The Flame of Attention
by
Jiddu Krishnamurti
27 March 1982
THE FLAME OF ATTENTION CHAPTER 7 1ST
PUBLIC TALK AT OJAI 1ST MAY 1982
From the very beginning, understand that we are not instructing
anybody about anything; we are not bringing up some kind of idea,
belief or conclusion, to convince you of anything; this is not
propaganda. Rather, I think it would be good if we could, during
these talks, think over together, observe and listen together to the
whole movement of one life, whether it is in South Africa, South
America, North America, Europe or Asia. We are dealing with a
very complex problem that needs to be studied most carefully,
hesitantly, without any direction, without any motive, so as to
observe, if we can, the whole outward happening of our life. What
is happening outside of us is the measure by which we will be able
to understand ourselves inwardly. If we do not understand what is
actually going on in the external world, outside the psychological
field, we will have no measure by which to observe ourselves.
Let us together observe without any bias, as American,
Argentinian, British, French, Russian, or Asian; let us observe
without any motive which is rather difficult and see clearly, if we
can, what is going on. As one travels around the world, one is
aware that there is a great deal of dissension, discord,
disagreement, disorder; a great deal of confusion, uncertainty. One
sees the demonstrations against one particular form of war and the
extensive preparations for war; the spending of untold money on
armaments; one nation against another preparing for eventual war.
There are the national divisions. There is the national honour, for
which thousands are willing and proud to kill others. There are the
religious and sectarian divisions: the Catholic, the Protestant, the
Hindu, the Mohammedan, the Buddhist. There are the various
sects, and the gurus, with their particular following. There is the
spiritual authority in the Catholic and the Protestant world, there is
the authority of the book in the Islamic world. So everywhere there
is this constant division leading to disorder, conflict and
destruction. There is the attachment to a particular nationality, a
particular religion, hoping thereby to find some kind of outward or
inward security. These are the phenomena that are taking place in
the world, of which we are all part I am sure that we all observe the
same thing. There is isolation taking place, not only for each
human being, but the isolation of groups which are bound by a
belief, by a faith, by some ideological conclusion; it is the same in
totalitarian states and in the so-called democratic countries with
their ideals. Ideals, beliefs, dogmas and rituals are separating
mankind. This is actually what is going on in the external world
and it is the result of our own inner psychological living. We are
isolated human beings and the outward world is created by each
one of us.
We each have our own particular profession, our own particular
belief, our own conclusions and experiences, to which we cling and
thereby each one is isolating himself. This self-centred activity is
expressed outwardly as nationalism, religious intolerance, even if
that group consists of seven hundred million people, as in the
Catholic world and at the same time each one of us is isolating
himself. We are creating a world divided by nationalism, which is
a glorified form of tribalism; each tribe is willing to kill another
tribe for their belief, for their land, for their economic trade. We all
know this; at least, those who are aware, who listen to the radio,
see the television, the newspapers and so on.
There are those who say that this cannot be changed, that there
is no possibility of this human condition being transformed. They
say that the world has been going on like this for thousands and
thousands of years and is created by the human condition and that
condition can never possibly bring about a mutation in itself. They
assert that there can be modification, slight change, but that man
will ever be basically what he is, bringing about division in himself
and in the world. There are those all over the world who advocate
social reform of various kinds, but they have not brought about a
deep fundamental mutation in the human consciousness. This is the
state of the world.
And how do we look at it? What is our response to it, as human
beings? What is our actual relationship, not only with each other
but with this external world; what is our responsibility? Do we
leave it to the politicians? Do we seek new leaders, new saviours?
This is a very serious problem which we are talking over together.
Or do we go back to the old traditions; because human beings,
unable to solve this problem, return to the old habitual traditions of
the past. The more there is confusion in the world, the greater is the
desire and urge of some to return to past illusions, past traditions,
past leaders, past so-called saviours.
So if one is aware of all this, as one must be, what is one's
response, not partial, but total response, to the whole phenomenon
that is taking place in the world? Does one consider only one's own
personal life, how to live a quiet, serene, undisturbed life in some
corner; or is one concerned with the total human existence, with
total humanity? If one is only concerned with one's own particular
life, however troublesome it is, however limited it is, however
much it is sorrowful and painful, then one does not realize that the
part is of the whole. One has to look at life, not the American life
or the Asiatic life, but life as a whole; holistic observation; an
observation that is not a particular observation; it is not one's own
observation, but the observation that comprehends the totality, the
holistic view of life. Each one has been concerned with his own
particular problems - problems of money, no job, seeking one`s
own fulfilment, everlastingly seeking pleasure; being frightened,
isolated, lonely, depressed, suffering, and creating a saviour
outside who will transform or bring about a salvation for each one
of us. This has been the tradition in the Western world for two
thousand years; and in the Asiatic world the same thing has been
maintained in different words and symbols, different conclusions;
but it is the same individual's search for his own salvation, for his
own particular happiness, to resolve his own many complex
problems. There are the specialists of various kinds, psychological
specialists, to whom one goes to resolve one`s problems. They too
have not succeeded.
Technologically the scientists have helped to reduce disease, to
improve communication; but also they are increasing the
devastating power of the weapons of war; the power to murder vast
numbers of people with one blow. The scientists are not going to
save mankind; nor are the politicians, whether in the East or West
or in any part of the world. The politicians seek power, position,
and they play all kinds of tricks on human thought. It is exactly the
same thing in the so-called religious world; the authority of the
hierarchy; the authority of the Pope, the archbishop, the bishop and
the local priest, in the name of some image which thought has
created.
We, as human beings separated, isolated, have not been able to
solve our problems; although highly educated, cunning, selfcentred,
capable of extraordinary things outwardly, yet inwardly,
we are more or less what we have been for thousands of years. We
hate, we compete, we destroy each other; which is what is actually
going on at the present time. You have heard the experts talking
about some recent war; they are not talking about human beings
being killed, but about destroying airfields, blowing up this or that.
There is this total confusion in the world, of which one is quite sure
we are all aware; so what shall we do? As a friend some time ago
told the speaker: 'You cannot do anything; you are beating your
head against a wall. Things will go on like this indefinitely;
fighting, destroying each ocher, competing and being caught in
various forms of illusion. This will go on. Do not waste your life
and time.' Aware of the tragedy of the world, the terrifying events
that may happen should some crazy person press a button; the
computer taking over man's capacities, thinking much quicker and
more accurately what is going to happen to the human being? This
is the vast problem which we are facing.
One's education from childhood as one passes through school,
college and university, is to specialize in some way or another, to
accumulate a great deal of knowledge, then get a job and hold on to
it for the rest of one's life; going to the office, from morning till
evening and dying at the end of it all. This is not a pessimistic
attitude or observation; this is actually what is going on. When one
observes that fact, one is neither optimistic nor pessimistic, it is so.
And one asks, if one is at all serious and responsible: what is one to
do? Retire into a monastery? form some commune? Go off to Asia
and pursue Zen meditation or some other form of meditation? One
is asking this question seriously. When one is confronted with this
crisis it is a crisis in consciousness, it is not over there outside of
one. The crisis is in oneself. There is a saying: we have seen the
enemy and the enemy is ourselves.
The crisis is not a matter of economics, of war, the bomb, the
politicians, the scientists; the crisis is within us, the crisis is in our
consciousness. Until we understand very profoundly the nature of
that consciousness, and question, delve deeply into it and find out
for ourselves whether there can be a total mutation in that
consciousness, the world will go on creating more misery, more
confusion, more horror. Our responsibility is not in some kind of
altruistic action outside ourselves, political, social or economic; it
is to comprehend the nature of our being. to find out why we
human beings who live on this beautiful earth have become like
this.
Here we are trying, you and the speaker, together, not
separately, together, to observe the movement of consciousness
and its relationship to the world, and to see whether that
consciousness is individual, separate, or if it is the whole of
mankind. We are educated from childhood to be individuals, each
with a separate soul; or we have been trained, educated,
conditioned to think as individuals. We think that because we each
have a separate name, separate form, that is, dark, light, tall, short,
and each with a particular tendency, that we are separate
individuals with our own particular experiences and so on. We are
going to question that very idea, that we are individuals. It does not
mean that we are some kind of amorphous beings, but actually
question whether we are individuals, though the whole world
maintains, both religiously and in other ways, that we are separate
individuals. From that concept and perhaps from that illusion, we
are each one of us trying to fulfil, to become something. in that
effort to become something we are competing against another,
fighting another, so that if we maintain that way of life, we must
inevitably continue to cling to nationalities, tribalism, war. Why do
we hold on to nationalism with such passion behind it? which is
what is happening now. Why do we give such extraordinary
passionate importance to nationalism which is essentially
tribalism? Why? Is it because in holding on to the tribe, to the
group, there is a certain security, an inward sense of completeness,
fullness? If that is so, then the other tribe also feels the same; and
hence division and hence war, conflict. If one actually sees the
truth of this, not as something theoretical and if one wants to live
on this earth which is our earth, not yours or mine then there is no
nationalism at all. There is only human existence; one life; not your
life or my life; it is living the whole of life. This tradition of
individuality has been perpetuated by the religions both of the East
and the West; salvation for each individual, and so on.
It is very good to have a mind that questions, that does not
accept; a mind that says: `We cannot possibly live any more like
this, in this brutal, violent manner'. Doubting, questioning, not just
accepting the way of life we have lived for perhaps fifty or sixty
years, or the way man has lived for thousands of years. So, we are
questioning the reality of individuality. Is your consciousness
really yours? to be conscious means to be aware, to know, to
perceive, to observe the content of your consciousness includes
your beliefs, your pleasures, experiences, your particular
knowledge which you have gathered either of some particular
external subject or the knowledge you have gathered about
yourself; it includes your fears and attachments; the pain and the
agony of loneliness, the sorrow, the search for something more
than mere physical existence; all that is the content of your
consciousness. The content makes the consciousness; without the
content there is not consciousness as we know it. Here there is no
room for argument. It is so. Now, your consciousness which is very
complex, contradictory, with such extraordinary vitality is it yours?
Is thought yours? Or is there only thinking, which is neither
Eastern nor Western thinking, which is common to all mankind,
whether rich or poor, whether the technician with his extraordinary
capacity or the monk who withdraws from the world and is
consecrating himself to an idea?
Wherever one goes, one sees suffering, pain, anxiety,
loneliness, insanity, fear, the seeking after security, being caught in
knowledge and the urge of desire; it is all of the ground on which
every human being stands. One's consciousness is the
consciousness of the rest of humanity. It is logical; you may
disagree; you may say, my consciousness is separate and must be
separate; but is it so? If one understands the nature of this then one
sees that one is the rest of mankind. One may have a different
name, one may live in a particular part of the world and be
educated in a particular way, one may be affluent or very poor, but
when one goes behind the mask, deeply, one is like the rest of
mankind aching, lonely, suffering, despairing, neurotic; believing
in some illusion, and so on. Whether in the East or the West, this is
so. One may not like it; one may like to think that one is totally
independent, a free individual, but when one observes very deeply,
one is the rest of humanity.
One may accept this as an idea, an abstraction, as a marvellous
concept; but the idea is not the actuality. An abstraction is not what
is actually taking place. But one makes an abstraction of that which
is, into an idea, and then pursues the idea, which is really nonfactual.
So; if the content of my consciousness and yours is in itself
contradictory, confused, struggling against another, fact against
non-fact, wanting to be happy, being unhappy, wanting to live
without violence and yet being violent then our consciousness in
itself is disorder. There is the root of dissension. Until we
understand that and go into it very deeply and discover total order,
we shall always have disorder in the world. So a serious person is
not easily dissuaded from the pursuit of understanding, the pursuit
of delving deeply into himself, into his consciousness, not easily
persuaded by amusement and entertainment which is perhaps
sometimes necessary pursuing consistently every day into the
nature of man, that is, into himself, observing what is actually
going on within himself. From that observation, action takes place.
It is not: what shall I do as a separate human being but an action
which comes out of total holistic observation of life. Holistic
observation is a healthy, sane, rational, logical, perception that is
whole, which is holy. Is it possible for a human being, like any one
of us who are laymen, not specialists, laymen, is it possible for him
to look at the contradictory, confusing consciousness as a whole; or
must he look at each part of it separately? One wants to understand
oneself, one's consciousness. One knows from the very beginning
that it is very contradictory; wanting one thing, and not wanting the
other thing; saying one thing and doing another. And one knows
that beliefs separate man. One believes in Jesus, or Krishna or
something, or one believes in one's own experience which one
holds on to, including the knowledge which one has accumulated
through the forty or sixty years of one's life, which has become
extraordinarily important. One clings to that. One recognizes that
belief destroys and divides people and yet one cannot give it up
because belief has strange vitality. It gives one a certain sense of
security. One believes in god, there is an extraordinary strength in
that. But god is invented by man. God is the projection of our own
thought, the opposite to one's own demands, one's own
hopelessness and despair.
Why does one have beliefs at all? A mind that is crippled by
belief is an unhealthy mind. There must be freedom from that. So,
is it possible for one to delve deeply into one's consciousness not
persuaded, not guided by psychologists, psychiatrists and so on to
delve deeply into oneself and find out; so that one does not depend
on anybody including the speaker? In asking that question, how
shall one know the intricacies, the contradictions, the whole
movement of consciousness? Shall one know it bit by bit? Take for
instance the hurt that each human being suffers from childhood.
One is hurt by one's parents, psychologically. Then hurt in school,
in university through comparison, through competition, through
saying one must be first-class at this subject, and so on.
Throughout life there is this constant process of being hurt. One
knows this and that all human beings are hurt, deeply, of which
they may not be conscious and that from this all the forms of
neurotic action arise. That is all part of one's consciousness; part
hidden and part open awareness that one is hurt. Now, is it possible
not to be hurt at all? Because the consequences of being hurt are
the building of a wall around oneself; withdrawing in one's
relationship with others in order not to be hurt more. In that there is
fear and a gradual isolation. Now we are asking: is it possible not
only to be free of past hurts but also never to be hurt again, not
through callousness, through indifference, through total disregard
of all relationship? One must inquire into why one is hurt and what
is being hurt. This hurt is part of one's consciousness; from it
various neurotic contradictory actions take place. One is examining
hurt, as one examined belief. It is not something outside of us, it is
part of us. Now what is it that is hurt and is it possible never to be
hurt? Is it possible for one to be a human being who is free, totally,
never hurt by anything, psychologically, inwardly?
What is it that is hurt? One says, that it is I who am hurt. What
is that 'I'? From childhood one has built up an image of oneself.
One has many, many images; not only the images that people give
one, but also the images that one has built oneself; as an American,
that is an image, or as a Hindu or as a specialist. So, the I is the
image that one has built about oneself, as a great or a very good
man and it is that image that gets hurt. One may have an image of
oneself as a great speaker, writer, spiritual being, leader. These
images are the core of oneself; when one says one is hurt, one
means the images are hurt. If one has an image about oneself and
another comes along and says: don't be an idiot, one gets hurt. The
image which has been built about oneself as not being an idiot, is
`me' and that gets hurt. One carries that image and that hurt, for the
rest of one's life always being careful not to be hurt, warding off
any statement of one's idiocy.
The consequences of being hurt are very complex. From that
hurt one may want to fulfil oneself by becoming this or that so as
to escape from this terrible hurt; so one has to understand it. Now
is it possible to have no image about oneself at all? Why does one
have images about oneself? Another may look very nice, bright,
intelligent, clear-faced, and one wants to be like him; and if one is
not, one gets hurt. Comparison may be one of the factors of being
hurt, psychologically; then, why does one compare?
Can one live a life in the modern world without a single image?
The speaker may say it is possible that it can be done. But it
requires a great deal of energy if one is to find out whether it is
possible never to be hurt and further whether it is possible to live a
life without a single belief; for it is belief which is dividing human
beings so that they are destroying each other. So, can one live
without a single belief and never have an image about oneself?
That is real freedom.
It is possible, when one is called an idiot and has an image
about oneself, to give total attention to that statement as it is said,
for when one has an image about oneself and one is called an idiot,
one reacts instantly. As the reaction is immediate, give attention to
that immediacy. That is, listen very clearly to the suggestion that
one is an idiot, listen to it attentively, when one listens with
complete attention, there is no reaction. It is the lack of listening
acutely that brings up the image and hence the reaction. Suppose I
have an image about myself, because I have travelled all over the
world, etcetera. You come along and say, look, old boy, you're not
as good as the other guru, or the other leader, or some other
teacher, some other idiot; you are yourself an idiot. I listen to that
completely, give complete attention to what is being said. When
there is total attention, there is no forming of a centre. It is only
inattention that creates the centre. A mind which has been slack, a
brain which has been confused, disturbed, neurotic, which has
never actually faced anything, which has never demanded of itself
its highest capacity, can it give such total attention? When there is
total attention to the statement that one is an idiot it has totally lost
all significance. Because when there is attention there is not a
centre which is reacting.
1st May 1982
THE FLAME OF ATTENTION CHAPTER 8 3RD
PUBLIC TALK AT SAANEN 15TH JULY 1982
Apparently we are always concerned with effects; psychologically
we are always trying to change or modify these effects, or results.
We never enquire very deeply into the cause of these effects. All
our ways of thinking and acting have a cause, a ground, a reason, a
motive. If the cause were to end, then what is beyond?
One hopes you will not mind being reminded again that the
speaker is completely anonymous. The speaker is not important.
What is important is to find out for yourselves if what is being said
is true or false, and that depends on intelligence. Intelligence is the
uncovering of the false and totally rejecting it. Please bear in mind
that together, in co-operation, we are investigating, examining,
exploring into these problems. The speaker is not exploring, but
you are exploring with him. There is no question of following him.
There is no authority invested in him. This must be said over and
over again as most of us have a tendency to follow, to accept,
especially from those whom you think somewhat different or
spiritually advanced all that nonsense. So please, if one may repeat
over and over again: our minds and our brains are conditioned to
follow as we follow a professor in a university; he informs and we
accept because he certainly knows more of his subject than perhaps
we do but here it is not a matter of that kind. The speaker is not
informing you or urging you to accept those things that are said;
but rather we should together, in co-operation, investigate into
these human problems, which are very complex, need a great deal
of observation, a great deal of energy and enquiry. But if you
merely follow you are only following the image that you have
created about him or about the symbolic meaning of the words. So
please bear in mind all these facts. We are going to enquire
together into what intelligence is. Is thought, our thinking, the way
we act, the whole social, moral, or immoral, world in which we
live, the activity of intelligence? One of the factors of intelligence
is to uncover and explore; explore into the nature of the false,
because in the understanding of the false, in the uncovering of that
which is illusion, there is the truth, which is intelligence.
Has intelligence a cause? Thought has a cause. One thinks
because one has past experiences, past accumulated information
and knowledge. That knowledge is never complete, it must go hand
in hand with ignorance, and from this ground of knowledge with its
ignorance thought is born. Thought must be partial, limited,
fragmented, because it is the outcome of knowledge, and
knowledge can never be complete at any time. Thought must
always be incomplete, insufficient, limited. And we use that
thought, not recognizing the limitation of it; we live endlessly
creating thoughts, and worshipping the things that thought has
created. Thought has created wars and the instruments of war, and
the terror of war. Thought has created the whole technological
world. So, is thought, the activity of thought, which is to compare,
to identify, to fulfil, to seek satisfaction, to seek security which are
the result of thinking intelligent? The movement of thought is from
the past to the present to the future which is the movement of time
and thought has its cunningness, with its capacity to adjust itself, as
no animal does except the human being.
So thought has causation, obviously. One wants to build a
house; one wants to drive a car; one wants to be powerful, wellknown;
one is dull, but one will be clever, one will achieve, one
will fulfil; all that is the movement of the centre from which
thought arises. It is so obvious. Through the obvious we are going
to penetrate to that which may be difficult. But first we must be
very clear about the obvious. There is a cause and an effect, an
effect that may be immediate or postponed. The movement from
the cause to the effect is time. One has done something in the past
which was not correct; the effect of that may be that one pays for it
immediately, or perhaps in five years' time. There is cause
followed by an effect; the interval, whether it is a second or years,
is the movement of time. But, is intelligence the movement of
time? Think it over, examine it, because this is not a verbal
clarification, it is not a verbal explanation; but perceive the reality
of it, the truth of it.
We are going into the various aspects of our daily living not
some Utopian concept, or some ideological conclusion according
to which we shall act we are investigating our lives, our lives
which are the lives of all humanity; it is not my life or your life;
life is a tremendous movement; and in that movement we have
separated off parts which we call individual selves.
We are saying that where there is a cause, the effect can be
ended with the ending of the cause. If one has tuberculosis it is the
cause of one's coughing and loss of blood; that cause can be cured
and the effect will disappear. All one's life is the movement of
cause and effect: you flatter me, I am delighted and I flatter you.
You say something unpleasant, I hate you. In all this movement
there is cause and effect. Of course. We are asking: is there a life, a
way of living, without causation? But first we must understand the
implications of ending. One ends anger or greed in order to achieve
something else; that ending leads to further cause. What is it to
end? Is ending a continuation? One ends something and begins
something else which is another form of the same thing. To go into
this very deeply one has to understand the conflict of the opposites,
the conflict of duality. One is greedy and for various social or
economic reasons one must end it. In the ending of it one wants
something else, which then is a cause. The something else is the
result of the greed. In ending the greed one has merely replaced it
by something else. One is violent by nature; violence has been
inherited from the animal and so on. One wants to end violence
because one feels it is too stupid. In trying to end violence one is
trying to find a field which is non-violent, which has no shadow of
violence in it. But one has not really ended violence, one has only
translated that feeling into another feeling, but the principle is the
same.
If we go into this matter very carefully, deeply, it will affect our
daily life; it may be the ending of conflict. Our life is in conflict,
our consciousness is in conflict, it is confused, contradictory. Our
consciousness is the result of thought. Thought is subject to
causation, our consciousness is subject to causation. One observes
that all one's complex life with its contradictions, its imitation and
conformity, its various conclusions with their opposites, is all a
movement of causation. Can one end that causation by will, by a
desire to have an orderly life? If one does, then that life is born out
of causation because one is disorderly. Discovering the
disorderliness of one's life and wishing to have an orderly life, is in
the chain of causation, one sees, therefore, that it will not be
orderly.
What is order? There is obviously the order of law which is
based upon various experiences, judgements, necessities,
conveniences, in order to restrain the ill-doer. That which we call
social order, ethical order, political order, has essentially a basis of
cause. Now we are asking, inwardly, psychologically, has order a
cause? Do we recognize, see, that our lives are disorderly,
contradictory, conforming, following, accepting, denying what we
may want and accepting something else? The conflict between the
various opposites is disorder. Because we accept one form of
thought as order, we think its opposite is disorder. The opposite
may create disorder, so we live always within the field of these
opposites. So, will disorder end completely in our lives if we want
order? One wants to live peacefully, to have a pleasant life with
companionship and so on; that want is born out of disorder. The
cause of the opposite is its own opposite. One hates, one must not
hate; therefore one is trying not to hate, not to hate is the outcome
of one's hate. If there is no hate it has no opposite.
Thought has created disorder. Let us see that fact. Thought has
created disorder in the world through nationalism, through faiths,
one is a Jew another is an Arab one believes and another does not
believe. Those are all the activities of thought, which in itself is
divisive; it cannot bring unity because in itself it is fragmented.
That which is fragmented cannot see the whole. One discovers that
one's consciousness is entirely in disorder and one wants order,
hoping thereby one will end conflict. There is a motive; that motive
is the cause of my desire to have an orderly life. The desire for
order is born there out of disorder. That desired order perpetuates
disorder which is happening in political, religious and other fields.
Now one sees the cause of disorder; one does not move away
from disorder. One sees the cause of it, that one is contradictory,
that one is angry; one sees the confusion. One sees the cause of it.
One is not moving away from the cause or the effect. One is the
cause and one is the effect. One sees that one is the cause and that
things that happen are oneself. Any movement away from that is to
perpetuate disorder. So, is there an ending without a future? An
ending of `what is` that has no future? Any future projected by my
demand for order is still the continuation of disorder. Is there an
observation of my disorder and an ending of it without any cause?
One is violent. There is violence in all human beings. The cause
of that violence is essentially a self-centred movement. Another is
also violent because he is self-centred. Therefore there is a battle
between us. Thought is not pursuing non-violence, which is a form
of violence. If one sees that very clearly then one is only concerned
with violence. The cause of that violence may be so many
contradictory demands, so many pressures and so on. So there are
many causes and one cause of violence is the self. The self has
many aspects, it hides behind many ideas; one is an idealist
because that appeals to one and one wants to work for that ideal,
but in the working for that ideal one is becoming more and more
important and one covers that up by the ideal; the very escape from
oneself is part of oneself. This whole movement is the cause of
violence. An idealist wants to kill others because by killing them
there may be a better world-you know all that goes on.
Our life is conditioned by many causes. Is there a way of living,
psychologically, without a single cause? Please enquire into this. It
is a marvellous enquiry; even to put that question demands some
deep searching. One wants security, therefore one follows a guru.
One may put on his robes or copy what he says, but deeply one
wants to be safe. One clings to some idea, some image. But the
image, the idea, the conclusion, the guru, can never bring about
security. So one has to enquire into security. Is there such a thing
as security, inwardly? Because one is uncertain, confused and
another says he is not confused, one holds on to him. One's demand
is to find some kind of peace, hope, some kind of quietness in one's
life. He is not important but one's desire is important. One will do
whatever he wants and follow him. One is silly enough to do all
that but when one enquires into the cause of it one discovers,
deeply, that one wants protection, the feeling of being safe. Now,
can there ever be security, psychologically? The very question
implies the demand for intelligence. The very putting of that
question is an outcome of intelligence. But if one says there is
always security in one's symbol, in one's saviour, in this, in that,
then one will not move away from it. But if one begins to enquire,
to ask: is there security..? So, if there is a cause for security, it is
not secure, because the desire for security is the opposite of
security.
Has love a cause? We said intelligence has no cause, it is
intelligence, it is not your intelligence, or my intelligence. It is
light. Where there's light there is not my light or your light. The
sun is not your sun or my sun; it is the clarity of light. Has love a
cause? If it has not, then love and intelligence go together. When
one says to one's wife or one's girl friend, `I love you', what does it
mean? One loves god. One does not know anything about that
being and one loves him; because there is fear, there is a demand
for security, and the vast weight of tradition and the 'sacred' books
encourage one to love that about which one knows nothing. So one
says `I believe in god'. But if there is the discovery that intelligence
is total security, and that love is something beyond all causation,
which is order, then the universe is open because the universe is
order.
Let us go into the question of what intelligent relationship is;
not the relationship of thought with its image. Our brains are
mechanical - mechanical in the sense that they are repetitive, never
free, struggling within the same field, thinking they are free by
moving from one corner to the other in the same field, which is
choice, and thinking that choice is freedom, which is merely the
same thing. One's brain, which has evolved through ages of time,
through tradition, through education, through conformity, through
adjustment, has become mechanical. There may be parts of one's
brain which are free but one does not know, so do not assert that.
Do not say: `Yes, there is part of me that is free; that is
meaningless. The fact remains that the brain has become
mechanical, traditional, repetitive, and that it has its own
cunningness, its own capacity to adjustment, to discern. But it is
always within a limited area and is fragmented. Thought has its
home in the physical cells of the brain.
The brain has become mechanical, as is exemplified when I say,
`I am a Christian or I am not a Christian; I am a Hindu; I believe; I
have faith; I do not have faith, it is all a mechanical repetitive
process, reaction to another reaction, and so on. The human brain
being conditioned, has its own artificial, mechanical intelligence
like a computer. We will keep that expression mechanical
intelligence. (Billions and billions of dollars are being spent to find
out if a computer can operate exactly like the brain.) Thought,
which is born of memory, know- ledge, stored in the brain, is
mechanical; it may have the capacity to invent but it is still
mechanical invention is totally different from creation. Thought is
trying to discover a different way of life, or a different social order.
But any discovery of a social order by thought is still within the
field of confusion. We are asking: is there an intelligence which
has no cause and which can act in our relationships not the
mechanical state of relationship which exists now?
Our relationships are mechanical. One has certain biological
urges and one fulfils them. One demands certain comforts, certain
companionship because one is lonely or depressed and by holding
on to another perhaps that depression will disappear. But in one's
relationships with another, intimate or otherwise, there is always a
cause, a motive, a ground from which one establishes a
relationship. That is mechanical. It has been happening for
millennia; there appears always to have been a conflict between
woman and man, a constant battle, each pursuing his or her own
line, never meeting, like two railway lines. This relationship is
always limited because it is from the activity of thought which
itself is limited. Wherever there is limitation there must be conflict.
In any form of association one belongs to this group and another
belongs to another group there is solitude, isolation; where there is
isolation there must be conflict. This is a law, not invented by the
speaker, it is obviously so. Thought is ever in limitation and
therefore isolating itself. Therefore, in relationship, where there is
the activity of thought there must be conflict. See the reality of it.
See the actuality of this fact, not as an idea, but as something that is
happening in one's active daily life divorces, quarrels, hating each
other, jealousy; you know the misery of it all. The wife wants to
hurt you, is jealous of you, and you are jealous; which are all
mechanical reactions, the repetitive activity of thought in
relationship, bringing conflict. That is a fact. Now how do you deal
with that fact? Here is a fact: your wife and you quarrel. She hates
you, and also there is your mechanical response, you hate. You
discover that it is the remembrance of things that have happened
stored in the brain, continuing day after day. Your whole thinking
is a process of isolation and she also is in isolation. Neither of you
ever discovers the truth of the isolation. Now how do you look at
that fact? What are you to do with that fact? What is your
response? Do you face this fact with a motive, a cause? Be careful,
do not say, `My wife hates me', and smother it over although you
also hate her, dislike her, don't want to be with her, because you are
both isolated. You are ambitious for one thing, she is ambitious for
something else. So your relationship operates in isolation. Do you
approach the fact with reason, with a ground, which are all
motives? Or do you approach it without a motive, without cause?
When you approach it without a cause what then happens? Watch
it. Please do not jump to some conclusion, watch it in yourself.
Previously you have approached this problem mechanically with a
motive, with some reason, a ground from which you act. Now you
see the foolishness of such an action because it is the result of
thought. So, is there an approach to the fact without a single
motive? That is, you have no motive, yet she may have a motive.
Then if you have no motive how are you looking at the fact? The
fact is not different from you, you are the fact. You are ambition,
you are hate, you depend on somebody, you are that. There is an
observation of the fact, which is yourself, without any kind of
reason, motive. Is that possible? If you do not do that you live
perpetually in conflict. And you may say that that is the way of
life. If you accept that as the way of life, that is your business, your
pleasure. Your brain, tradition and habit, tell you that it is
inevitable. But when you see the absurdity of such acceptance then
you are bound to see that all this travail is you yourself; you are the
enemy, not her.
You have met the enemy and discovered it is yourself. So, can
you observe this whole movement of `me', the self, and the
traditional acceptance that you are separate which becomes foolish
when you examine the whole field of the consciousness of
humanity? You have come to a point in understanding what
intelligence is. We said that intelligence is without a cause, as love
is without a cause. If love has a cause, it is not love, obviously. If
you are `intelligent' so that the government employs you, or
`intelligent' because you are following me, that is not intelligence,
that is capacity: Intelligence has no cause. Therefore, see if you are
looking at yourself with a cause. Are you looking at this fact that
you are thinking, working, feeling, in isolation and that isolation
must inevitably breed everlasting conflict? That isolation is
yourself; you are the enemy. When you look at yourself without a
motive, is there `self'? self as the cause and the effect; self as the
result of time, which is the movement from cause to effect? When
you look at yourself, look at this fact, without a cause, there is the
ending of something and the beginning of something totally new.
15 July 1982
THE FLAME OF ATTENTION CHAPTER 9 3RD
PUBLIC TALK AT BROCKWOOD PARK 4TH
SEPTEMBER 1982
Consider what is happening on this earth where man has brought
about such chaos, where wars and other terrible things are going
on. This is neither a pessimistic nor an optimistic point of view; it
is just looking at the facts as they are. Apparently it is not possible
to have peace on this earth or to live with friendship and affection
for each other in our lives. To live at peace with oneself and with
the world, one needs to have great intelligence. It is not just to have
the concept of peace and strive to live a peaceful life which can
merely become a rather vegetating life but to enquire whether it is
possible to live in this world, where there is such disorder, such
unrighteousness if we can use that old fashioned word with a
certain quality of mind and heart that are at peace within
themselves. Not a life everlastingly striving, in conflict, in
competition, in imitation and conformity; not a satisfied or a
fulfilled life; not a life that has achieved some result, some fame,
some notoriety, or some wealth; but a life that has a quality of
peace. We ought to go into it together to find out if it is at all
possible to have peace not just peace of mind which is merely a
small part to have this peculiar quality of undisturbed though
tremendously alive tranquillity, with a sense of dignity and without
any sense of vulgarity. Can one live such a life? Has one ever
asked such a question, surrounded as one is by total disorder? One
must be very clear about that fact; that there is total disorder
outwardly every morning one reads in a newspaper of something
terrible, of aircraft that can travel at astonishing speed from one
corner of the earth to the other without having to refuel, carrying a
great weight of bombs and gases that can destroy man in a few
seconds. If one observes all this and realizes what man has come
to, one may feel that in asking this question one has asked the
impossible and say that it is not at all possible to live in this world
inwardly undisturbed, having no problems, living a life utterly
unself-centred. Talking about this, using words, has very little
meaning unless one finds, or comes upon, through communicating
with each other, a state that is utterly still. That requires
intelligence, not phantasy, not some peculiar day-dreaming called
meditation, not some form of self-hypnosis, but intelligence.
What is intelligence? It is to perceive that which is illusory, that
which is false, not actual, and to discard it; not merely to assert that
it is false and continue in the same way, but to discard it
completely. That is part of intelligence. To see, for example, that
nationalism, with all its patriotism, isolation, narrowness, is
destructive, that it is a poison in the world. And seeing the truth of
it is to discard that which is false. That is intelligence. But to keep
on with it, acknowledging it as stupid, is essentially part of
stupidity and disorder it creates more disorder. Intelligence is not
the clever pursuit of argument, of opposing contradictory opinions
as though through opinions, truth can be found, which is
impossible but it is to realize that the activity of thought, with all
its capacities, with all its subtleties, with its extraordinary ceaseless
activity, is not intelligence. Intelligence is beyond thought.
To live peacefully one has to examine disorder. Why do we
human beings, who are supposed to be extraordinarily evolved,
extraordinarily capable in certain directions, why do we live with
and tolerate such disorder in our daily lives? If one can discover
the root of this disorder, its cause and observe it carefully, then in
the very observation of that which is the cause is the awakening of
intelligence. Observation of disorder, not the striving to bring
about order. A confused disorderly mind, a state of mind which is
contradictory, yet striving to bring about order, will still be
disorder. One is confused, uncertain, going from one thing to
another, burdened with many problems: from such a way of living,
one wants order. Then what appears to be order is born out of one's
confusion and therefore it is still confused.
When this is clear, what then is the cause of disorder? It has
many causes: the desire to fulfil, the anxiety of not fulfilling, the
contradictory life one lives, saying one thing, doing something
totally different, trying to suppress one thing and to achieve
something else. These are all contradictions in oneself. One can
find many causes, the pursuit of causes is endless. Whereas one
could ask oneself and find out if there is one root cause. Obviously
there must be. The root cause is the-'self' the 'me', the `ego', the
personality put together by thought, by memory, by various
experiences, by certain words, certain qualities which produce the
feeling of separateness and isolation; that is the root cause of
disorder. However much the self tries not to be the self it is still the
effort of the self. The self may identify with the nation, but that
very identification with the greater is still glorified self. Each one
of us does that in different ways. The self is put together by
thought; that is the root cause of this total disorder in which we
live. When one observes what causes disorder and one has become
so accustomed to disorder and has always lived in such disorder,
that one accepts it as natural one begins to question it and go into it
and see what is the root of it. One observes it, not doing anything
about it, then that very observation begins to dissolve the centre
which is the cause of disorder.
Intelligence is the perception of that which is true; it puts totally
aside that which is false; it sees the truth in the false and realizes
that none of the activities of thought is intelligence. It sees that
thought itself is the outcome of knowledge which is the result of
experience as memory and that the response of memory is thought.
Knowledge is always limited that is obvious-there is no perfect
knowledge. Hence thought, with all its activity and with all its
knowledge, is not intelligence. So one asks: what place has thought
in life considering that all our activity is based on thought?
Whatever we do is based on thought. All relationships are based on
thought. All inventions, all technological achievement, all
commerce, all the arts, are the activity of thought. The gods we
have created, the rituals, are the product of thought. So what place
have knowledge and thought in relation to the degeneration of
man?
Man has accumulated immense knowledge, in the world of
science, psychology, biology, mathematics and so on. And we
think that through knowledge we will ascend, we will liberate
ourselves, we will transform ourselves. Now, we are questioning
the place of knowledge in life. Has knowledge transformed us,
made us good? again, an old fashioned word. Has it given us
integrity? Is it part of justice? Has it given us freedom? It has given
us freedom in the sense that we can travel, communicate from one
country to another. We have better systems of learning, as well as
the computer and the atom bomb. These are all the result of vast
accumulated knowledge. Again we ask: has this knowledge given
us freedom, a life that is just, a life that is essentially good?
Freedom, justice and goodness; those three qualities formed one
of the problems of ancient civilizations, who struggled to find a
way to live a life that was just. The word `just' means to have
righteousness, to act benevolently, with generosity, not to deal with
hatred or antagonism. To lead a just, a right kind of life, means to
lead a life not according to a pattern, not according to some
fanciful ideals, projected by thought; it means to lead a life that has
great affection, that is true, accurate. And in this world there is no
justice; one is clever, another is not; one has power, another has
not; one can travel all over the world and meet prominent people;
another lives in a little town, in a small room, working day after
day. Where is there justice there? Is justice to be found in external
activities? One may become the prime minister, the president, the
head of a big intercontinental corporation, another may be for ever
a clerk, way down below. So, do we seek justice externally, trying
to bring about an egalitarian state all over the world that is being
tried, thinking that it will bring about justice or, is justice to be
found away from all that?
Justice implies a certain integrity, to be whole, integral, not
broken up, not fragmented. That can only take place when there is
no comparison. But we are always comparing better cars, better
houses, better position, greater power and so on. Comparison is
measurement. Where there is measurement there cannot be justice.
And where there is imitation and conformity, there cannot be
justice. Following somebody, listening to these words, we do not
see the beauty, the quality, the depth of these things; we may
superficially agree but we walk away from them. But the words,
the comprehension of the depth of them must leave a mark, a seed;
for justice must be there, in us.
Talking to a fairly well known psychologist the speaker used
the word goodness. He was horrified! He said: `That is an oldfashioned
word, we do not use it now.' But one likes that good
word. So what is goodness? It is not the opposite of that which is
bad. If it is the opposite of that which is bad then goodness has its
roots in that opposite. So goodness is not related to the other, that
which we consider bad. It is totally divorced from the other. One
must look at it as it is, not as a reaction to the opposite. Goodness
means a way of life which is righteous, not in terms of religion, or
morality or an ethical concept of righteousness, but in terms of one
who sees that which is true and that which is false, and sustains
that quality of sensitivity that sees it immediately and acts.
The word `freedom' has very complex implications. When there
is freedom there is justice, there is goodness. Freedom is
considered to be the capacity to choose. One thinks one is free
because one can choose to go abroad, one can choose one's work,
choose what one wants to do. But where there is choice, is there
freedom? Who chooses? And why does one have to choose? When
there is freedom, psychologically, when one is very clear in one's
capacity to think subjectively, impersonally, very precisely, not
sentimentally, there is no need for choice. When there is no
confusion then there is no choice. So what is freedom? Freedom is
not the opposite of conditioning; if it were, it would merely be a
kind of escape. Freedom is not an escape from anything. A brain
that has been conditioned by knowledge is always limited, is
always living within the field of ignorance, is always living with
the machinery of thought so that there can be no freedom. We all
live with various kinds of fear - fear of tomorrow, fear of things
that have happened in many yesterdays. If we seek freedom from
that fear, then freedom has a cause and is not freedom. If we think
in terms of causation and freedom, then that freedom is not
freedom at all. Freedom implies not just a certain aspect of one's
life but freedom right through; and that freedom has no cause.
Now, with all this having been stated let us look at the cause of
sorrow and enquire whether that cause can ever end. All have
suffered in one way or another, through deaths, through lack of
love, or, having loved another, receiving no return. Sorrow has
many, many faces. Man from the ancient of times, has always tried
to escape from sorrow, and still, after millennia, we live with
sorrow. Mankind has shed untold tears. There have been wars
which have brought such agonies to human beings, such great
anxiety and apparently they have not been able to be free from that
sorrow. This is not a rhetorical question, but, is it possible for a
human brain, human mind, human being, to be totally free from the
anxiety of sorrow and all the human travail with regard to it?
Let us together walk along the same path to find out if we can,
in our daily life, put an end to this terrible burden which man has
carried from time immemorial. Is it possible to come upon the
ending of sorrow? How do you approach such a question? What is
your reaction to that question? What is the state, the quality of your
mind, when a question of that kind is put to you? My son is dead,
my husband is gone, I have friends who have betrayed me; I have
followed in great faith, an ideal and it has been fruitless after
twenty years. Sorrow has such great beauty and such pain in it.
How does one react to that question? Does one say,`I don't want
even to look at it. I have suffered, it is the lot of man, I rationalize
it and accept it and go on.' That is one way of dealing with it. But
one has not solved the problem. Or one transmits that sorrow to a
symbol and worships that symbol, as is done in Christianity; or as
the ancient Hindus have done, it is one's lot, one's karma. Or in the
modern world one says one's parents are responsible for it, or
society, or it is the kind of genetically inherited genes that have
caused one's suffering, and so on. There have been a thousand
explanations. But explanations have not resolved the ache and the
pain of sorrow. So, how do you approach this question? Do you
want to look at it face to face, or casually, or with trepidation?
How do you approach, come near, very near, such a problem? Is
sorrow different from the observer who says,-I am in sorrow:
When he says, `I am in sorrow', he has separated himself from that
feeling, so he has not approached it at all. He has not touched it.
Can you cease to avoid it, not transmute it, not escape from it, but
come with greatest closeness to it? Which means, you are sorrow.
Is that so?
You may have invented an ideal of freedom from sorrow. That
invention has postponed, separated you further from sorrow; but
the fact is, you are sorrow. Do you realize what that means? It is
not that somebody has caused you sorrow, not that your son is dead
therefore you shed tears. You may shed tears for your son, for your
wife, but that is an outward expression of pain or sorrow. That
sorrow is the result of your dependence on that person, your
attachment, your clinging, your feeling that you are lost without
him. So, as usual, you try to act upon the symptom, you never go to
the very root of this great problem, which is sorrow. We are not
talking about the outward effects of sorrow if you are concerned
with the effects of sorrow you can take a drug and pacify yourself.
We are trying together to find for ourselves, not be told and then
accept, but actually find for ourselves the root of sorrow. Is it time
that causes pain the time that thought has invented in the
psychological realm? You understand my question?
Questioner: What do you mean by psychological time?
K: Do not ask me what psychological time is. Ask that question
of yourself. Perhaps the speaker may prompt you, put it into words,
but it is your own question. One has had a son, a brother, a wife,
father. They are gone. They can never return. They are wiped away
from the face of the earth. Of course, one can invent a belief that
they are living on other planes. But one has lost them; there is a
photograph on the piano or the mantelpiece. One's remembrance of
them is in psychological time. How one had loved them, how they
loved me; what help they were; they helped to cover up one's
loneliness. The remembrance of them is a movement of time. They
were there yesterday and gone today. That is, a record has been
formed in the brain. That remembrance is a recording on the tape
of the brain; and that tape is playing all the time. How one walked
with them in the woods, one's sexual remembrances, their
companionship, the comfort one derived from them. All that is
gone and the tape is playing on. This tape is memory and memory
is time. If you are interested, go into it very deeply. One has lived
with one's brother or son, one has had happy days with them,
enjoyed many things together, but they are gone. And the memory
of them remains. It is that memory that is causing pain. It is that
memory for which one is shedding tears in one's loneliness. Now,
is it possible not to record? This is a very serious question. One
enjoyed the sunrise yesterday morning, it was so clear, so beautiful
among the trees casting a golden light on the lawn with long
shadows. It was a pleasant lovely morning and it has been
recorded. Now the repetition begins. One has recorded that which
happened, which caused one delight and later that record like a
gramophone or tape recorder is repeated. That is the essence of
psychological time. But is it possible not to record at all? The
sunrise of today, look at it, give one's whole attention to it, the
moment of golden light on the lawn with the long shadows, and not
record it, so that no memory of it remains, it is gone. Look at it
with one's whole attention and not record; the very attention of
looking negates any act of recording.
So, is time the root of sorrow? Is thought the root of sorrow? Of
course. So memories and time are the centre of one's life, one lives
on them and when something happens which is drastically painful,
one returns to those memories and one sheds tears. One wishes that
he or she whom one has lost had been here to enjoy that sun when
one was looking at it. It is the same with all one's sexual memories,
building a picture, thinking about it. All that is memory, thought
and time. If one asks: how is it possible for psychological time and
thought to stop? it is a wrong question. When one realizes the truth
of this not the truth of another but your own observation of that
truth, your own clarity of perception will that not end sorrow?
Is it possible to give such tremendous attention that one has a
life without psychological recording? It is only where there is
inattention that there is recording. One is used to one's brother, son
or wife; one knows what they will say; they have said the same
thing so often. One knows them. When one say 'I know them' one
is inattentive. When one says, `I know my wife', obviously one
does not really know her because you cannot possibly know a
living thing. It is only a dead thing, the dead memory, that one
knows.
When one is aware of this with great attention, sorrow has a
totally different meaning. There is nothing to learn from sorrow.
There is only the ending of sorrow. And when there is an ending of
sorrow then there is love. How can one love another love, have the
quality of that love when one's whole life is based on memories; on
that picture which one has hung over the mantelpiece or placed on
the piano; how can one love when one is caught in a vast structure
of memories? The ending of sorrow is the beginning of love.
May I repeat a story? A religious teacher had several disciples
and used to talk to them every morning about the nature of
goodness, beauty and love. And one morning, just as he is about to
begin talking, a bird comes on to the window,sill and begins to
sing, to chant. It sings for a while and disappears. The teacher says:
`The talk for this morning is over'.
(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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