Needleman: There seem to be many parts of oneself which are separate; and we divide life, it seems to me, because of that.
KRISHNAMURTI: Why? We have divided the world into Communist, Socialist, Imperialist, and Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, Buddhist, and nationalities, linguistic divisions, the whole thing is fragmentation. Why has the mind fragmented the whole of life?
Needleman: I don’t know the answer. I see the ocean and I see a tree: there is a division.
KRISHNAMURTI: No. There is a difference between the sea and the tree—I hope so! But that is not a division.
Needleman: No. It is a difference, not a division.
KRISHNAMURTI: But we are asking why the division exists, not only outwardly but in us.
Needleman: It is in us, that is the most interesting question.
KRISHNAMURTI: Because it is in us we extend it outwards. Now why is there this division in me? The “me” and the “not me”. You follow? The higher and the lower, the Atman and the lower self. Why this division?
Needleman: Maybe it was done, at least in the beginning, to help men to question themselves. To make them question whether they really know what they think they know.
KRISHNAMURTI: Through division will they find out?
Needleman: Maybe through the idea that there is something that I don’t understand.
KRISHNAMURTI: In a human being there is a division—why? What is the “raison d’être”, what is the structure of this division? I see there is a thinker and thought—right?
Needleman: I don’t see that.
KRISHNAMURTI: There is a thinker who says, “I must control that thought, I must not think this, I must think that”. So there is a thinker who says, “I must”, or “I must not”.
Needleman: Right.
KRISHNAMURTI: There is the division. “I should be this”, and “I should not be that”. If I can understand why this division in me exists—Oh look, look! Look at those hills! Marvellous, isn’t it?
Needleman: Beautiful!
KRISHNAMURTI: Now, Sir, do you look at it with a division?
Needleman: No.
KRISHNAMURTI: Why not?
Needleman: There wasn’t the “me” to do anything with it.
KRISHNAMURTI: That’s all. You can’t do anything about it. Here, with thought, I think I can do something.
Needleman: Yes.
KRISHNAMURTI: So I want to change “what is”. I can’t change “what is” there, but I think I can change “what is” in me. Not knowing how to change it I have become desperate, lost, in despair. I say, “I can’t change”, and therefore I have no energy to change.
Needleman: That’s what one says.
KRISHNAMURTI: So first, before I change “what is”, I must know who is the changer, who it is that changes.
Needleman: There are moments when one knows that, for a moment. Those moments are lost. There are moments when one knows who sees “what is” in oneself.
KRISHNAMURTI: No Sir. Sorry. Just to see “what is” is enough, not to change it.
Needleman: I agree. I agree with that.
KRISHNAMURTI: I can see “what is” only when the observer is not. When you looked at those hills the observer was not.
Needleman: I agree, yes.
KRISHNAMURTI: The observer only came into being when you wanted to change “what is”. You say: I don’t like “what is”, it must be changed, so there is instantly a duality. Can the mind observe “what is” without the observer? It took place when you looked at those hills with that marvellous light on them.
Needleman: This truth is absolute truth. The moment one experiences it one says, “Yes!” But one’s experience is also that one forgets this.
KRISHNAMURTI: Forget!
Needleman: By that I mean one continually tries to change it.
KRISHNAMURTI: Forget it, and pick it up again.
Needleman: But in this discussion—whatever you intend—there is help coming from this discussion. I know, as much as I know anything, it could not happen without the help that is between us. I could look at those hills and maybe have this non-judging, but it wouldn’t be important to me; I wouldn’t know that that is the way I must look for salvation. And this, I think, is a question one always wants to bring. Maybe this is the mind again wanting to grab and hold on to something, but nevertheless it seems that the human condition . . .
KRISHNAMURTI: Sir, we looked at those hills, you couldn’t change that, you just looked; and you looked inwardly and the battle began. For a moment you looked without that battle, without that strife, and all the rest of it. Then you remembered the beauty of that moment, of that second, and you wanted to capture that beauty again. Wait Sir! Proceed. So what happens? It sets up another conflict: the thing you had and you would like to have again, and you don’t know how to get it again. You know, if you think about it, it is not the same, it is not that. So you strive, battle. “I must control, I mustn’t want”—right? Whereas if you say, “All right, it is over, finished”, that moment is over.
Needleman: I have to learn that.
KRISHNAMURTI: No, no.
Needleman: I have to learn, don’t I?
KRISHNAMURTI: What is there to learn?
Needleman: I have to learn the futility of this conflict.
KRISHNAMURTI: No. What is there to learn? You yourself see that that moment of beauty becomes a memory, then the memory says, “It was so beautiful I must have it again.” You are not concerned with beauty, you are concerned with the pursuit of pleasure. Pleasure and beauty don’t go together. So if you see that, it is finished. Like a dangerous snake, you won’t go near it again.
Needleman: (Laughs) Perhaps I haven’t seen it, so I can’t say.
KRISHNAMURTI: That is the question.
Needleman: Yes, I think that must be so, because one keeps going back again and again.
KRISHNAMURTI: No. This is the real thing. If I see the beauty of that light, and it is really extraordinarily beautiful, I just see it. Now with that same quality of attention I want to see myself. There is a moment of perception which is as beautiful as that. Then what happens?
Needleman: Then I wish for it.
KRISHNAMURTI: Then I want to capture it, I want to cultivate it, I want to pursue it.
Needleman: And how to see that?
KRISHNAMURTI: Just to see that is taking place is enough.
Needleman: That’s what I forget!
KRISHNAMURTI: It is not a question of forgetting.
Needleman: Well, that is what I don’t understand deeply enough. That just the seeing is enough.
KRISHNAMURTI: Look, Sir. When you see a snake what takes place?
Needleman: I am afraid.
KRISHNAMURTI: No. What takes place? You run, kill it, do something. Why? Because you know it is dangerous. You are aware of the danger of it. A cliff, better take a cliff, an abyss.