David Bohm in conversation with U. G. Krishnamurti

This is an audio recording of an almost 3 hour conversation between David Bohm and U.G. Krishnamurti that took place in Saanen, Switzerland on August 17, 1968.
The recording is a bit muffled but it is legible.
Most people are aware of David Bohm’s friendship with Jiddu Krishnamurti. David also had a lengthy conversation with U.G. Krishnamurti on at least one occasion. Many comparisons have been made between Jiddu and U.G. Krishnamurti (no relation) but we there are important differences we won't go into here.
The recording starts off with U.G. asking David to get the ball rolling and David asks about the unusual experiences he heard that U.G. had. U.G. then goes onto to describe the new state of being that came about for him in an unexpected way. U.G. goes into detail about how the experience felt along with the accompanying physical changes. U.G. states that he feels like he was woken up from a slumber for the first time in his life and from then on thought never operated in the same way again. U.G. sums up his experience as the mental functioning coming to an end, the body taking over, life expressing itself, and the “I” not referring to anything substantial. U.G. spends a good amount of time describing how he interacts with objects now that thought is different in him and what it means to see something.
U.G. dominates most the conversation for the first hour and a bit and David Bohm listens and does not say much. Expected subjects like the nature of thought and awareness are discussed.
After about 73 minutes Bohm starts to talk about thought and relevance and seeing when our judgements of relevance are relevant or irrelevant. Bohm points out how thought brings in irrelevant content that disturbs the function of the brain. Bohm goes on to talk about description and inference, the fundamental activity of science, and taking descriptions as what is. At about 93 minutes in Bohm starts to talk about language as action and the difference between verbal and non-verbal action and the harmony (the lack-there-of) between the two. Bohm states that the form of our language is out of harmony with its content. Bohm describes how this disharmony leads to confusion and incoherence. Bohm calls for attention to the form of our language and our judgements of relevance and irrelevance.
At times it appears that U.G. is trying to get Bohm to drop his ideas and concepts altogether and see that there is a way of operating that is beyond the structure of thought. Bohm on the other hand seems to feel that despite some things being beyond thought there is still a worthwhile dialogue that can be engaged in and that there is meaning and value in looking at all of these things (thought, language, awareness, communication, etc.) together and communicating in words what can be communicated.
At 110 minutes in Bohm again speaks about language, communication, emotion, and notions of relevance and irrelevance. The conversation then focuses on thought’s nature and seeing what it is doing and how it produces experiences.
For someone who has heard Bohm’s conversations with Jiddu Krishnamurti you cannot help but feel that David Bohm and U.G. Krishnamurti never really saw eye to eye or really built up much along the same line together during this recording like Bohm was able to with Jiddu. There were times where David and U.G. seemed to exploring together but U.G. would quite often end the conversation with a finalistic or dismissive statement, and at other times Bohm would go into great detail explaining things that U.G. seemed uninterested in or perhaps was not understanding. Yet there were also moments where once senses an agreement between David and U.G. All in all this recording serves as a good glimpse into U.G.’s autobiography in regards to his life changing experience, and into Bohm’s earlier ideas about thought.
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