On Relationship

Questioner: Could we discuss the importance of relationship and self-knowing?

Q: When thought stops, what exactly is aware, and what is the relationship of this awareness to the sacred?

Q: The importance of relationship and self-knowledge.

K: Go into that. I think by taking that question of what he said: relationship to self-knowledge. Right? I think we will stay with that because otherwise we will get lost with a lot of... And also I think we will finish with what we were talking about yesterday.

K: Thank god! And I am not your leader or your guru. Look, please, for god's sake do listen to whatever we are saying. We are not trying to impress you, influence you, to tell you what to do - nothing of the kind. But I think it is very important for human beings to communicate with each other. To communicate implies we must both be interested in the same thing, at the same level, with the same intensity, otherwise you can't communicate. If you are not interested in this question of self, and the relationship of that self with another, which is very important - of sociological as well as psychological importance - I don't think any talking about it becomes clear. Unless one wants to go into these things very carefully I think we had better stop talking to each other.

First of all yesterday we were talking about something very important, it seems to me at least. We were saying, what is love in relationship with each other. That was the thing we were talking about yesterday - the love that exists between man and woman, the love of a mother with her baby, the love of one's country and so on and so on, so on. We were going to go into that question which said: can there be love if there is no total comprehension or self knowledge? Right? We were exploring that question. And that question also can be answered this morning when he put that question: what is the relationship between human beings who have self-knowledge, or who are understanding themselves? That's the first question raised.

And in observing one of the most fundamental questions is: what is relationship between human beings - relationship - man, woman, husband, wife, mother and baby, and so on? Because if our relationship is not correct - I am using the word 'correct' in the English sense - actual, truthful, right - then we create a society, either a society which is so disintegrating, which is so appalling, or a world of totalitarianism. We create it, and accept it. We will go into that, leave it for the moment.

So it is very important to understand relationship. Right? relationship implies, the meaning of the word is to be related, actually to be related, to be in contact, to have empathy, sympathy, a sense of sensitivity that understands each other completely, not partially. So as most human beings have not that relationship at all, their relationship is based on conflict, how does this conflict arise? You are following? Please this is important if you will go together into this because our life is involved, don't let's waste our life, we have got only this life - good enough, what the future life may be, it doesn't matter, what we are now, if we don't change what we are, we will continue in a different form and go on - I won't go into that.

So it is very important to understand this question of relationship because that is part of self-knowledge, part of knowing oneself. Through relationship, which is the outside, you can then move from the understanding of relationship move inwardly. So it is important to understand relationship. Which is, are we related at all to anything - nature, to each other, private intimate relationship, sexual, the mother and the baby, and so on - relationship? Now what is this relationship based on? Please follow it for yourself. You have your husband, you've got your girlfriend, or boyfriend, a mother with a baby, all that is part of our life, so please follow this, if you will, be serious enough for once in your life!

What is this relationship based on? Is it two entities, two human beings deeply concerned with themselves, deeply occupied with their own ambitions, with their own worries, with their own anxieties, uncertainties, confusion, these two people meet - boy and a girl, and so on and so on. And then there is all the problem of sex, and in this relationship because each is separate inwardly - right? - there is conflict. Obviously. Right? Can we go on with it?

So conflict becomes inevitable when each one of us is occupied so entirely with himself. Right? Which we are. And we need to be, in exploring this, tremendously honest otherwise the game is not worth playing. Now the problem is: can this relationship exist without effort, without this constant strife between human beings, and what then is that relationship in which there is no conflict at all? You are following? So why does this conflict exist, first? It seems that this conflict exists because each one is centred within himself: from himself he goes out - right? - from himself he acts, from himself he says, 'I love you', but the centre is the 'me', the self. Right? This is clear, isn't it? We are describing what is very obvious.

Now the question is: can that centre be understood and dissolved? Otherwise life, which is relationship, must inevitably be a series of incidents and conflicts. That's clear. So we are asking: can this centre be understood, watched, see the nature of it, the structure of it, and end it - not verbally, but actually end it? Right? That is our question. Therefore one must observe freely the nature and the structure of the self. Right? Are you following? May I go on?

So it is only possible to observe oneself in relationship - how one reacts to another, how one looks at another, what are the verbal and non-verbal communications with each other. So it is only in relationship that one sees what one is, actually, not theoretically, not subjectively, but seeing in relationship your responses. Now the responses are the expression of what you have remembered. Are you following? You have remembered certain incidents, certain expressions, verbal, gestures, it is stored up, you have registered them, the brain has registered them. And what you have registered becomes a memory and with that memory you observe. That's fairly clear. Right? You observe your relationship with another with the past memory, therefore you are not observing. Right? So is it possible not to register at all? Please, this is really a very, very complex question. Unless you give your mind, intelligence, your capacity to think clearly you won't capture this. And you must be serious because this is one of the most fundamental questions: whether the brain, which is registering all the time, which is consciously or unconsciously absorbing, which is registering, and this registration is like a tape which is being played over and over and over and over again. Right? So we are asking: is it possible for that tape, that machinery, which registers, to stop? You understand what I'm... Are we meeting each other? Bene? somebody tell me, please! Are we together?

So the brain demands security. Then only it can function effectively, sanely, rationally. If there is any kind of uncertainty then its actions become neurotic. Right? That's clear. So it must register. So when in relationship there is constant registration and remembrance, then relationship becomes a conflict because you are remembering your incidents, accidents, what has been accumulated, and the other is also doing the same, so the centre is being strengthened. Right? The 'me' is strengthened in me and in you. So the question is: is it possible only to register what is essentially important? What is important - not essentially, remove that word - what is absolutely important. Because if, as the brain demands security, it will find security in what is absolutely necessary. Right? It must have security in food, clothes and shelter - absolute - in technological knowledge and so on and so on. But what is the need of registering any other factor? You understand what I am saying? Please go into it with me, if you don't mind. Don't offer opinions and judgements, we are investigating. The brain is accustomed through millennia to register - my tribe, I live with my tribe I am safe, outside my tribe I am unsafe, outside my class, outside my group, outside my belief, I am uncertain, there is fear. So the brain through millennia has developed this quality of registering because in that there is safety. Right? Now we are saying, is there safety in the registrations that are going on psychologically? You understand what I am saying?

We are asking: is there security in registering all the psychological hurts, all the psychological fears in relationship, the attachments - you follow? So take one thing: in relationship psychologically we are hurt - right? - hurt, wounded from childhood. And the results of that hurt are violence, wanting to hurt others, or withdrawing not to be hurt anymore, and therefore isolating oneself, and being isolated act neurotically, and so on and so on and so on. So I am looking at that one thing for the moment, which is that we hurt each other in our relationship. The more intimate it is, the more we get hurt. And is it possible not to be hurt at all? Which is, not to register the things said by another which may wound? You are following this? Do it in yourself as we are talking. In our intimate relationship with each other we say things casually, we say things rather brutally, you know, friction. And in that friction there is a great deal of hurt. Now we are asking, is it possible in that relationship with each other not to register and therefore not to be hurt? You have understood? All right?

So we say it is possible not to register in relationship because love is not remembrance. Right? Love is not something that you say, 'Darling, you were so good to me the day before yesterday.' So love is not a thing of the past, a thing cultivated by thought, it is not a thing that can possibly happen when there is conflict in relationship. So we are trying to find out what is love in relationship in which there is no conflict. We are saying that it is possible only when you begin to understand yourself in relationship. In relationship there is hurt, many, many hurts. And those hurts can never heal completely because they are all the time happening. So is it possible in relationship not to get hurt? Please, this is a tremendous question, you understand? We are saying it is possible. And it is possible only when there is the realisation, when there is the realisation, means the observation that any form of registration in relationship psychologically is hurting, and it is essential to register at a certain level, not at the psychological level. When you see that - you understand? - when you observe it, when you know it, then you don't register. Say for example, in our relationship I call you a fool, or, you are terrible this morning, I want to read the newspaper, you come and take it away. I get irritated.

So at that moment, which is at the moment when you are being called a fool, or whatever you are, at that moment to be attentive. You understand? Attention implies, as we said the other day, there are three types of... Which is concentration, awareness and attention. Concentration implies focussing with your whole energy on a certain point - right? - therefore excluding and there is constant resistance to other forms of thoughts coming in. We said choiceless awareness is to observe without any choice - we went into that. Now attention is when you attend completely, as I hope you are doing now, completely attentive, there is no centre. Right? Have you noticed it? So when another calls you an idiot in relationship, when you are so attentive it doesn't register. Right? Don't ask how am I to be so attentive. That is a silly question. There is no practice, there is no method, there is no system. But when you see the real importance, the truth of this fact, that any form of psychological registration will inevitably end in conflict and hurt and all the rest of it, when you see the truth of it clearly you don't register. Therefore at the moment when a person calls you an idiot when you are attentive there is no registration. Are you doing it? Will you do it, not in the future, actually sitting next to your boyfriend, or your husband, wife, or whatever it is, see the whole machinery of it, not just a single part but the whole structure of this thing.

We said, registration is the means of acquiring security. Right? It has sought security in the images that it has built in relationship, in the image. Right? That image ceases to exist when there is complete attention.

Now, wait a minute: the gentleman asked, what is it that divides, that which is to be registered and that which is not to be registered. Right? Now when you see the nature and the structure of relationship, what happens - right? - actually observe it with your heart, with your mind, with your blood, what happens out of that observation? There is not only attention there is intelligence, isn't there? No? Because you have seen something which is true. That is when you are not attentive hurts begin, when you are attentive there is no image forming. If you see the truth of that, the perception of that is intelligence. You have an insight into it. Right? You have insight into the nature of registration of the brain, and that insight you can only have when you are free to observe. That is, insight can only take place when there is emptiness, not your prejudices, your hopes, your fears. Right? That intelligence says, this is where registration is necessary. Right? Therefore there is security for the brain in intelligence. You understand? Hai capito?

Q: He is wondering about will in relationship.

K: Ah, will in relationship. I must do this and you want to do something else. Right? I want to become the chief executive of a foundation, some business, and you want to do something else. Right? Desire, which is the essence of will, pushes me in one direction and pushes you in another direction. Right? That is one of the factors in relationship. No? But that's very simple.

And that intelligence can only be awakened when there is an observation which is to observe freely, without any distortion, without any motive in relationship, to observe. Out of that comes intelligence. So intelligence gives complete security, therefore it registers what is necessary and what is not necessary. So we are saying then, is love a remembrance? Right? Is love something to be thought about? Or can love be cultivated by thought? We said no. And that is fairly simple, everyone agrees to that. Then what place has love in relationship? Right? If love is not desire, if love is not the pursuit of pleasure, then what is love in relationship? Go on, work it out, sirs. Would you ask that question when there is that sense of love? The problem is this: you have that love, which is not desire, which is not pleasure, etc., etc., which is the essence of intelligence. I wonder if you see it. Suppose you have that extraordinary essence which is of intelligence, which is love, and I haven't got it. In our relationship - I am fortunately, or unfortunately, I am married to you - and you have got it, I haven't got it, then what is our relationship? You understand this? You understand my question?

K: Yes, yes. This has been an old question, I know this. But we are not discussing that at the moment. If you don't mind. What we are talking about is, when there is that quality of love which is not desire, which is not merely pleasure, then what is the action of that love in relationship? Which is, we said, in relationship each one is concerned with himself. Bene?

K: No, no, wait sir. Don't jump to anything, don't jump to any conclusion. Don't use words yet. We said in relationship you discover what you are. Right? Your reactions, your pride, your envy, your this, and that. And through relationship you begin to dissolve all that. Right? Then you are beginning to understand yourself as deeply as possible, because in relation it shows it. And you begin to realise that where there is attention there is no registration. We went through that. And then the problem arises, what is love in this relationship? Right? If there is no desire, if there is no pursuit of pleasure in this relationship, what is then relationship? You understand? Go on, sir, think it out. I am not going to think it all out for you and then you accept it or reject it. Go into it - I love you.

K: Oh, gee whillikins! Not attention, madam, we have gone into that. I love you - watch yourself, do, you love somebody, don't you? You love somebody and that love is not controlled by desire, that love is not the pursuit of pleasure - we went into all this before. Then what is the relationship between two human beings, man, woman, when there is this love?

We are asking: what is the place of this quality of love in relationship? Do you understand? We said there is the operation of intelligence, the awakening of intelligence, which is the essence of love. Right? And this intelligence is also compassion. This intelligence is also clarity, which we talked about. And also this intelligence acts skilfully. Right? Skilfully - got the meaning of it now? You are understanding it? Not this!

So we talked about compassion, clarity, and skill. We said, in that quality of love there is intelligence. Right? Intelligence is compassion, isn't it? Because you can't have compassion without clarity. So in one's relationship with another, when there is compassion - love, compassion, intelligence, clarity - you will act in excellent skill in relationship. Right? I wonder if you see this! Do you see it, or is it all Greek still?

As we said, we have great skill, we have acquired enormous skill in every direction - in the air, in the sea, on the earth, skill in being cunning in our relationships. Right? Deceptive, hypocritical, act in a skilful manner to avoid getting hurt, getting my own way and hoping you will follow me and therefore not create any conflict. We have learnt all this. But that skill is not out of clarity. That skill only emphasises the more 'me'. We went into that.

So see what takes place. Just briefly I will go into it, what takes place logically. We said you can know yourself without distortion by observing what is outside, what is happening in the world. And from the world move inwards, and then whatever you see will be correct because you have learnt to observe correctly, truthfully, accurately, what is going on around you. So in observing yourself one of the major factors in relationship is conflict - hurt, expression of will, desire. Right? Getting hurt, conflict, and each one desiring his own particular way or her way. Right? Now all that emphasises separation, division. So wherever there is division created by will, created by idea, created by desire, objects of different desires, pursuit of particular ideology, divides people, and therefore there is tremendous conflict. My wife may be Catholic, and I may not be Catholic, and there is conflict. I want her to become non-Catholic and she wants to make me Catholic, so there is battle.

So we said, the brain registers because in registration there is security. And the security it has created is in the image that we have made about each other. And because there is the image of each other which is different there is conflict. So we are having an insight into oneself - right? - through relationship. That insight can only take place when there is freedom and emptiness to look. You can't look if your mind, if your brain is full of prejudices, this and that. So there must be emptiness to look. That is, the observer ceases to be. We have gone into all that.

Then we went into the question of what is love. Is love desire, etc., etc? If it is not then love is intelligence in relationship. Right? And that intelligence is part of compassion. And that compassion can only be when there is clarity. Clarity which comes through freedom, and freedom of observation and insight. And compassion, clarity, will function with great skill in relationship. Right?