Urgency of Change • The Krishnamurti Podcast

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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Krishnamurti with Iris Murdoch (first conversation)

First conversation with Iris Murdoch: There is no love where there is self-interest.

Iris Murdoch was a well-known novelist and philosopher. Her books explore themes such as good and evil, morality, and the power of the unconscious. They emphasise the inner lives of individuals, in the tradition of Dostoyevski and Tolstoy, whilst her philosophical works reinterpret Aristotle and Plato.

In this first conversation, Krishnamurti and Iris Murdoch inquire into love, discovering that love is not desire or pleasure; love is not the opposite of hate; love has no relationship to jealousy; and that love can never bring conflict.

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Ross Saunders Interview

Krishnamurti Interviewed by Ross Saunders. This interview was recorded for the Australian television show ‘This Day Tonight’. The programme is half an hour long and was recorded in 1970.

Describing the interview in her diary, Mary Zimbalist, Krishnamurti’s assistant, said that Krishnamurti ‘demolished belief and religion then went on with such fresh clarity until the end of the half hour, covering a great deal with simplicity and eloquence.’

Questions explored include: Is it possible for a mind to be free from yesterday and from belief? How can an individual, who is part of the system, get outside the system in order to observe it and himself? Do the younger generation have a thirst for awareness and self-knowledge? You have been critical of religions. Could you tell me your own particular outlook on religion? What do you make of death? More than 40 years after you dissolved the Order of the Star, how would you summarise your aims?

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The Future of Humanity with David Bohm (Part 2)

The second and final part of The Future Of Humanity explores whether there is evolution of consciousness. Can the consciousness of mankind be changed through time? Is psychological conditioning centred in the self? Can our conditioned brain cells change? The pair then inquire into the relationship between the mind and the brain, suggesting that as long as the brain is conditioned, its relationship to the mind is limited. The then look at perception and 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. His books include Wholeness and the Implicate Order, Science, Order and Creativity, and Causation and Chance in Modern Physics.

Bohm’s contact with Krishnamurti began in the early 60s and continued into the 80s. Their dialogues are far-reaching and profound. Over 30 audios or videos are available on our YouTube channel at https://bit.ly/2EfqsCU, and are published in the books Truth and Actuality, The Transformation of Man, and The Ending of Time. Recorded in 1983, The Future of Humanity represents Bohm’s and Krishnamurti’s final dialogues together.

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The Future of Humanity with David Bohm (Part 1)

Part 1 of The Future of Humanity asks: what is the future of mankind? The pair discuss how our psychological problems are the result of thought, since thought breeds conflict. We think that thought can solve our problems but is this true? They look at how the self is put together by thought and whether our consciousness is individual to each of us, or inseparable, a consciousness of humanity. It is clear that dividing the world into countries and religions creates havoc, but is our very sense of self divisive? Why does division exist at all?

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. His books include Wholeness and the Implicate Order, Science, Order and Creativity, and Causation and Chance in Modern Physics.

Bohm’s contact with Krishnamurti began in the early 60s and continued into the 80s. Their dialogues are far-reaching and profound. Over 30 audios or videos are available on our YouTube channel at https://bit.ly/2EfqsCU, and are published in the books Truth and Actuality, The Transformation of Man, and The Ending of Time. Recorded in 1983, The Future of Humanityrepresents Bohm’s and Krishnamurti’s final dialogues together.

Find us online at kfoundation.org and on social media as Krishnamurti Foundation Trust