wiggly 00:14:52
random and unintelligible processes of 00:14:56
nature to develop him any further but he 00:14:59
must interfere with his own intelligence 00:15:01
and through genetic alterations breed 00:15:04
the kind of people who will be viable 00:15:07
for human society and that sort of thing 00:15:12
now this I submit is a ghastly error 00:15:16
because human intelligence has a very 00:15:20
serious limitation that limitation is 00:15:25
that it is a scanning system of 00:15:31
conscious attention which is linear that 00:15:37
is to say it examines the world in lines 00:15:45
rather as you would pass the beam of a 00:15:48
flashlight across a room or a spotlight 00:15:48
that's why our education takes so long it takes so long because we have to scan 00:15:58
miles of lines of print and we regard 00:16:09
that you see as basic information now 00:16:13
the universe does not come at us in 00:16:16
lines it comes at us in a 00:16:22
multi-dimensional continuum in which 00:16:24
everything is happening all together 00:16:26
everywhere at once and it comes out as 00:16:29
much too quickly to be translated into 00:16:35
lines of print or of other information 00:16:39
however fast they may be scanned and 00:16:42
that is our limitation so far as the 00:16:47
intellectual life and the scientific 00:16:49
life is concerned the computer 00:16:53
will greatly speed up linear scanning 00:16:57
but it's still linear scanning and so 00:17:03
long as we are stuck with that form of 00:17:05
wisdom we cannot deal with more than a 00:17:12
few variables at once now what do I mean 00:17:16
by that what is a variable a variable is 00:17:21
any one linear process 00:17:25
let's take music when you play a Bach 00:17:27
fugue and there are four parts to it you 00:17:31
have four variables you have four moving 00:17:33
lines and you can take care of that with 00:17:36
two hands an organist 00:17:39
using two feet can put in two more 00:17:42
variables and have six going and you may 00:17:45
realize if you've ever tried to play the 00:17:46
organ that it's quite difficult to make 00:17:49
six independent motions go at once the 00:17:53
average person cannot do that without 00:17:55
training the average person cannot deal 00:17:58
with more than three variables at once 00:18:00
without using a pencil now when we study 00:18:05
physics we are dealing with processes in 00:18:09
which there are millions of variables 00:18:11
this however we handle by statistics in 00:18:15
the same way as insurance companies use 00:18:18
actuarial tables to predict when most 00:18:21
people will die if the average age of 00:18:25
death is 65 however this prediction does 00:18:27
not apply to any given individual any 00:18:32
given individual will live to plus or 00:18:34
minus 65 years and the range of 00:18:40
difference may be very wide indeed of 00:18:42
course but this is alright the 65 guess 00:18:46
is all right when you're doing 00:18:48
large-scale gambling and that's the way 00:18:51
the physicists works in predicting the 00:18:54
behavior of nuclear wavicles but the 00:18:59
practical problems of human life deal 00:19:01
with variables in the hundreds of 00:19:03
thousands justice statistical methods of 00:19:07
their 00:19:07
poor and thinking it out by linear 00:19:11
consideration is impossible with that 00:19:16
equipment then we are proposing to 00:19:18
interfere with our genes and with that 00:19:28
equipment also be it said we are trying 00:19:31
to solve our political economic and 00:19:33
social problems and naturally everybody 00:19:37
has the sense of total frustration and 00:19:42
the individual fears what what on earth 00:19:44
can I do we do not seem to know a way of 00:19:51
calling upon our brains because our 00:19:55
brains can handle an enormous number of 00:19:58
variables that are not accessible to the 00:20:01
process of conscious attention your 00:20:03
brain is now handling your your total 00:20:06
nervous system to be more accurate your 00:20:10
blood chemistry the secretions from your 00:20:12
glands the behavior of millions of cells 00:20:17
it is doing all that without thinking 00:20:20
about it that is to say without 00:20:24
translating the processes it is handling 00:20:27
into consciously reviewed words symbols 00:20:31
or numbers now when I use the word 00:20:36
thinking I mean precisely that process 00:20:40
translating what is going on in nature 00:20:43
into words symbols or numbers cause both 00:20:50
words and numbers are kinds of symbols 00:20:50
symbols they are the same relation to the real world that money bears to 00:20:58
wealth you cannot quench anybody's 00:21:05
thirst with the word water just as you 00:21:08
cannot eat a dollar bill and derive 00:21:11
nutrition from it about using symbols 00:21:17
and using conscious intelligence 00:21:21
scanning has proved very useful to us it 00:21:27
has given us such technology as we have 00:21:27
but at the same time it has proved too much of a good thing at the same time 00:21:35
we've become so fascinated with it that 00:21:44
we confuse the world as it is with the 00:21:49
world as it is thought about talked 00:21:52
about and figured about that is to say 00:21:55
with the world as it is described and 00:22:00
the difference between these two is vast 00:22:05
and when we are not aware of ourselves 00:22:10
except in a symbolic way we're not 00:22:15
related to ourselves at all we are like 00:22:18
people eating menus instead of dinners 00:22:20
and that's why we all feel 00:22:22
psychologically frustrated so then we 00:22:27
get back to the question of what do we 00:22:31
mean by AI well first of all obviously 00:22:35
we mean our symbol of ourselves now 00:22:41
ourselves in this case is the whole 00:22:44
psycho physical organism conscious and 00:22:47
unconscious plus its environment that's 00:22:52
your real self your real self in other 00:22:55
words is the universe as centred on your 00:22:58
organism that's you you say let me just 00:23:05
clarify that a little for one reason 00:23:05
what you do is also a doing of your environment 00:23:14
your behavior is its behavior as much as 00:23:19
its behavior is your behavior its mutual 00:23:22
we could say it is transactional you are 00:23:26
not a puppet which your environment 00:23:28
pushes around nor is the environment of 00:23:33
Popat which you push around they go 00:23:36
together they act together in the same 00:23:40
way for example if I have a wheel one 00:23:45
side of it going down is the same as the 00:23:47
other side of it going up when you 00:23:51
handle the steering wheel of a car 00:23:53
are you pulling it or are you pushing it 00:23:53
no you're doing both aren't you when you pull it down this side you are pushing 00:23:59
it up that side it's all one so there's 00:24:05
a push-pull between organism and 00:24:08
environment we are only rarely aware of 00:24:12
this as when in curious alterations of 00:24:15
consciousness which we call mystical 00:24:17
experience cosmic consciousness an 00:24:19
individual gets the feeling that 00:24:22
everything that is happening is his own 00:24:24
doing or the opposite of that feeling 00:24:27
and he isn't doing anything but that all 00:24:31
his doings his decisions and so forth 00:24:34
are happenings of nature you could feel 00:24:37
it either way 00:24:38
you can describe it in these two 00:24:40
completely opposite ways but you're 00:24:42
talking about the same experience you're 00:24:45
talking about experiencing your own 00:24:47
activity and the activity of nature has 00:24:49
one single process and you can describe 00:24:53
it as if you were omnipotent like God or 00:24:55
as if it were completely deterministic 00:24:57
and you hardly existed at all but 00:25:01
remember both points of view are right 00:25:03
and we'll see where that gets us but we 00:25:09
don't feel that do we ordinarily what we 00:25:13
feel instead is an identification of 00:25:16
ourselves with our idea of ourselves or 00:25:18
I would rather say with our image of 00:25:21
ourselves and that's the person or the 00:25:25
ego you play a role you identify with 00:25:31
that role I play a role it's called Alan 00:25:33
Watts and I know very well that that's a 00:25:36
big act 00:25:36
I can play some other roles besides Alan Watts if necessary but I find this one 00:25:42
is better for making a living 00:25:46
but I assure you it's a mosque and I don't take it seriously the idea of my 00:25:56
being a kind of Messiah or guru or 00:26:06
savior of the world just breaks me up as 00:26:09
I know me so I know it's very difficult 00:26:14
to be holy in the ordinary sense so I 00:26:20
know I'm not that but most of us are 00:26:23
taught to think that we are whom we are 00:26:25
called and when you're a little child 00:26:31
and you begin to learn a role and your 00:26:35
parents and your peers the proof of your 00:26:38
being that they know who you are 00:26:39
you're predictable so you can be 00:26:42
controlled but when you act out of role 00:26:46
and you imitate some other child's 00:26:48
behavior everybody points the finger and 00:26:50
says you're not being true to yourself 00:26:52
Johnny that's not you that's Peter and 00:26:57
so you learn to stay Peter or to stay 00:27:00
Johnny but of course you're not either 00:27:06
because this is just the image of you 00:27:09
it's as much of you as you can get into 00:27:11
your conscious attention which is 00:27:13
precious little your image of yourself 00:27:15
contains no information about how you 00:27:18
structure your nervous system it 00:27:21
contains no information about your blood 00:27:23
chemistry 00:27:24
it contains almost no information about 00:27:27
the subtle influences of society upon 00:27:29
your behavior it does not include the 00:27:33
basic assumptions of your culture which 00:27:36
are all taken for granted and 00:27:37
unconscious and you can't find them out 00:27:40
unless you study other cultures to see 00:27:42
how their basic assumptions differ it 00:27:46
includes all kinds of illusions that 00:27:48
you're completely unaware of as for 00:27:50
example that time is real and that there 00:27:54
is such a thing as a past which is pure 00:27:57
hokum but there but nevertheless all 00:28:01
these things that are unconscious in us 00:28:03
and they are not included in our image 00:28:05
of 00:28:06
nor of course included in our image of 00:28:08
ourselves is there any information about 00:28:13
our inseparable relationships with the 00:28:15
whole natural universe so this is a very 00:28:20
impoverished image when you ask a person 00:28:23
what did you do yesterday they'll give 00:28:27
you a historical account of a certain 00:28:30
number of events in which they 00:28:32
participated and a certain number of 00:28:34
things which they saw used over 00:28:37
clobbered by but realize at once that 00:28:40
this history leaves out most of what 00:28:42
happened I in trying to describe what 00:28:48
happens to me this evening we'll never 00:28:51
be able to describe it because there are 00:28:54
so many people here that if I were to 00:28:57
talk about everyone whom I've seen what 00:28:59
they were wearing what color their hair 00:29:01
was what sort of expressions they had on 00:29:03
their faces I would have to talk to 00:29:05
doomsday so instead of this rich 00:29:10
physical experience which is very rich 00:29:12
indeed I have to attenuate it in memory 00:29:16
and description to saying oh I met a lot 00:29:18
of people in Philadelphia and there were 00:29:21
men and Little Women and lots of them 00:29:22
are young and some of them were old you 00:29:24
know mostly impoverished account of what 00:29:27
went on 00:29:29
so therefore in thinking of ourselves in 00:29:32
this way what I did yesterday what I did 00:29:34
the day before in terms of this stringy 00:29:37
mangy account all I have is the 00:29:40
caricature of myself and you know the 00:29:44
caricaturist doesn't draw you all in he 00:29:46
just puts certain salient features 00:29:48
whereby people will recognize you it's 00:29:51
not a skeleton so we can consider we are 00:29:55
as it were conceiving ourselves as a 00:29:56
bunch of skeletons and they got no flesh 00:29:59
on them just a bunch of bones and no 00:30:03
wonder we all feel inadequate we're all 00:30:08
looking for something to the future to 00:30:11
bring us the goodie we know we ought to 00:30:14
have there's a golden goodie at the end 00:30:16
of the line somewhere there's a good 00:30:18
time coming be it ever so away 00:30:19
far away that one far off divine event 00:30:22
to which all creation moves we hope and 00:30:27
therefore we say of something that's no 00:30:29
good it has no future I would say it has 00:30:34
no present but everybody says it has no 00:30:37
future 00:30:37
now isn't that plainly ridiculous 00:30:39
here we are as it were psychically starved and always therefore looking for 00:30:57
looking seeking seeking seeking and this 00:31:07
confused seeking is going on everywhere 00:31:10
we don't know what we want nobody knows 00:31:13
what they want we say yes we fit we 00:31:18
think of what we want in vague terms 00:31:20
pleasure money wealth love fulfillment 00:31:26
personal development but we don't know 00:31:29
what we mean by all that the person 00:31:32
really sits down to figure out write a 00:31:34
long essay 20 pages on your idea of 00:31:37
heaven it'll be a sorry production 00:31:43
you could see it already in medieval art 00:31:45
whether it did fictions of heaven and 00:31:48
hell hell is always much better than 00:31:51
heaven although it's uncomfortable 00:31:54
it's a sadomasochistic orgy wowie 00:31:59
you know hell is really a rip-roaring 00:32:00
whereas all the saints in heaven are 00:32:04
sitting 00:32:04
you know very very smug and demure like they were in church and you see also the 00:32:15
multitudes of the saved instead of this 00:32:22
writhing wormy thing you can see all 00:32:25
their heads which the artist is drawn to 00:32:27
abbreviate them just the tops of their 00:32:29
heads in masses they look like 00:32:30
cobblestone street flattened out so what 00:32:42
has happened then is this that our eye 00:32:47
is an illusion it's an image and it is 00:32:54
no more ourself than an idol is the 00:32:58
Godhead but we say that can't be so 00:33:02
because I feel I really exist it isn't 00:33:05
just an idea in my head it's a feeling I 00:33:07
feel maybe well what is it that you feel 00:33:13
when you feel I I'll tell you what do 00:33:18
you do when you were a child and still 00:33:21
do when somebody says pay attention like 00:33:25
I said to you in school what do you do 00:33:29
what is the difference between looking 00:33:32
at something and taking a hard look at 00:33:34
it or between hearing something and 00:33:37
listening intently what's the difference 00:33:41
what's the difference between waiting 00:33:45
while something goes on and enduring it 00:33:48
why the difference is this that when you 00:33:52
pay attention instead of just looking 00:33:55
you screw up your face you frown and 00:33:59
stare that is a muscular activity around 00:34:02
here 00:34:04
when you listen intently you start doing 00:34:07
some squeezing around here when you will 00:34:11
you grit your teeth or clench your fists 00:34:14
when you endure or control yourself you 00:34:18
pull yourself together 00:34:21
and therefore you get uptight you hold 00:34:27
your breath you do all kinds of muscular 00:34:30
things to control the functioning of 00:34:33
your nervous system and none of them 00:34:36
have the slightest effect on the proper 00:34:38
operation of the nervous system if you 00:34:41
stare at things you will rather fuzz the 00:34:43
image than see them clearly if you 00:34:46
listen intently by concentrating on 00:34:48
muscles around the ears you will be so 00:34:50
much attending to muscles here that you 00:34:52
won't hear things properly and you may 00:34:55
get singing in the ears if you tighten 00:34:58
up with your body to pull yourself 00:35:01
together all you do is constrict 00:35:04
yourself I remember in school I sat next 00:35:07
to a boy who had great difficulty in 00:35:09
learning to read and what they always 00:35:12
say the children is try if you can't do 00:35:16
something it was try so the boy tries 00:35:18
and what has he done when he's trying to 00:35:20
get out words he grunts and groans as if 00:35:22
he were lifting weights and the teachers 00:35:25
impressed the boys Really Trying gives 00:35:27
him B for effort Oh 00:35:27
there's nothing to do with it now we all make this muscular straining with the 00:35:39
thought that it's achieving 00:35:45
psychological results as a sort of 00:35:49
psychological result its intended to 00:35:51
achieve now all this amounts to is it's 00:35:53
like you're taking off in a jet plane 00:35:55
you are gonna a mile down the runway and 00:35:57
the thing isn't up in the air yet and 00:35:58
you get nervous so you start pulling at 00:36:01
your seatbelt that's what it is now that 00:36:07
is a chronic feeling we have it in us 00:36:10
all the time and it corresponds to the 00:36:12
word I that's what you feel when you say 00:36:14
I you feel that chronic tension because 00:36:18
when an organ is working properly you 00:36:20
don't feel it if you see your eye you've 00:36:24
got cataract 00:36:24
if you hear your ears you got singing in your ears you know getting in the way of 00:36:30
hearing when you are fully functioning 00:36:34
you are unaware of the organ when you're 00:36:38
thinking clearly your brain isn't 00:36:40
getting in your way actually of course 00:36:44
you are seeing your eyes in the sense 00:36:47
that everything you see out in front of 00:36:48
you is a condition in the optic nerves 00:36:51
at the back of the skull that's where 00:36:55
you're aware of all this 00:36:56
but you're not aware of the eye as the 00:37:00
eye I'm talking about the optical eye so 00:37:05
when we are aware of the ego eye we are 00:37:08
aware of this chronic tension inside 00:37:10
ourselves and that's not us it's a 00:37:12
futile tension so when we get the 00:37:15
illusion the image of ourselves married 00:37:18
to a futile tension you've got an 00:37:20
illusion married to a futility and then 00:37:24
you wonder why I can't do anything why I 00:37:29
feel in the face of all the problems of 00:37:31
the world impotent and why I somehow 00:37:35
cannot manage to transform I now here we 00:37:40
get to the real problem because we're 00:37:43
always telling each other that we should 00:37:45
be different now I'm not going to tell 00:37:48
you that tonight 00:37:50
why not because I know you can't be nor 00:37:54
can I then they sound depressing but 00:37:57
I'll show you it isn't it's very 00:37:58
heartening but everybody you see who is 00:38:01
at all sensitive and awake to their own 00:38:04
problems and human problems is trying to 00:38:06
change himself we know we can't change 00:38:10
the world unless we change ourselves if 00:38:12
we are all individually selfish we're 00:38:15
going to be collectively selfish if we 00:38:18
don't really love people and only 00:38:20
pretend to somehow we've got to find a 00:38:22
way to love after all it's said in the 00:38:24
Bible thou shalt love the Lord thy God 00:38:26
and your neighbor as yourself 00:38:30
you must love yeah we all agree sure but 00:38:38
we don't 00:38:40
and this lives particularly becomes 00:38:43
appalling when we enter into the realm 00:38:45
of higher things by which I mean 00:38:47
spiritual development everybody these 00:38:50
days is interested in spiritual 00:38:51
development and wisely because we want 00:38:55
to change our consciousness many people 00:38:58
are well aware that this egocentric 00:39:00
consciousness is the hallucination and 00:39:03
that they presume it's the function of 00:39:06
religion to change it because that's 00:39:08
what the Zen Buddhists and Yogi's and 00:39:10
all these people in the Orient are doing 00:39:12
they are changing their state of 00:39:13
consciousness to get something called 00:39:14
Satori or mystical experience on Nirvana 00:39:18
or moksha or what have you and everybody 00:39:21
around here is really enthused about 00:39:23
that because that you don't get that in 00:39:25
church I mean there have been Christian 00:39:31
mystics but the church has been very 00:39:33
quiet about them then the average Church 00:39:40
all you'll get is talk 00:39:43
there's no meditation no spiritual 00:39:45
discipline they tell god what to do 00:39:48
interminably as if he didn't know and 00:39:50
then they tell the people what to do as 00:39:53
if they could or even wanted to 00:39:57
and then they sing religious Nursery 00:39:59
Rhymes and then to cap it all the Roman 00:40:07
Catholic Church which did at least have 00:40:09
an unintelligible service which 00:40:09
which was you know it was real mysterious and suggested a vast magic 00:40:16
going on they wouldn't put the thing 00:40:20
into bad English and they took away 00:40:24
incense and they took away they became a 00:40:25
bunch of Protestants and the thing was 00:40:27
is terrible 00:40:28
so now all these Catholics are at loose 00:40:30
end has Clare Boothe Luce put it and how 00:40:33
to be upon but she said a little is 00:40:36
there longer possible to practice 00:40:37
contemplative prayer at mass as you're 00:40:40
being advised exhorted edified all the 00:40:45
time and it becomes a ball think of God 00:40:52
listening to all those prayers I mean do 00:40:56
have I mean talking about grieving the 00:40:59
Holy Spirit 00:40:59
it's awful people have no consideration for God at all so but in in pursuing 00:41:06
these spiritual disciplines yoga and 00:41:21
Zaman's so forth and it also 00:41:23
psychotherapy there comes up a big 00:41:26
difficulty and the big difficulty is 00:41:31
this I want to find a method whereby I 00:41:35
can change my consciousness but the 00:41:40
therefore to improve myself but the self 00:41:45
that needs to be improved is the one 00:41:48
that is doing the improving and so I'm 00:41:53
rather stuck I found out the reason that 00:41:57
I think I believe say in God is that I 00:42:04
sure hope that somehow God will rescue 00:42:08
me in other words I want to hang on to 00:42:13
my own existence and I feel rather shaky 00:42:17
about doing that for myself but I just 00:42:18
hope there's a God who'll take care of 00:42:20
it or if I could be loving I would have 00:42:27
a better opinion of myself I'd feel 00:42:31
better about it I could face myself as 00:42:34
people say if I were more loving so the 00:42:37
unloving me somehow by some gimmickry 00:42:40
has to turn itself into a loving meal 00:42:42
this is just like trying to lift 00:42:43
yourself off the ground with your own 00:42:44
bootstraps it can't be done 00:42:46
and that's why religion in practice 00:42:49
mainly produces hypocrisy and guilt 00:42:55
because of the constant failure of these 00:42:58
enterprises now people go and study Zen 00:43:02
and they come back and say wow getting 00:43:06
rid of your ego is a superhuman task I 00:43:09
assure you it's going to be very very 00:43:12
difficult to get rid of your ego you're 00:43:14
gonna have to sit 00:43:15
long time and you're gonna get the 00:43:16
sorest legs hard work 00:43:21
now all you wretched kids you think 00:43:23
you're getting rid of your ego on part 00:43:25
or something or other and easy yoga you 00:43:29
don't know what you're in for when it 00:43:30
really comes down to the nitty-gritty 00:43:33
but do you know the biggest ego trip 00:43:36
going is getting rid of your ego and the 00:43:46
joke of it all it's Yuriko doesn't exist 00:43:46
there's nothing to get rid of it's an illusion 00:43:56
as I tried to explain but you still want 00:44:02
to ask how to stop the illusion 00:44:05
who's asking me do you think in the 00:44:11
ordinary sense in which you use the word 00:44:13
I how can I stop identify myself with 00:44:17
the wrong me well the answer is simply 00:44:21
you can't the Christians put this in 00:44:27
their way when they say that mystical 00:44:30
experience is a gift of divine grace man 00:44:34
as such cannot achieve this experience 00:44:37
it is a gift of God and if God doesn't 00:44:39
give it to you there's no way of getting 00:44:41
it now that is solidly true you can't do 00:44:47
anything about it because you don't 00:44:50
exist well you say that's pretty 00:44:56
depressing news 00:44:58
but the whole point is it is depressing 00:45:01
news it is the joyous news there's a Zen 00:45:04
poem which puts it like this talking 00:45:07
about it mean it means the mystical 00:45:10
experience a Tori the realization that 00:45:13
you are the eternal energy of the 00:45:14
universe like Jesus did it says like 00:45:19
this you cannot catch hold of it nor can 00:45:22
you get rid of it in not being able to 00:45:25
get it you get it when you speak it's 00:45:29
silent when you're silent 00:45:31
it speaks now in not being able to get 00:45:36
it to get it because this whole feeling 00:45:37
what Krishnamurti is trying to explain 00:45:39
to people for example when he says why 00:45:42
do you ask for a method there is no 00:45:44
method all methods are simply gimmicks 00:45:48
for strengthening your ego so how do we 00:45:53
not do that he says you're still asking 00:45:56
for a method there is no method if you 00:45:58
really understand what your eye is you 00:46:02
will see there is no method this is so 00:46:09
so sad but it's not this is the gospel 00:46:15
the good news because if you cannot 00:46:19
achieve it if you cannot transform 00:46:21
yourself that means that the main 00:46:25
obstacle to mystical vision has 00:46:30
collapsed 00:46:31
that was you what happens you can't do 00:46:38
anything about it dirt your width end 00:46:44
what are you gonna do commit suicide but 00:46:48
supposing you just put that off for a 00:46:50
little while wait and see what happens 00:46:50
you can't control your thoughts you can't control your feelings because 00:47:01
there is no controller you are your 00:47:06
thoughts in your feelings and they're 00:47:08
running along running along running 00:47:10
along just sit and watch them 00:47:11
here they go you're still breathing 00:47:13
aren't you still growing your hair still 00:47:19
seeing and hearing are you doing that I 00:47:23
mean is is breathing something that you 00:47:26
do do you see I mean do you organize the 00:47:32
operations of your eyes and know exactly 00:47:35
how to work those rods and cones in the 00:47:37
retina do you do that 00:47:37
it's a happening it happens so you couldn't feel all this happening your 00:47:46
breathing is happening your thinking is 00:47:52
happening you're feeling is happening 00:47:54
you're hearing you're seeing the clouds 00:47:56
are happening across the sky the sky is 00:47:58
happening blue the Sun is happening 00:48:00
shining there it is all this happening 00:48:05
and may I introduced you 00:48:07
this is yourself this begins to be a 00:48:12
vision of who you really are and that's 00:48:17
the way you function you function by 00:48:19
happening that is to say by spontaneous 00:48:21
occurrence and this is not a state of 00:48:26
affairs that you should realize I cannot 00:48:32
possibly preach it to you because the 00:48:34
minute you start thinking I should 00:48:36
understand that this is the stupid 00:48:38
notion again if I should bring it about 00:48:41
when there is no you to bring it about 00:48:43
see that's why I'm not preaching you can 00:48:46
only preach to egos all I can do is to 00:48:51
talk about what is it amuses me to talk 00:48:55
about what is because it's wonderful I 00:48:57
love it 00:48:59
and therefore I like to talk if I get 00:49:01
paid for it then I make my living and 00:49:03
sensible people get paid for doing what 00:49:05
they enjoy doing 00:49:05
so this is not honestly this is the whole approach is not to convert you now 00:49:10
to make you over not to improve you but 00:49:15
for you to discover if you really knew 00:49:17
the way you are things would be would be 00:49:22
sane but you see you can't do that you 00:49:28
can't make that discovery because you're 00:49:31
in your own way so long as you think I'm 00:49:35
I so long as that hallucination blocks 00:49:41
it and the hallucination disappears only 00:49:44
in the realization of its own futility 00:49:48
when at last you see you can't do it you 00:49:53
cannot make yourself / you cannot really 00:49:56
control your own mind see when we try to 00:50:00
control the mind a lot of yoga teachers 00:50:06
try to get you to control your own mind 00:50:07
mainly to prove to you that you can't do 00:50:09
it there's nothing you know a fool who 00:50:14
persist in his folly will become wise so 00:50:17
they what they do is they speed up the 00:50:18
folly 00:50:18
and so you get concentrating and you can have a certain amount of superficial and 00:50:30
initial success by a process commonly 00:50:34
called self-hypnosis and you can think 00:50:38
you're making progress and a good 00:50:42
teacher will let you go along that way 00:50:43
for a while until he really throws you 00:50:45
with one why are you concentrating see 00:50:52
Buddhism works this way Buddha said if 00:50:55
you suffer you suffer because you desire 00:50:57
and your desires are either unattainable 00:50:59
or always being disappointed or 00:51:01
something so cut out desire so those 00:51:04
disciples went away and they stamped on 00:51:07
desire jumped on desire cut the throat 00:51:09
of desire and throughout desire but then 00:51:12
they came back and Buddha said but you 00:51:14
are still desiring not to desire they 00:51:20
wanted how to get rid of that so when 00:51:24
you see that that's nonsense 00:51:26
there naturally comes over you a 00:51:28
quietness in seeing that you cannot 00:51:34
control your mind you realize there is 00:51:38
no controller what you took to be the 00:51:42
thinker of thoughts it's just one of the 00:51:44
thoughts what you took to be the feeler 00:51:46
of the feelings which was that chronic 00:51:48
muscular strain is this one of the 00:51:50
feelings what you took to be the 00:51:53
experience of experience is just a part 00:51:56
of the experience so there isn't any 00:52:01
thinker of thoughts feel our feelings we 00:52:04
get into that bind because we have a 00:52:06
grammatical rule that verbs have to have 00:52:08
subjects and the funny thing about that 00:52:12
is that verbs of processes and subjects 00:52:14
and nouns which is supposed to be things 00:52:15
how does a noun start a verb how does 00:52:19
the thing put a process into action 00:52:21
obviously it can't but we always insist 00:52:25
that there is this subject called the 00:52:27
knower and without a no other can't be 00:52:30
knowing well that's just a grammatical 00:52:32
rule it is 00:52:33
the rule of nature in nature there's 00:52:36
just knowing like you're feeling it and 00:52:39
I have to say you are feeling it as if 00:52:40
you were somehow different from the 00:52:42
feeling when I say I am feeling out what 00:52:45
I mean is there is feeling here when I 00:52:47
say you are feeling I mean there is 00:52:48
feeling there I have to say even there 00:52:53
is feeling what a cumbersome language we 00:52:55
have 00:52:55