Urgency of Change • The Krishnamurti Podcast

First conversation with Alain Naudé – The circus of man’s struggle

Alain Naude was Krishnamurti’s private secretary in the 1960s. He met Krishnamurti in 1963 whilst a music lecturer at Pretoria University and a professional concert pianist. He gave up his teaching and performing in 1964 to work with Krishnamurti. Fluent in several languages, he was very helpful at international gatherings and in attracting younger audiences to Krishnamurti’s talks at a time of cultural change in the West.

This conversation with Krishnamurti was recorded in Malibu, California in 1972 and begins by asking: Why do we divide the world as the human being and the divine? When I realise that my consciousness is the consciousness of the world, and the consciousness of the world is me, whatever change takes place in me affects the whole of consciousness. Can human consciousness undergo a radical change? To find out if there is something beyond this consciousness I must understand the content of consciousness. The mind must go beyond itself. Do we realise that the observer is the content itself? If there is no thought, there is no thinker. If the observer is the observed, what is the nature of change in consciousness? Will is not the factor of change. Radical revolution in consciousness takes place when there is no conflict at all.

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Conversation with David O'Hanlon – Beyond organised religion

Daniel O’Hanlon was a Jesuit priest and respected theologian. He taught at Marymount University in Los Angeles and for more than 30 years at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley. He had many contacts in other religions, particularly of Asia, and included aspects of these religions in his teaching. Interested in integration of religions, in 1984 he published Integration of Christian Practices: A Western Christian Looks East. 

This conversation with Krishnamurti, recorded in Malibu, California in 1972, asks whether organised religion brings about real depth of understanding. Does the past have any value in coming upon something new? Can the mind empty itself of the pettiness of what man has put together? Thought can be used legitimately and illegitimately. Krishnamurti urges us to find out if there is something beyond tradition and myth. 

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Conversation with David Bohm, 1972 – On Intelligence

David Bohm has been described as one of the most significant theoretical physicists of the 20th century and was a fellow of the royal society. He worked with Einstein at the Institute for Advanced Study, and on the Manhattan Project with Oppenheimer. Later he pioneered research into quantum physics and models of the brain, being increasingly interested in consciousness, order and thought. Bohm’s books include Wholeness and the Implicate Order, Science, Order and Creativity, and Causation and Chance in Modern Physics. 

This relatively early conversation between Bohm and Krishnamurti centres around the relationship between thought and intelligence. Thought is mechanical, measurable, a movement in time. Is intelligence mechanical and of time? Does intelligence use thought? Thought is a pointer; without intelligence the pointer has no value. Politically, religiously and psychologically thought has created a world of tremendous contradiction and fragmentation. Can life be guided by intelligence and lived in harmony? The desire for intelligence has created the image of God. Thought must be completely still for the awakening of intelligence. You come upon it when you see the whole. The quality of a mind that sees the whole is not touched by thought. Therefore there is perception and insight. 

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Krishnamurti with Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Chogyam Trungpa Rimpoche was a Buddhist meditation master and a major figure in the dissemination of Buddhism to the West. He founded more than one hundred meditation centres throughout the world, including Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, where Pema Chodron, Allen Gingberg and Ken Wilber were among his many students. He wished to present the path of meditation in secular terms, developing a programme called Shambhala Training.

This conversation with Krishnamurti was recorded in San Diego, California in 1972. In it, the pair ask: what is the quality of the mind that is no longer held in the matrix of experience? What is meditation and why should one meditate? They inquire into seeing without the 'me', and the possibility of a total observation without time and memory.

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Interview by Oliver Hunkin

Oliver Hunkin was head of religious programmes at the BBC, where he revolutionised the format. He was also an author and cartoonist. In his memoirs he wrote: ‘We have to admit there is an air of antique unreality about organised religion. The majority of people do not see the point of it. Have we lost track of the fact that religion is a specific experience rather than a system of dogma?’ Indeed, he had a revelatory spiritual experience one evening whilst driving, later saying: ‘I felt totally at one with the landscape, and with myself, and with all creation. The memory of it has affected my attitude to life ever since’.

This interview with Krishnamurti was recorded at Brockwood Park in 1970. In the conversation, Krishnamurti states that authority has crippled the mind, religiously and inwardly. The authority of belief, imposed by religions, destroys the discovery of reality. One relies on authority because one is afraid to stand alone. To understand fear one must also understand pleasure, as they are two sides of the same coin. Are we seeing each other with an image? There is love only when I have understood myself and so in myself there is no fragmentation, anger, ambition or greed. Effort is a contradiction of energies. A meditative mind is a very silent mind.

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Krishnamurti with Mary Zimbalist (Part 2) – Fear

In her early working life, Mary Zimbalist was a model and actress. She first heard Krishnamurti speak in the 1940s and in the 1960s began helping Krishnamurti, becoming his assistant and friend. Her memoirs chronicling her time with Krishnamurti are online free of charge, and form the book In the Presence of Krishnamurti, which is available at our online bookstore. 

This second conversation with Krishnamurti concerns the topic of fear. They ask whether, in the very act of looking at fear, we can discover its origin. Can we look at fear as we would an extraordinary jewel? Can we not look at a particular branch of fear but at the whole nature, structure and quality of fear? 

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Krishnamurti with Mary Zimbalist (Part 1) – Conditioning

Mary Zimbalist was Krishnamurti’s assistant from the 1960s until his death in 1986. Her unfinished memoirs chronicling her time with Krishnamurti are online free of charge, and in the book In the Presence of Krishnamurti, which is available on our website kfoundation.org. 

This conversation with Krishnamurti was recorded in 1984. Topics covered include: Can the brain be free from all the programming it has received? Is this possible through watching the very activity of thought? Watchfulness makes the brain extraordinarily acute, sharp and clear. This clarity is freedom.

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Krishnamurti with Huston Smith

Authority is Destructive. 

Huston Smith is widely regarded as one of the world’s most influential figures in religious studies. He was professor of philosophy at MIT and later professor of religious studies at Berkeley, where he met with Krishnamurti in 1968. Smith’s works include: The Worlds Religions, which has sold more than three million copies, Tales of Wonder, and the PBS television series The Wisdom of Faith. 

Subjects in this podcast include: Is it possible to live with total lucidity in this confused world? / To have clarity, freedom from authority is essential. To be a light to yourself you must deny every other light, however great that light be. / As long as we accept violence, we perpetuates fear and accept authority. The moment you ask ‘how’ you move away from the central fact of learning. To learn about something you must face it. At the moment of fear there is neither the observer nor the observed. Thought can never be free because it is the response of the past.

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Krishnamurti with David Shainberg

Memory, thought and the illusion of continuity.

Shainberg trained at the American Institute for Psychoanalysis and worked in New York. He was a leading force behind the integration of eastern and western philosophies in the understanding of consciousness and experience. Shainberg was the first to bring psychoanalysts and eastern spiritual leaders together. He retired from practice in 1981 in order to devote more time to painting.

Recorded in New York in 1983, the conversation between Krishnamurti and Shainberg inquires into why illusion and thought have such power. What can a person do for another who is caught up in their illusions? Why do human beings give importance to their own self-centred activity? The very idea of protecting oneself brings about isolation. The ‘me’ is not something separate from memory. Memory is the only thing that continues, but represents something that is dead, finished. Our psyche is being programmed by ideologies, which have been put together by thought.

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Krishnamurti with Iris Murdoch (second conversation)

Second conversation with Iris Murdoch 2: What do we mean by conditioning? 

Iris Murdoch was a Booker prize winning novelist and philosopher. Her many books include The Bell, The Black Prince, and The Sea, The Sea. 

In this second conversation, Krishnamurti and Iris Murdoch look at why we are fragmented, how our way of thinking and acting is comparatively like the rest of mankind, and that we are the rest of humanity mankind because we all suffer. Krishnamurti states that when there is love, there is truth and beauty. 

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