The Flame of Attention
by
Jiddu Krishnamurti
THE FLAME OF ATTENTION CHAPTER 4 2ND
PUBLIC TALK AT MADRAS 27TH DECEMBER
1981
We were talking yesterday about conflict. We were saying that we
human beings have lived on this beautiful earth, with all its vast
treasures, with its mountains, rivers and lakes, during millennia and
yet we have lived in perpetual conflict. Not only in outward
conflict with the environment, with nature, with each other, but
also inwardly, so-called spiritually. And we are still in constant
conflict, from the moment we are born until we die. We put up
with it; we have become accustomed to it; we tolerate it. We find
many reasons to justify why we should live in conflict; we think
conflict, struggle, everstriving, means progress outward progress,
or inward achievement towards the highest goal. There are so
many forms of conflict: the man who is struggling to achieve some
result, the man who is struggling with nature, trying to conquer it.
What we have reduced this world to! Such a beautiful world it
is, with its lovely hills, marvellous mountains, tremendous rivers.
After three thousand years of human suffering, human struggle,
obeying, accepting, destroying each other, this is what we have
reduced it to; a wilderness of wild thoughtless human beings who
do not care for the earth, nor for the lovely things of the earth, nor
the beauty of a lake, a pond, of the swift running river; none seem
to care. All that we are concerned with is our own little selves, our
own little problems, and this, after three to five thousand years of
so-called culture.
We are going to face facts this afternoon. Life has become
extraordinarily dangerous, insecure, utterly without any meaning.
You may invent a lot of meaning, of significance, but actual daily
Life, be it lived for thirty, forty or a hundred years, has lost all
meaning except to gather money, to be somebody, to be powerful
and so on. I am afraid this has to be said.
No politician, nor any form of politics, whether of the left, right
or centre, is going to solve any of our problems. Politicians are not
interested in solving problems; they are only concerned with
themselves and with keeping their position. And the gurus and the
religions have betrayed man. You have read the Upanishads, the
Brahma sutras, the Bhagavad Gita to no effect. It is the guru's game
to read them aloud to audiences that are supposed to be
enlightened, intelligent. You cannot possibly rely on the
politicians, on the government, nor upon the religious scriptures,
nor upon any guru whatsoever, because they have made this
country what it is now. If you seek further for leadership it will
also lead you up the wrong path. And, as no one can help you, no
one, you have to be responsible for yourselves totally, completely
responsible for your conduct, for your behaviour, for your actions.
It is necessary and important to find out whether we can live
without any conflict in our lives both inwardly and outwardly. We
must ask, why, after all these millennia, human beings have not
solved the problem of conflict, with each other and in themselves?
This is a very important question to ask: why do we submit to, and
succumb to conflict, which is the struggle to become something, or
not to become something, the struggle to achieve a result, personal
advancement, personal success, trying to fulfil something of your
desires, the conflict of war, the preparations for war of which you
may not be aware? There is conflict between man and woman,
sexually and in their daily relationships. Apparently, this conflict is
not only at the conscious level, but also deep down in the very
recesses of the mind. There is conflict in pretension, in trying to be
something which you are not and the conflict that exists in trying to
achieve heaven, god, or whatever you like to call that thing that
you adore and worship; the conflict in meditation, struggling to
meditate, struggling against lethargy, indolence. Our life from the
very beginning, from the time we are born until we die, is in
perpetual conflict.
We must find out together why man, you as a human being,
representing all the world, has tolerated conflict, put up with it,
become habituated to it. We are considering together most
seriously whether it is possible to be completely free of all conflict;
because conflict, consciously or unconsciously, inevitably brings
about a society that is ourselves extended, a society in conflict.
Society is not an abstraction, it is not an idea, society is
relationship between man and man. If that relationship is in
conflict, painful, depressing and anxious, then we create a society
which represents us. It is a fact. The idea of society, the idea, is not
actual society. Society is what we are with each other. And we are
asking whether this conflict can ever end?
What is conflict? When we do not accept that which actually is,
when we escape to something called an ideal, the opposite of that
which is, then conflict is inevitable. When one is incapable of
looking at and observing what one is actually doing and thinking,
one avoids that which is and projects an ideal, then there is conflict
between `that which is' and `what should be'. I am not talking for
my own pleasure but to convey, if you are serious, that there is a
way of living in which there is no conflict whatever. If you are
interested in it, if you are concerned about it, if you want to find
out a way of living that is without that sense of vain effort, then
please do listen carefully, not to what the speaker is saying, but
listen to the fact, the truth of what is being said, so that it is your
own observation. It is not that the speaker is pointing something
out but that we are looking together. It is no use for the speaker just
to talk to blank faces, or to people who are bored. Since you have
taken the trouble to come and sit here under the beautiful trees,
then do pay attention, for we are talking over together serious
matters.
We were saying: conflict exists when we disregard what is
actually taking place and translate what is taking place into terms
of an ideal, into terms of `what should be', into a concept which we
have accepted, or which we ourselves have created. So when there
is this division between 'what is' and 'what should be' there must
inevitably be conflict. This is a law not the speaker's law but it is a
law. So we are going to investigate why human beings have never
faced that which is and have always tried to escape from it.
This country has always talked about non-violence. Nonviolence
has been preached over and over again, politically,
religiously, by various leaders that you have had non-violence.
Non-violence is not a fact; it is just an idea, a theory, a set of
words; the actual fact is that you are violent. That is the fact. That
is `what is'. But we are not capable of understanding `what is` and
that is why we create this nonsense called non-violence. And that
gives rise to the conflict between `what is' and `what should be'.
All the while you are pursuing non-violence you are sowing the
seeds of violence. This is so obvious. So, can we together look at
'what is' without any escape, without any ideals, without
suppressing or escaping from `what is'? We are by inheritance from
the animal from the ape and so on violent. Violence takes many
forms, not merely brutal action, striking each other. Violence is a
very complicated issue; it includes imitation, conformity,
obedience; it exists when you pretend to be that which you are not.
We are violent. That is a fact. We get angry, we conform, we
imitate, we follow, we are aggressive and aggression takes many
forms, the polite, gentle aggressiveness, with a kid glove,
persuading you through affection. That is a form of violence.
Compelling you to think along a particular line, that is violence.
Violence is also the acceptance of yourself as something that you
are not. Understand that violence is not just getting angry or
beating each other up, that is a very shallow form of violence.
Violence is very, very complex and to understand it, to go into the
very depths of it, one must see the fact first and not just affirm `We
should be non-violent'.
There is only that which is, which is violence. Non-violence is
non-fact, not a reality, it is a projection of thought in order to
escape from, or to accept violence and pretend that we are
becoming non-violent. So, can we look at violence free from all
that, free from escape, free from ideals, from suppression, and
actually observe what violence is?
So we have to learn together how to observe. There is no
authority in this investigation, but when your mind is crippled by
authority, as it is, it is very difficult to be free and so able to look at
violence. It is important to understand how to observe, to observe
what is happening in the world the misery, the confusion, the
hypocrisy, the lack of integrity, the brutal actions that are going on,
the terrorism, the taking of hostages and the gurus who have their
own particular concentration camps. Please, do not laugh, you are
part of all that. It is alI violence. How can anyone say: `I know,
follow me'. That is a scandalous statement. So we are asking: what
is it to observe? What is it to observe the environment around you,
the trees, that pond in the corner there, made beautiful within this
year, the stars, the new moon, the solitary Venus, the evening star
by itself, the glory of a sunset? How do you watch such beauty, if
you have ever watched it at all? You cannot watch, observe, if you
are occupied with yourself, with your own problems, with your
own ideas, with your own complex thinking. You cannot observe if
you have prejudice, or if there is any kind of conclusion which you
hold on to, or your particular experience that you cling to it is
impossible. So how do you observe a tree, this marvellous thing
called a tree, the beauty of it, how do you look at it? How do you
look now, as you are sitting there, surrounded by these trees? Have
you ever watched them? Have you seen their leaves, fluttering in
the wind, the beauty of the light on the leaf; have you ever watched
them? Can you watch a tree, or the new moon, or the single star in
the heavens, without the word, moon, star, sky without the word?
Because the word is not the actual star, the actual moon. So can
you put aside the word and look that is, look outwardly?
Now can you look at your wife, your husband, without the
word, without all the remembrance of your relationship, however
intimate it has been, without all the built up memory of the past, be
it ten days, or fifty years? Have you ever done it? Of course not. So
will you please let us learn together how to observe a flower. If you
know how to look at a flower, that look contains eternity. Do not
be carried away by my words. If you know how to look at a star, a
dense forest, then you see in that observation that there is space,
timeless eternity. But to observe your wife, or your husband,
without the image you have created about her or him you must
begin very close. You must begin very close in order to go very
far. If you do not begin very close you can never go very far. If you
want to climb the mountain, or go to the next village, the first steps
matter, how you walk, with what grace, with what ease, with what
felicity. So we are saying that to go very, very far, which is
eternity, you must begin very close, which is your relationship with
your wife and husband. Can you look, observe, with clear eyes,
without the words `My wife', or `My husband', `My nephew', or
'My son', without the memory of all the accumulated hurts, without
all the remembrance of things past? Do it now as you are sitting
there, observe. And when you are capable of observing without the
past, that is observing without all the images you have built about
yourself and about her, then there is right relationship between you
and her. But now, as you have not observed each other, you are
like two railway lines, never meeting. That is your relationship. I
wonder if you are aware of all this?
We are learning together how to observe that tree, to sit next to
your neighbour observing the colour of his shirt, the colour of her
sari, the type of face; observing without criticism, without like or
dislike, just observing. Now with such observation can you look at
your violence, that is, at your anger, irritation, conformity,
acceptance, getting used to the dirt and the squalor around your
houses, can you so observe all that? When you do you bring all
your energy to observing; and when you so observe your violence
you will find, if you have gone into it, if you do it, that that
violence because you have brought all your energy to observe
totally disappears. Do not repeat if I may most respectfully request
do not repeat what you have just heard. By repeating what the
speaker has said it becomes secondhand; just as by repeating the
Upanishads, the Brahmasutras and all the printed books, you have
made yourselves secondhand human beings. You do not seem to
mind, do you? You are not even ashamed of it, you just accept it.
That acceptance is part of this complex problem of violence.
So we are saying that when there is no duality it is possible to
live without conflict. There is no actual duality when you reach a
certain state of consciousness there is only 'what is'. Duality only
exists when you try to deny, or to escape from, `what is' into `what
is not'. Is this clear? Are we all together in this matter? People have
talked to me a great deal about all these matters, your philosophers,
Vedanta pundits and scholars. But these, like ordinary people, live
in duality. (Not physical duality, man and woman, tall and short,
light and dark skin, that is not duality.) And there is the idea that
conflict is necessary because we live in duality and therefore those
who are free from the opposites are the enlightened people. You
invent a philosophy around that. You read about it, accept it; you
read all the commentaries and you are stuck where you are.
Whereas the speaker is saying there is actually no duality now;
freedom from duality is not when you reach some `spiritual
heights; you will never reach `spiritual heights' if you have
dualities now, nor yet in some future reincarnation or at the end of
your life. The speaker is saying there is only `what is', there is
nothing else. `What is' is the only fact. Its opposite is non-fact, it
has no reality. I hope this is very clear, even if only logically, with
reason. If you are exercising your reason, your capacity to think
logically, `what is', is obviously more important to understand than
`what should be'. And we cling to `what should be` because we do
not know how to deal with `what is'. We use the opposite as a lever
to free ourselves from 'what is'.
So there is only `what is' and therefore there is no duality. There
is only greed and not non-greed. When you understand the depth of
violence without escaping from it, without running away to some
idiotic ideals of non-violence, when you look at it, when you
observe it very closely, which is to bring to it all the energy you
have wasted in pursuing the opposite when you try to suppress it, it
is a wastage of energy which is conflict there is no conflict. Please
understand this.
Suppose one is envious, envious of another who is very clever,
bright, intelligent, sensitive, who sees the beauty of the earth and
the glory of the sky, who enjoys this lovely earth, yet to oneself it
means nothing. One wants to be like him. So one begins to imitate
him, the way he walks, the way he looks, the way he smiles; yet
one is still greedy. Though one has been educated from childhood
not to be greedy one has not understood that `not' is merely the
opposite of what one is. One has been educated, conditioned; the
books one has been given have said there is duality, and one has
accepted that. It is very difficult to break that conditioning. One's
conditioning from childhood prevents the understanding of this
very simple fact, which is: there is only 'what is'. Good is not the
opposite of bad. If good is born out of bad then the good contains
the bad. Think it out, work at it, exercise your brains, so as to live
always with `what is', with that which is actually going on,
outwardly and inwardly. When one is envious, live with that fact,
observe it. Again, envy is a very complex process, it is part of
competition, the desire for advancement, politically, religiously
and in business. One has been brought up with that, and to break
that tradition, demands a great deal of observation; not making of it
the opposite of tradition; just observe what tradition is. I hope the
speaker is making it very clear. You are all traditional people and
you repeat psychologically, even intellectually, what you have
been told; your religions are based on that.
So when once you see the fact, that there is only `what is', and
observe with all the energy that you have, then you will see that
'what is` has no value or importance, it is totally non-existence.
One has been told from childhood to be good. The word `good'
is an old fashioned word, but it is really a beautiful word. Good
means to be correct, correct in your speech, correct in your
behaviour not according to an idea of what is correct. Correct
means to be precise, accurate, not pretentious. But one is not good.
And one's parents, teachers and educators say, `Be good', so there
is created a conflict between what one is and what one should be.
And one does not understand the meaning of that word; that word
is again very, very subtle, it demands a great deal of investigation.
Good means also to be completely honest, which means one
behaves not according to some tradition or fashion, but with the
sense of great integrity, which has its own intelligence. To be good
also means to be whole, not fragmented. But one is fragmented,
brought up in this chaotic tradition. What is important is not what
goodness is, but why one`s brain is caught in tradition. So one has
to understand why the brain, which is again very subtle, which has
great depth in itself, why such a brain has followed tradition. It has
followed it because there is safety, security, because one is
following what one's parents have said and so on. That gives one a
sense of safety, protection a false safety and protection. One thinks
it is safe but it is unreal, it is illusory. One will not listen to the
speaker because one is frightened to be without tradition and to
live with all one's attention.
Your belief in god is your ultimate security. See what thought
has done! It has created an image of god which you then worship.
That is self-worship. Then you begin to ask who created the earth,
who created the heavens, the universe and so on. So your tradition
begins to destroy the human mind. It has become repetitive,
mechanical, it has no vitality, except to earn money, go to the
office every morning for the rest of your life and then die at the end
of it. So it is important to find out whether you can be free of
tradition and so live without a single conflict, living every day with
`what is' and observing 'what is', not only out there but inwardly.
Then you will create a society that will be without conflict.
27 December 1981
THE FLAME OF ATTENTION CHAPTER 5 5TH
PUBLIC TALK AT BOMBAY 6TH FEBRUARY
1982
The average person wastes his life; he has a great deal of energy
but he wastes it. He spends his days in the office, or in digging the
garden, or as a lawyer or something, or he leads the life of a
sannyasi. The life of an average person seems, at the end, utterly
meaningless, without significance. When he looks back, when he is
fifty, eighty, or ninety, what has he done with his life?
Life has a most extraordinary significance, with its great beauty,
its great suffering and anxiety, the accumulating of money in
working from eight or nine in the morning until five for years and
years. At the end of it all, what have we done with life? Money,
sex, the constant conflict of existence, the weariness, the travail,
unhappiness and frustrations that is all we have with perhaps
occasional joy; or perhaps you love someone completely, wholly,
without any sense of self.
There seems to be so little justice in the world. Philosophers
have talked a great deal about justice. The social workers talk
about justice. The average man wants justice. But is there justice in
life at all? One is clever, well placed, with a good mind and is good
looking; having everything he wants. Another has nothing. One is
well educated, sophisticated, free to do what he wants. Another is a
cripple, poor in mind and in heart. One is capable of writing and
speaking; a good human being. Another is not. This has been the
problem of philosophy with its love of truth, love of live. But
perhaps truth is in life, not in books, away from life, not in ideas.
Perhaps truth is where we are and in how we live. When one looks
around, life seems so empty and meaningless for most people. Can
man ever have justice? Is there any justice in the world at all? One
is fair, another is dark. One is bright, aware, sensitive, full of
feeling, loving a beautiful sunset, the glory of a moon, the
astonishing light on the water; one sees all that and another does
not. One is reasonable, sane, healthy and another is not. So one
asks, seriously, is there justice in the world at all?
Before the law all are supposedly equal, but some are `more
equal' than others who have not sufficient money to employ good
lawyers. Some are born high, others low. Observing all this in the
world there is apparently very little justice. So where is justice
then? It appears that there is justice only when there is compassion.
Compassion is the ending of suffering. Compassion is not born out
of any religion or from belonging to any cult. You cannot be a
Hindu with all your superstitions and invented gods and yet
become compassionate you cannot. To have compassion there
must be freedom, complete and total freedom, from all
conditioning. Is such freedom possible? The human brain has been
conditioned over millions of years. That is a fact. And it seems that
the more we acquire knowledge about all the things of the earth
and heaven, the more do we get bogged down. When there is
compassion, then with it there is intelligence, and that intelligence
has the vision of justice.
We have invented the ideas of karma and reincarnation; and we
think that by inventing those ideas, those systems about something
that is to happen in the future, that we have solved the problem of
justice. Justice begins only when the mind is very clear and when
there is compassion.
Our brains are very complex instruments. Your brain, or the
speaker's brain, is of the brain of humanity. It has not just
developed from when you were born until now. It has evolved
through endless time and conditions our consciousness. That
consciousness is not personal; it is the ground on which all human
beings stand. When you observe this consciousness with all its
content of beliefs, dogmas, concepts, fears, pleasures, agonies,
loneliness, depression and despair, it is not your individual
consciousness. It is not the individual that holds this consciousness.
We are deeply conditioned to think that we are separate
individuals; but it is not your brain or mine. We are not separate.
Our brains are so conditioned through education, through religion,
that we think we are separate entities, with separate souls and so
on. We are not individuals at all. We are the result of thousands of
years of human experience, human endeavour and struggle. So, we
are conditioned; therefore we are never free. As long as we live
with or by a concept, a conclusion, with certain ideas or ideals, our
brains are not free and therefore there is no compassion. Where
there is freedom from all conditioning which is, freedom from
being a Hindu, a Christian, a Muslim or a Buddhist, freedom from
being caught up in specialization (though specialization has its
place) freedom from giving one's life entirely to money then there
can be compassion. As long as the brain is conditioned, which it is
now, there is no freedom for man. There is no 'ascent' of man, as
some philosophers and biologists are saying, through knowledge.
Knowledge is necessary; to drive a car, to do business, to go to
from here to your home, to bring about technological development
and so on, it is necessary; but not the psychological knowledge that
one has gathered about oneself, culminating in memory which is
the result of external pressures and inward demands.
Our lives are broken up, fragmented, divided, they are never
whole; we never have holistic observation. We observe from a
particular point of view. We are in ourselves broken up so that our
lives are in contradiction in themselves, therefore there is constant
conflict. We never look at life as a whole, complete and indivisible.
The word `whole' means to be healthy, to be sane; it also means
holy. That word has great significance. It is not that the various
fragmented parts become integrated in our human consciousness.
(We are always trying to integrate various contradictions.) But is it
possible to look at life as a whole, the suffering, the pleasure, the
pain, the tremendous anxiety, loneliness, going to the office,
having a house, sex, having children, as though they were not
separate activities, but as a holistic movement, a unitary action? Is
that possible at all? Or must we everlastingly live in fragmentation
and therefore for ever in conflict? Is it possible to observe the
fragmentation and the identification with those fragments? To
observe, not correct, not transcend, not run away from or suppress,
but observe. It is not a matter of what to do about it; because if you
attempt to do something about it you are then acting from a
fragment and therefore cultivating further fragments and divisions,
Whereas, if you can observe holistically, observe the whole
movement of life as one, then conflict with its destructive energy
not only ceases but also out of that observation comes a totally new
approach to life.
I wonder if one is aware of how broken up one's daily life is?
And if one is aware, does one then ask: how am I to bring all this
together to make a whole? And who is the entity, the `I', who is to
bring all these various parts together and integrate them? That
entity, is he not also a fragment? Thought itself is fragmentary,
because knowledge is never complete about anything. Knowledge
is accumulated memory and thought is the response of that
memory and therefore it is limited. Thought can never bring about
a holistic observation of life.
So, can one observe the many fragments which are our daily life
and look at them as a whole? One is a professor, or a teacher, or
merely a householder, or a sannyasi who has renounced the world;
those are fragmented ways of living a daily life. Can one observe
the whole movement of one's fragmented life with its separate and
separative motives; can one observe them all without the observer?
The observer is the past, the accumulation of memories. He is that
past and that is time. The past is looking at this fragmentation; and
the past as memory, is also in itself the result of previous
fragmentations. So, can one observe without time, without thought,
the remembrances of the past, and without the word? Because the
word is the past, the word is not the thing. One is always looking
through words; through explanations, which are a movement of
words. We never have a direct perception. Direct perception is
insight which transforms the brain cells themselves. One's brain
has been conditioned through time and functions in thinking. It is
caught in that cycle. When there is pure observation of any
problem there is a transformation, a mutation, in the very structure
of the cells.
We have created time, psychological time. We are masters of
that inward time that thought has put together. That is why we
must understand the nature of time which man has created
psychological time as hope, time as achievement. Why have
human beings, psychologically, inwardly, created time - time when
one will be good; time when one will be free of violence; time to
achieve enlightenment; time to achieve some exalted state of mind;
time as meditation? When one functions within the realm of that
time one is bringing about a contradiction and hence conflict.
Psychological time is conflict.
It is really a great discovery if one realizes the truth that one is
the past, the present and the future; which is time as psychological
knowledge. One creates a division between our living in our
consciousness and the distant time which is death. That is, one is
living with all one's problems and death is something to be
avoided, postponed, put at a great distance which is another
fragmentation in one's life. To observe holistically the whole
movement of life is to live both the living and the dying. But one
clings to life and avoids death; one does not even talk about it. So
not only has one fragmented one's life, superficially, physically,
but also one has separated oneself from death. What is death; is it
not part of one's life? One may be frightened, one may want to
avoid death and to prolong living, but always at the end of it there
is death.
What is living? What is living,which is our consciousness?
Consciousness is made up of its content; and the content is not
different from consciousness. Consciousness is what one believes,
one's superstitions, ambitions, one's greed, competitiveness,
attachment, suffering, the depth of loneliness, the gods, the rituals
all that is one's consciousness, which is oneself. But that
consciousness is not one's own, it is the consciousness of
humanity; one is the world and the world is oneself. One is one's
consciousness with its content. That content is the ground upon
which aIl humanity stands. Therefore, psychologically, inwardly,
one is not an individual. Outwardly one may have a different form
from another, yellow, brown, black, be tall or short, be a woman or
a man, but inwardly, deeply, we are similar perhaps with some
variations, but the similarity is like a string that holds the pearls
together. We must comprehend what living is, then we can ask
what dying is. What is before is more important than what happens
after death. Before the end, long before the last minute, what is
living? Is this living, this travail and conflict without any
relationship with each other? This sense of deep inward loneliness;
that is what we call living. To escape from this so-called living,
you go off to churches, temples, pray and worship, which is utterly
meaningless. If you have money you indulge in extravagance the
extravagance of marriage in this country. You know all the tricks
you play to escape from your own consciousness, from your own
state of mind. And this is what is called living. And death is the
ending. The ending of everything that you know. The ending of
every attachment, all the money you have accumulated which you
cannot take with you; therefore you are frightened. Fear is part of
your life. And so whatever you are, however rich, however poor,
however highly placed, whatever power you have, whatever kind
of politician you are, from the highest to the lowest crook in
politics, there is the ending, which is called death. And what is it
that is dying? The `me' with all the accumulations that it has
gathered in this life, all the pain, the loneliness, the despair, the
tears, the laughter, the suffering that is the `me' with all its words.
The summation of all this is `me'. I may pretend that I have in 'me'
some higher spirit, the atman, the soul, something everlasting, but
that is all put together by thought; and thought is not sacred. So this
is our life; the `me' that you cling to, to which you are attached.
And the ending of that is death. It is the fear of the known, and the
fear of the unknown; the known is our life, and we are afraid of
that life, and the unknown is death of which we are also afraid.
Have you ever seen a man or a woman frightened of death? Have
you ever seen closely? Death is the total denial of the past, present
and the future, which is `me'. And being frightened of death you
think there are other lives to be lived. You believe in reincarnation
probably most of you do. That is a nice, happy projection of
comfort, invented by people who have not understood what living
is. They see living is pain, constant conflict, endless misery with an
occasional flare of smile, laughter and joy, and they say `We will
live again next life; after death I will meet my wife' or husband, my
son, my god. Yet we have not understood what we are and what we
are attached to. What are we attached to? To money? If you are
attached to money, that is you, the money is you. Like a man
attached to old furniture, beautiful l4th century furniture, highly
polished and of great value, he is attached to that; therefore he is
the furniture. So what are you attached to? Your body? If you were
really attached to your body you would look after that body, eat
properly, exercise properly, but you don't. You are just attached to
the idea of the body the idea but not the actual instrument. If you
are attached to your wife it is because of your memories. If you are
attached to her she comforts you over this and that, with all the
trivialities of attachment, and death comes and you are separated.
So one has to enquire very closely and deeply into one's
attachment. Death does not permit one to have anything when one
dies. One's body is cremated or buried, and what has one left?
One`s son, for whom one has accumulated a lot of money which he
will misuse anyway. He will inherit one's property, pay taxes and
go through all the terrible anxieties of existence just as one did
oneself; is that what one is attached to? Or is one attached to one's
knowledge, having been a great writer, poet or painter? Or is one
attached to words because words play a tremendous part in one's
life? Just words. One never looks behind the words. One never sees
that the word is not the thing, that the symbol is never the reality.
Can the brain, the human consciousness, be free of this fear of
death? As one is the master of psychological time, can one live
with death not separating death off as something to be avoided, to
be postponed, something to be put away? Death is part of life. Can
one live with death and understand the meaning of ending? That is
to understand the meaning of negation; ending one's attachments,
ending one's beliefs, by negating. When one negates, ends, there is
something totally new. So, while living, can one negate attachment
completely? That is living with death. Death means the ending.
That way there is incarnation, there is something new taking place.
Ending is extraordinarily important in life to understand the depth
and the beauty of negating something which is not truth. Negate,
for example one`s double talk. If one goes to the temple, negate the
temple, so that your brain has this quality of integrity.
Death is an ending and has extraordinary importance in life. Not
suicide, not euthanasia, but the ending of one's attachments, one's
pride, one's antagonism, or hatred, for another. When one looks
holistically at life, then the dying, the living, the agony, the despair,
the loneliness and the suffering, they are all one movement. When
one sees holistically there is total freedom from death not that the
physical body is not going to be destroyed. There is a sense of
ending and therefore there is no continuity there is freedom from
the fear of not being able to continue.
When one human being understands the full significance of
death there is the vitality, the fullness, that lies behind that
understanding; he is out of the human consciousness. When you
understand that life and death are one they are one when you begin
to end in living then you are living side by side with death, which
is the most extraordinary thing to do; there is neither the past nor
the present nor the future, there is only the ending.
THE FLAME OF ATTENTION
CHAPTER 6 1ST
PUBLIC TALK AT NEW YORK 27TH MARCH
1982
It should be understood that we are not trying to convince you of
anything. We are not making any kind of propaganda; nor putting
forward new ideas or some exotic theory or fantastic philosophy;
nor are we putting forward any kind of conclusion, or advocating
any kind of faith. Please be quite convinced of that. But together,
you and the speaker are going to observe what is happening in the
world, not from any particular point of view, nor from any
linguistic, nationalistic or religious attitude. We are together, if you
will, going to observe, without any prejudice, freely, without
distorting, what is actually happening throughout the world. It is
important that we understand that we are simply observing, not
taking sides, not having certain conclusions with which to observe;
but observing freely, rationally, sanely, why human beings
throughout the world have become what they are, brutal, violent,
full of fantastic ideas, with nationalistic and tribalistic worship,
with all the divisions of faiths, with all their prophets, gurus and all
those religious structures which have lost all meaning.
Such observation is not a challenge, nor does it bring you the
experience of something. Observation is not analysis. Observation,
without distortion, is seeing clearly, not from any personal or
ideological point of view; it is to observe so that we see things as
they are, see both outwardly and inwardly, what is actually taking
place externally and how we live psychologically. We are talking
over together as two friends walking in a quiet lane, on a summer's
day, observing and conversing about their problems, their pain,
sorrows, miseries, confusions, uncertainties, the lack of security,
and seeing clearly why human beings throughout the world are
behaving as they do; we are asking why, after millennia upon
millennia, human beings continue to suffer, to have great pain
psychologically, to be anxious, uncertain and frightened, having no
security, outwardly or inwardly.
There is no division between the outer and the inner, between
the world which human beings have created outwardly, and the
movement which is taking place inwardly it is like a tide, going out
and coming in, it is the same movement. There is no division, as
the outer and the inner, it is one continuous movement. To
understand this movement we must examine together our
consciousness, what we are, why we behave the way we do, being
cruel and having no actual relationship with each other. We must
examine why, after millennia upon millennia, we are living in
constant conflict and misery and why religions have totally lost
their meaning.
We are going to take our human existence as it is and observe it
and actually find out for ourselves if there is any possibility of a
radical change in the human condition not superficial change, not
physical revolution, none of which has brought about a
fundamental, radical, change in the psyche. And we are going to
find out whether it is possible for the conflict, struggle, pain and
the sorrow of our daily life to end. We are going to observe
together and see if it is possible to be radically free of all this
torture of life, with its occasional joy.
This is not a lecture; you are partaking, sharing, in this
observation. We are not using any particular jargon, or any special
linguistic references. We are using simple, daily English.
Communication is only possible when both of us are together one
must emphasize the word `together' all the time as we examine our
lives and why we are what we have become.
What place has knowledge in the transformation of man? Has it
any place at all in that transformation? Knowledge is necessary in
daily living, going to the office, exercising various skills and so on;
it is necessary in the technological world, in the scientific world.
But in the transformation of the psyche, of which we are, has
knowledge any place in it at all?
Knowledge is the accumulation of experience not only personal
experience but the accumulation of past experience which is called
tradition. That tradition is handed down to each one of us. We have
accumulated not only individual, personal, psychological
knowledge, but the psychological knowledge that has been handed
down and conditioned man through millennia. We are asking
whether that psychological knowledge can ever transform man
radically, so that he is a totally unconditioned human being.
Because if there is any form of conditioning, psychically, inwardly,
truth cannot be found. Truth is a pathless land, and it must come to
one when there is total freedom from conditioning.
There are those who accept and say that the conditioning of man
is inevitable, and that he cannot possibly escape from it. He is
conditioned and he can no more than ameliorate or modify that
conditioning. There is a strong element of Western thought that
maintains this position. Man is conditioned by time, by evolution,
genetically and by society, by education, and by religion. That
conditioning can be modified but man can never be free from it.
That is what the Communists and others maintain, pointing out
historically and factually that we are all conditioned, by the past,
by our education, by our family and so on. They say that there is no
escape from that conditioning, and therefore man must always
suffer, always be uncertain, always follow the path of struggle,
pain and anxiety.
What we are saying is quite different; we are saying that this
conditioning can be totally eradicated, so that man is free. We are
going to enquire into what this conditioning is, and what freedom
is. We are going to see whether that conditioning, which is so
deeply rooted, in the deep recesses of the mind, and also active
superficially, can be understood, so that man is totally freed from
all sorrow and anxiety.
So first we must look at our consciousness, what it is made of,
what is its content. We must question whether that content of
consciousness, with which we identify ourselves as individuals, is
in fact individual consciousness. Or is this individual
consciousness, which each one of us maintains as separate from
others, individual at all? Or is it the consciousness of mankind?
Please, listen to this first. You may totally disagree. Do not reject,
but observe. It is not a question of being tolerant tolerance is the
enemy of love; just observe, without any sense of antagonism what
we are saying: the consciousness with which we have identified
ourselves as individuals, is it individual at all? Or is it the
consciousness of humanity? That is, consciousness, with all its
content of pain, remembrance, sorrow, nationalistic attitudes, faith,
worship, is constant right throughout the world. Everywhere you
go, man is suffering, striving, struggling, anxious, full of
uncertainty, agony, despair, depression, believing all kinds of
superstitious religious nonsense. This is common to all mankind,
whether in Asia or here or in the West.
So, your consciousness, with which you have identified yourself
as your `individual' consciousness, is an illusion. It is the
consciousness of the rest of mankind. You are the world and the
world is you. Please, consider this, see the seriousness of it, the
responsibility that is involved in it. You have struggled all your
life, as an individual, something separate from the rest of
humanity, and when you discover that your consciousness is the
consciousness of the rest of mankind, it means you are mankind,
you are not individual. You may have your own particular skill,
tendency, idiosyncrasy, but you are actually the rest of mankind,
because your consciousness is the consciousness of every other
human being. That consciousness is put together by thought. That
consciousness is the result of millennia upon millennia of thought.
Thought has always been most extraordinarily important in our
lives. Thought has created modern technology, thought has created
wars, thought has divided people into nationalities, thought has
brought about separate religions, thought has created the
marvellous architecture of ancient cathedrals, temples and
mosques. The rituals, the prayers, all the circus if I may use that
word that goes on in the name of religion, is put together by
thought.
Consciousness is the activity of thought and thought has
become so immensely important in our lives. We have to observe
what thinking is, that has brought about such extraordinary
confusion in the world. Thought plays a part in our relationships
with each other, intimate or not. Thought is the source of fear. We
have to observe what place thought has in pleasure, what place it
has in suffering and whether thought has any place at all in love. It
is important to observe the movement of thought per se.
Observing the movement of thought is a part of meditation.
Meditation is not just some absurd repetition of words, spending a
few minutes at it morning, afternoon an and evening. Meditation is
part of life. Meditation is to discover the relationship of thought
and silence; the relationship of thought and that which is timeless.
Meditation is part of our daily life, as death is part of our life, as
love is part of our life.
It is fairly simple, when you are asked a question, which is
familiar, to reply immediately. You are asked your name, your
reply is instantaneous; because you have repeated your name so
often it comes easily. But if you are asked a complicated question,
there is an interval between the question and the answer. During
that interval, thought is investigating and finally finding an answer.
But when you are asked a very deep question and you reply, `I do
not know', there is an end to thought. Very few people actually say,
`I do not know', they pretend to think they know. Probably many of
you believe in god. That is the last hope, the last pleasure, the
ultimate security. And when you actually ask yourself the question,
seriously, with great earnestness: do you really know god, do you
really believe? then if you are honest, you say `Really, I do not
know.` Then your mind is really observing.
The accumulation of experience stored up in the brain as
memory is knowledge and the reaction to that memory is thought.
Thought is a material process there is nothing sacred about
thought. The image we worship as sacred, is still part of thought.
Thought is always divisive, separative, fragmentary, and
knowledge is never complete, about anything. Thought, however
sublime or however trivial, is always fragmentary, is always
divisive, because it is derived from memory. All our actions are
based on thought, therefore all action is limited, fragmentary,
divisive, incomplete it can never be holistic. Thought, whether of
the greatest genius, of daily activity of thought, is always limited,
fragmentary, divisive. Any action born out of that thought must
bring about conflict. There are the nationalistic, tribal divisions, to
which the mind clings in its search for security. That very search
for security brings about wars. The search for security is also the
activity of thought; so there is no security in thought.
The essence of the content of our consciousness is thought.
Thought has brought about a structure in consciousness, of fear, of
belief. The idea of a saviour, faith, anxiety, pain all that is put
together by thought and is the content of consciousness. We are
asking whether that content of consciousness can be wiped away so
that there is a totally different dimension altogether. It is only in
that dimension that there can be creativeness; creativeness not
within the content of consciousness.
So, let us look at one of the contents of our consciousness,
which is relationship between human beings. Between a man and a
woman, why is there such conflict in that relationship, such misery,
and constant division? It is important to enquire into this, because
man exists in relationship; there is no saint, hermit or monk, who is
not related, though he may withdraw into a monastery or go to
some Himalayan cave he is still related. It is important to
understand why human beings never live in peace in relationship,
why there is this terrible struggle and pain, jealousy, anxiety, and
to see whether it is possible to be free of all that and therefore be in
real relationship. To find out what real relationship is demands a
great deal of enquiry, observation. Observation is not analysis. This
is again important to understand, because most of us are
accustomed to analysis. We are observing the actual relationship of
man to man and woman, between two human beings; asking why
there should be so much struggle, anxiety, pain. In the relationship
of two human beings, be they married or not, do they ever meet,
psychologically? They may meet physically, in bed, but inwardly,
psychologically, are they not like two parallel lines, each pursuing
his own life, his own ambition, his own fulfilment, his own
expression So, like two parallel lines, they never meet, and
therefore there is the battle, the struggle, the pain of having no
actual relationship. They say they are related, but that is not true,
that is not honest, because each one has an image about himself.
Added to that image each one has an image of the person he lives
with. Actually we have two images or multiple images. He has
created an image about her, and she has created an image about
him. These images are put together through the reactions which are
remembered, which become the image, the image you have about
her and she has about you. The relationship is between these two
images which are the symbols of the remembrances, the pain. So
actually there is no relationship.
So one asks: is it possible not to have any image about another
at all? So long as one has an image about her and she has about
oneself, there must be conflict, because the cultivation of images
destroys relationship. Through observation can one discover
whether it is possible not to have an image about oneself or about
another completely not to have images? As long as one has an
image about oneself, one is going to get hurt. It is one of the
miseries in life, from childhood through school, college, university
and right through life, one is constantly getting hurt, with all its
consequences and the gradual process of isolation so as not to get
hurt. And what is it that is hurt? It is the image that one has built
about oneself. If one were to be totally free of all images, then
there would be no hurt, no flattery.
Now most people find security in the image they have built for
themselves, which is the image that thought has created. So we are
asking, observing, whether this image built from childhood, put
together by thought, a structure of words, a structure of reactions, a
process of remembrances long, deep, abiding incidents, hurts,
ideas, pain can end completely for only then can you have any kind
of relationship with another. In relationship, when there is no
image, there is no conflict. This is not just a theory, an ideal; the
speaker is saying it is a fact. If one goes into it very deeply, one
finds that one can live in this monstrous world and not have a
single image about oneself; then one's relationships have a totally
different meaning there is no conflict whatsoever.
Now please, as you are listening to the speaker, are you aware
of your own image and the ending of that image? Or are you going
to ask: 'How am I to end that image?' When you ask 'how', see the
implication in that word. The `how' implies that somebody will tell
you what to do. Therefore that somebody, who is going to tell you
what to do, becomes the specialist, the guru, the leader. But you
have had leaders, specialists, psychologists, all your life; they have
not changed you. So do not ask `how' but find out for yourself
whether you can be free of that image, totally. You can be free of it
when you give complete attention to what another says. If your
wife or your friend, says something ugly and if at that moment you
pay complete attention, then in that attention there is no creation of
images. Then life has a totally different meaning.
We are observing our consciousness, with its content. The
content, like the hurt, like relationship, makes our consciousness.
Another content of our consciousness is fear; we live with fear, not
only outwardly but much more deeply, in the dark recesses of the
mind, there is deep fear, fear of the future, fear of the past, fear of
the actual present. We ought to talk over together whether it is
possible for human beings, living in this world as it is at the present
time threatened by wars, living our daily life to be totally,
completely, free of all psychological fear. Probably most of you
may not have asked such a question. Or you may have done so and
tried to find a way of escaping from fear, or suppressing it, denying
it, rationalizing it. But if you are really observing deeply the nature
of fear, then you have to look at what fear is, actually see what the
contributing causes of fear are. Most of us are frightened,
frightened of tomorrow, frightened of death, frightened of your
husband or your wife or your girlfriend; of so many things are we
frightened. Fear is like a vast tree with innumerable branches; it is
no good merely trimming the branches, you must go to the very
root of it and see whether it is possible to eradicate it so completely
that you are free of it. It is not a question of whether we will
always remain free of fear; when you have really eradicated the
roots, when there is no possibility of fear entering into your
psychological life.
One of the reasons for fear is comparison, comparing oneself
with another. Or comparing oneself with what one has been and
what one would like to be. The movement of comparison is
conformity, imitation, adjustment; it is one of the sources of fear.
Has one ever tried never to compare oneself with another, either
physically or psychologically? When one does not compare then
one is not becoming. The whole of cultural education is to become
something, to be something. If one is a poor man one wishes to
become a rich man if one is a rich man one is seeking more power.
Religiously or socially one is always to become something. In this
wanting, in this desire to become, there is comparison. To live
without comparison is the extraordinary thing that takes place
when one has no measure. As long as one measures
psychologically there must be fear, because one is always striving
and one may not achieve.
Another reason for fear is desire. We have to observe the nature
and structure of desire and why desire has become so
extraordinarily important in our lives. Where there is desire, there
must be conflict, competition, struggle. So it is important, if you
are at all serious and those who are serious, really live, for them
life has tremendous significance, responsibility to find out what
desire is. Religions throughout the world have said, `Suppress
desire'. Monks not the sloppy religious people, but those who have
committed themselves to a certain form of religious organization in
their particular faith have tried to transfer or sublimate desire in the
name of a symbol, a saviour. But desire is an extraordinarily strong
force in our lives. We either suppress, run away from or substitute
the activities of desire, we rationalize, seeing how it arises, what is
the source of it. So let us observe the movement of desire. We are
not saying it must be suppressed, run away from, or sublimate
whatever that word may mean.
Most of us are extraordinary human beings. We want
everything explained, we want it all very neatly set out in words or
in a diagram, and then we think we have understood it. We have
become slaves to explanations. We never try to find out for
ourselves what the movement of desire is, how it comes into being.
The speaker will go into it, but the explanation is not the actuality.
The word is not the thing. One must not be caught in words, in
explanations. The painting of a mountain on a canvas is not the
actual mountain. It may be beautifully painted, but it is not that
extraordinary deep beauty of a mountain, its majesty against the
blue sky. Similarly the explanation of desire is not the actual
movement of desire. The explanation has no value so long as we
do not actually see for ourselves.
Observation must be free, without a direction, without a motive,
in order to understand the movement of desire. Desire arises out of
sensation. Sensation is contact, the seeing. Then thought creates an
image from that sensation; that movement of thought is the
beginning of desire. That is, you see a fine car and thought creates
the image of you in that car and so on; at that moment is the
beginning of desire. If you had no sensation you would be
paralysed. There must be the activity of the senses. When the
sensation of seeing or touching arises, then thought makes the
image of you in that car. The moment thought creates the image
there is the birth of desire.
it requires a highly attentive mind to see the importance of total
sensation not one particular activity of the senses followed by the
activity of thought creating an image. Have you ever observed a
sunset with the movement of the sea with all your senses? When
you observe with all your senses, then there is no centre from
which you are observing. Whereas, if you cultivate only one or two
senses then there is fragmentation. Where there is fragmentation
there is the structure of the self, the 'me'. In observing desire as one
of the factors of fear, see how thought comes in and creates the
image. But if one is totally attentive then thought does not enter
into the movement of sensation. That requires great inward
attention with its discipline.
Another of the factors of fear is time psychological time, not
time as sunrise and sunset, yesterday and today and tomorrow, but
psychological time, as yesterday, today and tomorrow. Time is one
of the major factors of fear. It is not that time as movement must
stop but that the nature of psychological time be understood, not
intellectually or verbally but actually observed psychologically,
inwardly. We can be free of time or be slaves of time.
There is an element of violence in most of us that has never
been resolved, never been wiped away so that we can live totally
without violence. Not being able to be free of violence we have
created the idea of its opposite, non-violence. Non-violence is nonfact
violence is a fact. Non-violence does not exist except as an
idea. What exists, `what is', is violence. It is like those people in
India who say they worship the idea of non-violence, they preach
about it, talk about it, copy it they are dealing with a non-fact, nonreality,
with an illusion. What is a fact is violence, major or minor,
but violence. When you pursue non-violence, which is an illusion,
which is not an actuality, you are cultivating time. That is, `I am
violent, but I will be non-violent`. The `I will be' is time, which is
the future, a future that has no reality, it is invented by thought as
an opposite of violence. It is the postponement of violence that
creates time. If there is an understanding and so the ending of
violence, there is no psychological time. We can be masters of
psychological time; that time can be totally eliminated if you see
that the opposite is not real. The 'what is' has no time. To
understand `what is', requires no time, but only complete
observation. In the observation of violence, for example, there is
no movement of thought but only holding that enormous energy
which we call violence, and observing it. But the moment there is a
distortion, the motive of trying to become non-violent, you have
introduced time.
Comparison, with all its complexity, desire and time, are the
factors of fear deep-rooted fear. When there is observation, and
therefore no movement of thought merely observing the whole
movement of fear there is the total ending of fear; and the observer
is not different from the observed. This is an important factor to
understand. And as you observe, completely, there is the ending of
fear, the human mind then is no longer caught in the movement of
fear. If there is fear of any sort, the mind is confused, distorted and
therefore it has no clarity. And there must be clarity for that which
is eternal to be. To observe the movement of fear in oneself, to
watch the whole complexity, the weaving of fear, and to remain
with it so completely, without any movement of thought, is the
total ending of it.
(My humble salutations to the lotus feet of Sri Jiddu Krishnamurti and
gratitude to the great philosophers and followers of him.)
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