Jiddhu Krishnamurti (1895 - 1986)

SAN DIEGO - 21ST FEBRUARY 1974
8TH CONVERSATION WITH DR. ALLAN W. ANDERSON
PLEASURE

K: Yes, sir, we were saying, weren't we, pleasure, enjoyment, delight and joy and happiness, and what relationship has pleasure with enjoyment, and with joy and with happiness? Is pleasure joy. Is pleasure happiness? Is pleasure enjoyment. Or is pleasure something entirely different from those two?

A: In English we think we make a distinction between pleasure, and joy without necessarily knowing what we mean. But in our use, in our employment of the words we will discriminate sometimes, we think it odd to use the word pleasure rather than joy when we think that joy is appropriate. The relation between the word please and pleasure interests me very much. We will say to a person, please sit down. And usually that will be thought of as...

K: Have the pleasure to sit down.

A: Yes. It's not a request.

K: Please yourself to sit down.

A: It's an invitation, not a request.

K: Not a request.

A: Be pleased to sit down.

K: Be pleased to sit down.

A: It's, be pleased to be seated.

K: Yes. In Italian, French, so on.

A: Right. So within pleasure itself, the word pleasure, there's the intimation of joy, intimation of it that is not strictly reduced to the word.

K: I would like to question whether pleasure has any relationship with joy.

A: Not in itself, I take it you mean.

K: Or even beyond the word. Is there a line or continuity of pleasure to joy? Is there a connecting link? Because what is pleasure? I take pleasure in eating, I take pleasure in walking. I take pleasure in accumulating money. I take pleasure in - I don't know a dozen things, sex, hurting people, sadistic instincts, violence. They are all forms of pleasure. I enjoy - I won't use the word enjoy - I take pleasure in and pursue that pleasure. One wants to hurt people. And that gives great pleasure. One wants to have power. It whether doesn't matter over the cook or over the wife, or a thousand people, it is the same. The pleasure in something which is sustained, nourished, kept going. And this pleasure, when it is distorted becomes violence, anger, jealousy, fury, wanting to break, all kinds of neurotic activities and so on, so on, so on. So what is pleasure and what is it that keeps it going? What is the pursuit of it, the constant direction of it?

A: I think something in our first or second conversation, I think it was the first, is intimated here when we talked about the built in necessity that one observes in a progress that is never consummated. It's just nothing but a termination and then a new start. But no consummation at all, no totality, no fulfillment - feeling full is what I mean by that.

K: Yes, I understand, sir. But what is it that's called pleasure. I see something, something which I enjoy and I want it. Pleasure. Pleasure in possession. Take that simple thing which the child, the grown up man, and the priest, they all have this feeling of pleasure in possession. A toy or a house or possessing knowledge or possessing the idea of God, or the pleasure the dictators have, the totalitarian brutalities. The pleasure. What is that pleasure. To make it very, very simple: what is that pleasure? Look, sir what happens: there is a single tree on the hill, green meadow, deer and there is the single tree standing on the hill. You see that and you say, how marvellous. Not verbally, you merely say, how marvellous, to communicate to somebody. But when you are by yourself and see that it is really astonishingly beautiful. The whole movement of the earth, the flowers, the deer, the meadows and the water and the single tree, the shadow. You see that. And it's almost breathtaking. And you turn away and go away. Then thought says, how extraordinary it was.

A: Compared with what now is.

K: How extraordinary.

A: Extraordinary.

K: I must have it again. I must get that same feeling which I had then, for two seconds or five minutes. So thought - see what has taken place - there was immediate response to that beauty, non-verbal, non-emotional, non-sentimental, non-romantic, then thought comes along and says, how extraordinary, what a delight that was. And then the melody of it, the repetition, the demand, the desire for the repetition.

A: When we go to performances this is what happens, we call it the encore, don't we.

K: Of course.

A: And with encores there's a creeping embarrassment. Because with the first reappearance this is a sign of adulation praise and everybody is happy. But then, of course, there's the problem of how many more encores can be made, maybe the last encore is a signal that we are fed up now. We don't need, we don't want any more.

K: Quite, quite.

A: Yes, yes, I understand. I think I am following you.

K: So thought gives nourishment, sustains it and gives a direction to pleasure. There was no pleasure at the moment of perception, of that tree, the hill, the shadows, the deer, the water, the meadow. The whole thing was real non-verbal, non-romantic, and so on, perception. It has nothing to do with me or you, it was there. Then thought comes around and says memory of it, the continuing of that memory tomorrow and the demand for that, and the pursuit of that. And when I come back to it tomorrow it is not the same. I feel a little bit shocked. I say, I was inspired, I must find a means of getting again inspired therefore I take a drink, women, this or that. You follow?

A: Yes, yes. Do you think, in the history of culture, the establishment of festivals would be related to what you say?

K: Of course of course. It's the whole thing, sir.

A: We live for, well in English we have this saying, to live it up. The rest of the time we are living it down.

K: Down, yes, Mardi Gras, the whole business of it. So there it is. I see that. See what takes place, sir. Pleasure is sustained by thought - sexual pleasure, the image, the thinking of it, all that, and the repetition of it. And the pleasure of it and so on, keep on, keep on, routine. Now, in relationship, what is the place of pleasure, or relationship to the delight of the moment, not even the delight, it is something inexpressible. So is there any relationship between pleasure and enjoyment? Enjoyment becomes pleasure when thought says, I have enjoyed it, I must have more of it.

A: It's actually a falling out of joy.

K: Yes. That's it, you see, sir. So pleasure has no relationship to ecstasy, to delight, to enjoyment, or to joy and happiness. Because pleasure is the movement of thought in a direction. It doesn't matter what direction but in a direction. The others have no direction. Pleasure, enjoyment, you enjoy. Joy is something you cannot invite. Happiness you cannot invite. It happens and you do not know if you are happy at that moment. It is only the next moment you say, how happy, how marvellous that was. So see what takes place, can the mind, the brain register the beauty of that hill, the tree, the water the meadows and end it? Not say, I want it again.

A: Yes. This would take us back to what you just said now, it would take us back to that word negation that we spoke of before, because there has to be a moment when we are about to fall out, we are about to fall out and what you are saying is the moment 'that about to fall out' appears something must be done.

K: You will see it in a minute, sir, you will see what an extraordinary thing takes place. I see pleasure, enjoyment, joy and happiness, see pleasure as not related to any of that, the other two, joy and enjoyment. So thought gives direction and sustains pleasure. Right? Now I ask myself, the mind asks can there be non-interference of thought, non-interference of thought in pleasure? I enjoy. Why should thought come into it at all?

A: There's no reason at all.

K: But it does.

A: It does, it does.

K: Therefore the question arises how is the mind, the brain to stop thought entering into that enjoyment? You follow?

A: Yes.

K: Not to interfere. Therefore they said, the ancients, and the religious, control thought. You follow? Don't let it creep in. Therefore control it.

A: The minute it raises its ugly head, whack it off. It's like a hydra.

K: It keeps on growing. Now, is it possible to enjoy, to take a delight in that lovely scene, and not let thought creep in? Is this possible? I'll show you, it is possible, completely possible if you are attentive at that moment, completely attentive. You follow sir?

A: Which has nothing to do with screwing oneself up with muscular effort to focus in there.

K: Right. Just be wholly there. When you see the sunset see it completely. When you see a beautiful line of a car, see it. And don't let this thought begin. That means at that moment be supremely attentive, completely, with your mind, with your body, with your nerves, with your eyes, ears, everything attentive. Then thought doesn't come into it at all. So pleasure is related to thought and thought in itself brings about fragmentation, pleasure and not pleasure. Therefore I haven't pleasure, I must pursue pleasure.

A: It makes a judgment.

K: Judgment.

A: A judgment.

K: Judgment. And the feeling of frustration, anger, violence - you follow, all that come into it. There is the denial of pleasure, which is what the religious people have done. They are very violent people. They have said no pleasure.

A: The irony of this is overwhelming. In classical thought you have that marvellous monument, the works of St. Thomas Aquinas who never tires of saying in his examination of thought, and the recognition of the judgment that one must distinguish in order to unite. His motive was very different from what seems to have been read. Because we have managed to distinguish, but we never see the thing whole and get to the uniting, so the uniting just vanishes.

K: That's the whole point, sir. So unless I understand, unless the mind understands the nature of thinking, really very, very deeply, mere control means nothing. Personally I have never controlled a thing. This may sound rather absurd. But it is a fact.

A: Marvellous.

K: Never. But I've watched it. The watching is its own discipline and its own action. Discipline in the sense, not conformity, not suppression, not adjusting yourself to a pattern but the sense of correctness, the sense of excellence. When you see something why should you control? Why should you control when you see a poisonous bottle on the shelf? You don't control. You say, that's quite right, you don't drink. You don't touch it. It's only when I don't read the sign properly, when I see it and when I think it is a sweet then I take it. But if I read the label, if I know what it is I won't touch it. There's no control.

A: Of course not. It's self evident. I'm thinking of that wonderful story in the Gospel about Peter who in the storm gets out to walk on the water because he sees his lord coming on the water and he's invited to walk on the water. And he actually makes it a few steps and then it says he loses faith. But it seems to me that one could see that in terms of what you are saying, at the point where thought took over he started going down. That was the time when he started going down. But he was actually walking. The reason that I am referring to that is because I sense in what you are saying that there is something that supports, there is a support that's not a support that's fragmented from something else but there is an abiding something which must be sustaining the person.

K: I wouldn't put it that way, sir. That is, that leaves a door open, that opens a door to the idea in you there is God.

A: Yes, yes I see the trap.

K: In you there is the higher self, in you there is the Atman, the permanent.

A: Maybe we shouldn't say anything about that.

K: That's it. No, but we can say this though: to see - look what we have done this morning - to see appetite, desire, to see the implications, the structure of pleasure, and there is no relation to enjoyment, and to joy, to see all that, to see it, not verbally but actually, through observation, through attention, through care, through very careful seeing, that brings an extraordinary quality of intelligence. After all intelligence is sensitivity. To be utterly sensitive in seeing it - if you call that intelligence, the higher self, or whatever, it has no meaning. You follow?

A: It's as though you are saying at that instant it's released.

K: Yes. That intelligence comes in observation.

A: Yes.

K: And that intelligence is operating all the time if you allow it - not if you allow it. If you are seeing. And I see, I have seen all my life, people who have controlled, people who have denied, people who have negated, and who have sacrificed, who have controlled, suppressed, furiously, disciplined themselves, tortured themselves. And I say, for what? For God? For truth? A mind that has been tortured, crooked, brutalized, can such a mind see truth? Certainly not. You need a completely healthy mind, a mind that is whole, a mind that is holy in itself. Otherwise go and see something holy, unless the mind is sacred, you cannot see what is sacred. So, I say, sorry, I won't touch any of that. It has no meaning. So, I don't know how this happened that I never for a second control myself. I don't know what it means.

A: And yet, amazingly you know what it is in others.

K: Oh, obviously, you can see it.

A: So this is something that you are able to see without having...

K:...gone through it.

A: Without having gone through it. Now this to me is profoundly mysterious. I don't mean in the sense of mystification.

K: No, no.

A: But I mean it's miraculous.

K: No, not necessarily, sir. I'll show you something, sir. Must I get drunk in order to find out what it is to be sober?

A: Oh no, no, no.

K: Because I see a man who is drunk, I say, for god's sake, see the whole movement of drunkenness, what lies behind it, what he goes through, see it, finished.

A: But it seems to me that in my listening to you that you are doing more than just observing that someone over there has fallen on his face therefore...

K: No, no.

A: Right, there's something that is very deep here.

K: Of course.

A: At least to me, that you've said. Control, in the very, very deep sense is an activity, not a product, and something that you haven't experienced that we would call normally intangible is nevertheless acutely present to you.

K: Yes, yes.

A: And I take it that what you've said that intelligence reveals that. Intelligence, if intelligence is allowed to reveal it.

K: I think, sir, not allowed. That's a danger, to allow intelligence to operate. Which means you have intelligence then you allow it.

A: Yes, I see the trap of that construction. Yes, yes, I see what you mean. Yes, because now we've got an observer who's got a new gimmick. Yes, I see what you mean. Please go on, please.

K: So, you see that's why discipline has a different meaning. When you understand pleasure, when you understand its relationship to enjoyment and to the joy and happiness and the beauty of happiness, beauty of joy and so on, then you understand the utter necessity of a different kind of discipline that comes naturally. After all, sir, look at the word discipline in itself means to learn. To learn, not to conform, not to say, I must discipline myself to be like that, or not to be like that. The word discipline, as we both see, is to learn. To learn means I must be capable of hearing, of seeing, which means the capacity which is not cultivable. You can cultivate a capacity, but that is not the same as the act of listening. I don't know if I'm...

A: Oh, you are. Yes I follow, very clearly.

K: The capacity to learn demands a certain discipline. I must concentrate, I must give my time to it. I must set aside my efforts in a certain direction and all that. That is, developing a certain capacity needs time.

A: Yes.

K: But perception is nothing to do with time. You see it, and act, as you do when you see a danger. You act instantly. You act instantly because you are so conditioned to danger.

A: Exactly.

K: That conditioning is not intelligence. You are just conditioned. You see a snake and you recoil. You run away. You see a dangerous animal and you run. That's all self protective conditioned responses. That's very simple. But perception and action is not conditioned.

A: You know, we have in the history of the English language turned that word fear upside down in terms of its derivation because, if I remember correctly, it, fear comes from the Anglosaxon word that means danger. That means danger.

K: Danger, of course.

A: And now we've psychologized that word and now a fear means rather my emotional response to that danger.

K: Of course, of course.

A: And not what I want to be doing.

K: Yes, not aware of the danger of fear, you follow?

A: Yes.

K: That means sir look: ordinary human beings are conditioned now as they are to, by the culture, by the civilization they are living in. They accept nationalism, say for instance, I am taking that for example, they accept nationalism, the flag, and all the rest of it, nationalism is one of the causes of war.

A: Oh yes, yes, indubitably.

K: As patriotism and all the rest of it. Now we don't see the danger of nationalism because we are conditioned to nationalism as being secure, security.

A: But we do see our fear of the enemy.

K: Of course,

A: Yes, right. And contemplating that fear of the enemy dulls our capacity to deal with the danger.

K: Danger. So, fear, pleasure, and discipline, you follow sir. Discipline means to learn; I am learning about pleasure. The mind is learning about pleasure. Learning brings its own order.

A: Its own.

K: It's own order.

A: Yes. That's what l've been calling miracle. It just asks you to jolly well leave it alone.

K: It brings its own order, and that order says, don't be silly, control is out, finished. I talked to a monk once. He came to see me. He had a great many followers. And he was very well known. He is still very well known. And he said, I have taught my disciples, and he was very proud of having thousands of disciples, you follow? And it seemed rather absurd for a guru, to be proud.

A: He was a success.

K: Success. And success means Cadillacs or Rolls Royces, European, American followers, you follow, all that circus that goes on.

A: His gimmick works.

K: And he was saying, I have arrived because I have learned to control my senses, my body, my thoughts, my desires. I've held them as the Gita says: hold something, you are reigning, you are riding horse, you know, holding. He went on about it for some length, I said sir, what at the end of it? You have controlled. Where are you at the end of it: He said, what are you asking, I have arrived. Arrived at what? I have achieved enlightenment. Just listen to it. Follow, follow the sequence of a human being who has a direction, which he calls truth. And to achieve that there are the traditional steps, the traditional path, the traditional approach. And he has done it. And therefore he says, I have got it. I have got it in my hand. I know what it is. I said, all right sir. He began to be very excited about it because he wanted to convince me about being a big man and all that. So I suggested we sat, I sat very quietly and listened to him and he quietened down. And then I said to him, we were sitting by the sea, and I said to him, you see that sea, sir. He said, of course. Can you hold that water in your hand? When you hold that water in you hand it's no longer the sea.

A: Right.

K: He couldn't make out. I said, all right. And the wind was blowing from the north, slight breeze, cool. And he said, there is a breeze. Can you hold all that? No. Can you hold the earth? No. So what are you holding? Words? You know sir, he was so angry he said I won't listen to you any more. You are an evil man. And walked off.

A: I was thinking of the absurd irony of that. All the time he thought he was holding on to himself and he just let go as he got up and walked away.

K: So you sir, that's what I am saying. So learning about pleasure about fear, really frees you from the tortures of fear and the pursuit of pleasure. So there is a sense of real enjoyment in life. Everything then becomes a great joy, you follow, sir. It isn't just a monotonous routine, going to the office, sex and money.

A: I've always thought it's a great misfortune that in that splendid rhetoric of our Declaration of Independence, we have that phrase, the pursuit of pleasure.

K: Pursuit of pleasure.

A: Because the child, the bright child is reared on that.

K: Oh, rather, sir.

A: And when you are very young you are not about to turn around and say, everybody's daft.

K: I know, I know. So from this you see, discipline in the orthodox sense has no place in a mind that's really wanting to learn about truth - not philosophize about truth, not theorize about truth, as you say, tie ribbons round it, but learn about it. Learn about pleasure. It is really out of that learning comes the extraordinary sense of order which we were talking of the other day. The order which comes with the observation in oneself of pleasure. The order. And there is pleasure - there is enjoyment. A marvellous sense of ending each enjoyment as you live each moment. You don't carry over the past enjoyment. Then that becomes pleasure. Then it has no meaning. Repetition of pleasure is monotony, is boredom. And they are bored in this country, and other countries. They are fed up with pleasure. But they want other pleasures in other directions. And that is why there is the proliferation of gurus in this country. Because they all want, you know, the circus kept going. So discipline is order. And discipline means to learn about pleasure, enjoyment, joy and the beauty of joy. When you learn, it is always new.

A: I've just thought - well thought is not the right word - something flashed in the communication of what you have been pointing to, if you don't mind I'd rather say that you've been pointing to than to use the phrase that, you've been saying, I hope I've understood you correctly here because in terms of the communication problem it seems that there's been a profound confusion between perception and practice.

K: Yes. Oh yes.

A: I have grasped that. It's as though we had the idea that perception is perfected at the end of practice.

K: That is a routine, isn't it?

A: We do have that idea.

K: I know.

A: Yes.

K: You see, sir, they always say freedom is at the end. Not at the beginning. On the contrary, sir, the beginning is the first step that counts, not the last step. So if we understand this whole question of fear and pleasure, joy, the understanding can only come in freedom to observe. And in the observation learning and the acting. They all have the same meaning, at the same moment, not learn then act. It is the doing, the seeing all taking place at the same time. That is whole.

A: All these marvellous participles that being in the infinite mood in themselves. In themselves. Yes, a little while back it occurred to me that if we paid attention to our language as well as to the flowers and the mountains and the clouds...

K: Oh yes,

A:...the language not only in terms of individual words, but words in context so that we would refer then to what we call usage, would through perception, intelligence disclose themselves completely.

K: Quite.

A: We say don't we, that one is pleased, one is joyed, but if we ask somebody, if we ask somebody: what have you been doing, and he said to us, I've been pleasing myself, we'd think that was a little odd. We wouldn't think it strange at all if he said, well, I have been enjoying myself. We don't mind that.

K: That's right.

A: But we don't pay attention to what we say.

K: That's right, sir. I came back after lunch, and somebody said have you enjoyed your meal? And there was a man there who said, we are not pigs to enjoy.

A: Oh good lord.

K: Seriously.

A: Yes. Exactly. I suppose he must feel very righteous. What he denied himself during the meal.

K: It is a question of attention, isn't it, whether you are eating, whether you are observing pleasure. Attention, that's the thing we have to go into very, very deeply. I don't know if there is time now, what it means to attend. Whether we attend to anything at all, or is it only a superficial listening, hearing, seeing which we call attending; or the expression of knowledge in doing. Attention, I feel, has nothing to do with knowledge, or with action. In the very attending is action. And one has to go into this question again of what is action. Perhaps we can do it another day.

A: Yes, I see a relation between what you've just said about action and what a few conversations ago we came to with the word movement.

K: Yes.

A: On-goingness. And when you were talking about standing and looking at the tree on the mountain, I remembered when I was staying at one of the ashramas, actually the Vedanta Forest Academy, and when I got to my quarters a monkey and sat on the window sill with her little baby, and she looked full into my face, and I looked full into her's, but I think she looked fuller into mine; I had that strange feeling that I was actually a human being being...

K: Investigated.

A:...investigated, or as the students say today, being psyched out by this monkey. And it was a profound shock to me.

K: Talking of monkeys, sir, I was in Benares at the place I go to usually, I was doing yoga, exercises, half naked, and a big monkey, with black face and long tail, came and sat on the veranda. I closed my eyes. I looked and there was this big monkey. She looked at me and I looked at her. A big monkey, sir. They are powerful things. And it stretched out its hand, so I walked up and held her hand, like that, held it.

A: Held it.

K: And it was wrought but very, very supple, extraordinarily supple. But rough. And we looked at each other. And it said it wanted to come into the room. I said, look, I am doing exercises, I have little time, would you come another day. I kind of talked to it. Come another day. So it looked at me and I withdrew, went back. She stayed there for two or three minutes and gradually went away.

A: Marvellous, just marvellous. Complete act of attention between you.

K: There was no sense of fear. It wasn't afraid. I wasn't afraid. A sense of, you know...

A: This reminds me of a story I read about Ramana Maharishi, how when he was a young man he went and lived in a tiger's cave. And it was occupied by the tiger. And the tiger would come back after the hunt in the early hours of the morning and sleep with him. To read that within the environs of our culture well it starts, well you feel undone when you read that if you think for a moment you could allow yourself to believe it. But in the context of what we have been saying about the monkeys, and this marvellous story you told me, I wish I could have shaken hands with that little mother with her baby. I wasn't ready to.

K: No, it was really - I don't know, there must have been a communication, there must have been a sense of friendship, you know, without any antagonism, without any fear of it. It looked at me, you know. And I think attention is not something to be practised, not to be cultivated, go to a school to learn how to be attentive. That's what they do in, in this country and in other places, say, I don't know what attention is, I'm going to learn from somebody who will tell me how to get it. Then it's not attention.

A: Speed reading, it's called.

K: Speed reading, yes.

A: A thousand words a minute.

K: Sir, that's why I see there is a great sense of care and affection in being attentive, which means diligently watching. That word diligent comes from legere, you know, of course, to read. To read exactly what it is, what is there. Not interpret, not translate it, not contrive to do something with it, but to read what is there. There is an infinite lot to see. There is tremendous lot to see in pleasure, as we said. And to read it. And to read it, you must be watchful, attentive, diligent, careful. We are negligent. What's wrong with pleasure?

A: There's a colloquial remark in our tongue when somebody wishes to secure attention, they will say, do you read me? That, of course, has been taken over in technology into a different aspect, but quite apart from what someone would be saying with ear phones on in a plane, just common ordinary practice, sometimes a person will say that.

K: So that what we have done is really read this whole map.

A: Yes.

K: From the beginning of responsibility, relationship, fear, pleasure. All that. Just to observe the extraordinary map of our life.

A: And the beauty of it is, we've been moving within the concern for the question of the transformation of man which is not dependent on knowledge or time without getting worried about whether we are getting off the track. It is happening naturally. That I take it is not a surprise to you, of course, but I'm sure it's shocking in terms...

K: And that's why, also, sir, it is right to live with the company of the wise. Live with a man who is really wise. Not with people who are faking it, not in books, not attending classes where you are taught wisdom. Wisdom is something that comes with self knowing.

A: It reminds me of a hymn in the Veda that talks about the goddess of speech who never appears except among friends.

K: Yes.

A: Marvellous. Actually that means that unless there is the care, the affection that you mentioned, that is continuous concurrent with attention, there can be nothing but babble.

K: Of course.

A: There can be, verbal babble.

K: Which the modern world is encouraging, you see.

A: Yes.

K: Again which means the superficial pleasures, not enjoyment. You follow? Superficial pleasures become the curse. And to go behind that is one of the most difficult things for people to do.

A: Because it goes faster and faster.

K: That's just it.

A: It goes faster and faster.

K: That's what is destroying the earth, the air. Everything they are destroying. There is a place I go to every year in India, where there is a school: the hills the oldest hills in the world.

A: What a beautiful thing.

K: Nothing has been changed, no bulldozers, no houses, it's an old place, with the old hills and in amongst there is a school with which I am connected and so on. And you feel the enormity of time, the feeling of absolute non-movement. Which is, civilization, which is all this circus that is going on. And when you go there you feel this, utter quietness, in which time has not touched it. And when you leave it and come to civilization you feel rather lost, a sense of what is all this about? Why is there so much noise about nothing? That's why it is so odd, and rather inviting, a great delight to see everything as is, including myself. To see what I am, not through the eyes of a professor, a psychologist, a guru, a book, just to see what I am and to read what I am. Because all history is in me. You follow?

A: Of course. There is something immensely beautiful about what you have said. Do you think in the next conversation we have we could talk about the relation of beauty to what you have said. Thank you so much.