Do I want to learn about myself?
Do I want to know - actually, not theoretically -
is it my deep, committed,
irrevocable interest to know myself?
Is that it? Is that what you have?
Irrevocable,
that you are so completely committed.
Now, just a minute, sir. What is there to learn about myself?
Nothing.
Right?
There's absolutely nothing I've to learn about myself,
because myself is nothing!
I've put lots of things on it,
on this nothing - education,
science, philosophy - you follow? - piled it on,
all the things religions have said,
which are the most destructive things, what religions have done
- they have put all this on me, on this essentially nothing.
And we're battling, struggling, about these things,
changing from one thing to another.
What have I to learn about myself?
That I'm crooked, that I don't think straight, that I'm vain,
that I'm arrogant, I am proud,
- what does it all mean? Words, don't they? Memories, ideas.
Have ideas any content, except what thought gives to that idea?
I wonder if you capture all this.
No, this is too radical, as you said.
Q: When you say 'nothing' I have the feeling of an empty room.
K: Ah, sir, no,
do you know the meaning of the word 'nothing'? Not a thing.
Q: That is why it is so difficult
because we are still attached to all these things.
K: What, sir?
Q: If we were not attached to all these things
there would be no problem,
but being attached to all those things...
K: That's right. Q: ...we don't learn.
K: If you understand, the whole of my existence,
the whole content of me, is put together by thought.
Right? And thought is memory.
Right? So I am...
...a structure made by memory.
I can't touch it!
I can't, there's nothing to, say...
It is totally unreal, living on memory.
This is too radical, so I won't go into it.
Q: It seems to me that I am nothing
but the interesting question is
how I have made the illusion that I am something, you see.
it appears in ordinary life,
to each person, that he is really something.
K: Yes.
Q: And he creates somehow that illusion.
K: Yes, the illusion created by thought.
Q: Yes. K: Which is, I am some thing.
Q: Yes and what? K: Yes, I am some thing.
When that thing is not, I am nothing.
And therefore it is still...
...when I say I'm nothing, it is still thought.
It is not an actuality.
Q: Because there is that illusion that...
K: Of course. Q: ...thought is always creating.
K: So, how do we accept this illusion,
why do we accept this illusion, about which we must learn?
You follow, sir?
Spend years, spend money, books - what?
No, this is too radical, I won't go into this...
Q: It's not too radical, we want to go into it.
K: Ah, ah, you don't understand it, then.
Do you understand that it means
one has to reject psychologically,
everything that thought has put together.
Right?
And that's why it's too radical,
- it sounds nice, it feels, by Jove, there's something in it,
but one has to go into it very, very deeply,
you can't just say, well, go into it.
So, here we are.
We all say, 'I'm interested.'
We asked the question, why are you all here?
To learn, about oneself.
And have you learnt anything about yourself, while you're here?
That you are jealous, anxious, fearful, have a position
which you must maintain,
you have been wounded and cling to that wound, and so
- you know, live in that,
which becomes totally neurotic, and all the rest.
Have you learnt anything?
Or are we all playing tricks with each other?
Q: Sir, when we say we come to learn about the nature of the self,
we are really learning, I mean, learning takes place on that score,
it is learning about the nature of illusion.
K: Sir, I am asking a question, sir. Why are you here?
I know why I'm here, I'm very clear.
Can you be
- just a minute, let me finish, just a minute -
can you be as clear as that?
I'll tell you why I'm here.
I want to tell you a story.
I want to tell you something
that is tremendously important, all the rest of it.
Sitting... K knows exactly what he wants to do.
Are you clear?
Or you've got innumerable motives?