Jiddhu Krishnamurti (1895 - 1986)

SAN DIEGO - 26TH FEBRUARY 1974 13TH CONVERSATION WITH DR. ALLAN W. ANDERSON
A DIFFERENT WAY LIFE

K: As usual, sir, this is such a complex question, this living, what it means and what it actually is; and love, which we talked about the other day fairly in detail and rather closely; and also this enormous problem of death. Every religion has offered a comforting belief, comforting ideas, hoping they would be a solution to the fear, sorrow and all the things that are involved in it. So we ought, I think perhaps we should begin with what is living and then go from there to love and death.

A: Good.

K: Shouldn't we actually look at what we call living now, what is taking place.

A: Yes.

K: What actually is going on which we call existence, living, those two words to cover this whole field of man's endeavour to better himself, not only in the technological world but also psychologically, he wants to be different, he wants to be more than what he is, and so on. So when we look at it in whatever country, whatever race, or whatever religion they belong to, it is a matter of constant struggle from the moment you are born to the moment you die, it is one battle. Not only in relationship with other human beings, however intimate or not intimate, but also economically, socially, morally, it is a vast battle. I think everyone agrees to that. It's obvious. The conflict, the struggle, the suffering, the pain, the frustrations, the agony, the despair, the violence, the brutality, killing, all that is what is actually going on. Spending 40, 50 years in an office, in a factory, occasional holidays for a month, and wild kind of holidays because the holidays are a reaction to their monotonous life.

A: Time out.

K: Time out or whatever it is called. You see them all over Europe, Americans, going from museum to museum, looking, at this, that, rushing about and that is an escape from the monotony of their daily routine. And they go off to India, and there are I believe about 15,000 so called hippies in various dresses and various monasteries, and various cities doing the most fantastic things - selling drugs, some of them, and putting on Indian clothes, dressing up as monks and all that. It is a kind of vast romantic sentimental escape from their daily monotonous routine life. That is what we call living: the battle in relationship, the battle in business, in an economic environment. It is a constant struggle.

A: But what you've said seems to be ingrained into the grasp of this living itself. We have a saying, life is a battle, we interpret it in terms of what you have said.

K: And nobody seems to say, why should it be that way? And we have all accepted it. We say, yes, it is part of our existence. If we don't struggle we are destroyed. It is a part of our natural inheritance. From the animal, we see how it struggles so we are part of the animal, part of the ape and so we must go on struggling, struggling, struggling. We have never said, is this right? Is this the way to live? Is this the way to behave, to appreciate the beauty of living?

A: The usual question turns on how to engage the battle more effectively.

K: Effectively, successfully, with least harm, with least strain, with least heart failure and so on, so on, so on. But the ground is prepared for struggle. The monks do it, you follow, sir, the religious people do it, the business, the artist, the painter, every human being, however compartmentalized he is, he is in battle. And that we call living. And the man who looks at it intelligently, might say, for god's sake, that's not the way to live. Let's find out if there is a different way of living. And nobody asks. I have talked with a great many politicians all over the world and to a great many gurus. We will come to that, it's very interesting, that word, what it means. We'll go into that. And I've talked to artists, to businessmen, to artisans, to labourers, very, very poor people, it is one constant battle. The rich, the poor, the middle class, the scientist, you follow, sir?

A: Oh yes, I'm following you.

K: And nobody says, this is wrong, this isn't living. It's bleeding.

A: I was thinking about the literatures of the world of a visionary nature that tend to be divided into three basic statements in terms of their form and content. On the one hand we have epics that deal precisely with the representation of the battle of life.

K: We have got the Odyssey, we have got the Mahabharata, we have got so many other books, all praising this.

A: And then others deal with what we call the journey of life, the Odyssey would be specifically related to that, there are many battles concerned within it, in terms of confrontation between individuals. And then there's the notion of life as a fulfillment. But we hardly ever get to the question of the fulfillment. And when these are studied they are studied in terms of a literary form and the question that you've raised, which it seems to me would be a question that should be presented to the student in general.

K: And it is an authentic question, it's a question that must be put.

A: Exactly. I was reflecting as you were speaking that in the class room itself it's taken for granted that this battle is what it is. It is to be related to with fortitude, and so forth, but the question concerning it doesn't arise.

K: No, to some young people it has arisen but they go off at a tangent.

A: Exactly.

K: Either a commune, or become a Hindu, you follow, go off to some ancient country and just disintegrate, do nothing, think nothing, just live.

A: Which is just a lateral movement.

K: Yes, lateral.

A: Not a vertical one.

K: That's right.

A: Into the question. Yes.

K: So it is a valid question and it must have a valid answer, not theoretical but say, well, I will live that way. I will live without conflict. See what it means. I may be smothered. I question whether you will be wiped out by society if you don't struggle. I never struggled personally. I have never thought of battling with myself or with somebody else. So I think a question of that kind must not only be put verbally, but in the expression of that word one must see if it is possible for each one of us to live that way, to live without a single conflict. That means without division. Conflict means division. Conflict means the battle of the opposites. Conflict means you and me, we and they, Americans, Russians, the division, division, division. Fragmentation not only inwardly but outwardly. Where there is fragmentation there must be battle. One fragment assuming the power and dominating the other fragments. So, an intelligent man, if there is such a person, has to find out a way of living which is not going to sleep, which is not just vegetating, which is not just escaping to some fanciful, mystical visions and all that stuff, but a way of living in daily life, in which conflict of any kind has come to an end. It is possible. I have watched it all around me for the last 50 years, the battle going on around me, spiritually, economically, socially, one class battling the other class, and the dictatorships the fascists, the communists, the nazis, you follow, sir?

A: Yes I do.

K: All of them have their roots in this: encouraging obedience, discouraging obedience, imitating, conforming, obeying, all battle. So life has become a battle. And to me personally, to live that way is the most destructive, uncreative way of living. I won't live that way. I would rather disappear.

A: I think perhaps, and I wonder if you would agree, that some sort of confusion has arisen here in our minds when we identify ourselves with this battle in terms of your description of it. When we begin to think about the question, 'ought this to continue' and we have the image of battle before us, we tend to imagine to ourselves that what we are really talking about is the human equivalent of what is called, nature red in tooth and claw. But if I am following you correctly this is a cardinal mistake because in our previous conversations you have, at least for me, very, very clearly indicated that we must distinguish between fear and danger; and the animals, in their own environment, act with clean and immediate dispatch in the presence of danger whereas it seems we are making a mistake if we attempt to study what we call human conflict on the level of this analogy because analogy, if I have understood you correctly, simply doesn't apply.

K: Doesn't, no.

A: Don't you agree that this tends to be so.

K: Oh rather, sir, rather. We study the animal or the birds in order to understand man.

A: Right.

K: Whereas you can study man, which is yourself. You don't have to go to the animal to know man. So that is, sir, really a very important question because I have, if I may talk a little about myself, watched it all.

A: Please do.

K: I've watched it in India. The sannyasis, the monks, the gurus, the disciples, the politicians all over the world. I happen somehow to have met them all. The writers, the famous people, the painters who are very well known, most of them have come to see me. And it is a sense of deep anxiety that if they don't struggle they will be nothing. They will be failures, that is, that way of living is the only and the righteous way of living.

A: To drive oneself to be what is called productive.

K: Productive, progressive.

A: Progressive.

K: And we are taught this from childhood.

A: Yes.

K: Our education is that. To battle, not only with yourself, but with your neighbour, and yet love the neighbour, you follow? It becomes too ridiculous. So, having stated that, is there a way of living without conflict? I say there is, obviously. Which is to understand the division, to understand the conflict, to see how fragmented we are, not try to integrate the fragments, which is impossible, but out of that perception the action is entirely different from integration. Seeing the fragmentations which bring about conflict, which bring about division, which bring about this constant battle, anxiety, strain, heart failure. You follow, sir? That is what is happening. To see it, to perceive it, and that very perception brings an action which is totally different from the action of conflict. Because the action of conflict has its own energy, brings its own energy, which is divisive, which is destructive, violent. But the energy of perception and acting is entirely different. And that energy is the energy of creation. Anything that is created cannot be in conflict. An artist who is in conflict with his colours, he is not a creative human being. He may have perfect craft, perfect technique, a gift for painting, but...

A: It interests me very much that you used the word energy here in relation to both activities.

K: Both, yes.

A: And you haven't said that the energy at root is different.

K: No, no.

A: The phenomenon is different.

K: Yes.

A: It would appear that when one makes success, prosperity, victory, the object of his activity and engages this conflict, which he interprets as engaging him, he always tends to think that things are coming at me, when he undertakes this, if I have understood you correctly, energy is released, but it is released in fragmentary patterns.

K: The other way, yes.

A: Yes. Whereas the energy that's released with perception is the same energy is always whole.

K: Is whole. Yes, sir, that's right.

A: Isn't that what you are...

K: Yes sir. Therefore same, therefore healthy, therefore holy.

A: Yes. I have the feeling that this release of energy which shatters out into patterns of energy as fragmentation, is really what we mean by the word demonic.

K: Demonic, that's right.

A: That's giving it a hard name.

K: A good name.

A: But, you are really saying this, aren't you.

K: It's an excellent name.

A: I am saying this.

K: But I am I totally see that with you. I see it is demonic. It is the very destructive thing.

A: Exactly.

K: And that's what our society is, our culture is.

A: What we've done to that word, demonic! I was just thinking about Socrates, who refers to his demon, meaning the energy that operates in wholeness.

K: That's right, sir.

A: And we have taken that word from the Greek clear out of the context of the apology and turned it upside down and now it means...

K: The devil.

A: Right. And the same thing happened with the use of the word, the assurers. Originally in the Veda this was not a reference to the demonic, there was no radical polarization. And finally we end up with the gods and the demons.

K: Quite.

A: Which I take it you are suggesting is nothing other than the sheerest projection of our own demonic behaviour which we have generated ourselves.

K: That's right.

A: Sir, this makes tremendous sense to me. Yes, please go on.

K: Now, so, the way we live is the most impractical, insane way of living. And we want the insane way of living made more practical.

A: Yes and there isn't a prayer for it.

K: But that is what we are demanding all the time. We never say, let's find a way of living which is whole, and therefore healthy, sane and holy. And through that, through perceiving, acting, is the release of total energy, which is nonfragmentary, which isn't the artist, the business man, the politician, the priest, the layman, all that doesn't exist at all. Now, to bring about such a mind, such a way of living, one has to observe what actually is taking place outside and inside, in us, inside and outside. And look at it, not try to transform it, not try to bring about different adjustments, see actually what it is. I look at a mountain, I can't change it. Even with a bulldozer I can't change it. But we want to change what we see. The observer is the observed, you understand, sir? Therefore, there is no change in that. Whereas in perception there is no observer. There is only seeing, and therefore acting.

A: This holds a mirror up to an earlier conversation we had, when you referred to beauty, passion, suffering.

K: Yes, certainly.

A: And action.

K: And action, yes.

A: I remember asking you the question in order to recover the correct relationship among them we must begin with the suffering which, if perceived as it ought to be perceived, generates passion.

K: That's right.

A: One doesn't have to work it out. It happens. And behold, upon the same instant beauty breaks out, and love. So the passion in itself is compassion. The 'com' comes in exactly with the passion.

K: With passion, that's right.

A: Yes.

K: Now, sir, if you could as a professor or as a teacher, or as a parent point this out, the impracticality of the way we are living, the destructiveness of it, the utter indifference to the earth. We are destroying everything we touch. And to point out a way of living in which there is no conflict. That seems to me is the function of the highest form of education.

A: Yes, it has a requirement in it though that seems to me very clear, namely the teacher himself must be without conflict. This is a very different point of departure from what occurs in our general educational structure, particularly in professional educational activities where one gets a degree in professional education rather than in an academic subject as such. We are taught, for instance, and I am speaking about this somewhat as an outsider because I don't have a degree in education but in an academic subject as such, but I have observed in what goes on with my colleagues in education that tremendous emphasis is placed on techniques of education.

K: Of course.

A: And the question of the individual teacher as having undergone a transformation of the sort that you have been discussing is not a factor of radical concern. What is, of course, in an altruistic sense a matter of concern is that the teacher has the interests of the students at heart and that sort of thing, which, of course, is laudable in itself, but it's after the fact of this first transformation.

K: Sir, you see first I must transform myself so I can teach.

A: Precisely, precisely.

K: You see, there is a little bit, something in it that is not quite accurate. That means I have to wait till I change. Why can't I change, if I am an educator, in the very act of teaching? The boys, the students live in conflict. The educator lives in conflict. Now if I was an educator with a lot of students, I would begin with that and say, I am in conflict, you are in conflict, let us see in discussing, in becoming aware of our relationship, in teaching, if it is not possible for me and for you to resolve this conflict. Then it has action. But if I have to wait till I'm free of all conflict I can wait until dooms day.

A: I see now exactly what you are saying. What you are saying is literally this: the teacher, who is presently in conflict, simply acknowledges this. Walks into the classroom...

K: That's right, sir,

A:...not as somebody who is free from conflict.

K: That's right.

A: No. But he walks into the classroom and here it is, we are facing it. And he looks at his students and he lays it out.

K: That's the first thing I would discuss, not the technical subjects. Because that's living. And also in the very teaching of a technical subject I would say, all right, let us see how we approach, you know, I can learn from that so that both the student and the educator know their conflicts and are interested in dissolving the conflict and therefore they are tremendously concerned. That produces an extraordinary relationship. Because I have watched it. I go to several schools in India and in England and it takes place.

A: In this taking place love breaks out.

K: Of course. That is the very essence of it. Because I care, I feel responsible.

A: May I go into this just a little bit. One of the things that has concerned me in this series of dialogues is that someone should have perhaps not seen as clearly as I think as you have pointed out for me, that in our discussions of thought and of knowledge what we have been saying is that there is some disfunction in thought and in knowledge which relates to its own nature, the nature of thought and the nature of knowledge, which could very well give the impression that thought is a disease or that knowledge is a disease, rather than giving the impression, as I have understood from you that thought and knowledge have their proper uses.

K: Of course.

A: Their natures are not corrupt as such.

K: Certainly not. It is the usage of it. Quite.

A: Right. Therefore it becomes of utmost important, I think in understanding what you are saying, to be aware of the corrective that we bring to bear when together we examine the uses of thought and the uses of knowledge. While at the same time, not assuming that the principle of thought, the principle of knowledge is in its own nature corrupt.

K: No.

A: So that in a classroom we could study a text in which an assertion is made, a positive statement is made without thinking that name and form are in themselves...

K: Corrupt.

A:...corrupt.

K: Obviously not. A microphone is a microphone. There is nothing corrupt about it.

A: Exactly, but you know the thing comes home to me with tremendous force that one must begin in his relationship to his students with doing this. I must tell a little story on myself here. Years ago I went to hear a lecture of yours, and I listened, I thought, very, very carefully. And, of course, one lecture is not in itself perhaps, at least for someone like me, it was not enough. Or another way to put it more honestly, I was not enough at the time for the lecture because it seems as I recall it now, that the principles that we have been discussing you stated very, very clearly. I went away from that lecture with the impression that there was a very close relationship between what you are saying and Buddhism, and I was thinking about this whole label thing as scholars are wont to do, you know how we divide the world up into species. And in our series of conversations now I've come to see that I was profoundly mistaken. Profoundly mistaken. And I pinch myself to think, you know, I might have gone on thinking what I thought before, which had nothing to do with anything that you were concerned in. It is a revelation to face it that one doesn't have to have a credential to start with before he walks into the room. He just has to start looking at the very thing he believes is going to bring him into a hostile relationship with his class in order, because we believe that there are things that we must avoid talking about because they create dissension, disruption and put us off. And therefore let's not talk about conflict. Or if we are going to talk about it let's talk about it in terms of our being the ones who have the light over against these others who don't, and we have to take the good news to them.

K: It's like a guru.

A: Right, but simply to come into the room and say, let's have a look without any presuppositions that my thinking, that I have this in hand and you don't, or you have it and I don't. We're going to just hold it together.

K: Right, sir. Share together.

A: Share it together, and behold. Am I following you?

K: Perfectly.

A: Oh, that's wonderful. I'm going to do this, after our conversation comes to an end, I will walk into that room. Do go on.

K: So, sir, the energy that is created through conflict is destructive. The energy that is created through conflict, struggle, battle, produces violence, hysteria, neurotic actions, and so on. Whereas the action of perception is total, non-fragmented, and therefore it is healthy, sane and brings about such intensive care and responsibility. Now that is the way to live: seeing, acting, seeing, acting, all of the time. I cannot see if there is an observer different from the observed. The observer is the observed.

A: This does a very marvellous thing through what we call our confrontation with death.

K: We'll come to that, yes.

A: I see I have made a jump.

K: No, no, sir, that's right. So you see, our whole content of consciousness is the battle, is the ground of battle, is the battleground, and this battle we call living. And, in that battle how can love exist? If I am hitting you, if I am competing with you, if I am trying to go beyond you, successful, ruthless, where does the flame of love or compassion, tenderness, gentleness, come into all that? It doesn't. And that's why our society as it is now has no sense of moral responsibility with regard to action or with regard to love. It doesn't exist.

A: I'm going back into the context of my own experience in the classroom again. It has always seemed to me that the first stanza of the Gita, the first stanza, the first chapter of the Gita, which begins dharmaksettre Kuruksettre - in the field of Dharma, in the Kuru field, is a statement in apposition and that the field is one. I have walked into class when we have started to do the Gita and I've tried to show both linguistically, as it seemed to me was capable from the text, and in terms of the spirit of the whole that this was really what was being said, that it's one field, not two fields, though we have one army over here and the other over here but they don't occupy two fields. Somehow it is one field.

K: It is our earth.

A: Right. It's the whole. But you see I think I would have done better, now that I've listened to you, if I had gone into class and instead of making that statement and inviting them to look carefully at the text, and to bear that in mind as we proceed through the teaching and watch for any misinterpretations of that that would have occurred in commentary after commentary; it would have been better if I had started the other way. It would have been better if I had started by saying, let's have a look and see together whether it is one field or whether it's a field with conflict. We are not going to read the book at all at this point, we are just going to start here. This is the field. The classroom is the field. Now, let's take a look. That would have been the better way.

K: If you have understood that, sir, the classroom is the field and if you have understood that, you have understood the whole thing.

A: Exactly. But I went in with the notion, that, though I had grasped that, so I thought, it was enough, simply to show that verbally. But it's patently not. And this is terrifying. Because even though, if you say in the classroom what ostensibly passes for what we call the right thing, it still will not prevail in terms of this act...

K: Act, yes.

A:...that we've been talking about.

K: Quite right. Can we go sir, from there. We've discussed life, living, in which love does not exist at all. Love can only exist when the perceiver is the perceived and acts, as we said. Then that flame, that compassion, that sense of holding the earth in your arms, as it were, if that is understood and from that behaviour, because that is the foundation, if there is no behaviour in the sense of conflicting behaviour, then after establishing that in ourselves, or in observing it we will proceed next to the question of death. Because the question of death is an immense thing. To me living, love and death are not separate. They are one movement. It isn't death over there which I am going to meet in twenty years or the next day. It is there. It is there with love and with living. It is a continuous movement, non-divisive. This is the way I live, think, feel. That's my life. I mean this. These are not just words to me.

So, before we enter into the question of death we have to go into the question of what is consciousness? Because if one doesn't understand what is consciousness, not the explanation, not the description, not the word, but the reality of consciousness. Am I as a human ever conscious? And what is it to be conscious? What is it to be aware? Am I aware totally, or just occasionally I am aware when a crisis arises, otherwise I am dormant. So that's why it becomes very important to find out what is consciousness. Right sir?

A: Yes, what you have just said seems to me to indicate that we are making a distinction between consciousness which is a continuing movement, utterly situated in act as over against these blips, these eruptions virtually, within the sleepy course of nature.

K: That's right.

A: Yes, I see that. Please go ahead.

K: So what is consciousness? Consciousness is its content. I am putting it very simply. I prefer to talk about these things very simply, not elaborate, linguistic descriptions and theories and suppositions, and all the rest of it. That has no meaning to me personally.

A: If it is true it will be simple.

K: Simple.

A: Yes, of course.

K: Consciousness is its content. The content is consciousness. The two are not separate. That is the thoughts, the anxieties, the identifications, the conflicts, the anxiety, the attachments, the detachments, the fears, the pleasures, the agony, the suffering, the beliefs, the neurotic actions, all that is my consciousness. Because that is the content.

A: This is an equivalent statement to, the world is me and I am the world.

K: That's right.

A: So there's a continuity there.

K: Yes, so the content that says, that is my furniture, that's my god, that's my belief, with all its nuances and subtleties, and all that is part of my consciousness, is part of the consciousness that says, I am. I am that, I am the furniture. When I identify myself, saying, that's my furniture, then I am attached to it. I am that. I am that knowledge that says, I have acquired knowledge, I have grown with it, I have been successful with it, it has given me great comfort, it has given me a house, a position, power. That house is me. The battle which I have been through, suffering, agony, that's me, that's my consciousness. So the content of consciousness is its content, therefore there is no division as consciousness separate from its content. I can extend or widen the consciousness, laterally or horizontally, horizontally or vertically, but it is still within that field. I can extend it saying, God is immense. That's my belief. And I've extended my consciousness by imagining that it is extended. Whatever thought has created in the world, inside me is the content. The whole world, especially in the west, is based on thought. Its activities, its explorations, its achievements, its religions and so on is fundamentally the result of thought, with its images and so on, so on, so on. So that is the content of consciousness. Right?

A: Right.

K: Now from that rises, what is death? Is death the ending of consciousness, with its content? Or is death a continuity of that consciousness? Your consciousness is no different from mine. It may have little variations, little modifications, little more expansion, little contraction, and so on but essentially consciousness is yours as well as mine, because I am attached to my house. So are you. I am attached to my knowledge, I am attached to my family, I am in despair whether I live in India or in England or in America, wherever it is. So that consciousness is common. It is irrefutable. You follow?

A: Oh yes it is. I do follow closely.

K: So, see what happens. I never have examined this content. I have never looked at it closely and I am frightened, frightened of something which I call death, the unknown. Let us call it for the moment, the unknown. So, I'm frightened. There is no answer to it. Somebody comes along and says, yes my friend, there is life after death. I have proof for it. I know it exists because I have met my brother, my son - we will go into that presently. So I, frightened, anxious, fearful, diseased, you follow, I accept that tremendously, instantly say, yes there is reincarnation. I am going to be born next life. And that life is related to karma. The word karma means to act. Not all the rigmarole involved in it, just to act. See what is involved. That is, if I believe in reincarnation, that is this consciousness, with its content, which is the 'me', my ego, my self, my activities, my hopes, pleasures, all that is my consciousness, that consciousness is going to be born next life, which is the common consciousness of you and me, and him and her. That's going to be born next life. And they say if you behave properly now you'll be rewarded next life. That's part of the causation.

A: That's part of the content of consciousness.

K: Causation and the effect.

A: Yes.

K: So behave because you are going to be punished next life. You will be rewarded next life. That is, the whole of the Eastern world is based on and believes in reincarnation. So what happens? I have taken comfort in a belief but actually I don't carry it out: which says behave now, be good now, don't hurt another now.

A: Actually the idea is that I should behave now - we've been through this 'ought' stuff. I should this, I should that, I should the other because of what will take place later. But then I take comfort in the thought that it's an endless process and it's somehow built into it that I'll get another chance. So I can sort of stall, I can stall.

K: I can stall. I can postpone, I can misbehave.

A: Yes. Because we are all destined to make it in the end.

K: Eventually. Yes.

A: Which shows that there's no grasp of what, throughout these conversations, you've been talking about, the immediacy and urgency of act.

K: That's right.

A: Yes. I follow.

K: So you see the Hindus probably were the originators of this idea - cause, effect. The effect will be modified by next causation. So there is this endless chain. And if it's endless we'll break it sometime. Therefore it doesn't matter what you do now. Belief gives you great comfort in believing that you will continue, you will be with your brother, wife, husband, whatever it is. But in the meantime don't bother too seriously, don't take life too seriously.

A: Exactly, yes.

K: Have a good time in fact. Enjoy yourself. Or do whatever you want to do, pay a little next life, but carry on.

A: I was speaking to a well known Hindu teacher about this and I made this very remark that you have just stated, and I thought it would have some force. And I said, you see there's no hope of stopping, repeating, if an act is not made immediately with respect to this, therefore in terms of the content of the consciousness of a whole people that bask in this notion, there can be nothing but an endless repetition and no true concern.

K: What did he say?

A: All he did was to laugh as though I had somehow perceived something which most people apparently are not really bothering their heads to look at. But the extraordinary thing to me was that he showed no concern for what he discerned intellectually.

K. Sir, they are hypocrites, you follow, sir? They are hypocrites when they believe that and do something quite contrary.

A: Precisely, I understand what you mean. What you are saying there is the usage of the Biblical notion of hypocrite in that strict sense.

K: Sir, in the strict sense, of course.

A: Yes, in the very strict sense. In our next conversation could we continue with this because it seems to me...

K: Oh, there is a great deal involved in this.

A: Splendid. I do so look forward to that.

K: We'll go into it.